Red Rider's Hood

4 The skull of Xavier Soames

I'd seen strange things in my life, and heard of things stranger still, but nothing could prepare me for what happened to that skull once the moonlight touched it.

The dome began to elongate, the jaw pulled back, the nose stretched forward, and those grinning teeth changed, too. The canines lengthened and sharpened, and the eye sockets shrank until I was no longer looking at a human skull. I was looking at the skull of some hideous beast.

I stared at the skull, astonished, and when I looked up Marissa was staring at me, just as shocked―but her expression wasn't about the skull. She was shocked by me.

"Oh my gosh, Red, I'm so sorry!" She put down the rifle and came over to untie me.

"Do you mind telling me what this is all about? Am I having a hallucination? Is this a concussion from getting knocked in the head?"

"No," Marissa said as she finished untying me. "It's real. You saw what you saw."

"And what exactly did I see?"

She sighed. "It's best if you don't know. Just go home, and forget what happened here."

Sure―like I could possibly forget any of it. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me."

She looked at me long and hard. "Once you know, it will haunt you forever. You'll go to bed thinking about it. You'll wake up thinking about it. It will fill your dreams. Are you sure you want to know?"

I nodded.

She reached down and picked up the terrible animal skull from the table. "This is the skull of Xavier Soames. Cedric Soames's grandfather."

I was never one to believe in werewolves. That was just silly stuff they showed on TV late at night to keep you awake so you'd watch the commercials. Sure, some people seemed to have more animal in them than human at times, but changing from man into beast―it just didn't happen in the world I was raised in. At least that's what I had always thought. Now I wasn't so sure. I wasn't sure about anything anymore.

"Xavier Soames was the first," Marissa told me. "The first one in our neighborhood anyway. He started a gang."

"The Wolves!"

"That was thirty years ago. But a couple of werewolf hunters came along to end the curse, and sent them all to their graves. The Wolves were gone, and for the longest time the only gang in town that people took seriously was that all-girl gang―the Crypts, I think they're called. They're not werewolves, and as far as I know, they haven't bothered anyone. The neighborhood recovered from the dark years. . . . Then, just a couple of years ago, Cedric started it up again and gathered a bunch of new members every bit as bad as the first."

"But. . . but he's not a werewolf, right? He's just pretend­ing, right? Right?"

"Haven't you heard the stories," Marissa said, "about coy­otes getting neighborhood cats and dogs? Since when have there ever been coyotes in the middle of the city?"

It was true that there had been more warnings about coy­otes over the past year. And now that I thought about it, I remembered my mom always saying that when she was a kid, there were a few years when she couldn't go out at night because of them, especially when the moon was bright, and . . . I gasped as I realized what I was thinking. Not when the moon was bright, but when the moon was full.

"And," said Marissa, "what about all those reports about teenagers in our neighborhood running away from home?"

"So, what about it?"

"Think, Red! Those kids didn't run anywhere. Oh, maybe they tried to run, but they didn't get too far. No farther than a wolf's belly."

"No!"

"Yes! And they don't leave any evidence. Werewolves―they eat their prey, bones and all." Then she picked up the hideous wolf skull from the table. "Of course, you don't have to be afraid of old Xavier Soames here―he can't hurt you anymore. Now I just use him as a test. You see, the moment this skull changes from human to wolf, that's the moment they all trans­form. That's how I know you're not one of them."

I rubbed the back of my head. A knot the size of a walnut had risen there.

"I've been trying to figure out their identities for months now, but the Wolves are very secretive. They don't make their identities known often, and when they do, it's usually the last thing that person sees. Cedric's the only one we know for sure."

"But I saw some of them!" I said. "I can identify―" Then something suddenly dawned on me.

She must have seen the way my jaw dropped halfway to the ground. "What's wrong?"

"Your brother..." I almost didn't tell her, but I knew I had to. It was too serious not to tell.

"My brother what?"

"Your brother's one of them."

She stepped back from me and looked at me in anger, as if I had slapped her right across the face. "Don't you say that! Don't even think it! He'd never be one of them! Never!"

"But I saw him!"

"You take it back! You're lying just to get back at me for hit­ting you! You take it back!"

But I shook my head. It hurt my brain to shake it. "He came to my grandma's house with the rest of them this morning. They stole the money I brought for her. And then they stole my car."

She sat down in the leather chair, trying to sort it out, try­ing to deny what I was telling her. "Maybe Cedric's just making him pay back a favor. He does that, you know. Just because Cedric's got my brother jumping through hoops doesn't mean he's one of them. I bet he'll get away, and tell me all about it the second he does."

I thought about that nasty look on Marvin's face. He sure looked like one of them to me.

"Maybe you're right, and maybe you're wrong," I told her. "Either way, it's not safe to be out there now." I looked at the skull she held. I did not want to see the face of any creature that owned a skull like that.

"I don't get to be safe," she said. "Wolf hunters never do. And now that you know, you don't get to be safe, either. We can't do this alone―we're gonna need some help."

"So you're just gonna go to the police with werewolf stories?"

"Who said anything about the police? Thirty years ago, there were two werewolf hunters who rid the town of the curse the first time. I've been trying to track them down, but they disappeared. Some people say they died along with Xavier Soames, but others say they just went into hiding."

And then something clicked in my mind.

"My grandmother knew them! She said some old friends taught her to use wolfsbane!"

Marissa's eyes sparkled. "That's the best lead I've gotten yet! Let's find out what she knows!"

She went to the back door, pushed it open, then hesitated at the threshold. "The Wolves could be anywhere," she said. "Just around the corner, or clear across town. There's no way to know."

"Well," I said, "I guess going to the movies tonight is out, huh?"

She laughed at that. It was good that we could still laugh. Far off I heard something howl to the moon, and although it was a chilling, awful sound, I was relieved that it was so far away.

"Marissa," I asked, because I simply needed to know, "what made you think I was a werewolf?"

She looked at me a good long while before she answered. One side of her face was lit by the soft light of the room, and the other side of her face was lit by pale moonlight. My face must have looked the same to her. Half-warm, half-cold.

"You fit the profile, Red. You're restless―a little impulsive, maybe. It made me think there might be a little bit of animal in you."

I grinned. "Maybe there is," I said with a wink. I was just joking, but Marissa didn't laugh.