Wolfsbane Read Online Free PDF

we remove all this . . . mess, Polchet won’t pursue it. I know him; he’s lazy. There would be entirely too much paperwork involved. Much simpler for him just to close the case.”
    Their eyes met. “You’ve worked for my grand’mère a long time, have you not, Louviere?”
    â€œOui, Madame. More than ten years.”
    She nodded. “All right, Louviere, you probably know best.” She looked at Beaullieu. “Trace this corridor to its end,” she instructed him. “Remove anything that is recent. Burn it.”
    He nodded and left, walking down the corridor, his shoulders brushing both sides.
    â€œThose were to have been my orders to him, Madame,” Louviere said. “You wanted him gone. Something, Madame?”
    â€œYou tell me, Louviere. Tell me why grand’mère’s chief security officer would be on duty on a Saturday, after six o’clock, guarding a supposedly empty house?”
    The big ex-Legionnaire smiled knowingly. “Because your grand’mère said you would be returning on this day.”
    â€œHow could she know that?” Janette questioned. “I didn’t know it until yesterday.”
    He shrugged. “Your grand’mère knows many things that would astonish and confuse—and anger—those with less insight.”
    Janette laughed. “Eloquently put, Louviere, and does not tell me a thing. All right, then, tell me this, if you can, or will: what were your instructions from mygrand’mère?”
    â€œTo prevent you—if I could—from following her to Louisiana.”
    Janette’s smile was grim. “And how did you propose to do that?”
    â€œI . . . cannot say, Madame.”
    â€œWon’t!”
    â€œPerhaps that is part of it. Your grand’mère pays me well for my position. Silence is part of that responsibility.”
    â€œI can understand that, Louviere. All right: the man who was killed here tonight . . . who was he?”
    â€œThat I can be open about. I do not know. I was not aware he lived here. I have only been in these quarters twice before in my life.”
    â€œBut you believe my grand’mère knew of his . . . its. . . existence?”
    â€œAbsolutely, Madame.”
    â€œShe almost never left the villa,” Janette said, speaking more to herself than to Louviere. “Not in years. Why, then, would she leave a . . . a madman, a monster alone?”
    â€œI do not know, Madame.”
    â€œHe was a beast, Louviere. And I mean that literally.”
    â€œYes, Madame. I know. I saw the mark on the man’s chest. Near the throat.”
    â€œWhat mark?”
    â€œThe five-pointed star. The pentagram. The mark of the human/beast.”
    â€œHuman/beast, Louviere? Do you believe in such things? Tell me about them.”
    â€œDo I believe in them? Yes. Only a person of very narrow vision would disbelieve. Can I prove they exist? No. As to the telling . . . so much is folklore it is difficult to separate the fact from the fiction. Every country has its stories of beasts that prowl the night. Near the Russian border they are called vulkodlak. In Germany, der werwolf. In Romania, vircolac. Here in France, of course, the loup-garou. America has its Big Foot. In some men it is a disease which befalls them . . . a very tragic illness.”
    â€œYou seem to know quite a lot about it, Louviere,” she said as she studied his face in the dim light.
    â€œI enjoy reading, Madame. I was only a year away from finishing my higher education at the university when my . . . ah . . . trouble occurred.”
    â€œI thought you were an educated man. Since you volunteered it, Louviere, what trouble?”
    The man laughed. “I killed a man over a woman. I was young and in love. I ran. Needlessly, as it later turned out, but any hopes of continuing my education had flown. I served in the Paras for a time, found I enjoyed the action of sudden combat,