The paws became hands. The fur became skin. The snout became Sugar’s face. The magic was still pouring out of him in iron-gray sparks and jets of black steam.
I lunged at him, grabbed him by the arm, and rushed him toward the window. Arlene and Miriam had to pull their legs back as we passed. Sugar had difficulty keeping up with me, but he was dazed enough to try.
We reached the window, and I heaved him through it.
He was still changing as he vanished below the sill. I didn’t hear him scream.
Mustache elbowed past me and looked out the window. “Sweet Jesus,” he said, “please have mercy on this sinner, as you have mercy on all of us sinners.”
I backed away from him. I didn’t want to see Sugar’s body, and I didn’t want to pray for his salvation. I wasn’t that good a person.
“Sugar!” Emmett yelled. “Sugar!”
“He’s waiting for you outside,” I said nastily. “In the parking lot.”
I heard retreating steps. They were going. Thank God.
“We did it,” I said.
“You did it, son.” Mustache clapped me on the shoulder. “Good work.”
I looked over at Frank. He was stretched out on his bed with the single bullet hole in his forehead. It didn’t seem like good work to me. I felt like a screwup of the first order. If I’d skipped a visit to Peter Lemly’s house, if I’d looked at the newspaper sooner, if I’d been more forceful when I’d told Lemly to hold off on the story, I might have saved Frank’s life, and the lives of the others, too.
“What did I just see?” Miriam said. She struggled off the floor and helped Arlene up, too. “What was that? Was that Sugar Dubois?”
“I think we know what we saw,” Arlene said. “I just have a hard time believing it.”
I rushed to the window and looked out along the ledge. Cynthia and the doctor were not there. I looked down at the parking lot, but I saw only the bodies of Mr. Rake-Thin Arms and Sugar Dubois. Had Cynthia gotten away? I hoped so. I hoped I wouldn’t see her again. I hoped she would go far away from here, and that I’d never have to cut the iron gate off of her, or use her to hunt and kill her brother.
Miriam approached me. She pulled the front of my shirttail, exposing two more bullet holes across my stomach. One was so low that it was almost below my tattoos-that bullet could have shattered my hip.
I also noticed that my right forearm was bloody. I glanced down and saw that wooden splinters from the door had jabbed through my skin on the inside of my arm. The cuts were few and shallow; I’d hurt myself worse shaving. Still, I was surprised that I hadn’t even felt it. I began to pluck the splinters out.
“Are you one of them?” Miriam asked me. Her face was flushed and her eyes were wild. “Are you cursed?”
“I can’t do what they did,” I told her.
“But are you cursed? Have you sold your soul, the way they did?”
Mustache laid his hand on her arm. “Miriam, he just fought for us-“
“Be quiet, Walt! I have to know.” She waited for my answer.
My adrenaline high was wearing off, and I felt shaky and exhausted. I was tempted to tell her what she could do with herself, but I’d promised to help her and I’d failed. If Walt could pray for the souls of the people who had just tried to tear him apart, I could at least comfort her with lies.
I’d spent enough time in a cell with a reformed preacher to know generally what to say. “I can’t tell you very much,” I told her. “I swore an oath not to. I was a sinner, like everyone, and I’m still a sinner, but an angel with a flaming sword and a crown of light appeared to me, and… I can’t tell you more. I shouldn’t even have said-“
She laid her hand on my arm. “Thank you.”
“You should get out of town now.”
Someone banged on the door. “What’s going on in there? Open up!”
I spun toward the door, but it was only more hospital security guards peeping at us through the broken door. I moved toward it to unlock it, but Arlene grabbed my elbow.
“What about me?” she asked. “One of them bit me. Does that mean… am I going to become one of them?”
She looked at me as if I was an expert. I knew how it felt to want to
But I didn’t have any answers for her. Silver had hurt one, yes, but that didn’t mean these were Hollywoodstyle werewolves. For all I knew, the Dubois brothers could change into ten different animals, not just wolves.
“I can’t answer that,” I told her. “I’m sorry. I honestly don’t know.”
Arlene turned to Miriam. “I can’t go with you, dear. I can’t go anywhere until I know.”
Miriam clutched at Arlene’s injured hand. Arlene winced, but Miriam was too rattled to notice.
I turned to Mustache. “Walt, is it?” He nodded. “I need you to drive Miriam out of town. You’re going to take Arlene’s car because it’s already packed.”
Miriam turned back to the hospital bed. “Frank…”
“I’m sorry,” I said to her. “I’m sorry I didn’t do better.”
