Transylvania's Most Wanted Page 5

  If the scatter gun fails to deter the beast from advancing closer, a golem net is shot over the werewolf and the animal is then tranquilized with a dart shot from the pistol. If such means are taken, the beast would then be dragged to a special paddy wagon where it is locked inside and will remain under close guard the rest of the night just in case it should awake from its slumber while still in a foul mood.

  If, by some remote possibility, a werewolf should avoid the scatter gun, golem net and tranquilizer pistol and should then continue toward the grandstands, the watch commander is to fire his pistol, which is loaded with silver bullets. That night Sergeant Hightower was watch commander over the Goblin Park detail. He stood two hundred yards out in front of the grandstands along with the team of three constables, by a barrel, warming his hands. Stretched out in front of them were the twenty-four constables and then another fifty yards in front of them was the edge of the woods that surrounded Goblin Park.

  At present the TCPD figured there were sixteen humans suffering the curse of the werewolf. These sixteen souls would all have exited out the city earlier that day, well before the moon rose. They would walk well out into the woods surrounding the city and then sit and wait for the moon to rise and their bodies to begin the painful transformation from man (or woman) to beast. It was their responsibility to exit out the city to some remote spot in the woods.

  As Tom, Red and Rebecca approached the edge of Goblin Park, Tom spotted the series of barrels, with fires burning within, and constables stationed next to them. When they had stepped out of the woods, Red signaled to the nearest constable. As they approached the line of officers, a flare went up some four hundred yards, or eight constables down the line.

  Tom looked toward there and spotted the werewolf as the crowd, sitting in the grandstands, stood and pointed at the flare and then the beast stepping out of the woods.

  “Oh my,” Rebecca said, as the constable nearest the beast lit a torch and begin jabbing it at the beast, hoping to scare it back into the woods. The next closest constable did likewise, and then both began blowing their whistles. The werewolf slowly backed into the forest and disappeared from view.

  The crowd in the grandstands clapped and congratulated one another at having had the good fortune to have seen a werewolf in the flesh, even if for just for a brief moment. They clapped even louder when the beast let out a howl once it had stepped back out of sight. The constable, a young man, who had scared the beast back into the woods, turned around to wave at the crowd and Sergeant Hightower shouted at him to “keep his watch.” The constable went to turn back around then, but already it was too late.

  “Look out!” Sergeant Hightower yelled as he brought his arm up to point behind the young constable.

  The werewolf had broken out of the woods at full speed and was charging straight toward the constable. The beast covered fifteen feet with each stride. All in the space of a couple of seconds, the crowd stopped clapping, fell silent and then a lone woman screamed in fear for the young constable. By the time the young constable had turned completely around, the beast was upon him and Tom was running toward him.

  As the team of three constables and Sergeant Hightower ran toward him, the young constable tried to defend himself with his torch, but the werewolf swatted it away before he could thrust it at it. The constable ran then, but the werewolf caught him from behind and with one powerful sweep of its arm, sent him flying through the air.

  The crowd in the grandstands screamed and pointed at what was happening as the other constables blew their whistles or rushed to the aid of the young constable. Tom was running as fast as he could toward there also, but he was still too far away to use the rifle.

  “Kill it!” Sergeant Hightower ordered his constables.

  The constable armed with the golem gun stopped and aimed at the beast as it charged toward him. He fired when it was only yards from him, but the enraged beast slipped underneath the net. The constable armed with the scatter gun fired nearly the same time, but the werewolf ran right through the blast, seemingly unfazed. It swiped at the first officer, and might have killed him, if not for Sergeant Hightower, who fired at the beast, causing it to halt its attack, but then it broke straight toward the grandstands.

  The officer with the dart pistol fired as the werewolf passed in front of him, but the dart sailed under the creature as it leapt six feet in the air with each stride. It was hell-bent for the grandstands now.

  Tom ran to cut it off, but stopped as the werewolf passed a hundred yards in front of him, maybe two hundred yards from the grandstands, where people were panicking, pushing each other out of the way, wanting to flee the threat quickly rushing toward them. He fired, but underestimated the speed of the beast and the dart went behind the creature. He hurried to slide in another dart.

  Screams came from the grandstands as beast approached there, and a stampede began. Tom waited until the werewolf reached the top of its undulating track toward there and fired.

  The beast jerked in mid-air when the dart struck its side, near its hind legs. The dart’s sedative went to work immediately, the werewolf’s front paws hit the ground and slipped out from under it and the beast went sliding along the ground, tearing up the grass. Red caught up to Tom and ran past him then toward the animal as Tom reloaded. Rebecca was right beside him now. The animal managed to regain its footing and start moving forward again, but much more slowly and Red fired at it. The beast collapsed as soon as the second dart hit it. Tom ran right up to it then, ready to fire again if necessary, but the beast was not moving.

  “How long will it stay down?” he shouted as the crowd fell silent and pointed out across the park as the werewolf laying sprawled on the grass..

  “About ten minutes,” Red said as Sergeant Hightower joined them next to the beast. “We need to get it into a paddy wagon as before then. Run and bring the paddy wagon here,” he ordered a pair of constables, who had run out there from the grandstands. The two constables turned around and began shoving their way through the crowd that had followed them out toward the beast, to look at it closer. “Whoever this person is,” Red told Tom, pointing down at the werewolf, “you saved his life. I was just about to open fire with my pistol.”

  Tom nodded.

  “It’s all over,” Sergeant Hightower said holding his hands out and starting toward the crowd pressing forward. “Everyone settle down, no pushing, help your fellow guests now,” he said in a commanding, British Officer’s voice. “Hold them back,” he ordered his constables and several of them went to stop the crowd from pressing forward any closer. “The rest of you back to your stations,” he shouted. “What is the condition of Constable Martin?” he shouted back toward the constables at the spot where the young constable had landed after being swatted by the werewolf.

  As Rebecca came and stood next to Tom, a flashbulb went off.

  “No pictures,” Sergeant Hightower yelled, just as another bulb went off.

  “Martin has been injured,” a constable shouted from the other end of the park.

  “Have some ambulances brought here,” Sergeant Hightower ordered a nearby constable who ran across the footbridge toward a call box.

  The paddy wagon made its way over the bridge slowly, having to work its way through the crowd. When it arrived, Red hurried to throw the back doors open while four constables lifted the werewolf up and carried it inside the specially padded wagon before it woke up.

  For the next few hours, after the tranquilizer wore off, the werewolf threw itself around in a rage in the back of the paddy wagon. It started the wagon rocking and then managed to tip the vehicle over on its side, delighting the crowd to no end. Red and Tom stood guard close by with their rifles.

  It was not until after midnight that the beast finally began to settle down and sometime later it fell asleep, and nothing more was heard from it then. The crowd slowly dwindled away, Tom had a constable drive Rebecca home and then, when the first rays of sunlight appeared over the tops of the cliffs that
surrounded the valley, Sergeant Hightower and Tom carefully opened one door of the paddy wagon as Red stood just behind them, ready to fire just in case the animal had not transformed back into a human.

  After Tom let the back door of the wagon drop to the ground, he looked inside and was surprised – not because the beast was still present, but because he recognized the man sitting naked inside – it was Pierre the Frenchman who owned the hat shop. As well there was a lot of dark hair lying about. Red lowered his rifle and stepped closer.

  “Hello inspector,” Pierre said. “I’m afraid I’m not dressed properly for company. Do you have any clothing I could borrow?”

  Red threw a blanket into Pierre and then he took his raincoat off and handed it to Pierre. “Put that on,” Red instructed him. “Put the blanket over your head so nobody sees you while we walk you over to the police car. Some of them reporters might be hanging around still.”

  “Thank you,” Pierre said. “You are most gracious.”

  As Red, Sergeant Hightower and Tom walked Pierre to Red’s car, a photographer with a large camera jumped out of a car and ran up and flashed a bulb in Pierre’s face, but fortunately Pierre was hidden under the blanket.

  “Make sure he doesn’t follow us,” Red whispered to Sergeant Hightower, gesturing at the reporter as he helped Pierre into the backseat of his car. Sergeant Hightower grabbed hold of the photographer, and started asking him about his camera, while the photographer tried to get away.

  “I am indebted to you for saving my life,” Pierre said as Red drove away.

  “Inspector Flynn was the one who shot you with a dart,” Red told him jabbing his thumb at Tom. “Otherwise you would have made it to the grandstands.”

  “I shudder to think I might have hurt someone. I can never possibly repay you,” Pierre told Tom, “but you must let me offer you some token of my appreciation. How about a new hat?”

  “Oh,” Tom said, “that’s not necessary.”

  “Please, let me do this,” Pierre pleaded.

  Tom looked at Red who nodded that it was okay. “Well I could use a new bowler. My last one fell in the river.”

  “Thank you,” Pierre said.

  They drove to Pierre’s shop on Guillotine Street and Red parked just around the corner from it. A few people were out and about on the streets already, but no one saw them exit the car and go around the corner toward Pierre’s shop.

  “The door should be unlocked,” Pierre said. “My wife gets up at sunrise and unlocks it for me so I don’t have to knock and draw attention to myself.” They found the door unlocked as Pierre said, and all three men slipped inside unnoticed. “Let me tell my wife I’m home first and then I’ll come back downstairs,” Pierre said as he headed toward the back of the shop where there were some stairs that led up to his home above the shop.

  “If you don’t mind,” Red said. “Ask her to come down too. I have some questions for both of you if you don’t mind.”

  “Very well,” Pierre said.

  “Let’s lower these blinds,” Red suggested and he and Tom began pulling down the shades at the front of the shop.

  “Did you know Pierre was a werewolf?” Tom asked.

  “I did. The department has identified about half of those carrying the werewolf curse.”

  A few moments later Pierre came downstairs wearing a robe. He handed Red back his raincoat before heading over by the cash register and pulling out a ledger of some sort from off a shelf.

  “I should have your hat size written down here,” he told Tom, looking through the ledger then. “It appears the account balance for the Flying Squad has gotten quite high,” he told Red.

  “Oh,” Red said pulling out his wallet. “Let me take care of that right now.”

  Red shot Tom a look as he crossed the room, because much of the balance was due to the cost of replacing the many hats and raincoats Tom had lost or destroyed in the line of duty the past couple of weeks. Red handed Pierre some bills and Pierre wrote out a receipt.

  “Thank you,” Pierre said and then he climbed up on a ladder and started looking for a bowler for Tom. As he did, Red started thumbing through the ledger.

  “Here we go,” Pierre said finding a sharp-looking bowler Tom’s size. As he climbed down the ladder, Pierre’s wife entered the room wearing a bathrobe. She had missed removing some night cream off her face and there were a few white blotches there. “This is my wife Michelle,” Pierre said waving a hand at her. “We are both very grateful for what you did tonight Inspector Flynn,” he said, handing Tom his new hat.

  “Thank you,” Tom said taking off his fedora and trying the bowler on in front of a mirror.

  “Very nice,” Pierre said looking up, after making an entry in his ledger.

  “Try and make this one last awhile,” Red told him. “I have some questions for both of you if you don’t mind,” he said looking at Pierre and then his wife.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Other than your wife and myself and now Inspector Flynn who else knows you carry the werewolf curse?”

  “Only the monsignor knows and he would never tell anyone,” Pierre said adamantly.

  “Did anything unusual occur before you left yesterday?”

  “I’m afraid I cannot recall much about yesterday,” Pierre said shaking his head.

  “Did you notice anything different yesterday before he left?” Red asked Michelle.

  Michelle nodded. “Usually he comes upstairs and has something to eat before he goes, but this time he left without telling me he was leaving.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “In fact I came downstairs to check on him about four-thirty and found he’d left already. He’d forgotten to lock the door and put the sign in the window.”

  “How do you usually go out to the woods?” Tom asked causing Pierre to look curiously at him.

  “I always walk down to The Fountain Hotel and hire a cab there. I have them drop me off at the end of Queen Anne’s Way and then I walk from there out into the woods to the same spot every full moon.”

  “Which end of Queen Anne’s Way?”

  “The east end.”

  “That’s a long way from Goblin Park,” Red said. “Ten or eleven miles and besides it’s on the other side of the Blood River. Are you sure that’s where you came from?”

  “That’s where I go every time,” Pierre said shrugging his shoulders, “but I have never ended up near Goblin Park before,” he said, shaking his head like this puzzled him also.

  “How do you pay for the cab?” Tom asked.

  “I take some bills with me,” Pierre said like this should be obvious.

  “Yes of course,” Tom said. “I imagine you empty your pockets out and stash your billfold somewhere before you leave. I mean I’m sure you wouldn’t want to take anything with you that you might lose.”

  “That’s right,” Pierre said, seeming to understand what Tom was getting at. He opened the drawer next to the cash register. “I always put my wedding ring and pocket watch here,” he said looking into the drawer. He looked there a moment before placing his hand inside the drawer, searching for the items. When Pierre did not find them there he opened another drawer and then when he still did not find them he started searching around the counter, even opening up the cash register, but still he did not find his ring or watch. “They’re not here,” Pierre said shaking his head looking at his wife then. “Did you put them somewhere?”

  “No,” Michelle said shaking her head.

  “That’s very strange,” he said. “I don’t know where I could have put them. I always leave them here,” he said, clearly at a loss.

  “I was just noticing you made a note in your ledger,” Red said pointing at the book set out on the counter.

  “That’s right,” Pierre said tapping it with his finger. “We make an entry in the sales ledger whenever a sale is made. Why do you ask?”

  “What was the last sale you made yesterday?”

  Pi
erre opened the ledger and flipped to the last page. “Looks like I sold some fabric,” he said looking at it. “This is odd,” he added.

  “What is?”

  “My handwriting,” he said looking at it. “It is very sloppy, that is not like me.”

  Michelle went over and looked. “He usually writes so neat, but this entry is written poorly,” she said holding the ledger up for Tom and Red to see. Pierre’s last entry looked like it had been written by a six year old. “You must have not been feeling right,” she told her husband.

  “Can you show me the type of fabric you sold?” Tom asked.

  “Certainly.”

  Pierre looked at the ledger again and then stepped around the counter. He walked over to some rolls of fabric on shelves in the corner and pulled one down. It was a very shiny, red silk.

  “What would someone use this fabric for?” Tom asked.

  “A dress possibly,” Pierre said.

  Tom took the picture of Pandora out of his pocket and showed it to Pierre. “Have you ever seen this woman?”

  Pierre looked at it. He nodded. Tom expected him to say she’d been here the day before, but that was not what he said.

  “I saw her the day after the last full moon. She was watching me as I came out of the woods. Who is she?”

  Red and Tom exchanged glances.

  “Her name is Pandora,” Red said. “Keep that to yourself.”

  “What would she want with me?”

  “That’s what I intend to find out,” Red said. “We’ll let you get some rest now. If you think of anything else out of the ordinary that happened yesterday, let us know will you?”

  “Of course inspector,” Pierre said. “If my ring or pocket watch is found somewhere out in the woods, could I have them returned? The pocket watch has a picture of my wife inside the clasp. I must have forgotten to put them in the drawer before I left and they are probably lying on the ground somewhere.”