A werewolf among us Read Online Free PDF Page B

that conflict before. He looked surprised, turned to examine the wolf again, frowned. "You've got a good point there, for a boar can be twice as deadly and mean-tempered as any wolf."
    "No ideas?"
    Hirschel shook his head; his black hair bounced, fell back into place. "You'll have to ask Climicon about that, but they surely had their reasons."
    "I'll find out in the morning," St. Cyr said.
    "Let me know what you learn."
    "I will. Good night."
    St. Cyr stepped out of the room, oriented himself by the paintings on the walls and walked the length of the long corridor to his own suite.
    In his bedroom, stretched out full length on the enormous waterbed, he said, "I've still got nothing concrete to go on, no base to build the case from."
    A few things.
    "Nothing."
    Bits and pieces.
    "Like Hirschel's curious resemblance to the wolf when he smiles?"
    Immaterial.
     

FOUR: An
Ugly Incident
     
    "Visitor, Mr. St. Cyr," the house computer said.
    The cyberdetective sat up, swung to the edge of the shifting bed and stood. "Who is it?"
    "Mr. Dane Alderban," the house told him.
    "Just a minute."
    "Holding, sir."
    St, Cyr took off his suit jacket and draped it over a chair, put the largest of his unopened suitcases on the bed, opened it, quickly dumped out the contents, ran his fingers along the cloth lining and watched it curl back from the concealed pocket in the bottom. He removed a handgun and a chamois shoulder holster, amused as he always was that this one requirement of his profession had changed little in a thousand years. He buckled the holster on, put the gun in the smooth sleeve of it, slipped into his coat again.
    "Still holding, sir."
    "On my way right now," St. Cyr said, wondering what Dane Alderban had to say on the sly, away from the rest of the family. He stepped out of the bedroom, pulled the door shut, crossed the sitting room as he called for Dane's admittance.
    The door slid up, and the young man entered the room fast, stopped beyond St. Cyr, and looked quickly around as if he expected to find someone else there.
    "You'll have to excuse the delay," St. Cyr said. "I was dressing for bed when you called."
    Dane raised a long-fingered hand and impatiently waved away the suggestion of an apology. He sat down in the largest easy chair in the room, by the patio doors, barely able to contain the nervous energy that normally kept him on his feet, pacing, moving. He said, "I've come here to make a suggestion that could put an early end to this whole affair—if you'll have the good grace
to listen to me and to think about what I have to say."
    St. Cyr went to the bar, folded it open, looked at the contents and said, "A drink?"
    "No, thank you."
    St. Cyr poured Scotch, put the bottle back, popped two cubes into the glass and to hell with bruising the liquor, sat down in the chair that faced Dane's from the other end of the closed patio doors, putting a long swath of darkness on one side of them. "My job is to listen to people, consider what they tell me—and put a swift end to the case."
    Dane sat on the edge of the chair, his elbows on his knees, his head bent down, looking up at
St. Cyr over the ridge of his brow, just as he had done in the drawing room earlier. It almost seemed that he affected the position to conceal most of the expression on his face.
    He said, "St. Cyr, I am thoroughly convinced that the native legends are the only answer to the murders."
    "The
du-aga-klava
, a werewolf among us?"
    "Yes."
    St. Cyr did not reply.
    "That thing you wear, the other half of you…"
    "The bio-computer?"
    "Yes. It rejects the notion of werewolves, doesn't it, discards the consideration right off?"
    St. Cyr took a sip of Scotch, found it smooth and hot, a good brand. "It doesn't, strictly speaking, discard any probability. It assigns degrees of possibility to every theory that comes up, that's all."
    "To werewolves—a very low degree of possibility."
    "Most likely."
    Dane drew even more to the edge of his chair, increased the