Adelmo drove aimlessly at first, going over things in his head. He needed to get off the road because the police would be looking for his car. He could no longer count on his friendship with Nik to protect him. He didn't know exactly what Nik knew, but he was sure that sneaking around the lab and then running from the police wasn't exactly how an innocent person was expected to act.
He wondered if he would even be able to make his flight.
Adelmo knew enough that it was unlikely charges had actually been filed. That takes a little time. As far as he knew, he was still just a person of interest in the Devereaux murders, but he still couldn't afford to get picked up for questioning.
Not before he asked a few questions of his own.
He reached into his pocket for the address of the wolfman.
*
The first thing he did was drive back to the shop to ditch his car and borrow Lana‟s. She knew better than to ask questions, but he could tell that she had almost reached her limit. If he pushed her too much more, she would start demanding answers, and he wasn't about to provide them. It really was more about her protection than anything. At that point, Adelmo would actually have liked someone to confide in, and since he couldn't talk to Nik, Lana was the next best thing. But the less she knew the better. He was scared, he could just imagine how scared Lana would be if she knew what was going on. He had to keep quiet for now.
If the police questioned her, Adelmo wanted to be sure he had given her plausible deniability. He was in enough trouble; there was no point getting her involved any more than he had to.
The wolfman lived in a dingy apartment building just off the French Quarter. Adelmo had a difficult time finding a parking spot. The pre-Mardi Gras festivities were in full swing, and throngs of revelers were everywhere.
Adelmo knew this would definitely work to his advantage, since the police had their hands full with the party activities and the animal cases.
The downstairs door lock was broken, so Adelmo let himself in and stopped at the row of dented old mailboxes in the tiny lobby next to the narrow stairway.
He found the name:
- Varkola. Apt. 308.
Adelmo took a deep breath and made his way up the stairs.
****
Adelmo was born in Romania. His parents died when he was very young, and he was brought to live in New Orleans with his grandfather, who had emigrated a few years earlier. The old man provided the love and support so desperately needed by a child who had lost his parents.
As soon as he arrived in the city, he felt a special connection. Especially in some of the older neighborhoods of the French Quarter, away from the tourist areas, the old brick buildings reminded him of Romania. Adelmo wanted to be far away from where his parents died, and yet there were places in New Orleans that provided just a tiny bit of familiarity that seemed to bring it all back.
The Wolfman's building was such a place.
He continued up the old wooden stairs.
When he reached the second floor landing, everything went black.
****
The smell was horrible, almost overwhelming.
Adelmo got off the floor, his head throbbing. The landing was almost completely dark. What time was it? He looked down at his watch, but his wrist was bare. Have I been mugged? He stood up straight, grabbing for the railing, and waited until his eyes got used to the darkness.
When his eyes finally adjusted, he was sorry they did.
Animal parts were everywhere. The walls were stained with fresh blood, which glistened in the low light slipping through the single window at the end of the hall.
Adelmo was standing in a slaughterhouse.
With the stench of rotting flesh all around him, Adelmo was having a hard time not getting sick. Putting his sleeve over his nose to try and prevent from smelling it. Adelmo looked up and down the bloody hallway. It was eerily quiet.
He looked at the nearest door. Still on the second floor.
Adelmo started up the stairs.
He heard something behind him, and turned just as a door slammed shut halfway down the hall, but Adelmo‟s reflexes seemed preternaturally quick for some reason, and suddenly he was standing at the door, preventing it from closing.
He heard movement inside and shoved the door open.
Standing there was the unpleasant woman who‟d been in his store the other morning.
Just before his first meeting from the wolfman.
She hissed at him and dove out the window.
“Jesus!” Adelmo exclaimed, and rushed to the window.
The street below was empty.
Adelmo looked around, checking the rusty fire escape, but she was nowhere to be seen.
It was as if she had vanished into thin air.
Adelmo stepped out into the hall, the smell of bloody flesh now much less offensive to his senses, as if he‟d suddenly evolved into a being familiar with such things.
****
Adelmo made his way to the third floor.
There was no such smell up there, no scene of slaughter, no sign of anything amiss. He approached apartment 308 and knocked on the door.
****
Adelmo had always had a kind of love-hate relationship with his past. He had blocked out much of what he knew surrounding the death of his parents. He had been very young when it happened and so much of his memory of that time was jumbled. And the mind‟s natural protective inclination had taken care of most of the rest of it.
His memories had been forged mostly by his grandfather and the odd stories that he told Adelmo. But those stories were all about many generations past. His parents were still a mystery to Adelmo. For a time he thought he could remember their faces, but now he wasn't sure, and it bothered him.
They had faded into the recesses of his consciousness, like Polaroid pictures in reverse, eventually becoming nothing more than shadows. But lately he‟d been more curious, and he could almost feel a presence he had to assume had something to do with them.
***
He knocked again, and the door swayed open slowly.
A dark figure emerged, snarling and spitting, knocking him backwards into the hall. He hit the wall, cracking the plaster as the thing flew by, rushing around the corner and galloping down the stairs.
Adelmo shook it off and ran after it.
He nearly skidded out of control in the bloody entrails on the second floor, but managed to stay on his feet as he heard whatever he was chasing slam its way out the front door.
Adelmo leaped down past the last six steps like a man possessed and banged out the door, breaking the glass on his way.
He ran out into the street and found himself in the middle of a passing parade.
The sun had set, and it seemed like the entire city had come out to party.
Adelmo looked around, adjusting to the bright flashes of costume and masks. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a dark flash in the direction of the main drag.
Adelmo pushed his way frantically through the revelers after whoever, or whatever, had ran out of the Wolfman's apartment.
As he ran, Adelmo looked up and realized for the first time that there was a full moon.
He ran past an alley and saw movement in his peripheral vision. Adelmo stopped just as a bloodcurdling howl pierced the darkness.
He stopped at the mouth of the alley. Something was thrashing around at the end of the narrow pathway.
Adelmo took a step.
The movement stopped.
Adelmo rushed toward the shadowy figure.
The dark thing stepped into a thin shaft of light.
It was the face of the Wolfman. His eyes were crazed and blazing, just like that first day in the store, but what happened next stopped Adelmo cold.
His face began to shift and change. The strange man was turning into some kind of animal. A wolf.
Adelmo froze in fear.
The wolf howled at the moon, the awful sound blending with the happy screams from the revelry down the street.
It lowered its snout and leapt at Adelmo.
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