TEXT: See the pretty person. 
  Stalk the pretty person, 
  Kill the pretty person.
  Charles Grant
  
  Watcher
  Based on 
  The Apocalypse
  Charles Grant
  HarperPrism 
  An Imprint o/HarperPaperbacks
  
  A werewolf moon hung over the valiey, but there 
  were still too many places for shadows to hide.
  Branches creaked in the passing of a slow wind; a 
  scrap of paper trembled in the gutter; a dog barked 
  nervously, yipped, and fell silent, the blare of a dis­
  tant freight train sounded dull, sounded hollow.
  The single flap of night-black wings.
  The not quite audible step of something large on 
  dying grass.
  October night, with a hint of frost and blood.
  Polly Logan wasn’t scared. She liked to walk through 
  the middle of the night. She had friends, lots of 
  friends, and they wouldn’t let anything hurt her. The 
  only thing was, they didn't like it when she left the 
  house for a walk. Not after sunset, anyway. Certainly 
  not alone.
  But she wasn't scared.
  The town of Lookout Mountain was too small to 
  have bad people who would want to do bad things 
  to someone like her. It was a pretty town. A nice
  1
  
  2
  Charles Grant
  town, high enough above the world that she could 
  almost touch the sky. Not at all like Chattanooga, 
  sprawled down there in the-valley, at the base of 
  Lookout Mountain itself. It was too big, that city; too 
  many wide streets and too many dark streets, too 
  many people moving around all at once. It made her 
  nervous, and she didn't like to go there, not even to 
  the doctor who took care of her and kept her well.
  Except when they took her to the aquarium, that 
  is. That part was fun, and she never got tired of it. 
  You ride up to the top of a real long, shiny escalator, 
  then walk down and around, down and around, with 
  so many fish, so many colors, and the gentle sound 
  of running water all around her all the time.
  That was fun.
  This was fun.
  Walking along the street, listening to the night, 
  watching the stars and the werewolf moon.
  Not that she really believed in werewolves.
  She knew she wasn’t as smart as most people, but 
  she also knew she wasn't a little girl anymore either. 
  She was a big girl, nearly twenty-five, practically a 
  woman, and big girls who were practically women 
  didn't believe in werewolves and vampires and 
  ghosts and big hairy monsters who lived in the bot­
  tom of the Tennessee River.
  They just weren’t so.
  Just ahead, on the corner not far from her desti­
  nation, a flock of autumn leaves swirled in the light 
  sifting from the streetlamps. She watched the spin­
  ning colors, and giggled when they darted toward 
  her suddenly. She used her hands to bat them away 
  from her face, turning with them, giggling, until they 
  all fell down.
  "Fun," she whispered, and plucked a stray leaf 
  from her long blond hair. It was perfect, not a rip in
  
  WATCHER
  3
  it, so she tucked it into her down parka, reminding 
  herself to show it to Miss Doris in the morning.
  After she had her visit with Kyle.
  A blush touched her cheeks, and she swiped a fin­
  ger across them as if to brush the blush away.
  Kyle.
  She shivered with pleasure, and quickened her 
  step.
  This was fun.
  it didn’t matter that all the houses she passed 
  were either dark or only had a single light burning 
  over the front door; it didn't matter that the only 
  sounds she heard were her footsteps on the pave­
  ment, and the soft sigh of her breathing.
  This was fun.
  It was nearly Halloween, and it was fun.
  She turned the corner, smiling broadly to herself, 
  once in a while sweeping a hand over her face to 
  push the hair away.
  "You'll come to see me, won’t you?" he had asked 
  just that afternoon, sm iling so hard his face 
  squinched up, and all she could see were his lips 
  and his freckles; "It's a pain being all alone, you 
  know? Why don't you stop by, and I'll give you a pri­
  vate tour."
  Too surprised and shy to speak aloud, she had 
  nodded so hard she nearly made herself dizzy, and 
  ran all the way back to the house, where she sat in 
  her room and stared at all the pictures of the ani­
  mals she had drawn, waiting for them to tel! her 
  what to do. To tel! her it was okay.
  A long time ago, Miss Doris had said, "Don't you 
  ever speak to strange men, you hear me, child? 
  They’ll take advantage of you, poor thing, and you 
  won’t even know it. A strange man tries to speak to 
  you, touch you, you come straight home and tell me
  
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  Charles Grant
  right away, and I'll see to it he never speaks to young 
  girls again."
  Miss Doris said that a lot.
  Polly always nodded, too, and swore she would 
  never, ever let anyone she didn’t know touch her or 
  speak to her, unless Miss Doris said it was all right 
  first. She may not be very smart, but like Miss Doris 
  always said, she wasn't stupid either.
  But Kyle, he was different. She didn't know why, 
  exactly, but he was.
  He worked at the little park where the town 
  stopped at the end of the mountain, sometimes in 
  the daytime and sometimes in the nighttime. He wore 
  a uniform, just like Officer Zielke did, even though he 
  wasn’t a real policeman. He helped the tourist people 
  who came from all over to look at the Civil War monu­
  ment, or to look down at Chattanooga and take lots of 
  pictures, or who wanted to know how many states 
  they could see from the bluff on a real clear day.
  He was kind. Really kind. And he never, ever tried 
  to touch her. Never, ever made fun of her.
  Not like the kids in her school. The one she went 
  to before she came to live with Miss Doris, that is.
  Polly, Polly,
  Oft good Polly,
  Ain’t it true
  You're off your trolley?
  That wasn’t fun.
  That had made her cry.
  Kyle didn't make her cry. He made her laugh. He 
  made her cheeks feel all warm and her tummy all 
  cozy. He once bought her an ice cream cone, and 
  gave her his handkerchief when the cone started to 
  melt all over her fingers.
  
  WATCHER
  5
  Polly, won't you come and visit me tonight?
  She ducked her head and hurried on, counting 
  her footsteps, thinking about Kyie and how he 
  lived in his very own castle and how she might live 
  in a castle, too, one day. Why, she might even be 
  called a—
  "Polly Logan, my heavens, what on earth are you 
  doing, young lady?"
  She jumped, a hand darting to her throat to stop 
  a scream, when a round, little man stepped out from 
  behind a thick, tall hedge He didn’t have much hair, 
  and what he did have was pure white. His coat was 
  long, his hands gloved, and behind him on a leash 
  was a tiny dog that looked all hair and legs.
  "Oh, Mr. Abbott, you scared me!"
  Baines Abbott grinned an apology. "I'm sorry, 
  dear, but I didn't expect to see anyone out this late. 
  Hush, Beau," he snapped at the dog, who hadn't 
  done anything but growl a little. "Dog thinks he's a 
  giant sometimes. Polly, does Miss Doris know you're 
  out so late?"
  "Yes, sir, she sure does." She nodded vigorously. 
  "I’m just taking my . ..  my evening constitutional.”
  He laughed silently. "Polly, you are truly some­
  thing else, do you know that?” He looked quickly 
  side to side and gave her a wink and a silly pretend 
  scowl. "Okay, young lady, I won't tell. But only if you 
  promise me you’ll get yourself home right away, you 
  hear? Little lady like you ought to be in bed this 
  time of night." He squinted at the sky and tilted his 
  head. "Besides, it looks like there’s some weather 
  coming." He sniffed. "Rain or snow, I can't tell."
  She looked as well, and saw a silver-edged cloud 
  cut the huge moon in half.
  "Home, Polly," Mr. Abbott said gently. "Go home."
  She nodded, promised him she'd just go around
  
  6
  Charles Grant
  the next corner, and head straight back for her bed, 
  cross her heart and hope to die.
  Beau barked, once.
  Abbott hushed him, laughed, and walked away 
  quickly, the terrier scampering to keep up.
  Oh, my, Polly thought; oh, my.
  Her heart slammed against her chest, her lungs 
  worked double-time, and suddenly her knees didn't 
  want to work anymore.
  That big, old moon wasn’t very pretty anymore.
  Maybe Mr. Abbott was right. Maybe she ought to 
  turn right around and go back home before Miss 
  Doris found out she was gone. She would apologize 
  to Kyle first thing tomorrow, and he would under­
  stand. He always understood. He certainly wouldn’t 
  be mad. He wouldn't want her caught out in a storm.
  Polly, Polly.
  Moonlight faded.
  The wind kicked, and the leaves didn't tickle any­
  more.
  She frowned in indecision as she looked over her 
  shoulder, biting down softly on her lower lip. She 
  only had one more corner to turn, though; just one 
  more corner. She could run real fast, tell Kyle she 
  had to go home, and run back, and nobody would 
  ever know she'd been gone.
  The short street was empty.
  One car was parked at the curb, its windshield like 
  a narrow, black eye.
  All the houses were dark, not even a porch light, 
  not even a glow from the handful of small shops.
  Not even the lights of Chattanooga reflected in 
  the sky.
  Something had changed.
  
  WATCHER
  7
  Now that Mr. Abbott and Beau had gone, the 
  night was somehow different.
  It was the same wind, and the same leaves danc­
  ing, and the same stars, and the same buildings 
  there always were . . . but it was all different, too.
  It wasn't nice anymore.
  I’m not scared, she told herself.
  Polly, Polly.
  I am not scared.
  She ran to the corner and looked down the street. 
  Empty. Dark.
  When the blacktop ended, the castle began, 
  fieldstone and high, higher still with turrets on 
  either side of Point Park’s high arched entrance. It 
  was dimly lighted, and the light stained the stone 
  with shadows, making the black iron gate beneath 
  the arch look solid. She didn't know why, until she 
  realized all the lights in the small park beyond were 
  out.
  "Oh, dear," she whispered.
  She didn’t know what to do.
  If Kyle was there, why were the lights out? If Kyle 
  wasn’t there, why hadn't he told her?
  She walked closer, very slowly, biting softly on her 
  lower lip.
  This was kind of like that night last summer, when 
  she had seen the pretty light in the sky. She really 
  was scared then, because it was sun-bright and 
  almost green, and it moved very fast over the moun­
  tain, too fast for her to follow. At first she thought 
  that maybe she had imagined it, like Miss Doris tells 
  her that she imagines lots of things. But it came 
  back a few minutes later, and it was lower, and 
  although she couldn’t see what made it, she had a
  
  8
  Charles Grant
  bad feeling. She had a bad feeling that whoever was 
  in the thing that made the light was in big trouble.
  Then it disappeared.
  lust like that, it disappeared.
  And just like that, before she could breathe again, 
  there was a really bright light, this one all orange 
  and blue and green and yellow, and a loud noise 
  that nearly knocked her to the ground.
  And then it was dark again.
  And no one had believed her when she told them 
  she'd seen a light.
  Other people had seen it and told the television 
  and the newspapers about it, too, but no one had 
  believed her.
  They hardly ever did.
  Now they wouldn't believe her when she told 
  them that the lights in the park were all out. They 
  weren't supposed to be; Kyle was supposed to keep 
  them on all the time.
  Her eyes widened.
  Maybe he's hurt.
  She walked faster.
  Maybe he fell down when the lights went out, and 
  now maybe he's hurt.
  She almost ran, a tear blinding one eye, the wind 
  nudging her, leaves suddenly lunging out of the 
  trees to tangle in her hair and scratch at her face.
  She nearly collided with the gate, stopping herself 
  just in time by grabbing the bars.
  "Kyle?” Very quietly; she didn’t want to get into 
  trouble.
  No answer.
  "It's Polly.” Very quietly; she didn't want to get 
  caught.
  There were no lights, but she could see the trees 
  anyway from the oddly muted glow of the city hid­
  
  WATCHER
  9
  den below. Dark holes in the night, and boulders 
  and trees along the rim of the bluff.
  "Kyle?"
  She heard a noise: a snuffling, and a low growl.
  Her mouth opened; she couldn't say his name 
  again.
  Then something reached through the bars and 
  grabbed her ankle. She yelled, and fell onto her 
  rump, kicking and screaming, until her ankle was 
  free. Kicking again and crying until she saw the 
  hand, its fingers curled and trembling hard.
  "Polly."
  Until she saw Kyle's face, pressed against the 
  bars.
  "Polly .. . please ..
  It was red.
  
  Sometimes, when he was alone, he liked to call him­
  self Lon Chaney, the Man of a Thousand Faces.
  Not that he had a thousand faces, or even a cou­
  ple of dozen, for that matter. But it felt like it. A 
  touch here, a mustache there, once in a while a hair­
  piece, and he was, as always, someone else.
  it didn't take much. People seldom saw what they 
  thought they did.
  W hat he did have, however, was a thousand 
  names.
  For a while, back at the beginning, he had tried 
  to keep track of them, just for the hell of it. He gave 
  up after five years; the list had grown too long. Now 
  he let the others do it, to make sure there were no 
  duplications. He had enough trouble as it was 
  keeping in mind the name he had now. A hazard of 
  the game; like playing six roles in a play simultane­
  ously, you have to make sure you react to all the 
  right cues, or you'll be exposed for the fraud you 
  are.
  All of them.
  "You know,” he said to the man on the other end
  10
  
  WATCHER
  11
  of the line, "just once I'd like to be John Smith, you 
  know what I mean? Or Harry Truman.”
  There was no response.
  The man sighed and shook his head. It was a 
  good thing he liked his job, because the people on 
  the other end didn't have much of a sense of humor. 
  Especially when it came to something like this.
  "Mr. Blanchard," his caller said. A mild scolding, 
  and a suggestion to get on with it.
  Miles Blanchard rolled his eyes at the empty 
  motel room, and picked up a tum bler from the 
  scarred nightstand. The Southern Comfort— no ice, 
  that would be a crime— tasted good. He made sure 
  his caller heard him drinking.
  "Mr. Blanchard."
  "I know, Mr. Crimmins, I know, I know." Wearily he 
  swung his legs onto the bed, toed off his shoes, and 
  settled himself against the headboard.
  The room was in twilight; the drapes were closed; 
  the only light was from a lamp on a table beside the 
  bolted-to-the-dresser television. No sounds in the 
  corridor. No traffic outside save for the occasional 
  arrival of a bus at the depot next door.
  It was well after midnight.
  "The girl's name is Polly Logan. She's a retard— "
  "Mr. Blanchard!"
  Blanchard ignored him. "— who's living with a 
  woman named Doris Maurin. It's a foster care thing 
  mixed in with a halfway house for loonies or some­
  thing. The kid has no family. She can stay on her 
  own if she has to— and apparently she will one of 
  these days— but she’s been in and out of institu­
  tions all her life what with one thing and another, 
  but mostly because of the no family thing. She's 
  only been out of this last one for fourteen months. 
  The Maurin woman is supposed to get her used to
  
  12
  Charles Grant
  the outside. Help her get a job to pay rent, stuff like 
  that.”
  "Was she hurt?”
  "Nope. A bruise on her ass when she fell, that’s 
  all. A couple of scrapes on her hands. Nobody knows 
  why she was at the park in the first place. She’s not 
  talking to anyone. She just sits in her room and 
  draws pictures of her favorite animals or something."
  "Have you seen them? The pictures?”
  "No, sir, 1 haven't.”
  "Do so, Mr. Blanchard,"
  "Sure thing.”
  The drapes fluttered as a draft slipped through 
  the window frame, a touch of November that made 
  the room seem darker, and smaller.
  "Continue."
  Blanchard shifted, "Apparently the Geliman guy 
  tried to grab her leg or something when she got 
  there, and that’s what knocked her over. Scared her 
  half to death. He was already mostly dead, and he 
  was absolutely dead by the time the paramedics got 
  there. A neighbor walking his dog called them when 
  he heard the girl screaming.”
  "Who was this neighbor?”
  "A guy named Baines Abbott. He runs a gift shop 
  up on the mountain. Tourist stuff mostly. The Civil 
  War, things like that."
  "What does he know?"
  "That Geliman’s dead, that's ail. He’s a harmless 
  old coot. For now."
  “If you say so, Mr. Blanchard. Did this Geliman 
  say anything to the girl?"
  "Nope."
  "Cause of death?"
  "No blood." He grinned at the ceiling.
  "Mr. Blanchard ..
  
  WATCHER
  13
  "Yeah, yeah, right, I’m sorry." He took another 
  drink and stared at the tips of his black socks. 
  "Simply put, he bled to death from several deep 
  gashes— one across the chest, one across the 
  throat, a couple across the gut. He was attacked on 
  a path just inside the entrance, according to the 
  local M.E., and dropped pretty much right away. 
  Evidently, he crawled to the gate, probably trying to 
  get some help. Just bad luck the kid showed up 
  when she did."
  "i wouldn't call that bad luck, Mr. Blanchard."
  "I meant for the kid.”
  “I see.”
  Blanchard grinned again, drank again. He had 
  never met the man who called himself Terrence 
  Crimmins, and frankly never wanted to. Twisting the 
  guy's tail long-distance was one thing; face-to-face 
  would be something else again. He had no illusions 
  about the m an’s power, or the danger he repre­
  sented. Blanchard was perfectly satisfied receiving 
  his instructions, and his payments, via intermedi­
  aries or the mail. Or, on special occasions like this, 
  over the phone.
  Crimmins was the only man Miles Blanchard had 
  ever feared.
  He glanced at the black box that cradled the origi­
  nal receiver, at the quartet of tiny red bulbs that 
  glowed steadily on the side, an indication that the 
  scrambler was in charge and hadn’t been breached. 
  "The police," Crimmins said calmly,
  "Nothing. Zip. No prints anywhere, the ground’s 
  too hard and the grass too short. No weapon. No 
  prints or anything else in the blood Geliman left 
  behind on the blacktop. Because the gate was 
  locked, they figure the killer had to have come over 
  the wall that extends on either side of that castle
  
  14
  Charles Grant
  thing in front, but they can't find out where. He sure 
  as hell didn't climb up the bluff.
  "As for the alleged assailant, it has been suggested 
  to the papers that this could be a unique case, noth­
  ing more. A Florida panther migrating north because 
  he's been squeezed out of his habitat. Or a wildcat 
  spooked out of the Smokies, looking for new terri­
  tory.” He emptied his glass. "Or maybe some twisted 
  maniac who’s got himself a set of slice-and-dice 
  fingers like Freddy Kruger."
  "Kruger, Mr. Blanchard?”
  Blanchard rolled his eyes again, wishing his 
  employers would take a look at the real world once 
  in a while. It would make his life a whole lot easier. 
  "A guy in the movies, sir. Kind of a monster who has 
  knives stuck to his fingers.’*
  "I see.”
  I'll bet, Blanchard thought and yawned silently.
  "And do they believe it?"
  Blanchard nodded, glad Crimmins couldn't see 
  how smug he looked. "Yes, sir, they sure do. Sort of.” 
  He glanced at a copy of the Chattanooga Times on the 
  bed beside him. "The TV says it's a maniac. The 
  papers say it’s an animal. They have experts on both 
  sides coming out of their ears.”
  "My congratulations, Mr. Blanchard. An interest­
  ing bit of confusion. Well done, indeed. How do you 
  think they will resolve it?"
  "My best guess? It's been eleven days, so proba­
  bly they'll come down on the m aniac theory. 
  Geliman wasn't eaten, and there were no parts 
  m issing. Plus, barring any other sightings or 
  attacks, it's probably going to die down to just 
  some editorials by the weekend, back page by 
  Monday. They've still got conventions coming down 
  here. Thanksgiving tourists, things like that. 1 don't
  
  WATCHER
  15
  think anyone wants to stir that particular pot 
  again.”
  "Ah;” Nothing eise for a moment until, "Please 
  wait."
  Blanchard crossed his legs at the ankle and stared 
  at the ceiling. As always, from the sound of it, the 
  man was on a speaker phone, and right now he'd be 
  conferring with whoever else was in the room. 
  Wherever that was. Blanchard hated this part. The 
  waiting. He had long ago stopped trying to second- 
  guess his employer; he hadn't yet been right, and 
  once it had nearly gotten him killed. He only hoped 
  they wouldn’t want him to take care of the kid. She 
  seemed really sweet, a real innocent. And from what 
  she had seen, and from what he had learned of her 
  reaction and current condition, she’d probably be 
  back in an institution anyway before the year was 
  out. Traumatized for life, or something like that.
  "Mr. Blanchard?"
  "Still here, sir.”
  "After you check on that poor child's drawings, we 
  would like you to stay down there for a few days 
  more. Say, at least until Thanksgiving weekend. Look 
  around. Keep the media . . . distant. Be aware.”
  Blanchard frowned. "Sir, no offense, but I don't 
  think that's a good idea. I've been down here for 
  nearly two weeks already. I've been all over that 
  damn mountain, and I haven’t found a thing except 
  rocks and bushes. There just isn't anything there. 
  Besides, nobody's seen anything, nobody’s heard 
  anything, nobody knows anything. The girl is a joke, 
  and Gellman’s dead. If I keep snooping around with­
  out good cause, somebody's bound to get suspi­
  cious."
  "Your... kit isn’t reliable?’’
  He glanced at the compact makeup chest on the
  
  16
  Charles Grant
  dresser, and at the small drawers beneath it where 
  the rest of his tools were. "I don't want to sound 
  immodest, Mr. Crimmins, but you already know I’m 
  pretty dam n good at what I do. But 1 have to 
  remind you, sir, that i'm not a miracle worker. This 
  may not be .. . where you are, sir, but these people 
  aren't stupid. I'd like to suggest that the last thing 
  you want me to do is to have to leave town in a 
  hurry."
  A pause before: "I’ll think about it. Be available 
  tomorrow night."
  The connection broke, and Blanchard immedi­
  ately unhooked the scrambler, dropped the receiver 
  onto its own cradle, and packed the scrambler in a 
  small padded carrier he placed in a suitcase kept in 
  the room's closet. He did this all without thinking. It 
  wasn’t until he had made sure the telephone was 
  still working that he aimed a kick at the dresser.
  “Son of a bitch!"
  He snatched up the bottle of Southern Comfort 
  from the floor beside the bed and nearly flung it 
  against the wall, catching himself just in time.
  Damn them, he thought, rage tightening his 
  chest; why the hell don't they come down here for a 
  while? Why don’t they spend some time in this two- 
  bit burg with nothing but college basketball games 
  and a fucking fish house to kill time with? Why don't 
  they stay in a place where the fucking bar closes at 
  midnight?
  Jesus H. on a—
  The telephone rang.
  "What?" he demanded, taking a pull straight from 
  the bottle.
  "Is this Miles Blanchard?"
  A woman, her voice deep and husky, and he 
  blinked several times before he realized who it was.
  
  WATCHER
  17
  He swallowed quickly, nearly choking himself. 
  "Yes, it sure is.” ■
  "This is Della speaking. We spoke earlier this 
  evening? i tried to reach you before, Miles, but the 
  phone was busy."
  He sat on the edge of the bed, the bottle between 
  his legs. “Sorr^, darlin'. Unfortunately, business 
  never stops in my line of work."
  "This late?" Honey and velvet now. "My, my, you 
  Northern boys don't rest at all"
  He sighed heavily, loudly. "I know. It’s a crime, 
  but what are you going to do?”
  ''So . . are you still up for some company?"
  “Oh, yes. Now more than ever."
  "Wonderful. I have to ask you a question, though, 
  before I come over. Please don’t take offense."
  He waited.
  "Are you a cop?"
  He gaped at the receiver, grinned at his reflection 
  in the long mirror over the dresser, and said, 
  “Darlin', believe me, the last thing in the world I am 
  is a cop."
  And the first thing he did after hanging up was 
  take his gun from the nightstand, slip it into its hol­
  ster, and put it all into the bottom dresser drawer, 
  beneath his white shirts.
  The last thing he did was utter a quick prayer that 
  he wouldn’t have to kill this woman who called her­
  self Della.
  
  The autumn leaves were long gone, and the blue of 
  the sky over the Capitol had shifted from hazy sum­
  mer soft to clear winter sharp. Shortly after sunset, 
  whitecaps rose and sprayed ahead of a strong wind 
  that gusted down the Potomac. Flags snapped like 
  gunshots, and automobiles trembled when they 
  were caught broadside at the city’s wider intersec­
  tions. Light from streetlamps and Christmas decora­
  tions in store windows, looked brittle and slightly 
  hazed.
  The Mall was nearly deserted.
  A few scraps of paper tumbled across the short, 
  browning grass, and a long, brown cat raced for the 
  leeward shelter of the Metro station.
  A man, his hands burrowed in black topcoat pock­
  ets, watched the cat from the steps of the Air and 
  Space Museum, and smiled to himself as it briefly, 
  vigorously, attacked a candy wrapper that skittered 
  ahead of it, before sitting calmly, only its tail twitch­
  ing.
  It looked in his direction only once. And when it 
  did, he saw the eyes gleaming narrow, and sensed
  18
  
  WATCHER
  19
  the soft warning growl deep in its throat before it 
  decided to take a moment to preen its whiskers.
  He laughed w ithout a sound and left the 
  museum behind as he angled between parked cars 
  and crossed the street, pausing on the opposite 
  sidewalk while he checked his watch, for no reason 
  at all.
  Up to his left, the Capitol building seemed inordi­
  nately small despite all the spotlights, hunkered 
  down against the cold black of the early-evening sky.
  A siren called, somewhere to his right.
  On the wind rose scents he ignored— gasoline 
  and warm metal, cooling stone and exhaust, a young 
  man hurrying east on the far side of the Mall, an old 
  woman lying asleep, wrapped in rags and newsprint, 
  dying.
  He shivered when the night air slipped down his 
  upraised collar, and he hunched his shoulders 
  before moving on, watching his streetlight shadow 
  slip ahead of him, and swing behind. He had no 
  clear idea of where he wanted to go, or where he 
  would end up; for the moment, just being outside, 
  being able to breathe fresh air, was good enough.
  The wind died.
  He walked on, paying little attention to the traffic 
  or the occasional pedestrian. He heard only the 
  sound of his heels on the pavement, looked up only 
  when he wanted to cross another street. He sup­
  posed he should head for home, but he knew he 
  would be just as restless there, and more confined. 
  He'd only end up going out again.
  He rounded a corner into a small, upscale shop­
  ping district and had to sidestep around a sidewalk 
  Santa Claus packing up his gear while talking to a 
  little girl who kept giggling and glancing shyly up at 
  her mother.
  
  2 0
  Charles Grant
  It was a scene straight out of Hollywood, and he 
  couldn't help a.grin as he glanced back in time to 
  see the child and Santa solemnly shake hands. The 
  handshake was a promise, and he hoped someone 
  would keep it.
  Fifteen minutes later he paused in front of a 
  newsstand looking ready to close up for the day. A 
  low bench beneath the window held picked-over 
  stacks of out-of-town and foreign newspapers; in 
  narrow racks that flanked the bench were magazines 
  that were, in the main, concerned with news and 
  opinion; the foreign ones here were mostly fashion 
  and sports.
  He didn't see anything to spark his interest.
  All right, he told himself; this is getting ridicu­
  lous. Make up your mind.
  His problem was not boredom, nor any particular 
  malaise. It was a lovely evening, the decorations 
  were cheerful, and aside from the persistent rest­
  lessness, his own mood was close to buoyant.
  It was hard not to break into a run, just for the 
  sheer joy of it.
  The problem was an uncommon but not unfa­
  miliar situation: at present he was involved in no 
  active assignments, urgent or otherwise, and as far 
  as he could tell from the reports he received, there 
  didn't seem to be anything coming up anytime 
  soon that would require his attention, peripheral or 
  otherwise. W hich left nothing but those same 
  reports to be read, studied, and, the chances were, 
  burned or shredded and summarily stashed in the 
  circular file.
  He had, at the same time, plenty to do and noth­
  ing to do at all.
  He also knew that the holidays would soon take 
  care of that. The lull before yet another storm.
  
  WATCHER.
  21
  The days between Thanksgiving and Christmas 
  were potentially .explosive. Depression and psy­
  choses tended to build during these few weeks as 
  daylight shortened, the cold deepened, and some 
  people were reminded by the season’s excess of all 
  the things they didn’t have, or believed they didn't 
  have— family, money, expensive gifts, connections 
  with others. By tomorrow, or the next day, or the day 
  after that, there would undoubtedly be a flurry of 
  kidnappings, murders, and suicides; then he would 
  have more work than he would have time to com­
  plete.
  Reading. Studying. Looking for the clues that 
  would lead him to his prey.
  It was out there; it always was.
  He knew it; he just couldn't see it yet.
  But that was tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the 
  day after that.
  Right now, he was ...  monumentally bored.
  He laughed at himself as he walked on, absently 
  pushing a long-fingered hand back through dark- 
  brown hair lightly flecked with silver and curling 
  slightly toward his shoulders. A block later he turned 
  into a residential side street whose lighting was 
  nearly nonexistent, most its illumination owed to 
  electric candles in townhouse windows and colored 
  lights around the doors. Brick and polished granite 
  facades, swept stoops and sidewalks, plus waist- 
  high, black iron fencing in front of each building, 
  attested to the modest affluence of those who lived 
  inside. Traffic was swift here as automobiles took 
  shortcuts from one thoroughfare to another.
  An elderly couple passed him, arm in arm, shop­
  ping bags in their free hands, chatting softly to each 
  other in French.
  He nodded to them and moved on, thinking that
  
  2 2
  Charles Grant
  maybe, before he compietely exhausted himself, he 
  would give it up, go home, get some sleep.
  Tomorrow, remember, he told himself; or the next 
  day, or the day after.
  A soft, sudden cry cocked his head, and he glanced 
  over his shoulder. The shopping bag couple stood 
  with their backs to him and a narrow-bored tree, fac­
  ing someone taller and much heavier, a kid, whose 
  features were in shadow. He instantly stepped to one 
  side, blending his own dark form with that of a curb- 
  side tree. It didn't take but a few seconds to under­
  stand that the kid posed a threat, and, by the way the 
  old Frenchman slipped a protective arm around the 
  woman's shoulders, a dangerous one as well.
  A swift scan of the area showed him no signs of 
  Metro police, nor were there any nearby pedestrians 
  he could call on for assistance.
  The kid leaned forward, a clear menace, and the 
  couple cringed.
  The man knew this wasn’t his affair, but there was 
  fear down that street, and very likely death if the kid 
  was spooked or d id n ’t get what he wanted; he 
  wasted no more time.
  He unbuttoned his coat, grabbed a cellular tele­
  phone from his pocket, and as he headed back down 
  the sidewalk, put it to his ear. He spoke just loudly 
  enough to be heard, while he gestured extravagantly 
  and impatiently with his left arm. He was a man 
  clearly absorbed in his conversation, the rest of the 
  world nonexistent.
  The kid stiffened as the man approached, turning 
  his back slightly to the nearest townhouse, blocking 
  easy view of whatever weapon he held.
  "I don’t care," the man in black snapped. "The 
  senator wants it done tonight, so make sure that you 
  do it. Screw up and it’s your ass, not mine.”
  
  WATCHER
  23
  He could see the victims' eyes pleading, could 
  see the Frenchman's mouth open, could see a shift 
  in the kid's stance which immediately stifled any call 
  for help the others might have made.
  "Whatever you have to do," he demanded as he 
  passed them, noting the way the potential assailant 
  had his right hand tucked into his coat at chest level, 
  "lust make the calls, all right? lust make the damn 
  calls."
  A single step past them, and in one swift motion, 
  he jammed the phone into his coat pocket and 
  pulled out a gun, turned, and placed the barrel hard 
  against the kid’s nape, to make sure he knew he 
  wasn't bluffing.
  "FBI," he said, the first thing that came to mind. 
  "Drop it, get to your knees,"
  it always happened: that eternal split second 
  when the target had to make a decision whether or 
  not he had a chance of escape or retaliation. A sub­
  tle tension, a subtle shift of balance, sometimes a 
  held breath— all the signs, and no infallible way of 
  reading them
  The man pressed the barrel harder against the 
  kid’s neck, just a little and leaned closer, just close 
  enough for the man to hear the deep guttural snarl.
  "All right, man, all right," the kid said wearily, 
  shoulders slumping in defeat. "Just take it easy, 
  okay? No problem. Ain’t gonna hurt nobody."
  "Drop it,” he insisted.
  The right arm lowered slowly, and he saw the glint 
  of a blade just before he heard it strike the pave­
  ment near the curb. “Down!” he ordered, as his right 
  foot kicked the knife out of reach.
  The kid slumped obediently to his knees and sat 
  back on his heels, his hands already behind his back 
  without having to be told.
  
  2 4
  Charles Grant
  The man in black wasted no time— as he bound 
  the wrists with handcuffs, he asked the woman to 
  knock on the nearest door and have someone call 
  the police; she didn't need to be asked twice. Then 
  he stopped the old man in the act of reaching for the 
  blade. "The police will take care of it. You just relax, 
  catch your breath.’’
  Once the kid was secured, he had him sit against 
  the trunk of the tree, legs splayed. He was young, 
  thin, wearing nothing but a T-shirt under his coat. A 
  sketch of a mustache darkened his upper lip.
  "Thank you," the old man said.
  He smiled. "My pleasure. Believe me."
  “Comment raws appeliez-vous. monsieur?"
  "Turpin," said the man. "Richard Turpin."
  The old man nodded to the weapon. "He would 
  have killed us, 1 think.”
  The blade was long, two-edged, and by the gleam 
  of it, freshly sharpened. It wasn't a stabbing knife; it 
  was a slasher, meant to open arteries no matter how 
  it was whipped at the intended victim.
  "I didn't want to kill nobody," the kid grumbled 
  behind a scowl.
  “You will go to jail," the old man said.
  "Fuck you," the kid said, rolling his eyes and shak­
  ing his head. "You got lucky, that’s all. Fucking angel 
  here, you oughta kiss his ass.”
  W ithout a word, Richard gestured to the old 
  man— wait for your wife by the steps— and squatted in 
  front of the still grum bling kid, surely, Richard 
  thought, barely out of his teens. He stared until the 
  kid met his gaze.
  "You have a name?”
  "What’s it to you?"
  "You have a name?”
  The kid looked away in disgust. "Fuck off."
  
  WATCHER
  25
  "Do you have a name?"
  The kid sighed heavily and looked back. "Chris, 
  okay? You got a problem with that?"
  Richard smiled, barely. "Tough dude like you, 
  you're called Chris?”
  The kid sneered. "Dude? Dude? You some kinda 
  joke, man?" He laughed and looked at the street. 
  "Dude. Jesus Christ." He laughed again.
  Richard leaned closer, his voice lower, his back to 
  the old Frenchman. "Tell me something, Chris— do 
  you want to live until morning?”
  The kid rolled his eyes . . . and looked.
  Richard knew exactly what he saw— an ordinary 
  man somewhere in his thirties, lean, clean-shaven, 
  with eyes that tucked up slightly at the corners; a 
  hint, some thought, of the Orient there.
  He also saw the face shimmer, saw the green that 
  filled those eyes; not emerald, but green fire.
  He saw the teeth.
  It lasted no longer than a blink.
  It was enough.
  "Oh, man,” the kid said hoarsely, pushing back as 
  if he could force his way through the trunk to the 
  other side. "Oh man, what the— "
  Richard patted his cheek once, not lightly. "Be a 
  good boy, Chris. Watch your mouth." A smile, a shim­
  mer, a hint of teeth again, more like fangs. "And watch 
  your back, son. Nights are long this time of year."
  The kid couldn't speak; he could only gape as he 
  tucked his legs in, huddling now, bravado evapo­
  rated.
  With a deep breath Richard rose, and less than a 
  minute later the first patrol car arrived with lights 
  and sirens. He identified himself to the officer who 
  jumped from the vehicle before it had completely 
  stopped and filled him in on the incident.
  
  2 6
  Charles Grant
  And as soon as the inevitable confusion became 
  acute enough, he slipped away; they wouldn't know 
  he was gone until it was too late.
  He didn’t worry about anything the kid might say. 
  In an hour the boy would convince himself he hadn't 
  seen a thing, that it had all been lights and shadows. 
  A shame about the old couple, though. They had 
  fussed over him to an almost embarrassing degree, 
  and he didn’t have the heart to tell them he wasn't 
  what they thought he was.
  Not in their wildest dreams.
  Not in their worst nightmares.
  Once he was back on the street again, however, 
  his step was lighter and his smile broad.
  What he hadn't tried to explain, and what they 
  might not fully comprehend, was that his momen­
  tary pleasure of helping them out of a dangerous, 
  perhaps lethal, situation, came not entirely from the 
  possibility of saving their lives. It was wonderful that 
  no one had been hurt; it was a bonus that it had all 
  happened so cleanly in less time than it would take 
  them to tell it when they called family and friends.
  But it was even better, and in some ways more 
  important, that another member of the opposition 
  would now be off the streets for a while.
  That kid wasn't a drug lord, wasn’t a mass mur­
  derer, wasn’t a major thief wanted in a dozen states.
  But as young as he was, he was the opposition.
  Clumsy, maybe; maybe even inept.
  But he was the opposition, even if he wasn’t the 
  usual prey.
  Chalk one up for the good guys, he thought.
  For a change.
  
  In the words of her first hang-gliding instructor, Trish 
  McCormick was "drop-dead gorgeous, a damn good 
  student, and out of her freaking mind.” And the first 
  time he had tried to cop a fee! during one their ses­
  sions, she hadn't wasted her time telling him off. 
  She had slugged him instead, and though her knuck­
  les had ached for several days afterward, she hadn't 
  felt the least bit guilty.
  He had been fired two days later.
  As for his opinion of her, she knew it was one 
  held by more than,a few. The "drop-dead gorgeous" 
  part she wasn't too sure about. That she was pretty 
  she already knew, without conceit; how much further 
  that went depended, she supposed, on those who 
  saw her. She had never let it get in her way.
  She was also, for the most part, a pretty good stu­
  dent in whatever she put her mind to learn. That 
  was, more than anything, a matter of pride. Despite 
  the changing times, people who saw a woman like 
  her, with rich and thick blond hair, automatically 
  concluded she was dum b as a post. But she had 
  long ago decided that the only person she had to
  27
  
  2 8
  Charles Grant
  prove anything to was herself; if she failed now and 
  then, and she did, she couldn’t accuse herself of not 
  trying.
  The "out of her freaking mind” was something else 
  again. Without question, she knew that was pretty 
  much accurate, and she actually liked it. If. that is, 
  they were referring to the chances she liked to take 
  as she searched for ways to find out just how far she 
  could go without scaring herself to death.
  She had been doing it for years, ever since she 
  was a teen and some half-baked, so-called Southern 
  gentleman had told her she had the perfect figure for 
  motherin' and cookin', so why did she want to ruin 
  all that by, of all things unwomanly on this man’s 
  earth, learning to drive in a NASCAR race.
  She had taken strong exception.
  And now that she was just past thirty, without 
  children or marriage or very many regrets, the only 
  true limit she had discovered was cave exploring. 
  The idea that tons of rock and earth could slam 
  down on her at any moment, without warning, and 
  trap her, alone, in total darkness, had given her 
  nightmares for a week after her first experience 
  underground. Thinking it a common reaction for the 
  initiate, she had tried it again, and again had nearly 
  panicked.
  A limit had been found; but only in one direction.
  Today she was headed, in a sense, in a totally 
  opposite one; today she would fly.
  She loved it.
  She loved the rush of wind against her face when 
  she leapt off the mountain; she laughed aloud each 
  time the wings that held her up shuddered against a 
  gust and drove her muscles close to cramps as she 
  forced the glider to do what she wanted; and she 
  never landed without a shriek of sheer joy.
  
  WATCHES
  2 9
  It didn't matter that she didn't do it very often. 
  Her work, and her bank account, often conspired to 
  hoid the experience down to once or twice a month, 
  if that. It didn’t matter in the long run, however, 
  because she desperately didn't want it to become 
  ordinary.
  She couldn't have stood that.
  She couldn't have stood to lose the exhilaration.
  In fact, her routine on flying days had been delib­
  erately set to enhance that feeling: slow getting up, 
  carefully filling time during the hours before flight by 
  shopping or cleaning house, driving up Lookout 
  Mountain at a pace that drove those who followed 
  nuts, and sitting as she did now in the graveled park­
  ing area, watching others soar.
  Leon's Air wasn't much of an operation, and not 
  nearly as used at the other launch spot, a mile north 
  along the ridge. But it had a feel to it she liked. It 
  consisted of a large barnlike shed for storing rental 
  equipment, the graveled parking area, and a five-foot 
  concrete launch lip that extended over the edge of 
  the drop.
  There wasn't really room for much else.
  The ridge here was only a hundred yards or so 
  wide, barely accommodating the two-lane paved 
  road that led back to the town of Lookout Mountain, 
  some shrubs and trees on the east side, and Leon's 
  place on the west. With the trees bare and the wind 
  in constant motion, it often seemed as if she were 
  walking on the edge of a two-sided cliff.
  A man stepped out of the shed and waved.
  She grinned and climbed out, the wind instantly 
  taking her long blond hair and slapping it across her 
  face.
  "Hey," Leon Hendean said. "Happy almost New 
  Year." He was tall, heavy without the fat, and bearded.
  
  3 0
  Charles Grant
  A bear who spoke quietly and gently . . . when he 
  spoke at all.
  Trish shivered as December cold slipped under 
  her clothes, and thought, only for a moment, that 
  maybe she'd picked a bad day. The sky was overcast, 
  the wind a bit strong, and she was, for the time 
  being, the only one here.
  Sunset was only an hour away.
  She made her way to the concrete lip and looked 
  out over the valley. Nearly two thousand feet below 
  she could see broad patches of green— some were 
  farms, at least two were landing sites for the two 
  hang-gliding operations. The rest of the land was 
  heavily wooded, broken only by a winding two-lane 
  road that ran north and south. What she couldn't 
  see was the storage shed below Leon’s, the truck 
  used to cart flyers and equipm ent back up the 
  mountain, and the van that doubled as an ambu­
  lance in case of an accident.
  Her hands fisted in her flight-jacket pockets.
  "You going?” he asked, a few steps behind her.
  It was weird— he ran this place, a growing favorite 
  among those who liked to pretend they were eagles, 
  but he never stood close to the edge. Trish, on the 
  other hand, delighted in it, checking the area for 
  emergency landing spots while knowing that, except 
  for the valley floor, there were none. The mountain­
  side was choked with rocks, trees, and brush, and for 
  a good third of its height, it was vertical.
  She had long ago conquered that unbearable 
  feeling of wanting to let go, to just fall. Flying was a 
  better way to get to the ground.
  "What do you think?” she said, stepping back to 
  stand beside him.
  "Strong, but not impossible."
  "Am I the first?"
  
  WATCHER
  31
  He shook his head. "Had a bunch around noon, 
  before the clouds came in. No reports."
  No updrafts, no sheers, no abrupt changes in 
  wind speed.
  "Then what the hell, Leon.” She poked his arm. 
  "Besides, it’s my century."
  His grin made her smile. She had promised him a 
  date on her hundredth flight, and was pleased he 
  had remembered.
  "Supergirl," was all he said, however, and she 
  spent the next twenty m inutes preparing for 
  the jump, double-checking the equipment she knew 
  he had already checked a dozen times that day, 
  pulling on an insulated, modified flight suit to pro­
  tect her against the cold, setting helmet and gog­
  gles, and making sure the bag into which her legs 
  would be tucked was safely affixed to the glider's 
  frame by its harness.
  Stretching exercises to ease her muscles while, at 
  the same time, they prepared her mind to accept the 
  fact that she was about to deliberately jump off the 
  side of a mountain.
  She barely remembered Leon helping her into the 
  frame, hooking the harness, giving her a thumbs-up, 
  bringing her to the edge.
  She barely remembered the please God prayer.
  She barely remembered the launch itself, concen­
  trating instead on testing the wind as she swooped 
  down the mountainside, then swooped up sharply 
  until she was level with the shed's roof. She heard 
  nothing but the wind, the snap of the glider's canopy 
  wings, and her own muffled cries of delight as she 
  banked to the left and began the downward spiral.
  It was cold.
  Too cold.
  Despite her gloves, her fingers were freezing.
  
  32
  Charles Grant
  This was her least favorite kind of flying— taking 
  herself all too quickly to the landing area. But she 
  had underestimated the cold, and knew that if she 
  wanted one more chance to play tag with the birds 
  today, she wouldn't be able to take her time this 
  time.
  The valley shifted lazily, and all the noise was 
  reduced to silence.
  She was alone.
  Out of her freaking mind with the indescribable, 
  alm ost sexual feeling, of flying w ithout natural 
  wings.
  That euphoria had, on more than one occasion, 
  made her weep.
  It also was a constant threat to her concentration, 
  and she was startled when, five hundred feet down, a 
  gust sideswiped her, driving her closer to the moun­
  tain wall.
  She shifted legs and arms expertly and swung 
  away, and down, and was caught again, this time 
  taking her to the left, parallel to the trees that 
  blurred past her.
  Well, hell, she thought. She would have to gain 
  some distance and dive a little. The wind wanted her 
  to stay up, and the mountain wanted to take her. 
  Not for the first time. A hazard of the sport.
  Suddenly everything calm ed and her speed 
  decreased, and she was able to relax, just a little. 
  Now, as she swung north again, she could see the 
  details of the mountain's west face, truly gliding now 
  instead of racing. Once, she had seen a family of 
  deer picking its way across a clearing; once, not too 
  long ago, she had seen something else, a dark crea­
  ture she couldn't identify and hadn’t seen again. A 
  bear, maybe, something like that.
  Now she was flying.
  
  WATCHER
  33
  Tension eased, and at a thousand feet she won­
  dered if she could take a wide arc around the land­
  ing area instead of heading straight in. The clouds 
  had already thickened; no chance she’d be able to 
  go up again.
  What would it hurt?
  A decent flight now, and a longer flight later with 
  Leon.
  What could it hurt?
  A flock of crows exploded from the trees to her 
  right, out of the mountain, startling her as they flew 
  overhead, and below her. At the same time, another 
  gust, slapping her this time from above.
  Something snapped.
  She heard it, and her mouth dried instantly.
  She felt it when the glider refused to obey her 
  command to get the hell over there, down there to 
  the green patch where now she could see the shed, 
  and the truck, and the ambulance van.
  Oh, God, please, she thought, searching the area 
  just below for a safe place to land in case she 
  couldn’t regain control; please.
  The glider took her down.
  Slowly, but too fast.
  Her left arm ached, her gloved fingers almost 
  released their grip on the crossbar, and for a wild, 
  almost hysterical moment she was glad she had 
  brought her own personal body bag with her— all 
  they'd have to do when they found her was zip it up 
  and cart her off.
  The trees were too close.
  A small clearing, canted and brown, broke the 
  solid woodland wall.
  Only chance, girl, she told herself, and headed 
  straight for it.
  Landing would be a bitch, she’d be lucky to break
  
  3 4
  Charles G rant
  only a leg or two, but if she hit it dead center, she 
  wouldn't break her neck against one of those trees.
  Something snapped.
  Trish fell, wings fluttering above her as she freed 
  her legs, and braced herself to hit.
  When she did, the fire in her ankles, her legs, her 
  hips, drove her into the dark.
  When consciousness returned, she was tangled 
  face down in the frame, and she giggled when she 
  realized she was alive. Broken ail the hell up, but 
  still alive. As long as she didn’t move, Leon's valley 
  people would find her. She knew that. He always fol­
  lowed his flyers with binoculars, radio in one hand, 
  ready to transmit locations. Just in case.
  "Okay," she said aloud, just to hear her voice. 
  "Okay."
  A test of her arms brought agony from her right 
  leg, but it nothing she couldn't handle, and she 
  wanted the damn frame off the back of her neck. 
  Carefully, grunting, once screaming quietly, she 
  managed to wriggle free.
  There was no wind down here.
  All she could hear was the sound of the crows.
  She giggled again and, bracing for pain, lifted her­
  self up on her elbows and looked around through 
  the veil of her hair.
  This time the scream was loud.
  It didn’t last very long.
  
  The early January night was raw, sometimes windy. 
  Streetlights were brittle, footfalls sharp, and even a 
  whisper sounded much too loud. The stars were gone, 
  and light snow was promised over the city by morning.
  Richard closed his eyes briefly; there was some­
  thing more in the air.
  A watcher.
  Unseen, but out there, somewhere in the shad­
  ows.
  His three-room apartment was in an old and 
  sm all, und istinguished com plex in A rlington. 
  Although he was seldom there for more than a cou­
  ple of weeks at a time, he had long ago come to a 
  simple and effective arrangement with his landlady; 
  she received treble the normal rent, and in return he 
  was given unquestioning, absolute privacy—  
  especially when he wasn’t there.
  And because he liked her and wished her no 
  harm, the day he took possession, he had added 
  enough security measures at the door and windows 
  to defeat a small army. Like the cat, curiosity would 
  have killed her.
  35
  
  36
  Charles Grant
  So far it had worked for almost eight years.
  Now he stood at the living-room window, staring 
  down at the empty street, one hand absently mas­
  saging the side of his neck. The holiday decorations 
  were gone, from the streetlamps and from the 
  houses across the way. The trees were bare. No cars 
  were parked at the curbs.
  Not a sound out there, and no movement at all.
  Still, there was something out there.
  He tapped a finger on the sill, a monotonous 
  rhythm that quickly got on his nerves.
  Something in the air.
  He growled softly, almost a humming.
  Perhaps it was time for him to take a late stroll 
  around the block. The neighborhood wouldn't com­
  plain; he had made it a habit to let himself be 
  noticed when he went out after sunset, just another 
  fitness nut, out there walking off the pounds no mat­
  ter what the weather was.
  The telephone rang.
  He started at the noise, then laughed at himself as 
  he pushed a nervous hand back through his hair. 
  You’re getting jumpy, he scolded, took one last look 
  outside, and dropped onto the lumpy couch which, 
  like all the other pieces of old, unmatched furniture, 
  he had picked up from the previous tenant. One easy 
  chair, a scarred side table, a standing brass lamp with 
  a dark linen shade, a bookcase on the far wall, a thick 
  wood shelf over his head on which perched a stone 
  statuette of a night hawk, wings spread, eyes narrow.
  The hawk was his.
  "Richard?"
  His smile broadened. "Fay? Is that you?"
  "None other." Her voice was husky, almost mas­
  culine.
  He looked across the unlighted room at the book­
  
  WATCHES.
  37
  case. He ignored the magazines and handful of 
  books, concentrating instead on a niche that con­
  tained a two-foot high, blond-wood carving of a 
  great horned owl.
  "So what's up?"
  "They need to see you."
  He nodded, not bothering to add, it's about time. 
  "When? Same place?"
  "Yes. Tomorrow afternoon. Four.”
  "Okay, fl\ be gone first thing. So how are you. 
  Fay? It's been— "
  "There’s no time, Richard," she said, oddly impa­
  tient. "Just be there. And Richard ... be careful."
  She hung up.
  He stared at the receiver for a second before 
  replacing it in its cradle, then looked back at the owl.
  A gust slapped at the window, causing the glow 
  from the streetlamp to shimmer, and in shimmering, 
  shifted shadows that made the bird's wings seem to 
  move.
  "What?” he asked softly. "What?”
  In a desert whose mountains were made of sand, 
  whose sky was streaked with light and dark shades of 
  green that roiled like clouds in an unfelt storm, he 
  made his way through the ruins of a temple, or a 
  mansion that once belong to a king— pillars on their 
  sides, snapped in half or snapped off at the base, 
  only a handful still standing, holding nothing up but 
  the sky; portions of walls against which sand had 
  been banked by the constant furnace wind; statuary 
  whose faces had been scoured blind; shards of 
  bowls and urns.
  There was heat, but he couldn’t feel it.
  He never had.
  
  3 8
  Charles Grant
  He had been here before, not just in his dreams.
  A sudden gust punched his spine and he stum­
  bled forward, awkwardly catching himself against a 
  crumbling, waist-high wall before he fell. On it, faded 
  by the unseen sun, chipped by falling rock, were 
  hieroglyphs. He didn't look at them, didn't need to. 
  They comprised a fragment of a much longer tale, the 
  story of his people and the battle that had finally 
  forced them out of the land of the Lower Nile.
  Another gust forced him backward, half turning 
  him around.
  A third made him duck his head and move on, 
  skirting a table tipped onto its side, nearly tripping 
  through an empty doorway with no walls on either 
  side.
  The wind blew more strongly.
  The sand didn't move.
  He smelled fire and burning tar.
  He heard his own breathing, rough and shallow, 
  as he tried to keep his balance against the wind and 
  the soft, shifting sands.
  Through rooms and courtyards until finally he 
  saw a fluted pedestal as high as his chest, standing 
  alone in a wasteland of rocks and rocky sand. Its top 
  was round and wide, its sides streaked with stains 
  that could have been rust, could have been blood.
  He walked around it slowly, frowning, reaching 
  out to dust the pitted marble with his fingertips.
  He had no idea what this was, or what it once 
  held, until his left foot kicked something buried at 
  the base. He leaned over and saw a streak of black, 
  carefully brushed the sand away and blinked once, 
  slowly.
  It took both hands to lift the three-foot statue 
  from the ground, and his face was streaked with per­
  spiration as he placed it on the pedestal.
  
  WATCHER
  3 9
  Anubis, exquisitely fashioned in onyx, every detail 
  clear despite the. complete absence of color.
  The jackal-headed god stood with one foot 
  slightly behind the other, teeth slightly bared, eyes 
  slightly narrowed.
  Its left hand was raised shoulder-high, palm out.
  Its right arm was raised over its head, but it 
  stopped at the elbow.
  The rest was gone.
  He backed away from it slowly, scowling as he 
  scanned the ground for signs of the missing limb. 
  He didn’t know what the god had been holding in its 
  other hand, and he didn’t care. The fact that it had 
  been mutilated was enough to make him nervous.
  The green sky darkened.
  The wind began to scream through holes in the rock.
  Something told him to leave, now.
  And something else made him watch as Anubis 
  turned its head toward him and opened its jaws.
  Richard sat up abruptly, eyes wide, mouth open in a 
  shout that never made it past a moan caught in his 
  throat. His gaze snapped around the bedroom, half 
  expecting to see an intruder waiting in ambush deep 
  in the shadows. But there was nothing but the 
  dresser, the closet door, and the first faint light of 
  dawn slowly filling the window.
  "Damn,'’ he whispered, and swallowed heavily. 
  "Damn."
  Wearily he dropped back onto the sweat-damp 
  pillow and stared at the ceiling. The apartment was 
  cool, he liked it that way, and it helped to drive away 
  the remaining fragments of the nightmare even as 
  he tried to figure out what it meant.
  The ruins had been part of his dreamscape for
  
  4 0
  Charles Grant
  years; most of the time they signified little, if any­
  thing, beyond the reminder of what his people had 
  once had, and had lost. Every so often, however, the 
  scene was altered, and every so often he found 
  something he needed to know.
  But he had never been afraid of them before.
  Never.
  He lay still for another m inute, calm ing his 
  breathing, clearing his mind, before ruefully decid­
  ing there was no chance he’d be able to find sleep 
  again. Slowly he sat up again, and slid his legs over 
  the edge of the bed. He scratched his chest and 
  scalp vigorously, shook his head quickly, and moved 
  to the window to check the street.
  Under an overcast sky a car crawled east; the old 
  man from up the street walked his yapping, mostly 
  hair, dog; two kids on bikes delivered papers.
  Nothing he hadn't seen a hundred times before.
  Whoever had been watching last night was gone, 
  and he still couldn’t figure out if it had been a threat 
  or not.
  He waited a few minutes longer, just to be sure, 
  then spent the next hour preparing for his trip across 
  the state to the outskirts of Roanoke. He wouldn't be 
  back soon. The summons Fay Parnell had given him 
  told him that much.
  What he still didn't know was why she had broken 
  off their conversation so abruptly. He had known her 
  for several years, and for a brief and dangerous time 
  they had been lovers. Mystery was, of course, a part 
  of her allure, but he had never known her to show 
  the slightest bit of fear.
  Yet there had definitely been fear in her voice the 
  night before.
  For him, he wondered, or for herself?
  He grunted sharply in a scold. Speculation was
  
  WATCHER
  41
  useless, and at this stage it would only get him into 
  trouble. Not, he thought wryly as he dressed, that 
  trouble and he were strangers. Not only was it part 
  of his job, but he also managed to get into enough 
  of it on his own, without any help from outsiders. He 
  knew full well that impulse and instinct were often 
  necessary to his survival; he also knew that once in a 
  while, despite his best efforts, they stampeded rea­
  son, and left him scrambling for solid ground.
  Whenever you feel the urge, Fay had once told him 
  with a smug, friendly grin, count to five before you walk off 
  the damn cliff, okay? And be sure you have a parachute.
  The trouble with that was, by the time he remem­
  bered the advice, he was sometimes already on the 
  way down.
  Without the damn parachute.
  Another grunt, this one more like a laugh, and 
  once packed— a small cloth bag, nothing more, that 
  he would keep on the seat beside him— he activated 
  the apartment's elaborate security measures, pulled 
  on a fleece-lined leather jacket, and stood before the 
  owl.
  Tell me, he asked it silently; tell me what you see.
  Then he sighed and left, stopping in the large, 
  once elegant lobby to knock on Mrs. Allantero's 
  door. She answered immediately, as he knew she 
  would. The woman never slept, and no one ever left 
  the building without her somehow knowing about it.
  She wore ancient slippers, and an oversize floral 
  dress that made her look heavier than she really 
  was. As it was, she barely came up to the middle of 
  his chest. A squint at his bag over the top of her 
  reading glasses: "You going away?"
  "For a while, yes."
  She nodded. "You be good, Richard. The world's 
  going to hell out there."
  
  4 2
  Charles Grant
  He grinned, "i’ll take care, don't worry."
  She didn't ask. when he would be back, didn't 
  even blink when he handed her an envelope that 
  contained the next four months’ rent, it disappeared 
  somewhere into the folds of her dress. Then she 
  reached around the door, and handed him a brown 
  paper lunch bag, stuffed with cookies and, probably, 
  an orange and an apple. It was another of their 
  rituals; he seldom left town without one of her trip- 
  snacks.
  A quick good-bye, then, and he hurried outside, 
  around the corner of the building to the side parking 
  lot as he shivered against the unexpected damp 
  cold. His car was purposely nondescript and looked 
  as if it should have been traded in a dozen years 
  ago. Yet it felt like a favorite glove— not pretty, but it 
  fit him perfectly, it warmed up quickly, and as he 
  pulled into the street, he looked back and saw Mrs. 
  Allantero in her window. Watching; always watching.
  Her left hand lifted in a tentative wave, and he 
  smiled and waved back.
  Surrogate mother, he thought.
  He wondered, then, what she would think if she 
  knew her star tenant and surrogate son was actually 
  a member of a race that called itself the Garou.
  She wouldn't know what that meant.
  But she would, without a doubt, recognize a were­
  wolf.
  
  Shapes and shadows in the fog.
  As the land rose toward the Blue Ridge Mountains, 
  the clouds lowered, and across the increasing number 
  of pastures and fields, pockets of mist and fog rose 
  from creeks and streams, and crept out of the wood­
  land. By Roanoke, shortly before sunset, most of the 
  summits were buried in ragged gray, and thin, gray 
  patches had slipped across the road.
  Richard was uneasy.
  just like the night before, he couldn’t shake the feel­
  ing that there was something out there, pacing him—  
  flashes of dark movement in the fog, a breeze-caused rip 
  in the mist to reveal something standing in a meadow, 
  the sense of something on the highway behind him, 
  keeping out of sight just around the last bend.
  it was foolish.
  It was probably an understandable combination 
  of being summoned again after so long a layoff, the 
  nightmare, and Fay’s inexplicable warning. A touch 
  of imagination, a dash of paranoia; he was lucky he 
  wasn't seeing UFOs land on the highway.
  Nevertheless, the shapes and shadows were out
  43
  
  4 4
  Charles Grant
  there, and he was more than a little relieved when 
  he crossed over Interstate 81 west of Roanoke and, a 
  mile-and~a-half later, took a little-used side road 
  down into a narrow valley where night was only a 
  few minutes away. Open land had given way to trees 
  and dense brush, the side road to his destination 
  practically buried behind tall reeds hiding a shallow, 
  wide creek on the right.
  As always, he drove past it twice to be sure no 
  one had followed, then took the right turn slowly 
  onto a single-lane road, and stopped almost imme­
  diately. He checked the rearview mirror, rubbed his 
  chin, and finally got out, trailing one hand along 
  the car's side as he walked to the back bumper and 
  checked the main road in both directions.
  lust be to sure again.
  Nothing,
  And nothing in the thick woods across the way, 
  nothing in the sky below the clouds.
  Maybe, he thought, and not for the first time 
  recently; maybe I'm getting a little too old for this game.
  As he turned to get back into the car, a flurry of 
  crows exploded noisily out of the trees across the road, 
  spinning dead leaves and alarms in their wake. He 
  spun instantly into a crouch, cocking his head to listen 
  as the flock's cries faded into the hillsides, straining to 
  find movement in the twilight beneath the branches.
  Most the trees were pine, but there were gaps he 
  could see through, and shadows that dipped and 
  wavered as a breeze slipped out of the woods into 
  his face.
  Slowly, uncertain, he rose and crossed the road, 
  sidestepped down and up the mossy sides of a shal­
  low ditch, and made his way in.
  A crow called in the distance.
  It could have been a deer, a bear, but their recog­
  
  WATCHER
  4 5
  nizable scents were not in the air; the birds could 
  have spooked themselves, but he didn't think so.
  He moved around a gnarled, half-dead pine, letting 
  the lower branches glide off his left arm and shoulder.
  Above him, the breeze had kicked into a wind, 
  soughing, scattering leaves, snapping off dead twigs. 
  Good and bad: it would mask his own movement, 
  but he wouldn't be able to hear anyone else’s.
  Another ten yards that took him ten minutes.
  Pine needles on the ground matted into strips of 
  brown and dull green; the nearly flat body of a long- 
  dead squirrel lying beneath a laurel; a small pool of 
  black, stagnant water that rippled thickly when the 
  wind touched the surface.
  He saw no prints, caught no spoor, and was about 
  to give himself a swift mental kick in the butt, when 
  he saw something quivering in a bush off to his right.
  The branches, thick and dark gray, were horned, 
  and a small piece of cloth struggled near the bot­
  tom. He pulled it off between thumb and forefinger, 
  held it close to his eyes, then squinted into the 
  wind. Still no prints, but this time he had the scent.
  Human.
  And long gone.
  There was still a chance Richard might catch 
  him— whoever it was had probably bolted when the 
  crows took flight— but there was no time.
  And for the moment, there was no danger.
  Still, he waited a few minutes more, just in case, 
  before returning to the car and rattling over a narrow 
  wood bridge in serious need of repair. The road 
  beyond was mostly stone and potholes, a deliberate 
  discouragement to the casual weekend explorer.
  A quarter of a mile later he reached a broad clear­
  ing and took his foot off the accelerator, letting the 
  car roll to a silent stop.
  
  4 6
  Charles Grant
  The house, despite its size, was not very imposing. 
  It had been constructed to follow the top arc of the 
  long circular drive that fronted it, yet it didn't seem 
  to be that large. Towering firs on the slopes behind 
  and away on its flanks shrank the single-story brick 
  and white-trim building, and even its one-acre 
  front yard with its evergreen shrubs and now bar­
  ren gardens looked little bigger than a postage 
  stamp. The eagle weather vane in the center of the 
  peaked roof, its brass dull without sunshine, quiv­
  ered. Carriage lamps on either side of the paneled, 
  double-front doors were lit, but the amber glass 
  seemed less welcoming than cold. All the windows 
  were blinded by closed draperies.
  Had that casual weekend explorer gotten this far, 
  he would have sworn, despite the lights, that the 
  place was deserted.
  Richard frowned his bemusement when he real­
  ized there were no cars parked on the drive. There 
  should have been. Six or seven, at least. A spur off to 
  the right led to an old stable converted into a six-car 
  garage. The three that he could see were open, and 
  there were no vehicles in there either.
  He checked his watch, and the frowned deepened 
  momentarily. He wasn’t late, and he doubted the 
  others were, either. He would learn the reason for 
  their absence soon enough.
  He parked just past the entrance and opened the car 
  door, shivering slightly at the chill that ruffled across his 
  face. A good feeling. The scent of fir and pine, the scent 
  of untainted air—a good feeling that would do until he 
  was given the reason for the summons.
  He glanced at the darkening sky, and the clouds 
  were lower still.
  
  WATCHER
  47
  A crow called from the woods, and was answered 
  by another, coasting beneath the clouds.
  The wind sent a single leaf spiraling over the roof.
  Richard watched it vanish behind the weather 
  vane, and shook his head. He had never really liked 
  this place. It was too isolated, too vulnerable. A 
  glance over his shoulder, a scowl into the wind. That 
  human, whoever he was, might be in there, in the 
  trees, either watching and nothing more, or fixing 
  the sights of a rifle on his head.
  "Enough," he told himself angrily. There was 
  always the possibility it had only been a hunter or a 
  hiker, it wasn't necessary to turn every' shadow into 
  something sinister.
  Yet Fay had said, be careful when there shouldn’t 
  have been anything to be careful of at all.
  He was almost tempted to walk around to the 
  back to do some checking on his own, but the temp­
  tation faded quickly, and he slipped his right hand 
  into his trouser pocket, fingers closing around a 
  small cloth bag. He squeezed it once, for luck and 
  reassurance, then strode cautiously to the front door.
  Unlike his previous visits, there was no sign of 
  greeting.
  None at all.
  Suddenly, ridiculously, he felt like the heroine in an 
  old suspense movie— she and the audience knew full- 
  well there was danger on the other side of that door, 
  and contrary to all reason, she opened it anyway.
  She and the audience were always right.
  "Damn," he muttered. This was stupid. What the 
  hell was the matter with him?
  . . .  be careful. . .
  He took a slow deep breath and knocked.
  The right-hand door opened immediately, sound­
  lessly.
  
  4 8
  Charles Grant
  He started, cursed himself for the reaction, and 
  stepped inside .without waiting for an invitation, 
  nodding once to a middle-aged woman dressed in a 
  severe, expensive brown suit, no flourishes at all, her 
  solid brown hair tightly caught in a bun at her nape.
  "Afternoon, Hester," he said pleasantly. "Will you 
  tell them I'm here?''
  Not a smile in return, just a sharp commanding 
  nod that told him to stay where he was.
  He didn't argue.
  The foyer was large, with a polished flagstone floor 
  and undecorated white walls split by exposed beams. 
  Dim light fell from a small teardrop chandelier in the 
  center of the ceiling. At the back, sliding glass doors 
  overlooked a yard nearly the size of a football field, 
  mostly brown now, and spotted at the back with 
  shaded patches of snow that must have fallen the 
  night before. In the middle of the walls right and left 
  were entries to corridors he knew ran the length of 
  the house, all the rooms opening off them, a curious 
  arrangement he had never bothered to question
  No one lived here.
  As far as he knew, no one even stayed here 
  overnight. Not even Hester Darchek.
  The foyer was too warm. He unzipped his coat, 
  then slipped it off and draped it over his left shoulder, 
  moved it from there to drape over his right arm. He 
  walked to the glass doors and stared at the yard, 
  walked back to the entrance and stared at the tips of 
  his shoes, tried counting the bulbs in the chandelier, 
  and decided that if he didn't do something soon, he 
  was going to drive himself crazy.
  Hester returned a minute later, beckoned once, 
  and he followed her into the hall on the right, its 
  thick floral carpeting smothering their footsteps. 
  Again, there was no ornamentation on the walls, the
  
  WATCHER
  4 9
  only light from candle-shaped bulbs beneath milk- 
  glass chimneys i.n sconces beside each dark-wood 
  door they passed.
  Not a sound.
  Not even the rising wind.
  He wanted to whistle something, anything, just to 
  break the silence, but he had a feeling Hester 
  wouldn't approve,- he also had a feeling, without 
  really knowing why, that he wouldn't be very happy if 
  he ever sparked her ire.
  Still .. it was tempting.
  Halfway along, the woman paused just long enough 
  to gesture him to an open door before she headed 
  back toward the foyer, hands clasped at her stomach.
  Richard smiled pleasantly as she passed, and 
  rolled his eyes when, as usual, there was no response.
  In all the time he had known her, if "known" was 
  the word, she had never spoken more than a few 
  words at a time, never smiled, never broken the 
  indifferent mask she wore.
  A deep voice with a touch of an English accent 
  said, "Do come in, Richard, come in."
  The room was a full twenty-five feet on a side, the 
  walls papered white-and-rose on top, with dark 
  walnut wainscoting below. A carved oak sideboard stood 
  to the left just inside the door, and in the center was a 
  gleaming refectory table large enough to seat eighteen.
  There were no windows or other exits.
  There were no lamps; the only illumination came 
  from hooded bulbs embedded in the ceiling, one for 
  each of the eighteen chairs. All else was in deep shadow.
  There were only three others in the room.
  Instantly, Richard felt all his defenses go up.
  There should have been, at the very least, nine or 
  ten men and women here.
  His first thought was, lesus, it’s a trap.
  
  1
  The man seated at the head gave him a half-smile. 
  "Welcome, my friend," and nodded Richard to the 
  low, heavy chair at the foot of the table.
  Richard didn't accept the invitation. He moved to 
  the offered chair, but remained on his feet, gripping 
  the bowed top lightly. The door was still open, and 
  he made no move to close it.
  He didn't have to: it closed on its own seconds 
  after he touched his chair.
  "Richard, are you well?"
  "Well enough, John."
  Even seated, John Chesney was tall, with sharp 
  planes and deep shadows in his face that made him 
  appear as if a lifetime of dissipation had caught up 
  with him overnight. His hair was thick, pure white, 
  and brushed straight back had gotten from the 
  movies. He also supposed Chesney believed it lent 
  him an air of authority.
  He didn't need it.
  He had eyes that could boil blood if he ever lost 
  his temper.
  To Richard’s right, beside Chesney, was Maurice
  50
  
  WATCHER
  51
  Poulard, a stocky man with a florid, pudgy face that 
  left little room for his eyes. His gray suit looked like 
  silk; his red club tie undoubtedly was. He was bald; 
  deliberately bald. In his right hand he held a lace- 
  edged handkerchief he used to mop his scalp, to 
  wave a point, and to touch to his oddly thin lips 
  whenever he wanted to hide what his mouth might 
  reveal. He waved the handkerchief now, his voice 
  reed-thin: "Oh, do sit, Richard. We're not going to 
  bite, you know."
  The woman on his left laughed silently. She wore 
  a tailored burgundy suit, a ruffled cream blouse, and 
  a huge ruby ring on her left hand. Her hair was short 
  and brushed back over her ears, a style that suited 
  her ageless features. She could have been thirty, 
  could have been sixty, but apparently that didn’t 
  matter to those reputed to be her lovers. "You're 
  confused, dear," she said, her voice soothing and 
  smooth.
  He nodded. "I am, Vi."
  "Then sit. Please. John has things to tell you, and 
  we don't have much time."
  "The others?" he asked as he obeyed.
  Poulard waved the handkerchief dismissively 
  "Not here, not coming."
  Richard almost said, that’s impossible, but the 
  look on the man’s face stopped him.
  He had been right— he shouldn’t have knocked, 
  he shouldn't have come in.
  This was the chamber of the Warders of the Veil. 
  Seldom used, but when it was, it held a representa­
  tive of most of the thirteen tribes of the Garou.
  Never just three.
  Never.
  His unease increased as he waited for Chesney 
  to make up his mind when to begin. The man was
  
  52
  Charles Grant
  an actor. Nothing he did was done without con­
  sideration of its dram atic effect, including the 
  annoying, overhead lighting. It was he who had 
  nam ed the group, he— along with Viana laye, 
  Maurice, and two others now dead— who had seen 
  the need, and he who had recruited Richard into 
  their midst.
  The reason, in the beginning, had been simple 
  and right: Gaia was dying, and along with her, the 
  Garou.
  The Earth, in spite of the best efforts of some, had 
  begun to flounder in the aftermath of steadily 
  increasing populations. Urban centers expanded 
  with little planning, waste was more stockpiled than 
  converted for reuse, and what was once pristine had 
  become irrevocably soiled.
  The Garou, because they were so intricately 
  involved with the system that supported both Man 
  and Gaia, thus found themselves in danger as well. 
  Their numbers had never been that great in the first 
  place; now each of the tribes found themselves 
  much smaller, with less protection, fewer chances of 
  survival.
  The Veil was that which separated men from the 
  Garou. For men, Richard and the others were the 
  stuff of legends and tales told around campfires—  
  werewolves. Man-beasts. Evil creatures that stalked 
  movie screens and novels and children’s nightmares 
  in autumn. As long as it remained that way, the 
  Garou could manage, doing what they could to keep 
  Gaia from collapsing.
  When the Veil was lifted, however, and however 
  briefly and accidentally, something had to be done.
  The Warders had been created when it was evi­
  dent that recent breaches of the Veil weren't acci­
  dental at all.
  
  WATCHER
  53
  Chesney put his glass down and cleared his 
  throat. 
  .
  Richard glanced at the others, leaned back, and 
  said with a brief smile, "John, I'm falling asleep."
  Vi laughed; Maurice scowled.
  Chesney at least had the grace to look embar­
  rassed, caught in his own acting. He folded his 
  hands on the table and cleared his throat again. 
  "Richard," he said, “there’s a rogue."
  Two vicious murders in Tennessee, near 
  Chattanooga and the Georgia border, and at least 
  two more missing, Chesney explained. Even dis­
  counting the natural hysteria in the media concern­
  ing such brutal and puzzling acts, it was clear to the 
  Warders that a rogue had moved into the area, and 
  he had to be stopped before the police caught him
  Richard didn’t respond; it wasn't expected of him.
  Every so often, it happened; a Garou from any 
  tribe could break under the pressure of either living 
  in both worlds, or keeping his pact to protect Gaia. 
  In this way, they were no different from humans—  
  they had their weak links, and sometimes they 
  snapped.
  It was his job to make sure the rogue was never 
  caught, dead or alive, by humans. If he failed, the 
  truth of the Garou would be out; it didn’t take a 
  genius to figure out what would happen then.
  So far, he hadn't failed.
  But what he still didn't understand was why the 
  full group wasn't here. The first known attack had 
  been back in October, the latest only last week, the 
  disappearances som etim e between. Som eone 
  should have been investigating from the first 
  killing— plenty of time to convene a strategy ses­
  sion, and to contact him. Waiting this long to sus­
  pect a rogue .. .
  
  54
  Charles Grant
  Still, he held his peace. While the others were of 
  tribes whose lives revolved around packs, he was 
  called Silent Strider. His kind were loners. Travelers. 
  As such, and as now, most of the other Garou either 
  held them in mild contempt, or outright distrust that 
  sometimes bordered on fear.
  A wolf, alone, wasn't natural.
  Rogues they could understand; someone like 
  Richard they couldn't.
  Vi dusted a finger across the tabletop. "There's 
  more, of course."
  He smiled at her wryly. "I'd be surprised if there 
  wasn’t."
  “Oh, for God's sake," Poulard snapped. "Get on 
  with it. I’m a busy man.” His handkerchief flapped at 
  the others. "This is getting us nowhere."
  Chesney’s face darkened briefly, his eyes narrow­
  ing as he turned toward Poulard and silently 
  demanded he hold his tongue. Poulard snarled but 
  sat back, almost pouting.
  Well, Richard thought; well, well.
  Chesney turned his attention back to Richard, all 
  signs of displeasure gone in a blink. "You know there 
  are humans who suspect who and what we are."
  Richard nodded impatiently. He didn't need, nor 
  did he appreciate, a history lesson. Yes, there were 
  humans who suspected what lay beyond the Veil; 
  yes, some had actually begun to accumulate evi­
  dence of it; and yes, some had the potential to be 
  more than a small threat to the Garou's existence. 
  But they didn't work together; they didn't share what 
  they knew. All had their own agendas, and so far, 
  luckily, cooperation hadn't been part of it.
  "Well, there's something else," Chesney said, and 
  hesitated. Vi whispered something Richard couldn't 
  catch, and the older man nodded. "The rogue. We
  
  WATCHER
  55
  think he might be a trap. We . ..  think he’s out there, 
  specifically, to lure you into the open.”
  "Somebody wants you dead, Richard," Vi said.
  "Or more likely," Poulard added impatiently, and 
  without much sympathy, "somebody wants you in 
  hand so you can lead them to us.” He folded the 
  handkerchief into a rectangle on the table and care­
  fully smoothed out its wrinkles with the side of his 
  hand. "It is also possible that this someone is one 
  of us."
  "No," he said without having to think. He looked 
  at the others. "That's impossible."
  Poulard stared at him without raising his head. "Is 
  it, Richard? Is it really?"
  "Of course it is," he said automatically.
  The tribes, while all Garou, weren't always in har­
  mony. They had their common goal, but the means 
  to achieve it were often sources of dissension, and 
  causes of rivalries that in some cases were genera­
  tions old.
  But nothing like this.
  No matter how bad relations got, tribes didn’t go 
  to war with one another.
  Not at the risk of rending the Veil.
  He shifted uncomfortably when no one reacted. 
  "Who told you this nonsense?"
  No one answered.
  He shook his head in disgust and stared at the 
  wood surface immediately in front of him. Despite 
  the high polish, there was no reflection, just the 
  grain, it didn’t give him any answers, or any inspira­
  tion.
  "This rogue," Chesney said quietly, "has to be 
  brought back, I’m afraid."
  That snapped Richard's head up. “What?”
  It was difficult enough to hunt down one of your
  
  5 6
  Charles Grant
  own kind, one who had been overcome by rage-filled 
  madness; the outcome was always the same. It had 
  to be. There was no cure for the sickness that cre­
  ated a rogue, and no safe way or place to detain him. 
  But to say that he had to be captured was madness 
  of its own.
  "There’s no other way. We need to know, Richard. 
  We need to know."
  Poulard pushed his chair away from the table, to 
  the edge of the reach of his light. He leaned back 
  and folded his hands over his stomach. "It's quite 
  simple. You do what you always do, Richard, except 
  that you don’t kill him.” He smiled without humor. 
  "Do you think you can handle that?’’
  "That's not the point," he said.
  "Oh, but it is." The smile remained. "Unless you 
  don’t feel that you can. Succeed, that is. Feeling a 
  little old these days?"
  Richard looked to Vi, but she too had retreated, 
  and all he could see of her without straining were 
  her hands and her torso. It was as if someone had 
  suddenly cut off her head.
  "That's not the point either, Maurice," he said, 
  struggling to keep his temper intact. “But if I'm even 
  going to consider this .. . this assignment, I'll need 
  to know more.” He looked directly at Chesney. "Like, 
  who else I'll be up against, if what you say is true.”
  "Unknown," was all Chesney answered.
  "Then why do you suspect it may be one of us?”
  "Our privilege," Poulard said quickly.
  Right, Richard thought; catch a rogue, but wear a 
  blindfold while you’re at it, and don’t worry about 
  your back, you don't need to know who's got the 
  knife.
  Chesney coughed lightly into a fist. “You'll have 
  to leave tonight, Richard. We can't waste any more
  
  WATCHEE
  57
  time arguing. Or," he added pointedly to Maurice, 
  "speculating, lust bring us what we ask."
  "And if I can't?"
  Vi slipped back into the light. "I fear, Richard, 
  that's not an option in this case.” She spread her 
  hands. "I'm sorry."
  "And if I can't," he persisted.
  "We'll get someone else," Poulard answered 
  blithely.
  Richard inhaled slowly, but said nothing more. It 
  was an empty threat. He knew as well as Maurice did 
  that there was no one else. The Warders were select. 
  The only way he could be replaced was if he was 
  killed.
  Still . ..  "Well, if you do, Maurice, be sure to let 
  him know that someone's been poking around out 
  here."
  "What?" It was Poulard's turn to slip back into the 
  light. "What are you talking about?"
  Richard gestured vaguely over his shoulder. "It 
  may be nothing, but I’ve had the feeling all day that 
  someone’s been following me.’’ He reached into his 
  jacket pocket and tossed the ragged swatch onto the 
  table. "I found this just before 1 arrived.’’
  Poulard slammed a palm on the table. "You irre­
  sponsible son of a bitch! Why didn't you say any­
  thing when you got here?"
  "Because he’s gone, Maurice," he answered 
  calmly.
  Chesney stared down the length of the table at 
  the piece of cloth. "How do you know, Richard?"
  "Because I do, John."
  Poulard mopped his scalp nervously. "And you 
  didn't go after him?’’
  "I had been summoned, remember?"
  "And the danger?"
  
  5 8
  Charles Grant
  Richard’s voice flattened; the fat man was rapidly 
  getting on his nerves. "If there had been danger, I 
  would have ended it." He had had enough. He stood, 
  picked up the swatch and his jacket, and held out his 
  left hand. "John?"
  Chesney hesitated before taking an envelope from 
  an inside pocket and sliding down the table. Richard 
  picked it up, folded it, and stuffed it into his hip 
  pocket, the move deliberately casual, just to taunt 
  Poulard. Then he pushed his chair aside and strode 
  to the door, opened it, and turned around when Vi 
  said his name.
  "You'll do it, won't you?"
  "Like 1 said, Vi— if I can." But he relented when he 
  saw her stricken expression. "Don't worry. Anything 
  else will only be a last resort."
  He stepped into the hallway.
  The door closed silently behind him.
  For a long moment he didn't move. He could hear 
  raised voices in the chamber, Poulard's in argument, 
  Chesney’s snapping. A trickle of ice touched the 
  length of his spine.
  That wasn’t simple rivalry in there.
  He didn't need extra senses to know it was fear.
  
  There were no shapes or shadows now; the night 
  had taken them, and had replaced them with long 
  stretches of nothing but the reach of the old car’s 
  headlamps, turning the tarmac gray, blending the 
  trees along the highway into a mottled, black wall.
  He almost made it to Knoxville before weariness 
  overtook him, abrupt and unexpected. It less on the 
  early start and all the driving he'd done, and the 
  startling realization that he had been barely aware of 
  the road since leaving Virginia.
  Neither the interstate's sparse evening traffic nor 
  the darkened landscape had registered except as 
  flashes of headlights, glimpses of illuminated signs 
  pointing this way to fuel, that way to food.
  He had been functioning on automatic, his con­
  centration focused on trying to understand what had 
  really happened at the curious meeting with the 
  Warders. It wasn't only the assignment— bring the 
  rogue back alive— it had also been almost as if they 
  wanted him in there and gone with as little fuss and 
  discussion as possible.
  That wasn't like them.
  59
  
  6 0
  Charles Grant
  Most of the time, similar meetings took at least 
  two or three hours, while ramifications were debated, 
  reasons for a Garou’s turning rogue were offered, 
  sides were taken, and demands were made. To a vir­
  tual outsider like him, they were almost comical, and 
  would have been had they not been so potentially 
  dangerous for his kind.
  But today had been nothing short of unnerving.
  Currents and undercurrents.
  And not a single mention of Fay.
  He yawned suddenly, and so widely and noisily 
  that he laughed aloud and decided Chattanooga 
  could wait until morning. He needed to sleep before 
  he wound up wrapped against a tree, or nose-down 
  in a ditch.
  He found a Ramada Inn half a mile off the high­
  way just east of Knoxville, and took a room. He 
  had barely set his bag down on a low and long 
  chest of drawers when he began to pace from door 
  to window, over and over. As soon as he caught 
  himself doing it, he went outside, to walk for a 
  while, to stretch his iimbs and breathe the night 
  air.
  Despite the weariness, he was restless, too rest­
  less to stay in a place with four walls.
  The two-story motel was on a knoll, surrounded 
  by a parking lot that seemed like a moat between 
  the building itself and the woodland around it. The 
  nearest community was a few miles farther north, 
  and the still-hovering cloud cover reflected no lights 
  at all.
  With his jacket open and his hands in his pockets, 
  he walked the perimeter slowly, smelling the pine, 
  the cedar, the earth still damp from a recent light 
  rain. He heard muffled music drifting from the 
  motel's bar, and from the rooms a voice raised in
  
  WATCHER
  61
  querulous complaint, someone laughing gently, 
  someone slamming dresser doors; from the highway 
  he heard the grumble of a truck.
  He trotted a few steps, then walked again, keep­
  ing close to the trees in case someone should look 
  out. 
  -
  He wouldn’t be seen; he was as much at home 
  out here as he was in there.
  His third circuit had just begun when he realized 
  that the world had suddenly fallen silent.
  He stopped and cocked his head, straining for a 
  sound, any sound, beyond the rasp of his own 
  breathing.
  It lasted only a few seconds, but it was long 
  enough to remind him, for reasons he couldn't 
  im m ediately understand, that his restlessness 
  wasn't entirely due to the disturbing Roanoke meet­
  ing.
  Most of it, he realized, was because it been a 
  while, much too long, since he had last hunted.
  Since he had last taken the form.
  Since he had last marked his prey.
  Since he had last tasted blood.
  A slow smile almost parted his lips. A rumbling in 
  his throat almost tickled.
  A glance at the building, few of the windows 
  lighted, and he wondered what they would think if 
  they heard something howling out here. Would they 
  come out, or would they hide? Investigate, or call for 
  help?
  It was tempting, so wonderfully, dangerously 
  tempting that he might have done it had not a first- 
  floor drapery parted, and he could see a shadow 
  there, someone looking out at the night.
  He sighed for good sense, and headed back to his 
  room.
  
  62
  Charles Grant
  Tomorrow, he promised himself; tomorrow night 
  he would allow himself a few hours of freedom.
  For now, however, there was rest to be taken, and 
  maybe a quick call to Fay to find out where she had 
  been, and what she had m eant when she had 
  warned him to be careful. But once in the room, he 
  barely had time to take off his clothes before sleep 
  dragged him onto the bed.
  There was only one dream:
  In the desert, in the ruins, the jaws of Anubis 
  dripped blood.
  A faint rumble of thunder echoed across the city, 
  and a flare of pale lightning marked the horizon 
  between the sky and the Pacific.
  In the street, down in the Tenderloin, among the 
  crowds, a trio of well-dressed drunks argued loudly 
  and profanely, while a woman leaning against a 
  lamppost laughingly shrieked for the police. The 
  sidewalks and tarmac reflected the garish neon as 
  if the rain had already arrived. A police car ghosted 
  through, and no one paid it any mind.
  A telephone rang, and Miles Blanchard groaned 
  at the intrusion and rolled over, clamping the bed's 
  other pillow over his head. When the ringing per­
  sisted, he cursed loudly, in several languages, as he 
  flung the pillow aside and fumbled with the receiver, 
  nearly dropping it to the floor. He cursed again and 
  sat up, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles, demand­
  ing the caller's identification even before he put the 
  receiver to his ear.
  As soon as he heard the telltale high-pitched 
  whine, however, he hung up and swung out of bed.
  Within seconds he had the proper equipment 
  attached and ready.
  
  WATCHER
  6 3
  Exactly one minute iater, the telephone rang 
  again. The whine was gone, and he was wide awake.
  "Mr. Blanchard."
  "Yes, sir.”
  "Are you rested?”
  Blanchard thought of the woman who had left not 
  two hours ago, trailing a ratty mink stole behind her, 
  and grinned at the empty room, barely clean enough 
  not to be called seedy. Sometimes, he thought, you 
  just had to make sacrifices.
  "Are you rested, Mr. Blanchard?"
  "Yes, sir, as well as 1 can be, sir." He hoped the 
  innuendo hadn't been lost. Not that it would matter. 
  Crimmins wouldn’t care if Blanchard was a monk.
  ‘Excellent. And your assignment?”
  "Completed, sir, no problems at all. You’ll have 
  your report before sunset, as usual."
  "Again, excellent.”
  The man scowled at the far wall, its dull floral 
  paper waterstained near the ceiling. This call wasn't 
  usual, and he didn't much care for the questions he 
  had and knew he couldn't ask. As a matter of fact, 
  the more he thought about it, the more he realized 
  he couldn't recall Crimmins ever contacting him like 
  this, without prior arrangement.
  He didn't like the chill that suddenly crawled up 
  his spine.
  "Uh, sir, is there a problem?”
  There was a pause, and Blanchard frowned again.
  The thunder grew louder.
  Lightning flared around the edges of the cheap 
  heavy drapes that covered the room’s single window.
  "Mr. Blanchard, do you recall your stay in the 
  South last autumn?"
  He answered without hesitation: "Yes, sir, 1 cer­
  tainly do."
  
  6 4
  Charles Grant
  No lie; it was the first time Crimmins had ever 
  authorized a bonus.
  "Well, Mr. Blanchard, it appears as if we now have 
  a situation down there.’’
  "Yes, sir."
  "Leave im m ediately and take care of it, Mr. 
  Blanchard. Do you understand me? Take care of it."
  Blanchard grinned w ithout humor. "You can 
  count on me, sir. Is there something special . . . ?"
  Again, the long silence.
  He rubbed his chest with his free hand.
  "He’s coming, Mr. Blanchard."
  "I'm sorry?"
  "Pay attentio n, Mr. Blanchard," Crim m ins 
  snapped. "I said, he's coming."
  Blanchard caught himself before he laughed 
  aloud in delight; instead he raised a fist and 
  punched the air. He didn’t have to ask who, or how 
  Crimmins knew. At last, at long last that damned 
  Strider would be in his sights; would be his for the 
  taking. “I’ll leave on the first plane I can get."
  “See that you do, Mr. Blanchard, see that you do."
  Blanchard frowned— what the hell did that mean?
  "And Mr. Blanchard, please understand me. This 
  time there are no options."
  The frown faded quickly. "There never are, sir, I 
  know that.”
  "No, you don’t understand. I'm not only talking 
  about him, I'm talking about you."
  Blanchard stiffened, but the phone went dead 
  before he could respond. Angrily, he dismantled the 
  equipment; in a rage, he prowled the tiny room, fists 
  clenched, eyes narrowed. The man had threatened 
  him; actually threatened him. Him. As if he were 
  some pissant amateur, some goddamn water boy, 
  some goddamn servant, for God's sake.
  
  WATCHER
  6 5
  He yanked the drapes aside and stood in the win­
  dow, glaring down at the neon blurred and softened 
  by rain.
  He stood there for over an hour.
  He didn't move.
  Not once.
  Shapes and shadows.
  "It isn't going to work."
  "Of course it will, Maurice. You must have faith."
  "There is no faith. There is only what is.”
  "Gaia will be displeased."
  "Gaia is dying, and we’re doing nothing to help 
  .Her." 
  ... 
  , 
  - 
  ■ 
  = !•= 
  . , ' 
  ; 
  ‘
  "This is nothing?"
  "Yes. It's nothing. The rogues increase, and there 
  are too few to fight them. The Veil isn't permanent. 
  One of these days, it's going to be nothing more 
  than shreds,"
  "Which is why we have Richard."
  "Viana, for someone so smart, so . .. mature .. 
  you are one of the most naive people 1 have ever 
  met. That smug bastard is going to die, and for 
  Gaia's sake, you don't have to look so pained. You 
  agreed, just like the rest of us."
  "I agreed, yes. That doesn't mean I have to like it.”
  "Well, 1 do.”
  "I know, Maurice. 1 know."
  "I just hope it’s soon. We don’t have much time.”
  In a chair by the bedroom door sat a large stuffed 
  panda, a green bow loose around its neck, its black 
  button eyes gleaming faintly in the glow from a 
  panda night-light in the bathroom. On the opposite
  
  @6
  Charles Grant
  wall was an oil landscape, framed in scrolled dark 
  wood, highlights faintly glittering. Beneath the 
  painting was a king-size bed with a brass headboard 
  and solid wood footboard. Beside the bed was a 
  nightstand, with a stuffed pink alligator coiled 
  around a stubby pewter lamp and a French provin­
  cial telephone.
  The telephone rang.
  A long-fingered hand reached out from beneath 
  the quilt, grabbed the receiver after several clumsy 
  attempts, and pulled it back under the covers.
  "This had better be good."
  "it is. He's coming,”
  "When?”
  "Probably tomorrow.”
  "Goody. Can 1 go back to sleep now?"
  "But— ”
  The hand reappeared, dropped the receiver onto 
  its cradle,
  and vanished again.
  Hunger.
  There was nothing else but the hunger.
  
  The river was dark, a rippling reflection of the clouds 
  that sat motionless over the city. There was no traffic 
  on the water, no sign of movement on the opposite 
  bank or the inhabited hills that rose behind it.
  Although the air wasn't cold, it still felt like snow.
  Richard shifted uncomfortably.
  He sat on a bench facing the embankment, hands 
  deep in his topcoat pockets, an occasional gust sift­
  ing hair into his eyes. He had arrived in Chattanooga 
  just before noon, checked into a third-floor room at 
  the Read House, and waited for someone to make 
  contact.
  No one had.
  There had been no message for him at the desk, 
  none while he ate a late lunch in the hotel restau­
  rant; none when he returned to the room to pace 
  and grow impatient. Fay still wasn't home, and that 
  didn't help his already fraying temper. He had been 
  seconds shy of placing an angry call to Chesney 
  when a bellman delivered an envelope.
  The folded cream paper inside said nothing more 
  than aquarium park and the bellman hadn’t a clue
  67
  
  6 8
  Charles Grant
  who had brought it; it had been left at the front desk, 
  that's all he knew..
  The park on the river was more a plaza than a 
  park, with paving stones, a few benches, young trees 
  barely tall enough to be worthy of the name. No one 
  had been there when he had arrived, and he was the 
  only one here now. On his left, the Tennessee 
  Aquarium rose in contemporary design and dark 
  brick, the only windows on the ground floor, where 
  the entrance and gift shop were.
  He shifted again, and tucked his chin into his 
  coat.
  He had been here over an hour— it was just past 
  four-thirty— and the only life he had seen was a 
  group of schoolchildren heading noisily inside, 
  herded by a pair of young, harried teachers. A short 
  while later, he heard traffic slowly building behind 
  him on Broad Street, a wide four-lane boulevard that 
  cut through the city’s center, the south end ending 
  at the aquarium park; the north end narrowing and 
  forking as it approached Lookout Mountain.
  Ten minutes, he thought sourly; I'll give them ten 
  minutes.
  Excited voices turned his head. The kids were 
  finally leaving, their tour over, and a school bus 
  coughed impatiently at the curb. One child raced 
  away from the others toward the water, bundled in 
  bright colors, mittens dangling from strings on his 
  sleeves.
  "Don't," warned Richard softly as the child wad­
  dled past him.
  The little boy stopped, tilted his head, and 
  grinned. "Fish," he declared, pointing at the aquar­
  ium. His cheeks and the tip of his nose were already 
  red.
  "Right.”
  
  WATCHER
  6 9
  "Fish," the boy said, pointing now at the river.
  Richard shook his head. "Nope. Not today."
  At that moment one of the teachers rushed up 
  and scooped the child into her arms. Flustered, face 
  drawn with anxiety, she scolded the boy softly for 
  leaving the class and, in the same breath, thanked 
  Richard for stopping him.
  "No problem,” he said with a smile. "He wants to 
  learn, that's all."
  "Fish!" the boy yelled happily as he was carried 
  away. "No fish!"
  Suddenly Richard felt very old indeed.
  But not so old that he didn't hear the footfall 
  behind him. He straightened just as a woman came 
  around the bench and sat on the far end. She wore a 
  long emerald coat and matching scarf, obviously 
  chosen to set off her dark-red hair cut short and 
  brushed back over her ears. Black gloves, black 
  shoes, black purse on a thick strap over her right 
  shoulder He guessed her to be in her early thirties.
  "Sorry I'm late,” she said without looking at him. 
  Her voice was soft, and her accent clearly marked 
  her as from Tennessee. "I got tied up.”
  He said nothing.
  She did look then, mild doubt in her expression. 
  "Oh, God, you are Richard, aren't you?”
  "What if I’m not?”
  "Then I've just made a complete ass of myself."
  He smiled crookedly, tempted to deny it just to 
  see her blush, then nodded before saying, "All this is 
  a bit melodramatic, isn't it? It would have been 
  warmer in the hotel. And a whole lot less public."
  Unconcerned, she shrugged and looked at the sky, 
  at the river. "People meet here all the time. No big 
  deal. It's not like the CIA is watching us, you know.” 
  She slipped a hand inside her coat, pulled out a large
  
  70
  Charles Grant
  manila envelope sealed with clear tape and dropped 
  it on the bench between them. "Here’s some stuff in 
  here you should look at soon as you can." As he 
  reached for it, she added, "Copies, of course. Police 
  reports, the Medical Examiner, stuff like that. A few 
  of my own notes, just to get you started."
  He didn't open it. Instead, he folded it in half and 
  jammed it into his pocket. "How’d you get this?”
  She shrugged again. "That's easy. I’m a cop.’’
  With every assignment large or small came a local 
  contact, someone paid to bring him information, to 
  open doors where necessary, and to forget he ever 
  existed when he finally left town. They were usually 
  told he was Government, nothing else, and seldom 
  tried to mine him for more; those few who did were 
  easily, gently thwarted. When he was gone, however, 
  they were watched by others, just in case the money 
  they received wasn’t enough of a guarantee.
  That had only happened once.
  The contact hadn't survived.
  Neither had any of the contacts been Garou. The 
  Warders had decided that might pose more prob­
  lems than they were worth. It was bad enough they 
  had to hunt one of their own down; asking one to 
  help a Strider was asking for trouble.
  Nor had a contact ever before been as intimately 
  knowledgeable with the cases at hand as Detective 
  Sergeant Joanne Minster.
  Another first.
  Richard wasn't at all sure he liked it.
  Police, the best police, had unspoken loyalties 
  beyond the reach of a lucrative, extracurricular job. 
  They also tended to ask too many questions. The 
  right questions. The questions he would not be able
  
  WATCHER
  71
  to answer without lying. And lies had to be kept 
  track of, had to be covered with virtually every word 
  he said.
  He wondered, then, as he looked at her, and lik­
  ing what he saw, if she actually knew.
  "If you're going to stare," she said softly, slowly 
  turning her face toward him, "do it so people will 
  think you're either getting ready to pop the question, 
  or that you're just smitten with my incredible earthy 
  beauty."
  A heartbeat later she grinned.
  He couldn’t help it; he laughed and shook his 
  head in apology.
  When she rose, he stood with her, and they 
  headed for the street, her arm tucked around his.
  It felt good, her closeness; it felt natural.
  And that, too, disturbed him.
  He was used to being alone, that was his nature. 
  Lately, however, alone had begun to feel too damn 
  much like lonely.
  The city had gone dark except for the streetlamps, 
  and a few lighted offices and the large red letters atop 
  the Chubb Building far to his left. He couldn't see the 
  clouds, but he could feel them, waiting. An automo­
  bile passed, tires sounding wet on the tarmac; it was 
  the only one he could see in any direction. 
  Chattanooga was not, he realized, a city whose down­
  town held much life beyond ordinary business hours, 
  despite the obvious attempts at urban revitalization.
  "When's your next shift?" he asked as they walked 
  toward the hotel, several blocks away.
  "Don’t have one. I’m on administrative leave."
  He frowned. "Meaning?"
  He felt her stiffen slightly. "Meaning, until I .A. fin­
  ishes their investigation.” She glanced up at him. 
  "That's Internal Affairs."
  
  72
  Charles Grant
  It was his turn to stiffen, but she tugged lightly on 
  his arm, waving her free hand vaguely toward the 
  street.
  "It’s all right, they're not following me, it's nothing 
  like that. Corruption or anything, I mean." A deep 
  breath that exhaled quietly. The grip on his arm 
  didn't change. "There was a shooting over at East 
  Bridge last weekend— that's a mall, by the way— and 
  I was involved. A daylight robbery attempt. The guy's 
  dead." She hesitated. "I was the shooter."
  He heard no remorse in her tone, nor did he 
  sense any.
  "The trouble is, he was black, and I'm not."
  “So . .
  "So it was either desk duty and a whole bunch of 
  stupid papers, or leave until everything's sorted out 
  and the protests calm down a bit. I took the leave."
  They were the only ones on the street.
  No cars, no buses; it might as well have been 
  midnight.
  A faint mist began to fall, and it felt as if they 
  were walking through fog.
  Another block, and there were curbside trees, 
  their branches bare, skeleton shadows cast across 
  the damp pavement. Treed islands in the center 
  of the street as well, now, and in the distance the 
  faint sound of an ambulance wailing.
  "Here's the thing," she said, fumbling in her purse 
  with her left hand. "Check those reports out tonight. 
  I assume you'll know what you're reading."
  "Pretty much," he answered, taking a business 
  card from her. On the back she had written what he 
  gathered was her home telephone number.
  "I'll meet you tomorrow for breakfast,” she con­
  tinued. "If you have any questions, ask them then. 
  Then .. . whatever you need me for."
  
  WATCHER
  73
  "We can't talk tonight?’’
  "Is there a rush?"
  The last killing had been a fortnight ago, accord­
  ing to the sketchy information Chesney had given 
  him. Anything fresh would have been gone days ago.
  He shook his head.
  "Good. Because I have a date, and i’ll be damned 
  if I’m going to stand him up."
  The Read House was on the corner, a narrow 
  canopy stretching from its brick front to the curb. 
  There was no doorman, only a trio of empty news­
  paper machines. Long windows stretched left and 
  right away from the glass-door entrance— to the 
  right, they displayed clothing for the half-dozen 
  expensive shops inside; to the left he could see small 
  restaurant/bar tables, empty of patrons, in a section 
  cut off from the rest of the room by a latticework wall.
  Across the boulevard someone laughed drunk­
  enly, and someone scolded.
  They stood for a moment beneath the canopy, 
  backs to a sudden wind, before she released his arm 
  and looked up at him, one eye partially closed. 
  Examining him, the ghost of a smile at her lips .
  She wants to ask, he thought, but she probably 
  won’t. Not tonight.
  "Nine o’clock," she said abruptly, turned, and 
  walked across the street without checking for traffic, 
  toward a large and largely empty parking lot on the 
  opposite corner. He watched until she let herself 
  into a small sedan and drove away. Then he went 
  inside, took the elevator to his floor, and stood for a 
  second in front of his door, searching his pockets for 
  the electronic key.
  He hated those things.
  They didn’t seem real, just stiff cardboard with 
  holes punched in them.
  
  7 4
  Charles Grant
  When he found it, he let himself in, softly kicked 
  the door closed behind him, and flicked the wall 
  switch on as he shrugged off his coat. A table lamp 
  was the only illumination, but he didn't need any­
  more.
  One look told him someone had been here while 
  he'd been gone.
  It wasn't the maid.
  The room had been searched.
  
  1 ®
  The room had once been two, the center of the 
  connecting wall replaced by an archway that accen­
  tuated the high plaster ceiling and pale floral wall­
  paper. Opposite the door was a three-cushion couch 
  fronted by a glass-top cocktail table and flanked by 
  end tables on which stood two tall brass lamps; a 
  high window behind the couch overlooked Broad 
  Street, hidden now by thick drapes. To the right was 
  a closet and an inset wet bar backed by a mirror; to 
  his left, a cherry-wood table with three matching 
  padded chairs set around it.
  Richard dropped the coat onto the nearest chair 
  and moved toward the arch.
  Beyond was a king-size bed with two low night- 
  stands, a window behind it. Facing the footboard 
  was a tall cabinet of scrolled walnut— behind its 
  upper doors was a television, with three drawers set 
  below it. In the far wall was another closet, and the 
  bathroom door.
  The sitting-room lamp didn't quite reach that far; 
  all he could see was the near side of the bed. The 
  rest were shapes and shadows.
  75
  
  76
  Charles Grant
  And a scent.
  Before he had left the hotel for the park, he had 
  made sure he'd spoken to the maid who had cleaned 
  his room, a flimsy excuse about m isplacing an 
  important paper. They hadn’t chatted long, but it 
  was long enough for him to learn her scent.
  This wasn't it.
  His left hand closed into a loose fist.
  He swallowed several times and tightened his jaw 
  to keep his temper from overriding his good sense.
  It was a struggle he wasn't so sure he wanted to 
  win.
  What he wanted to do was let the Garou take him, 
  take the form and let him rip the place apart; what he 
  had to do was find the one who had invaded his place. 
  And that sparked his anger further, because he knew 
  he wouldn't be able to do it here. As he prowled, nos­
  trils flared, gaze searching slowly, he realized that 
  whoever it had been, had been extraordinarily careful.
  Nothing had been disturbed except a drawer not 
  quite closed all the way, a pen not quite in the same 
  position beside the bed s telephone.
  He growled quietly.
  Scent on his clothes in the drawer, scent on his 
  clothes in the bedroom closet.
  His left hand tightened.
  Scent in the bathroom.
  It hadn't been the cop, the woman. Although she 
  hadn't worn perfume, he could still recall the clear 
  scent of her shower-fresh and warm despite the 
  winter air. He would know it anywhere. And this 
  wasn't it.
  W hen he returned to the sitting room, he 
  switched off the lamp and forced himself to sit on 
  the couch, his eyes narrowed, his breathing deliber­
  ately slow.
  
  WATCHER
  77
  This wasn’t the work of the Warders; they knew 
  better. 
  .
  It couldn’t have been the rogue, because it— he or 
  she— didn't, couldn’t, know he was here. Neither 
  would it have been so cautious.
  His lungs filled and emptied.
  Muted voices in the corridor rose and faded.
  The dark took on weight and made his lungs work 
  harder.
  Somebody else knew, and his frustration grew when 
  he couldn't focus his concentration on anything but 
  the invading scent that threatened to overwhelm him.
  Out, he decided then; he had to get out.
  Five minutes later he was on the deserted street 
  behind the hotel, the air much colder, moisture on 
  the tarmac slowly turning to wafer ice. He crossed 
  over and walked on, more rapidly now, lights from a 
  motel across the way blurred as the mist thickened 
  into a light rain.
  His shadow kept him company.
  A few cars passed, none of them slowing down.
  Faster still, nearly running, as he made his way 
  under the interstate overpass, listening to the traffic 
  above him fleeing to the suburbs here and in 
  Georgia, not five minutes away.
  Eventually, the land rose to a low, shapeless hill 
  on his right, a few houses at its base, nothing but 
  trees above that he could see.
  Faster, trotting, ignoring the rain, the slippery 
  pavement, swerving abruptly into a narrow street 
  without illumination save from a porch-light or two.
  His shadow changed.
  There was no agony in the transformation, and at 
  his level, no need to discard his clothing.
  What he wore merged; what he was, was human 
  no more, although it still ran on two legs.
  
  Charles Grant
  A dog howied hysterically
  A door slammed.
  He ducked into a wooded lot and let his new 
  vision take him through to the hillside, into the trees 
  and up, the rain comfortably cool on black-and- 
  silver fur, the wind taking the scent of him away from 
  the now-invisible houses.
  But not away from the creatures whose territory 
  he passed through— dark things stirred and froze at 
  his passing, or bolted from beneath the brush; nest­
  ing birds called out softly, a few taking wing, most 
  simply trembling; a rabbit darted across a small 
  clearing, zigzagging, soundless.
  It wasn't fast enough.
  In a lunging stride, the Strider caught it, and its 
  fangs gleamed wetly despite the dark as they tore 
  into the creature’s neck.
  Soundless.
  Except for the faint raindrop splash of blood on 
  the ground's dead leaves.
  Farther up and farther west he caught another, 
  ate, drank, and settled easily on his haunches, bob­
  bing his great head as he tested the air. He was 
  alone. Except for a few nervous birds nearby, he 
  could sense no warm blood, and his hunger sub­
  sided, the bloodlust stirred by his temper finally 
  gone. Or at least satisfied for the moment.
  Slowly he rose to his full height, grunted, and made 
  his way to the top of the hill. A small clearing sat just 
  below the crown, an irregular oval charred by a sum­
  mer fire. It was on the back slope, giving him a fairly 
  unobstructed view of the land beyond the city, at least 
  in this direction. It surprised him to see no more than 
  a handful of lights below. Although most of the trees 
  appeared to be pine, he could see, now, how isolated 
  Chattanooga really was in spite of its urban sprawl.
  
  WATCHER
  79
  If the rogue he was after was native to the area, 
  finding it was going to be much more difficult than 
  he'd imagined. Too many hills, too many mountains, 
  too much untended, uninhabited woodland.
  He turned away, flexed his legs, and began to run 
  again, easily this time, lopping up to the crown and 
  down the other side, branches slapping lightly 
  against his shoulders and sides, at one point slip­
  ping on the increasingly slippery ground and nearly 
  falling.
  A quick laugh at himself as he regained his bal­
  ance, exhilarating in the freedom he felt.
  He ran for the joy of it until he felt his limbs tir­
  ing, and made his way slowly back to level ground.
  Shifting on the way.
  Thinking about the rogue and relishing the chal­
  lenge.
  Whatever side issues there were, no matter what 
  the Warders had said, the hunt would be for the 
  rogue— everything else would have to wait.
  He grinned; he laughed aloud; he felt better than 
  he had in months, and only vaguely noticed the 
  increased activity at the Read House as he made his 
  way quickly to his room. Once there, he changed 
  into dry clothes— dark shirt and jeans, leaving his 
  feet bare— and sat at the table, Chesney’s envelope 
  and Minster’s folder spread before him.
  He knew what would be in the Warder's package—  
  instructions to take care, do not bring attention to 
  yourself, do not (this time) kill the rogue if you can 
  help it, be as swift and silent as you can. There would 
  also be money to take care of his incidentals; the 
  room and its charges would be taken care of by the 
  company he supposedly worked for.
  He was in too good a humor to have to read what 
  he already knew.
  
  8 0
  Charles Grant
  He opened the folder instead, ignoring the fading 
  scent of the room's intruder. By morning it would be 
  gone, but he wouldn't forget it.
  Two hours later he slumped back and rubbed his 
  eyes with the backs of his hands.
  “Damn," he whispered.
  From the newspaper clippings the detective had 
  also included, he saw that most of the details in 
  these reports hadn’t made it into the media, other­
  wise the story would have made the national news. 
  The last death, Trish McCormick’s, was still a front­
  page topic, however, partly because of the woman’s 
  evident beauty, and partly because it had happened 
  only last week. What the clippings didn't tell their 
  readers was how the bodies were when they were 
  discovered.
  "Mauled" was too mild a term.
  “Partially consum ed” was the M.E.'s verdict, 
  something Richard would have guessed anyway.
  The second victim had been found in the river, 
  snagged in the branches of a fallen tree only a few 
  hundred yards north of the aquarium; what was left 
  of the third had been found stuffed in a Dumpster 
  out of the valley, behind an upscale mall north of 
  the city.
  The first victim, Kyle Gellman, had only been 
  attacked. Richard assumed the reason no feeding 
  had taken place was because the man had been 
  found too soon.
  From what he could see, the police investigation 
  had changed its focus from a possible hum an 
  maniac to the more likely solution of some kind of 
  animal, possibly a panther drifted up from Florida 
  once the second victim's condition had been exam­
  ined. Yet here and there, he could see doubt among 
  the investigating officers assigned to the hastily
  
  WATCHER
  81
  assembled task force. Cannibalism, apparently, was 
  not being ruled out.
  He groaned aloud to release some tension, 
  rubbed his face again, and stood, stretching until he 
  felt that his joints threatened to pop. Bed, he 
  ordered; take some rest, talk to Minster tomorrow 
  and have a look around the m ountain where 
  Gellman and McCormick were killed. And probably 
  the second victim, a man, had been as well. He had. 
  a feeling the woman found behind the mall was an 
  aberration in the pattern.
  The doorknob rattled.
  Richard whirled, breath held, until it rattled again.
  Two strides took him to the peephole, through 
  which he saw a short man with astoundingly thick 
  long white hair, glaring at his electronic key. Richard 
  opened the door, and the man jumped back, one 
  hand at his chest.
  "Wrong room," Richard said with a polite smile.
  The man closed his eyes briefly and sighed. He 
  held up the key and snarled at it. "I hate these 
  things. They never remind you what your number is." 
  He glanced at the door’s brass numbers, looked to 
  his left, and shrugged. "Damn, there is it. Sorry to 
  have bothered you."
  "No problem," Richard said, aware now of a con­
  stant noise in the background. People; lots of peo­
  ple.
  The floor was shaped like a capital I. His room 
  was at the base, just to the right of the corridor's 
  intersection. The white-haired man's room was at 
  the east end of the base, the only other room on this 
  side, and it had double doors, the sign of a large 
  suite.
  Richard frowned as he listened. It was late, it was 
  Thursday, so what was going on?
  
  8 2
  Charles Grant
  The man had his door open now, and nudged a 
  suitcase over the threshold with one foot. “You part 
  of the convention?" he asked as he stepped inside.
  "Convention?"
  The man raised his eyebrows. "You’re not, I guess. 
  Odd. They usually try to keep the guests all here in 
  one place." He smiled. "So they can keep track of 
  them, I reckon."
  The door began to close.
  "Excuse m e,” Richard said, raising his voice. 
  "What convention?"
  "Hope you don't like a good night's sleep," the 
  man said, laughing silently. "By dinnertime tomor­
  row, there'll be a couple of thousand of them crawl­
  ing all over the place. They take over the whole 
  building until Sunday. Noisy as hell, too. 1 love it."
  The door closed.
  Richard stared for a moment before backing into 
  his room. He turned over the bolt, set the chain 
  latch, and scratched idly at his cheek as he headed 
  for the bedroom.
  A convention.
  Two thousand people.
  His first reaction was to swear at Chesney for 
  being such a fool; his second was a slow, careful 
  smile.
  Although there would undoubtedly be some 
  inconvenience, this could very well work to his 
  advantage: it was easier to disappear in a crowd of 
  businessmen and their wives, than in a mostly 
  empty building.
  Besides, how bad could it be?
  
  The temperature rose, but the rain didn’t stop. It fel! 
  steadily on the back of a slow-moving wind, easing 
  every so often to a drizzle, and every so often 
  strengthening to a downpour that turned the traffic 
  to a blur and sent pedestrians scurrying for the near­
  est doorway. Mist rose like steam from the gutters. 
  Gusts slammed under the restaurant’s awnings and 
  caused the large windows that made up most of its 
  south wall to shimmy.
  The glass was cold when Richard touched it with 
  a finger.
  He sat alone in a booth, watching the entrance, 
  waiting for loanne Minster, a cup of coffee cradled 
  between his palms. She had called his room shortly 
  after nine, apologizing that department business 
  would keep her away until noon, perhaps a little later. 
  Although he was anxious to get started, he hadn't 
  really minded when he checked outside and saw that 
  the weather had gotten worse. There would be no 
  spoors to pick up, not the way things were now.
  On the other hand, that meant one more day for 
  the rogue to remain free.
  83
  
  8 4
  Charles Grant
  He had used the extra time to go over the reports 
  once more, and the more he read, the more he won­
  dered exactly what he was missing. Ordinarily, a 
  rogue was increasingly affected by his madness. His 
  movement patterns became erratic, his attacks more 
  bold and vicious, and he seldom bothered to try to 
  hide his tracks.
  And the freefall into madness seldom took more 
  than a couple of months.
  This one was different.
  Once a month since late October, give or take a 
  few days, someone had died.
  There was no telling whether or not any of the vic­
  tims had been stalked; none of the interviews with 
  family and friends indicated it, but that didn't mean 
  much. Rogue or not, Garou weren't that careless 
  when it came to the hunt.
  And as far as the police were concerned, there 
  were no useable tracks, either animal or human.
  He wished he could talk to Fay. She had always 
  been able to cut through the inconsequential details 
  without batting an eye, steering him away from the 
  irrelevant details that threatened to clutter up his 
  mind. He knew he would get there sooner or later; 
  Fay had the knack of making it sooner.
  He had already tried calling half a dozen times, 
  but hadn’t been able to reach her. Concern made 
  him call another number which routed through sev­
  eral area codes until he was able to speak to some­
  one who could give a message to |ohn Chesney. 
  Every other time he had taken this step, the Warder 
  had gotten back to him within the hour.
  Chesney didn't call, and he didn’t like the sudden 
  feeling that he had been thrust into the dark, and no 
  one had any intention of giving him some light.
  Jesus, he thought then, and squeezed his eyes
  
  WATCHES
  8 5
  shut, deliberately tightly enough to spark mild pain, 
  lesus, do you think you could get a little more melo­
  dramatic, you idiot?
  He shook his head slightly and glanced outside, 
  wincing in sympathy when he saw a woman racing 
  down the street after her umbrella. By the time she 
  reached it, he thought, she might as well not bother.
  Another check of the entrance made him look at 
  his watch; it was just past one, and no sign yet of the 
  detective.
  What he did see was a steady parade of people he 
  imagined were checking in for this convention. They 
  didn't, however, appear to business types at all. 
  Most seemed to be young, almost all in clothes that 
  ran from the carefully casual to the outright grungy. 
  Suitcases and backpacks bulged, bellmen's carts 
  were loaded with cartons and packages, and almost 
  all of them appeared to know everyone else.
  The restaurant began to fill.
  It was a long, pleasant room, with booths along 
  the window wall, tables everywhere else. A small bar 
  carved its own niche midway toward the back, and 
  beyond it he could see a pair of chefs working over a 
  steaming grill. Two waitresses and a waiter floated 
  around the tables, sidestepping boisterous reunions 
  with an ease and unconcern that made him suspect 
  they had been through all this many times before. 
  One of them stopped by to refill his cup, but slipped 
  away before he could ask any questions.
  Several times couples or groups drifted past, star­
  ing pointedly, clearly hoping he would take the 
  hint— a single man taking up a large booth, while 
  they had to scrounge for an extra chair for a smaller 
  table.
  Finally, one man, in a rumpled safari jacket and 
  stone-washed jeans, with a gray-shot beard that
  
  8 6
  Charles G rant
  should have been trimmed six months ago, stood 
  over him, glaring, until he looked up.
  "Yes?” he said mildly.
  The man didn't answer, just an irritated wave 
  toward the empty seat.
  "I'm expecting someone," Richard explained, still 
  smiling.
  Again the man didn’t answer; his frown did it for 
  him, and Richard had had enough. He picked up his 
  cup, glanced out the window, looked back at the 
  man and stared.
  Just. . . stared.
  . . . green fire . . .
  The man blinked in confusion several times, 
  opened his mouth, and hastily backed away. When 
  he tried to stammer an apology, Richard deliberately 
  turned his head toward the window, feeling the 
  momentary fear and confusion, and scolding him­
  self. The man had done nothing but be a little rude; 
  he didn't deserve the fright.
  Voices were raised, laughter at the weather which, 
  he gathered, seemed to be a running joke around 
  here this time of year.
  A minute later the restaurant fell abruptly silent, 
  one of those curious moments when all conversa­
  tion halted for no particular reason.
  He looked at the street and realized that the wind 
  and rain had finally stopped, but the sky had dark­
  ened. Before he could take a breath, an enormous 
  peal of thunder exploded over the hotel, rattling the 
  panes, making everyone jump. The lights flickered, 
  died, and came on again.
  A heartbeat more of silence, then everyone began 
  to talk at once, nervously and nervously laughing. 
  Somewhere behind him, in a small area in front set 
  off by a latticework-and-glass wall, a baby cried.
  
  WATCHER
  8 7
  "That'll get the blood running," said loanne 
  Minster, sliding into the booth opposite him.
  Richard started, and she grinned as she yanked a 
  scarf from her head and fluffed at her damp hair. She 
  wore a fleece-lined denim jacket over a baggy rust 
  sweater, and a tiny gold ankh hung from a fine gold 
  chain around her neck.
  "You eat yet?"
  He nodded at his cup. "lust coffee."
  "Good. I’m starving.” She twisted around to get a 
  waitress’ attention, turned back when she did, and 
  said, "Sorry I'm late. Department stuff, like I said. It's 
  a pain in the butt, but I don’t have a lot to say about 
  my life these days."
  He said nothing until after the waitress, polite but 
  harried, had taken their lunch order. "I want to talk 
  to that girl. Polly Logan."
  loanne lifted a sculpted eyebrow. "You sure? I 
  mean, that was months ago." She grabbed a small 
  notepad from a black shoulder bag, flipped it open, 
  and thumbed through the pages. "Seems to me that 
  Hendean guy, Leon, at the hang-gliding place, would 
  be better. It was only last week, you know?"
  "He didn't see anything," Richard reminded her.
  "Neither did the girl."
  ''Maybe."
  He could tell she was unsettled, and it wasn't the 
  weather. Long fingers darted over her food when it 
  arrived, and she tried not to stare at him when she 
  thought he w asn't looking. Departm ent stuff, 
  he thought; sure, right. She had probably spent the 
  morning trying to find out if he was who she’d been 
  told he was.
  She hadn’t learned a thing, and that must have 
  raised a red flag or two.
  Then she pointed at his plate, at the barely brown
  
  8 8
  Charles Grant
  chopped sirloin, nothing else, not even greens. “You 
  really ought to try cooked food now and then. What 
  the hell are you going to get from that?"
  "Nourishment," he answered dryly.
  She laughed. "Why don't you just eat it raw?"
  "Too hard to catch." 
  -
  She laughed again, silently this time, and he 
  decided there was a very good chance he could grow 
  to like this woman. She was clearly suspicious of 
  him, or of what he appeared to represent, but that 
  didn't seem to get in the way of what had to be 
  done. She was no doubt convinced she would figure 
  it out before long. With or without his help.
  Besides, if he was going to be honest, aside from 
  her obvious intelligence, she wasn't all that hard on 
  the eyes, either.
  He grinned to himself then, quickly bent his head 
  so the grin wouldn't show, thinking that a remark 
  like that wouldn't earn him any points with a woman 
  like her.
  As he ate, she explained that her orders were sim­
  ple: she was to assist him in any way possible, 
  smooth things over with bruised egos who might 
  think he was trying to steal thunder and credit, and 
  make sure he didn't step on too many toes. “A snap," 
  she said wryly. "I can do it in my sleep."
  Not once did she ask for an explanation of his 
  presence. By her tone, she obviously believed he 
  would perform the courtesy without having to be 
  prodded.
  Then she waved a fork at the room and filled him 
  in on the purpose of the convention: writers and 
  readers of science fiction and fantasy from all over 
  the South, she told him, with a sprinkling from other 
  parts of the country. They filled the place to capacity 
  once a year, listened to panels, watched movies,
  
  WATCHER
  8 9
  spent tons of money here and elsewhere in town, 
  wore funny clothes at night, got drunk, got laid, and 
  went home Sunday afternoon.
  The police were usually around, but there was sel­
  dom any trouble. The convention had its own secur­
  ity, and handled its own problems pretty well.
  This year, evidently, the emphasis was going to be 
  on costumes, so he shouldn't be surprised to see TV 
  and movie characters walking around all day.
  'You wouldn't know it to look at them," she said, 
  "but most of them, the rest of the year, actually have 
  a life.”
  "More power to them," he muttered, and signaled 
  for the check.
  "Hey," she said, "did I say something wrong?"
  He shook his head as he stood. But the afternoon 
  had grown noticeably brighter while they’d had their 
  lunch, and he didn’t want to waste any more time. 
  As long as these people didn't get in his way, he 
  really didn't care what they did or what they wore.
  Frowning at his change of mood, she took him to 
  the front entrance, where her car waited in a no park­
  ing zone. "Privilege," she explained blithely, sliding 
  in behind the wheel, and took off before he was set­
  tled.
  They headed south, away from the hotel, not 
  speaking until the city’s center had been replaced by 
  low, whitewashed warehouses, bars, and a handful 
  of restaurants with garish neon signs that at night 
  probably looked inviting, but in daylight it only 
  underscored their drab exteriors.
  A mile or so later, she pulled sharply into the 
  nearly deserted parking lot of a large supermarket, 
  and stopped without cutting the engine. There were 
  three other cars, a few forlorn shopping carts, and 
  scraps and pages of newspaper fluttering wetly on
  
  9 0
  Charles Grant
  the tarmac. Lookout Mountain rose starkly, sharply, 
  directly ahead. Bare trees exposed a handful of small 
  houses on the lower slope, and the color of pine 
  only added to the bleak northern face.
  The top was hidden in clouds.
  Richard leaned forward and looked up to where 
  the slope abruptly became vertical. "People live up 
  there?"
  "Nice town,” she answered defensively. "Only the 
  tourists make noise." She nodded at the mountain. 
  "It isn’t fat, but it stretches back a ways. McCormick, 
  last week, was found around there, to the right. You 
  can't see it from here. It’s a couple of miles along.” 
  W ithout warning, she pulled out of the lot. A 
  block later the road forked beneath a hanging traffic 
  light. "The back way," she told him, pointing to the 
  right. "We're going up the easy way.’’
  Five m inutes after the announcem ent, he 
  doubted there even was an easy way up.
  The road was narrow and steep, winding sharply 
  around the contours of the slope, and she took it at 
  speed. On the right a steep bank, wooded, with a 
  glimpse of an occasional house or garage; on the 
  left, a low guard rail that wouldn't, he thought 
  grimly, stop a scooter from breaking through and 
  plummeting to the bottom. They were only halfway 
  up, and already he didn’t like how small the build­
  ings down there looked.
  "Heights get to you?" she asked, taking a right- 
  hand curve easily, and too fast.
  He shook his head. "Nope. Can't fly, that's all.” 
  "Life’s too short," was all she said as the curve 
  veered left around an outcropping of bare rock.
  There had been no other traffic since they had left 
  the city behind. The few homes he could see were 
  dark, more than a few were boarded up. A bulge of
  
  WATCHER
  91
  thin fog left the woods here and there, and a con­
  stant drizzle kept the road gleaming.
  Another huge boulder swung them left again, and 
  for a second all he could see was the valley between 
  the boles of spindly trees.
  Then Joanne said, "Oh, shit.”
  The pickup was black, its windshield tinted too 
  dark to show the driver.
  It moved slowly, but it was in the wrong lane.
  Richard braced one hand on the dashboard as 
  Joanne hit the horn, then touched the brakes and 
  yanked on the wheel to take them into the outside 
  lane.
  Without any hesitation, the pickup swerved over 
  at the same time, glancing off the guard rail before 
  centering on the lane.
  "Jesus!" she yelled, braked and yanked the wheel 
  again, but this time the tires finally lost their trac­
  tion.
  
  Richard watched helplessly as the world spun by in 
  terrifying slow motion— trees, sky, trees again, the 
  grinning grill of the pickup, and finally the pocked 
  face of the boulder as Joanne, somehow, used the 
  car's skid to take them onto the narrow verge on the 
  right where they jounced over a spindly bush before 
  shuddering to a halt, not two feet shy of a thick- 
  bored pine.
  The truck didn't stop.
  For a long time nothing moved, and the only 
  sound was the slow ticking of cooling metal.
  Then Joanne slammed herself back in her seat 
  and punched the steering wheel twice, and twice 
  again. "Son of a bitch.” A snarl, and she kicked open 
  the door, jumped out and screamed, "Son of a god­
  damn bitch!" at the empty road. She stamped a foot 
  on the tarmac, kicked viciously at a pebble, and spun 
  in a tight circle, punching the air with her left hand 
  before, red-faced and panting, she leaned over and 
  looked in the car. "You okay?"
  He turned his head slowly. “1 told you . ..  1 can t
  fly.’’ 
  ’
  92
  
  WATCHER
  9 3
  "Bastard," she muttered, glaring down the moun­
  tain. "Goddamn blind bastard.”
  Richard opened his own door and, after a 
  moment's pause to be sure he wouldn’t fall, made 
  his way around the rear bumper and through what 
  was left of the bush, his legs trembling slightly, his 
  vision preternaturally clear. The drizzle felt good on 
  his face, and he closed his eyes briefly and licked his 
  suddenly dry lips. His stomach lurched once; a chill 
  touched the back of his neck.
  For him, for his kind, dying wasn’t easy, but once 
  over that guard rail, it would have been.
  He looked at joanne and shook his head in admi­
  ration. "You are one hell of a driver, Detective."
  With a vague it-was-nothing gesture she sagged 
  abruptly against the front fender. 'Tell you the truth, 
  1 don't feel like it right now.” A steady hand passed 
  over her face and back through her hair. "But 
  thanks."
  He squinted against a sudden, damp breeze and 
  hunched his shoulders. There were highlights in the 
  valley as sunlight broke through small gaps in the 
  scudding clouds. Another hour, he thought, and 
  there'd be no trace of the storm.
  He cleared his throat; it felt packed with cotton. 
  "Could you see him?"
  "The driver?" She narrowed her eyes in concentra­
  tion. "No. Probably some old fart, or some drunk." 
  She spat dryly. "Stupid bastard."
  He walked around the jut of the boulder, using 
  the damp stone to keep his balance; the road was 
  empty, and he could hear no engine either 
  approaching or fading. When he returned, she was 
  on the edge of the front seat, hands draped over her 
  knees, staring at the road.
  He stood in front of her, waiting until she looked
  
  9 4
  Charles Grant
  up. "Bastard, yes,” he told her. "Stupid, no.” He 
  jerked a thumb toward the spot where he had first 
  seen the truck'. "He was waiting there for us, Jo. 
  When we came around the bend, he didn't move 
  until he was sure.”
  She looked at him in confusion, grabbed the top 
  of the door and hauled herself to her feet. "Are you 
  sure?"
  He walked over to the guard rail where the truck 
  had ricocheted off, heard her follow as he crouched 
  and pushed at the dirt and leaves beneath it.
  "What?"
  "Damn,” he whispered, and straightened, holding 
  up a jagged square of glass. "1 saw something as we 
  came up, but it happened too fast.” He dropped it 
  into her open palm. "It’s not a headlight, it’s part of 
  a mirror. He could see us coming, but we couldn’t 
  see him.”
  "From up there?" She looked doubtful.
  "It doesn't take much. Just enough to know we 
  were what he wanted." He sniffed, and wiped his 
  mouth with the back of his hand. "When he hit the 
  rail, it was no accident. He wanted that mirror gone."
  She bounced the shard thoughtfully in her hand, 
  then tucked it into her jeans pocket. A nod got them 
  back into the car, and after a deep breath, she 
  turned on the engine, took another deep breath, and 
  pulled out onto the road
  "What you’re saying is, he had to know we were 
  coming,” she said quietly.
  He nodded.
  "He must have been . ..  he was in the restaurant."
  "Or an accomplice, yes, someone to phone ahead 
  and let this guy know where we would be."
  She drove in silence for the next few minutes, 
  flinching when a line of cars rounded a curve ahead
  
  WATCHER
  9 5
  of them, glancing in the rearview mirror until they 
  were well out of sight. Richard, meanwhile, stared 
  out his window, seeing nothing but drab colors, no 
  shapes at all.
  It could be a trap, the Warders had told him; it 
  was possible someone wanted to put him out of 
  business.
  "Possible" was no longer the operative word.
  "You know,” she said at last, “you haven't been in 
  town all that long. And if nobody knows who you are 
  or why you’re here, who the hell did you piss off?”
  He couldn't answer because he didn't know.
  A final turn, the land flattened, and they were 
  there, in Lookout Mountain. Mostly white houses, 
  most of them clapboard, a few brick and stone; 
  hedges and picket fences, all of it looking a little old, 
  a little weary under the clouds that hung not far 
  above the trees. Here there was still no sunlight.
  "The park,” he said suddenly. "Take me to this 
  park, then get the girl and bring her.”
  The car slowed.
  "You going to tell me why?”
  He heard the anger, and he ignored it. "No."
  Her voice was taut, without emotion: "Whatever 
  you say, you're the boss."
  If I live that long, he thought.
  The lobby of the Read House was two-stories high. 
  Thick, dark, wood pillars rose from an expansive 
  Oriental-style carpet to a gallery above. Around the 
  carpet's perimeter were settings of high-backed 
  chairs and love seats, cocktail tables and end 
  tables. A small glass-door entrance was recessed in 
  the south wall, facing across the lobby an elegant, 
  now-closed restaurant. The west wall held the long
  
  9 6
  Charles Grant
  registration counter, crowded now with lines of con­
  ventioneers checking in; a portion of the east wall 
  was taken up by a pair of brass-door elevators.
  One of them  opened, and M iles Blanchard 
  stepped out.
  He glanced around as if trying to orientate him­
  self, then headed directly for the nearest vacant 
  chair. He sat with a sigh and a smile, lit a cigarette 
  with a wood match, and dropped the match into an 
  already-filled ash tray on the table beside him. He 
  crossed his legs, leaned back, and blew a perfect 
  smoke ring toward the vaulted ceiling.
  Although he wore a dark, pinstripe suit with a 
  muted red club tie, he didn't feel at all out of place. 
  These people were here to have fun, maybe do a lit­
  tle business, and that, he figured, was exactly his 
  own purpose.
  The only annoyance had been his room.
  The hotel was divided into two sections— this, the 
  original nineteenth-century building, and a newer 
  addition beside it, on the other side of the mostly 
  underground parking garage. To get there, he had to 
  go to the fifth floor and use a skywalk to cross over 
  the garage roof. The inconvenience was minor, how­
  ever. Soon enough he’d figure out another way to 
  enter and leave without being seen.
  He already knew which room was Richard Turpin’s.
  Besides, these people were fascinating. Had he 
  not been on assignment, he might well have taken 
  the weekend just to hang around and observe them.
  As it was, on impulse, he had registered himself 
  as a member, the easier to move among the growing 
  crowds without having to answer questions.
  The suit, however, would have to go eventually. 
  Costumes were apparently going to be the order of 
  the day once the convention began, and he had
  
  WATCHER
  97
  already been mistaken for one of the featured guests 
  listed in a program he had been handed when he 
  had signed up, and he didn’t want the attention, no 
  matter how flattering it had been. He didn't want to 
  have to use his kit more than absolutely necessary.
  In fact, he rather enjoyed the face he had chosen 
  today— shading to make it lean, graying brown hair, 
  sideburns, mustache, a blunted goatee that, he 
  decided when he studied his reflection, gave him a 
  subtle, rakish look. Pirate, perhaps, or the Sheriff of 
  Nottingham.
  Movement on his left turned his head slowly.
  A thirty-ish woman took the wingback chair on 
  the other side of the table. Slender, fair skin, high 
  forehead, her cheeks lightly flushed and dusted 
  lightly with freckles. She wore a fawn topcoat 
  opened to expose a dark, silklike blouse and match­
  ing slacks. From a bulging pouch at her waist she 
  took a leather cigarette case, took one out and put it 
  to her lips.
  Blanchard struck a match, leaned over, and lit the 
  cigarette for her.
  She inhaled, blew the smoke out in a rush, and 
  touched a finger to her lips.
  "Well?" he asked pleasantly.
  She shrugged as she studied the tip of the 
  cigarette. "If he’s not dead, which he probably isn’t, 
  he’s going to be looking behind him all the time 
  from now on."
  "Oh, I do hope he’s not dead," he said with mock 
  solemnity. "It would spoil the whole party.”
  Her laugh was more a grunt.
  He sighed his satisfaction— the game had well 
  begun— and grinned. "Love your hair."
  Wanda Strand scowled her disgust. "Oh, please." 
  It was shoulder-length, fair and fine, and at the
  
  9 8
  Charles Grant
  moment damp and frizzy. "If it rains anymore, it’li 
  look like I'm wearing a goddamn helmet.”
  Blanchard crossed his legs. "Where is he now?"
  "Talking to the girl, most likely. If he can get by 
  that old dragon who watches her."
  He nodded. “He can. But he won't learn anything."
  "Are you positive?"
  "What does it matter even if he does?" He blew 
  another smoke ring, and a passing young woman 
  applauded sarcastically. He nodded pleasantly to 
  her and, when she was gone, lowered his voice. 
  "Even with that cop around, he won't live long 
  enough to tell anyone anyway.”
  The woman didn't answer.
  She didn't have to.
  The pillars climbed past the gallery to a vaulted ceil­
  ing, and between them arches of polished paneled 
  wood framed small areas where chairs and tables 
  had been set against low railings with filigree below.
  The rogue sat alone, right above hotel registra­
  tion, and looked down at Blanchard and the woman, 
  finding it almost impossible not to laugh aloud.
  They seemed so earnest, so intent, so incredibly 
  goddamn serious, it was nearly farcical. If they could 
  only see themselves down there, children plotting 
  away in the midst of chaos, smoking like steam 
  engines . ..  he looking pitifully out of place, and she 
  looking as if she’d rather be anyplace else but here.
  It sighed, then placed two fingers to its temples, 
  pressing hard.
  The headache was back, subtle and insistent.
  Its return was unexpected, and the rogue couldn't 
  help a moment of anxiety as its fingers massaged in 
  small circles, slowly, almost absently, less a cure
  
  WATCHER
  9 9
  than a means to pass the time until the throbbing 
  passed.
  If it got too bad, there would have to be a hunt 
  whether he wanted it or not.
  If there was a hunt, there was a fair chance 
  Richard Turpin would succeed.
  Or he would have done, in the past.
  But the Strider had never come up against com­
  petition like this.
  If the stories and rumors were right, the other 
  rogues had been certifiably mad, unable to handle 
  the twin poles of their existence. They had lost touch 
  with Gaia, and with the center of their selves. Killing 
  assuaged the hunger; nothing else mattered, not 
  even the feeding.
  Not this time.
  The hunger was satisfied, but this time there was 
  an additional goal. When it was achieved, the rogue 
  would never have to worry again.
  About anything.
  And Richard Turpin would be dead.
  
  Joanne stood beside her car and glared at the 
  entrance to the mountain park. She was mad. No, 
  she was furious. At Richard Turpin, for treating her 
  like a rookie who didn't even deserve to know the 
  time of day, and at herself for reacting to him this 
  way. It wasn't as if they were partners. She had no 
  special standing as far as he was concerned.
  Yet it was galling nonetheless.
  Get the girl. Bring her to me. Fetch, lo, fetch.
  lesus, she thought; get a grip, you idiot, it's only 
  for a couple of days.
  On the other hand, someone had tried to run 
  them off the road, and even now her stomach filled 
  with bile when she saw that pickup deliberately 
  switch lanes.
  "Sergeant?'’
  She blinked herself back and looked over the car's 
  roof at Polly Logan, and couldn't help smiling. The 
  young woman was bundled as if for deepest winter, 
  complete with mittens and a wool cap. Although 
  there had been moments of sunlight, shafts of it 
  teasing the houses, taunting the streets, the cloud
  100
  
  WATCHER
  101
  cover had thickened again, but the temperature 
  hadn’t fallen. Not yet.
  Doris Mau'rin stood protectively behind her, a tall, 
  thin woman of indeterminate age, her thick, black 
  hair without a spot of gray. She wore only a light 
  jacket over a sweater and jeans, her left hand clutch­
  ing a black purse as if it were a gun.
  "This had better be good,” the woman said. "It’s 
  been months, you know. Months.”
  Joanne assured her, as she had twice already, that 
  the meeting with Turpin was necessary, and that it 
  wouldn’t take very long.
  As they walked toward the gray stone towers, 
  Polly in the middle, Mrs. Maurin shook her head. 
  "Government, you say?"
  "Yes."
  "FBI?”
  Joanne didn't answer with more than a noncommit­
  tal grunt, because she really didn't know. Two days ago, 
  Lt. Millson had called her into his office and told her 
  she would be spending part of her administrative leave 
  showing a Washington investigator around. Apparently 
  the Feds, for whatever reasons, were interested in their 
  serial killer. She had asked the same question, and the 
  lieutenant had only handed her a strapped folder and 
  said, "For now. Minster, you don’t need to know ”
  There had been no room for argument, and, for a 
  change, she had been wise enough not to start one. 
  She was pleased, however, that at least he hadn’t 
  tried to foist off the preposterous story about a 
  marauding wiid animal.
  Instead, she had spent this morning trying to track 
  Turpin down, to find some trace of him through the 
  department’s computer connections to law enforcement 
  agencies across the country. As far as they were con­
  cerned, however, the man didn't exist. He was a ghost.
  
  102
  Charles Grant
  For a ghost, though, he sure had a lot of obvi­
  ously powerful friends, and she was no longer quite 
  convinced she ought to know more than she did.
  Which, she thought bitterly, wasn't a whole hell of 
  a lot.
  Polly slowed as they neared the entrance.
  Mrs. Maurin immediately put a hand on her arm. 
  "It's all right, dear, nothing to worry about. We're 
  just going to talk, that's all, you don't have to worry."
  Joanne felt terrible. The apprehension on Polly's 
  face had turned to fear, and her lower lip began to 
  tremble. "Mrs. Maurin is right, honey," she said gently, 
  a gentle touch on the young woman's shoulder. “There 
  isn't anything here now that's going to hurt you."
  Polly nodded uncertainly. "I used to like the park."
  ioanne managed a smile.
  "I don’t anymore."
  They stepped through to the other side, and Polly 
  stopped, staring at the ground, hands jammed into 
  her pockets.
  "Damn good reason," Mrs. Maurin muttered.
  The blacktop path branched in several directions 
  around the small park. Large, leafless trees studded the 
  grassy areas between, and along the divergent paths 
  white-globed lampposts looked like trees themselves. 
  In the center, on a small rise, marble steps led up to a 
  large dome held up by marble pillars, a monument to 
  the Union and Confederate soldiers who fought in the 
  Battle of Chattanooga. The whole park was only a few 
  acres, its perimeter made of trees and shrubs, boulders 
  and iron railings; beyond was the valley in which the 
  city lay, nearly two thousand feet straight down.
  "So where is he?" Mrs. Maurin demanded.
  A soft wind began to sift through the bare 
  branches, and a handful of dead leaves scuttled 
  across the brown grass.
  
  WATCHER
  1 0 3
  Joanne looked around before pointing straight 
  ahead. "There.”
  Turpin walked toward them from the far end, tak­
  ing the easily sloping ground slowly, face up to the 
  wind; almost, she realized, as if he were sniffing it, 
  testing it for a sign.
  The three women walked toward him, Polly no 
  longer lagging.
  "Oh, my," Mrs. Maurin whispered. "Oh, my, honey, 
  if he's not yours, 1 want him.”
  Joanne grinned, but said nothing. She was struck 
  again by how almost ordinary he seemed. Not tall, not 
  hefty, the silver-touched brown hair neither giving nor 
  taking age. Almost ordinary. Except for those eyes, the 
  slight slant of them and the dark green of them.
  Mrs. Maurin fanned herself with one hand. "My, 
  my, my."
  Polly giggled. "Miss Doris, behave yourself."
  [oanne relaxed. The girl seemed to be all right 
  now, her expression bright as Richard smiled at her, 
  holding out his hand as he approached. Polly took it 
  and blushed, her gaze skittering away when he told 
  her, quietly, to please call him Richard.
  "1 don't want you to be afraid," he said gently, 
  glancing at Joanne.
  "I'm not,” Polly said shyly. "Not now."
  Another glance, this one an order, and Joanne 
  tilted her head at Mrs. Maurin, taking them a few 
  yards away, out of earshot. It bothered her that she 
  wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop on the interrogation, 
  but she also recognized that her presence might 
  prevent Polly from saying what Richard needed to 
  know.
  Mrs. Maurin lit a cigarette once they stopped 
  beneath the nearest tree, blew smoke into the wind, 
  and batted it away before it stung her eyes. "He’s
  
  1 0 4
  Charles Grant
  wasting his time, dear. Polly hasn't said a word 
  about that night since it happened."
  loanne shrugged; it wasn't her call. "How . . .  I 
  mean, Polly, is she. . . ?"
  Mrs. Maurin smiled. "How bad is she, is that what 
  you want to know?" Another puff, this time over her 
  shoulder. "She's not the best of my babies, no get­
  ting around that, but she'll be all right given a little 
  more time. She’s twenty-five, poor child, be twenty- 
  six come April, but she'll always be no more than 
  thirteen or fourteen. If that." Her voice grew melan­
  choly. "Not a bad age to be, when you think about it." 
  "Will she be able to live on her own?”
  "Oh, sure, dear. It just takes time, that’s all. And 
  that's what I've plenty of." She laughed through a 
  cloud of smoke. "That, and a whole ton of patience.” 
  Joanne looked over without being obvious about 
  it— Polly was animated, hands gesturing, eyes wide, 
  while Richard nodded as if every word she said was 
  more important to him than anything else he could 
  think of.
  Well, she thought grudgingly, he’s damn good, I 
  have to give him that.
  Still, she co u ldn't help checking the park 
  entrance, half expecting to see that black pickup roar 
  between the turrets. She shuddered and hugged her­
  self, rubbing her arms briefly, looking at the sky and 
  the strips of swirling gray that escaped from the 
  black.
  "So, honey," said Mrs. Maurin, crushing the cigarette 
  out beneath her sole, "you got a man or what?"
  "He was hurt," said Polly sadly. 
  "I know," Richard answered. 
  "He scared me;"
  
  WATCHER
  105
  He nodded. "I know. I can tell." 
  "Your eyes are different." 
  Richard smiled. "I know."
  The wind began to keen.
  The clouds lowered.
  A twig snapped off a leaning, twisted tree and 
  flew like a dart until it shattered against the monu­
  ment steps.
  Two couples wandered into the park, looked around 
  and made their disappointment clear by the hunch of 
  their shoulders as they left again, without a sound.
  The wind died.
  The air began to haze, and outlines softened 
  while the city disappeared.
  There was no sound at all but the bell-like sound 
  of Polly's laughter.
  Joanne leaned back against a trunk and folded her 
  arms across her chest. Her admiration for Richard’s 
  rapport with the girl had soured into annoyance. She 
  was damp, she was cold, and she couldn't understand 
  what Polly could say that would take them so long. It 
  had been in the middle of the night, for God's sake.
  What the hell could she have seen? What the hell 
  could she say that she hadn't already told the police?
  She made a soft noise of disgust and watched as 
  Mrs. Maurin lit yet another cigarette, seemingly uncon­
  cerned, filling the time with a nonstop monologue 
  about the other girls— there were four— who lived at 
  the halfway house. By her tone, however, there was no 
  mistaking the fact that Polly, to her, was special.
  And it didn't seem to matter that Joanne wasn’t 
  really listening.
  
  106
  Charles Grant
  “It was scary when he tried to grab me."
  Til bet it was.”
  Polly scratched behind her ear. "There were 
  noises, too, you know.”
  "Well, he'd been hit, Polly. He was hurting.1'
  "No." She shook her head emphatically. "No, not 
  him. The other one."
  A vehicle pulled up at the entrance, its headlights 
  high and glaring. Joanne pushed away from the tree, 
  trying to see past them to whatever lay beyond.
  “Fool idiot," Mrs. Maurin grumbled, shading her 
  eyes with one hand. "It ain’t that foggy out."
  But it was, loanne thought nervously-, it was foggy 
  enough that she could barely see the tops of the tur­
  rets, and they were only about fifty yards away. And 
  foggy enough that the headlights smeared her vision, 
  gave her nothing to focus on until she looked away.
  The older woman edged closer.
  "Mrs. Maurin," Joanne said, suddenly remember­
  ing the house, "in your front hall there, 1 saw some 
  bulletin boards by the door and the staircase."
  "Yes. We keep track of who’s going where, and 
  when. Everybody has to sign in or out." A rueful 
  smile. "At least that’s the theory."
  "No, I saw those. I mean farther back, by the stairs."
  "Oh!" The woman nodded. "The girls call it the 
  Pride Board. You know, when they make something 
  nice to hang up, or when they get a nice letter, 
  things like that."
  “Pictures?"
  "I don't have a camera."
  The headlights didn’t leave.
  
  WATCHER
  107
  "Drawings,! mean."
  "Why sure. There's Charlie Wills, she's a cute little 
  thing, not much good for anything else, but she sure 
  can use a brush. 1 got the aquarium people to take 
  some small things on consignment last summer for 
  that gift shop they have. Sold them, too. She’ll never 
  be a Rembrandt, but 1 think she'll make enough 
  some day so she can . . 
  She paused and looked up, 
  shook her head. “Move out, I was going to say." She 
  looked at Joanne sideways. “1 hate when they do 
  that, you know. I know it's my job, but I just hate it.”
  "What about Polly? Does she draw?"
  "All the time, poor thing, all the time.”
  Richard watched the girl’s eyes, deer’s eyes caught in a 
  wood, being hunted. He said nothing; he didn't dare.
  Finally, she cleared her throat and gave him a false 
  smile. "1 don't know. I mean, Mr. Abbott, he's got this 
  little bitty dog, it looks like silly rat when it's wet, but 
  it wasn't like that. You know? It wasn’t like that."
  "It's okay, Polly. I know what you mean."
  Wide-eyed, she looked up. "No,” she said. “Oh no, 
  you don’t know at alL”
  Joanne clamped down her excitement. "Where are— " 
  "Hush." Mrs. Maurin held up a finger and looked over 
  Joanne’s shoulder. "Well, damn, she's gone now."
  Joanne turned around, and saw the girl shifting 
  her weight from foot to foot, bobbing her head, 
  shaking it, bobbing it again.
  “Damn."
  Mrs. Maurin lifted her chin. "Polly? Girl? You 
  come on over here, now, you hear? Time we were 
  getting back to the house." Then she lowered her
  
  1 0 8
  Charles Grant
  voice. "I’m sorry, Sergeant, but when she gets that 
  way, she's gone for hours. Sometimes days."
  Angrily, she flicked a cigarette into the fog. "Took 
  me a month to bring her back after. . . that killing.
  The headlights hadn't moved.
  Joanne waited until the girl started over, said, 
  "Don’t go anywhere just yet,” and marched up the 
  path toward the light. She kept her head up and 
  her arms swinging, trying to appear as official as 
  she could, given the clothes she wore. Whoever it 
  was, she swore, he was going get his ass royally 
  chewed.
  She heard the engine then, soft and throbbing.
  The headlights backed away.
  She didn’t slow down, she didn't speed up.
  Stupid son of a bitch, she thought, able to see 
  now the vague outline of a car; play games with me, 
  you son of a bitch, you're gonna find your ass in a 
  cell. Stupid bastard.
  The engine gunned, and she hesitated before 
  realizing the car wasn’t going to charge her. It turned 
  a fast circle instead and sped away, taillights dim­
  ming quickly, until there was nothing left but the 
  engine. Mocking her as it faded.
  She stopped ten feet from the gateway, rolled her 
  eyes, and turned around. Polly was already there, 
  Mrs. Maurin's arm around her shoulders.
  "It wasn't his fault,” the woman said when she saw 
  Joanne's face. "The girl just gets this way sometimes 
  when she’s upset, that’s all.” She hugged the girl 
  before leading her away. "Should have talked in the 
  house. My fault.”
  Joanne watched helplessly until the fog took them 
  as well, and her anger boiled over. W ith hands 
  bunched into fists, she whirled to confront Turpin.
  He wasn't there.
  
  WATCHER
  1 0 9
  The iampposts didn't help; their glow was dif­
  fused, creating more shadows than light.
  "Turpin!" 
  '
  She stomped toward the monument. If there were 
  spotlights, they weren't on.
  "Turpin, damn it, where are you?”
  He didn't answer.
  What she heard instead was a deep-throated growl.
  
  He stepped out from behind a tree and tapped her 
  on the shoulder.
  loanne spun around, right hand reaching for the 
  small of her back as she dropped into a crouch.
  Richard held up a quick hand to hold her off and 
  cover his smile. "Hey, wait, wait, it's me.”
  Her eyes widened, and for a moment he thought 
  she would still pull the revolver he knew she kept 
  back there. It had been a stupid thing, but he hadn't 
  been able to resist it. The timing and the setting had 
  been too perfect.
  The hand stayed up, palm out. "Don't say it," he 
  warned, the smile turning to a grin. "Stupid son of a 
  bitch bastard, I know all that already.” The hand low­
  ered slowly. "I’m sorry, okay? !'m sorry.”
  It was a long second before he saw the tension 
  drain, her shoulders relax as she straightened and 
  made a show of dusting her hands on her jeans 
  "Never again," she said, walking past him, not look­
  ing up. “Never.”
  He agreed, apologized again, but couldn't get rid 
  of the smile. It wasn’t so much the easy trick as it
  110
  
  WATCHER
  111
  was the information Polly had given him. Eyes, she 
  had said; terrible eyes. Until he eased it out of her, 
  she hadn’t really been sure she'd actually seen them. 
  She said something about seeing lights in the sky 
  that no one believed, and so had doubted the eyes 
  and had kept that to herself.
  Eyes.
  Terrible eyes.
  There and gone in an instant, while she had been 
  screaming.
  Not green, like his— they had been the pale red of 
  a rogue's advancing madness.
  Despite the Warders' insistence, he had needed 
  confirm ation for himself. They had been wrong 
  before. Not this time.
  Now was the time for hunting.
  The next step was to decide how far he could trust 
  Joanne.
  As they walked to her car, he wondered how 
  involved she would let herself get in this case. A lot, 
  he figured when she yanked open her door and 
  glared him the order to get in. She didn’t seem the 
  type to simply step back, be his faithful liaison, mind 
  her own business.
  They sat in silence while she fumed.
  If he decided she would truly be a partner, then, 
  she would have to know. It couldn't be avoided. And 
  there was no telling how she would react.
  It wasn't an unusual situation; rare, but not 
  unusual Of those times when his contacts had 
  found out, when he had voluntarily lifted the Veil 
  just for them, only twice had he regretted it. His 
  right hand absently drifted to his left shoulder, 
  pressing lightly in the hollow between shoulder and 
  ribs. The scar had never healed properly.
  Unusual, but not rare.
  
  112
  Charles Grant
  It wasn’t the only scar he carried.
  Those two— one man, one woman— hadn't lived 
  long enough to lift the Veil for others. He dearly 
  hoped it wouldn't be the same for Joanne.
  "Now what?” she asked stiffly.
  He considered what he had known and what he 
  knew now, and gestured at the windshield. "That 
  guy, the one who runs the hang-gliding business. 
  Hendean. I want to see that place, and maybe the 
  place where the woman died."
  "Now?" She frowned her puzzlement. "There isn't 
  going to be anyone there, not in this weather."
  "Maybe there is," he countered softly. "Please. 
  Humor me."
  She didn’t like it, that much was obvious, but she 
  drove through town without questioning him, taking 
  him along a two-lane road that followed the narrow­
  ing crest of the mountain. The houses soon grew 
  sporadic, the only structure of note a large, pale, 
  brick complex on the right, whose sign toid him it 
  was Coventry College.
  He didn’t ask; she didn't volunteer.
  The fog thinned quickly, and what remained was 
  swiftly shredded as the wind picked up again, slow 
  and fitful.
  They passed occasional houses whose front yards 
  were small, and whose back yards, he thought, must 
  have been mostly straight down. Before long, however, 
  the trees took over, and through the bare branches he 
  could see the spread of land below, and hazy hills in 
  the distance. It was mostly woodland down there, bro­
  ken only by fields waiting for spring planting.
  Joanne cleared her throat. "I told them— Polly and 
  Mrs. Maurin— that you were FBI.” A rabbit skittered 
  across the road, and she swerved easily to avoid it. 
  "So what are you? Really?"
  
  WATCHER
  113
  "Spooky." He grinned when she glanced over. 
  "Really spooky.”
  "You got that right," she answered, and he looked 
  away when he saw the start of a smile part her lips.
  Better, he thought; it’s getting better, thank God. 
  For all his years, all his experience, handling women’s 
  moods and tempers was absolutely beyond him.
  Fifteen minutes later she pulled onto the gravel 
  skirt outside the Hendean launch area. The barnlike 
  shed was weathered with spotty gray, L e o n 's  A ir  
  stenciled in red and blue on the sharply canted roof. 
  There were no other cars, no sign of any flyers.
  “Waste of time," she muttered as they got out. 
  Richard walked to the concrete lip and looked 
  down. Straight down. Wishing he hadn't when he felt 
  his stomach lurch and grow as cold as the mountain- 
  top air. God, he thought, swallowing hard; people 
  actually, willingly, throw themselves off here? He 
  shook himself and stepped back, and saw Joanne 
  watching him closely.
  "Acrophobia?" she said with just a hint of mocking. 
  "I don’t think so,” he answered, heading for the 
  only door he could see. "Like I said, 1 don’t fly."
  "You should try it sometime. It’s a real rush.”
  He raised an eyebrow. “You have?”
  “Once.”
  “Only once?”
  "Are you kidding, Turpin? I was scared spitless. I 
  think 1 screamed all the way down. But there’s no 
  getting around it, it was a hell of a rush."
  The unmarked door was open, and they stepped over 
  the threshold into one vast room. Frames and foils 
  hung from beams overhead, stirring slightly as drafts 
  found cracks in the walls. Around the walls were
  
  1 1 4
  Charles Grant
  workbenches, meta! tool cabinets, a soda machine, 
  and, just left of the door, a table he figured Hendean 
  used for a desk.
  In the center of the smooth concrete floor was a 
  smaller work table, at whose bench sat a man in 
  baggy bib coveralls fussing with a length of alu­
  minum tubing caught in a vice. He was thin, with 
  thinning, curly white hair, and granny glasses that 
  kept slipping down the length of his nose. When he 
  noticed them, he grinned and rose.
  "Man," loanne whispered.
  He was tall, very tall, with watery blue eyes and, 
  despite his lean frame, pudgy cheeks. Despite the 
  hair, he wasn't that old. "Hey, hey," he said pleasantly, 
  wiping his hands on a rag. "Closed today, folks."
  Joanne nodded and introduced them.
  Curly Guestin shook their hands eagerly. "Police, 
  huh? FBI, huh? Wow. 1 do something wrong?" He 
  laughed, and his face reddened. "Hey, nope. Not 
  me." He gestured toward the table. "I just keep folks 
  from falling out of the sky."
  "We’re looking for Mr. Hendean," Richard said.
  "Gone." Guestin frowned in thought before nod­
  ding. "Yep, he's gone. Was here, now he’s not. Went 
  down the city, I think. I don't know if he’ll be back.” 
  He looked at the rafters. "You want to fly?”
  "No," said Richard quickly. "No, thanks.”
  The man dropped abruptly onto the bench, hands 
  clasped between his knees, head bowed, "It’s the lady, 
  isn’t it. You don’t want to fly 'cause the lady got killed."
  "No," loanne said gently. "In fact, that’s what we 
  want to talk to Mr. Hendean about. We'd like to 
  know just what happened before she died.”
  “Wasn't the fall,” the man said quickly. "Like 1 told 
  those police who kept asking me all those questions, 
  same questions over and over, it wasn't me that
  
  WATCHER
  1 1 5
  fixed her gear. Hey, I do good work, y'know?" He 
  looked up at them, his smile painful and brief. 
  "Some kind of m aniac out there, FBI," he said 
  solemnly. "Hardly safe around here anymore. Even 
  the regulars aren't making it all the time.”
  "Then why are you here all by yourself?" Joanne 
  asked.
  Guestin grinned, reached under the table, and 
  pulled out a shotgun. "If he comes in here, I'll take 
  his maniac head off.” Another laugh, and again his 
  face reddened. As he put the gun back under the 
  table, he told them he didn't expect his boss back 
  until morning. There was, he explained, lots to do, 
  making sure the people came back after what he 
  called "the accident.” Hendean was putting new ads 
  in the papers and getting flyers and posters printed. 
  "Maybe you can talk to him tomorrow, hey?"
  "Sure," Richard said, and asked him to show them 
  where the woman had crash-landed.
  Guestin didn't seem too eager, but he led them 
  outside to the launch lip and pointed to a spot three- 
  quarters of the way down. "Clearing, see it? Right 
  there. Mr. Hendean was standing right here, he told 
  me. Saw her go down, radioed to Nora, got the ambu­
  lance moving right away.” He scratched at his chin, 
  looked to Richard, and added, "If you kind of hunker 
  down, Mister, it's easier. Hey, don’t want you to fall." 
  The edge of the ridge was marked with boulders, 
  trees, and high weeds. When Richard did as the man 
  suggested, he realized he’d been right— it was easier 
  for some reason, and he was able to look down the 
  mountain's thickly wooded side without suffering the 
  vertigo that had slipped over him before.
  The vertical drop ended when the side flared out 
  like a skirt, but he reckoned it was still a good fifteen 
  hundred feet before that happened. Through the trees
  
  1 16
  Charles Grant
  he could see the tiny clearing Guestin had pointed 
  out, the road that followed the mountain’s base, and 
  what looked like a doll's house just beyond, with a 
  dark-red shed on a yard that looked to be three or 
  four acres. Nora was Nora Costo, Hendean's ground 
  manager. The gliders landed in either that yard, or the 
  mowed field to its right, she gathered them up, put 
  them in a van, and had them brought back to the 
  summit if they were going to make another trip.
  She was also a paramedic.
  She was the one who had first seen the body.
  Richard looked north and south along the slope 
  as far at the forest would permit, and wondered if 
  Trish McCormick would have lived if she had landed 
  where she should have instead of where she did.
  "What was he doing, just waiting around for 
  someone to land?" Joanne wanted to know.
  He doubted it. Like the guard in the park, the 
  woman had most likely been in the wrong place at 
  the wrong time. The more he looked, the more he 
  understood that the area was a perfect place for the 
  rogue— enough people and animals around to hunt, 
  enough wilderness to hide in.
  He knows it well, Richard decided. No wonder 
  he’s been able to stay free for so long.
  He knows this place like the back of his hand.
  The wind nudged him from behind then, spilling 
  hair into his eyes. He swiped at it absently, backed 
  away, and rose. He thanked Guestin for his help, and 
  smiled to himself as the man nodded politely but 
  gave most of his attention to Joanne, and most of 
  that to her chest. He would have said something 
  when she joined him in the car, but he had a feeling 
  she would probably belt him a good one.
  "Now what?" she asked, leaving Leon’s Air 
  behind. "Do you want to see that clearing?''
  
  WATCHER
  117
  He shook his head. "Won’t do any good.’’ At least, 
  not in daylight, he thought. He rubbed his forehead, 
  blew out a breath, and checked his watch.
  It was going on four.
  The sun was already on its way down, and the 
  cloud cover had given the mountain an early twi­
  light.
  "You want to drop in on the Costo woman?" She 
  tapped an impatient finger on the steering wheel. 
  "Maybe you can find out something she saw that she 
  doesn't know she saw." She chuckled. "If you see 
  what I mean."
  "Later," he answered, keeping his tone neutral, 
  "First thing is, I have to check in with Washington 
  Could we go back to the hotel?"
  “I'll drop you off."
  "Do you have to? After all this, I was kind of hop­
  ing I could treat you to a drink, or dinner."
  She looked at him sourly, and he grimaced. "I do 
  have a job, you know,” she reminded him. "The desk 
  shit, remember?"
  He nodded.
  "Tell you what, though," she said as they reached 
  town, "We'll stay away from that other road. We'll go 
  down the back way."
  "Okay. Whatever you say."
  “Yeah, right."
  There was more traffic now, and people on the 
  sidewalks in hats and heavy coats. A black pickup 
  waited at an intersection, and he stared at it, turned 
  and looked through the rear window until it headed 
  off in the opposite direction.
  "This back way. Is it like the way up?”
  "Worse," she said gleefully.
  She was right.
  
  1 1 8
  Charles Grant
  The hotel was awash with people and noise when he 
  stepped inside, so much so that Richard instantly 
  forgot the harrowing downhill drive, and Joanne’s 
  smug expression when she let him out at the curb.
  The lobby was packed, both with registration lines 
  and movement, the noise level almost unbearably 
  high. As he stood waiting for an elevator, he noticed 
  that many had exchanged suits and jeans for what 
  seemed to be costumes. He recognized a few Star 
  Trek outfits, but little else. Capes and cloaks mixed 
  with black leather and chains; Hollywood medieval 
  with street corner grunge.
  For no reason at all, it made him feel inexplicably 
  old, and he was grateful when he was able to make it 
  to the third floor. The relative silence was welcome, 
  and he realized that if tonight was the rule rather 
  than the exception, he would have to find another, 
  quicker, way to get up and down. Two elevators for a 
  thousand people wasn't satisfactory at all.
  He slipped his key into the door, turned the han­
  dle, and froze.
  A thousand people. Probably more.
  Costumes that he imagined would grow more 
  elaborate with time.
  The rogue, he thought; my God, if it knew . . .
  He entered the room cautiously, testing the air for 
  the scent of invasion, relaxing only when he was 
  positive there hadn't been another search. Then he 
  dropped on the couch and stared blindly at the 
  opposite wall, ignoring the chill of a tiny draft from 
  the window at his back.
  After a moment he slipped the tiny cloth bag from 
  his pocket and opened it, spreading it over his thigh. 
  Inside were three miniatures carved from stone,
  
  WATCHER
  1 1 9
  none more than half an inch high— an owl, a hawk, 
  and, in gleaming black, Anubis.
  His fingers brushed over them lightly.
  His eyes closed.
  His breathing grew shallow.
  Within minutes the hotel had been swallowed by 
  a black fog, and a Slack wind howled, and a voice 
  wept with pain.
  When his eyes opened again— green fire— he saw 
  the familiar desert.
  This time, however, he wasn’t alone.
  
  The far end of the restaurant, beyond the L-shaped 
  bar and the grill, was two steps higher and slightly 
  more narrow than the rest of the room, separated 
  from it by a gleaming silver railing more symbolic 
  than practical. It was large enough only for three 
  round tables, two of which were empty.
  Miles Blanchard sat at the third, in the window- 
  side corner, watching the dinner patrons fill the 
  booths, leave, fill them again, and patiently stand 
  two deep at the bar. Some were obviously office 
  workers, the rest those who had come to the conven­
  tion. Eyeing each other while trying too hard not to 
  look as if they were.
  None approached him.
  He was not in a good mood, and it must have 
  shown no matter how hard he tried to keep his 
  expression neutral.
  Not an hour ago, he had seen Turpin enter the 
  hotel, thoughtful and, perhaps, just a little shaken. 
  Blanchard had walked right past him, could have 
  touched him, could have killed him right then, had 
  he wanted to; instead, he had come directly here,
  120
  
  WATCHER
  121
  ordered what turned out to be a passable meal, and 
  tried to figure out exactly what was going on.
  Crimmins had been furious that the Strider hadn't 
  been taken care of already. After a minute's pompous 
  posturing, threats were made. Explanations were 
  demanded. His voice had risen nearly to a woman’s 
  pitch. But each time Blanchard tried to speak, the old 
  man cut him off.
  There was something wrong here.
  And when Blanchard, his own temper straining at 
  the leash, reminded his employer that there was still 
  a rogue on the loose as part of this ridiculous equa­
  tion, Crimmins had exploded, ranting about forces 
  Blanchard knew nothing of, forces not to be trifled 
  with, not to be tempted, and certainly not to be ques­
  tioned by "the likes of you, you ignorant little man."
  The leash had slipped.
  Blanchard hung up on him, and was out of the 
  room before the telephone could ring again.
  He was not really afraid of Crimmins, or that 
  mysterious group the old fart represented; without 
  being immodest, he knew he was too valuable for 
  them to lose. It wasn’t that he knew too much; he 
  was simply too good. He doubted very seriously 
  that they could find him should they underestimate 
  his value, and should he decide it would be prudent 
  to disappear.
  Yet he hated to admit it, but Crimmins' tantrum 
  had unnerved him somewhat, and it wasn’t until he 
  had finished the meal and his second drink that he 
  was able to think straight. Or as straight as he could, 
  considering how furious he still was.
  A waitress glanced in his direction, and he lifted 
  his empty tumbler. She smiled, nodded, and headed 
  for the bar.
  Not a good idea, he chided himself; three drinks.
  
  122
  Charles Grant
  and it's not even six. At this rate, he’d be fiat on his 
  ass before the night really began.
  He snorted, grinned to himself, and inhaled 
  slowly, deeply, stretching his arms above his head 
  and lacing his fingers. He pushed, and his knuckles 
  cracked, loudly. Then his shoulders. A doctor had 
  once told him that was a great way to invite arthritis; 
  Blanchard had taken offense and had cut the man 
  badly. Used a scalpel, and sliced him across his 
  knuckles. All of them.
  The drink was delivered, and he cupped his hands 
  around the tumbler, looking out over the heads of 
  the diners and the drinkers, not really seeing them, 
  not really listening.
  What he hoped for was a revelation based on 
  what little he already knew; what he expected was a 
  visit from W anda Strand, to let him know when 
  Turpin was safely ensconced in his room.
  He scowled.
  There was another catch— Wanda.
  Evidently Crimmins hadn't trusted him. She had 
  been waiting when he had checked in, not saying 
  much, just enough beyond a friendly greeting to let 
  him know that with this assignment neither of them 
  were going to fly solo.
  He knew her.
  Twice— once in London, once in San Diego— they 
  had worked together. Not really partners, and cer­
  tainly not close. But he had been forced to admit 
  that they somehow actually managed to comple­
  ment each other. If he was the Man of a Thousand 
  Faces, she was unnervingly close to being a true 
  Seer. She knew things, and after their first meeting, 
  he never asked her how.
  He didn't need to be a Seer to see the blood on 
  her hands.
  
  WATCHER
  1 23
  At the end of their lobby meeting that afternoon, 
  she had leaned oyer and said, "Miles, they want us 
  dead, you know. When this is done."
  He hadn't responded right away, because he 
  hadn't believed it then, and he didn't really believe it 
  now. They may want him dead, but it wasn’t going to 
  happen. As he’d decided only a few minutes ago, he 
  was too good, and they needed him too badly.
  Wanda was apparently a different story.
  It was also apparent she wasn’t all that concerned.
  Which is why he also figured he would live longer 
  than she.
  Pride, as he remembered his Bible, goeth not 
  before a fall, as was so often misquoted; it goeth 
  before destruction.
  His lips twitched.
  He looked down at his drink and studied the color 
  of it, the red of it.
  Five minutes later he took the first sip, having 
  already decided that it was time, tonight, for the 
  bloodbath to begin.
  He glanced to his right, to a narrow glass door 
  that led directly into the lobby. It was so innocuous, 
  hardly anyone used it. A good way to watch the 
  passing crowds. A good way to keep track of who 
  entered and left the elevators.
  A better way to mark the first victim.
  The sun held no heat, and there were no shadows on 
  the sand.
  Despite the strong wind that forced him to squint, 
  not a grain shifted.
  He wandered among the ruins until he located 
  the source of the weeping, and stood on the crum­
  bling threshold of a doorway wide enough to let an
  
  1 2 4
  Charles Grant
  army pass. Ahead was an interior garden, all the 
  flowers and bushes gone save for a single stone vase 
  on a dark stone table. In the vase was a red rose, and 
  its thorns were gleaming crimson.
  The woman sat at the table, watching him, eyes 
  puffed and reddened, hands clasped and trembling, 
  wearing a single thin garment the wind rippled like 
  white water.
  "Fay?" He took a step toward her.
  Fay Parnell shook her head violently.
  Her tears were black, and streaked her cheeks 
  blackly.
  "Fay.”
  There was movement behind him.
  Wanda left the elevator on the gallery floor. She 
  had exchanged her topcoat for a lightweight cardi­
  gan with pockets deep enough to hold her cigarettes 
  and lighter; on her feet were what appeared to be 
  black ballet slippers. After a moment's indecision, 
  she moved ahead to the latticework railing and 
  looked down into the lobby.
  Miles wasn't there.
  Facing the elevators again, she glanced left and 
  right, ignoring the scores of people wandering past 
  her, most not looking, one or two young men trying 
  to catch her eye. It almost made her smile.
  A silent sigh, then, and she made for the four low 
  steps to the elevators' left, part of them covered by a 
  portable wheelchair ramp. She stepped up and 
  walked down the middle of the wide hall, slowly, not 
  caring when people had to squeeze past her, mutter­
  ing and glaring. To her left was a marble staircase 
  that led down to the first floor and, she knew, the 
  restaurant entrance.
  It wasn’t what she wanted.
  A few yards father on another, shorter wide corridor
  
  WATCHER
  125
  opened to the left, at the end of which was a huge 
  room. By the tables and chairs she could see, and 
  longer tables at the back piled with provisions, she 
  gathered this was some sort of refreshment area.
  It still wasn't what she wanted.
  Another ten yards, however, and she stopped.
  The corridor ended in a T, with hotel offices 
  directly ahead, and on the left, in the corner, the fire 
  door which, if its current use was any indication, was 
  a favorite mode of travel for those too impatient to 
  wait for the elevators.
  She stepped through the door, onto a gray painted 
  concrete landing, heard hollow voices in the stairwell 
  above and below, and made her way up one flight, to 
  the third floor and through the doorway there.
  This hall was long, and muted voices came from 
  open doors far down to the right. The hall ended on 
  her left, and she ducked around the corner and 
  leaned back against the wall, staring at the door 
  directly opposite her.
  He was there.
  In there.
  The question was, how pissed would Miles be if 
  she ended it all here and now?
  Very, she decided, and grunted a quiet laugh.
  Her right hand slipped into the pocket of her 
  slacks, fingers curling around a short wand of 
  engraved ivory inlaid with silver stars.
  A knock, mock confusion— "I’m so sorry, I’ve got 
  the wrong room, please forgive me.’’— and it would 
  be over before Turpin knew what had hit him.
  lust as she straightened, however, the double 
  doors of the suite immediately to the left swept 
  open, and a dozen people swarmed out, laughing, 
  chattering, passing her with broad smiles and nods. 
  One of them, a man about her height with thick
  
  1 2 6
  Charles Grant
  white hair, paused, looked at her chest and said, 
  "You'd better ge.t your ID badge, Miss, or these secu­
  rity folks will hassle you all night."
  She didn't know what to say and so nodded a 
  mute thank-you, and damned whoever he and his 
  friends were because Turpin couldn't possibly have 
  missed all that commotion. She had never met the 
  Strider, but she knew his reputation; whether he felt 
  threatened or not, all his senses would be alerted.
  Damn it, she thought; goddamn it.
  Marcus Spiro glanced at the attractive woman leaning 
  against the wall, thought to speak to her again, but 
  was grabbed by the elbows and propelled around the 
  corner and down the main hall. When he protested 
  with a laugh, he was reminded, that the convention 
  leaders wanted to speak to him before the opening 
  ceremonies. Which meant now. And since they had 
  paid his way, he couldn't very well ignore them.
  Still, that woman—
  Well, at least his keeper wasn't around.
  Not fair, he chided himself. Leon wasn’t a keeper. 
  Every major guest was assigned someone whose job 
  it was to keep the guest happy, and make sure he 
  got to all the functions on time. The best ones, and 
  Leon had turned out to be one of them, stayed the 
  hell out of the way, like an unobtrusive waiter, just 
  waiting fora look to bring him running.
  Not a bad life for a weekend.
  Thinking of his declining sales, Marcus sighed, 
  wishing life could be that way all the time again.
  As it was, coming down here every couple of 
  years—
  A young woman dropped out of the crowd ahead 
  and grabbed his left arm. She wore a vivid red tank
  
  WATCHER
  127
  top, and jeans he figured must have taken her an 
  hour to get into. When she tugged on his arm, he 
  leaned down, listened for a moment, and straight­
  ened suddenly with a mock, "That's disgusting!’’, and 
  an equally mock look of indignation.
  "Sure is," she said, grinning. “So?"
  He grinned and let her guide him toward the con­
  vention's operations center. Say what you will about 
  traveling to towns like this in the middle of winter, 
  having to put up with barely bathed cretins who 
  slobbered all over you just so you’ll autograph one 
  of your books . . . say what you will about barely edi­
  ble convention food, obscenely late nights, equally 
  obscene early mornings, and the strain it put on a 
  body whose sole exercise consisted of depositing 
  royalty checks twice a year . . . say what you will 
  about all of it, these things were still a great place to 
  get yourself laid.
  A glance over his shoulder was just in time to catch 
  that other woman slipping through the fire door.
  A glance down at the buxom woman beside him, 
  giggling as she leaned into him, just to be sure he 
  knew that what she had wasn’t padded.
  Oh well, he thought; a bird in the hand is almost 
  as good as a bird in the bed.
  , He laughed aloud.
  The others laughed with him.
  The desert wind died.
  He turned to see who it was who had followed 
  him, but there was no one there. Nothing moved.
  When he turned back, he nearly cried out— Fay 
  was gone, the chair empty.
  He hurried toward the table, calling her name, 
  listening to the flat echo of his calls ricochet off the
  
  1 2 8
  Charles Grant
  crumbling walls. There were no footprints in the 
  sand, no sign she had even been here except, when 
  he looked closely, for the splatter of a single black 
  tear on the table.
  He shivered, rubbed his arms for warmth, and 
  called her name again.
  No one answered.
  Not even the wind.
  But he wasn’t alone, and that wasn’t right.
  This was his place, and his place only. When he 
  needed the calm of meditation, when he needed 
  answers for the hunt, when he needed reassurance 
  that being a Silent Strider was neither a curse nor a 
  condemnation, this is where he came.
  And he always came alone.
  Now, as he slumped dejectedly into the chair, he 
  had one answer, and it tore at his heart as surely as 
  a blade of silver:
  Fay was dead.
  How or why, he didn't know, but she was dead. 
  His best friend was gone, a former lover, and there 
  was no one to replace her.
  He touched a finger to the tear, but it was dry. 
  Dust. And when the wind returned, the tear scat­
  tered and was gone.
  The rose remained, crimson thorns, scarlet petals.
  He sat, and he stared at it until a shadow blocked 
  the sun.
  He looked up, unsmiling.
  “You took her," he accused bitterly. "She had 
  plenty of time yet, and you took.’’
  "No," said Anubis. "She was brought to me.”
  Blanchard half rose when he saw W anda weave 
  through the crowd at the restaurant's entrance,
  
  WATCHER
  1 2 9
  raised a glass until she spotted him, and sat again, 
  spreading his arms in greeting when she took the 
  chair opposite him.
  "Something to eat?"
  "It was your invitation," she said blandly.
  “What do you want?”
  "Whatever. As long as it comes with wine. Lots of it."
  He didn't ask what bothered her; he assumed it 
  was the constant flow of people, constantly talking 
  and laughing, here and there tucked into corners 
  for intense conversation; h o ld in g  books and 
  posters and cups of beer and soda; staring at him, 
  reading his name tag and frowning as they tried to 
  place the name with the face they had never seen 
  before.
  He pointed to her chest. "You haven't registered."
  "You're the second person to tell me that 
  tonight." She took a cigarette from her pocket, lit it, 
  and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “1 am not 
  going to waste my money."
  "Your funeral," he said, beckoning the waitress 
  with a finger and a smile.
  "Not quite," she answered.
  He raised an eyebrow, but again didn't respond. 
  He did, however, smell trouble, and he cursed 
  C rim m ins for sticking him  with this wom an. 
  Nevertheless, he kept his expression as pleasant as 
  he could, saying little while she ate, drinking two 
  glasses of wine before her plate was clear.
  Then she twisted around to look through the win­
  dow at the deserted street, slumped back, and said, 
  "God, it feels like midnight already." She squinted at 
  a thin gold watch on her wrist. "Jesus H., it's barely 
  seven."
  "You’re too edgy," he scolded lightly. The implica­
  tion went deeper; you’re supposed to be a pro, bitch,
  
  1 3 0
  Charles Grant
  get it together before you get one of us killed. Not, 
  he added silently; that 1 give a damn about you.
  She looked at him for a long time with one eye 
  half closed. Nodded slowly. Lit another cigarette. 
  Stared at the glowing tip. “He's in his room now.”
  Blanchard waited.
  “What don’t we just do it and get it over with?”
  It was a question, but just barely.
  He wondered if she honestly knew who they were 
  up against; he decided immediately he didn't give a 
  damn because, no matter how it ended, she wasn’t 
  going to survive anyway. She got on his nerves. He 
  hated people who got on his nerves
  “What are you going to do, bust in the door?" he 
  said, not bothering to mask the sarcasm.
  "Key."
  His eyes widened slightly. "You have a key?"
  “Nope.”
  "Then— "
  Her smile was chilling. "Sugar, just follow me. 
  There isn’t a man’s room in the world I can’t get into 
  One way or the other"
  
  Richard sat at the table, in the ruins, in the desert, 
  and wept without tears.
  . . . she was brought to me.
  No translation needed: Fay Parnell had been mur­
  dered.
  There was no one left on his side, now.
  No one.
  Not even the Warders.
  It didn't take a genius, or the import of his dreams, 
  to figure out that they knew full-well he wouldn't sur­
  vive this assignment. Rogues, when all was said and 
  done, could not be captured. Could not be taken pris­
  oner. Could only be neutralized in one, lethal, way.
  They had known it, and they had known how it 
  would be long before he realized it himself.
  He reached for the rose, but didn’t touch it.
  So what did they expect him to do, give his life to 
  protect the Veil? To preserve their secrets? Were 
  they counting on his tribe’s dedication to the Garou 
  to commit virtual suicide for them?
  131
  
  If he couldn't figure that out, he surely would die. 
  And dying, now, was the last thing on his mind.
  It’s a pisser, thought Curly Guestin; a real pisser, 
  staying here to all hours, busting my butt and no 
  overtime, no thanks, no bonus, no nothing.
  He stomped around the large room, cleaning up, 
  wiping his tools and putting them away, making sure 
  the cabinets and chests were properly locked, mak­
  ing sure the silent alarms were ready to go as soon 
  as he left.
  Shivering when the wind came through the zillion 
  cracks in the goddamn walls and ceiling.
  It was like working in a barn.
  Above him , the wings fluttered and rustled, 
  sounding like bats disturbed in their caves.
  The frames swayed and twisted slowly, their faint 
  shadows on the whitewashed walls expanding and 
  shrinking as if they were running up to him and slid­
  ing away. Teasing. Taunting. He had seen it a million 
  times, but tonight, like last night, the night before, 
  and every night for the past week, he couldn't help 
  thinking that he didn't like them very much anymore. 
  They were spooky. They had never been spooky 
  before, but they were damn spooky now.
  Ever since that blonde lady had been killed, those 
  shadows had been spooky.
  It wasn't too bad when Leon was around, or one 
  of his buddies from down in the city. But too often, 
  ever since summer, Leon had started taking off early, 
  and Curly's buddies had been working double, triple 
  overtime just to make ends meet. He hardly saw 
  them at all anymore.
  That left him alone when the sun went down.
  Spooky; too damn spooky.
  
  WATCHER
  133
  He slapped a rag over his table to knock the filings 
  and bits of stiff thread onto the floor. He did it again, 
  this time pretending he was knocking Leon silly, and 
  the idea of him doing that to a man that size made 
  him giggle so hard that he could barely stand up.
  Not that he’d really want to hurt his boss. Leon 
  was okay most of the time. When he wasn’t brood­
  ing about something or other, when he wasn’t com­
  plaining about his competition up the road, when 
  he wasn't talking out loud about maybe closing the 
  place down and moving down to Florida where he 
  would lie on the beach all day and let women in lit­
  tle bathing suits bring him drinks until he died.
  Curly didn’t like that kind of talk.
  It made him nervous, real nervous, because it had 
  taken him a hell of a long time to find this job, and 
  he didn't want to have to go through all that again, 
  reading the papers, talking to people who thought 
  he was so much older than he was because of his 
  stupid hair. He didn’t want to, and when he scolded 
  his boss, Leon would look at him like he was from 
  another planet.
  "What the hell's the matter with you, man?” he 
  would say. "Shit, if I do leave, you can have this god­
  damn place, okay? Knock yourself out, Curly, knock 
  yourself out."
  Curly slapped the table a third time, and stuffed 
  the rag into his hip pocket. Then he stomped over to 
  the door and grabbed his broom.
  He didn’t have to do it; playing janitor wasn't part 
  of what he had been hired for. He was supposed to 
  keep the frames and air foils working, that was all 
  keep the dopes who wanted to jump off the moun­
  tain from killing themselves on the way down.
  He was a mechanic, an artist, and a genius with 
  his tools. Being a janitor had never been his dream.
  
  1 3 4
  Charles Grant
  He did it anyway, though, because Leon sure as 
  hell wouldn’t. Curly hated coming in every morning 
  and seeing crap all over, it didn't feel right. He had 
  told Leon that a hundred million times every day 
  practically when it wasn't done— it didn't feel right. 
  Didn't look right, either, when the customers came 
  in, saw the place looking like a junkyard after a tor­
  nado.
  Leon didn't care.
  All he cared about was watching people fly.
  That's all he did. Ail day. Stood on the edge, 
  hands in his pockets, and watched the people fly. 
  Saying nothing. Humming to himself. Once in a 
  while raking a couple of fingers through that goofy 
  beard of his. Watching. Humming.
  And collecting the money.
  Curly looked around the room just to be sure 
  everything was in its place, then switched on the 
  tinny plastic radio he kept on the bench near the 
  door. It only got one station. Tonight it was Suzy 
  Bogguss singing about how wives don't like old girl­
  friends, and girlfriends don't like old wives.
  "True enough," he said to the shadows as he 
  attacked the floor. "Fucking true enough."
  Right about now, he needed a new girlfriend him­
  self, because his wife sure wasn’t putting out these 
  days. She was a sweet lady, and he supposed he 
  probably kind of loved her a little, but long about 
  last Thanksgiving she'd gone with her aunt up to 
  Nashville, gotten herself religion again, and fornica­
  tion had suddenly become out of the question.
  "Jesus,” he’d once exploded in frustration, "you 
  ain't a nun, you know, Annie. Jesus, gimmie a break.”
  She hadn’t liked that at all. In fact, for his blas­
  phemy, she had made him sleep on the back porch 
  for half a damn week. Him and the damn dogs.
  
  WATCHER
  1 3 5
  He sighed, swept, listened to the wind pound the 
  walls and wolf-howl in the eaves.
  Now' that police lady today, she was pretty okay 
  for a police lady. Dark-red hair, a figure he couldn’t 
  keep his eyes off. He wondered if she had handcuffs. 
  He wondered if she used them.
  He giggled.
  He swept.
  That FBI guy, though, he was something else. 
  Weird eyes. Kind of quiet. Moved like he was on 
  tiptoe or something. Not a really big man, but he 
  had a voice that sounded like it started some­
  where at the bottom of a well. Not deep so much 
  as full.
  Really weird eyes.
  He paused for a moment, sneezed, wiped his face 
  with the back of a hand, thought about the police 
  lady, and rolled his eyes as he got back to work
  Singing loudly and out of tune while Patsy sang 
  about falling to pieces and not having the sense God 
  gave her to do something about it.
  Something slammed into the wall, and the lights 
  began to flicker.
  loanne stood on the steps of police headquarters 
  and zipped up her denim jacket. With chin tucked, 
  she squinted at the sky, hoping to see at least one 
  star, but the city lights cast a glow that showed her 
  nothing but clouds.
  A righteous shoot; that’s what Lt, Millson had 
  told her not half an hour ago. No charges, no penal­
  ties; Internal Affairs had closed the file, and she had 
  been completely vindicated without prejudice, no 
  blight on her record. Righteous shoot. She grunted. 
  The man was from Chicago; they talked funny that
  
  1 3 6
  Charles Grant
  way. Still, being exonerated ought to have been 
  more .. , fulfilling, more satisfying somehow.
  It only made her angry that the process had to 
  have been gone through at all.
  She stepped slowly down to the pavem ent, 
  momentarily confused about where she had parked 
  her car. Which reminded her of Richard Turpin, and 
  that made her scowl. Her desk duty had been lifted, 
  but she was still assigned to the mystery guy from 
  D.C.; when she had demanded an explanation, ail 
  she'd gotten was a look.
  "He doesn't tell me anything," she had com ­
  plained. "We did some looking today, talked to the 
  girl and some guy at the hang-gliding place, and he 
  doesn't tell me anything."
  "He doesn't have to,” Millson said, not unsympa­
  thetically,
  "Weil, how the hell am I supposed to help him, 
  then?"
  "Don't shoot him."
  Her smile was screw-you-sour, her departure 
  swift, and she still couldn't figure out exactly what 
  the hell she was supposed to do. Be a damn chauf­
  feur? Get him in bed, find out all he knows? Beat the 
  shit out of him, find out all he knows? lesus. Ten 
  years a cop and this is what she gets?
  And why the hell hadn't she told the lieutenant 
  about the truck?
  In the beginning, she had been excited, even 
  eager, when she had been assigned to the task force 
  hunting for the Lookout Mountain killer. Most of the 
  work was dull, to be sure— door to door, asking 
  questions, correlating interviews, asking more ques­
  tions— but then there were the results, the hints, the 
  ghosts of answers maddeningly close and madden­
  ingly out of reach, staring at charts and paper until
  
  WATCHER
  137
  her eyes burned as she and a dozen others willed a 
  pattern to make itself known.
  A pattern was knowledge.
  With knowledge came possible prediction of the 
  next killing.
  She had been to all the sites, and wondered why 
  Turpin hadn’t taken the time today to visit the one 
  on the side of the mountain. Instead, he had spent 
  most of his time talking to Polly Logan, and it wasn't 
  until she had returned to headquarters that she real­
  ized he hadn't told her what he had learned.
  And he had definitely learned something.
  She had seen it in his eyes.
  She had half a mind to return to the Read House, 
  corner that spook or whatever the hell he really was, 
  and choke him until he stopped playing games and 
  told her.
  It wasn't fair; she was a good cop, and getting bet­
  ter, and it damn well wasn't fair.
  She started in one direction, realized she was wrong, 
  made an about-face, and nearly bumped into two uni­
  forms complaining about the mechanics in the motor 
  pool, how they never get anything right, and the uni­
  forms get all the grief when something falls off a car.
  She walked on, muttering to herself, working her­
  self into a mood that soon enough had her deciding 
  that, half a mind or not, she would see Turpin tonight 
  and demand some answers to some questions.
  He rose and walked away, leaving the table and the 
  rose behind. In the far corner of the garden was a 
  crumbling stone staircase, debris scattered at its 
  base, unmoved by the wind. He climbed to the top 
  and looked over the wall, and all the ruined, blasted 
  walls that surrounded him.
  
  1 3 8
  Charles Grant
  Now the wind did reach him, tugging his hair back 
  and away, pressing his shirt and trousers to his skin. 
  Howling. Forever howling.
  And the sun in the green-streaked sky felt like a 
  match held against his flesh.
  But inside, where it counted, he was cold.
  Curly gaped at the lights, stared at the wall where he 
  thought he heard the noise. The wind was busting 
  the outside something fierce, it could be a branch or 
  something that got flung against the shed.
  Or, he thought miserably, it could be one of the 
  metal trash cans got loose. If it had, he'd have to 
  fetch it before the wind rolled it off the mountain. 
  They hardly cost anything, but Leon always com­
  plained whenever they got dented.
  Grumbling, shaking his head, he propped the 
  broom against the workbench and went to the door.
  it was cold out there, freezing; he could feel it 
  through the wood.
  Another thump, not as loud as the first, and he 
  realized his hands were shaking a little.
  "Oh, Lord, Curly, you scared of a little noise?"
  He forced a laugh and yanked the door open, 
  stepped outside, and threw up a hand to protect his 
  face when a flurry of dead leaves leapt out of the 
  dark. He rolled his eyes, and moaned when he saw 
  the trash can shuddering down the length of the 
  building, nudged by the wind, it didn't take but a few 
  seconds to catch it, and a few seconds more to drag 
  it back inside. He'd fix it in its place tomorrow; 
  tonight he wanted to get the hell out, get home, get 
  showered, kiss his wife, and get the hell to the bar to 
  meet his girl and get laid.
  By the time he had grabbed up his broom again,
  
  WATCHER
  1 3 9
  the lights had steadied, and Emmylou on the radio 
  was whining about Amarillo and something about a 
  jukebox.
  He didn't much care for the song, but he sang 
  along anyway, making up the words he didn't know, 
  making up the notes he couldn't quite reach.
  Not that it mattered.
  As iong as the duet kept him from listening to the 
  quiet, measured thumping along the wall by the door.
  Blanchard was impressed.
  They had made their way easily through the lobby 
  throng, smiling and nodding as if they were royalty, 
  as if they belonged. Once they reached the front 
  desk, far to the left away from a handful still check­
  ing in, Wanda had leaned her elbows on the pol­
  ished wood counter, looked at a young man flipping 
  through some cards, and her voice deepened, 
  became smooth and thick as Georgia syrup.
  "Excuse me," she said, craned her neck so she could 
  read the clerk's gold nameplate on his blue-blazer 
  chest. "Lane, sugar, could you help me a second?"
  “lesus,” Blanchard muttered, then yelped when 
  she kicked back with a heel and caught him on the 
  shin. The pain was sharp and deep, and as he 
  gasped for a breath, she turned with a smile, follow­
  ing his gaze down to the innocuous black ballet slip­
  pers. "Tempered steel around the rim," she told him, 
  still smiling. “Specially made."
  He swallowed, but couldn't quite manage a smile. 
  "I'd love to have him make something for me."
  "Too late. Poor man died suddenly at a very young 
  age." Then she turned her attention back to the clerk. 
  "My key,” she said, the syrup flowing smoothly. "My 
  husband, he goes out on the town, says, 'Darlin',
  
  1 4 0
  Charles Grant
  meet me here, be dressed to kill.”’ She straightened 
  and spread her arms slightly, her expression now 
  rueful. "Not exactly ready to kill, am 1."
  "You look fine to me, ma'am," the clerk answered, 
  just shy of flirtation.
  "Weil, you know how it is, we women and all." She 
  looked troubled. "Problem is, the man took the key, 
  and how am I going to get into the shower, get 
  myself ready before he comes back?"
  “No problem, ma'am. 1 can make another one up 
  for you in a second. And you’re Mrs. . . ?"
  "Turpin," she answered without missing a beat. 
  "Richie Turpin."
  Blanchard turned away quickly before he choked, 
  only half listening as she kept up the chatter to keep 
  the clerk from checking the records too closely. 
  Amazing, he thought. It was as if he had left the restau­
  rant with one woman, and had ended up here with 
  someone else, someone infinitely more seductive.
  He was truly impressed.
  More so when she thanked the clerk with a smile 
  that damn near made him blush, whirled and walked 
  by, holding the key up and grinning. "You ready?"
  He touched his jacket at the breast. "Always.”
  "Wonderful." She linked her arm with his. "In and 
  out, and then we go." An overweight woman in a 
  costume more skin than cloth bumped into her and 
  apologized with a laugh. Without a glance in her 
  direction, Wanda shoved her away. "Christ, I hate 
  this fucking city.”
  Curly swept the pile of dust and crap his broom had 
  gathered over to the door. Ordinarily he would have 
  used the little broom and the dust pan now to pick it 
  up, and drop it in the metal trash barrel outside. Not
  
  WATCHER
  141
  tonight. Leon had left him alone all damn day, nobody 
  to talk to but the birds, the wings in the rafters, and 
  those cops. Fuck the dust, he wanted to go home.
  If he had any brains, he'd quit come morning, let 
  Leon do his own damn work.
  If he had any brains, which Leon kept telling him 
  he didn't. All the time.
  He grabbed the broom in a strangle-hold, kicked 
  open the door, and barely had time to catch his 
  breath before the wind slammed into him, scattering 
  the dust back across the floor.
  His shoulders slumped. "Aw . .. shit." He let the 
  broom fall. "Come on, Curly, you stupid or some­
  thing? Use your head, huh? Jesus.”
  He stared at the mess helplessly, wiped a hand 
  over his face, and kicked at the floor.
  The hell with it; he'd do it in the morning.
  He grabbed the edge of the door to slam it 
  closed, and barely registered the thing that whipped 
  out of the black to slash across his chest.
  "Jesus!" he yelled, and stumbled backward, look­
  ing dumbly at the coveralls hanging in shreds down 
  to his belly. "Jesus God!”
  He didn’t feel the pain until the dark came inside 
  and ripped out his throat.
  By then it was too late.
  He was sprawled on his back, on the floor, pray­
  ing as hard as he had ever prayed in his life.
  Not to be spared.
  Just to die.
  The pain was awful, almost too much to feel, but 
  it wasn’t as bad as the teeth that tore open his stom­
  ach, as the red eyes that watched him, and he could 
  swear they were smiling.
  Please, Lord, he thought; please, Lord, please.
  But it didn’t happen.
  
  Marcus Spiro was in the ballroom, at the top of the 
  gallery. He was seated at a long, white cloth-covered 
  table on a raised platform with the rest of the con­
  vention's guests, most of whom seemed to wish they 
  were somewhere else.
  He smiled.
  He had arrived late, panting a little, and twice he 
  had counted the number of people in the theater- 
  style setup, and couldn’t get more than fifty, no 
  matter how hard he tried. Fifty out of what? A thou­
  sand, at least? Fifteen hundred? Not that he was 
  surprised. Every convention he had ever been to 
  was like th is— they had opening cerem onies, 
  nobody came, the few who did applauded politely, 
  then everyone headed for the nearest room party.
  It was a joke.
  He smiled at them all as if they were his closest, 
  long-lost friends.
  He looked toward the back and saw Leon standing 
  behind the last row, still wearing an anorak, cheeks
  142
  
  WATCHER
  143
  faintly red. Late, too, but th at was all right, 
  because that big oaf understood that a man had to 
  be alone once in a while, and he asked no embar­
  rassing questions whose answers would have to be 
  lies. He hated lying. It caused too many complica­
  tions.
  A faint noise made him shift his gaze down to the 
  first row, at the woman in her tank top, she called 
  herself Pear, who saw his discomfort and leaned for­
  ward a little. A reminder.
  He sm iled at her, praying that the evening 
  wouldn't be wasted.
  Christ, he thought, I hate this fucking stuff.
  Joanne had been at the Read House a number of 
  times, officially and not, and she could see at a glance 
  that using the elevator to get to the third floor would 
  be a waste of time. She was too impatient for that. 
  Instead, she took the fire stairs at a run, slammed 
  through the fire door, and rounded the corner.
  She stood in front of 303 and pressed a hand to 
  her chest while she caught her breath.
  Be there, she willed, and knocked as she raked a 
  hand through her wind-rumpled hair.
  He didn't answer.
  The halls were quiet.
  She knocked again, harder, and this time called 
  his name.
  He didn't answer.
  Okay, maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she had no 
  right to barge in on him like this. Maybe she ought to 
  be a good little girl and play by the rules. He wasn't 
  here to help in the investigation; he was here to run 
  an investigation on his own. No problem. She was a 
  cop, he wasn’t, and who the hell are you kidding, girl?
  
  1 4 4
  Charles Grant
  She slammed a fist against the door, glaring at 
  the peephole, daring him to look out and ignore her.
  He didn't answer.
  Damn it, where the hell are you?
  To her left and around the corner, she heard the 
  metallic creak of the fire door opening, quiet voices 
  sounding hollow in the stairwell beyond.
  Then Turpin's door opened slowly, and she didn't 
  wait for an invitation. She pushed her way in without 
  bothering with an apology, frowned briefly at the 
  darkened room, and strode to the couch, standing 
  between it and the coffee table, facing the street, 
  arms folded across her chest.
  “We have to talk, Turpin," she said tightly, not 
  turning around.
  "Yes. Yes, we do."
  Blanchard closed his eyes, searching for calm. His 
  lips moved in a litany of obscenities, but he didn't 
  make a sound.
  W anda d id n ’t bother to keep silent, and she 
  didn't bother to temper her language. In her left 
  hand was the ivory wand, which she tapped angrily 
  against her leg.
  "We should go in anyway,” she said at last.
  He shook his head emphatically.
  "Why not? Two of us, two of them, lesus Christ, 
  Miles or whatever the hell you're calling yourself 
  these days, what's the goddamn problem?”
  His eyes snapped open.
  She backed away, but not fast enough. He 
  grabbed her upper arm and squeezed it, hard, as he 
  yanked her away from the corner. Heat swept over 
  his face. He pulled her so close she had to lean her 
  head back to focus on his eyes.
  
  WATCHER
  145
  "She," he said tightly, "is a cop, remember? A 
  detective. We take care of him, there’s no real prob­
  lem. We include the bitch, we'll have the whole fuck­
  ing force crawling all over the damn place.”
  Her gaze was steady, no emotion at all. "What's 
  your point? We'll be long gone by the time they find 
  them."
  He tried to speak, couldn't, tried again and failed, 
  and finally flung her away, so hard her head bounced 
  off the wall and her knees almost buckled at the 
  impact.
  But she didn't blink. Not once.
  "Messy," was all he could bring himself to say. "I 
  don’t like messy. Messy makes for messy questions. 
  Messy questions sometimes get real answers." Then, 
  for good measure, he added, "Crimmins.”
  The ivory slipped back into her pocket. She 
  adjusted her cardigan, ran a smoothing palm down 
  her blouse, and brushed by him, heading toward the 
  elevator alcove.
  "I’m going to the bar,” she said. "Call me when 
  you find out where you left your balls.”
  A tree had been planted at the curb outside the 
  window, its branches merging with the early night. 
  There were no cars that she could see, nothing but 
  streetlights and reflections and the Chubb Building 
  in the distance, glowing red, like sullen fire.
  All her anger and im patience had instantly 
  drained at the sound of his voice, but she couldn’t 
  turn around.
  The room was still dark; she didn't want to see his 
  face in what dim light there was.
  Footfalls behind her; he was pacing, not wearing 
  shoes.
  "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I . . . I’ve had some 
  bad news.”
  
  146
  Charles Grant
  She nodded.
  "My, uh, best friend . . . her name is Fay ..." A soft 
  exhalation; he cleared his throat harshly. "Was Fay. 
  She's dead."
  "I’m sorry'. An accident?”
  "Murder.”
  She did look over her shoulder then. He had 
  dropped into a chair at the table, legs spread, one 
  arm on the table, the other in his lap. The outside 
  light didn't reach far enough— it looked as if he had 
  no head. There was a glint, however, to mark his 
  eyes. They looked almost green.
  "Murder," he repeated dully.
  She recognized then what she had heard in his 
  voice— he’d been crying, or fighting so hard not to 
  that the result was the same— he was hoarse, barely 
  sounded human.
  Bracing one hand against the sofa's back, she 
  lowered herself onto the cushion, pushing into the 
  corner, one leg up, one foot on the floor. She winced 
  when her beeper dug into her thigh, unclipped it 
  from her belt and placed it on the end table without 
  looking. "N ot. . . not your wife?"
  A sad laugh. "No. No, we weren't... we couldn’t."
  Helplessness prevented her from asking more 
  questions simply because she didn’t know the right 
  questions to ask.
  He leaned forward into the light, forearms on his 
  knees, staring at the floor. "Look, )o, it's . . . ’’ Another 
  laugh, this one bitter while he shook his head. "It’s 
  been less than two days, and I’ve done nothing but 
  treat you like you aren’t even here. You probably 
  won’t believe it, but that’s really not my style.”
  She tilted her head in a half shrug. "You've been a 
  shit, more or less."
  "More or less.”
  
  WATCHER
  147
  “And you know a lot more than we do. About this 
  killer, I mean."
  "Oh, yes.’’ He looked up without raising his head. 
  "Oh, yes.”
  She settled deeper in the corner and pulled her 
  other leg up, hooked fingers around the ankle to 
  keep it in place. “Do you know who he is?"
  "[ don't even know yet if he's a he."
  She shook her head doubtfully. "No offense, but a 
  woman generally doesn't commit crimes like this. 
  Like they say, it's not really in the profile."
  He looked at the floor again before scratching 
  fiercely through his hair. "For the time being, you'll 
  have to take my word for it— there is no profile for 
  the kind of madman we're after."
  Her m outh opened, closed quickly, and she 
  gripped her ankle more tightly. The room felt unusu­
  ally warm, but a chill slithered across her shoulders 
  anyway, making her shift them until it dissipated. 
  When he sat up slowly, his face retreating into 
  shadow, she could almost hear the pain, almost felt it 
  with him. That bothered her. She didn't know this 
  man at all, had no idea who he was or where he was 
  from, so there was no reason at all why he should 
  affect her this way.
  No reason at all.
  But he did.
  The silence expanded, but it wasn't uncomfort­
  able. W hat questions she had— and there were 
  dozens— would have to wait. In his own good time, 
  she knew; in his own good time.
  In the main hall outside, a voice called and 
  another answered.
  A truck backfired to a halt at the traffic light below 
  the window, gears grinding, brakes hissing.
  His chair creaked as he shifted.
  
  1 4 8
  Charles Grant
  The room no longer felt too warm, but a peculiar 
  scent remained, dry heat and hot sand. She blinked 
  slowly, almost sleepily.
  "You’re very good," he said suddenly, quietly
  She started, and bit back a yelp.
  "At waiting, 1 mean.”
  "1 have to be." And she did. Often, interrogation 
  yielded more just by sitting there, not looking at but 
  watching the person who had the answers she was 
  after. By saying little, or nothing at all, she could 
  elicit outrage, then denial, outrage again, and finally, 
  if she was lucky, a slow crumbling of defenses that 
  often told her more than words.
  "So do 1." He left his chair, took his time moving 
  to the opposite corner of the couch, angling his 
  body so he could see her without having to turn his 
  head. Because of the furniture’s size, there wasn't 
  much more than a foot between them.
  More calling in the hall, and an outburst of explo­
  sive laughter that lasted for several seconds.
  "Listen, Jo— "
  "How did you know?" she demanded sharply.
  "What?”
  “Jo. How did you know to call me Jo? Hardly any­
  one does anymore. You did it before, too."
  A one-shoulder shrug. "I do n’t know. It feels 
  right.” A momentary frown. "Sorry if it offends you."
  She waved him off— it doesn't— and squirmed a lit­
  tle to regroup.
  This was crazy. She wanted to reach out, touch his 
  leg, so much so that she clasped her hands in her 
  lap and forced them to stay there.
  "I have a problem, Joanne," he said.
  "Jo."
  He smiled. "Okay. I have a problem, Jo, and it goes 
  beyond what your superiors might have told you.” He
  
  WATCHER
  1 4 9
  gazed out the window, staring and seeing nothing, 
  one arm resting along the back of the couch.
  "If it'll make you feel any better, they've told me 
  squat."
  He chuckled. "That's because they don’t know 
  squat. About me, that is. What I do.”
  "So? What do you do?"
  A finger lifted. "That is the problem." The finger 
  pointed at the window. "Out there is a killer. He, 
  maybe she, is insane and getting worse. He’s going 
  to kill again, I don't know when, and i'm supposed to 
  stop him."
  She shuddered, and pulled her lower lip thought­
  fully between her teeth. When he said "stop,” she 
  had a bad feeling he didn't mean "catch."
  "Son of a bitch," she whispered suddenly. Then, 
  louder, "Son of a bitch.” She straightened. "You’re 
  not official, are you?" It wasn’t a question, it was an 
  accusation.
  He turned toward her, sliding the left side of his 
  face into the room's shadow.
  As if he were wearing a mask, she thought, and 
  didn't like it.
  "You're not government at all. FBI, CIA, some­
  thing like that, 1 mean." She sat even straighter. 
  "Goddammit, Turpin, you're a civilian." The heat of 
  her indignation began to creep into her face. “What 
  the hell is going on around here? Who the hell has 
  that kind of pull?”
  She started to rise, but he leaned over and placed 
  a hand on her leg. Not hard. Enough to stop her.
  "My problem," he said evenly. "It’s no exaggera­
  tion, lo, to say that if I tell you what you want to 
  know, even just a little, things aren't ever going to be 
  the same for you again. Ever. I guarantee it."
  She wouldn’t have believed him if it hadn't been
  
  1 5 0
  Charles Grant
  for the clear reluctance in his voice, and the sadness 
  she could see in those strange eyes. As it was, the 
  matter-of-fact way he spoke unnerved her more than 
  what he had actually said.
  She rubbed her throat lightly. "1 gather we can't 
  go on until you do tell me."
  "I don’t think so. Not and be very effective/'
  "And if you don't anyway?"
  "You'll have to tell your lieutenant. You'll have to 
  protest more than you probably already have."
  She nodded; he was right.
  "And he'll have to order you to stick with me, 
  because he doesn’t know, either. He thinks this is all 
  governm ent work.” A fleeting sardonic sm ile. 
  "Official government, that is, covert or not. If you 
  still refuse, he'll have to reassign you, take you off 
  the task force. More. You won’t like that, |o. It'll be 
  scut work. Shit work. Rookie work not even the rook­
  ies get to do. You'll be driven from the force.
  "Sooner or later, they'll drive you out.”
  She knew the drill, knew what her record would 
  say when it was over: uncooperative, making waves, 
  and probably labeled unstable.
  She very nearly laughed; she d id n ’t, but her 
  voice was bitter. "I get it. You don't tell me what's 
  up, and I get the royal shaft. You tell me, and I'm 
  probably not going to like it, and maybe get the 
  shaft anyway. Plus, I'll probably be in some danger. 
  Right?"
  "No." He shook his head solemnly. "Not some 
  danger. A lot of danger.” His fingers slid along her 
  leg and away. "There's a fair chance you won’t live 
  through it."
  Angrily, she dusted the leg where the hand had 
  been. "If you’re trying to scare me off, Turpin, it isn’t 
  going to work. I have no intention of ever giving up
  
  WATCHER
  151
  being what I am, what I worked for, and I sure don’t 
  intend for some mystery man to— ”
  The beeper sounded behind her, and she jumped 
  so violently, she nearly fell into his lap. When she 
  looked up, their faces were only inches apart.
  Eyes, she thought; those eyes . . . until he 
  touched her shoulder, reminding her of the sum­
  mons. She whirled, then, and grabbed the receiver 
  from the telephone on the table. After getting an 
  outside line, she dialed the station’s number, identi­
  fied herself, listened, and hung up almost immedi­
  ately.
  “Let’s go," she said, getting quickly to her feet.
  He looked at her quizzically.
  "There's been another one. And the body’s still 
  fresh."
  
  . Mood
  Joanne had already slapped a magnetized red bub­
  ble on the roof of her car by the time Richard threw 
  himself into the front seat. He barely had time to 
  pull his feet in and close the door before she bolted 
  through the red-light intersection, one hand on the 
  steering wheel, the other holding a mike to her lips, 
  letting the others know she was on the road and on 
  the way.
  She said nothing about him.
  He winced as she veered sharply around a pair of 
  slower cars, and held his breath when she leaned on 
  the horn and nearly clipped the rear bumper of a 
  pickup that had hesitated in the middle of the next 
  intersection.
  "Don't you have a siren?”
  She shrugged with one shoulder. "Busted."
  "Wonderful;"
  The radio crackled static; half the traffic was gar­
  bled, but what he did hear told him roadblocks were
  152
  
  WATCHER
  153
  being set up throughout the city and around the 
  mountain. 
  .
  "It was that guy," she said, swinging into the left 
  lane to pass a lumbering city bus.
  “What guy?”
  "That Curly guy. At the hang-gliding place.”
  Shit, he thought, and grabbed for the dashboard 
  when she played matador at another crossing, this 
  time with a moving van that seemed in no hurry to 
  get out of her way until she blasted the horn.
  The office buildings were left behind; warehouses 
  now, barely illuminated, their lights brittle and wan. 
  The neon on the handful of restaurants and bars 
  seemed even more seedy, despite their supposedly 
  cheery glow.
  What he thought was a snowflake hit the wind­
  shield and melted.
  Dead ahead, at the Y-intersection near the super­
  market, he saw patrol cars parked at angles in the 
  middle of the road, their lights flashing. Joanne 
  slowed only a little to give them time to part and let 
  her pass, then accelerated again.
  "We'll take the same way. It's not as steep."
  He grunted, wanting to close his eyes so he 
  wouldn't see the blur of dark trees, or the way the 
  city fell away so quickly from the alarmingly low 
  guard rail. If there were streetlamps, he didn't see 
  them; there was only the gray pull of the headlamps 
  on the tarmac.
  Seconds later, they reached the boulder outcrop­
  ping, and he tensed as she took the curve around it 
  without hesitation.
  The way ahead was clear.
  "I know what you're thinking," she said, m an­
  handling the car around the final bend.
  "I doubt it."
  
  1 5 4
  Charles Grant
  “You’re thinking I'm a damn good driver, making 
  it all this way without hitting a damn thing.”
  "We're not there yet."
  She laughed. "We will be. You gotta have faith.”
  At the top, another roadblock. She passed it care­
  fully, taking the road left, and speeding up again. It 
  didn’t take long for the houses to be left behind.
  "A couple of minutes," she told him.
  He squeezed the tiny bundle in his pocket, and 
  nodded, wishing the radio chatter was more clear, 
  but he could only catch one or two words at a time; 
  everyone seemed to be talking at once, and he won­
  dered how the hell anyone could pass on informa­
  tion that way.
  The road dipped and climbed.
  The infrequent houses on the left were lit top and 
  bottom, and he caught glimpses of people clustered 
  in their yards, all facing the same way. Figures 
  moved among the trees, slashing the air with flash­
  light beams. At least two pairs of police dogs strain­
  ing at their leashes, testing the ground and air.
  "Not wasting any time," she noted, sounding 
  pleased and frustrated at the same time.
  They flashed by the college, windows alight, sil­
  houettes against the panes, staring out.
  "They don’t have to be afraid now," Joanne said 
  tightly. "He’s already made his kill for the night."
  "Maybe."
  She stared at him for too long, he had to point at 
  the road to redirect her attention. "What the hell do 
  you mean by that?”
  He wiped his face with a palm. "I mean, the pattern's 
  broken. Shattered." He watched a silver glow in the sky, 
  beyond the road’s next rise. “He's gone over the edge. 
  There's no way, now, to predict his next move."
  "Swell."
  
  WATCHER
  155
  The ridge flattened after the rise, and he saw the 
  congestion at the staging area. At least half a dozen 
  cruisers parked on both sides of the road, an ambu­
  lance backed up to the shed’s door, men walking pur­
  posefully from one place to another while others just 
  stood around, stamping their feet against the cold, 
  hands tucked under their armpits. Breath steamed in 
  the light thrown by headlamps and electric torches. 
  As she braked to a skidding halt just past the shed, 
  he saw the flutter of yellow crime-scene ribbon.
  They hurried toward the entrance.
  "You got that FBI ID?" she asked.
  "Yes.”
  "Put it on your jacket. It’ll save a lot of questions."
  He did, scolding himself for forgetting such a sim­
  ple thing.
  But he couldn’t help it.
  His nostrils flared, and he inhaled deeply.
  .. . Mood . . .
  Four men were on their hands and knees on the 
  gravel, peering at the stones, one man behind them 
  with a handful of tiny yellow flags. A trail of them 
  reached from the threshold to where he stood.
  Richard followed her under the tape, kept one 
  step behind as several voices greeted her. Someone 
  stepped out of the office, a stump of a man in a 
  heavy, dark-blue jacket, the collar up. He wore no 
  hat, but there were bars on the collar's wings.
  "Lieutenant Millson," she told him out of the cor­
  ner of his mouth. "My boss. Task-force head.”
  "He's the one who gave you to me?"
  She looked up at him and grinned without mirth.
  
  156
  Charles Grant
  "Turpin, nobody gives me to nobody. 1 was assigned. 
  There’s a hell of a difference.”
  Past the door, near the cliff edge, he heard the 
  sound of a man vomiting. Two white-coated atten­
  dants lounged against the ambulance, smoking.
  Lt. Millson intercepted them before they could go 
  inside. Joanne introduced Richard, who watched the 
  m an’s face— small eyes and small mouth, with a 
  large blunt nose between. Pudgy cheeks. Black hair 
  matted around his forehead and ears. A toupee, he 
  realized; it's a goddamn toupee.
  Richard shook the policeman’s gloved hand and 
  hunched his shoulders against the cold wind. "Bad?” 
  He nodded at the building.
  "You’ve never seen it that bad, boy."
  Oh, yes 1 have, he thought, but didn't say it aloud.
  The call had come in less than half an hour ago. 
  Nora Costo, Hendean's assistant below, had come 
  up to see if she couldn't convince him to close down 
  for a while. She was, the lieutenant said, tired of 
  hanging around all day, without practically anyone 
  to watch out for.
  "She’s over there." He pointed to a sedan twenty 
  yards away. A small woman sat sideways on the 
  front seat, hands cupped around a Styrofoam cup of 
  coffee. A patrolwoman crouched beside her, talking 
  softly. "Walked in, saw the . . . scene, called it in right 
  away from her car. Lookout Mountain cops were on 
  the roadblocks almost instantly."
  Not soon enough, Richard thought; damn it, not 
  soon enough.
  He looked at the doorway, took a breath, and 
  started for it.
  "Hey,” the lieutenant said, *f thought i said— ”
  Richard stared at him, stared at the hand reach­
  ing for his arm, and stepped inside. Behind him,
  
  WATCHER
  157
  loanne muttered something that may have been a 
  curse or an apology, and followed.
  "Aw, shit," she said. "Aw, Jesus."
  Curly Guestin lay spread-eagled on his worktable.
  What was left of him, that is.
  Richard stepped carefully around the shimmering 
  pools of blood and stood at the dead man's feet, 
  hands in his pockets, breathing through his mouth. 
  There wasn't much left of Guestin from the waist up; 
  it looked as if someone had taken a hacksaw to him, 
  slashing indiscrim inately until his left arm had 
  nearly been severed, his torso gutted from navel to 
  throat, his face little more than a red mask.
  . . . blood . . .
  .. . fresh blood . . .
  Richard turned slowly, ignoring the men who worked 
  around the room, trying to find something in the 
  wreckage besides blood. Mumbling to themselves. 
  Once in a while, gagging.
  "Find out what you can,” he said to Joanne, and 
  before she could ask, he left, brushed past Millson, 
  and moved stiffly toward the road.
  He heard the lieutenant mutter, "Pussy," but 
  didn’t stop.
  No time; he had no time.
  Suddenly the beat of rotor blades overwhelmed 
  the noise of radios and whispers, and a helicopter 
  rose above the ridge, two intense white beams 
  stretched below it like legs. Cops grabbed for their 
  hats as a minor dust storm swept over the scene, 
  causing the yellow ribbons to snap like whips. 
  Richard used the momentary confusion to run back
  
  1 5 8
  Charles Grant
  toward Joanne's car, past it, and duck into the 
  trees.
  He heard shouts, and froze until he realized they 
  weren't meant for him.
  Then he began to run.
  No time.
  . . . merging . , .
  No time.
  Slipping from trunk to trunk, angling toward the 
  edge, shaking the scent of fresh human blood from 
  his nostrils, searching for the other scent and nearly 
  howling when he found it.
  The rogue had come here, and had gone over the 
  edge.
  He clung to a small pine and looked down, frown­
  ing, seeing nothing but knowing this was the way the 
  other one had gone.
  Not that long ago.
  Headlights flashed along the road far below; he 
  could barely make out the distant wail of a siren. 
  Four patrol cars, one of them pausing, then speeding 
  up again, heading north toward the river. Although 
  he couldn't see the woodland down there, he spotted 
  several winks of light. The search party had begun to 
  build even in the valley. He didn't have much time.
  From somewhere near the shed, Joanne called his 
  name.
  The helicopter was joined by a second, and they 
  swung off, northward, one on either side of the ridge.
  "Damn it, Turpin!"
  He slipped between two large rocks and began to 
  climb-slide downward, letting the trees be his 
  brakes, letting them swing him on to the next one. 
  Mountain climbing in reverse, with no safety net.
  The scent was still fairly strong— sweat and blood 
  and a touch of outright fear. He puzzled at that, but
  
  WATCHER
  1 5 9
  couldn't concentrate on much more than not falling; 
  the angle of the mountainside was such that losing 
  his balance would mean slamming his way all the 
  way to the bottom, or near enough that it wouldn't 
  make any difference when they found him.
  "Hey!” A young man’s voice in the stand he’d just 
  left. "Hey, down here!”
  He snorted angrily.
  “Here!” A wide slant of white bounced off the 
  treetops, settled, and aimed down. "Here!”
  Richard didn't stop.
  Branches whipped at the thick fur that covered 
  him head to claw; twice something dug at the corner 
  of his eye, and whipping his head away made him 
  dizzy for a second; his left foot lost its purchase, and 
  he fell hard against a half-buried rock, the wind 
  forced from his lungs.
  "Down there, damn it! I swear to God!”
  He knelt there and gasped, swallowing hard, large 
  pointed ears twitching front to side to back, sifting 
  through the sounds of the night for the one sound 
  he needed.
  What he didn't expect was the shot.
  The bullet struck him high on the right shoulder, the 
  force of it nearly toppling him off the rock. He 
  snarled and whirled, glaring up at the ridge, snarled 
  again and slapped at his shoulder where the fire had 
  lodged, a furrow, not a hole, and he growled, 
  tempted to return and teach the cop a lesson.
  Another shot, this one thirty yards to his right.
  Blind.
  Damn, he thought; the stupid kid is firing blind, 1 
  don’t believe it.
  He passed a hand gingerly over the wound,
  
  1 6 0
  Charles Grant
  grimacing at the matted fur, concentrating as he lis­
  tened to the shouts, the orders, calming himself
  Concentrating.'
  Dampening the fire.
  He could well imagine the conversation above:
  I don't see anything.
  Down there I saw it.
  It?
  A big thing you know? I swear it must've been covered in 
  fur. Really hairy, you know what I mean?
  Hairy. Big.
  I swear!
  Sure: sure you do. You just shot a big, hairy thing, right?
  Jesus Christ.
  Nope, I don't think so.
  He came too close to laughing, and clambered 
  swiftly over the rock and continued down, shifting 
  his angle of descent until he was practically directly 
  below the crime scene.
  The fire was gone.
  The furrow would be, in minutes.
  There were no more sounds of possible pursuit. If 
  he had had the time, he would have felt sorry for the 
  poor guy who'd spotted him.
  There was no time.
  The scent still didn’t change, neither weaker nor 
  stronger. The rogue hadn’t fled at anything like 
  frightened speed. It was taking its time, confident its 
  human pursuit would never guess what it was, would 
  never believe it had escaped the way it had.
  The cries and shouts grew more faint.
  The flare of a flashlight couldn't reach this far down.
  When he found himself on a narrow ledge, he took 
  a few precious moments to allow his night vision to 
  sharpen further. His arms and legs ached, and trem­
  bled slightly from the beating they been taking. His
  
  WATCHER
  161
  great head swung slowly side to side, snuffling at the 
  air, marking the scent he'd been following.
  Below, a pair of cruisers drove slowly southward, 
  spotlights on their roofs attempting to penetrate the 
  slope’s trees.
  He waited until they passed, looked over the ledge, 
  and jumped before he could talk himself out of it.
  Twenty feet, maybe more, before he hit the stony 
  ground, fell to all fours, and launched himself into a 
  sprint as the ground leveled for a while before drop­
  ping off again. He had reached the mountain's skirt, 
  and the angle wasn't nearly as sharp as it had been. 
  Movement was easier.
  But then, it was for the rogue, too.
  He didn’t worry about the searchers down here. 
  There were too few of them so far, avoiding them 
  would be easy. What he needed was a direction for 
  the rogue— it seemed as if he had gone straight for 
  the highway, no deviations. Did he have a car down 
  here, waiting? A cave? From what Joanne had told 
  him, the m ountain was riddled with them, the 
  largest transformed into tourist attractions.
  Fifteen minutes brought him to ground nearly level 
  with the road. He stood well back in the trees, testing 
  the air, catching his breath. Diagonally across the high­
  way, about three hundred yards to his right, were 
  house lights and the vague outline of a split-rail fence. 
  A glance up and over his shoulder, another look at the 
  house, and he figured that must be Nora Costo’s place. 
  Another cruiser sped past, followed by a dark-sided 
  van. SWAT team? he wondered, and stepped away from 
  the tree. At that m om ent what felt like a bom b 
  exploded across the top of his shoulders. He cried out 
  howled as he fell face first to the ground. He couldn’t 
  think, couldn’t see, and had no chance to protect him­
  self when another explosion killed all the light.
  
  . . .  Mood . . .
  Voices:
  "Over there."
  "What the hell did you ... Jesus!"
  "Weil, how was 1 supposed to know, Sergeant? I 
  heard all the commotion, I go running over, I— ” 
  "Enough, officer, enough."
  "What's he doing out here, anyway?"
  "FBI." 
  " 
  ’
  “Fucking Beanpod Idiot, you mean."
  . . . Mood . . .
  He heard her before he saw her, smelled her before 
  she knelt beside him.
  "Oh my God, look at your head."
  Tires shrieking on the road, voices in the woods, 
  the deafening slap of a helicopter's rotors.
  "Sergeant, you want me to get an ambulance?" 
  "Good Lord, you didn’t call one yet?"
  162
  
  MATCHER
  163
  "Thought he was dead. Ain't no hurry if the guy's 
  not breathing."
  Richard pushed himself up on one elbow, trying 
  not to scream. "No ambulance.”
  She leaned closer. "What?"
  "No ambulance.” 
  ..
  "Sure. And tomorrow, you're gonna walk on water."
  Fireflies sparked across his vision, rising from the 
  conflagration rising from his back. With his free hand 
  he braced himself against her knee and rose farther.
  "No ambulance.”
  "Richard, this isn't the movies, honey, you’re 
  bashed up, bashed in, and there's no way I’m going 
  to let you die out here.”
  Christ, he thought, why won't she listen?
  He squeezed, and she gasped. "Your car?"
  "Right here."
  Another push, and he was upright. Swaying. Bits 
  of leaf and twig dangling from his hair, clots of dirt 
  and mud clinging to his jacket.
  "The hotel,” he said, trying to focus on her face.
  "Now that’s just plain dumb."
  He wanted to yell at her, but the longer he stayed 
  here, the more danger he was in.
  "Tell them," he said, gesturing toward the others 
  hovering near the road, "it's not as bad as it looks."
  "Richard— "
  He glared at her. "Tell them, Jo, tell them it’s just 
  a scalp wound and get me out of here."
  He saw the rebellion, automatic and justified, but 
  she must have seen something as well, because she 
  stood, gripped his arm, and helped him to his feet.
  "Sarge?"
  "It's all right. Damn Yankee can’t fall down a 
  mountain without scraping his knees, bunking his 
  thick skull on a damn stump."
  
  1 6 4
  Charles Grant
  Someone he couldn't see snickered.
  Someone else declared there was movement up 
  the road, haul ass, they needed reinforcements.
  "It's all right," Joanne insisted, when the last one 
  hesitated. "You want to miss being in on the kill?"
  The patrolman half saluted and took off.
  Richard wiped an arm across his eyes, and would 
  have toppled backward if she hadn’t kept her grip.
  "You will explain.”
  "Hotel. Hurry."
  .. .he could feel the blood .. .
  He lay on his side across the back seat, swaying with the 
  car's movement as she raced toward the city. She had 
  put a light blanket over him, covering him to his shoul­
  ders. It didn't help much; he couldn’t chase the cold.
  "You get blood all over my car, Turpin, you clean 
  it up, you understand?"
  He grunted.
  The fireflies wouldn't leave, the conflagration 
  wouldn't subside. He bit down on his lower lip, one 
  pain for another, but it didn’t do any good.
  Joanne snapped into the radio, arguing with her 
  lieutenant. She couldn’t be in two places at the 
  same time, she told him. Stay at the scene, stay with 
  the FBI, why doesn't he make up his goddamn mind?
  For a change there was no static: "Language pro­
  tocol, Detective.”
  She apologized flatly, and told him what she had 
  told the others, that Turpin had injured himself a 
  good one, am ambulance would be too slow so she 
  was taking him to the hospital herself.
  "How bad is he you got to play nursemaid, Minster?"
  
  WATCHER
  165
  "Government, remember?" was all she said. "Your 
  idea, not mine."
  Silence and static,
  "Drop him off, come right back, Detective.”
  She acknowledged, dropped the mike on the seat 
  beside her, and glared at the rearview mirror. "If I 
  lose my shield because of this, Turpin, I’ll kill you.”
  He grunted again, not daring to speak, not know­
  ing if he could speak, and not caring about her god­
  damn shield. He was hurt, and hurt badly, and it 
  wasn’t healing the way it should have.
  Awkwardly, he reached behind his left ear, 
  touched his hair, then checked his hand in the inter­
  mittent light that flowed through the car.
  It was thick, barely flowing, but it was still his blood.
  He couldn’t think.
  He didn't understand.
  "Hang on, Richard," she said gently. "We're com­
  ing up on the bridge. Bumpy ride."
  Why the hell was he still bleeding?
  The fireflies flared into a solid white wall when 
  the car slammed into a pothole.
  . .. he could smell the blood .. .
  "Talk to me, Richard," she said quietly and urgently. 'Talk 
  to me, don’t die on me, talk to me, come on, talk to me."
  He began to appreciate the fireflies. At least they 
  were proof he was still alive.
  "Talk to me.”
  "Yes."
  He heard the sighed "Thank God.”
  The car slowed, and he slid toward the door as 
  she swung around a corner.
  
  166
  Charles Grant
  "How the heli did you get down there so fast?"
  He swallowed, his throat feeling as if it were 
  packed with sand. "Flew."
  "Not funny,f
  "Luck."
  "Miracle, you mean." A glance over her shoulder. 
  "How'd you get hurt? A tree, rock, what? Keep talking, 
  Richard. Christ, I must be nuts. Momma always said 
  !’d go nuts one of these days, dealing with all the 
  scum of the earth. I'm nuts, that's all there is to it.”
  The fireflies danced.
  "Richard, talk to me, come on, talk to me.”
  "He . . ." He tried to sit up, but the motion of the 
  car kept him down. "He hit me.”
  Her voice rose: "You saw him? Jesus, Richard, you 
  saw him?"
  He shook his head, and groaned at the explosion 
  that threatened to swamp him. "No," he said. "No. 
  Came from behind me.”
  His eyes fluttered closed; he saw himself charging 
  like a fool through the trees, following the scent, 
  feeling the explosion, unable to . . .
  His eyes snapped open.
  Doubled back; the bastard doubled back on his 
  own trail and just stood there, waiting for him.
  He knew I was coming.
  He groaned again, this time in frustration.
  "Richard?”
  "How soon?"
  "Two minutes. You going to die on me?"
  “Nope.”
  "Then what's this all about?"
  "You'll see. Be patient.”
  Southern and deadly: "Honey, this damn well bet­
  ter be good."
  
  WATCHER
  167
  ...  he could taste the blood .. .
  He gripped the back of the seat and hauled himself 
  up, bracing himself for the fiery detonation in his 
  skull, the one that mercifully didn't come. His stom­
  ach roiled bile into his throat. The fireflies merged 
  with the lights outside as she pulled into the parking 
  entrance, flashed her badge at the attendant who 
  wanted to stop her, and turned sharply left, bringing 
  them down one level. Below ground. Where it was 
  silent.
  Once she had stopped, she jumped out and yanked 
  open the back door, suddenly unsure of what to do next.
  He half crawled, half slid out to his feet, looked at 
  the ramp and said, "I’ll never make it."
  She was pale and couldn’t keep from staring at his 
  head. But she said nothing. She kept the blanket around 
  his shoulders, hauling it up to cover his neck, and most 
  of the blood; there wasn’t much she could do about the 
  blood that matted his hair. An arm slipped around his 
  waist, an order to lean on her, she was stronger than she 
  looked, and they began the upward climb.
  "You're drunk,” she whispered when they came 
  out at street level.
  He didn’t need to act. His legs weren’t working, the 
  fireflies were blinding him, and the throbbing in his 
  head trebled every noise and deafened him. He stared 
  at the ground, then at the carpet, seeing feet pass him, 
  hearing some disgust, some giggles, someone ask if 
  the little lady could use some help with her friend.
  The little lady declined. Politely.
  Richard would have laughed had he had the strength.
  At the elevators she showed her badge again, 
  clearing everyone out. When a pair of pointy silver 
  boots complained bitterly, she suggested he talk to
  
  1 6 8
  Charles Grant
  the management. Not very politely this time, and 
  the doors closed.
  "You're not gonna die, right?"
  He stared at the floor, and said nothing. Right 
  now, there was nothing he could say to chase the 
  fear in her voice. He had to concentrate on standing 
  up, concentrate on walking when they reached the 
  third floor, concentrate on not screaming when she 
  leaned him  too heavily against the wall and 
  searched him for the key card to let them inside.
  "The bed," she said when the door closed behind 
  them.
  "No." He pushed her gently toward the couch. "Sit 
  down.”
  "But— i“
  "Sit down. This'll take a few minutes, but . .. just 
  sit, Jo, just sit."
  He made his way into the other room without 
  falling, used the bed to help him keep his feet, and 
  tried not to stumble when he entered the bathroom. 
  Before he turned on the light, he looked out and saw 
  her, on the couch but sitting forward, trying to see 
  him through the dark.
  "Don’t leave,* he said hoarsely, and closed the 
  door, turned on the light, looked in the mirror over 
  the small porcelain sink.
  He knew then, and raised a weak fist.
  Silver; the son of a bitch had hit him with some­
  thing heavily laced with silver.
  "So why aren't you dead?" he asked his reflection. 
  "Why didn't he finish it?”
  He grabbed the edge of the basin with both 
  hands, lowered his head, and closed his eyes.
  The shift was agony.
  He confined it to his head and shoulders as best 
  he could, and didn’t look up, didn't want to look up,
  
  WATCHER
  1 6 9
  just waited until all the fireflies died and the confla­
  gration died and he could think again without wish­
  ing he were dead.
  . . . Mood . . .
  . . .  on the jaws of Anubis. . .
  Stiffly, moving an inch at a time, he stripped off his 
  jacket and shirt, splashed cold water on his face, and 
  grimaced at the blood and w oodland filth that 
  swirled down the drain. It took the face cloth and two 
  hand towels before the water ran reasonably clear; 
  then he washed again, and stripped to his shorts.
  He was still dizzy, could still barely walk. He 
  needed to rest, needed sleep. The rogue was out 
  there— and close, so damn close— but the way he 
  felt now, he w ouldn't be able to fight his own 
  shadow.
  Maybe Poulard was right; maybe he was getting 
  too old for this job. If that second blow had hit his 
  head instead of his shoulders ..
  He turned off the light and opened the door.
  Joanne was on her feet in the middle of the sitting 
  room, a single lamp burning behind her. "I thought... 
  I was going to come in .! thought— "
  He pulled back the quilt and blanket, and slipped 
  under the sheet, with a slight groan not entirely just 
  for her benefit.
  She took a step closer. "I'll get a doctor now, okay?”
  "No," he said weakly. "I'm all right. Like you said 
  to that cop, it looked worse than it was. Cold water 
  does wonders, believe it or not."
  She came into the room then and stood by the foot­
  board. "This is nuts. You need a doctor. You need 
  stitches. Damn, Turpin, you practically fell down a god­
  damn mountain, then got yourself nailed by a killer."
  
  Charles Grant
  "I'll be ali right," he insisted gamely, and added 
  with a smile, "If it'll make you feel any better, I’m 
  going to feel like hell in the morning." He laughed 
  tightly. "Hell, 1 feel like hell now."
  "This makes no sense."
  He could feel himself slipping away, down where 
  the healing was. He wanted to say something to her, 
  to ease the concern so clear in her voice, to clear the 
  fear for him he could see in her eyes.
  All he could do was sigh.
  "I can’t stay," she said suddenly, sidling toward 
  the sitting room.
  "I know."
  "He'll kill me. And that— "
  "You'll catch him."
  Her laugh was bitter. "Yeah. Right. Like I’m 
  Superwoman or something, huh?" Angrily she snatched 
  up her coat, switched off the lamps, and grabbed for the 
  doorknob. "Maybe I'll stop by later."
  "Thanks, but you’ll be working all night."
  A shrug.
  “Io?" 
  '
  The door was open, light slipping into the room. 
  She looked at him, frowning because she couldn’t 
  see anything but a vague lump in the bed.
  "You are, you know."
  "What?”
  "Super."
  Did she blush? He couldn’t tell because she was 
  gone too quickly, and his vision was as well. There 
  were no fireflies, but there was a insistent dull 
  throbbing, and a faint burning across his shoulders 
  that forced him to lie on his stomach, hands buried 
  under the pillow.
  He would heal, but he’d been lucky.
  Right now he was furious at himself, for running
  
  WATCHER
  171
  off like that, for letting the damn rogue catch him in 
  such an amateur trap, and for wishing Jo didn’t take 
  her job so seriously.
  He closed his eyes and waited, groaned and got 
  up, chained and bolted the door, and returned to bed.
  Still angry.
  Still aching.
  Until the healing dark took him, and all he could 
  see was his own blood.
  
  Blanchard sat in his room, alone, darkness relieved 
  only by the light that seeped around the edges of 
  the draperies.
  In his right hand he held a half-empty tumbler of 
  Southern Comfort, while his left dangled motionless 
  over the arm of the chair. The only time he moved 
  was when he heard a burst of activity outside his 
  door. Whatever passed for an evening's entertain­
  ment at this place must have begun, and he had a 
  feeling it would last most of the night.
  There was no temptation to wander the hotel, to 
  visit any of the dozen parties announced in garish 
  flyers taped to the walls.
  Once he had seen Turpin and the lady cop hurry 
  out of the building, once his flare-up at Strand had 
  subsided, he had retreated here. To calm down. To 
  consider.
  After an hour he turned on the television and 
  flicked through the channels, shaking his head in 
  disgust until the bulletins had started.
  Another killing on the mountain, just as brutal as the 
  others. Police from two states were out in force, an
  172
  
  WATCHER
  173
  immediate curfew had been clamped onto the city, and 
  more information would be delivered as it was received.
  The television went off when it obvious the local 
  news had nothing but pissant speculation and 
  rehashed history to give its viewers.
  He sipped.
  He considered driving out there just to see what 
  was really going on, and discarded the notion 
  instantly. The rogue was gone-, and the odds of find­
  ing Turpin alone were too long to take the chance. 
  The man would probably be out there until dawn.
  The fingers of his left hand twitched.
  He sipped, letting the single ice cube settle 
  briefly against his teeth.
  His problem now wasn't really a problem at all: 
  normally, he would have found a way to confuse the 
  issue, as he had usually done before, not bothering 
  with the rogue because, in the long run, it didn’t 
  matter to him one way or the other. Once the waters 
  had been muddied, his job was over.
  But that was normally.
  Now he had to decide if the rogue really didn't 
  matter. Crimmins the Prick would probably tell him 
  that they both had to go, the rogue and Turpin. The 
  rogue, because capture by others would surely rend 
  the Veil, and Crimmins and his people didn't seem 
  ready to let it go that far yet; Turpin, because simple 
  capture was out of the question.
  He sipped.
  Normally, others came in after him and took care 
  of the rogue, made it vanish or whatever, and what­
  ever Crimmins did with it was his business, not 
  Blanchard's. Unless there were too many killings, 
  which generally caught the Warders' attention. Those 
  he stayed away from; those brought Turpin, and nor­
  mally, he didn’t want anything to do with the Strider.
  
  1 7 4
  Charles Grant
  But that was normally.
  Crimmins had stepped over the line, both here 
  and in San Francisco.
  "Ignorant little man, my ass," he muttered into 
  the tumbler.
  Then he thought about Wanda Strand, and his left 
  hand became a fist.
  He woke up with a silent cry, and to sweat drenching 
  his hair and pillow, blanket and sheet tangled and 
  shoved to the foot of the bed.
  A second passed before he remembered where he 
  was, and another before he realized something 
  wasn't right, that he hadn't been dreaming.
  Until he felt the pain that shouldn't have been.
  It wasn't all that bad, he'd felt worse, much worse, 
  but the fact was, he shouldn’t have been feeling any 
  pain at all.
  He should have been healing, and he wasn’t.
  Slowly, almost holding his breath, he swung his 
  legs over the side and sat up, slumping, waiting for 
  his mind to clear, passing a hand over his face and 
  back through his hair.
  "Damn," he whispered. "Damn."
  He straightened and rolled his shoulders, and the 
  pain slammed him back onto the mattress, legs jerking 
  uncontrollably, fists tucked tightly under his chin, arms 
  pressed to his ribs as if they could squeeze the pain out
  He waited for it to pass.
  it didn't.
  "It's quite easy, you see,” Marcus Spiro explained as 
  if imparting a great secret, "to let all this go to your 
  head. I’ve seen it a hundred . . .  no, a thousand
  
  WATCHER
  175
  times in a thousand cities. A few autographs, a few 
  speeches, and the less disciplined begin to believe 
  that they're special." He leaned over the table. 
  "That they're actually somebody if you know what I 
  mean." 
  •
  W anda nodded solemnly, letting her fingers 
  caress the stem of her wine glass slowly.
  "Not that 1 wasn't im m une in the beginning 
  myself," the writer admitted with a sad smile of self­
  deprecation. "1 rather enjoyed the fuss, don't you 
  see. in many ways, in those days, it validated all the 
  sacrifices one makes when one has to work at such a 
  truly lonely occupation."
  She nodded again, staring at her fingers, once in 
  a while shifting her gaze to his face, to prove that 
  she was listening.
  He sat back and sighed, unbuttoning his tweed 
  jacket as if it were too tight across his middle. "I 
  know better now, of course."
  "Of course,” she said. "With age comes wisdom."
  "Exactly." He chuckled, tilted his head. "And 
  foolishness, too, i fear, my dear. Because every so 
  often, when 1 am feted at one of these outlandish 
  conventions, I allow myself to taken along for the 
  ride. Caution to the wind and all that, you see."
  "Why not? You work hard, so you ought to be able 
  to kick up your heels once in a while.” She ducked 
  her head and smiled. "You must clear out the brain 
  cells while letting your ego have its day."
  He smiled expansively. "Absolutely! Absolutely!"
  The restaurant was nearly empty. Only a handful 
  of people sat in the booths. A lull, she thought. It 
  was just past nine; in a while there would probably 
  be a rush to beat last call. She looked around Spiro, 
  down the length of the room. All right, a dribble. It'll 
  fill up, but it won’t get hectic.
  
  1 7 6
  Charles Grant
  "You know, my dear Ms. Strand," Spiro said, keep­
  ing his voice low, "I am surprised, quite frankly, to 
  find someone not a part of this circus who actually 
  seems to understand what it’s like. Being someone 
  like me, I mean to say."
  A waitress brought them another round without 
  having to be asked, followed by a tall, bearded man, 
  who came up to the railing and, after an apologetic 
  glance at her, tapped Spiro on the shoulder.
  "Ah, Leon!" A hand waved vaguely. “Leon, please 
  make sure this young lady gets a medal, won't you? 
  She has graciously allowed me to intrude on her soli­
  tude for the past hour, and bore her to silent tears."
  Wanda nodded politely at the newcomer, who 
  couldn't quite meet her eyes, and for no reason at 
  all, she found that charming. Nevertheless, as she 
  drank, a faint disturbing chill made her check the 
  window, thinking that perhaps it might have started 
  snowing.
  "Mr. Spiro," Hendean said deferentially, "will you 
  need me anymore tonight?"
  Spiro shook his head. "Of course not, Leon. I'm 
  going to get a little more drunk, check a party or two, 
  and retire early. It’s been a long day."
  "Okay. Thanks. Do you want a wake-up call or any­
  thing? Room service breakfast?”
  "God, no!" Spiro shuddered dramatically. "I have a 
  panel at eleven, I think. I’ll be there, don’t worry."
  The two men conversed quietly, and W anda 
  looked away, toward the lobby door. Bored was 
  absolutely the right word. Spiro had invited himself 
  to her table, and she’d been too distracted to dis­
  courage him. By the time she realized what a monu­
  mental bore he was, news of the latest murder was 
  on the large-screen TV down by the bar, and she 
  didn't want to move, didn't want to miss a thing.
  
  WATCHER
  177
  It was easy to split her attention between the 
  news and the writer-, all Spiro required was a nod and 
  smile now and then— his ego took care of the rest.
  "My dear?’’
  She blinked, smiling automatically as she rubbed 
  one arm against the persistent chili. Leon was gone, 
  and Spiro had changed. His dark eyes were bright, 
  his posture more relaxed, and she groaned silently 
  when he damn near winked as he suggested that 
  they retire to his room with a few of his close 
  friends. A private party. Intelligent conversation. Wit 
  and repartee. Surely, he said, she would find that 
  more stimulating than sitting alone in a bar.
  He leaned closer, and she leaned away without 
  thinking.
  He’s on something, she thought then. His eyes, 
  the way he tilted his head, the way his tongue 
  touched his lips, not really moistening them.
  Without reason, he made her nervous.
  And when he repeated the invitation, all she 
  could think of was, come into my parlor said the spider to 
  the fly.
  There was no telling how much time had passed 
  before the pain subsided.
  He breathed with open mouth, tasting the salt 
  from tears and sweat, blinking in the dark, trying to 
  see.
  "Damn.”
  It was as if someone had stabbed him with an ice 
  pick between his shoulder blades. And kept it there, 
  every so often pushing it in a little.
  He tried to reach the spot with one hand, then 
  both, but all he succeeded in doing was push his 
  face deeper into the pillow, and threaten a cramp in
  
  1 7 8
  Charles Grant
  his legs. When he tried to get up onto his forearms 
  and knees, the pain shoved him back again.
  "Jo," he whispered.
  No one answered.
  Blanchard set the empty tumbler on the night table 
  and pushed himself out the chair.
  He couldn't sit here any longer.
  He switched on the television in case there was any 
  late news he needed to know, and went into the bath­
  room. Once his vision adjusted to the overhead light, 
  he opened the kit and checked himself in the mirror.
  It had occurred to him that maybe Turpin didn't have 
  to be on Lookout Mountain until dawn. That maybe 
  muddying the waters was exactly what was needed. If 
  for no other reason that to piss Crimmins off.
  He grinned.
  Time, he decided, to do his job.
  So he steadied himself, reached up, and began to 
  take off his face.
  Spiro was visibly disappointed when she declined his 
  invitation, but he was nevertheless gracious about it. 
  A murmured apology for taking up so much of her 
  time, a slightly drunken bow, and he was gone, 
  immediately latched onto by a handful of younger 
  people, who followed him chattering out of the room.
  Wanda stared at her glass, only vaguely aware 
  that he had left.
  There was a quiver to her left hand.
  Her right gripped the stem lightly with the pads of 
  her fingers.
  The chill had begun to fade, but there was no 
  mistaking it. None.
  
  WATCHER
  1 7 9
  She had never pretended to be anything else than 
  what she was— a paid assassin whose credentials 
  were inarguable, and whose loyalty could be 
  counted on. She had few skills in diplomacy, fewer in 
  politics, and paid no attention to whatever sub­
  tleties Crimmins tried to attach to her job.
  She didn't much care.
  She killed. Simple as that.
  Like this job. A last-minute thing, a phone call in 
  the middle of the night that had rousted her from 
  bed so she could listen to Crimmins vent his rage 
  and demand retribution for damn near an hour. 
  When she had finally calmed him down, he told her 
  what he wanted.
  Nothing fancy, nothing cute.
  Just make damn sure Miles Blanchard didn’t leave 
  Chattanooga alive.
  She was surprised, but she didn't ask questions. 
  Blanchard was a walking ego trip, and from the first 
  time they had met, she had had a feeling Crimmins 
  and his people weren't going to carry him forever.
  She hadn't counted on this, however; she hadn’t 
  counted on being able to locate a rogue without half 
  trying.
  it almost made her laugh aloud; instead, she 
  gripped the stem more tightly.
  Blanchard, the son of a bitch, had once laughingly 
  called her a Seer because of her hunches, most of 
  which were right when it came to hunting the Garou. 
  She didn't really believe it, mainly because she had 
  never been able to summon the skill— if that’s what it 
  was— at will. Didn’t believe, that is, until it happened. 
  Even then she didn’t waste time trying to figure it out.
  it happened.
  It was right.
  Almost always, someone died.
  
  1 8 0
  Charles Grant
  She felt the chill deepen briefly, bone-deep and 
  dry, before it faded completely, and knew it wasn’t 
  from the weather outside.
  Once she realized that, she realized something 
  else— that she actually might know who it was.
  All right, he thought, accepting momentary defeat; 
  all right, it's all right.
  He lay on his stomach, arms at his sides, and stared 
  blindly toward the sitting room. Movement brought the 
  pain, so he didn't move. All he had to do was wait. 
  Sooner or later, )o would be back. He suspected with a 
  smile she wasn’t being terribly effective out there 
  tonight, not after what she had seen happen to him, 
  and she would take the first opportunity to get away.
  When she did, when she returned, he would have 
  her check his back, to find what had to be a sliver of 
  silver still lodged there, and get it out somehow. It 
  was the only explanation. Nothing else would cause 
  him this much agony.
  All he had to do was wait.
  Which he did until he remembered that he'd 
  latched and bolted the door. Even if she came back, 
  she wouldn't be able to get in.
  All right, then, he thought, you have no choice.
  He moved, and cried out softly, and moved, and 
  tasted the bile, and finally collapsed back onto the bed, 
  sweating through the chills that stiffened his muscles.
  All he had to do now was wait.
  There was nothing else he could do.
  He was dying.
  Wanda emptied her glass in a single, long swallow, 
  and declined the waitress’ offer of a refill. The
  
  WATCHER
  181
  restaurant/bar was empty save for a couple in a 
  booth midway along. There was basketball on the 
  television. A check proved the lobby was deserted.
  She leaned back and pulled the ivory wand from 
  her pocket, keeping it below the table's edge. 
  Pressing a hidden button snapped out a blade made 
  of silver, serrated and barbed. She lay it across one 
  palm, then drew it back and forth as if sharpening it 
  on her skin.
  The big man or the writer?
  One of them was Garou
  Annoyed with herself now for not recognizing it 
  sooner, she folded the blade back into the ivory, 
  snapped it out, folded it in, over and over, while she 
  sorted the possibilities and the options.
  Ten minutes later the weapon was back in her 
  pocket, and she was on her feet.
  Realistically, there were no options, at least not 
  for tonight. The argument with Blanchard had sent 
  her to the bar, to the wine, and her reflexes weren't 
  nearly as sharp as they ought to be. Her right hand 
  touched the back of her head absently, and she 
  hissed silently when she felt the small bump hitting 
  the wall had caused. Even if Blanchard hadn’t been 
  her primary objective, that shove would have made 
  him so, no matter what Crimmins thought.
  Now she had two targets.
  The payment wouldn’t increase, but that was all 
  right.
  From all she had gathered, Blanchard, when he 
  had to, killed coldly, without emotion.
  Wanda, when it happened, made sure it was fun.
  She made her way to the exit, touching booths 
  and chairs as she walked to keep her balance 
  grounded. The lights were bright, the noise outside 
  loud, and she hoped she could make it back to the
  
  182
  Charles Grant
  room without falling over. Once there, and once 
  sleep had gotten rid of the effects of the wine, she 
  would figure out when and where the best times 
  would be.
  It didn't take that long.
  She spotted an easel set between the elevator 
  doors, holding a placard announcing the next day's 
  big event at the convention: an evening-long mas­
  querade that would culminate in a huge party in the 
  ballroom upstairs.
  She grinned, and turned to a man waiting beside 
  her, black hair, skin-tight jump suit, enough rhine­
  stones and bangles to blind the blind. Pointy ears. 
  "Who are you supposed to be?" she asked, wide­
  eyed, Southern belle.
  The man smiled shyly. "Vulcan Elvis.”
  Oh my God, she thought, this is gonna be a snap.
  In the last hour before dawn, a slow wind rising out­
  side the window, Richard opened his eyes and 
  smelled the blood. His blood.
  
  1
  She was gliding.
  The wind held her above the mountain, cried in 
  her ears, made her eyes water. It was terrifying, and 
  it was great, and she couldn’t stop herself from 
  yelling aloud.
  She was gliding.
  Below was mostly brown and tan, with smudges 
  of green where the pines muscled in. Winks and 
  flares of light from reflections off glass, off the roofs 
  of cars, off the river that tucked the city into its bend.
  She was flying.
  Listening to the wind and to the flutter of the air­
  foil and to the creak of the frame and to the groan of 
  her arms as they steered her slowly, then rapidly 
  down the side of the mountain.
  Up here she had no troubles; up here the only 
  shooting she did was along a current that wanted to 
  take her away. No place special.
  lu st.. . away.
  The problem was down there.
  In the trees she could see something pacing her, 
  something large and black, and she knew it wasn't a
  183
  
  184
  Charles Grant
  bear and she knew it wasn't a panther and she knew 
  that the lieutenant's face had no business being at 
  her right shoulder.
  “Hey!" he called. "Hey, Minster!"
  Go away, she thought; damn it, I'm flying.
  He grabbed her shoulder and shook it gently.
  Jesus, she nearly yelled; are you trying to kill me?
  "Hey." Gently now. "Hey, Joanne."
  She blinked, blinked again, and she was in the 
  passenger seat of her car, no longer flying, grounded 
  in front of the Chestnut Street bus station. Rubbing 
  her eyes with her knuckles, she swung her legs 
  around when he opened the door.
  She tried to focus on her watch, shivering so hard 
  her teeth almost chattered. "Damn. What time is it?"
  He squinted at the sky. "If it weren't for the 
  clouds, it'd be a bit past dawn. Come on, wake up."
  It came back to her in wisps: a call, another killing, 
  this time a washed-out hooker named Nina Sue Losi, 
  a regular around here, discovered by a half-stoned 
  friend at the back of the narrow parking lot between 
  the station and the hotel next door. Millson had 
  grabbed Joanne and a few others, and they'd made a 
  screaming convoy into the city. Too late, as usual, 
  but not too late to see the slices the killer had taken 
  out of the woman before he had dumped her.
  No one had seen a thing.
  "Hey."
  "I'm awake, I’m awake. Jeez, Lieutenant, gimmie a 
  break."
  He grinned, wiped a gloved hand under his nose, 
  and straightened. "No sense sticking around. I got 
  the boys on it now.”
  She nodded.
  More wisps: it hadn't taken them long to see that 
  this wasn’t the Task Force beast. Although the
  
  WATCHER
  185
  wounds were similar, there hadn't been anything 
  missing. Nina Sue was all there. What was left of her, 
  that is, sprawled in all her blood.
  Once Millson understood that, he called in the 
  regular Homicide crew, asking her to wait in the car 
  until they arrived.
  She scratched vigorously through her hair, eased 
  out of the car, and stretched. The wind had died 
  down, but the clouds remained. She sniffed the 
  sharp air and cursed— there'd be snow before long. 
  Just what they needed. Hell, for this kind of weather 
  she might as well be living in Chicago.
  Crime ribbons rippled; lights flashed; a patrolman 
  stood on the pavement, keeping a crowd of hotel 
  guests away from the area. A TV van parked nose-in 
  a few feet away, a weary reporter standing with a 
  mike in a wash of vivid light.
  Joanne yawned so hard her jaw popped, and 
  Millson laughed.
  "Go away," he told her with mock severity. "Sleep in 
  a real bed for a couple of hours for a change, be back 
  at the office by noon." He gestured toward the street. 
  "The others are already gone.” He took a step away 
  and turned. "Forget the office. Be sure that Fed hasn't 
  died while we were playing first. Then come in."
  "But— ”
  "Joanne," he said, exhaustion making his voice 
  hoarse and his face haggard, "we didn’t find anything 
  out there, and we sure ain’t gonna do it walking 
  around like zombies."
  He turned his back, and she decided not to argue 
  A muttered "thanks," and she slipped back inside, 
  closed the door, and squirm ed across the seat 
  behind the wheel. The car was frigid, the windshield 
  already beginning to fog over, and it took three tries 
  before the engine fired.
  
  1 8 6
  Charles Grant
  A real bed sounded real good about now, but she 
  couldn’t help thinking about Richard. That blood. 
  She rubbed her eyes again, slapped herself gently on 
  her cheeks, and decided it wouldn't hurt to do what 
  the lieutenant had asked. The Read House was only 
  a few blocks away. A finger touched her jacket's 
  breast pocket, making sure she still had the room 
  key. A look in, that’s all. Get him something if he 
  needed it.
  That all? she asked sarcastically as she pulled 
  away from the curb; you sure that's the only reason?
  The streets were still, only a few cars moving, no 
  one on the sidewalks at all. She pulled into the park­
  ing entrance, straight into an area marked off by 
  orange traffic cones, directly in front of the entrance.
  "Hey," the attendant called. "Hey, lady, that’s 
  reserved. You can’t— "
  "Oh, yes, I can," she answered brightly, holding up 
  her badge. "Thanks,” and she was inside before he 
  could say another word.
  The building was eerily quiet.
  A coatless bellman vacuumed the lobby carpet. 
  There were no clerks behind the counter. A teenager 
  in a fatigue jacket slumped in one of the couches, 
  reading a paperback book.
  Joanne held her jacket closed with one hand, feel­
  ing a slight chill that didn't leave her until the eleva­
  tor let her off on the third floor.
  Silence, still.
  Despite the carpeting, it seemed as if her footfalls 
  echoed.
  When she stood in front of Turpin's door, key card 
  in her hand, she hesitated. Yes, he was hurt; no, she 
  wasn't his nursemaid. Yes, he was a grown man; no, 
  she had a murderer to catch, and baby-sitting wasn't 
  part of the investigation.
  
  WATCHER
  187
  Yes; no.
  The faint ring of the elevator bell made her jump 
  and look guiltily around.
  Damn it, she thought. She inserted the card and 
  entered the room quickly, closing the door while she 
  waited for her vision to adjust to the gloom.
  He was still in bed, but the covers had somehow 
  landed down around his ankles, and she could see a 
  dark stain in the middle of his back.
  He stirred, and groaned.
  Oh my God, she thought, and hurried around the 
  bed, looked down, and gasped aloud.
  "|o?”
  Blood on his back, some of it dried to a crust, 
  some of it fresh.
  "Jo?"
  "Yes, it’s me." She knelt beside him, a hand hov­
  ering over the wound. "1 thought you were . . . you 
  said . .
  With great effort he turned his face on the pillow, 
  and she swallowed heavily. His face was drawn, old, 
  eyes retreating deep into their sockets, cheeks 
  gouged with hollows.
  He managed a smile. "You came."
  "Lieutenant's orders."
  His lips quivered. "1 need help.”
  "1 can see that. I'll call the ambulance."
  "No!" He tried to reach for her arm, but she could 
  see the agony that stopped him. "My . ..  my back," 
  he said weakly. "In my back."
  She could see nothing when she looked, and hoped 
  her fear wasn’t evident as she yanked open the drapes 
  by the headboard, then turned on all the lights, dis­
  carding her coat as she did. The bathroom door was 
  wide open; she switched on that light as well, soaked a 
  face cloth in cold water, and knelt by the bed again.
  
  1 8 8
  Charles Grant
  "It’s going to hurt,” he said, lips pulled taut over 
  his teeth. “Don’t stop.”
  As quickly and tenderly as she could, she cleaned 
  the blood from his back, circling around a small 
  black smudge between his shoulder blades. He was 
  rigid, and she was angry for not listening to herself, 
  for not fetching a doctor, for not resisting the plea in 
  his voice, however weak it may be.
  "W hat. ..  what do you see?”
  She leaned close, damning the inadequate light, 
  tilting her head until . . . "It . . . damn, Richard, it 
  looks like some kind of splinter. A big one."
  “Get it out."
  Trembling and unsure, she tried to pinch the slip­
  pery protrusion between her fingers, but they 
  couldn't do it, and his muffled cry rocked her back 
  on her heels. She flapped her hands helplessly. "I 
  cant."
  "The knife."
  “What?”
  "You have that knife?”
  None of it made sense. What the hell did he want 
  with her knife? Dig that thing out? She fumbled in 
  her pockets until she brought it out, stared at it 
  stupidly until, with a silly grin, she remembered the 
  tweezers.
  “If you have to dig,” he said weakly, "do it."
  "Richard, I am not going to— "
  He did grab her arm then, and yanked her off- 
  balance until their noses nearly touched. "I'm dying, 
  )o. It’s not just a splinter. It's killing me. For Christ's 
  sake, if you have to, dig the damn thing out."
  His eyes closed before she could react, his hand 
  releasing her, his arm flopping over the edge of the 
  mattress.
  He's crazy, she thought; hell, I'm crazy.
  
  WATCHER
  1 8 9
  Blood rose in droplets around the splinter.
  When she touched his shoulder, it was cold; when 
  she touched his brow, it was clammy; and it took a 
  few seconds before she could see him breathing.
  Poison, she realized; that thing is poisoned.
  She rinsed the face cloth, grabbed a hand towel, 
  and took a number of deep breaths to steady herself.
  Crazy.
  The tweezers were tiny, holding them was awk­
  ward, and she had to squint to see the end of the 
  splinter.
  She whispered, "Okay, here we go," and settled 
  the tweezers as far down the splinter’s shaft as she 
  could without actually pinching it. But as soon she 
  did it, he bucked, startling her and throwing her 
  backward.
  "lesus!"
  Blood in droplets, flowing freely.
  A vague darkening of the rest of his skin.
  Aw, lesus, she thought, pushed her hair back, and 
  tried again, this time pressing the heel of her left 
  hand against his spine.
  When the tweezers pinched, he bucked again, but 
  she was ready and held him down while she pulled 
  sharply, feeling the splinter give but not come free. 
  She cursed, dried her palms on her jeans, and tried 
  again. Again there was movement, yet still she 
  couldn't work it loose.
  Please, she thought; please, don’t make me dig 
  for it, God, 1 don’t want to do that.
  The third attempt failed when she couldn't stop 
  her hand from trembling.
  Richard sighed, a long bubbling sound that made 
  her close her eyes until it stopped.
  You shot a kid, you can’t pull out a goddamn 
  splinter?
  
  19©
  Charles Grant
  This is different.
  "One more time," she said, "and then I'm getting a 
  doctor, I don't care what you say."
  He didn't answer, and she came close to panic, 
  trying to find a pulse in his neck, nearly sagging in 
  relief when she did, and nearly giving up, the hell 
  with him, this was all just too damn weird.
  Her hand steadied.
  She pressed down on his spine, just below the 
  splinter.
  She held her breath, pinched the tweezers, and 
  this time didn't try to yank it, just pull it, pausing 
  when she felt the grip slipping, ignoring the flesh 
  rippling beneath her, staring only at the blood and 
  the splinter and seeing nothing but the tweezers as 
  they gripped and pulled, so slowly she wanted to 
  scream.
  "Come on." She glared at it. "Come on, you stupid ... 
  son of a ... bitch!"
  So intent on the task was she, that when the 
  splinter slid out of Richard's back, she didn’t realize 
  she had it until she saw the empty hole, much wider 
  than it should be, welling with fresh blood. Then she 
  stared at the tweezers, blinking, grinning, the grin 
  fading when she saw the splinter's length.
  Not a splinter, she thought; damn, that's no 
  splinter.
  It was a good three inches long, and when she 
  held it close to her face, she knew it wasn't wood.
  "Richard?"
  He didn’t move.
  She swabbed his back with the cloth.
  "Richard?"
  His body shuddered violently.
  “That's it.” She pushed shakily to her feet. "That's it.
  I'm getting— ’’
  
  WATCHER
  1 91
  "No."
  She almost didn't hear him
  "No." 
  '
  Her mouth opened, closed, and she stomped into 
  the bathroom, threw the cloth into the basin, and 
  took only a second to stare at the bloody towels 
  lying in a heap in the corner, before she looked in 
  the mirror. "You are an idiot," she told her reflection.
  "lo."
  She turned.
  His eyes were open, mouth parted in a crooked 
  smile.
  Green eyes.
  Green fire.
  "Stay,” he asked, and the Green fire vanished.
  She said nothing. Carefully she placed the splin­
  ter, blade, spike, whatever the hell it was, on a nar­
  row shelf beneath the mirror, rinsed the cloth, and 
  took it back into the bedroom.
  There she washed his back again, felt his brow, 
  and it was warm,
  Then she looked at the place where the splinter 
  had been.
  "Oh."
  The hole was gone.
  
  lust before noon, the snow began to fall.
  Small flakes mixed with large, not enough wind to 
  make them all dance.
  The city was convinced that it wouldn't last long. 
  It seldom did. When it snowed.
  Richard woke with a start, a loud grunt, and sat 
  up. And tensed when he remembered the fire in his 
  back. But it was gone, and he relaxed, tempted to 
  slump back and sleep a little more.
  "Richard, you okay?"
  He looked to his right. Joanne stood nervously in 
  the center of the other room, looking small in the 
  gray light that came through the window. "Yes,” he 
  said at last. "Thanks to you, yes.”
  He could smell the fear, and the undirected anger.
  “You owe me," she told him, trying to be firm. 
  "You promised me an explanation." She shook her 
  head. "You owe me big time. Now."
  He didn’t bother to argue; she was right. He flung 
  the covers aside and, ignoring his nakedness, strode to 
  the armoire to fetch a clean pair of jeans from the top 
  drawer. As he pulled them on, he debated how much
  192
  
  WATCHER
  193
  to say, how much she could receive before she couldn't 
  take anymore. He pulled up the zipper, fixed the brass 
  button, and used his hands to comb back his hair.
  "Talk to me," she said, just shy of imploring. 
  "Please.” An im patient gesture toward the tele­
  phone. “I have to be at headquarters soon.”
  He moved to the archway, watching as she put 
  the coffee table between them. Doing his best not to 
  smile, he pointed at the couch. "Sit down, Jo, please. 
  There's a story I have to tell you."
  He came out of the bathroom with his old face back 
  on. The bloody clothes he had worn were already 
  resting at the bottom  of the river, and the hot 
  shower had taken care of the rest. He didn't think 
  the cops would be fooled for very long, but it would 
  make Turpin wonder, maybe confuse him a little.
  The telephone rang.
  He glared at it, ignored it, and when it stopped, he 
  rubbed his stomach and decided it was time to eat.
  The telephone rang.
  He knew who it was. What surprised him was how 
  suddenly nervous he was. All that brave talk yester­
  day, all that anger in California— bluster, nothing 
  but bluster.
  If I don't answer, he'll get Strand to find out 
  what's the matter. If not her, then someone else. 
  Lots of them.
  The Man of a Thousand Faces would have no­
  where to hide.
  He grabbed the scram bler from the closet, 
  hooked it up, and waited.
  When the telephone rang again, he cleared his 
  throat and lifted the receiver.
  “Mr. Blanchard."
  
  194
  Charles Grant
  Carefully neutral, a hint of his old arrogance: "Yes."
  "Are we rested now, Mr. Blanchard? Are we more 
  levelheaded today?"
  He took a chance: “1 don't know, sir. Are we?”
  The pause gave him time to sit on the bed, light a 
  cigarette, stare at the snow slapping wetly against 
  his window.
  "There are pressures, Mr. Blanchard, most of 
  which you'll never understand, if you're lucky."
  It was as close to an apology as he would ever 
  get. He didn’t push it, nor did he gloat. "And on this 
  end, too, sir. Absolutely."
  Another pause until: "There's been a slight alter­
  ation in the overall campaign."
  "I just want to know— you didn't hypnotize me or 
  something like that, right?”
  "No.”
  "I mean, I saw what happened to you, right? It 
  wasn’t the lights or anything. Up there." She pointed 
  at the window over her shoulder. "And here. This 
  morning. I saw it. I saw the blood.”
  "Yes.”
  She shook her head. "Impossible. It's a trick.”
  He pulled the coffee-table back, giving him 
  enough room to sit on its edge without getting too 
  close. He held out a hand. “Let me have the knife.”
  "Sure.” She reached into her jeans and pulled it 
  out.
  He took it without comment, opened a blade, and 
  stared at her while he draw a line down his forearm.
  "iesus Christ!"
  “Watch," he said. “Watch."
  
  WATCHER
  195
  "Alteration?"
  "Addition, rather."
  "1 don't get it.” He was feeling much better. 
  Crimmins sounded like his old pompous-ass self. 
  "What are you talking about?"
  "The Strider, Mr. Blanchard."
  "Yeah, yeah, I know. 1 thought you wanted to wait 
  until tomorrow, just before ! left."
  "That's not the alteration. Not all of it."
  Blanchard scowled. This whole thing was getting 
  too bizarre. First, he's threatened if he doesn't take 
  care of Turpin and the rogue, then he's screamed at, 
  now he’s told the rules are being changed. Whatever 
  the old fart was up to, Blanchard wished he’d stop 
  playing games and for change be straight with him.
  "Are you in position?"
  Blanchard nodded. "Yes, sir. lust name the time.”
  "Tonight.”
  He shrugged. "No sweat. That it?”
  "Not quite, Mr. Blanchard. Not quite.”
  Richard wanted to take her hand and stroke it, stroke 
  her cheek, stroke her brow. He wanted to take the 
  contusion and the fear from her eyes and from the 
  way her lips struggled not to tremble.
  He couldn’t.
  "It's not a trick, is it,” she said, unable to take her 
  gaze from the unblemished arm, or from the blood 
  that had dripped into the handkerchief he had held 
  under the cut.
  He shifted.
  She shied away to the corner of the couch.
  "No. Not a trick.”
  A hand rose and fell helplessly in her lap, and she 
  looked at the ceiling, out the window, at the ceiling
  
  1 9 6
  Charles Grant
  again. She seemed to have a hard time breathing, a 
  hard time focusing. "You going to tell me you're one 
  of those cyborg things? Androids? You know, people 
  that are part machine?"
  "No.” He smiled. “Nothing like that.”
  "But— "
  "The story," he reminded her. "Let me tell you a 
  story."
  She pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms 
  around her shins. "1 don't think 1 want to hear it."
  "It's too late, Jo. i’m really sorry, but it's too late. 
  You have to know."
  "Look,” Blanchard said, feeling his temper slip again, 
  "you want me to take care of Turpin, I can do that. 
  You want me to do it tonight, 1 can do that, too. 
  What the hell else is there? Sir. The rogue?"
  "No. Forget it."
  "Then what? Strand?"
  “Partly."
  He had a hard time not yelling. "Partly what?"
  "The Veil, Mr. Blanchard."
  "Garou," Richard said. And once it was said, he felt 
  both relieved and fearful. There was only one way to 
  prove the story he would tell, and if it failed, he 
  did n ’t want to think about what he would have 
  to do.
  "Garou?" Jo pushed a nervous hand back through 
  her hair. "I've heard of that. Loup-garou, right? 
  Louisiana? Werewolves or something.” She laughed, 
  stopped when he didn't join her. "Oh sure. Right. 
  Lord, how many kinds of fool do you take me for, 
  Turpin?"
  
  WATCHER
  197
  "None at all, dahlin'," he said, gently mocking her 
  accent. He stood and returned to the bedroom, 
  searching for the clothes he had worn last night. He 
  found them in the bathroom, in a pile with the 
  bloody towels. He picked up the jeans and took out 
  the cloth sack. Pressed it to his forehead. Inhaled 
  slowly.
  When he returned to the sitting room, he swung 
  a chair away from the table, sat, and untied the 
  emerald thread that held the sack closed. He spread 
  it open on the coffee table, and took out the black 
  figure. Held it up between two fingers.
  “I know that thing," she said, leaning forward, 
  squinting, interested in spite of herself.
  "Anubis."
  “Yeah. Right. Egyptian god."
  He nodded.
  Sarcastically: "That's you?"
  He straightened slowly, rose slowly, and moved 
  until the table was between them. "I don’t have 
  much time. No time at all."
  "Richard, are you all right? I mean, that was a hell 
  of a fall you took."
  She had begun her retreat; he couldn't wait any 
  longer.
  "Egypt," he told her. "My people, my tribe, came 
  out of Egypt."
  Blanchard rolled his eyes, looked heavenward for 
  a large dose of patience. "Okay, the Veil. What 
  about it?"
  "It's the way you kill Turpin, Mr. Blanchard.”
  He scratched the back of his head, hard. "What do 
  you mean? I don't get it."
  
  1 9 8
  Charles Grant
  "All of us, all the tribes of the Garou, spend our lives 
  trying to save Gaia. The Earth. There are forces that 
  work against us, not all of them human. But we try, 
  )o. We keep on trying."
  "You rip it, Mr. Blanchard."
  He sat up sharply. "1 what?”
  "No secrets anymore, do you understand? No 
  secrets. Their safe time is over."
  He didn't like the way the snow sounded like 
  tiny claws on the pane; he didn't like the way the 
  snow blurred the view and turned daylight to gray; 
  he didn't like the way his throat abruptly dried.
  "No offense, Mr. Crimmins, but do you know what 
  the hell you're saying here?"
  "I know precisely what I'm saying, Mr. Blanchard. 
  I've given it more thought than you’ll ever know."
  "Jesus.” He inhaled slowly. "lesus H. Christ."
  "What separates us from you is something we call 
  the Veil. I am sworn to protect it, as well."
  "Can I have a minute here?”
  "Take your time, Mr. Blanchard, take your time. I 
  want no misunderstandings.”
  He placed the receiver carefully on the bed, rose, 
  and walked to the window. There was nothing to see 
  except for the snow, for the struggling traffic, but 
  when he placed his fingertips against the pane, the 
  cold felt damn good.
  They were nuts.
  Those guys were fucking nuts.
  Rip the goddamn Veil?
  
  WATCHER
  199
  He made a small noise in his throat, covered his 
  mouth with one hand, and looked over his shoulder 
  at the bed.
  Were they out of their goddamn minds?
  Christ, this wasn't just some war they would start. 
  This was goddamn Armageddon.
  "Your rogue, Jo, is a Garou. That’s why you’ve never 
  found him. You started out looking for an animal, 
  now you're hunting a human. You should have been 
  looking for both.”
  He couldn't tell a thing from her expression; he 
  couldn't tell how deep her retreat had taken her.
  "It's a hunger born of madness. We all .. ." He fal­
  tered, looked away, decided to concentrate on the 
  window and the leafless branches outside. "We all 
  must kill to eat. To live. It's a part of us, there's no 
  getting around it, and we ... I make no excuses for 
  it. The madness is just .. . killing. For the hell of it. 
  For the pleasure of it.
  "And my job is to stop it."
  "You're crazy," she whispered. "We’re both crazy.”
  "I am a Silent Strider. A loner. Always alone." The 
  wind caused the branches to quiver. Shadows darted 
  across the pane like smears of black rain. "And I am 
  one of the best at what I do."
  "Tell that to Curly Guestin.”
  He glanced at her, pleased— for just that split sec­
  ond, she had taken his word. Right now, it was enough.
  "So tell me," she said, shuddering a deep breath, 
  "are you like in the movies? Full moon? Silver bul­
  lets? A normal guy one minute, a wolf the next? 
  Fangs and claws, all that shit?”
  The bravado and derision were back.
  "You'll see."
  
  He picked up the receiver, but he didn’t sit down, 
  "Back, Mr. Crimmins.”
  "Good."
  "So let me get this straight: You still want me to 
  take care of Turpin, but you want me to do it so 
  these people will know what he is?"
  "Yes.”
  "Tonight?”
  "Yes.”
  "And then what?”
  There was no answer.
  She refused to allow him to touch her, but did as she 
  was bidden when asked to take his place by the coffee- 
  table, her back to him. Then he closed the drapes in 
  both rooms, turned out all the lamps but one.
  "Look at the wall, Jo."
  She folded her arms under her breasts and 
  scowled. "Some kind of game?”
  "Trust me, Jo— "
  "Ha."
  "— it’s better this way."
  His shadow rose on the wall by the door.
  "You do rabbits and birds?”
  "Watch."
  "Mr. Crimmins, once I do this thing, then what?"
  The shadow began to change.
  
  WATCHER
  201
  "You run, Mr. Blanchard."
  The shadow grew. Expanded. "That's pretty good,” 
  Joanne said. The shadow began to shift.
  "You run as far away as you can."
  He knew what she saw, spreading toward the ceiling: 
  The muzzle, the ears, the extended arm and the 
  claws.
  Anubis.
  He heard the whimper, saw her spine grow rigid, 
  and saw her head begin to move.
  "No," he cautioned. Voice deeper. Much deeper. 
  As quiet as it was, it filled the room with its power. 
  "Not unless you really want to know.”
  "Trick.”
  "No."
  She turned, and she saw him.
  "Oh, Lord," she said, and sat down hard on the 
  floor. "Aw, Jesus."
  Blanchard hung up, cursing at the way his hand 
  trembled. He unhooked the scrambler and put it 
  back in his bag. He stood for a long time at the win­
  dow, watching the snow accumulate on the side­
  walks, imagining how it would be when the Veil was 
  torn and the Garou were exposed.
  Not many believers at first, except perhaps those 
  who saw the deed. Then the word would spread. 
  Especially, he thought, if he could get television to 
  record the proof.
  
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  Charles G rant
  His lips twitched.
  There would be coverage tonight. The costume 
  thing. Local news. Stringers, or reporters who were 
  at the bottom of the ladder. Unless ...
  His lips twitched.
  Unless he made a couple of calls, let a couple of 
  people know that tonight wasn't just going to be a 
  bunch of jerks walking around like it was Halloween.
  Unless he let it slip th a t...  that maybe the police 
  were set to make a major arrest . . . that the killer 
  was actually someone here at the convention.
  Imagine, he thought.
  Armageddon in Chattanooga.
  Ft would alm ost be funny, if so many people 
  weren’t about to die.
  Rich ebony fur edged in silver on crown and chest. 
  "Richard?"
  "Yes."
  Gently slanted eyes filled with green fire.
  "Oh, God ”
  He said nothing.
  "Oh, God, Richard, 1 think !’m gonna be sick."
  
  He took his time dressing, all the while listening to 
  Joanne in the bathroom, retching, moaning, stum­
  bling around, retching and moaning again. Once, 
  he heard a fist slam against the wall. He opened the 
  drapes and turned off the lights. He watched the 
  snow as it began to turn over to sleet. He knocked 
  on the bathroom door and didn't react when she 
  screamed at him to go away. She was terrified, and 
  terrified that she might be going insane; she would 
  find a hundred reasons why she hadn't seen what 
  she had, and a hundred more why all of them wrong; 
  she might huddle in there for hours, believing she 
  was dreaming until she knew that she was awake; 
  she would rehearse what she would tell the others, 
  and she would weep and scream again.
  Because she knew no one would believe her.
  And there was nothing, not now, he could do to 
  help her through it.
  He couldn’t stay. He had to trust his own judgment 
  and hope that she would make the right decision.
  On a pad of hotel stationery he left a short note, 
  picked up his jacket, and left without a good-bye. On
  203
  
  2 0 4
  Charles Grant
  the way to the elevator he caught up with the white­
  haired man he had met on the first night, who 
  smiled wanly in greeting. He looked exhausted, mas­
  sively hung over, and Richard couldn't help a sympa­
  thetic smile.
  "Rough night?” he asked as they stepped into the 
  car.
  A woman's voice called plaintively just as the 
  doors closed.
  "insatiable," he groaned.
  “Doesn’t sound too bad to me."
  Marcus Spiro chuckled. "At my age, it either kills 
  you or makes you younger."
  "And?"
  The door opened on the gallery floor.
  "Well, my hair is still white, but I’m not dead. 
  Could be worse," and he left with a wave over his 
  shoulder.
  Richard felt himself grinning as he rode down to 
  the first floor, and felt the grin fade as he stepped 
  into the nearly empty lobby. Not all the chairs and 
  sofas were taken; those people he did see were 
  clearly on their way to someplace else. Despite the 
  noise he heard from the gallery above, down here 
  the world was hushed. After a moment’s indecision, 
  he made his way to an alcove that contained public 
  telephones and tried to call iohn Chesney, but again 
  there was no response; nor could he raise Viana or 
  Maurice.
  He almost dialed Fay's number.
  Until he remembered.
  Disturbed, and feeling flashes of anger at being 
  deserted, he wandered aimlessly around the first 
  floor, noting the sheet of ice forming on the streets, 
  looking through the window of the gift shop at the 
  day's headlines in the local paper.
  
  WATCHER
  2 0 5
  Another murder.
  That stopped him until he saw "copycat killer" in 
  the body of the text. He went in and bought a copy, 
  took it to the restaurant and ate a fast lunch while 
  he read what little there was, plus a lengthy sidebar 
  on the serial killer and his latest attack on the 
  mountain. By the time he was finished, he suspected 
  that the copycat killer wasn't a copycat at all.
  It was someone who, for some reason, had tried 
  to make things confusing.
  No, he thought; not some reason.
  Had Richard not been injured, he might well have 
  gone to the bus station himself, just to be sure the 
  rogue hadn't struck again. And if he had ... a trap, John 
  had warned him; this whole affair may well be a trap.
  Feeling more alert, he wandered back to the lobby, 
  noting what his preoccupation had prevented him from 
  seeing the first time around— more than a dozen 
  easels scattered around the room, each holding a large 
  color photograph. From the legends at the bottom, not 
  all of which he understood, the pictures appeared to be 
  of stellar attractions of previous costume events at this 
  annual convention, and he had to admit that many of 
  them were quite amazing, detailed and elaborate, and, 
  in some cases, astoundingly beautiful.
  And some were rather silly.
  He couldn’t help a quick laugh when he stopped 
  in front of a picture of someone who had chosen to 
  be Lon Chaney, jr.’s Wolf Man. A remarkably faithful 
  rendition of the motion-picture monster, with the 
  added attraction of a busty, scantily clad Gypsy cow­
  ering at his furry feet.
  Oh brother, he thought, holding back a laugh; 
  boy, if they only knew.
  “Interesting," a voice said blandly beside him.
  He looked as he said, "Excuse me?", then
  
  206
  Charles Grant
  shrugged an apology when he realized the man who 
  had spoken had made the comment to his female 
  companion. "Sorry."
  "Not at all," the man answered with a polite 
  smile. "We were admiring the picture gallery." He 
  waved a hand at the other easels.
  "So was I."
  The woman, whose wiry hair had been pulled 
  back into a fluffy ponytail, looked him over and 
  looked away; her boredom couldn't have been more 
  evident if she had worn a sign.
  "It's amazing what these people can do," the man 
  remarked, then cleared his throat. “I’m awfully sorry, 
  I'm being rude.” He held out his hand. "Blanchard. 
  Miles Blanchard. This is my wife, Wanda.”
  Richard shook the hand without giving his own 
  name, nodded to the woman, who hadn't looked 
  back, and gestured toward the Wolf Man. "I gather 
  these people are pretty heavily into movies and TV."
  "Looks that way, yes. It must take them hours to put 
  some of these costumes together, don’t you think?” 
  Richard supposed that it would, spotted the 
  badge on the man’s chest, and asked if he too was 
  going to be in costume that night.
  "But of course," Blanchard answered with an 
  expansive laugh. He slipped his arm around his wife 
  and hugged her close; she didn’t react. "We wouldn’t 
  think of not doing it. It’s a tradition, you might say.” 
  Richard heard someone call his name.
  "Right...  honey?"
  “What will you be?" he asked as he looked around, 
  and saw Joanne in the middle of the lobby, beckoning 
  urgently. “Hey, I'm sorry,” he said quickly, stepping 
  away, "I have to go. Nice meeting you. Good luck.” 
  Blanchard said something in response, but Richard 
  didn't listen. Anxious and hopeful, he hurried over to
  
  WATCHER
  2 0 7
  Joanne, who immediately grabbed his hand and 
  dragged him toward the staircase leading to the 
  gallery floor.
  "Come on, there's something 1 have to show you."
  He tugged on her arm, wanting to see what he 
  could read in her eyes. "Are you.. . ?"
  "Shut up," she said without much heat. "No, I'm 
  not, but shut up."
  They pushed through the crowd, Joanne taking 
  him through the ballroom's wide anteroom to the 
  gallery's other side, then up three steps into a long 
  corridor where more photographs were on display. 
  Some guests were already in costume, but Richard 
  saw that these weren’t anywhere near on par with 
  those in the pictures. Mostly capes and fangs, or 
  what resembled Star Trek uniforms, and one white­
  faced guy in a fuzzy black wig, net stockings, high 
  heels, and a fancy black corset.
  Richard couldn't help but stare as the man and 
  his similarly dressed retinue passed, and Joanne had 
  to yank his hand twice before she got his attention.
  “Look,” she ordered, and pointed.
  “Jo,” he said, “I’ve already seen a picture of the 
  Wolf Man downstairs.”
  "Look, damn it."
  He did, and the hall fell silent, nothing but a rush 
  of dry wind in his ears.
  It wasn't the Wolf Man.
  It was a Garou.
  According to the legend, the picture had been 
  taken just two years ago.
  He couldn't breathe.
  Joanne pulled him away toward a narrow staircase 
  in the opposite wall.
  
  2 0 8
  Charles Grant
  Garou. Here. And it’s been here for at least two 
  years.
  "Come on," she said tightly.
  He stopped halfway down, nearly pulling her off 
  her feet.
  "What?"
  "Not a rogue," he said. "I’ll be damned. It's not a 
  rogue.”
  The restaurant/bar was packed, and too many 
  people stood in line. Impatiently she pulled him 
  back into the hall, frowned in thought for a moment, 
  then said, "Button your coat, we're going out."
  They went across the boulevard to a McDonald's 
  on the other side. The light inside was too bright for 
  the weather, the colors too vivid, the smells too 
  strong. Every sound too sharp, every move too stilted.
  Like being in the corner of a glaringly lit stage 
  surrounded by the night.
  He didn't want anything, but she nearly filled a 
  tray, and they took a booth along a fake-brick wall. 
  She fussed a bit with her food, setting it out as if she 
  were having a real meal, then pointed at the fries.
  "Am I going to be able to keep this stuff down?”
  His smile was automatic and genuine. "I hope so."
  "Good, ’cause I'm starving. And while I eat, you’re 
  going to tell me everything, okay? Everything I need 
  to know."
  "Why?"
  “I'm your partner, right? If you're going to hunt 
  this thing, I— "
  He slammed a fist on the table, making her jump, 
  eyes wide and fearful.
  "Son of a bitch!"
  "W hat? W hat's wrong? Did I say som ething 
  wrong?"
  He shook his head, put his hands to his head and
  
  WATCHER
  209
  shook it angrily. "There was a man and woman in the 
  lobby. I was talking to them when you— "
  "1 saw them. So what?"
  "They belong to the convention. I asked if they 
  were going to be in costume, and he said they were." 
  He lowered his hands, palms down, to the table. "1 
  didn't catch what he said right away, when 1 asked 
  him what he'd be. 1 was too worried about w hat. . 
  He stopped himself and looked around the restau­
  rant, shook his head at his own stupidity, and forced 
  the tension out of his system. "He said, 'Hunter,’ Jo. 
  He said, 'We’ll be hunters, Mr. Turpin.”’
  There was a delay in her comprehension, but 
  when it came it knocked her back in her seat. "What?” 
  "He knew my name, Jo. He knows who I am."
  "Don't bother," she said when he started to get up. "He 
  did it deliberately, to get your attention. And he’s not 
  going to be there, waiting for you to come back.” She 
  picked up a hamburger, grimaced at it, and took a bite.
  "You’re eating.”
  "I told you, i’m starving." She took another bite. 
  "Now talk to me, Richard. How does he know who 
  you are?”
  He explained briefly about the Warders, stum­
  bling when he mentioned Fay, and those the Garou 
  knew were trying to gather information about their 
  world. It had been previously thought that these 
  other groups, however many there were, were too 
  disparate to cause many problems because, like 
  humans generally, they hoarded knowledge for the 
  sake of power, and for the sake of future glory. Bad 
  for the humans, good for the Garou, because it made 
  it easier for them to keep tabs on what these people 
  knew, and what they thought they knew.
  
  2 1 0
  Charles Grant
  When they learned too much, group members 
  tended to disappear.
  Joanne stabbed a french fry into a thick puddle of 
  catsup. "By disappear, you mean . . ."
  "Yes."
  There was no guilt, no remorse, he told her; it was 
  a simple matter of survival, for the Garou and for 
  Gaia. Humans didn’t realize it, but it was for their 
  survival too. But now someone had slipped through 
  the Garou net.
  "This guy Blanchard,”
  "No. He's working for someone else. People like 
  this, they don't dirty their own hands."
  She met his gaze w ithout blinking. "Like the 
  Warders."
  He didn't deny it.
  Nor could he deny any longer that one of the 
  Warders may have ordered Fay's death, undoubtedly 
  because he knew she had warned him, knew where 
  her primary allegiance lay. And perhaps she knew 
  more, something she hadn't been able to tell him.
  “She was your lover."
  He nodded.
  "Children?" She gave him a lopsided grin. "Or 
  whatever?"
  He returned the grin, and shook his head. Garou 
  who mated, no matter how much in love, rarely pro­
  duced normal offspring. These metis, as they were 
  called, were deformed if they lived, already mad, 
  already half dead. He glanced away, suddenly 
  uncomfortable. He damn near started blushing. 
  "Garou like me come from . ..  1 guess— ”
  “A  mixed marriage?” she suggested.
  "Close enough." He still wouldn’t look at her. 
  "Wolves or humans, actually."
  She nodded thoughtfully, and ate another fry.
  
  WATCHER
  211
  "You know, some people would think that's pretty 
  gross."
  "And you?" he asked without thinking.
  "Don’t push it, Richard, I’m still working on it, 
  okay?" When he held up his hands, she added, "But 
  now we have to figure out a way to get you out of the 
  city in one piece."
  "No," he said. "First, I have to figure out how to 
  take care of the false rogue. Then I take care of 
  Blanchard and whoever’s with him, probably that 
  woman. Then I get out of town."
  She gaped, started to argue, then slumped in 
  defeat and said, "Well, maybe I can help you out."
  "How?”
  "I think I know who that rogue thing is."
  
  They reached the exit just as a band of convention­
  eers scrambled in out of the sleet and rain. Their 
  voices were too loud, their faces too animated, their 
  apologies as they bumped into Joanne and Richard 
  too filled with uncaring laughter.
  Joanne hooked her arm around Richard’s, and 
  they went outside, unable to move quickly because 
  the footing was too slippery. The wind had picked 
  up, the sleet falling at an angle that stung his ear 
  and cheeks. At the curb they were forced to wait for a 
  bus that skidded and hissed steam as it stopped for 
  a red light. Once on the island, they had to wait 
  again, this time for a funeral, headlamps aglare, the 
  mourners unseen in gleaming black limousines. 
  Slush had already begun to form in the gutters; 
  there was nothing left of the morning's snowfall but 
  a few patches in recesses the sleet couldn't reach.
  Once under the hotel’s canopy, however, he 
  pulled her to one side, put his arms around her back 
  and clasped his hands behind her. She resisted for 
  only a second, shivering, cheeks beginning to blotch 
  with pale red.
  212
  
  WATCHER
  2 1 3
  "When I go in there, it begins," he said, nodding 
  toward the double glass doors.
  "We,” she reminded him. "I still have to tell you."
  "Me," he contradicted gently. "Lt. Millson will kill 
  me if you don't show up for that meeting.”
  "Can he?" She cocked her head, smiling.
  "No. Not really. But it's the thought that counts, 
  |o. You still have a job. It means too much to you, 
  and I don't want you to lose it."
  He could tell she knew he was right. He could 
  also tell that she didn’t want to let go. Not now. Not 
  for a long time.
  "What are you going to do?”
  "Right now?" He frowned over her head, his 
  breath drifting into her hair like pale smoke. "Not 
  much. And certainly not in there. There are too many 
  people, too many eyes, if you know what I mean." He 
  shuddered when a run of ice water slipped from his 
  hair down his neck and to his spine. "First thing I 
  must do is make some calls. 1 have to know what's 
  happened to my ...  to the Warders."
  "Stay away from your room," she warned.
  "Why?"
  "They got you once, remember? If you stay alone, 
  they'll try to get you again."
  He wanted to tell her that he could take care of 
  himself, but an image of the silver spike in his bath­
  room flared and vanished. He didn't think that this 
  Miles Blanchard would be carrying a club. He’d have 
  a gun. Silver bullets. He had a partner. More silver.
  "Damn," he whispered.
  The sleet had turned to mostly rain, and it fell 
  heavily, springing fountains in the street, drumming 
  hard on the canvas canopy, sounding like the thun­
  der of a stampede.
  "Okay." She poked his chest with a stiff finger.
  
  2 1 4
  Charles Grant
  "Use the p ub lic phones, stay out of crowded 
  rooms— and empty ones— and keep yourself visible. 
  All the time, Richard, all the time."
  He slipped his arms away and gripped her shoul­
  ders. “I can't.”
  “Why?" she demanded.
  ‘i  have to go someplace first.”
  "What? Listen, Richard, you can’t— ”
  He silenced her with a finger. "This is something 1 
  must do, and it’s a place where you can't go. It won't 
  take long by your time, but I have to do it if I'm 
  going to have a chance."
  Her protest sputtered on, but it was only words 
  without meaning. She lay her palm against his chest. 
  "This is some kind o f ... Garou thing?”
  He nodded.
  "Is it dangerous?"
  "Not yet. I won't lie to you, Jo. It could be, but not 
  yet.”
  "And when you get back?"
  "I will do exactly what you told me. I swear it." He 
  shook his head. "No. I give you my word.”
  She snapped a thumb toward the parking lot. "My 
  car's over there. I'll be back as fast as I can." With a sly 
  smile she patted her breast pocket. "I still have the key."
  "Call the room first, look for me," he said sternly.
  "Hey," she said, insulted. "I'm a cop, gimmie a 
  break, okay?"
  There was nothing left to say, and without bother­
  ing to think, he pulled her close again, and he kissed 
  her, soft and quickly on the lips.
  Flustered, she broke away and hurried to the curb, 
  hurried back and said, "1 have to get one thing 
  straight, all right?"
  "Sure."
  "When you say this Garou thing, these people of
  
  WATCHER
  2 1 5
  yours, we're talking a b o u t. .
  She swallowed and 
  looked sheepish.
  He couldn't help but grin, "Yes, Jo, I'm talking 
  about werewolves."
  She nodded sharply. "Good. Okay. lust wanted to 
  be sure."
  Seconds later the rain took her, smearing her to a 
  formless figure that disappeared when she crossed 
  the street. He waited a moment longer, then went 
  inside and gasped at the too-warm air that hit him 
  from a ceiling vent. He took off his jacket and shook 
  it hard, away from his side, then grabbed it in the 
  middle and headed for his room.
  The desert was silent.
  He made his way through the ruins to the garden, 
  and sat in the chair where Fay’s spirit had been.
  The stone vase was still there.
  The rose was gone.
  He looked at the table, sighing when he saw the 
  thin layer dust from the drying of her black tear. He 
  passed a hand over it, and the dust scattered and 
  was gone, and he wished, too late, he had kept some 
  of it for himself.
  Emerald sky and gold-tinged light.
  No one came, nothing moved.
  He rose and began to walk, skirting the barren 
  flower beds, searching the crumbling stone paths for 
  something, anything, that would send him where he 
  needed to go.
  The rogue wasn't a rogue.
  He came to a low wall and fingered the brittle 
  straw that poked out of the mud.
  The photograph in the hallway.
  He followed the wall around the garden’s perimeter,
  
  216
  Charles Grant
  breaking off straw, crumbling bits of clay between his 
  fingers.
  Fay’s warning. '
  He stopped at a tree, whose bark was sickly gray, 
  whose branches were bent and twisted as if in frozen 
  torment. There were no leaves. The knees of a root 
  broke through the faded tiled floor.
  It was inconceivable that a Garou could be so 
  careless a hunter. The monthly pattern was deliber­
  ate, deliberately staged to attract the Warders’ atten­
  tion. To attract him. And it had worked. But to hunt 
  a Garou who has lost touch with Gaia and his mind 
  was one thing; to hunt one in control, to hunt one as 
  he had hunted the rabbit, was something he wasn’t 
  sure he could do, no matter what tribe the false 
  rogue belonged to. It fell too close to blasphemy. 
  Too close to treason.
  Emerald sky and black-emerald clouds.
  Gold-tinged light.
  The soughing of a slow wind sifting sand from the 
  wall, the grains falling through the dead tree like the 
  scratch of ice against glass.
  This man called Blanchard. He knew Richard, 
  knew him by name and most likely, therefore, knew 
  who and what he was. Did he work with the Garou 
  whose picture was in the hall? Or was there a third 
  party, unknown to both?
  Why the hell wouldn't the Warders return his calls?
  He punched the trunk in frustration, and a thin 
  branch swayed under the impact, snapped, fell, shat­
  tered to pieces at his feet.
  And something moved on the bark.
  It startled him into taking a step backward, then 
  puzzled him into drawer nearer again.
  He smiled, but briefly.
  A chameleon, ridged skin almost the exact hue of
  
  WATCHER
  2 1 7
  the bark, moved ponderously around the trunk 
  toward the thick stump of a branch, its tail was 
  blunt, its sawtooth back broad, its head marked by a 
  pair of forward-aiming horns.
  Gently Richard picked it up and carried it in his 
  palm to the table, sat, and watched it lumber toward 
  the vase.
  Gray shifted to sandstone.
  Almost, but not quite.
  He leaned back and stretched out his legs, cross­
  ing them at the ankles, studying the little beast, 
  watching it try to vanish. One hand shook the table 
  slightly, and the chameleon froze, sandstone lids 
  slipping over its bulbous eyes.
  Now. Now it was gone.
  The soughing became a keening, and beneath it a 
  deep calling that turned his head toward the tree, in 
  the upperm ost branches, the ones that formed 
  jagged cracks in the emerald-streaked sky, he saw a 
  bird, huge and brown.
  "Ah," he said, and nodded to it. "I’ve been won­
  dering where you’ve been.”
  The owl’s wings spread, and the wind took it aloft.
  He followed its effortless glide above the ruins, 
  shifted back a little when the owl began its glide, 
  wings high, talons out, soundless save for the wind, 
  until it swept with a rush across the table and van­
  ished over the far, falling wall.
  He had to brush a hand across the table to make 
  the chameleon was actually gone.
  The keening became a roar.
  He didn’t keep track of the time he sat there.
  Time, in the desert, meant less than nothing.
  When he finally rose, he lifted his face to the wind 
  and the emerald sky and the hunter bird, and he 
  shifted.
  
  2 1 8
  Charles Grant
  And he bellowed until walls began to crack, and 
  the stone vase exploded.
  Shifted again and walked to the nearest gate. 
  When his shadow brushed the tree, the tree shim­
  mered and fell to dust, twisting slowly in the wind.
  He opened his eyes, feeling the desert heat still radi­
  ating from his skin. He sat cross-legged in the center 
  of the bed, stripped to the waist, feet bare, hands 
  cupped lightly over his knees.
  In the middle of the sitting room, Joanne sat in a 
  chair, legs out, hands in her jeans pockets.
  "You were gone a long time,” she said when he 
  allowed himself a smile of greeting.
  "I guess.” His voice was hoarse, his throat dry. 
  "It's hard to tell sometimes.”
  She glanced at the window. "The sun's down.”
  He eased himself to the edge of the mattress, gri­
  macing as he straightened his legs. "Then it was a 
  long time."
  "Where . . . where were you?"
  "Away. I'm sorry, but that's the best way I can 
  describe it. Away. In a place, like I said, where I’d 
  hoped to find some answers."
  "Did you?" She hadn't moved.
  He shivered a little in the room's cool air. “I don't 
  know. I think so. It’s hard to tell sometimes. Things 
  where I was, they aren't always what they seem."
  She moistened her lips. "And sometimes they are?"
  "Yep."
  "So how do you know the difference?"
  He laughed quietly. "Practice. And a whole ton of 
  mistakes.”
  She drew her feet back toward the chair and sat 
  up. "You made a noise there, at the end."
  
  WATCHER
  2 1 9
  He raised an eyebrow. "I did?"
  "Kind of a grunting or something. Like you were 
  growling.”
  He looked at her in adm iration. "You know, 
  Detective, you're taking all this damn calmly."
  "The hell 1 am.” She wiped a hand under her nose. 
  Tm sitting in a room with a half-naked man, who, if 
  you can believe it, can turn himself into a wolf."
  "A sort of wolf."
  "Whatever. And he tells me there are others like 
  him, all over the damn place. One of them, he tells 
  me, is the guy I'm after. Then he sits there, on that 
  bed, in some kind of spooky trance, doesn't move a 
  muscle for hours, makes me think maybe he’s some 
  kind of dead, makes these noises that scares the shit 
  out of me, then has the nerve to tell me that I’m tak­
  ing all this damn calmly.”
  She took a deep breath.
  "You could have been killed, you stupid son of a 
  bitch." Her voice deepened. "Anyone could have 
  come in here while you were like that, and you could 
  have been killed!"
  "I would have known, )o. 1 would have sensed it.”
  "You could have been killed," she insisted, and 
  something glittered in her eyes. Then she spat dryly. 
  "Calmly. Good . . . Lord."
  Another deep breath.
  "And if you don't stop looking at me like that, 
  Turpin, I’m going to scream my frigging head off."
  He laughed. He couldn’t help it, it just started, 
  and once started, he couldn’t stop it. When she 
  stood, fists at her side, he raised his hands in apol­
  ogy, laughed even harder, and fell onto his back, 
  bounced to a sitting position, and she was there, 
  right there, standing at his knees.
  Hands still raised, he gulped for air, forced himself
  
  220
  Charles Grant
  to calm down, and hiccuped so loudly he started 
  laughing again. .
  She stared.
  "Oh, God." He shook his head violently. "Oh, 
  God,” and used the backs of his hands to wipe the 
  tears from his eyes.
  ‘The noise," she said evenly.
  He looked into her eyes, and sobered. "Yes?"
  "What did it mean?"
  "I’m a hunter,” he told her.
  "I know that."
  "It means the hunt has begun.”
  
  For a moment, just a moment, the lobby was empty.
  Silent except for the distant sound of the wind.
  A long table had been set up against the west 
  wall, opposite the elevators, a white cloth draped 
  over it, four chairs behind. The Green Room 
  Restaurant's tall double doors were open, the tables 
  inside the elegant dining room pushed against the 
  walls. The easels had been taken down, the pho­
  tographs gone.
  For a moment, just a moment, nothing moved.
  A cough, then, and a murmur as a group of peo­
  ple came out of the bar’s rear entrance, their foot­
  steps echoing until they reached the carpet.
  The contest judges took their seats behind the 
  table— an artist, a professional costumer designer, 
  and an editor from the sponsoring publisher. The 
  fourth chair was for the guest of honor, but Marcus 
  Spiro hadn’t yet arrived; no one seemed too con­
  cerned. Low voices from above as regular guests 
  lined the gallery railings, while others drifted around 
  the lobby perimeter. Waiting.
  The muffled cry of a siren.
  221
  
  222
  Charles Grant
  The sound of the wind.
  W hen the elevator doors next opened, the 
  evening began.
  They drifted out in singles and in pairs, their cos­
  tumes simple in the beginning— generations of Star 
  Trek, uniforms and masks, and a few who had almost 
  learned the art of latex and paint. Star Wars. The 
  Highlander. A few capes and white faces and red- 
  tipped fangs. Doctor Who. They were nervous despite 
  their smiles, avoiding the judges' gazes, avoiding 
  those who watched from above and behind. Walking 
  slowly. Posing. Trying a bit too hard not to stare at 
  the competition.
  The doors opened.
  The doors closed.
  A princess from someone's book, in glitter and 
  gown, with a page for an escort and a tiny dragon on 
  her shoulder that spat sparks for fire; a Southern 
  belle in a hoop skirt with a parasol and a wide- 
  brimmed hat, with an exquisite leopard’s face and a 
  leopard's tail, and where flesh should have been 
  there was fur; a satyr complete with cloven hooves 
  and pointed ears; an impossibly tall Frankenstein's 
  monster; a couple in Elizabethan dress, the woman 
  carrying her grinning head under her arm, the man 
  carrying an executioner's ax.
  A slender figure dressed in shimmering black; 
  when he raised his arms before the judges, his cloak 
  was lined with black feathers edged in silver and gold.
  Toad and Mole; Pinhead and the Candyman; Xena 
  and Hercules; the Hunchback of Notre Dame and a 
  scantily clad Esmeralda.
  The lobby filled.
  There was, here and there, a sm attering of 
  applause. A few catcalls and some laughter. 
  Whistles. More applause.
  
  WATCHER
  2 2 3
  Antennae and claws, rhinestones and feathers, 
  chain mail and leggings.
  They flowed smoothly in and out of the lobby and 
  Green Room, the best always in character, whether 
  fairy tale or nightmare.
  The judges conferred and made notes, and the 
  fourth chair remained empty.
  Wanda leaned back against the wall beside the bar’s 
  entrance. To her right, some thirty yards away, was 
  the hotel's Broad Street entrance; directly ahead was 
  the boutique promenade that led to the parking 
  garage entrance; and to her left another sixty feet 
  distant were the backs of scores of people watching 
  the costume contest.
  Her hands were deep in her trench coat pockets, 
  and though her expression was studiously blank, she 
  was more than a little disturbed.
  The storm had changed everything.
  She could see the glitter of sleet turned to snow, 
  and knew it was going to be hell getting out of the 
  city tonight. She was a Georgia woman herself; she 
  knew how folks down here reacted to unexpected 
  winter storms like this, storms more suitable to 
  places north of the Mason-Dixon line. If she wanted 
  to put some distance between her and what pursuit 
  there might be, she had to act within the hour, or 
  she'd be lost.
  In more ways than one.
  Applause filled the lobby.
  Beyond the heads of the onlookers, she spotted 
  the glare of television lights.
  Maybe she just ought to leave. Now. Crimmins 
  could hardly blame her. A touch of sugar in her voice 
  would smooth that old man’s temper. Besides, there
  
  2 2 4
  Charles Grant
  would be other times, other places, where her partic­
  ular skills would be needed.
  She didn’t move.
  Her left hand left its pocket and touched the back of 
  her head, touched the lump Blanchard had left there.
  A spattering of laughter; a few more catcalls and 
  whistles.
  The crowd shifted, people exchanging places, 
  coming down the stairs from the gallery, going up in 
  search of a better view.
  The hand returned to her pocket.
  Her priorities had changed. Turpin was no longer 
  at the head of the list. He would die if she had the 
  opportunity, but she wanted Miles Blanchard.
  Not dead; that would be too easy.
  What she would do, what her silver blade would 
  do, would make sure that nothing in that stupid kit 
  of his would ever be able hide him again.
  He would be, quite literally, a marked man.
  And only then, when she felt like it, would she cut 
  out his heart and shove it down his throat.
  The elevator doors opened, and Beauty and the 
  Beast stepped out, courtly and splendid.
  One more time, Richard thought, dropping wearily 
  onto the couch and grabbing the telephone; one 
  more time.
  |o stood in front of him, hands on her hips. 
  "You're stalling."
  Chesney didn't answer his phone; neither did 
  Viana or Poulard.
  He could hear the patter of sleet on the pane 
  behind him, punched by the wind.
  
  WATCHER
  2 2 5
  "Richard, come on, you're stalling.”
  With a disgusted noise he replaced the receiver 
  and looked out at the city. The lights were extra 
  bright, and a car skidded across the intersection in 
  maddeningly slow motion.
  Her voice was quiet and hard: "They say, you have 
  an idea, Detective? You think you have a hunch? 
  Fine. Pursue it on your own time, don't come crying 
  to us when you get burned, 'cause we don’t know 
  you."
  He shifted his gaze to her face.
  "If you're right, they take the credit; if you’re wrong, 
  they’ve already put the distance between you, and 
  you get all the blame when the shit comes down."
  He shook his head. "It's not the same, Jo."
  "They’ve cut you loose, Richard, and you know it. 
  Think about what they said to you, for God’s sake. 
  They never really expected you to bring this rogue 
  thing back alive, and you know it. But because you're 
  you, they expect you to try, and they don't expect 
  you to come back at all,"
  "No. It's not like that.”
  "Oh, yeah, it is," she contradicted softly, reached 
  out and grabbed his hand. Pulled gently until he 
  stood. "Yeah, Richard, it is."
  "If you're so smart, you want to tell me why?”
  She grinned. "I'm working on it."
  So am I, he thought reluctantly; so am 1.
  "Meanwhile, we get this rogue who isn’t really a 
  rogue, right?” She slipped on her jacket, clipped her 
  holster onto her belt at the small of her back.
  "And I suppose you know who it is.”
  She stared at him, surprised. "Well, sure. Leon 
  Hendean."
  He gaped.
  She reminded him of their talk with Curly Guestin,
  
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  Charles Grant
  that he had complained that he hadn't been the one 
  to fix the glider Trish McCormick had used the day 
  she'd died. No one else worked at the place, except 
  its owner. No one else had been there the day of the 
  murder, except Hendean. If, she continued as they 
  left the room, Richard could go down the mountain­
  side, so could Hendean; it was entirely possible he 
  had planned the woman’s death. Maybe Curly had 
  figured it out, and had to be killed for it. As well, she 
  added, as to bring more attention to himself.
  "To get me down here."
  She nodded.
  He rubbed the back of his neck absently, follow­
  ing her down the hall. "No proof, though."
  "We’ll get it. Be patient. First, we have to get hold 
  of our boy."
  They passed the elevator alcove, and she pointed 
  toward an open door, down on the left. "In there. The 
  brain center of the convention."
  "How do you know?"
  "I'm a detective, Turpin, remember? I detect."
  She motioned to him to say nothing when they 
  reached the room, and he leaned against the jamb, 
  hands in his pockets, trying to look as official as he 
  could.
  It was a similar set-up to his, except the bedroom 
  was to the left. On the couch opposite the door sat a 
  middle-aged stocky man with black hair in an incon­
  gruous Caesar cut. White shirt. Trousers. The table in 
  front of him littered with pizza boxes and clipboards. 
  A blank look on his rounded face when Joanne 
  stepped in, held up her ID, and said, "Chattanooga 
  police. You in charge here?"
  He nodded mutely.
  "You got a name?”
  "Attco," he said, and pushed himself hurriedly to
  
  WATCHER
  his feet. "Hoiburton Attco.” He shrugged sheepishly. 
  "What can 1 say? My mother's a nut. They call me 
  Holly.”
  "Well, Holly," Joanne said, "I need you to answer a 
  few questions, all right?"
  He blinked. His face paled, then reddened, and he 
  glared at the ceiling. "Godammit! Underage drinkers, 
  right? Some asshole made a complaint, right?” He 
  stomped around the coffee table and took a swipe at 
  a blank computer terminal. "No. It's some asshole 
  walking around with a sword out or something, 
  right? Jesus!" He looked at Richard for the first time 
  and spread his arms. "I got a zillion people working 
  security around here, you know? But they can't be 
  everywhere. I mean, Jesus, why the hell would any­
  one call the police, for Christ's sake? It's not like 
  we’re tearing the place apart.” He stomped back to 
  the couch and dropped onto it. "God.” He glanced at 
  his watch. "Aw, Jesus, the masquerade’s begun and 
  I’m not down there. I'm supposed to be down there, 
  you know." He snapped his fingers. "Shit, one of 
  them’s naked, right? Oh God, please tell me one of 
  them isn't naked."
  Joanne sniffed, and rubbed the side of her nose. 
  "You finished?"
  " I.. . yeah. I guess."
  "Leon Hendean. You know him?"
  Attco frowned his puzzlement. "Well, sure. He’s 
  part of the committee." Another frown, this time 
  thinking. "He's a liaison this year."
  Joanne waggled a hand in silent question.
  "He works with the guests," the man explained 
  "Runs errands for them, keeps them happy, gets 
  them where they're supposed to be . ..  on time, with 
  any luck.”
  "And where would he be now?”
  
  2 2 8
  Charles Grant
  Attco shrugged. "How the hell should I know? 
  With Spiro, i suppose."
  "Spiro?”
  "The main speaker," Richard said. When Joanne 
  looked at him, he nodded down the haft, "i've run 
  into him a couple of times. That’s his room, by— '' 
  He caught himself, jerked a thumb. "The one with 
  the double doors."
  "Right,” said Attco. "You find him, you'll find 
  Leon. But why?"
  "Those pictures in the lobby, Mr. Attco," she said 
  with a polite smile.
  "The pictures?" Attco scratched his paunch, con­
  fused by her change of subject. “Oh. Yeah. Costume 
  winners from past years. We put them up this year 
  because a couple of the publishers put up some 
  serious bucks for the winner this time. Incentive, 
  see?"
  "How serious?" Richard asked.
  “Fifteen hundred for the Best in the Show. A 
  couple of five hundreds for the others."
  "Not bad."
  "Hey," he said. "It’s not my money, and it brought 
  in the experts.”
  "And their money."
  Attco grinned. "That, too."
  "The one of the werewolf,” Joanne said, giving 
  Richard a look to keep him quiet. “Has a Gypsy at his 
  feet?"
  Attco nodded eagerly. "Oh, man, yeah. That was 
  two years ago, I think. Most amazing thing I ever 
  saw.” His hands shaped the air in front of him. "You 
  couldn't see anything, man, it was incredible. No 
  seams, no Velcro, no zippers, no nothing. Had the 
  most unbelievable contact lenses. Big. I mean, huge 
  guy. The woman was someone he’d picked up for the
  
  WATCHER
  2 2 9
  weekend. She had to lead him around, I don't think 
  he could see hardly anything with all that makeup." 
  His enthusiasm faded for a moment, his expression 
  abruptly somber. "No competition that time, believe 
  it. He walked off with everything."
  "You said 'was,'" Richard said, ignoring [oanne's 
  warning glance. "About the lady.”
  "Yeah." Attco fussed with some papers on the 
  table. "She died two weeks later. Committed sui­
  cide."
  "How?"
  The man looked at him almost angrily. "Fucking 
  jumped off Lookout Mountain, that's how. There 
  wasn't much left of her when they found her, okay?"
  Richard backed off, hands up in apology.
  "Hendean," Joanne said into the silence.
  Attco blinked. "What?"
  "The werewolf guy. There was no name on the pic­
  ture, like on the others. But it was Hendean, right?"
  "Leon?"
  Joanne nodded.
  "Leon?" He rubbed his forehead. "Son of a bitch, 
  you know, you might be right?" He laughed. "Son of 
  a bitch."
  The elevator doors opened, and Death stepped out, 
  his scythe tipped in red.
  Blanchard tossed the last of his gear into the rental 
  car, cursing the weather, and cursing himself for 
  playing the role of the gentleman assassin. Taking 
  his time. Revealing himself to his victim. Toying. 
  Playing. Making it a game.
  Vanity, it was. Foolish, foolhardy vanity that might
  
  2 3 0
  Charles Grant
  actually have worked if the weather had given him 
  time to play the game. Now he had to hurry. Now he 
  had to believe his decision was the right one.
  He had already made one sweep around the 
  lobby, had seen the elaborate outfits, the cameras, 
  the audience, and realized that Crimmins’ order to 
  rend the Veil was a joke. Any Garou could walk in 
  there now and not be noticed; any death would be 
  seen as part of the show, an act, a skit, and no one 
  would care.
  Crimmins, for the first time in their long associa­
  tion, was wrong.
  And he had been wrong for thinking it would 
  work.
  For the fifth or sixth or dozenth time he made 
  sure he had his passports, the bank books, all the 
  identification all his personalities needed to leave 
  the country a millionaire several times over. Then he 
  checked the chamber of his gun, smiling at the sil­
  ver, slipped it into his topcoat pocket, and headed 
  for the hotel.
  The hell with the Garou.
  Richard Turpin was the prey.
  The elevator doors opened 
  A werewolf stepped out.
  
  Richard paced the empty hall outside Attco's room. 
  Prowling. Nervous. He could feel the storm sur­
  round the hotel; he could feel the energy out there, 
  and in here; he could feel a subtle shift in the bal­
  ance of the way things were, a shift that meant the 
  hunt.
  As he paused at the door, puzzling over a whiff of 
  something familiar, he was distracted when he heard 
  Joanne demand, "What do you mean, might be? 
  Don't you know?"
  Attco shrugged. "Nope.”
  "How the hell could you not know? You’re sup­
  posed to be in charge, right?"
  "Yeah, but you haven’t any idea what these— " 
  The telephone rang, and Attco stumbled around the 
  coffee table to grab the receiver. "Yeah?"
  Richard couldn’t catch all that was said; he was 
  too busy watching the anger and disappointment on 
  Joanne's face.
  "Hey." Attco slammed the receiver back onto its 
  cradle. "Gotta go, sorry. They need me downstairs. 
  Some TV people have shown up."
  231
  
  2 3 2
  Charles Grant
  loanne grabbed his arm as he headed out, "So 
  who would know?"
  "Know what?"
  "Who the werewolf was?"
  "lesus, lady, 1 don’t know. Look, meet me down­
  stairs after 1 take care of the TV thing, I’ll show you 
  who’s in charge this year, okay? Come on, I gotta go.”
  Richard stepped aside as Attco hurried down the 
  hall, but shook his head when Joanne beckoned him 
  to join her.
  "What?" Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
  "Just go. I’ll catch up."
  She started to argue, then scowled and ran when 
  Attco called out that he had an elevator waiting.
  When she was gone, he went straight to the stair­
  well and let himself out on the gallery floor. As 
  quickly as he could, he pushed through the crowd, 
  excusing himself, smiling, nodding, making his way 
  around to the other side where luck gave him a place 
  beside one of the pillars. From here he could see the 
  elevator doors, and nearly laughed aloud when the 
  werewolf made its entrance.
  Just like one of the pictures he had noted earlier: 
  Lon Chaney, Jr., right out of any one of a half-dozen 
  Universal pictures. Hairy face and black clothes, 
  hairy feet and hands. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t real.
  A few seconds later, the other door opened, and 
  he watched Joanne follow Attco through the audi­
  ence and contestants, Joanne tugging angrily at the 
  man's arm, the man glaring at her while, at the same 
  time, trying to smile at a man with a microphone 
  standing beside another man with a TV camera on 
  his shoulder.
  Richard searched the lobby intently, watching 
  as the contestants seemed to be forming a line 
  out of the chaos, a line that wound past a table
  
  WATCHER
  2 3 3
  below him and into, and out of, the Green Room 
  to his left. Behind him, he heard someone com­
  plaining about the guest of honor not showing up 
  for the judging, heard someone else laugh and say 
  he was probably hiding in the bar, looking to get 
  laid.
  Another sweep of the costumes, and he wasn’t 
  sure if he was relieved or disappointed.
  No Garou. No one who m atched Hendean’s 
  description.
  He eased back from the railing, his place instantly 
  taken by two giggling youngsters in capes, and made 
  his way back the way he had come, struggling not to 
  snarl when elbows stabbed his ribs and back, when 
  boots trod on his feet.
  The noise level rose.
  The lights dimmed, and were made dimmer by 
  vivid spotlights fixed to the pillars that skated slow- 
  moving circles across the lobby floor.
  The glare caused everything else to fall into false 
  shadow.
  On the gallery the crowd grew more raucous in the 
  near twilight, and twice Richard had to push people 
  out of his way. No longer polite. Frustration had weak­
  ened the hold on his temper. What he wanted was to 
  get away from all these bodies, the smell of their 
  sweat, the smell of beer and liquor and cheap makeup 
  and damp clothes; what he wanted to shift and send 
  them all screaming to the comfort of their nightmares.
  A burly man in a T-shirt grabbed his arm. "Hey, 
  mac, watch it, okay?”
  Richard glared up at him. "What?''
  The man nodded to a woman beside him, sucking 
  on the heel of her hand. "Made her cut herself, you 
  asshole."
  Richard froze.
  
  2 3 4
  Charles Grant
  "You gonna apologize or what?"
  He looked at the man without blinking.
  . . . green . . .
  "Hey."
  . . fire . . .
  The hand gripping his arm fell away, and Richard 
  shoved his way clear, sprinted to the fire stairs and 
  took them up, two at a time. He slammed through 
  the door and swung around the corner, stopped at 
  his room and waited.
  There it was.
  The scent he had noticed earlier.
  Slowly he approached the double doors of the 
  suite at the end of the short hall.
  In there.
  It was in there.
  He tried the knob, but the door was locked, and 
  the lock was too strong for him to force.
  It was in there.
  The blood.
  loanne gave up.
  Attco wasn’t about to talk to her, not when he was 
  too busy sucking up to the newsman and the camera.
  She supposed she could have reminded him who 
  she was, but that would attract the newsman's atten­
  tion, and she didn’t think the lieutenant would 
  appreciate it, not when she wouldn’t be able to give 
  him a good reason why she was still here.
  She let the crowd ease her away, forcing her 
  slowly toward the back. What she would do is find 
  Richard, find out why he had left her, and then—
  A hand cupped her shoulder, and something hard 
  pressed into her back.
  She didn't move.
  
  WATCHER
  2 3 5
  A voice in her left ear: "Officer," it said, “you take 
  one breath without my permission, and you won’t 
  breathe again."
  Richard shifted.
  Merged.
  He pressed his hands against the wood, testing 
  its strength, feeling its weakness, then took a step 
  back and threw himself at the door.
  It shuddered.
  He did it again.
  It bowed.
  He snarled and did it a third time.
  The crack of splintering wood was quick and 
  sharp, like a gunshot.
  The fourth time, the doors flew inward, and he 
  leapt inside, great head swiveling as he tracked the 
  scent of the blood.
  A single lamp was lit by the bed.
  He smelled the body first, then saw it curled in 
  the shadows on the far side of the mattress.
  Or what was left of it.
  With the hand guiding her, and refusing to permit 
  her to look around, she stepped slowly backward
  "Where is Turpin?"
  She shook her head— I don't know.
  The pressure on her back increased sharply.
  "Where is he?”
  She shook her head again, wondering why the 
  hell nobody could see what was happening.
  "One more time, cop." The pressure on her back 
  increased sharply. "Where the fuck is he?"
  There was a singular explosion of cheers and 
  applause, and without thinking she stopped, and 
  looked through a momentary gap in the crowd.
  
  2 3 6
  Charles Grant
  "Oh my God," she said.
  And the voice answered, "You lose.
  He stood in the ruined doorway, trembling with 
  rage, green fire eyes dark enough to be black.
  He hesitated only long enough to glance behind 
  him once more, then raced down the hall.
  Without changing.
  Punching the metal fire door open, leaving a dent 
  in its pocked surface, swinging over the railing and 
  landing lightly on the floor below, again to reach the 
  ground floor, grabbing the bar and shoving, shoving 
  the door open and striding out, shifting into the 
  open, into the shadowy dim light.
  He heard the applause and the cheers, saw to his 
  right a score or more people pushing forward to get 
  a closer look at whatever enthralled them.
  He saw Joanne.
  In the spotlight, its deep gray fur glittered as though 
  it had been touched by dew, its eyes glowed crim­
  son, its teeth not quite white.
  The Garou acknowledged the adulation with 
  upraised arms and, in the silence that ensued, it 
  lifted its muzzle and howled.
  The hand turned Joanne around.
  "Amazing, isn’t it?" said Miles Blanchard. "A mon­
  ster like that in clear view, and no one even knows."
  She didn't look down; she knew the gun was in 
  his pocket, too close to miss. Nor did she bother to 
  tell him that shooting her now would be a huge 
  m istake. W itnesses. A TV cam era. N one of it
  
  WATCHER
  2 3 7
  mattered, because they were all fixed on the crea­
  ture in the spotlight. They may hear the shot, but 
  Blanchard would be gone before anything could be 
  done.
  His smile was empty, his voice hollow and quiet. 
  "No time for games, Detective. Tell me where he is 
  and walk away, no catch, no tricks.’’ The smile died. 
  You have no idea, my dear. No idea at all."
  She could feel her own weapon pressed against 
  her spine, but they were two steps away from the 
  crowd now, and he would spot any move.
  There were giggles, then, and outright laughter. 
  Speculation that the werewolf couldn’t stand on his 
  feet, that he was probably drunk.
  "Turpin.” Blanchard grabbed her shoulder again, 
  and squeezed.
  Use your knee, she told herself; just use your 
  damn knee and get out of the way.
  Instead, she said, "Look."
  He didn’t want to; she could see it, and she had 
  to swallow a giggle when he glared an order at her.
  And looked over his shoulder.
  The Garou howled again.
  There were cheers.
  All the main lights were doused, nothing left but 
  the spotlights in the lobby.
  There were feigned screams of alarm, and nervous 
  laughter.
  Wanda didn’t move.
  She kept her hands in her pockets and thanked all 
  the gods she knew that she'd been given this front- 
  row seat
  
  2 3 8
  Charles Grant
  With just a bit more iuck, all her work would be 
  done for her.
  Nonetheless, she pressed a button on the ivory 
  shaft, and a silver blade snicked out. 
  lust in case, she told herself, 
  lust in case.
  Blanchard moved carefully, putting Joanne between 
  him and Richard, shifting them all until they stood 
  beside the gift shop's glass wall.
  The applause was frantic now, the cheers boister­
  ous.
  “The thing is," Blanchard said mildly, his voice 
  barely heard over the noise, "if you make a move, no 
  matter what it is, the cop will die. Are you going to 
  sacrifice her just to get at me, Turpin?”
  "Standoff," Richard answered, just as evenly.
  "No. 1 don't think so. What I think is, we’ll move a 
  little way down here, if you don’t mind. Around the 
  corner back there, by the bar door."
  Then they'll separate, Richard thought; he'll keep 
  us far enough away from him so that one shot will 
  be all he needs.
  He had no doubt what kind of bullets the gun 
  had.
  He had no doubt who would be first.
  "And if you don't move, I'll kill her anyway," 
  Blanchard added.
  “Then you’ll die."
  "But she’ll be dead.”
  He couldn’t see her face, but he could feel her 
  trembling, not all of it from fear. His left hand gently 
  brushed across her shoulders, her back, fingers 
  brushing over the bulge of her holster.
  Blanchard looked and sounded calm, but he knew
  
  WATCHER
  2 3 9
  it was as much a mask as those the contestants 
  wore. It was more than simple fear; it was a sense of 
  urgency. That might cause him to make a mistake, 
  but it was just as likely to prompt him into acting 
  without thinking. Whatever tim etable he had, if 
  Richard tried to stall, the trigger would be pulled 
  anyway.
  "Shall we?" Blanchard gestured with his chin. 
  "Now, please?"
  Richard didn't insult the man by faking resigna­
  tion, but when he turned, taking Joanne's arm, he 
  took only a few paces before he saw the woman 
  leaning against the wall, one hand in her trench-coat 
  pocket, the other tucked against her side.
  "Your partner?" he asked over his shoulder.
  "We have the same employer. That's all."
  It made Richard stop.
  "Damn it, Turpin."
  At the same time, Joanne looked up at him, ques­
  tioning without saying anything.
  Blanchard prodded him with a sharp finger. 
  "Move, damn it.”
  Richard remained where he was. "Jo, 1 was wrong."
  The applause and cheers began to trail off behind 
  them.
  "Your friends," was all she said.
  "Yeah. I was wrong. They're not involved at all."
  Blanchard shoved him; he didn't move.
  The woman straightened, keeping her hand at her 
  side.
  "I swear to Christ," Blanchard said tightly, "i'll do it 
  right here, right now."
  Richard faced him, and Blanchard took an invol­
  untary step back.
  
  2 4 0
  Charles Grant
  "You work for the men who would destroy the 
  Veil, don't you." He didn’t expect an answer; he 
  didn’t need one. "Fay found out about you, didn't 
  she." She hadn’t been warning him about one of the 
  Warders; she had been trying to warn him about this 
  man, here.
  Blanchard managed a sneer, but Richard knew it 
  was only a cloak for his fear.
  "Did you kill her?" Richard asked. His chest was 
  tight, his breathing slow and deep. Specks of light 
  coasted at the corners of his vision. "Did you?"
  Blanchard blinked his confusion. "Who?” Then he 
  shook himself, and pushed his gunhand against the 
  topcoat fabric. "You’re out of time, Turpin."
  The lobby went silent,
  Richard released Joanne's arm, leaned over and 
  kissed her cheek. As he did, he whispered, "I'm 
  sorry."
  She kissed him back. "I'm not."
  Blanchard’s gun was free.
  Richard heard the hammer cock as he turned back 
  again.
  He heard a collective gasp from the crowd, heard 
  the Garou begin to snarl.
  "Goddamn freak,” Blanchard said, the gun aimed 
  at Richard's heart. Richard had no choice. He used 
  the only weapon he had. He lost his temper. And he 
  shifted.
  
  Light and shadows.
  . . . green fire .. .
  Richard's right hand shoved loanne out of the way. 
  Too hard. She stumbled, then fell as she tried to 
  scramble her weapon from its holster.
  Richard’s left hand snared Blanchard's wrist, 
  wrenching it up and away just as the gun fired.
  Blanchard screamed.
  Richard snarled.
  Blanchard tried to backpedal, but Richard 
  grabbed him between the legs and around the 
  throat, and lifted him over his head, hearing nothing 
  but the bloodlust storming in his ears, feeling the 
  man squirming frantically in his grasp, inhaling the 
  scent of the man's fear as if it were ambrosia.
  He turned sharply, growling, and threw him down 
  the hall, arms and legs flailing, skidding on his 
  shoulder toward the exit, and the snow beyond.
  241
  
  2 4 2
  Charles Grant
  He loped after him in the near dark, seeing noth­
  ing else but the man trying to get to his hands and 
  knees, left arm useless, head hanging. He didn't care 
  now if the contest spectators saw him, didn't care 
  what they would say. He stood over Blanchard and 
  waited.
  Just waited.
  Counting the seconds as the man finally tipped 
  back on his heels and looked up and over his shoul­
  der.
  "No," Blanchard whispered. "Fucking freak, no."
  "Turpin," he answered, voice guttural and harsh. 
  "Remember me. I'm Richard Turpin."
  His right arm lifted, claws flared, and swung down 
  in an arc that seemed to move too slowly.
  Blanchard couldn't move.
  A flash, and the flesh of his face and throat grew 
  thin dark lines; a flash, and the lines began to 
  release smears of red; a flash, and his eyes were 
  filled with swimming color; a flash, and he toppled 
  forward, landing on his forehead. Kneeling as if in 
  prayer.
  Richard stared, not sated but satisfied.
  A step back, a partial turn, and sudden fire 
  stripped along his side.
  He whirled, right leg buckling, and faced the 
  woman, who smiled up at him over the tip of her sil­
  ver blade.
  "That was my party, you bastard," she said, nod­
  ding toward Blanchard’s body.
  He barely heard her.
  The fire had taken root, and he could feel his own 
  blood slipping through the ragged gash in his pelt. 
  Beyond them, beyond the thunder of his pain, there 
  was pandemonium. Screams and running feet and a 
  high, hysterical howling.
  
  WATCHER
  2 4 3
  Distracted, he missed the tension in Wanda's legs 
  as she set herself to lunge.
  And when she did, he realized he wouldn't be 
  able to deflect the blade from taking root in his 
  chest.
  He didn't have to.
  it was only a single gunshot, but it was enough.
  Wanda gasped and arched her back, and a black- 
  red rose blossomed on the front of her coat. She 
  looked confused, then disappointed, before she fell 
  against the wall and slid in stages to the floor.
  "He's gone!" loanne shouted at him, pointing with 
  her gun toward the lobby. "He's out!"
  They looked at each other for only a moment 
  before he clamped an arm against his side and 
  stumbled through the exit, into the storm and the 
  quiet city.
  The cold revived him somewhat as he swung around 
  the corner of the building. It was difficult, but not 
  impossible, to heal as he ran; he only hoped it 
  would be enough when he came across the other 
  Garou.
  And this time he would.
  Whatever this strange Garou’s true intentions had 
  been, they had resulted in Fay's death, and the near­
  killing of loanne Minster. They had threatened every­
  thing he had sworn himself to protect.
  Rogue or not, this Garou wouldn’t last the night.
  At the next corner he stepped into a howling 
  wind, the snow blowing horizontally, directly into his 
  eyes. But he saw a fleeing shadow far ahead, head­
  ing north toward the river, and he followed. Not rac­
  ing. Using the time to let his body try to stitch the 
  silver wound.
  
  2 4 4
  Charles Grant
  He slipped on ice.
  The wind slammed him backward.
  Snow clung to his fur in tiny balls of ice.
  The street was dark, and made darker by the 
  lonely islands of white cast by the streetlamps. At 
  least the storm kept people inside, and as he shiv­
  ered against the biting cold, he supposed he ought 
  to be grateful for that.
  He ran on.
  Crosswinds at the intersections gave him excuses 
  to pause, to catch his breath and check the heal­
  ing— slow, too damn slow.
  The Garou ahead could have plunged into any 
  one of the side streets, but he didn’t. He stayed just 
  far enough ahead to keep himself indistinct, but not 
  so far that Richard couldn’t see him through the 
  whirling flakes.
  The cold.
  Always the cold.
  Always the mocking voice of the wind.
  Across the street now, the bus station huddled in 
  the dark, parking lot streaked with white and gray.
  The Garou turned the next corner.
  Richard followed, now just thirty yards behind, 
  trying not to breathe ice into his lungs, concentrat­
  ing on his footing and on the fire that finally began 
  to dampen in his side.
  The aquarium was just ahead.
  The Garou darted across the road and ran 
  beneath the entrance arch, turning abruptly as if he 
  had suddenly forgotten his destination. He slid, 
  waved one arm, and went down on both knees, slid­
  ing again until he slammed into the back of one of 
  the benches, the impact stunning him and knocking 
  him over onto his side.
  Richard smiled.
  
  WATCHER
  2 4 5
  There was no humor.
  By the time the Garou had ciimbed to his feet, 
  Richard was there.
  Waiting.
  The Garou braced himself against the bench, 
  panting heavily, head almost bowed.
  He's old, Richard thought in amazement; damn, 
  he's old.
  Here in the open, the storm pummeled them, 
  stealing part of their attention, just enough to keep 
  them both reasonably steady on their feet.
  The snow matted in the Garou’s fur added to 
  Richard's belief.
  "You're Spiro,'' he said, letting the wind spin his 
  words.
  Marcus Spiro lifted a weary arm in greeting.
  "Why?"
  Spiro's eyes, crimson fire, narrowed. "You think 
  I'm a rogue?"
  Richard shook his head. "No. But why?"
  The Garou laughed, fangs not as long, not as 
  sharp. "I was bored, you stupid boy. I was bored."
  And before Richard could even begun to under­
  stand, Spiro sprang, claws at the ready, jaws snap­
  ping for Richard's throat.
  For a second Richard couldn’t fight, but the first 
  stab of claw against the wound in his side changed 
  that, and they grappled, snarling, snapping mostly at 
  air, wrestling across the icy paving stones until the 
  corner of the bench caught the Garou’s hip, and he 
  slipped.
  lust enough.
  Richard slammed an elbow into his temple, bring­
  ing him to his knees.
  "No need,” he said. "Come on, Spiro, there’s no 
  need anymore."
  
  2 4 6
  Charles Grant
  With surprising strength, Spiro launched himself 
  from the ground, fangs scraping across the base of 
  Richard's throat, burying a claw into the meat of his 
  shoulder. The pain reignited the bloodlust, and 
  Richard instinctively wrapped his arms around him, 
  eventually spinning them both clumsily across the 
  park while his teeth fought through the thick pelt to 
  lay open the Garou’s back.
  A large shrub took them, and they fell, rolling 
  down the slope.
  Spiro opened a gash on Richard’s chest.
  Richard shoved him away and staggered to his 
  feet, half blinded by the snow, deafened by the wind, 
  arms hang loose at his side.
  When Spiro charged again, howling his rage, the 
  Strider caught him in the stomach with the claws of 
  his right hand, pulled and turned, and let his jaws 
  close around the back of Spiro’s neck.
  It didn't take very long.
  He tasted the blood, felt the vertebrae snap, and 
  shook his head violently, just to be sure.
  Spiro didn't drop until Richard removed his claws.
  And opened his jaws.
  The twisted body slid toward the black water river.
  Shifting.
  Bleeding.
  But Richard simply watched until the water took 
  him away. Only then did he let his legs collapse; 
  only then did he fall, onto his back to watch the 
  snow spin in circles into his eyes.
  
  The desert warmth soothed him, and made him 
  shiver as he remembered the storm's needle cold.
  The table was empty.
  The chameleon tree was gone.
  He didn’t mind.
  It was his place again, the place of sweet retreat.
  S till... there was the voice.
  He smiled, and stood, and walked among the 
  ruins until he found a gate, took a breath, and 
  stepped through.
  "This is getting to be a habit, Turpin," Joanne said. 
  She sat on the bed beside him, his shirt in her 
  hands. "You do this often?”
  There was still a faint burning in his side from 
  Strand's silver blade, but the rest of his wounds had 
  healed. No scars. Except inside.
  She told him the hotel had been overrun by police 
  shortly after Blanchard had died. When she told Lt. 
  Millson the killer had been there— Blanchard’s body 
  the proof— and that it had most likely been Wanda
  247
  
  2 4 8
  Charles Grant
  Strand— knife in hand, plus other assassin's weapons 
  found in her car—-it had been fairly easy to convince 
  him that with the lights gone and all the shooting, it 
  wasn’t hard to understand that a few hundred hyster­
  ics thought a monster was on the loose.
  A werewolf, if you can believe it.
  A goddamn werewolf in Chattanooga.
  “You’re amazing," he said truthfully. "Absolutely 
  amazing.”
  She straightened, and grinned. “Damn right. He 
  bought every word.’’ A hand brushed down his arm. 
  "1 can see why those two wanted you dead. That 
  much I get. But I don’t get Spiro. What did he mean, 
  he was bored?"
  Richard still wasn't sure he understood it himself. 
  He had thought about it the entire time he had 
  dragged himself back to the hotel and managed, 
  with more than simple luck, to get back to his room. 
  He had thought about in his desert place. And he 
  thought about it now.
  "He was old."
  "So?"
  “So when a Garou gets to a certain age, and it’s 
  never the same for us all, we decide how we’re going 
  to spend our last days. Human, or wolf. Whatever 
  will make the last times easier.’’ He stared into the 
  sitting room; there were no lights but the glow from 
  outside. "I think . . .  1 guess he must have been a 
  fighter when he was young. I don't know. I do know, 
  from what he said to me the few times we talked, 
  that he wasn't entirely happy. That he was just going 
  through the motions."
  "Until he died.”
  He nodded. "Yeah. I think so.”
  "So . . . what? He wanted to go out in a blaze of 
  glory or something?"
  
  WATCHER
  2 4 9
  Richard thought a moment before smiling. "You 
  know, you may be right. He was never a major writer. 
  Never made the millions or had the fame other writ­
  ers have." A shrug. "Maybe this was his way.”
  loanne scratched a hand back through her hair. 
  "Well, at least the Veil is okay, right?”
  "Right." He hugged her with one arm. "You did 
  fine, Detective. You did real fine."
  She preened, she kissed him lightly, she slid off 
  the bed before he could grab her and announced 
  that she was starving. "1 have reports, you know. But 
  I’m not going to do them on an empty stomach. You 
  owe me a meal." She started for the door, stopped, 
  and turned around. "Cooked, Turpin. Cooked."
  He dressed slowly, favoring the stiffness in his 
  side, saying nothing when she told him she had 
  taken a call from a man named John Chesney, who 
  wanted to know if he was all right.
  "I told him you were busy,” she said. "I don't think 
  he liked that.”
  Richard didn’t care.
  Changes were going to be made, and they were 
  going to be made soon. He didn't appreciate how 
  the Warders had apparently deserted him this time; 
  he wanted answers, and he wouldn’t leave them 
  alone until he got them. Neither was he going to 
  take another assignment until he himself was posi­
  tive a rogue was on the loose.
  What, he wondered, if there were others out 
  there? Others like Marcus Spiro, who weren't con­
  tent to take the usual path to dying? What if Gaia, 
  whatever Her reasons, had caused an alteration in 
  the way the Garou were supposed to protect her? 
  Changes.
  There would be changes.
  And there would be some answers.
  
  250
  Charles Grant
  "Are you away again?" Joanne demanded.
  "No. Not really."
  He joined her at the door, and she slipped an arm 
  around his waist.
  "Are you leaving town?"
  "Soon. It’s my job, remember?"
  "How soon?”
  Gently he pulled her arm from his waist and took 
  her hand as he opened the door. "Not that soon, I 
  don't think."
  She grinned. "Good answer, Turpin."
  At the elevators, she said, "Will you come back?”
  "It might take time. But yes, I'll come back.”
  "Another good answer."
  The doors opened; the car was empty.
  She stepped in quickly, leaving him in the alcove. 
  Joanne stood at the back of the elevator, lay a finger 
  against her cheek, and said, "You ever make it with a 
  cop?"
  Richard felt his mouth open.
  The doors began to close, and she made no move 
  to stop them. "Wrong answer," she said with a slow 
  shake of her head. And the doors shut as she added, 
  "Take the stairs, it'll clear your mind,"
  He didn't move for a long second, and after that 
  he shook his head.
  Count to five before you jump off the damn cliff, 
  Fay had told him; and remember the damn para­
  chute.
  He laughed.
  "One," he said, and ran for the stairs.
  The hell with the parachute; this was more fun.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Storyteller [multi]/EXTRA/Fiction/Werewolf/Werewolf - The Apocalypse/Watcher.pdf