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Title: The Compleat Werewolf
Author: Boucher, Anthony [White, William Anthony Parker]
   (1911-1968)
Date of first publication: April 1942
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Street & Smith, 1948
   ["From Unknown Worlds. An Anthology of Modern Fantasy for Grownups"]
Date first posted: 23 January 2019
Date last updated: 23 January 2019
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1592

This ebook was produced by Al Haines


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.






THE COMPLEAT WEREWOLF

BY ANTHONY BOUCHER

    It would, of course, take a famous
    detective story author to appreciate
    the full possibilities of lycanthropy--


    Author's note: In my criminological researches, I have occasionally
    come across references to an agent of the Federal Bureau of
    Investigation who bids fair to become as great a figure of American
    legend as Paul Bunyan or John Henry.  This man is invulnerable to
    bullets.  He strikes such terror into criminals as to drive them to
    suicide or madness.  He sometimes vanishes from human ken entirely,
    and at other times he is reported to have appeared with equal
    suddenness stark naked.  And perhaps the most curious touch of all,
    he engages in a never-ceasing quest, of Arthurian intensity, for
    someone who can perform the Indian rope trick.

    Only recently, after intensive probings in Berkeley, where I have
    certain fortunate connections particularly with the department of
    German, and a few grudging confidences from my old friend Fergus
    O'Breen, have I been able to piece together the facts behind this
    legend.

    Here, then, is the story, with only one important detail
    suppressed, and that, I assure you, strictly for your own good.




The professor glanced at the note:

Don't be silly--Gloria.


Wolfe Wolf crumpled the sheet of paper into a yellow ball and hurled it
out the window into the sunshine of the bright campus spring.  He made
several choice and profane remarks in fluent Middle High German.

Emily looked up from typing the proposed budget for the departmental
library.  "I'm afraid I didn't understand that, Professor Wolf.  I'm
weak on Middle High."

"Just improvising," said Wolf, and sent a copy of the _Journal of
English and Germanic Philology_ to follow the telegram.

Emily rose from the typewriter.  "There's something the matter.  Did
the committee reject your monograph on Hager?"

"That monumental contribution to human knowledge?  Oh, no.  Nothing so
important as that."

"But you're so upset--"

"The office wife!" Wolf snorted.  "And pretty polyandrous at that, with
the whole department on your hands.  Go 'way."

Emily's dark little face lit up with a flame of righteous anger that
removed any trace of plainness.  "Don't talk to me like that, Mr. Wolf.
I'm simply trying to help you.  And it isn't the whole department.
It's--"

Professor Wolf picked up an inkwell, looked after the telegram and the
"Journal," then set the glass pot down again.  "No.  There are better
ways of going to pieces.  Sorrows drown easier than they smash--  Get
Herbrecht to take my two o'clock, will you?"

"Where are you going?"

"To hell in sectors.  So long."

"Wait.  Maybe I can help you.  Remember when the dean jumped you for
serving drinks to students?  Maybe I can--"

Wolf stood in the doorway and extended one arm impressively, pointing
with that curious index which was as long as the middle finger.
"Madam, academically you are indispensable.  You are the prop and stay
of the existence of this department.  But at the moment this department
can go to hell, where it will doubtless continue to need your
invaluable services."

"But don't you see--"  Emily's voice shook.  "No.  Of course not.  You
wouldn't see.  You're just a man--no, not even a man.  You're just
Professor Wolf.  You're Woof-woof."

Wolf staggered.  "I'm what?":

"Woof-woof.  That's what everybody calls you because your name's Wolfe
Wolf.  All your students, everybody.  But you wouldn't notice a thing
like that.  Oh, no.  Woof-woof, that's what you are."

"This," said Wolfe Wolf, "is the crowning blow.  My heart is breaking,
my world is shattered, I've got to walk a mile from the campus to find
a bar; but all this isn't enough.  I've got to be called Woof-woof.
Good-by!"

He turned, and in the doorway caromed into a vast and yielding bulk,
which gave out with a noise that might have been either a greeting of
"Wolf!" or more probably an inevitable grunt of "Oof!"

Wolf backed into the room and admitted Professor Fearing, paunch,
pince-nez, cane and all.  The older man waddled over to his desk,
plumped himself down, and exhaled a long breath, "My dear boy," he
gasped.  "Such impetuosity."

"Sorry, Oscar."

"Ah, youth--"  Professor Fearing fumbled about for a handkerchief,
found none, and proceeded to polish his pince-nez on his somewhat
stringy necktie.  "But why such haste to depart?  And why is Emily
crying?"

"Is she?"

"You see?" said Emily hopelessly, and muttered "Woof-woof" into her
damp handkerchief.

"And why do copies of the JEGP fly about my head as I harmlessly cross
the campus?  Do we have teleportation on our hands?"

"Sorry," Wolf repeated curtly. "Temper.  Couldn't stand that ridiculous
argument of Glocke's.  Good-by."

"One moment."  Professor Fearing fished into one of his unnumbered
handkerchiefless pockets and produced a sheet of yellow paper.  "I
believe this is yours?"

Wolf snatched at it and quickly converted it into confetti.

Fearing chuckled.  "How well I remember when Gloria was a student here!
I was thinking of it only last night when I saw her in 'Moonbeams and
Melody.'  How she did upset this whole department!  Heavens, my boy, if
I'd been a younger man myself--"

"I'm going.  You'll see about Herbrecht, Emily?"

Emily sniffled and nodded.

"Come, Wolfe."  Fearing's voice had grown more serious.  "I didn't mean
to plague you.  But you mustn't take these things too hard.  There are
better ways of finding consolation than in losing your temper or
getting drunk."

"Who said anything about--"

"Did you need to say it?  No, my boy, if you were to--  You're not a
religious man, are you?"

"Good God, no," said Wolf contradictorily.

"If only you were--  If I might make a suggestion, Wolf, why don't you
come over to the Temple tonight?  We're having very special services.
They might take your mind off Glo--off your troubles."

"Thanks, no.  I've always meant to visit your Temple--I've heard rumors
about it--but not tonight.  Some other time."

"Tonight would be especially interesting."

"Why?  What's so special about April 30th?"

Fearing shook his gray head.  "It is shocking how ignorant a scholar
can be outside of his chosen field--  But you know the place, Wolfe;
I'll hope to see you there tonight."

"Thanks.  But my troubles don't need any supernatural solutions.  A
couple of zombies will do nicely, and I do _not_ mean serviceable
stiffs.  Good-by, Oscar."  He was halfway through the door before he
added as an afterthought, "'By, Emily."

"Such rashness," Fearing murmured.  "Such impetuosity.  Youth is a
wonderful thing to enjoy, is it not, Emily?"

Emily said nothing, but plunged into typing the proposed budget as
though all the fiends of hell were after her, as indeed many of them
were.


The sun was setting, and Wolfe's tragic account of his troubles had
laid an egg, too.  The bartender had polished every glass in the joint
and still the repetitive tale kept pouring forth.  Ha was torn between
a boredom new even in his experience and a professional admiration for
a customer who could consume zombies indefinitely.

"Did I tell you about the time she flunked the mid term?" Wolf demanded
truculently.

"Only three times," said the bartender.

"All right, then; I'll tell you.  Yunnerstand, I don't do things like
this.  Profeshical ethons, that's what's I've got.  But this was
different.  This wasn't like somebody that doesn't know just because
she doesn't know; this was a girl that didn't know because she wasn't
the kind of girl that has to know the kind of things a girl has to know
if she's the kind of girl that ought to know that kind of things.
Yunnerstand?"

The bartender cast a calculating glance at the plump little man who sat
alone at the end of the deserted bar, carefully nursing his
gin-and-tonic.

"She made me see that.  She made me see lossa things and I can still
see the things she made me see the things.  It wasn't just like a
professor falls for a coed, yunnerstand?  This was different.  This was
wunnaful.  This was like a whole new life like."

The bartender sidled down to the end of the bar.  "Brother," he
whispered softly.

The little man with the odd beard looked up from his gin-and-tonic.
"Yes, colleague?"

"If I listen to that potted professor another five minutes, I'm going
to start smashing up the joint.  How's about slipping down there and
standing in for me, huh?"

The little man looked Wolf over and fixed his gaze especially on the
hand that clenched the tall zombie glass.  "Gladly, colleague," he
nodded.

The bartender sighed a gust of relief.

"She was Youth," Wolf was saying intently to where the bartender had
stood.  "But it wasn't just that.  This was different.  She was Life
and Excitement and Joy and Ecstasy and Stuff.  Yunner--"  He broke off
and stared at the empty space.  "_Uh-mazing!_" he observed, "Right
before my very eyes.  _Uh-mazing!_"

"You were saying, colleague?" the plump little man prompted from the
adjacent stool.

Wolf turned.  "So there you are.  Did I tell you about the time I went
to her house to check her term paper?"

"No.  But I have a feeling you will."

"Howja know?  Well, this night--"

The little man drank slowly; but his glass was empty by the time Wolf
had finished the account of an evening of pointlessly tentative
flirtation.  Other customers were drifting in, and the bar was now
about a third full.

"--and ever since then--"  Wolf broke off sharply.  "That isn't you,"
he objected.

"I think it is, colleague."

"But you're a bartender and you aren't a bartender."

"No.  I'm a magician."

"Oh.  That explains it.  Now like I was telling you--  Hey!  Your bald
is beard."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Your bald is beard.  Just like your head.  It's all jussa fringe
running around."

"I like it that way."

"And your glass is empty."

"That's all right, too."

"Oh, no, it isn't.  It isn't every night you get to drink with a man
that proposed to Gloria Garton and got turned down.  This is an
occasion for celebration."  Wolf thumped loudly on the bar and held up
his first two fingers.

The little man regarded their equal length.  "No," he said softly.  "I
think I'd better not.  I know my capacity.  If I have another--well,
things might start happening."

"Lettemappen!"

"No.  Please, colleague.  I'd rather--"

The bartender brought the drinks.  "Go on, brother," he whispered.
"Keep him quiet.  I'll do you a favor sometime."

Reluctantly the little man sipped at his fresh gin-and-tonic.

The professor took a gulp of his _n_th zombie.  "My name's Woof-woof,"
he proclaimed.  "Lots of people call me Wolfe Wolf.  They think that's
funny.  But it's really Woof-woof.  Wazoors?"

The other paused a moment to decipher that Arabic-sounding word, then
said, "Mine's Ozymandias the Great."

"That's a funny name."

"I told you I'm a magician.  Only I haven't worked for a long time.
Theatrical managers are peculiar, colleague.  They don't want a real
magician.  They won't even let me show 'em my best stuff.  Why, I
remember one night in Darjeeling--"

"Glad to meet you, Mr....  Mr.--"

"You can call me Ozzy.  Most people do."

"Glad to meet you, Ozzy.  Now about this girl.  This Gloria.
Yunnerstand, donya?"

"Sure, colleague."

"She thinks being a professor of German is nothing.  She wants
something glamorous.  She says if I was an actor now or a G-man--
Yunnerstand?"

Ozymandias the Great nodded.

"Awright, then!  So yunnerstand.  Fine.  But whatddayou want to keep
talking about it for?  Yunnerstand.  That's that.  To hell with it."

Ozymandias' round and fringed face brightened, "Sure," he said, and
added recklessly, "Let's drink to that."


They clinked glasses and drank.  Wolf carelessly tossed off a toast in
Old Low Frankish, with an unpardonable error in the use of the genitive.

The two men next to them began singing "My Wild Irish Rose," but
trailed off disconsolately.  "What we need," said the one with the
derby, "is a tenor."

"What I need," Wolf muttered, "is a cigarette."

"Sure," said Ozymandias the Great.  The bartender was drawing beer
directly in front of them.  Ozymandias reached across the bar, removed
a lighted cigarette from the barkeep's ear, and handed it to his
companion.

"Where'd that come from?"

"I don't quite know.  All I know is how to get them.  I told you I was
a magician."

"Oh.  I see.  Pressajijijation."

"No.  Not a prestidigitator; I said a magician.  Oh, blast it!  I've
done it again.  More than one gin-and-tonic and I start showing off."

"I don't believe you," said Wolf flatly.  "No such thing as magicians.
That's just as silly as Oscar Fearing and his Temple and what's so
special about April 30th, anyway?"

The bearded man frowned.  "Please, colleague.  Let's forget it."

"No.  I don't believe you.  You pressajijijated that cigarette.  You
didn't magic it."  His voice began to rise.  "You're a fake."

"Please, brother," the barkeep whispered.  "Keep him quiet."

"All right," said Ozymandias wearily.  "I'll show you something that
can't be prestidigitation."  The couple adjoining had begun to sing
again.  "They need a tenor.  All right; listen!"

And the sweetest, most ineffably Irish tenor ever heard joined in on
the duet.  The singers didn't worry about the source; they simply
accepted the new voice gladly and were spurred on to their very best,
with the result that the bar knew the finest harmony it had heard since
the night the Glee Club was suspended en masse.

Wolf looked impressed, but shook his head.  "That's not magic, either.
That's ventriloquism."

"As a matter of strict fact, that was a street singer who was killed in
the Easter Rebellion.  Fine fellow, too; never heard a better voice
unless it was that night in Darjeeling when--"

"Fake!" said Wolfe Wolf loudly and belligerently.

Ozymandias once more contemplated that long index finger.  He looked at
the professor's dark brows that met in a straight line over his nose.
He picked his companion's limpish hand off the bar and scrutinized the
palm.  The growth of hair was not marked, but it was perceptible.

The magician chortled.  "And you sneer at magic!"

"Whasso funny about me sneering at magic?"

Ozymandias lowered his voice.  "Because, my fine furry friend, you are
a werewolf."

The Irish martyr had begun "Rose of Tralee" and the two mortals were
joining in valiantly.

"I'm what?"

"A werewolf."

"But there isn't any such thing.  Any fool knows that."

"Fools," said Ozymandias, "know a great deal which the wise do not.
There are werewolves.  There always have been, and quite probably
always will be."  He spoke as calmly and assuredly as though he were
mentioning that the earth was round.  "And there are three infallible
physical signs; the meeting eyebrows, the long index finger, the hairy
palms.  You have all three.  And even your name is an indication.
Family names do not come from nowhere.  Every Smith has an ancestor
somewhere who was a Smith.  Every Fisher comes from a family that once
fished.  And your name is Wolf."

The statement was so quiet, so plausible, that Wolf faltered.  "But a
werewolf is a man that changes into a wolf.  I've never done that.
Honest I haven't."

"A mammal," said Ozymandias, "is an animal that bears its young alive
and suckles them.  A virgin is nonetheless a mammal.  Because you have
never changed does not make you any the less a werewolf."

"But a werewolf--"  Suddenly Wolf's eyes lit up.

"A werewolf!  But that's even better than a G-man!  Now I can show
Gloria!"

"What on earth do you mean, colleague?"

Wolf was climbing down from his stool.  The intense excitement of this
brilliant new idea seemed to have sobered him.  He grabbed the little
man by the sleeve.

"Come on.  We're going to find a nice quiet place.  And you're going to
prove you're a magician."

"But how?"

"You're going to show me how to change!"

Ozymandias finished his gin-and-tonic, and with it drowned his last
regretful hesitation.  "Colleague," he announced, "you're on!"


Professor Oscar Fearing, standing behind the curiously carved lectern
of the Temple of the Dark Truth, concluded the reading of the prayer
with mumbling sonority.  "And on this night of all nights, in the name
of the black light that glows in the darkness, we give thanks!"  He
closed the parchment-bound book and faced the small congregation,
calling out with fierce intensity, "Who wishes to give his thanks to
the Lower Lord?"

A cushioned dowager rose.  "I give thanks!" she shrilled excitedly.
"My Ming Choy was sick, even unto death.  I took of her blood and
offered it to the Lower Lord, and he had mercy and restored her to me!"

Behind the altar an electrician checked his switches and spat
disgustedly.  "Bugs!  Every last one of 'em!"

The man who was struggling into a grotesque and horrible costume paused
and shrugged.  "They pay good money.  What's it to us if they're bugs?"

A tall, thin, old man had risen uncertainly to his feet.  "I give
thanks!" he cried.  "I give thanks to the Lower Lord that I have
finished my great work.  My protective screen against magnetic bombs is
a tried and proven success, to the glory of our country and science and
the Lord."

"Crackpot," the electrician muttered.

The man in costume peered around the altar.  "Crackpot, hell!  That's
Chiswick from the physics department.  Think of a man like that falling
for this stuff!  And listen to him: He's even telling about the
government's plans for installation.  You knew, I'll bet you one of
these fifth columnists could pick up something around here."

There was silence in the Temple when the congregation had finished its
Thanksgiving.  Professor Fearing leaned over the lectern and spoke
quietly and impressively.  "As you know, brothers in Darkness, tonight
is May Eve, the 30th of April, the night consecrated by the Church to
that martyr missionary St. Walpurgis, and by us to other and deeper
purposes.  It is on this night, and this night only, that we may
directly give our thanks to the Lower Lord himself.  Not in wanton orgy
and obscenity, as the Middle Ages misconceived his desires, but in
praise and in deep, dark joy that issues forth from Blackness."

"Hold your hats, boys," said the man in the costume.  "Here I go again."

"Eka!" Fearing thundered.  "_Dva tri chatur!  Pancha!  Shas sapta!
Ashta nava dasha ekadasha!_"  He paused.  There was always the danger
that at this moment some scholar in this university town might
recognize that the invocation, though perfect Sanskrit, consisted
solely of the numbers from one to eleven.  But no one stirred, and he
launched forth in more apposite Latin: "_Per vota nostra ispe nunc
surgat nobis dicatus Baal Zebub!_"

"Baal Zebub!" the congregation chorused.

"Cue," said the electrician, and pulled a switch.

The lights flickered and went out.  Lightning played across the
sanctuary.  Suddenly out of the darkness came a sharp bark, a yelp of
pain, and a long-drawn howl of triumph.

A blue light now began to glow dimly.  In the faint reflection of this,
the electrician was amazed to see his costumed friend at his side,
nursing his bleeding hand.

"What the--" the electrician whispered.

"Hanged if I know.  I go out there on cue, all ready to make my
terrifying appearance, and what happens?  Great big dog up and nips my
hand.  Why didn't they tell me they'd switched the script?"

In the glow of the blue light the congregation reverently contemplated
the plump little man with the fringe of beard and the splendid gray
wolf that stood beside him.  "Hail, O Lower Lord!" resounded the
chorus, drowning out one spinster's murmur of "But my _dear_, I _swear_
he was _much_ handsomer last year."

"Colleagues!" said Ozymandias the Great, and there was utter silence, a
dread hush awaiting the momentous words of the Lower Lord.  Ozymandias
took one step forward, placed his tongue carefully between his lips,
uttered the ripest, juiciest raspberry of his career, and vanished,
wolf and all.


Wolfe Wolf opened his eyes and shut them again hastily.  He had never
expected the quiet and sedate Berkeley Inn to install centrifugal
rooms.  It wasn't fair.  He lay in darkness, waiting for the whirling
to stop and trying to reconstruct the past night.

He remembered the bar all right, and the zombies.  And the bartender.
Very sympathetic chap that, up until he suddenly changed into a little
man with a fringe of beard.  That was where things began getting
strange.  There was something about a cigarette and an Irish tenor and
a werewolf.  Fantastic idea, that.  Any fool knows---

Wolf sat up suddenly.  He _was_ the werewolf.  He threw back the
bedclothes and stared down at his legs.  Then he sighed relief.  They
were long legs.  They were hairy enough.  They were brown from much
tennis.  But they were indisputably human.

He got up, resolutely stifling his qualms, and began to pick up the
clothing that was scattered nonchalantly about the floor.  A crew of
gnomes was excavating his skull, but he hoped they might go away if he
didn't pay too much attention to them.  One thing was certain; he was
going to be good from now on.  Gloria or no Gloria, heartbreak or no
heartbreak, drowning your sorrows wasn't good enough.  If you felt like
this and could imagine you'd been a werewolf--

But why should he have imagined it in such detail?  So many fragmentary
memories seemed to come back as he dressed.  Going up Strawberry Canyon
with the fringed beard, finding a desolate and isolated spot for magic,
learning the words--He could even remember the words.  The word that
changed you and the one that changed you back.

Had he made up those words, too, in his drunken imaginings?  And had he
made up what he could only barely recall--the wonderful, magical
freedom of changing, the single, sharp pang of alteration and then the
boundless happiness of being lithe and fleet and free?

He surveyed himself in the mirror.  He looked exactly what he was, save
for the unwonted wrinkles in his conservative single-breasted gray
suit: a quiet academician, a little better built, a little more
impulsive, a little more romantic than most, perhaps, but still just
that--Professor Wolf.

The rest was nonsense.  But there was, that impulsive side of him
suggested, only one way of proving the fact.  And that was to say The
Word.

"All right," said Wolfe Wolf to his reflection.  "I'll show you."  And
he said it.

The pang was sharper and stronger than he'd remembered.  Alcohol numbs
you to pain.  It tore him for a moment with an anguish like the
descriptions of childbirth.  Then it was gone, and he flexed his limbs
in happy amazement.  But he was not a lithe, fleet, free beast.  He was
a helplessly trapped wolf, irrevocably entangled in a conservative,
single-breasted gray suit.

He tried to rise and walk, but the long sleeves and legs tripped him
over flat on his muzzle.  He kicked with his paws, trying to tear his
way out, and then stopped.  Werewolf or no werewolf, he was likewise
still Professor Wolf, and this suit had cost thirty-five dollars.
There must be some cheaper way of securing freedom than tearing the
suit to shreds.

He used several good, round, Low German expletives, This was a
complication that wasn't in any of the werewolf legends he'd ever read.
There, people just--boom!--became wolves or--bang!--became men again.
When they were men, they wore clothes; when they were wolves, they wore
fur.  Just like Hyperman becoming Bark Lent again on top of the Empire
State Building and finding his street clothes right there.  Most
misleading.  He began to remember now how Ozymandias the Great had made
him strip before teaching him the words--

The words!  That was it.  All he had to do was say the word that
changed you back--_Absarka!_--and he'd be a man again, comfortably
fitted inside his suit.  Then he could strip and start all over again.
You see?  Reason solves all.  "_Absarka!_" he said.

Or thought he said.  He went through all the proper mental processes
for saying _Absarka!_ but all that came out of his muzzle was a sort of
clicking whine.  And he was still a conservatively dressed and helpless
wolf.

This was worse than the clothes problem.  If he could be released only
by saying _Absarka!_ and if, being a wolf, he could say nothing, why,
there he was.  Indefinitely.  He could go find Ozzy and ask--but how
could a wolf wrapped up in a gray suit get safely out of a hotel and
set out hunting for an unknown address?

He was trapped.  He was lost.  He was--

"_Absarka!_"


Professor Wolfe Wolf stood up in his grievously rumpled gray suit and
beamed on the beard-fringed face of Ozymandias the Great.

"You see, colleague," the little magician explained, "I figured you'd
want to try it again as soon as you got up, and I knew darned well
you'd have your troubles.  Thought I'd come over and straighten things
out for you."

Wolf lit a cigarette in silence and handed the pack to Ozymandias.
"When you came in just now," he said at last, "what did you see?"

"You as a wolf."

"Then it really--I actually--"

"Sure.  You're a full-fledged werewolf, all right."

Wolf sat down on the rumpled bed.  "I guess," he ventured slowly, "I've
got to believe it.  And if I believe that--  But it means I've got to
believe everything I've always scorned.  I've got to believe in gods
and devils and hells and--"

"You needn't be so pluralistic.  But there is a God."  Ozymandias said
this as calmly and convincingly as he had stated last night that there
were werewolves.

"And if there's a God, then I've got a soul?"

"Sure."

"And if I'm a werewolf--  Hey!"

"What's the trouble, colleague?"

"All right, Ozzy.  You know everything.  Tell me this: Am I damned?"

"For what?  Just for being a werewolf?  Shucks, no; let me explain.
There's two kinds of werewolves.  There's the cursed kind that can't
help themselves, that just go turning into wolves without any say in
the matter; and there's the voluntary kind like you.  Now most of the
voluntary kind are damned, sure, because they're wicked men who lust
for blood and eat innocent people.  But they aren't damnably wicked
because they're werewolves; they became werewolves because they are
damnably wicked.  Now you changed yourself just for the fun of it and
because it looked like a good way to impress a gal; that's an
innocent-enough motive, and being a werewolf doesn't make it any less
so.  Werewolves don't have to be monsters; it's just that we only hear
about the ones that are."

"But how can I be voluntary when you told me I was a werewolf before
ever I changed?"

"Not everybody can change.  It's like being able to roll your tongue or
wiggle your ears.  You can, or you can't; and that's that.  And, like
those abilities, there's probably a genetic factor involved, though
nobody's done any serious research on it.  You were a werewolf _in
posse_; now you're one _in esse_."

"Then it's all right?  I can be a werewolf just for having fun, and
it's safe?"

"Absolutely."

Wolf chortled.  "Will I show Gloria!  Dull and unglamorous, indeed!
Anybody can marry an actor or a G-man; but a werewolf--"

"Your children probably will be, too," said Ozymandias cheerfully.

Wolf shut his eyes dreamily, then opened them with a start.  "You know
what?"

"What?"

"I haven't got a hangover any more!  This is marvelous.  This is--
Why, this is practical.  At last the perfect hangover cure.  Shuffle
yourself into a wolf and back and--  Oh, that reminds me.  How do I get
back?"

"_Absarka._"

"I know.  But when I'm a wolf I can't say it."

"That," said Ozymandias sadly, "is the curse of being a white magician.
You keep having to use the second-best form of spells, because the best
would be black.  Sure, a black-magic werebeast can turn himself back
whenever he wants to.  I remember in Darjeeling--"

"But how about me?"

"That's the trouble.  You have to have somebody to say _Absarka!_ for
you.  That's what I did last night, or do you remember?  After we broke
up the party at your friend's Temple--  Tell you what.  I'm retired
now, and I've got enough to live on modestly because I can always magic
up a little--  Are you going to take up werewolfing seriously?"

"For a while, anyway.  Till I get Gloria."

"Then why shouldn't I come and live here in your hotel?  Then I'll
always be handy to _Absarka_ you.  After you get the girl, you can
teach her."

Wolf extended his hand.  "Noble of you.  Shake."  And then his eye
caught his wrist watch.  "I've missed two classes this morning.
Werewolfing's all very well, but a man's got to work for his living."

"Most men."  Ozymandias calmly reached his hand into the air and
plucked a coin.  He looked at it ruefully; it was a gold moidore.
"Hang these spirits; I simply cannot explain to them about gold being
illegal."


"From Los Angeles," Wolf thought, with the habitual contempt of the
northern Californian, as he surveyed the careless sport coat and the
bright-yellow shirt of his visitor.

This young man rose politely as the professor entered the office.  His
green eyes gleamed cordially and his red hair glowed in the spring
sunlight.  "Professor Wolf?" he asked.

Wolf glanced impatiently at his desk.  "Yes."

"O'Breen's the name.  I'd like to talk to you a minute."

"My office hours are from three to four Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I'm
afraid I'm rather busy now."

"This isn't faculty business.  And it's important."  The young man's
attitude was affable and casual, but he managed none the less to convey
a sense of urgency that piqued Wolf's curiosity.  The all-important
letter to Gloria had waited while he took two classes; it could wait
another five minutes.

"Very well, Mr. O'Breen."

"And alone, if you please."

Wolf himself hadn't noticed that Emily was in the room.  He now turned
to the secretary and said, "All right.  If you don't mind, Emily--"

Emily shrugged and went out.

"Now, sir.  What is this important and secret business?"

"Just a question or two.  To start with, how well do you know Gloria
Garton?"

Wolf paused.  You could hardly say, "Young man, I am about to repropose
to her in view of my becoming a werewolf."  Instead he simply said--the
truth if not the whole truth--"She was a pupil of mine a few years ago."

"I said _do_, not _did_.  How well do you know her now?"

"And why should I bother to answer such a question?"

The young man handed over a card.  Wolf read:

  FERGUS O'BREEN
  Private Inquiry Agent
  Licenced by the State of California


Wolf smiled.  "And what does this mean?  Divorce evidence?  Isn't that
the usual field of private inquiry agents?"

"Miss Garton isn't married, as you probably know well.  I'm just asking
you if you've been in touch with her much lately?"

"And I'm simply asking why you should want to know."

O'Breen rose and began to pace around the office.  "We don't seem to be
getting very far, do we?  I'm to take it that you refuse to state the
nature of your relations with Gloria Garton?"

"I see no reason why I should do otherwise."  Wolf was beginning to be
annoyed.

To his surprise, the detective relaxed into a broad grin.  "O.K.  Let
it ride.  Tell me about your department: How long have the various
faculty members been there?"

"Instructors and all?"

"Just the professor."

"I've been here for seven years.  All the others at least a good ten,
probably more.  If you want exact figures, you can probably get them
from the dean, unless, as I hope"--Wolf smiled cordially--"he throws
you out flat on your red pate."

O'Breen laughed.  "Professor, I think we could get on.  One more
question, and you can do some pate-tossing yourself.  Are you an
American citizen?"

"Of course."

"And the rest of the department?"

"All of them.  And now would you have the common decency to give me
some explanation of this fantastic farrago of questions?"

"No," said O'Breen casually.  "Good-by, professor."  His alert, green
eyes had been roaming about the room, sharply noticing everything.
Now, as he left, they rested on Wolf's long index finger, moved up to
his heavy meeting eyebrows, and returned to the finger.  There was a
suspicion of a startled realization in those eyes as he left the office.

But that was nonsense, Wolf told himself.  A private detective, no
matter how shrewd his eyes, no matter how apparently meaningless his
inquiries, would surely be the last man on earth to notice the signs of
lycanthropy.

Funny.  Werewolf was a word you could accept.  You could say, "I am a
werewolf," and it was all right.  But say "I am a lycanthrope," and
your flesh crawled.  Odd.  Possibly material for a paper on the
influence of etymology on connotation for one of the learned
periodicals.

But, hell!  Wolfe Wolf was no longer primarily a scholar.  He was a
werewolf now, a white-magic werewolf, a werewolf-for-fun; and fun he
was going to have.  He lit his pipe, stared at the blank paper on his
desk, and tried desperately to draft a letter to Gloria.  It should
hint at just enough to fascinate her and hold her interest until he
could go south when the term ended and reveal to her the whole
wonderful new truths.  It--


Professor Oscar Fearing grunted his ponderous way into the office.
"Good afternoon, Wolf.  Hard at it, my boy?"

"Afternoon," Wolf replied distractedly, and continued to stare at the
paper.

"Great events coming, eh?  Are you looking forward to seeing the
glorious Gloria?"

Wolf started.  "How--What do you mean?"

Fearing handed him a folded newspaper.  "You hadn't heard?"

Wolf read with growing amazement and delight:

  GLORIA GARTON TO ARRIVE FRIDAY
  Local Girl Returns to Berkeley


    As part of the most spectacular talent hunt since the search for
    Scarlett O'Hara, Gloria Garton, glamorous Metropolis starlet, will
    visit Berkeley Friday.

    Friday afternoon at the Campus Theater, Berkeley canines will have
    their chance to compete in the nation-wide quest for a dog to play
    Tookah the wolf dog in the great Metropolis epic, "Fangs of the
    Forest," and Gloria Garton herself will be present at the auditions.

    "I owe so much to Berkeley," Miss Garton said.  "It will mean as
    much to me to see the campus and the city again."  Miss Garton has
    the starring human role in "Fangs of the Forest."

    Miss Garton was a student at the University of California when she
    received her first chance in films.  She is a member of Mask and
    Dagger, honorary dramatic society, and Rho Rho Rho Sorority.


Wolfe Wolf glowed.  This was perfect.  No need now to wait till term
was over.  He could see Gloria now and claim her in all his wolfish
vigor.  Friday--today was Wednesday--that gave him two nights to
practice and perfect the technique of werewolfry.  And then--

He noticed the dejected look on the older professor's face, and a small
remorse smote him.  "How did things go last night, Oscar?" he asked
sympathetically.  "How was your big Walpurgis night services?"

Fearing regarded him oddly.  "You know that now?  Yesterday April 30th
meant nothing to you."

"I got curious and looked it up.  But how did it go?"

"Well enough," Fearing lied, feebly.  "Do you know, Wolf," he demanded
after a moment's silence, "what is the real curse of every man
interested in the occult?"

"No.  What?"

"That true power is never enough.  Enough for yourself, perhaps, but
never enough for others.  So that no matter what your true abilities,
you must forge on beyond them into charlatanry to convince the others.
Look at St. Germain.  Look at Francis Stuart.  Look at Cagliostro.  But
the worst tragedy is the next stage; when you realize that your powers
were greater than you supposed and that the charlatanry was needless.
When you realize that you have no notion of the extent of your powers.
Then--"

"Then, Oscar?"

"Then, my boy, you are a badly frightened man."

Wolf wanted to say something consoling.  He wanted to say, "Look,
Oscar.  It was just me.  Go back to your half-hearted charlatanry and
be happy."  But he couldn't do that.  Only Ozzy could know the truth of
that splendid gray wolf.  Only Ozzy and Gloria.


The moon was bright on that hidden spot in the canyon.  The night was
still.  And Wolfe Wolf had a severe case of stage fright.  Now that it
came to the real thing--for this morning's clothes-complicated fiasco
hardly counted and last night he could not truly remember--he was
afraid to plunge cleanly into wolfdom and anxious to stall and talk as
long as possible.

"Do you think," he asked the magician nervously, "that I could teach
Gloria to change, too?"

Ozymandias pondered; "Maybe, colleague.  It'd depend.  She might have
the natural ability, and she might not.  And, of course, there's no
telling what she might change into."

"You mean she wouldn't necessarily be a wolf?"

"Of course not.  The people who can change, change into all sorts of
things.  And every folk knows best the kind that most interests it.
We've got an English and Central European tradition; so we know mostly
about werewolves.  But take Scandinavia, and you'll hear chiefly about
werebears, only they call 'em berserkers.  And Orientals, now, they're
apt to know about weretigers.  Trouble is, we've thought so much about
werewolves that that's all we know the signs for; I wouldn't know how
to spot a weretiger just offhand."

"Then there's no telling what might happen if I taught her The Word?"

"Not the least.  Of course, there's some werethings that just aren't
much use being.  Take like being a wereant.  You change and somebody
steps on you and that's that.  Or like a fella I knew once in
Madagascar.  Taught him The Word, and know what?  Hanged if he wasn't a
werediplodocus.  Shattered the whole house into little pieces when he
changed and almost trampled me under hoof before I could say _Absarka!_
He decided not to make a career of it.  Or  then there was that time in
Darjeeling--  But, look, colleague, are you going to stand around here
naked all night?"

"No," said Wolf.  "I'm going to change now.  You'll take my clothes
back to the hotel?"

"Sure.  They'll be there for you.  And I've put a very small spell on
the night clerk, just enough for him not to notice wolves wandering in.
Oh, and by the way--anything missing from your room?"

"Not that I noticed.  Why?"

"Because I thought I saw somebody come out of it this afternoon.
Couldn't be sure, but I think he came from there.  Young fella with red
hair and Hollywood clothes."

Wolfe Wolf frowned.  That didn't make sense.  Pointless questions from
a detective were bad enough, but searching your hotel room--  But what
were detectives to a full-fledged werewolf?  He grinned, nodded a
friendly good-by to Ozymandias the Great, and said The Word.

The pain wasn't so sharp as this morning, though still quite bad
enough.  But it passed almost at once, and his whole body filled with a
sense of limitless freedom.  He lifted his snout and sniffed deep at
the keen freshness of this night air.  A whole new realm of pleasure
opened up for him through this acute new nose alone.  He wagged his
tail amicably at Ozzy and set up off the canyon on a long, easy lope.

For hours loping was enough--simply and purely enjoying one's wolfness
was the finest pleasure one could ask.  Wolf left the canyon and turned
up into the hills, past the Big C and on into noble wildness that
seemed far remote from all campus civilization.  His brave new legs
were stanch and tireless, his wind seemingly inexhaustible.  Every
turning brought fresh and vivid scents of soil and leaves and air, and
life was shimmering and beautiful.

But a few hours of this, and Wolf realized that he was lonely.  All
this grand exhilaration was very well, but if his mate Gloria were
loping by his side--  And what fun was it to be something as splendid
as a wolf if no one admired you?  He began to want people, and he
turned back to the city.


Berkeley goes to bed early.  The streets were deserted.  Here and there
a light burned in a rooming house where some solid grind was plodding
on his almost-due term paper.  Wolf had done that himself.  He couldn't
laugh in this shape, but his tail twitched with amusement at the
thought.

He paused along the tree-lined street.  There was a fresh human scent
here, though the street seemed empty.  Then he heard a soft whimpering,
and trotted off toward the noise.

Behind the shrubbery fronting an apartment house sat a disconsolate
two-year-old, shivering in his sunsuit and obviously lost for hours on
hours.  Wolf put a paw on the child's shoulder and shook him gently.

The boy looked around and was not in the least afraid.  "He'o," he
said, brightening up.

Wolf growled a cordial greeting, and wagged his tail and pawed at the
ground to indicate that he'd take the lost infant wherever it wanted to
go.

The child stood up and wiped away its tears with a dirty fist which
left wide, black smudges.  "Tootootootoo!" he said.

Games, thought Wolf.  He wants to play choo-choo.  He took the child by
the sleeve and tugged gently.

"Tootootootoo!" the boy repeated firmly.  "Die way."

The sound of a railway whistle, to be sure, does die away; but this
seemed a poetic expression for such a toddler, Wolf thought, and then
abruptly would have snapped his fingers if he'd had them.  The child
was saying "2222 Dwight Way," having been carefully brought up to tell
its address when lost.  Wolf glanced up at the street sign.  Bowditch
and Hillegas--2222 Dwight would be just a couple of blocks.

Wolf tried to nod his head, but the muscles didn't seem to work that
way.  Instead he wagged his tail in what he hoped indicated
comprehension, and started off leading the child.

The infant beamed and said, "Nice woof-woof."

For an instant Wolf felt like a spy suddenly addressed by his right
name, then realized that if some say "bow-wow" others might well say
"woof-woof."

He led the child for two blocks without event.  It felt good, having an
innocent human being put his whole life and trust in your charge like
this.  There was something about children; he hoped Gloria felt the
same.  He wondered what would happen if he could teach this confiding
infant The Word.  It would be swell to have a pup that would--

He paused.  His nose twitched and the hair on the back of his neck
rose.  Ahead of them stood a dog, a huge mongrel, seemingly a mixture
of St. Bernard and Husky.  But the growl that issued from his throat
indicated that carrying brandy kegs or rushing serum was not for him.
He was a bandit, an outlaw, an enemy of man and dog.  And they had to
pass him.

Wolf had no desire to fight.  He was as big as this monster and
certainly, with his human brain, much cleverer; but scars from a dog
fight would not look well on the human body of Professor Wolf, and
there was, moreover, the danger of hurting the toddler in the fracas.
It would be wiser to cross the street.  But before he could steer the
child that way, the mongrel brute had charged at them, yapping and
snarling.

Wolf placed himself in front of the boy, poised and ready to leap in
defense.  The scar problem was secondary to the fact that this baby had
trusted him.  He was ready to face this cur and teach him a lesson, at
whatever cost to his own human body.  But halfway to him the huge dog
stopped.  His growls died away to a piteous whimper.  His great flanks
trembled in the moonlight.  His tail curled craven between his legs.
And abruptly he turned and fled.

The child crowed delightedly.  "Bad woof-woof go way."  He put his
little arms around Wolf's neck.  "_Nice woof-woof._"  Then he
straightened up and said insistently, "Tootootootoo.  Die way," and
Wolf led on, his strong wolf's heart pounding as it had never pounded
at the embrace of a woman.

"Tootootootoo" was a small, frame house set back from the street in a
large yard.  The lights were still on, and even from the sidewalk Wolf
could hear a woman's shrill voice.

"--since five o'clock this afternoon, and you've got to find him,
officer.  You simply must.  We've hunted all over the neighborhood
and--"

Wolf stood up against the wall on his hindlegs and rang the doorbell
with his front right paw.

"Oh!  Maybe that's somebody now.  The neighbors said they'd--Come,
officer, and let's see--  Oh!"


At the same moment Wolf barked politely, the toddler yelled "Mamma!"
and his thin and worn-looking young mother let out a scream half
delight at finding her child and half terror of this large, gray canine
shape that loomed behind him.  She snatched rap the infant protectively
and turned to the large man in uniform.  "Officer!  Look!  That big
dreadful thing!  It stole my Robby!"

"No," Robby protested firmly.  "Nice woof-woof."

The officer laughed.  "The lad's probably right, ma'am.  It _is_ a nice
woof-woof.  Found your boy wandering around and helped him home.  You
haven't maybe got a bone for him?"

"Let that big nasty brute into my home?  Never?  Come on, Robby."

"Want my nice woof-woof."

"I'll woof-woof you, staying out till all hours and giving your father
and me the fright of our lives.  Just wait till your father sees you,
young man; he'll--  Oh, good night, officer!"  And she shut the door on
the yowls of Robby.

The policeman patted Wolf's head.  "Never mind about the bone, Rover.
She didn't so much as offer me a glass of beer, either.  My, you're a
husky specimen, aren't you, boy?  Look almost like a wolf.  Who do you
belong to, and what are you doing wandering about alone?  Huh?"  He
turned on his flash and bent over to look at the nonexistent collar.

He straightened up and whistled.  "No license.  Rover, that's bad.  You
know what I ought to do?  I ought to turn you in.  If you weren't a
hero that just got cheated out of his bone, I'd--I ought to do it,
anyway.  Laws are laws, even for heroes.  Come on, Rover.  We're going
for a walk."

Wolf thought quickly.  The pound was the last-place on earth he wanted
to wind up.  Even Ozzy would never think of looking for him there.
Nobody'd claim him, nobody'd say _Absarka!_ and in the end a dose of
chloroform--  He wrenched loose from the officer's grasp on his hair,
and with one prodigious leap cleared the yard, landed on the sidewalk,
and started up the street.  But the instant he was out of the officer's
sight he stopped dead and slipped behind a hedge.

He scented the policeman's approach even before he heard it.  The man
was running with the lumbering haste of two hundred pounds.  But
opposite the hedge he, too, stopped.  For a moment Wolf wondered if his
ruse had failed; but the officer had paused only to scratch his head
and mutter, "Say!  There's something screwy here.  Who rang that
doorbell?  The kid couldn't reach it, and the dog--  Oh, well," he
concluded, "Nuts," and seemed to find in that monosyllabic summation
the solution to all his problems.

As his footsteps and smell died away, Wolf became aware of another
scent.  He had only just identified it as cat when someone said,
"You're were, aren't you?"

Wolf started up, lips drawn back and muscles tense.  There was nothing
human in sight, but someone had spoken to him.  Unthinkingly, he tried
to say "Where are you?" but all that came out was a growl.

"Right behind you.  Here in the shadows.  You can scent me, can't you?"

"But you're a cat," Wolf thought in his snarls.  "And you're talking."

"Of course.  But I'm not talking human language.  It's just your brain
that takes it that way.  If you had your human body, you'd just think I
was going _meowrr_.  But you are were, aren't you?"

"How do you ... why do you think so?"

"Because you didn't try to jump me, as any normal dog would have.  And
besides, unless Confucius taught me all wrong, you're a wolf, not a
dog; and we don't have wolves around here unless they're were."

"How do you know all this?  Are you--"

"Oh, no.  I'm just a cat.  But I used to live next door to a werechow
named Confucius.  He taught me things."

Wolf was amazed.  "You mean he was a man who changed to chow and stayed
that way?  Lived as a pet?"

"Certainly.  This was back at the worst of the depression.  He said a
dog was more apt to be fed and looked after than a man.  I thought it
was a smart idea."

"But how terrible!  Could a man so debase himself as--"

"Men don't debase themselves.  They debase each other.  That's the way
of most weres.  Some change to keep from being debased, others to do a
little more effective debasing.  Which are you?"

"Why, you see, I--"

"_Sh!_  Look.  This is going to be fun.  Holdup."

Wolf peered around the hedge.  A well-dressed, middle-aged man was
walking along briskly, apparently enjoying a night constitutional.
Behind him moved a thin, silent figure.  Even as Wolf watched, the
figure caught up with him and whispered harshly, "Up with 'em, buddy!"

The quiet pomposity of the stroller melted away.  He was ashen and
aspen, as the figure slipped a hand around into his breast pocket and
removed an impressive wallet.

And what, thought Wolf, was the good of his fine, vigorous body if it
merely crouched behind hedges as a spectator?  In one fine bound, to
the shocked amazement of the were-wise cat, he had crossed the hedge
and landed with his forepaws full in the figure's face.  It went over
backward with him on top and then there was a loud noise, a flash of
light, and a frightful sharp smell.  For a moment Wolf felt an acute
pang in his shoulder, like the jab of a long needle, and then the pain
was gone.

But his momentary recoil had been enough to let the figure get to its
feet.  "Missed you, huh?" it muttered.  "Let's see how you like a slug
in the belly, you interfering--" and he applied an epithet which would
have been purely literal description if Wolf had not been were.

There were three quick shots in succession even as Wolf sprang.  For a
second he experienced the most acute stomach-ache of his life.  Then he
landed again.  The figure's head hit the concrete sidewalk and he was
still.

Lights were leaping into brightness everywhere.  Among all the confused
noises, Wolf could hear the shrill complaints of Robby's mother, and
among all the compounded smells, he could distinguish scent of the
policeman who wanted to impound him.  That meant getting out, and quick.

The city meant trouble, Wolf decided, as he loped off.  He could endure
loneliness while he practiced his wolfry, until he had Gloria.  Though
just as a precaution he must arrange with Ozzy about a
plausible-looking collar, and--

The most astounding realization yet suddenly struck him!  He had
received four bullets, three of them square in the stomach, and he
hadn't a wound to show for it!  Being a werewolf certainly offered its
practical advantages.  Think what a criminal could do with such
bullet-proofing.  Or--  But no.  He was a werewolf for fun, and that
was that.

But even for a werewolf, being shot, though relatively, painless, is
tiring.  A great deal of nervous energy is absorbed in the magical and
instantaneous knitting of those wounds.  And when Wolfe Wolf reached
the peace and calm of the uncivilized hills, he no longer felt like
reveling in freedom.  Instead he stretched out to his full length,
nuzzled his head down between his forepaws, and slept.


"Now the essence of magic," said Heliophagus of Smyrna, "is deceit; and
that deceit is of two kinds.  By magic, the magician deceives others;
but magic deceives the magician himself."

So far the lycanthropic magic of Wolfe Wolf had worked smoothly and
pleasantly, but now it was to show him the second trickery that lurks
behind every magic trick.  And the first step was that he slept.

He woke in confusion.  His dreams had been human--and of
Gloria--despite the body in which he dreamed them, and it took several
full minutes for him to reconstruct just how he happened to be in that
body.  For a moment the dream, even that episode in which he and Gloria
had been eating blueberry waffles on a roller coaster, seemed more
sanely plausible than the reality.

But he readjusted quickly, and glanced up at the sky.  The sun looked
as though it had been up at least an hour, which meant that the time
was somewhere between six and seven.  Today was Thursday, which meant
that he was saddled with an eight-o'clock class.  That left plenty of
time to change back, shave, dress, breakfast and resume the normal life
of Professor Wolf, which was, after all, important if he intended to
support a wife.

He tried, as he trotted through the streets, to look as tame and
unwolflike as possible, and apparently succeeded.  No one paid him any
mind save children, who wanted to play, and dogs, who began by snarling
and ended by cowering away terrified.  His friend the cat might be
curiously tolerant of were, but not so dogs.

He trotted up the steps of the Berkeley Inn confidently.  The clerk was
under a slight spell and would not notice wolves.  There was nothing to
do but rouse Ozzy, be _absarka'd_, and--

"Hey!  Where you going?  Get out of here!  Shoo!"

It was the clerk, a stanch and brawny young man, who straddled the
stairway and vigorously waved him off.

"No dogs in here!  Go on now.  Scoot!"

Quite obviously this man was under no spell, and equally obviously
there was no way of getting up that staircase short of using a wolf's
strength to tear the clerk apart.  For a second Wolf hesitated.  He had
to get changed back.  It would be a pity to use his powers to injure
another human being--if only he had not slept and arrived before this
unmagicked day clerk came on duty--but necessity knows no--

Then the solution hit him.  Wolf, turned and loped off just as the
clerk hurled an ash tray at him.  Bullets may be relatively painless,
but even a werewolf's rump, he learned promptly, is sensitive to flying
glass.

The solution was foolproof.  The only trouble was that it meant an
hour's wait, and he was hungry.  He found himself even displaying a
certain shocking interest in the plump occupant of a baby carriage.
You do get different appetites with a different body.  His could
understand how some originally well-intentioned werewolves might in
turn become monsters.  But he was stronger in will, and much smarter.
His stomach could hold out until this plan worked.

The janitor had already opened the front door of Wheeler Hall, but the
building was deserted.  Wolf had no trouble reaching the second floor
unnoticed or finding his classroom.  He had a little more trouble
holding the chalk between his teeth and a slight tendency to gag on the
dust; but by balancing his forepaws on the eraser trough, he could
manage quite nicely.  It took three springs to catch the ring of the
chart in his teeth, but once that was pulled down there was nothing to
do but crouch under the desk and pray that he would not starve quite to
death.

The students of German 31B, as they assembled reluctantly for their
eight o'clock, were a little puzzled at being confronted by a chart
dealing with the influence of the gold standard on world economy, but
they decided simply that the janitor had been forgetful.

The wolf under the desk listened unseen to their gathering murmurs,
overheard that cute blonde in the front row makes dates with three
different men for that same night, and finally decided that enough had
assembled to make his chances plausible.  He slipped out from under the
desk far enough to reach the ring of the chart, tugged at it, and let
go.

The chart flew up with a rolling crash.  The students broke off their
chatter, looked up at the blackboard, and beheld in a huge and shaky
scrawl the mysterious letters

  A B S A R K A


It worked.  With enough people, it was an almost mathematical certainty
that one of them in his puzzlement--for the race of subtitle readers,
though handicapped by the talkies, still exists--would read the
mysterious word aloud.  It was the much-bedated blonde who did it.

"_Absarka_," she said wonderingly.

And there was Professor Wolfe Wolf, beaming cordially at his class.

The only flaw was this: He had forgotten that he was only a werewolf,
and not Hyperman.  His clothes still at the Berkeley Inn, and here on
the lecture platform he was stark naked.

Two of his best pupils screamed and one fainted.  The blonde only
giggled appreciatively.


Emily was incredulous but pitying.

Professor Fearing was sympathetic.

The chairman of the department was cool.

The dean of letters was chilly.

The president of the university was frigid.

Wolfe Wolf was unemployed.

And Heliophagus of Smyrna was right.  "The essence of magic is deceit."


"But what can I do?" Wolf moaned into his zombie glass.  "I'm stuck.
I'm stymied.  Gloria arrives in Berkeley tomorrow, and here I
am--nothing.  Nothing but a futile, worthless werewolf.  You can't
support a wife on that.  You can't raise a family.  You can't ... you
can't even propose--  I want another.  Sure you won't have one?"

Ozymandias the Great shook his round, fringed head.  "The last time I
took two drinks I started all this.  I've got to behave if I want to
stop it.  But you're an able-bodied, strapping, young man; surely,
colleague, you can get work?"

"Where?  All I'm trained for is academic work, and this scandal has put
the kibosh on that forever.  What university is going to hire a man who
showed up naked in front of his class without even the excuse of being
drunk?  And supposing I try something else, I'd have to give
references, say something about what I'd been doing with my thirty-odd
years.  And once these references, were checked--  Ozzy, I'm a lost
man."

"Never despair, colleague.  I've learned that magic gets you into some
tight squeezes, but there's always a way of getting out.  Now take that
time in Darjeeling--"

"But what can I do?  I'll wind up like Confucius the werechow and live
off charity, if you'll find me somebody who wants a pet wolf."

"You know," Ozymandias reflected, "you may have something there,
colleague."

"Nuts!  That was a gag.  I can at least retain my self-respect, even if
I go on relief doing it.  And I'll bet they don't like naked men on
relief, either."

"No.  I don't mean just being a pet wolf.  But look at it this way:
What are your assets?  You have only two outstanding abilities.  One of
them is to teach German, and that is now completely out."

"Check."

"And the other is to change yourself into a wolf.  All right,
colleague.  There must be some commercial possibilities in that.  Let's
look into them."

"Nonsense."

"Not quite.  For every merchandise there's a market.  The trick is to
find it.  And you, colleague, are going to be the first practical
commercial werewolf on record."

"I could--  They say Ripley's Odditorium pays good money.  Supposing I
changed six times a day regular for delighted audiences?"

Ozymandias shook his head sorrowfully.  "It's no good.  People don't
want to see real magic.  It makes 'em uncomfortable--starts 'em
wondering what else might be loose in the world.  They've got to feel
sure it's all done with mirrors.  I know.  I had to quit vaudeville
because I wasn't smart enough at faking it; all I could do was the real
thing."

"I could be a Seeing Eye dog, maybe?"

"They have to be female."

"When I'm changed I can understand animal language.  Maybe I could be a
dog trainer and--  No, that's out.  I forgot; they're scared to death
of me."

But Ozymandias' pale-blue eyes had lit up at the suggestion.
"Colleague, you're warm.  Oh, are you warm!  Tell me: Why did you say
your fabulous Gloria was coming to Berkeley?"

"Publicity for a talent hunt."

"For what?"

"A dog to star in 'Fangs of the Forest.'"

"And what kind of a dog?--"

"A--"  Wolf's eyes widened and his jaw sagged.  "A wolf dog," he said
softly.

And the two men looked at each other with a wild surmise--silent,
beside a bar in Berkeley.


"It's all the fault of that Disney dog," the trainer complained.
"Pluto does anything.  Everything.  So our poor mutts are expected to
do likewise.  Listen to that dope!  'The dog should come into the room,
give one paw to the baby, indicate that he recognizes the hero in his
Eskimo disguise, go over to the table, find the bone, and clap his paws
gleefully!'  Now who's got a set of signals to cover stuff like that?
Pluto!" he snorted..

Gloria Garton said, "Oh."  By that one sound she managed to convey that
she sympathized deeply, that the trainer was a nice-looking young man
whom she'd just as soon see again, and that no dog star was going to
steal "Fangs of the Forest" from her.  She adjusted her skirt slightly,
leaned back, and made the plain wooden chair on the bare theater stage
seem more than ever like a throne.

"All right."  The man in the violet beret waved away the last
unsuccessful applicant and read from a card: "Dog: Wopsy.  Owner: Mrs.
Channing Galbraith.  Trainer: Luther Newby.  Bring it in."

An assistant scurried offstage, and there was a sound of whines and
whimpers as a door opened.

"What's got into those dogs today?" the man in the violet beret
demanded.  "They all seem scared to death and beyond."

"I think," said Fergus O'Breen, "that it's that big, gray wolf dog.
Somehow, the others just don't like him."

Gloria Garton lowered her bepurpled lids and cast a queenly stare of
suspicion on the young detective.  There was nothing wrong with his
being there.  His sister was head of publicity for Metropolis, and he'd
handled several confidential cases for the studio, even one for her,
that time her chauffeur had decided to try his hand at blackmail.
Fergus O'Breen was a Metropolis fixture; but still it bothered her.

The assistant brought in Mrs. Galbraith's Wopsy.  The man in the violet
beret took one look and screamed.  The scream bounced back from every
wall of the theater in the ensuing minute of silence.  At last he found
words.  "A wolf dog!  Tookah is the greatest role ever written for a
wolf dog!  And what do they bring us!  A terrier yet!  So if we wanted
a terrier we could cast Asta!"

"But If you'd only let us show you--" Wopsy's tall, young trainer
started to protest.

"Get out!" the man in the violet beret shrieked.  "Get out before I
lose my temper!"

Wopsy and her trainer slunk off.

"In El Paso," the casting director lamented, "they bring me a Mexican
hairless.  In St Louis it's a Pekinese yet!  And if I do find a wolf
dog, it sits in a corner and waits for somebody to bring in a sled to
pull."

"Maybe," said Fergus, "you should try a real wolf."

"Wolf, _schmolf!_" He picked up the next card.  "Dog!  Yoggoth.  Owner
and trainer: Mr. O. Z. Manders, Bring it in."

The whining noise offstage ceased as Yoggoth was brought out to be
tested.  The man in the violet beret hardly glanced at the
fringe-bearded owner and trainer.  He had eyes only for that splendid
gray wolf.  "If you can only act--" he prayed, with the same fervor
with which many a man has thought, "If you could only cook--"

He pulled the beret to an even more unlikely angle and snapped, "All
right, Mr. Manders.  The dog should come into the room, give one paw to
the baby, indicate that he recognizes the hero in his Eskimo disguise,
go over to the table, find the bone, and clap his paws joyfully.  Baby
here, here, here, table here.  Got that?"

Mr. Manders looked at his wolf dog and repeated, "Got that?"

Yoggoth wagged his tail.

"Very well, colleague," said Mr. Manders.  "Do it."  Yoggoth did it.

The violet beret sailed into the flies, on the wings of its owner's
triumphal scream of joy.  "He did it!" he kept burbling.  "He did it!"

"Of course, colleague," said Mr. Manders calmly.

The trainer who hated Pluto had a face as blank as a vampire's mirror.
Fergus O'Breen was speechless with wonderment.  Even Gloria Garton
permitted surprise and interest to cross her regal mask.

"You mean he can do anything?" gurgled the man who used to have a
violet beret.

"Anything," said Mr. Manders.

"Can he--Let's see, in the dance-hall sequence--can he knock a man
down, roll him over, and frisk his back pocket?"

Even before Mr. Manders could say "Of course," Yoggoth had
demonstrated, using Fergus O'Breen as a convenient dummy.

"Peace!" the casting director sighed.  "Peace--Charley!" he yelled to
his assistant.  "Send 'em all away.  No more try-outs.  We've found
Tookah!  It's wonderful."

The trainer stepped up to Mr. Manders.  "It's more than that, sir.
It's positively superhuman.  I'll swear I couldn't detect the slightest
signal, and for such complicated operations, too.  Tell me, Mr.
Manders, what system do you use?"

Mr. Manders made a Moopleish _kaff-kaff_ noise.  "Professional secret,
you understand, young man.  I'm planning on opening a school when I
retire, but obviously until then--"

"Of course, sir.  I understand.  But I've never seen anything like it
in all my born days."

"I wonder," Fergus O'Breen observed from the floor, "if your marvel dog
can get off of people, too?"

Mr. Manders stifled a grin.  "Of course!  Yoggoth!"

Fergus picked himself up and dusted from his clothes the grime of the
stage, which is the most clinging grime on earth.  "I'd swear," he
muttered, "that beast of yours enjoyed that."

"No hard feelings, I trust, Mr.--"

"O'Breen.  None at all.  In fact, I'd suggest a little celebration in
honor of this great event.  I know you can't buy a drink this near the
campus, so I brought along a bottle just in case."

"Oh," said Gloria Garton, implying that carousals were ordinarily
beneath her, that this, however, was a special occasion, and that
possibly there was something to be said for the green-eyed detective,
after all.


This was all too easy, Wolfe Wolf-Yoggoth kept thinking.  There was a
catch to it somewhere.  This was certainly the ideal solution to the
problem of how to earn money as a werewolf.  Bring an understanding of
human speech and instructions into a fine animal body, and you are the
answer to a director's prayer.  It was perfect as long as it lasted;
and if "Fangs of the Forest" was a smash hit, there were bound to be
other Yoggoth pictures.  Look at Rin-tin-tin.  But it was too easy--

His ears caught a familiar "Oh" and his attention reverted to Gloria.
This "Oh" had meant that she really shouldn't have another drink, but
since liquor didn't affect her any way and this was a special occasion,
she might as well.

She was even more beautiful than he had remembered, Her golden hair was
shoulder-length now, and flowed with such rippling perfection that it
was all he could do to keep from reaching out a paw to it.  Her body
had ripened, too, was even more warm and promising than his memories of
her.  And in his new shape he found her greatest charm in something he
had not been able to appreciate fully as a human being, the deep, heady
scent of her flesh.

"To 'Fangs of the Forest'!" Fergus O'Breen was toasting.  "And may that
pretty-boy hero of yours get a worse mauling than I did."

Wolf-Yoggoth grinned to himself.  That had been fun.  That'd teach the
detective to go crawling around hotel rooms.

"And while we're celebrating, colleagues," said Ozymandias the Great,
"why should we neglect our star?  Here, Yoggoth."  And he held out the
bottle.

"He drinks yet!" the casting director exclaimed delightedly.

"Sure.  He was weaned on it."

Wolf took a sizable gulp.  It felt good.  Warm and rich--almost the way
Gloria smelled.

"But how about you, Mr. Manders?" the detective insisted for the fifth
time.  "It's your celebration really.  The poor beast won't get the
four-figure checks from Metropolis.  And you've taken only one drink."

"Never take two, colleague.  I know my danger point.  Two drinks in me
and things start happening."

"More should happen yet than training miracle dogs?  Go on, O'Breen.
Make him drink.  We should see what happens."

Fergus took another long drink himself, "Go on.  There's another bottle
in the car, and I've gone far enough to be resolved not to leave here
sober.  And I don't want sober companions, either."  His green eyes
were already beginning to glow with a new wildness.

"No, thank you, colleague."

Gloria Garton left her throne, walked over to the plump man, and stood
close, her soft hand resting on his arm.  "Oh," she said, implying that
dogs were dogs, but still that the party was inevitably in her honor
and his refusal to drink was a personal insult.

Ozymandias the Great looked at Gloria, sighed, shrugged, resigned
himself to fate, and drank.

"Have you trained many dogs?" the casting director asked.

"Sorry, colleague.  This is my first."

"All the more wonderful!  But what's your profession otherwise?"

"Well, you see, I'm a magician."

"Oh," said Gloria Garton, implying delight, and went so far as to add,
"I have a friend who does black magic."

"I'm afraid, ma'am, mine's simply white.  That's tricky enough.  With
the black you're in for some real dangers."

"Hold on!" Fergus interposed.  "You mean really a magician?  Not just
presti ... sleight of hand?"

"Of course, colleague."

"Good theater," said the casting director.  "Never let 'em see the
mirrors."

"Uh-huh," Fergus nodded.  "But look, Mr. Manders.  What can you do, for
instance?"

"Well, I can change--"

Yoggoth barked loudly.

"Oh, no," Ozymandias covered hastily, "that's really a little beyond
me.  But I can--"


"Can you do the Indian rope trick?" Gloria asked languidly.  "My friend
says that's terribly hard."

"Hard?  Why, ma'am, there's nothing to it.  I can remember that time in
Darjeeling--"

Fergus took another long drink.  "I," he announced defiantly, "want to
see the Indian rope trick.  I have met people who've met people who've
met people who've seen it, but that's as close as I ever get.  And I
don't believe it."

"But, colleague, it's so simple."

"I don't believe it."

Ozymandias the Great drew himself up to his full lack of height.
"Colleague, you are about to see it!"  Yoggoth tugged warningly at his
coat tails.  "Leave me alone, Wolf.  An aspersion has been cast!"

Fergus returned from the wings dragging a soiled length of rope.  "This
do?"

"Admirably."

"What goes?" the casting director demanded.

"_Shh!_" said Gloria.  "Oh--"

She beamed worshipfully on Ozymandias, whose chest swelled to the point
of threatening the security of his buttons.  "Ladies and gentlemen!" he
announced, in the manner of one prepared to fill a vast amphitheater
with his voice.  "You are about to behold Ozymandias the Great in--The
Indian Rope Trick!  Of course," he added conversationally, "I haven't
got a small boy to chop into mincemeat, unless perhaps one of you--No?
Well, we'll try it without.  Not quite so impressive, though.  And will
you stop yapping, Wolf?"

"I thought his name was Yogi," said Fergus.

"Yoggoth.  But since he's part wolf on his mother's side--  Now quiet,
all of you!"

He had been coiling the rope as he spoke.  Now he placed the coil in
the center of the stage, where it lurked like a threatening rattler.
He stood beside it and deftly, professionally, went through a series of
passes and mumblings so rapidly that even the superhumanly sharp eyes
and ears of Wolf-Yoggoth could not follow them.

The end of the rope detached itself from the coil, reared in the air,
turned for a moment like a head uncertain where to strike, then shot
straight up until all the rope was uncoiled.  The lower end rested a
good inch above the stage.

Gloria gasped.  The casting director drank hurriedly.  Fergus, for some
reason, stared curiously at the wolf.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen--oh, hang it, I do wish I had a boy to
carve--Ozymandias the Great will ascend this rope into that land which
only the users of the rope may know.  Onward and upward!  Be right
back," he added reassuringly to Wolf.

His plump hands grasped the rope above his head and gave a little jerk.
His knees swung up and clasped about the hempen pillar.  And up he
went, like a monkey on a stick, up and up and up--

--until suddenly he was gone.

Just gone.  That was all there was to it.  Gloria was beyond even
saying "Oh."  The casting director sat his beautiful flannels down on
the filthy floor and gaped.  Fergus swore softly and melodiously.  And
Wolf felt a premonitory prickling in his spine.

The stage door opened, admitting two men in denim pants and work
shirts.  "Hey!" said the first.  "Where do you think you are?"

"We're from Metropolis Pictures," the casting director, started to
explain, scrambling to his feet.

"I don't care if you're from Washington, we gotta clear this stage.
There's movies here tonight.  Come on, Joe, help me get 'em out.  And
that pooch, too."

"You can't, Fred," said Joe reverently, and pointed, His voice sank to
an awed whisper, "That's Gloria Garton--"

"So it is.  Hi, Miss Garton, wasn't that last one of yours a stinkeroo!"

"Your public, darling," Fergus murmured.

"Come on!" Fred shouted.  "Out of here.  We gotta clean up.  And you,
Joe!  Strike that rope!"

Before Fergus could move, before Wolf could leap to the rescue, the
efficient stage hand had struck the rope and was coiling it up.

Wolf stared up into the flies.  There was nothing up there.  Nothing at
all.  Some place beyond the end of that rope was the only man on earth
he could trust to say _Absarka!_ for him; and the way down was cut off
forever.


Wolfe Wolf sprawled on the floor of Gloria Garton's boudoir and watched
that vision of volupty change into her most fetching negligee.

The situation was perfect.  It was the fulfillment of all his dearest
dreams.  The only flaw was that he was still in a wolf's body.

Gloria turned, leaned over, and chucked him under the snout.  "Wuzzum a
cute wolf dog, wuzzum?"

Wolf could not restrain a snarl.

"Doesn't um like Gloria to talk baby talk?  Um was a naughty wolf, yes,
um was."

It was torture.  Here you are in your best beloved's hotel room, all
her beauty revealed to your hungry eyes, and she talks baby talk to
you!  Wolf had been happy at first when Gloria suggested that she might
take over the care of her co-star pending the reappearance of his
trainer--for none of them was quite willing to admit that "Mr. O. Z.
Manders" might truly and definitely have vanished--but he was beginning
to realize that the situation might bring on more torment than pleasure.

"Wolves are funny," Gloria observed.  She was more talkative when
alone, with no need to be cryptically fascinating.  "I knew a Wolf
once, only that was his name.  He was a man.  And he was a funny one."

Wolf felt his heart beating fast under his gray fur.  To hear his own
name on Gloria's warm lips--  But before she could go on to tell her
pet how funny Wolf was, her maid rapped on the door.

"A Mr. O'Breen to see you, madam."

"Tell him to go 'way."

"He says it's important, and he does look, madam, as though he might
make trouble."

"Oh, all right."  Gloria rose and wrapped her negligee more respectably
about her.  "Come on, Yog--  No, that's a silly name.  I'm going to
call you Wolfie.  That's cute.  Come on, Wolfie, and protect me from
the big, bad detective."

Fergus O'Breen was pacing the sitting room with a certain vicious
deliberateness in his strides.  He broke off and stood still as Gloria
and the wolf entered.

"So?" he observed tersely.  "Reinforcements?"

"Will I need them?" Gloria cooed.

"Look, light of my love life."  The glint in the green eyes was cold
and deadly.  "You've been playing games, and whatever their nature,
there's one thing they're not.  And that's cricket."

Gloria gave him her slow, languid smile.  "You're amusing, Fergus."

"Thanks.  I doubt, however, if your activities are."

"You're still a little boy playing cops and robbers.  And what boogyman
are you after now?"

"Ha-ha," said Fergus politely.  "And you know the answer to that
question better than I do.  That's why I'm here."

Wolf was puzzled.  This conversation meant nothing to him.  And yet he
sensed a tension of danger in the air as clearly as though he could
smell it.

"Go on," Gloria snapped impatiently.  "And remember how dearly
Metropolis Pictures will thank you for annoying one of its best
box-office attractions."

"Some things, my sweet, are more important than pictures, though you
mightn't think it where you come from.  One of them is a certain
federation of forty-eight units.  Another is an abstract concept called
democracy."

"And so?"

"And so I want to ask you one question: Why did you come to Berkeley?"

"For publicity on 'Fangs,' of course.  It was your sister's idea."

"You've gone temperamental and turned down better ones.  Why leap at
this?"

"You don't haunt publicity stunts yourself, Fergus.  Why are you here?"

Fergus was pacing again.  "And why was your first act in Berkeley a
visit to the office of the German department?"

"Isn't that natural enough?  I used to be a student here."

"Majoring in dramatics, and you didn't go near the Little Theater.  Why
the German department?"  He paused and stood straight in front of her,
fixing her with his green gaze.

Gloria assumed the attitude of a captured queen defying the barbarian
conqueror.  "Very well.  If you must know--I went to the German
department to see the man I love."

Wolf held his breath, and tried to keep his tall from thrashing.

"Yes," she went on impassionedly, "you strip the last veil from me, and
force me to confess to you what he alone should have heard first.  This
man proposed to me by mail.  I foolishly rejected his proposal.  But I
thought and thought--and at last I knew.  When I came to Berkeley I had
to see him--"

"And did you?"

"The little mouse of a secretary told me he wasn't there.  But I shall
see him yet.  And when I do--"

Fergus bowed stiffly.  "My congratulations to you both, my sweet.  And
the name of this more than fortunate gentleman?"

"Professor Wolfe Wolf."

"Who is doubtless the individual referred to in this?"  He whipped a
piece of paper from his sport coat and thrust it at Gloria.  She paled
and was silent.  But Wolfe Wolf did not wait for her reply.  He did not
care.  He knew the solution to his problem now, and he was streaking
unobserved for her boudoir.


Gloria Garton entered the boudoir a minute later, a shaken and wretched
woman.  She unstoppered one of the delicate perfume bottles on her
dresser and poured herself a stiff drink of whiskey.  Then her eyebrows
lifted in surprise as she stared at her mirror.  Scrawlingly lettered
across the glass in her own deep-crimson lipstick was the mysterious
word

  A B S A R K A


Frowning, she said it aloud.  "_Absarka_--"

From behind a screen stepped Professor Wolfe Wolf, incongruously
wrapped in one of Gloria's lushest dressing robes.  "Gloria dearest--"
he cried.

"Wolf!" she exclaimed.  "What on earth are you doing here in my room?'

"I love you.  I've always loved you since you couldn't tell a strong
from a weak verb.  And now that I know that you love me--"

"This is terrible.  Please get out of here!"

"Gloria--"

"Get out of here, or I'll sick my dog on you.  Wolfie--  Here, nice
Wolfie!"

"I'm sorry, Gloria.  But Wolfie won't answer you."

"Oh, you beast!  Have you hurt Wolfie?  Have you--"

"I wouldn't touch a hair on his pelt.  Because, you see, Gloria
darling, I am Wolfie."

"What on earth do you--"  Gloria stared around the room.  It was
undeniable that there was no trace of the presence of a wolf dog.  And
here was a man dressed only in one of her robes and no sign of his own
clothes.  And after that funny little man and the rope--

"You thought I was drab and dull," Wolf went on.  "You thought I'd sunk
into an academic rut.  You'd sooner have an actor or a G-man.  But I,
Gloria, am something more exciting than you've ever dreamed of, There's
not another soul on earth I'd tell this to; but I, Gloria, am a
werewolf."

Gloria gasped.  "That isn't possible!  But it all fits in.  What I
heard about you on campus, and your friend with the funny beard and how
he vanished, and, of course, it explains how you did tricks that any
real dog couldn't possibly do--"

"Don't you believe me, darling?"

Gloria rose from the dresser chair and went into his arms.  "I believe
you, dear.  And it's wonderful!  I'll bet there's not another woman in
all Hollywood that was ever married to a werewolf!"

"Then you will--"

"But of course, dear.  We can work it out beautifully.  We'll hire a
stooge to be your trainer on the lot.  You can work daytimes, and come
home at night and I'll say _Absarka!_ for you.  It'll be perfect."

"Gloria--" Wolf murmured with tender reverence.

"One thing, dear.  Just a little thing.  Would you do Gloria a favor?"

"Anything!"

"Show me how you change.  Change for me now.  Then I'll _Absarka_ you
back right away."

Wolf said The Word.  He was in such ecstatic bliss that he hardly felt
the pang this time.  He capered about the room with all the litheness
of his fine wolfish legs, and ended up before Gloria, wagging his tail
and looking for approval.

Gloria patted his head.  "Good boy, Wolfie.  And now, darling, you can
just stay that way."

Wolf let out a yelp of amazement.

"You heard me, Wolfie.  You're staying that way.  You didn't happen to
believe any of that guff I was feeding the detective, did you?  Love
you?  I should waste my time!  But this way you can be very useful to
me.  With your trainer gone, I can take charge of you and pick up an
extra thousand a week or so.  I won't mind that.  And Professor Wolfe
Wolf will have vanished forever, which fits right in with my plans."

Wolf snarled.

"Now don't try to get nasty, Wolfie darling.  Um wouldn't threaten ums
darling Gloria, would ums?  Remember what I can do for you.  I'm the
only person who can turn you into a man again.  You wouldn't dare teach
anyone else that.  You wouldn't dare let people know what you really
are.  An ignorant person would kill you.  A smart one would have you
locked up as a lunatic."

Wolf still advanced threateningly.

"Oh, no.  You can't hurt me.  Because all I'd have to do would be to
say the word on the mirror.  Then you wouldn't be a dangerous wolf any
more.  You'd just be a man here in my room, and I'd scream.  And after
what happened on the campus yesterday, how long do you think you'd stay
out of the madhouse?"

Wolf backed away and let his tail droop.

"You see, Wolfie darling?  Gloria has ums just where she wants ums.
And ums is going to be a good boy."

There was a rap on the boudoir door, and Gloria called, "Come in."

"A gentleman to see you, madam," the maid announced.  "A Professor
Fearing."

Gloria smiled her best cruel and queenly smile.  "Come along, Wolfie.
This may interest you."


Professor Oscar Fearing, overflowing one of the graceful chairs of the
sitting room, beamed benevolently as Gloria and the wolf entered.  "Ah,
my dear!  A new pet.  Touching."

"And what a pet, Oscar.  Wait till you hear."

Professor Fearing buffed his pince-nez against his sleeve.  "And wait,
my dear, until you hear all that I have learned.  Chiswick has
perfected his protective screen against magnetic bombs, and the
official trial is set for next week.  And Farnsworth has all but
completed his researches on a new process for obtaining osmium.  Gas
warfare may start any day, and the power that can command a plentiful
supply of--"

"Fine, Oscar," Gloria broke in.  "But we can go over all this later.
We've got other worries right now."

"What do you mean, my dear?"

"Have you run onto a red-headed young Irishman in a yellow shirt?"

"No, I--  Why, yes.  I did see such an individual leaving the office
yesterday.  I believe he had been to see Wolf."

"He's on to us.  He's a detective from Los Angeles, and he's tracking
us down.  Some place he got hold of a scrap of record that should have
been destroyed.  He knows I'm in it, and he knows I'm tied up with
somebody here in the German department."

Professor Fearing scrutinized his pince-nez, approved of their
cleanness, and set them on his nose.  "Not so much excitement, my dear.
No hysteria.  Let us approach this calmly.  Does he know about the
Temple of the Dark Truth?"

"Not yet.  Nor about you.  He just knows it's somebody in the
department."

"Then what could be simpler?  You have heard of the strange conduct of
Wolfe Wolf?"

"Have I?"  Gloria laughed harshly.

"Everyone knows of Wolf's infatuation with you.  Throw the blame onto
him.  It should be easy to clear yourself and make you appear an
innocent tool.  Direct all attention to him and the organization will
be safe.  The Temple of the Dark Truth can go its mystic way and
extract even more invaluable information from weary scientists who need
the emotional release of a false religion."

"That's what I've tried to do.  I gave O'Breen a long song and dance
about my devotion to Wolf, so obviously phony he'd be bound to think it
was a cover-up for something else.  And I think he bit.  But the
situation is trickier than you guess.  Do you know where Wolfe Wolf is?"

"No one knows.  After the president ... ah ... rebuked him, he seems to
have vanished."

Gloria laughed again.  "He's right here.  In this room."

"My dear!  Secret panels and such?  You take your espionage too
seriously.  Where?"

"There!"

Professor Fearing gaped.  "Are you serious?"

"As serious as you are about the future of Fascism.  That is Wolfe
Wolf."

Fearing approached the wolf incredulously and extended his hand.

"He might bite," Gloria warned him a second too late.

Fearing stared at his bleeding hand.  "That, at least," he observed,
"is undeniably true."  And he raised his foot to deliver a sharp kick.

"No, Oscar!  Don't!  Leave him alone.  And you'll have to take my word
for it--it's way too complicated.  But the wolf is Wolfe Wolf, and I've
got him completely under control.  He's absolutely in our hands.  We'll
switch suspicion to him, and I'll keep him this way while Fergus and
his friends the G-men go off hotfoot on his trail."

"My dear!" Fearing ejaculated.  "You're mad.  You're more hopelessly
mad than the devout members of the Temple."  He took off his pince-nez
and stared again at the wolf.  "And yet Tuesday night--  Tell me one
thing: From whom did you get this ... this wolf dog?"

"From a funny plump little man with a fringy beard."

Fearing gasped.  Obviously he remembered the furor in the Temple, and
the wolf and the fringe-beard.  "Very well, my dear.  I believe you.
Don't ask me why, but I believe you.  And now--"

"Now it's all set, isn't it?  We keep him here helpless, and we use him
to--"

"The wolf as scapegoat.  Yes.  Very pretty."

"Oh!  One thing--"  She was suddenly frightened.

Wolfe Wolf was considering the possibilities of a sudden attack on
Fearing.  He could probably get out of the room before Gloria could say
_Absarka!_  But after that?  Whom could he trust to restore him?
Especially if G-men were to be set on his trail--

"What is it?" Fearing asked.

"That secretary.  That little mouse in the department office.  She
knows it was you I asked for, not Wolf.  Fergus can't have talked to
her yet, because he swallowed my story; but he will.  He's thorough."

"Hm-m-m.  Then, in that case--"

"Yes, Oscar?"

"She must be attended to."  Professor Oscar Fearing beamed genially and
reached for the phone.


Wolf acted instantly, on inspiration and impulse.  His teeth were
strong, quite strong enough to jerk the phone cord from the wall.  That
took only a second, and in the next second he was out of the room and
into the hall before Gloria could open her mouth to speak that word
that would convert him from a powerful and dangerous wolf to a futile
man.

There were shrill screams and a shout or two of "Mad dog!" as he dashed
through the lobby, but he paid no heed to them.  The main thing was to
reach Emily's house before she could be "attended to."  Her evidence
was essential.  That could swing the balance, show Fergus and his G-men
where the true guilt lay.  And, besides, he admitted to himself, Emily
was a nice kid--

His rate of collision was about one point six six per block, and the
curses heaped upon him, if theologically valid, would have been more
than enough to damn him forever.  But he was making time, and that was
all that counted.  He dashed through traffic signals, cut into the path
of trucks, swerved from under street cars, and once even leaped over a
stalled car which obstructed him.  Everything was going fine, he was
halfway there, when two hundred pounds of human flesh landed on him in
a flying tackle.

He looked up through the brilliant lighting effects of smashing his
head on the sidewalk and saw his old Nemesis, the policeman who had
been cheated of his beer.

"So Rover!" said that officer.  "Got you at last, did I?  Now we'll see
if you'll wear a proper license tag.  Didn't know I used to play
football, did you?"

The officer's grip on his hair was painfully tight.  A gleeful crowd
was gathering and heckling the policeman with fantastic advice.

"Get along, boys," he admonished.  "This is a private matter between me
and Rover here.  Come on," and he tugged even harder.

Wolf left a large tuft of fur and skin in the officer's grasp and felt
the blood ooze out of the bare patch on his neck.  He heard an oath and
a pistol shot simultaneously, and felt the needlelike sting drive
through his shoulder.  The awestruck crowd thawed before him.  Two more
bullets hied after him, but he was gone, leaving the most dazed
policeman in Berkeley.

"I hit him," the officer kept muttering blankly.  "I hit the--"

Wolfe Wolf coursed along Dwight Way.  Two more blocks and he'd be at
the little bungalow that Emily shared with a teaching assistant in
something or other.  That telephone gag had stopped Fearing only
momentarily; the orders would have been given by now, the henchmen
would be on their way.  But he was almost there--

"He'o!" a child's light voice called to him.  "Nice woof-woof came
back!"

Across the street was the modest frame dwelling of Robby and his
shrewish mother.  The child had been playing on the sidewalk.  Now he
saw his idol and deliverer and started across the street at a lurching
toddle.  "Nice woof-woof!" he kept calling.  "Wait for Robby!"

Wolf kept on.  This was no time for playing games with even the most
delightful of cubs.  And then he saw the car.  It was an ancient
jellopy, plastered with wisecracks even older than itself; and the
high-school youth driving was obviously showing his girl friend how it
could make time on this deserted residential street.  The girl was a
cute dish, and who could be bothered watching out for children?

Robby was directly in front of the car.  Wolf leaped straight as a
bullet.  His trajectory carried him so close to the car that he could
feel the heat of the radiator on his flank.  His forepaws struck Robby
and thrust him out of danger.  They fell to the ground together, just
as the car ground over the last of Wolf's caudal vertebrae.

The cute dish screamed.  "Homer!  Did we hit them?"

Homer said nothing, and the jellopy zoomed on.

Robby's screams were louder.  "You hurt me!  You hurt me!  _Baaaaad_
woof-woof!"

His mother appeared on the porch and joined in with her own howls of
rage.  The cacophony was terrific.  Wolf let out one wailing yelp of
his own, to make it perfect and to lament his crushed tail, and dashed
on.  This was no time to clear up misunderstandings.


But the two delays had been enough.  Robby and the policeman had proved
the perfect unwitting tools of Oscar Fearing.  As Wolf approached
Emily's little bungalow, he saw a gray sedan drive off.  In the rear
was a small, slim girl, and she was struggling.

Even a werewolf's lithe speed cannot equal a motor car.  After a block
of pursuit, Wolf gave up and sat back in his haunches panting.  It felt
funny, he thought even in that tense moment, not to be able to sweat,
to have to open your mouth and stick out your tongue and--

"Trouble?" inquired a solicitous voice.

This time Wolf recognized the cat.  "Heavens, yes," he assented
wholeheartedly.  "More than you ever dreamed of."

"Food shortage?" the cat asked.  "But that toddler back there is nice
and plump."

"Shut up," Wolf snarled.

"Sorry; I was just judging from what Confucius told me about
werewolves.  You don't mean to tell me that you're an altruistic were?"

"I guess I am.  I know werewolves are supposed to go around
slaughtering, but right now I've got to save a life."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"It's the truth."

"Ah," the cat reflected philosophically.  "Truth is a dark and
deceitful thing."

Wolfe Wolf was on his feet, "thanks," he barked.  "You've done it."

"Done what?"

"See you later."  And Wolf was off at top speed for the Temple of the
Dark Truth.

That was the best chance.  That was Fearing's headquarters.  The odds
were at least even that when it wasn't being used for services it was
the hang-out of his ring, especially since the consulate had been
closed in San Francisco.  Again the wild running and leaping, the
narrow escapes; and where Wolf had not taken these too seriously
before, he knew now that he might be immune to bullets, but certainly
not to being run over.  His tail still stung and ached tormentingly.
But he had to get there.  He had to clear his own reputation, he kept
reminding himself; but what he really thought was, _I have to save
Emily_.

A block from the Temple he heard the crackle of gunfire.  Pistol shots
and, he'd swear, machine guns, too.  He couldn't figure what it meant,
but he pressed on.  Then a bright-yellow roadster passed him and a
vivid flash came from its window.  Instinctively he ducked.  You might
be immune to bullets, but you still didn't just stand still for them.

The roadster was gone and he was about to follow when a glint of bright
metal caught his eye.  The bullet which had missed him had hit a brick
wall and ricocheted back onto the sidewalk.  It glittered there in
front of him--pure silver.

This, he realized abruptly, meant the end of his immunity.  Fearing had
believed Gloria's story, and with his smattering of occult lore he had
known the successful counter weapon.  A bullet, from now on, might mean
no more needle sting, but instant death.

And so Wolfe Wolf went straight on.

He approached the Temple cautiously, lurking behind shrubbery.  And he
was not the only lurker.  Before the Temple, crouching in the shelter
of a car every window of which was shattered, were Fergus O'Breen and a
moonfaced giant.  Each held an automatic, and they were taking pot
shots at the steeple.

Wolf's keen, lupine hearing could catch their words even above the
firing.  "Gabe's around back," Moonface was explaining.  "But it's no
use.  Know what that steeple is?  It's a revolving machine-gun turret.
They've been ready for something like this.  Only two men in there, far
as we can tell, but that turret covers all the approaches."

"Only two?" Fergus muttered,

"And the girl.  They brought a girl here with them.  If she's still
alive."

Fergus took careful aim at the steeple, fired, and ducked back behind
the car as a bullet missed him by millimeters.  "Missed him again!  By
all the kings that ever ruled Tara, Moon, there's got to be a way in
there.  How about tear gas?"

Moon snorted.  "Think you can reach the firing gap in that armored
turret at this angle?"

"That girl--" said Fergus.

Wolf waited no longer.  As he sprang forward, the gunner noticed him
and shifted his fire.  It was like a needle shower in which all the
spray is solid steel.  Wolf's nerves ached with the pain of reknitting.
But at least machine guns apparently didn't firs silver.

The front door was locked, but the force of his drive carried him
through and added a throbbing ache in his shoulder to his other
discomforts.  The lower-floor guard, a pasty-faced individual with a
jutting Adam's apple, sprang up, pistol in hand.  Behind him, in the
midst of the litter of the cult, ceremonial robes, incense burners,
curious books, even a Ouija board, lay Emily.

Pasty-face fired.  The bullets struck Wolf full in the chest and for an
instant he expected death.  But this, too, was lead, and he jumped
forward.  It was not his usual powerful leap.  His strength was almost
spent by now.  He needed to lie on cool earth and let his nerves knit.
And this spring was only enough to grapple with his foe, not to throw
him.

The man reversed his useless automatic and brought its butt thudding
down on the beast's skull.  Wolf reeled back, lost his balance, and
fell to the floor.  For a moment he could not rise.  The temptation was
to strong just to lie there and--

The girl moved.  Her bound hands grasped a corner of the Ouija board.
Somehow, she stumbled to her rope-tied, feet and raised her arms.  Just
as Pasty-face rushed for the prostrate wolf, she brought the heavy
board down.

Wolf was on his feet now.  There was an instant of temptation.  His
eyes fixed themselves to the jut of that Adam's apple, and his long
tongue licked his jowls.  Then he heard the machine-gun fire from the
turret, and tore himself from Pasty-face's unconscious form.

Ladders are hard on a wolf, almost impossible.  But if you use your
jaws to grasp the rung above you and pull up, it can be done.  He was
halfway up the ladder when the gunner heard him.  The firing stopped,
and Wolf heard a rich German oath in what he automatically recognized
as an East Prussian dialect with possible Lithuanian influences.  Then
he saw the man himself, a broken-nosed blond, staring down the ladder
well.

The other man's bullets had been lead.  So this must be the one with
the silver.  But it was too late to turn back now.  Wolf bit the next
rung and hauled up as the bullet struck his snout and stung through.
The blond's eyes widened as he fired again and Wolf climbed another
round.  After the third shot he withdrew precipitately from the opening.

Shots still sounded from below, but the gunner did not return them.  He
stood frozen against the wall of the turret watching in horror as the
wolf emerged from the well.  Wolf halted and tried to get his breath.
He was dead with fatigue and stress, but this man must be vanquished.

The blond raised his pistol, sighted carefully, and fired once more.
He stood for one terrible instant, gazing at this deathless wolf and
knowing from his grandmother's stories what it must be.  Then
deliberately he clamped his teeth on the muzzle of the automatic and
fired again.

Wolf had not yet eaten in his wolf's body, but food must have been
transferred from the human stomach to the lupine.  There was at least
enough for him to be extensively sick.

Getting down the ladder was impossible.  He jumped.  He had never heard
anything about a wolf's landing on his feet, but it seemed to work.  He
dragged his weary and bruised body along to where Emily sat by the
still unconscious Pasty-face, his discarded pistol in her hand.  She
wavered as the wolf approached her, as though uncertain yet as to
whether he was friend or foe.

Time was short.  With the machine gun dead, Fergus and his companions
would be invading the Temple at any minute.  Wolf hurriedly nosed about
and found the planchette of the Ouija board.  He pushed the
heart-shaped bit of wood onto the board and began to shove it around
with his paw.

Emily watched, intent and puzzled.  "A," she said aloud.  "B--S--"

Wolf finished the word and edged around so that he stood directly
beside one of the ceremonial robes.  "Are you trying to say something?"
Emily frowned.

Wolf wagged his tail in vehement affirmation and began again.

"A--" Emily repeated.  "B--S--A--R--"

He could already hear approaching footsteps.

"--K--A--What on earth does that mean?  _Absarka_--"

Ex-professor Wolfe Wolf hastily wrapped his naked human body in the
cloak of the Dark Truth.  Before either he or Emily knew quite what was
happening, he had folded her in his arms, kissed her in a most thorough
expression of gratitude, and fainted.


Even Wolf's human nose could tell, when he awakened, that he was in a
hospital.  His body was still limp and exhausted.  The bare patch on
his neck, where the policeman had pulled out the hair, still stung, and
there was a lump where the butt of the automatic had connected.  His
tail, or where his tail had been, sent twinges through him if he moved.
But the sheets were cool and he was at rest and Emily was safe.

"I don't know how you got in there, Mr. Wolf, or what you did; but I
want you to know you've done your country a signal service."  It was
the moonfaced giant speaking.

Fergus O'Breen was sitting beside the bed, too.  "Congratulations,
Wolf.  And I don't know if the doctor would approve, but here."

Wolfe Wolf drank the whiskey gratefully and looked a question at the
huge man.

"This is Moon Lafferty," said Fergus.  "F.B.I. man.  He's been helping
me track down this ring of spies ever since I first got wind of them."

"You got them--all?" Wolf asked.

"Picked up Fearing and Garton at the hotel," Lafferty rumbled.

"But how--I thought--"

"You thought we were out for you?" Fergus answered.  "That was Garton's
idea, but I didn't quite tumble.  You see, I'd already talked to your
secretary.  I knew it was Fearing she'd wanted to see.  And when I
asked around about Fearing, and learned of the Temple and the defense
researches of some of its members, the whole picture cleared up."

"Wonderful work, Mr. Wolf," said Lafferty.  "Any time we can do
anything for you--  And how you got into that machine-gun turret--
Well, O'Breen, I'll see you later.  Got to check up on the rest of this
round-up.  Pleasant convalescence to you, Wolf."

Fergus waited until the G-man had left the room.  Then he leaned over
the bed and asked confidentially, "How about it, Wolf?  Going back to
your acting career?"

Wolf gasped.  "What acting career?"

"Still going to play Tookah?  If Metropolis makes 'Fangs' with Miss
Garton in a Federal prison."

Wolf fumbled for words.  "What sort of nonsense--"

"Come on, Wolf.  It's pretty clear I know that much.  Might as well
tell me the whole story."

Still dazed, Wolf told it.  "But how did you know it?" he concluded.

Fergus grinned.  "Look.  Dorothy Sayers said some place that in a
detective story the supernatural may be introduced only to be
dispelled.  Sure, that's swell.  Only in real life there come times
when it won't be dispelled.  And this was one.  There was too much.
There, were your eyebrows and fingers, there were the obviously real
magical powers of your friend, there were the tricks which no dog could
possibly do without signals, there was the way the other dogs whimpered
and cringed--  I'm pretty hard-headed, Wolf, but I'm Irish.  I'll
string along only so far with the materialistic, but too much
coincidence is too much."

"Fearing believed it, too," Wolf reflected.  "But one thing, that
worries me--if they used a silver bullet on me once, why were all the
rest of them lead?  Why was I safe from then on?"

"Well," said Fergus, "I'll tell you.  Because it wasn't 'they' who
fired the silver bullet.  You see, Wolf, up till the last minute I
thought you were on 'their' side.  I, somehow, didn't associate good
will with a werewolf.  So I got a mold from a gunsmith and paid a visit
to a jeweler and--  I'm glad I missed," he added sincerely.

"You're glad!"

"But look.  Previous question stands.  Are you going back to acting?
Because if not, I've got a suggestion."

"Which is?"

"You say you fretted about how to be practical, commercial werewolf.
All right.  You're strong and fast.  You can terrify people even to
committing suicide.  You can overhear conversations that no human being
could get in on.  You're invulnerable to bullets.  Can you tell me
better qualifications for a G-man?"

Wolf goggled.  "Me?  A G-man?"

"Moon's been telling me how badly they need new men.  They've changed
the qualifications lately so that your language knowledge'll do instead
of the law or accounting they used to require.  And, after what you did
today, there won't be any trouble about a little academic scandal in
your past.  Moon's pretty sold on you."

Wolf was speechless.  Only three days ago he had been in torment
because he was not an actor or a G-man.  Now--

"Think it over," said Fergus.

"I will.  Indeed I will.  Oh, and one other thing.  Has there been any
trace of Ozzy?"

"Nary a sign."

"I like that man.  I've got to try to find him and--"

"If he's the magician I think he is, he's staying up there only because
he decided he likes it."

"I don't know.  Magic's tricky.  Heaven knows I've learned that.  I'm
going to do all I can for that fringe-bearded old colleague."

"Wish you luck.  Shall I send in your other guest?"

"Who's that?"

"Your secretary.  Here on business, no doubt."

Fergus disappeared discreetly as he admitted Emily.  She walked over to
the bed and took Wolf's hand.  His eyes drank in her quiet, charming
simplicity, and his mind wondered what freak of belated adolescence had
made him succumb to the blatant glamour of Gloria.

They were silent for a long time.  Then at once they both said, "How
can I thank you?  You saved my life."

Wolf laughed.  "Let's not argue.  Let's say we saved our life."

"You mean that?" Emily asked gravely.

Wolf pressed her hand.  "Aren't you tired of being an office wife?"


In the bazaar of Darjeeling, Chulundra Lingasuta stared at his rope in
numb amazement.  Young Ali had climbed up only five minutes ago, but
now as he descended he was a hundred pounds heavier and wore a curious
fringe of beard.




THE END.






[End of The Compleat Werewolf, by Anthony Boucher]