Wolf's Bane

A series of attacks on former Cajun Mafia witnesses draws Remo and Chiun into an investigation spanning Michigan, Omaha and Louisiana. They trace the killings to imprisoned Armand Fortier’s network and the hired loup-garou Leon Grosvenor. In Leon’s retrospective, the narrator first describes his unusual birth hair condition and upbringing; Thena gives him diluted 942, and Leon later steals full-strength 942 and puts it in a field-camp water supply. Some students die, and the survivors transform into wolves. Remo identifies Thena as Dr. Judith White through Leon’s description of her regenerated arm. During Mardi Gras, the investigation intersects with a Romany camp and rival gubernatorial campaigns.

A hired team ambushes Remo, Cuvier and Aurelia at a bayou camp while Leon attacks Breen’s separate hunting party. Remo and Chiun kill the hired gunmen; Leon attacks Breen and his supporters, killing them, while Maynard flees and is narrated as swallowed by an alligator. The next account lists Maynard as missing and Jethro as a survivor. The pack also attacks Desire House and Reverend Marvin Rockwell’s revival; Remo kills Leon after learning that Fortier and Merle Bettencourt hired him. Leon’s remaining pack escapes, and the book leaves Judith unlocated. Rockwell survives with broken bones; three are reported dead and seventeen injured at the revival.

Fortier dies later while officers try to untie him after Remo leaves him paralyzed. CURE testing of the recovered animal corpse finds human and Mexican gray wolf DNA; Leon’s forensic report also shows skeletal changes and rapid-growth bone stress. Remo speculates that the missing pack went west, but its route remains unknown. Aurelia’s undated vision about Remo’s family remains unresolved.