Painfully Chris rose and tested the ankle. It hurt, but he could walk. He pulled off the blood-spattered jacket and wiped the blade of the knife on the remaining sleeve. Then he spread the jacket over the body of the wolf and limped on toward the gypsy's cabin.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
The glowing jaws of the pliers reached out for Karyn like the pincers of some hellish insect. Marcia advanced slowly, her eyes on Karyn's face. Behind her the black rectangle of the doorway lightened gradually. Marcia's step faltered. She turned and looked back. The pale edge of the full moon inched out from behind the ridge of mountains. When Marcia turned back, there was terror mixed with the hatred in her face.
With the heat of the glowing metal on her cheek, Karyn pulled her head away as far as she could. Her body tensed, waiting for the searing pain, but it did not come. Instead, it was Marcia who cried out. Karyn looked at the other woman in surprise, and saw her body jerk and twist, as though it were controlled by unseen wires. The pliers flew from Marcia's hand, and she doubled over in agony.
As Karyn watched in horrified fascination, Marcia stumbled and fell to the floor of the cabin. She rolled about in the dirt, tearing at her clothes. The garments ripped away under her slashing flingers, and for a moment the lithe, white body was exposed in the moonlight that now flooded through the doorway. Then she began to change. The white skin twitched and crawled and grew coarse black hair in uneven patches. Her limbs writhed into misshapen things that belonged on neither animal nor human. She continued to roll helplessly on the ground. From the tortured throat came a high-pitched whine.
In the light of the fire Karyn saw the face. There was little left of what had been the beautiful Marcia Lura. The nose had shriveled to a blackened shapeless thing with fat, leaking nostrils. The long black hair, still with the deadly streak of silver, was now a scrubby growth on most of the face. The mouth became a crooked slash, half of it the lipless maw of a wolf, the other half grotesquely human. Only the eyes, the eyes of deep green fire, were unaltered.
The smell of smoke pulled Karyn's attention away from the creature writhing on the floor. Beside her, where the red-hot pliers had fallen, the pile of rags smoldered and caught fire. Flames licked up over the pile hungrily, fed by old oils soaked into the rags, and began to race up the dry log walls.
Karyn made a lunge toward the doorway, but only fell heavily to the dirt floor, still bound to the broken chair. Only a few feet away the thing that had been Marcia jerked and screamed on the ground, driven frantic by the flames.
Karyn strained every muscle, but could make no headway toward the door and safety. With the fire quickly eating away at the cabin, she made a decision, then shut off her mind to the pain that would come. She stretched out her bound wrists behind her as far as she could toward the burning pile of rags. Twisting her head around to look, she saw the skin of her arms redden and blister from the heat. With her teeth biting hard against each other, she forced her hands closer to the flames. A spark danced on the threads of the hemp rope, then another. A puff of flame. Karyn strained, forcing her wrists apart, and with a pop the rope burned through.
Karyn snatched her hands away from the flames and worked with singed fingers at the knots that held her ankles. The fire crackled up three of the four walls now, and fiery streamers raced across the ceiling. The thick, acrid smoke tore at her throat.
At last she solved the knots and was free. Unable to see in the smoke, she stumbled in the direction of the doorway and fell through it to the grass outside with a grateful sob.
Drinking in the clean night air, Karyn dragged herself away from the cabin, now blazing like a torch. From inside the awful screaming sounds rose to a crescendo, then stopped as one of the walls fell in with an explosion of sparks.
From somewhere not far down the mountain came a terrible howl of pain, as though in answer to the death cry of Marcia Lura. Then, except for the crackling flames that consumed the cabin, there was silence.
Someone called Karyn's name.
In sudden fear she turned toward the trail that led up the mountain from below.
"Karyn! Is that you?"
The limping figure of a man came toward her. In the combined light of the moon and the fire she saw that it was Chris Halloran.
"Yes," she said in a hoarse whisper.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm all right." She turned back toward the cabin, where the roof was now gone and the flames were beginning to subside. "Marcia's in there. She's finished now."
"Thank God," said Chris. He dropped wearily to the grass beside her and saw her hands. "You're hurt."
"It will be all right." She searched his face. "On the trail tonight... did you... did you..."
Chris nodded. "Roy was there. He's dead now."
"Then they're both finished. It's over."
Chris turned and looked for a moment back toward the mountain trail. "It's over," he said.
They sat together and watched as the cabin crumbled and the fire burned itself out. Nothing moved in the charred ruin. The night was clear and cold. And silent.
Slowly, Karyn let herself relax. In the days to come there would be much to do, but all she wanted right now was sleep. Sleep with the blessed knowledge that never more would she hear the howling.