Shall I tell you? He saw the end of your world. He saw the coming of a new Dark Age. I will darken your skies and your lives forever. I will build my armies and spread out across the face of this world, and every nation will fall because they will not know how to fight what I am. Do you think the cross will stop me? I piss on your cross! Do you think garlic and rosewood will stop me? Weeds and garbage! I’m above such nonsense. There is nothing in your world that can stop me, and my army will be vast and powerful. How can your armies hope to stop mine with guns and tanks? I can raise all of the dead across the whole of the world. Every cemetery is a fresh battalion for me, and as I kill my enemies they will become my newest recruits. Nothing can stop me. Not now, not ever again. ”
He closed his flaming eyes for a moment and drew in a deep lungful of air through the dripping nostrils of his porcine snout. “Can you smell the fire and blood? That is the perfume of Armageddon. ” He opened his eyes and raised Sarah once more to his mouth. A fat, mottled tongue lolled out and licked her throat. Even unconscious she gagged and shifted instinctively away. Griswold looked down at the werewolf, his voice filled with mockery. “To think I was going to share her with you. I was going to let her death be the bond between us. I would have made you a general in my army, equal to Wingate and Ruger. Together we would have washed all the nations of the world in blood. But you are too stupid, too small of mind to understand or appreciate those gifts. Well, see your woman die! See how her blood will set me free, set me on the road to conquest!” His mouth yawned wide and the serpent’s fangs dripped with venom and Sarah’s eyes snapped open and she shrieked with such a deep and overwhelming terror that it filled the whole world and lifted up into the smoky air.
The werewolf ’s shriek was almost human as it leapt at Griswold.
If Terry’s mind was still in that hulk of a body, then at that moment, hearing those words, it snapped. Hate can sometimes transcend everything, even injury and fear of the grave. Love is a powerful a force than can move mountains.
As Griswold bent to consume Sarah, Terry Wolfe threw himself at Griswold, slashing and tearing and biting in an insane frenzy of murderous need; his talons opened great rents in the diseased hide and instead of blood it was a torrent of ants and spiders and roaches and slugs that poured from the wounds.
But love and hate were not enough and in the perverse scheme of things on which the universe was built this was not Terry’s fight to win; as powerful as he was, he was no match for the thing that Ubel Griswold had become.
Griswold bellowed in pain and struck out at the werewolf, knocking it dozens of feet through the air; his monstrous hand opened reflexively and Sarah dropped to the torn mud by the massive goat legs, and she lay there as still and silent as the dead. Griswold bent toward her and then recoiled when new pain flared in his chest as Val knelt by the edge of the crater with Crow’s Beretta held in both hands firing spaced shots, punching dark holes in Griswold’s flesh, trying to hit a heart that didn’t exist. There was no blood for the garlic to pollute, no nervous system for the oil to disrupt—
but Griswold’s flesh was alive and he could feel pain, even if he could not be killed. He swiped angrily at Val and she scrambled backward, but not fast enough. Just the edge of Griswold’s massive hand struck her forearm, but it was enough. There was a loud crack! and the pistol dropped into the mud. Val screamed as she fell, clutching her broken arm to her stomach.
“Val!” Crow yelled. “Look out!”
Val looked up as Griswold took another thunderous step forward and reached for her, but she was already slithering away through the mud, pushing herself backward with her heels. The huge cloven hoof came down right where she had been and the whole floor of the Hollow shook. Val stumbled to her feet and ran.
The werewolf lunged again, and as it attacked, Crow could see that half of its face was smeared with fresh blood and one ear was hanging by a few red threads; but the claws and fangs were undamaged and it flew at Griswold with supernatural ferocity, catching the towering monster in the back.
Griswold hissed in pain and staggered with the impact; he reached around with both hands, trying to dislodge the werewolf, but the creature had buried its fangs into the putrid flesh of Griswold’s waistline and was shaking its head back and forth, worrying the flesh into tatters. Griswold tilted backward as if overbalanced by the werewolf ’s weight, and for a moment Crow’s heart leapt in his chest. It looked like the werewolf was winning, was ripping the giant
down, was killing him. Griswold tipped backward and only as he fell did Crow realize that Griswold was making himself fall. His gargantuan body crashed backward onto the ground with the werewolf under him. Tons of weight crashed down onto the werewolf ’s chest and drove Terry’s body inches into the mud.
Crow could hear the snap of bones and a canine yelp of pain.
Griswold rolled over and got to his knees. The werewolf was nearly buried in the mud, pushed deeply into the swampy earth in a tangle of fur and blood. Sharp edges of white bone stood like cactus needles all along the creature’s body, and the chest labored to breathe with tattered lungs.
Griswold reared above him and curled his right hand into a powerful bucket-size fist, then with a growl of triumphant hate he punched downward, driving the fist into the werewolf ’s chest. The whole rib cage exploded in a spray of blood. A pitiful howl of defeat and agony burst from the creature’s mouth, propelled by a bright red jet of gore. Griswold grinned and punched down again and again and again.
Blood splashed the entire clearing and bits of bone flew up and bounced off Griswold’s chest.
Crow was sickened by what he saw, but was helpless and compelled to watch.
Griswold paused for a moment to admire his work. The werewolf was clearly dead, its body destroyed beyond any hope of its superhuman ability to cure. Its spine was shattered in a dozen places, its skull was smashed in, the heart and brain pierced. Griswold peered at the beast and a look of pleasure dawned on his features, then he and Crow watched as a sudden and awful change came over the werewolf. In the space of just a few seconds the thick red fur was sucked back into the body, the musculature shifted, and the shattered bones reoriented themselves even; it was as if Crow was watching some splatter-house film speeded up to superfast motion. In just seconds the werewolf completely vanished and the man emerged.
Crow looked down at the dead man and his heart tore itself to pieces. “Oh my God . . . Terry!”
Griswold laughed as he raised his fist for a final blow. He put all of his incalculable strength into it and slammed down so hard that blood flew everywhere and the ground shook with earthquake force and the body of Terry Wolfe was driven totally into the ground, out of sight, buried forever in the wormy earth.
“Be damned,” Griswold snarled, “as I was damned. ” He punched again, driving the corpse farther down. “Be buried, as I was buried. ” And a final earth-shaking blow. “Be forgotten, as I was forgotten. ”
Crow looked up at the giant and then down at his own empty hands. His shotgun and pistol were gone, his sword was broken. All he had left was the dagger in the sheath on his belt. A good strong weapon, the blade coated with garlic.
He drew it and looked at it. It was a pitiful toy matched against the monster that Griswold had become.
“God help me,” he prayed as he rose to a trembling crouch.
A gunshot startled him and he saw that Val had found the pistol and was holding it in her left hand, her right curled protectively around her stomach. She stood well back from Griswold and was again firing well-aimed shots, hitting every time. Griswold roared in renewed anger and hauled his great bulk to his full height and took a step toward her, but she ran.
He lumbered after her, taking a single step for each half-dozen of hers. She ran toward the fires and dodged around them, and Crow scrambled after, calling her name. He realized what she was doing: she was trying to get to the gasoline sprayer, but Griswold was already closing in, bending to grab her.
Crow broke into a run, feeling pain shoot down his legs with each step, feeling something slide hot and wet in his stomach. He was closer to Griswold than he was to Val, and he caught up first. He raised the dagger. “Leave her alone!”
he bellowed and drove the blade into the back of Griswold’s right knee. The point of the dagger stabbed deep, severing corded muscle and tendon, and the goat leg buckled and Griswold went down onto the knee; the motion tore the blade out of Crow’s grip and caused the dagger’s point to drive deeper into the joint. Griswold swung around and grabbed at Crow. Crow tried to run, but Griswold was too fast and Crow cried out as the huge hand clamped like a vise around his waist. He was snatched off the ground. He beat at the fist, but he might as well have been beating on a chunk of granite.
“CROW!” he heard Val cry and he looked down to see her fumbling to reload the pistol, making a clumsy job of it with one good arm.