The gypsy, Philina, motioned Karyn into an old wooden chair that had no back. Chris stood beside her. The old woman sat down on a pile of rags facing them. She drew her legs up and crossed them beneath her.
"Tell me your story," Philina said.
Karyn began to talk, haltingly at first, then more freely. She told the old woman about the things that had happened to her, beginning with her first encounter with the werewolves in the California village of Drago. She talked about the renewal of the horror this summer in Seattle, and how it followed her to her parents' home in Los Angeles, and finally here to the west coast of Mexico.
The old gypsy listened silently. She did not move or change her expression. The only sign that she was not asleep was the glitter of her eyes in the firelight.
When Karyn had finished there was no sound in the cabin for a long time. At last Philina spoke. "So you have come to me."
"Yes," Karyn said. "Can you help us?"
Philina gazed into the fire for such a long time, Karyn began to think she had fallen asleep. Then abruptly she looked up and said, "Let me see your hand."
Karyn glanced at Chris, then rose and walked over to where the gypsy was sitting. She knelt next to the old woman and held out her hand. Philina took it in her own bony fingers. There was surprising strength in her hand. She traced the lines with a cracked fingernail, muttering to herself in a language Karyn did not recognize.
After a few minutes the gypsy released Karyn's hand and turned to Chris. "Now yours."
Chris came over and offered his palm. Philina scanned the lines briefly, then dropped his hand.
"I cannot help you," she said.
"What did you see?" Karyn asked.
Philina looked up. The shadows thrown by the dull red fire made her face skull-like. "Sometimes it is better not to know."
"For God's sake, let's hear it," Chris said. He took out his wallet and began thumbing through the bills. "I'll pay you. How much do you want?"
The old woman made a dry sound in her throat that might have been laughter. "Your money is of no use to me. If you insist on knowing, sit down and I will tell you what I saw in your hands. But do not blame me afterwards."
With a gesture of impatience Chris put away his wallet. He went back and sat on the broken chair. Karyn stayed where she was next to the old woman.
Philina paused, looking again into the fire before she spoke. "I need give only one reading for the two of you, for I see the same thing in the hands. I see pain. And blood. Much blood. And death."
"No!" The word was out before Karyn could think.
The old woman looked at her sharply. "What did you come looking for, some carnival trickster? Did you expect me to tell you of long, happy sea voyages and surprise gifts of money? Of romantic strangers entering your lives? Bah! You asked me what I saw in your hands. I have told you. Now go."
Chris stood up, but said nothing. He helped Karyn to her feet.
"Is there nothing we can do?" Karyn said.
"Arm yourselves as you did once before," the Gypsy answered. "Then you may have a chance."
"Is there no place we can be safe?"
The gypsy shook her head slowly. "There is no place. Your destiny is here, and you cannot run away from it. It is here that your story must end."
"End?" Chris said sharply. "What do you mean end? End how?"
The old woman returned to staring at the fire. She said nothing.
"Chris, what's the time?" Karyn said suddenly.
He glanced at his watch, then strode to the doorway and pulled aside the animal skin. The sun had moved markedly toward the horizon. The valley to the east of the gypsy's cabin was already in shadow.
"It's time to go," he said.
Karyn crossed the room and joined him at the doorway. Philina remained sitting on the pile of rags, not looking at them. Chris pulled two bills from his wallet and held them out toward the old woman. She made no move to take the money. Chris laid the bills on the broken chair, and with Karyn beside him left the cabin.
The journey down the mountain trail was much swifter than coming up. The burros, knowing they were headed home, jogged along at a spine-jarring rate. Still, the sun seemed to plunge ahead of them. By the time they reached the shack of Guillermo the burro-keeper it was twilight. Behind them the mountain loomed black and forbidding.
Karyn was vastly relieved to see Luis waiting there for them in his battered taxi. She and Chris quickly dismounted and turned the burros over to Guillermo. They hurried to the car and got in, automatically locking the doors and rolling the windows up tight. Luis gunned the Plymouth down the dirt road toward the highway and the city.
"We did cut it a little close," Chris said.
Karyn turned to look out the rear window. "Yes, for a minute there I thought - "
She left the sentence unfinished, for from somewhere back there in the dark, tangled chaparral came the howling.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Roy Beatty crouched in the brush alongside the road and watched as his wife and his friend climbed into the battered taxi. They were not thirty yards away from him. How open they would be at this moment, how vulnerable to the attack of the wolf! Roy looked anxiously off to the west. The sun was almost down, but enough glowing red showed at the horizon to prevent him from changing. Enough to save the lives of these two people. This time.
The shadows of the twilight lengthened and joined and spread like ink spilled from a bottle until there was darkness. Roy tore the soft cotton shirt from his back. He pulled off the canvas shoes he wore over bare feet, and stepped out of his pants. He knelt naked in the fast-chilling night and willed his body to change.
His muscles bunched and released convulsively. His joints cracked audibly as the bones shifted in their sockets. He fell forward to his hands and knees. His neck arched. There was an instant of blinding pain as the change wracked his body. Then came the exultation. The wild joy of freedom as the great tan wolf took possession of the man.
The wolf moved silently out from behind the brush. The head turned and the yellow eyes looked off down the rutted dirt road that wound down toward the highway. Far below, the glowing red taillights of the taxi were still visible. The wolf raised his muzzle to the night sky and howled - a cry of hate and defiance.
In the enclosure behind the shack of Guillermo, the burros twitched their ears at the sound. They looked up from their grazing and stirred restlessly. In their soft, drowsy eyes was the shadow of fear.
The door of the cabin opened the width of a hand and Guillermo looked out. He saw nothing in the night, and quickly withdrew. There was the sound of heavy scraping from within as Guillermo moved things against the door to keep out the evil.
Deep in his throat the wolf growled softly. How futile would be the burro-keeper's attempt to bar the door if the wolf really wanted to get in. Against the werewolf the flimsy shack would offer no more protection than a house of paper. But Guillermo was safe this night. He was of no importance; he knew nothing. But there was another in these mountains who would not be so lucky. One who must learn the price of betrayal. The wolf turned and started up the mountain.
The fire burned low, and then it died to glowing coals in the cabin of Philina the gypsy. She sat still in the cross-legged position she had been in when the man and the woman were here. The money the man had left lay untouched and unseen on the broken chair. Although the night grew cold, the old woman made no move to rebuild the dying fire. She knew she would not need it.
She had lived many years, Philina. How many was it? Eighty? Ninety? She could not remember. She did remember that once in the long dead past she had been a young girl. A beautiful, laughing young girl. The bloodless lips of the old woman moved in a faint, bitter smile. How long had it been since anyone might have believed that once she was beautiful? Or young?