The way Grace put the emphasis on "someone," I knew what someone she meant, and for an instant my heart stuttered.
What if Malachi had slept with me to get his hands on that rune? He had wanted to keep it when I'd shown him the wood chip at his camp, although he hadn't seemed desperate to.
Then I remembered. He'd been taken in for questioning.
"Did you find it on him at the station?" I asked.
Grace's brow creased. "No. "
I spread my hands.
"He could have hidden it before he came downstairs this morning. "
"If the rune's still at my house, then he didn't steal it. "
She couldn't argue with that.
"What I'd like to know," I said, "is how Mengele made his first werewolf. Maybe the whole rune thing started with him. "
"Not necessarily. "
"You said Hitler ordered him to make a werewolf army. "
"That doesn't preclude him making the army from another werewolf," Doc said. "In fact, Hitler was fascinated with wolves and werewolves. His name, Adolf, can be translated as 'Noble Wolf. '"
"You're saying Hitler was a werewolf?"
"He had the personality for it. Once bitten, humans become possessed by the demon lycanthropy. They're no longer quite sane. "
"Hit that nail on the head," I muttered. "But Hitler died of cyanide poisoning. "
"And a gunshot to the noggin, or so they say. But maybe he died of silver poisoning. "
"Is that a euphemism for explosion on contact with a silver bullet?" I asked.
"Considering his cronies dumped gas on him and the new missus, then torched them before the Russians arrived, it's hard to say. "
"Does it really matter if Hitler was a werewolf and birthed his own army?" Grace asked. "That army and its descendants are still running around screwing up our life now, and we need to do something about it. " ' "She's right," Doc agreed, "because soon, if not already, there'll be more than one or two werewolves in these mountains. "
"How you figure?"
"The Gypsy woman was right to call them the devil. Werewolves enjoy killing as well as making more of their own. If you don't nip this in the bud, the entire town, the entire state, perhaps the country, will be overrun. "
I couldn't believe we were talking about this. Worse than that, I kind of believed it.
"I need to get some silver bullets. " Grace glanced at me. "You think they've got them on the Internet?"
"Aren't you jumping the gun?" I lowered my gaze to her weapon, then back to her face. "So to speak. You can't go around blasting wolves with silver bullets. They'll put you in a room with bars on the windows. Wolves, especially around here, have to be endangered. "
"It isn't a wolf," she said, her mouth set into a stubborn line.
"According to you, it's a person who's morphed into a wolf. You think that explanation will get you in less trouble after you shoot it?"
"If I see a wolf with people eyes and it's coming for me with dripping fangs, I'm not going to wait around to become one, too. I don't care if they put me in a cell. "
There was just no talking to her sometimes.
Doc Bill twirled his silver scalpel between two fingers. "A werewolf in human form will be burned at the touch of silver. "