There was an awful hissing sound, like that of a large chunk of fat falling into a fire, and the red flames became one with the crimson hair of the spider's body. The legs burst into flame as well, igniting like dry twigs, and the creature tried to scramble out of the fire. But the burning legs crumbled beneath her like sticks of charcoal, and the flames mounted as the body fell full upon the blazing, wrathful coals.
The fire licked up around her, making the fluids within her sizzle, and she twitched as though she were already being prodded by the cruel spears of all the fiends of the pit. Her rotund shape began to diminish, burning greasily away, the hot ichor spitting in final defiance from the mouth of the fireplace. Within minutes, she had been reduced to a smoldering, sparking mass of crusted fur in a puddle of bubbling putrescence.
My enemy defeated, I felt myself becoming human again, and mortal relief flowed into me as beastliness flowed out. The transition took only seconds, and as I stood, my clothing ripped and torn by the expansion of my frame, I happened to glance in one of the two large mirrors that hung on each side of the fireplace, and saw behind me a pale, ghostly face at the glass of the doors that led out onto a terrace.
I swung around and saw that the shocked visage belonged to none other than Jacques Legrange, the soldier at the inn. My true nature had been discovered, and I knew I could not let him flee. So I dashed to the door and yanked it open. He stood there, possibly petrified by fright, not knowing what to do. Nor, to tell the truth, did I. I could not kill a man for his knowledge, but if he made any rash move against me, I might have no choice.
Then his hand tentatively started to move across his body toward the hilt of his sword, as though he intended to attack me, but feared to.
"Do not fight me," I said as sincerely as I could, trying to keep down the killing rage. "As you love life, man, do not anger me or try to fight me, for I may do what I would not wish to."
He seemed to understand, then nodded and let his hand fall back to his side.
"You followed us," I said. "You were the one hiding."
He cleared his throat roughly. "I was. I suspected her. There was a look. . between her and my brother. .and that night he rode out and did not come back."
"You suspected her, and you didn't say anything? "
"I could not be sure, and to accuse a lady. ."
He left it unfinished, and I shook my head in disgust.
"You fine gentlemen of Dementlieu," I said scornfully.
"So did what you saw this night confirm your suspicions well enough?"
He swallowed heavily and nodded.
"A red widow, was she not? "
"A red widow," I agreed. "One of that hellspawn that mimics the appearance of a scarlet-tressed beauty, lures men to intimate privacy, and then reveals her true, hellish self, killing the poor love-struck fools, and then draining their corpses over several days until not a drop of fluid remains. Such indeed was Madame Faure."
"And. . and you. . "Jacques said, his voice trembling.
"A lycanthrope," I said. "What good to deny it after what you've seen? "
"And will you. . slay me now? "
"I slay only the evil — or have been able to until now." And I told him how I had acquired the curse, and how I had been using it. "So keep the secret to yourself," I concluded," and live. And let me live."
"I think you speak the truth," he said. "If not, you would have no reason to let me remain alive. "He gave his head a sharp nod. "I swear that your secret is safe with me."
"Glad to hear it," I said gruffly, annoyed that I had to depend on this man's silence. "Now let's find what that hag didn't want me to see."
It didn't take long. What remained of the corpses of the missing men were in the large attic of the mill, whose locked door I easily battered in. "In constant use, indeed," I said, remembering Gabrielle's words as we entered.
Jacques uttered one word only," Louis. . "and then was shocked into silence. I could well understand why. His brother's dried and desiccated husk lay on the attic floor amidst the others. There was still enough left of their faces to tell who they were, but I knew Jacques's brother from the uniform that still clung to the fragile, husklike body.
For a long time we stood there among the dead men, and then Jacques stepped forward and looked into each withered face in turn. At last he stood up and spoke. "My brother. . the cobbler, the smith. . they're all here but one."
I nodded, for I knew. "Her husband," I said. "He was the first one chosen here. He would have been the mate. So we'll seek him somewhere no one would ever have reason to go."
I led Jacques straight to the dry well, remembering the smell that had come up from it. There I looped a plain hemp rope under my arms, and Jacques lowered me down into the pit. I clung to the rope with one hand, and with the other held a lantern at my side.
As I suspected, Roger Faure was at the bottom. At first I thought that he had not suffered the fate of the other victims, for his body seemed full and plump, almost swollen. But when I drew my sword and prodded his body, Gabrielle's children scurried from beneath their dead father's clothing so that he instantly withered into a foul matting of rags, parchment skin, and brittle bones.
The repellent nest of spiders, hatched within Roger Faure's pitiful corpse, attacked me then, but the change did not come over me, for it was butcher's work I now did, efficient and yeomanlike, hacking them into bits one at a time as they tried and failed to bite through my heavy boots and scuttle up my legs. After I had dispatched the six, I searched the dry well thoroughly but found no more of the creatures.
"Haul away!" I shouted, and looked up to see Jacques's white face high above. I thought he might be tempted to leave this humble lycanthrope at the well's bottom, but he was a man of honor.
At the top I turned and spat back into the hole. "Another half a year, and six redheaded beauties would have crawled up out of that hole to go their separate ways and drain the men of this domain. But no more. You might fetch that poor fool's body out when you return with soldiers for the cleaning up."
"You're not riding back to town?"
I shook my head grimly. "No. Tell them what you will. Tell them you killed her yourself, if it'll advance your rank. I don't care. My work here's done, and there's something ahead of me that will wait no longer."
I bade him good-bye and rode here, straight to Strangengrad. For I knew that what I feared has come true. When I held that thing in my arms, even before she had begun to transform into her true monstrous self, I felt my own self changing. Had she been what I then thought she was, a true woman filled only with love and passion for me, I know that I would have killed her. I felt the beast escaping, that beast that yearned for hot blood and torn flesh.
And I knew then that I must suffer the cure for my dread disease. I must try to scour this curse from my spirit, whether the attempt drives me mad or kills my body. For I cannot live on knowing that my spirit is corrupted by evil.
So, Hamer, good friend, good priest, I stand before you a sinful penitent, stuffed full with undesired iniquity. You have heard my story. Tonight is the full moon. Lead me into the chapel, bind me, and do your best to drive this curse from me. And if my blood remains impure. .if the change comes…
Well, you have a sword, and it is silver. You will know what to do.
The House of a Hundred Windows
"Three. . four. . five. ." Clarisse Harrowing murmured, counting windows as she wandered through the ancient, dust-dim air of Evenore's grand hall.
It was here that her game always began, in the gloomy, rambling room that sprawled across the entire front half of the manor's first floor. Here the high, narrow windows were easy to count, each opening like a keyhole onto a leaden sky, nestled between smoke-stained beams arching overhead like the ribs of some dread leviathan from the deepest sea. Seven windows on the west side of the hall, seven on the east. Fourteen in all. But that was just the beginning.