"Let go!" Holly said again.
Before she could move, she was pulled hard against Kruger's body. His thick, moist lips covered her mouth. His tongue tried to force itself past her clenched teeth.
Acting on instinct, she pumped one knee up between the big man's legs. Her knee slid off the hard muscles of his inner thigh, weakening the blow to his testicles.
Kruger grunted and pulled his head back.
"Bitch!"
He balled one huge fist and hit Holly on the point of the jaw.
It seemed her head had been slammed up against the ceiling. The lights went out for Holly Lang and she fell heavily to the floor. Kruger laughed and knelt over her.
When Gavin Ramsay returned to his office, supporting a hysterical Louis Zeno, two men in neat business suits were waiting for him with Deputy Nevins. They introduced themselves as Hoyden and Placerman from the California attorney general's office.
"We got your request," said Hoyden, the senior of the two, "to assist with the investigation you're running down here."
"I can sure use you," Ramsay said. He briefly described the scene he had found at the old Whitaker cabin. "I left my man Fernandez in charge there. He'll keep the sightseers away until we can secure the area."
"This a witness?" Hoyden said, nodding toward Zeno.
"He found the body."
The writer took this as a cue to start talking. "It was the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I'm talking bad, man. Blood everywhere. Pieces of my man all over the cabin. My typewriter was ruined."
"Did you get a look at the guy who did it?" Deputy Nevins asked.
"No man did that," Zeno said.
"What do you mean?"
"No one man could make an unholy mess like that in the
little time I was gone."
"Gang of some kind?" Placerman suggested.
"Shit if I know. That's you guys" job. You figure it out."
"Try to relax, Mr Zeno," Ramsay said. "Deputy Nevins here will take your statement."
"Stole my car too," said Zeno.
"What's that? Who stole your car?"
"Whoever… whatever tore up Abe Craddock. Drove off in my car right when I came out of the cabin."
"What kind of a car was it, Mr Craddock?"
"Datsun. 1972. Orange."
"Licence number?"
"I… I… oh, shit, I know it… "
"Hey, I think I saw that car, maybe an hour ago," Nevins interrupted.
"Where, Roy?"
"I was watching Holly, Dr Lang, drive away, and this orange Datsun pulled out right behind her and went off in the same direction."
"Holly was here? When?"
"Like I said, maybe an hour ago. She left you a note." Nevins pointed at the sheriffs desk.
Ramsay snatched up the sheet from his calendar pad and read it swiftly. As Holly had done, he glanced at the wall map to check the location of Bear Paw.
"I'm going after her," he said. "Will you be all right here, Roy?"
"I can handle it, Gavin," said Deputy Nevins, sucking in his stomach.
"Good. I'm sure Hoyden and Placerman here will give you all the help they can."
The attorney general's men nodded their agreement.
"I'll be back as soon as possible."
Ramsay started out of the office, then hesitated. He looked thoughtfully at Louis Zeno, who was still pale and shaking from what he had found at the cabin. Ramsay himself had been shocked at the inhuman violence done to Abe Craddock. He strode back to his desk and unlocked the bottom drawer. From it he took a square, heavy box and dropped it into a jacket pocket.
"What's that, Sheriff?" Roy asked.
"Bullets," he said. "Just in case." What he did not add was that they were the special bullets given to him by Ken Dowd, the occult-shop owner. Silver bullets.
Malcolm watched in tearful, helpless rage as Kruger fumbled with the snap at the waist of Holly Lang's jeans. His fingers clamped over the heavy steel mesh like the claws of a caged beast.
Kruger paid him no attention. He popped the snap and slid down the zipper, revealing the filmy blue bikini pants Holly wore underneath. The man's breathing grew louder. His eyes glistened.
"Leave her alone," Malcolm cried. In his voice was a strange new quality. A growl. Even Kruger, in his lust, stopped and turned toward the cage.
"Hey, look at freak-boy! Look at that face! Too bad the doctor ain't here to see this. Maybe you get off on watching, huh, freak-boy? Well you pay attention, then, "cause I'm gonna give you plenty to watch."
He returned his concentration to pulling the tight jeans down Holly's legs. She moaned softly, but did not regain consciousness. The bluish bruise from Kruger's fist was already beginning to show on her jaw.
With some difficulty, Kruger pulled the jeans completely off, taking Holly's boots with them and exposing her long, slim legs. He reached up and touched her pubic mound through the blue nylon.
Malcolm snarled. The fires inside burned hotter than ever before. The sinewy, hairy hands that now grew at the ends of his arms gripped the steel mesh and pulled. With a loud rip the material of his pyjamas tore at the shoulders where new muscles bulged and humped. The mesh of the cage bent and started to pull apart where he gripped it.
Kruger, his fingers now hooked under the elastic of Holly's bikini, looked over. His wet, red mouth opened in surprise.
The window high on the wall above them burst inward. A beast, lithe and muscular, dived headfirst through the shattering glass. The beast landed gracefully on all fours, his great shaggy head swivelling to take in the situation. The black lips peeled back in a snarl.
Malcolm froze where he stood. The mesh of the cage before him was ripped wide enough for him to slip through, but he could not move.
Holly moaned again. Her eyelids fluttered. She tried to raise her head.
Kruger let go of her and scrambled to his feet. He stared at the creature now advancing on him.
"Get back! Get back!"
Malcolm, from inside the torn cage, stared at the beast. It rose on hind legs to a full seven feet. The talons, the gleaming teeth, the powerful jaws all were capable of killing a man in seconds. The eyes glowed an unholy green.
But Malcolm felt no fear. There was recognition. A kinship. As the eyes of the creature held his own, the boy sensed the message in his mind: Flee!
When he looked down at his hands they were again smooth, smallish, normal boy's hands. He touched his face. It was his own unmarked, beardless face.
Flee! The message sounded again in his mind. A command. Malcolm squeezed his slim body through the split he had torn in the steel mesh.
"Hey! Where d'you think you're going'?" Kruger, remembering his orders, turned his attention for a moment from the towering beast to the boy.
The beast opened its great jaws and roared. Kruger whirled to face the menace. Malcolm, compelled by the telepathic command, slipped past Kruger and the beast to the open door. There he stopped and looked down at Holly.
Conscious now, she raised herself on an elbow. She shuddered at the sight of the beast, but saw that its full attention was given to Kruger. She looked to Malcolm who hesitated in the doorway. Unable to find her voice, she motioned with a hand for him to run. Malcolm opened his mouth as though he would speak, then turned and vanished through the doorway.
The beast roared again and advanced on Kruger.
The big man, his mouth loose and drooling with fear, backed away. He stumbled, and remembered suddenly the cattle prod hanging by the wires from his belt pack. He seized the leather-wrapped grip and switched the current to its highest level. He thrust the rod out before him like a rapier.
"Awright," he babbled, "You want some of this? Come on, I'll give you some. I'll give you all you want."
He stabbed the metallic tip of the prod at the advancing creature.
The beast swatted at the measly weapon the man brandished and felt the electric shock that coursed all the way up to the hump of shoulder muscle. The shock was no more than a tickle to the beast, but it knew now what had been done to the boy Malcolm. It understood what had driven Malcolm to change as much as he had. The tiny shock was exactly what the beast needed to rekindle the bloodlust that had been so recently satisfied in the cabin outside Pinyon.