He lay shivering where they had left him. Unsure which was worse, the agony of his shattered bones or the killing cold. He made a feeble attempt to pull his coat more tightly about him. Don't know whether to be glad or sorry they left me the coat. Death would come sooner without it.
Snow was falling again. It covered his eyes, filled his slack mouth. Can't lift a hand to brush it away. God, what a way to end! I wonder if I'll be half-eaten by rats before I'm found? Considering what I must look like, it might be an improvement.
No, don't think like that. However it may seem, I am dying with dignity. I'll be with Amanda soon, and she'll know, she'll know.
Strange. It just hit me that I'll never see daylight again.
How could this have happened so quickly? Betty...was it only yesterday? Betty, I'm sorry...
He drifted in and out of consciousness, and coherent thought gave way to a jumble of dream images. Amanda, heart-stoppingly beautiful, cried out in despair as he tore himself away. Time traveler Julia Hoffman faded to nothingness before his eyes. Jenny breathed her last, with his hands around her neck. His vampire cousin Barnabas bade him farewell at the depot and strode off into the night, risking his life to stay behind and face Count Petofi. A wild-eyed Beth backed away from him and stumbled over the edge of Widow's Hill. The boy Jamison screamed, "I hate you!" Betty met his eyes across the breakfast table and said, "You're leaving me, aren't you?"
At first, dreaming or waking, pain was his constant companion. Then, mysteriously, it eased. He was numb, almost warm. Not uncomfortable. Even his dreams became less troubling, as he frolicked with a younger Jamison...clasped the hand Barnabas extended in friendship...sank sleepily into the embrace of a woman he could not quite identify. Jamison is dead. If Barnabas stayed in the past with Kitty Soames, he's dead too. Amanda...?
No matter. He was ready.
And then someone was bending over him, stale whiskey-laced breath in his face. "Mister? Mister, are you all--Omigod!" Snow-muffled footsteps pelted away.
"Don'...don' call anyone," he mumbled. Or thought he did. " 'S all right. Leave me alone. Let me...die in peace..."
He was still muttering when the ambulance arrived.
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After that he lost all track of time. He knew he was in a hospital. No more darkness, but no daylight either. Never again. Here there was only artificial light, so bright it hurt his eyes. No respite, never any respite from the light.
Tubes. Needles. Shocked faces, kind voices. Decent people trying to make him comfortable, aware they could do nothing more.
The inevitable question. "Can you tell us your name, sir?"
And he said clearly, "Quentin Collins," proudly claiming the name that had not crossed his lips for sixty years.
It made no difference, of course. He would be given a pauper's burial, in an unmarked grave. But at least he would die under his rightful name.
More tubes. More needles.
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"Mr. Collins?"
The too-bright light resolved itself into a face surrounded by a cloud of midnight-black hair, and for an instant he thought she was someone else, a long-dead someone who came to see him often now, in his dreams.
Then his vision cleared. As much as it ever did. And he saw there was only a slight resemblance. This woman was...was...
Betty.
Betty?
He caught his breath. She couldn't be here, couldn't!
But she was. He drank in the sight of her...then realized that, whatever crazy chance had brought her to his bedside, he mustn't let her know he recognized her. There would be no explaining it.
"Mr. Collins? Can you understand me?" She bent close, and gently touched his face. Her lip was quivering. "My name is Betty Thorn. I'm going to take care of you. I promise!
"But please, please, try to tell me what's become of my husband. What has happened to Rick?"
He stalled for time while he tried to think. "Who...how...?" And when, Betty, did you begin to think of me as your husband?
"My husband, Rick Thorn. He's disappeared. And you were wearing his clothes, carrying his identification." She hesitated, studying his face, then forged ahead. "And...and you had a letter. The envelope was addressed to Rick, but the note inside began 'Dear Quentin.' "
Damn. How could he possibly explain that? He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the pain in hers. Why in God's name did she still care? How had they even found her?
"Please! Tell me what's happened to Rick!"
He sucked in a breath. Heard the rattle in his throat. "Rick...is...dead."
"I don't believe you!"
He forced himself to look at her again. She was weeping now, her tears fell on his cheeks...her glittering eyes seemed to pierce his soul. "There's something about you," she whispered. "Your face... I see something of Rick in you. Are you...a relative?"
"No! I...can't help you. And you...don't need...to bother...with me. Go away."
"Never!" Her eyes widened. "Oh, my God...now I know who you are. I don't understand it. But...somehow...you are Rick!"
He tried to speak, but she silenced him with a shaky, feather-light kiss on his cracked lips. "Don't try to deny it. And don't worry, I won't tell anyone else. Just rest, sleep. Let me take care of you."
He gave up protesting. Somehow, insane as it seemed, she knew, she believed.
This couldn't be happening. But he was bone-weary, and his head ached. He'd try to figure it out later.
He slipped his gnarled hand trustingly into hers, and drifted off to sleep.
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When he woke he was being moved onto a stretcher. "No!" he gasped. "Please, no more..."
"It's all right, Mr. Collins. Sshh." Betty. So that hadn't been a dream, she was really here. She turned to speak to someone else. "Let me talk to him alone for a few minutes." He sensed, rather than saw or heard, nurses and orderlies drifting out of the room.
Betty knelt beside him, her soft face almost touching his. "Don't be afraid, Rick. I promised I'd take care of you."
He squinted, trying to see her more clearly. "Why...weren't...you...stopping them? They...wanted to...move me..."
"I'm the one who wants to move you! I'm taking you home." She said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Home?" He repeated the word without comprehension. "Betty. I'm. Dying."
"I...I know." Her voice trembled, then steadied. "I can make you more comfortable at home, Rick. Not in our own bed, I'm afraid, but at least downstairs. In the study you love so much, remember? The trip will be easy, I promise."
The trip. From New York to Boston? It made no sense. Why wouldn't she let him die in peace?
He was struck by sudden suspicion. Why did she want to torture him by moving him now? What was she doing here in the first place? He found himself remembering Tate's words. "My...unique talent...has brought me wealth and influence, Quentin. Influence extending into areas you couldn't possibly imagine."
No! I can't let my experience with Tate make me suspicious of everyone. If I let him poison the one good thing left in my life, he wins.
Still...he heard himself asking, "How...did...you...get here? How...did you...know?"
His tone must have been harsher than he intended. He saw the hurt in her eyes. But she said calmly, "The police found me. You were carrying ID, remember? No address or phone number, but there was an address on the envelope in your pocket. The Boston police came to the house while I was packing to leave. Another ten minutes and I would have been gone." She shuddered.
"Anyway, I've told them you're my husband's grandfather. That doesn't explain your carrying his ID, but it will have to do. Thank God I hadn't blurted out that you were wearing his clothes! I suppose I was in denial, didn't want to admit it even to myself."
He pursued the main point. "Why do you...want to move me? Now?"
"Rick--is it all right if I call you that? I'll always think of you as Rick." Was she on the verge of tears? "Even if we only have a little time left, I want to make it quality time. I can make you comfortable at home!
"And the doctors here aren't really doing much. They didn't think you could...tolerate surgery. Or heavy casts. So they just taped your ribs, and put light-weight splints on your broken legs. And they're giving you IV fluids, and medication for pain. That's about all."
"I...know that." Something still didn't make sense.
Suddenly, he realized what it was. "Don't you...don't you...wonder?"
"How this could have happened to you?" She drew back a little, gazed at him sorrowfully. "Yes, of course I do. But even if you know the answer and want to tell me, I understand you're too weak to explain.
"So it's okay. It happened. I can accept not knowing how or why."
He felt a surge of guilt at having doubted her. And yet... "How...Boston?"
"I promise we'll move you gently, Rick, and we'll give you something to help you sleep. You'll sleep the whole way. I've chartered a plane, and you'll have round-the-clock private duty nurses at home."
"Plane?" He almost choked. Had Betty lost her mind? He couldn't have afforded that before Tate cleaned him out. Now, even private duty nurses were out of the question.
"Betty." His heart was pounding, but he clung stubbornly to consciousness. He had to reason with her. "Listen...to me. The man who...did this...to me...tricked me into...giving him...ten thousand dollars. That was...practically all I had. We...can't afford...a plane. Or nurses. We...don't have any money!" Tears of shame burned on his cheeks.
"It's all right, Rick." Her voice was soft, soothing. "I have plenty of money. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about anything."
What? How could she have "plenty of money"? All his doubts came flooding back. He pulled away from her in panic.
But she must have gestured to someone waiting outside the door. Even as he tried to say, "No!," a hypodermic needle drove into his thigh.
Sinking into sleep, he managed to mutter a final request. "Outdoors."
"What?"
"Let me...see...outdoors. Daylight. One last time."
"I...I will, Rick." Her voice cracked. "I'll wake you--with another injection, if necessary--while we're outdoors. I'll make sure you see it."
She was true to her word.
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The ambulance ride to the airport, the flight, and another long drive blurred into one. He was physically comfortable, slept throughout much of the trip...but even in sleep, questions nagged at him.
How could Betty have this kind of money? She had been a schoolteacher, for God's sake. Living frugally when they met. And she was only in her thirties, too young to have accumulated significant savings...
Only in her thirties. Was she in her thirties? Tate's mocking laughter echoed through his dreams. "Influence extending into areas you couldn't possibly imagine..."
Was Betty indebted to Tate?
Was it his publisher who had given Tate his address? His banker, who had disclosed details of his finances?
Or...
Where was she taking him, really?
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He woke in what he recognized as a hospital bed. The room around him was a whirl of muted colors...but gradually, it stabilized.
His study. It truly was his old-fashioned, book-lined study. His most treasured possession, his antique gramophone, was so near him he could...he could... Still disbelieving, he stretched out a withered arm, touched the satin-smooth surface. It was real. And daylight was streaming through slitted shutters, the shutters he had lovingly painted only last month.
"Hello. Isn't this better?" Betty, stroking his sparse hair.
He tried to smile at her. "Yes. Better. Thank you."
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But as the hours (days?) wore on, he continued to fret over Betty's money. "How...how can you...afford this? You were a teacher..."
"You can't let it rest, can you?" She had been with him almost constantly, despite the presence of a half-dozen nurses.
Now she sighed. "I can't blame you for wondering about it. I'm not proud of my past, or I would have told you long ago.
"The truth is, I have a large inheritance. My father was very wealthy. But I was illegitimate. He claimed to love me. But I wanted public acknowledgment, and he never came through for me. Left me money instead.
"I was tempted to refuse the inheritance. But something--a voice within--told me to accept it, that I'd need it someday. I wasn't willing to live on his damned money, so I invested all of it. Continued in the life-style I could provide for myself.
"I didn't tell you about the money because I knew you wouldn't want to use it, either. You struck me as an old-fashioned man who wanted to support his woman. Was I wrong?"
He managed a rueful grin. "No."
She perched on the edge of the bed, caressed his face. "And now I know why I accepted it. This is the crisis I needed it for.
"So please, Rick, let me spend my money on you. Only on you..."
Wondering, he slept.
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For a time, with devoted care, he rallied. He knew he would never rise from this bed again. But he did begin taking nourishment by mouth. First sipping water and juice through a straw, then swallowing soft foods that Betty gently spooned into his mouth.
"Good, good," she crooned, as she fed him a spoonful of yogurt. "You're a fighter, aren't you, my darling? I'm so proud of you."
"My darling"? You never called me that before. For God's sake, woman, don't go falling in love with me! Not now, not now...
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Soon, all too soon, a cough that had been suppressed by medication determinedly reasserted itself. Stronger doses were of no avail...and every spasm of coughing left him weaker. The small gains he had made slipped away. His intervals of consciousness were fewer, his mind clouded. Whenever he succeeded in focusing on Betty's face, her eyes were moist.
He knew he was sinking fast. Surprisingly, there was very little pain. But the death-rattle in his throat was constant.
He reached out, groping in the darkness that was rapidly closing in...
"Yes, Rick!" Betty, of course. "Do you want to touch your gramophone again?" Guiding his hand to it.
"No," he rasped. "Wanted...to touch...you."
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The pain struck without warning. Unlike any pain he had known recently, waves of excruciating pain that began at the crown of his head and swept down the length of his body, contorting his limbs, shattering the wooden splints on his legs, as Betty's white face bent over him her perfumed hair tumbled around him her shrieks mingled madly with his. Pain he had not known since...since...
Oh my God. I forgot. How could I forget?
He saw Tate again, heard his enemy's mocking voice. "Tonight is Friday, in case you hadn't noticed... It looks like you won't have to worry about the werewolf curse. The moon won't be full for a week, and you don't look healthy enough to last that long."
A week. Oh, God. Could I have survived like this for a week?
The pain, the convulsions eased. What did that mean? Oh yes, there always was an interval when the pain stopped, when I let myself hope it wouldn't go any further.
"Always." Four months, that's all it was, four months in another century, another lifetime. It can't be happening now, not the way I am! It can't...
Panting, he looked up into Betty's wild, terrified eyes. Terrified as Beth's had been, long ago. She was braced to hold him down on the bed, her breathing as labored as his.
The reaction was hitting him now, spindly body soaked with sweat and shivering uncontrollably.
Betty said brokenly, "I'll...I'll call..."
"No! Don't...call anyone. What...what day is it?"
"What?" Confused and panicky now, starting to cry.
He tried to swallow, catch his breath. Consciousness fading... "What...day...is...it?"
"F-Friday." Her lip trembled. "Friday, December second."
No no no no noooo!
He steadied himself. It's all right. My body can't take this, there's no chance I'll live long enough to transform. Concentrate on Betty's face, let that be the image I carry with me into eternity.
The pain came again, convulsions that ripped his flesh and rent his bones, and he bucked like a tortured animal in Betty's grasp, their screams ripping and rending the fabric of the night. On and on it went, on and on.
God no! A clear thought cut through the pain. I am going to transform!
"Betty!" he howled. "Get away! Get away!"
But she was frozen in shock. He felt himself reach out to her again, this time involuntarily. Blurred vision showed him the limb he was extending--an animal's hairy forelimb, ending in wicked claws that went straight for her breast.
"Nooooo!" As unrelenting night closed in on him, he heard his cry of despair give way to a werewolf's growl.
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**********
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He was cold, very cold. And for a moment he felt a trace of nausea.
But his overwhelming sensation was one of exhilaration, of extraordinary well-being. He stretched, flexed his muscles, then sprang to his feet and stretched again. Took a deep breath that filled his lungs with crisp, invigorating air--and let out a whoop of sheer delight. He even executed an impromptu dance step.
This made no sense at all. He forced himself to stand still, try to get his bearings.
It still made no sense. It was winter, and he was standing in what appeared to be an alley--barefoot, wearing only the tattered remains of some kind of nightshirt.
Had he been sleepwalking? Maybe...it was barely dawn. And sleepwalking might account for the confused state he was in. But if he had wandered outdoors on a winter night, practically naked, why did he feel so good?
He was drunk, that was it! Drunk, or high on something else. Maybe this was a stage he always went through when he got smashed, and he normally didn't remember it.
First things first. He wasn't falling-down drunk, thank God. And there wouldn't be many people in the streets--the streets of wherever--at this hour. So it shouldn't be hard to acquire clothes.
He set about his task methodically, trying to ignore the chattering of his teeth. Fortunately, he was in the right part of town--or rather, of a city he quickly identified as Boston. He selected a stylish men's clothing store, warmed his hands at a sidewalk grate, and expertly disabled the alarm. One of many skills he had picked up in the course of a long and sometimes shady life.
Five minutes later, warm and comfortable in the now discreetly lighted store, he padded into a fitting room carrying an armload of shirts, trousers and underwear. Dropped his burden...and got his first look at himself in the mirror.
Nothing unusual about the tall, muscular body, the tousled dark hair and unlined face.
But the torn nightshirt was heavily stained with blood.
He considered that. Obviously not his own blood...so he must have gotten into a fight while he was drunk. (Wearing a nightshirt?) The amount of blood was misleading, had to be! He was hopelessly uncoordinated when he was drunk; he couldn't have done any serious damage. He had bloodied the other guy's nose, that was all.
He put the blood resolutely out of his mind, stripped off the nightshirt, and concentrated on selecting a new outfit.
In another ten minutes he had settled on navy pants, a blue-and-white striped shirt and crimson pullover. He donned appropriate shoes and socks (not boots, the weather didn't seem severe enough for that), and began looking at winter jackets. He was whistling cheerfully now. He'd probably keep the clothes...to make himself feel better about it, he'd mail the store enough cash to cover the purchase price. Mail it anonymously, of course...
He stopped in his tracks, suddenly realizing what he was whistling. My God. "Shadows of the Night"? I haven't thought of that in years, that old song I used to play all the time on my...gramophone...
Something clicked in his mind.
"Yes, Rick! Do you want to touch your gramophone again?"
"No. Wanted...to touch...you."
And then it all came flooding back, the week-long nightmare that had been too horribly real, the werewolf's claws reaching out to rake Betty...
That was when he began to shriek.
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He was only dimly aware of bursting out of the store--still without a jacket--and racing through deserted streets in the general direction of home. Slipping on ice, blinded by tears... Betty can't be dead, she can't be... No, face it, damn you. There's no way she can be alive. You killed Betty last night, and if you burn in hell for all eternity, it won't be punishment enough.
A car passed him, a blur at the edge of his field of vision--moving slowly in the opposite direction, from the suburbs in toward the city. Moments later he heard brakes squealing, the motor kicking in again. A U-turn?
Now the driver behind him was honking madly. Leave me alone, for God's sake! Haven't you ever seen a running man before? There's no law against it.
Of course, there probably is a law against tearing one's wife limb from limb...
"Rick! Rick!"
He pulled up short. It couldn't be. Couldn't!
He turned slowly, afraid to see the face that belonged to that voice.
And then she was tumbling out of the car and into his arms. Her mouth locking on his in a kiss such as they had never shared before, her hands wildly exploring his hair, his face, all the contours of his well-muscled body, until they came at last to his zipper.
He lifted her back into the car, laid her on the seat and flung himself on her.
And never, never had it been like this. Not with her. Not with anyone.
