"Don't worry."
"But how will I know?"
"I'll be back. But, just in case, if I'm not back in two hours-"
"One hour, Robby. The circus isn't that big."
"Ninety minutes. If I'm not here, call the highway patrol or the county sheriff."
"But what are you looking for, Robby? What am I supposed to tell them?"
"Tell them the person or persons responsible for the so-called werewolf killings travels with the circus, as well as the werewolf itself, and that they should come in to get me in a big hurry."
Harper's mouth dropped open, but before she could say anything I got out of the car, quickly closing the door so as to shut off the interior light, and walked across the highway. I hopped over a steel guardrail, navigated a water-filled ditch, and began running, keeping low, toward the circus.
I reached the midway, stayed in the moon shadows next to the huge Ferris wheel for two minutes, watching and listening for guards. There didn't appear to be any, at least not in my immediate vicinity. I made my way past the still rides and shuttered concession stands, angling around toward the penning area at the far side of the Big Top. I was more than a little curious to see what animals, if any, Arlen Zelezian was keeping in his pens or his semis, besides the usual circus menagerie. I was fairly certain Mabel was going to smell me, but I could only hope she wouldn't cause a fuss; it was definitely not the time for a reprise of our earlier reunion scene.
As I moved around the perimeter of the Big Top, I noticed a pale sliver of light spilling out into the night from beneath a loose flap. I could think of no reason why a light should be on in the tent in the middle of the night, and it seemed worthwhile investigating. I got down on my belly, crawled under the canvas flap, and found myself beneath a bank of bleachers. There was a single spotlight turned on in the rigging above, and it was shining directly down into the ring. I moved to the aisle between bleacher sections, eased myself up to where I could peer over the seats and get a clear view of what was happening in the ring. When I did, my heart began to pound in my chest.
Luther, dressed in jeans, brown leather boots, and a gray sweatshirt, was crouched in almost the exact center of the ring. He was facing and talking in low tones that were at once soothing and commanding to a creature that looked like a huge dog or wolf, but which I knew was neither.
For one thing, this animal had extended canines that Nate Button had never mentioned, saber teeth that reminded me somewhat of the kind of wax vampire fangs children wear at Halloween-except there was no doubt in my mind that these teeth were very real and very sharp. There was a cage on wheels, its door open, at the far end of the ring, and from the tension exuded by both man and beast, I suspected the creature had just been set free. The animal was about the size of a large mastiff, with a very broad rib cage, but it had the long, spindly legs and enormous paws of a wolf. Its coat was a rusty, buff color, and it had black stripes running lengthwise down its back. There was a thick ruff around its neck, like a lion's mane. It had a squarish face, a large muzzle marked by gaping, black leather nostrils, and a predator's close-set eyes.
Luther had faced bears and tigers without so much as a stick in his hand, but he now wore a.357 Magnum in a holster strapped around his waist.
I now regretted even more the fact that I didn't have a gun as the animal looked away from Luther-toward me.
The damn thing knew I was there.
Luther, never taking his eyes off the creature in front of him, slowly straightened up. He removed the Magnum from its holster, cocked the weapon. The animal seemed to be familiar with the gun, and perhaps even had some idea of what it could do; it reacted to the loud click of metal on metal by stepping back a pace and baring its fangs. The enormous saber canines glistened with saliva.
"All right," Luther said loudly over his shoulder, still never looking away from the creature in front of him, "bring her in."
The backside of the heavyset man with the potbelly and bulbous nose who had been following Harper and me on the midway suddenly emerged from the tunnel leading to the penning area. The rest of him-clad from head to toe in a heavily padded uniform and wearing a baseball catcher's mask- emerged, and then I could see that he was dragging a heavy, wheeled cage identical to the one already in the ring that had held the first creature. This cage contained a smaller version of the animal standing in the ring-grayer in color, more like a wolf, lacking the heavy ruff, sharply delineated black stripes, and with less pronounced canines. It was a bitch of the species, and she was in heat. Draped over the end of the cage was the soiled khaki safari jacket Nate Button had been wearing.
The huge buff-colored male stiffened at the sight of the bitch, and a tremor ran through its body, but it did not move from its position. The man with the potbelly glanced nervously in the direction of the male, then quickly stepped around behind the cage holding the female.
I felt a hand touch my shoulder, and I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I jumped, but somehow managed to stifle a shout. I wheeled around to find that the hand belonged to Harper, who was standing just behind me.
She leaned very close to me, whispered, "That's a lobox, isn't it? And that's the jacket that professor was wearing."
It was not the time or place for a conversation, whispered or not. I put my finger to my lips and shook my head, then pushed her back and under the bleachers before turning my attention back to the tableau in the dirt ring.
The creature certainly was a lobox, or something very close to it-as close as Arlen Zelezian was likely to get after a decade or more of teasing and leaching past horrors from present genes, breeding wolves and dogs, matching for tiny retrograde genetic factors, bringing this creature back from extinction by mining the shadowy genetic repositories of its closest modern ancestors. Despite my revulsion at what I was certain Zelezian had opted to do with the creature, I could not help but be impressed. The lobox, this beast with a taste for human flesh that had terrorized early man and perhaps contributed to the Neanderthal's extinction, was absolutely magnificent.
The presence of the lobox bitch in estrus continued to have a galvanizing effect on the male; it stood very stiffly, ruff slightly raised, its hide quivering-but it remained where it was. A powerful tribute, I thought, to Luther Zelezian. The trainer, still keeping his eyes fastened on the creature, sidled backward toward the closed cage, ignoring the sudden growling and thrashing of the animal inside it. He took the safari jacket off the top of the cage, dipped a corner of it in the bloody estral fluids at the bottom of the cage, then nodded to the potbellied man, who quickly wheeled the lobox bitch back into the recesses of the tunnel.
"Kill," Luther said in an even tone as he casually tossed the soiled jacket off to his left.
The lobox sprang forward like something shot from a rocket launcher, then leaped high in the air in a stiff-legged manner that reminded me of a fox pouncing. In the brief moments that it arched through the air, I could see long, curved claws-including one at the rear of the footpad-unsheathed, claws that were more like a tiger's than a wolfs or dog's.
The rear, opposable, claw was exactly where Nate Button had said it would be.
And then the creature was at the jacket, using its claws to pin the material to the ground while it tore at it with its long, gleaming fangs. Within moments the jacket had been ripped to shreds-just as its owner, the man whose body odor permeated the fabric, would be if and when this animal was released to track him down. Luther had found a most effective technique for priming the killer beast to track and kill a selected victim by using elemental forces-the pleasure, the promise, of sex, combined with a fear of whatever punishment the animal understood to be represented by the gun, probably the ear-shattering report that would result if the Magnum was fired.