The Ultimate Werewolf (9 page)

"Hey," she said. "I gotta note for you."

Frightened, he stepped back, feet choosing flight before his heart could make an opposing decision. "Wait a minute," she said, misunderstanding. "I'll read it to you if you want." Leaning across the counter, she opened the note—flat white rectangle, short dashing slant of letters.

He was out the door before she had finished the first sentence entire; he knew where it came from by the scent. Pity and kindness no small disguise but no match in the end for his wariness, developed by necessity, more honed perhaps even than his sense of smell, and underneath it all he smelled the cage. Again. It always started out this way, started nice, warm like a blanket with the soul of a net. For your own good, they would say, she would say, with her red shoes and her wide, pained smile. You're a brilliant man. Hold still.

That night he lay small and frightened, all his clothing stretched over him like a blind of rags, praying now for the change to come, take hold and stay forever, remove him from contention with this end of the world which he could never hope to navigate without disaster and place him, like a jewel in prongs of waiting silver, in that other, colder, simple place where everything was two things: hot or dead.

In the morning, crosslegged and weary, eating one by sumptuous one the cocktail peanuts, he made decisions. First and most stringent, he must give up the co-op grocery, which meant his shopping would now be confined solely to dumpsters. Very well, he was prepared to make sacrifices. If by some terrible miscarriage of luck she found his basement home—and now, this moment, how good it looked, milk crates and camping light, boombox and bed, how sorrowful and dear—then he must find another nest, this one deeper, less visible to light and the curiosity of strangers who mean so ruinously well.

But. Would the missing words come looking, here and leave if he was not? That was insupportable; the last unbearable thing; he shook the thought away with the small frantic motions of a man putting out a fire inside his own head. Surely they were more resilient than that. Surely they could find him wherever he went, if they came looking. But they would never come looking to a hospital, he was sure at least of that.

So. Made almost light with resolution, the acceptance of a plan of action, he curled back on the bed to seek the sleep denied by last night's worry, found it at once and at length and lay in the gray luxury of its trench, dreaming of a time beyond angel time when thoughts were not words and words were not pain, ache perpetual in their terrible insubstantiality where once they had been so close and concrete, a time when no one cared to find him or even knew that he was; even himself.

When he woke it was to a fragile restoration, body sleep-rich and possessed of a well-being so rare and giddy it deserved, he thought, celebration. Slotting the batteries in the boom box, turning it on, and up, loud so the small room reverberated, pushy music and his own flat- footed dance, slapping a hand against the outer wall in time to the beat's demands, louder still and in the smiling second's worth of silence between song and patter, a different noise.

Broken sounds. A man's voice, brusque, walking back and forth, the scrabble of kicked plastic. "Hey!" and in that echo rabbit-heart, he shut off the boom box before realizing that was the surest signal of all. "Hey," again, more sure this time; and he bent, breathless, hinge- spined to grab everything at once, realizing he could not both run and carry, wondering in a weakening flash of greater terror if there was time, or room, to run at all. The shadow of the net and he dancing, blind and stupid, in its fall, no wonder he had lost his words, he did not deserve to have words.

"Hey, anybody down there?" Heavy-set, bright flashlight, blue uniform: it was the uniform, finally, that sent him bursting empty-armed up the stairs, madder than a wardful of patients, long springing limbs like desperation as he swung past the utility worker—not a policeman after all—and out into the street. Running and trying to breathe through the open mouth that could only weep loud tears, horrible tears, he had to fall at last from sheer airlessness and did, lay curled in a burned-out doorway to find, when he could breathe enough to think, to take inventory, that he had only one shirt on, socks but no shoes. One heel was gouged, splintered glass he at once picked out with clumsy fingertips. Sweat-slippery, hair crimped wild by sleep and wet to the roots, standing on comical end like fear's caricature. Shivering already in the negative chill of thirty low degrees as he gathered himself in the best fold he could make of flesh shaken by adrenalin exhaustion, pressed into the cold welcomeless embrace of the doorway's rectangle.

By numb rote he reviewed what he could remember of shelters, rejected each in turn as risks too bold to take. It would be dark in perhaps three hours. He could hide, in the dark. Until then, wait, and he did, camouflaged by the obvious disguise of need into something no one would look at, searching or not.

▼▼▼

His dreams, afire.

Angel time?

I see my own face in the moon.

And awake all at once, under its ice, naked in the parking lot of the co-op grocery—how?—cold beyond sensation's grasp into some primal sluggishness; still not deep enough to hide in, still life without words, only the spaces unoccupied, as if his body lay pocketed with the emptiness of missing organs: liver, heart, brain, soul. Driven to his knees by that endless irretrievable loss, so vast that it transcended even grief, it was too large for grief, it was at last too large for his body so he dropped to all fours, limbs twisting against the asphalt, mouth a mere empty howl as if scourged breathless by pain. It would never be the same. They would never come looking, those missing words, and with what resources he had left he could never make right. All gone, this time, but hurt and the ragged ghost of hunger.

Dazed in the gripe and flex, the cold on his body, he tried to rise and predictably fell, the cut on his heel bleeding again, slow cold blood. His breath was beautiful under the moon. An empty tortilla-chip bag blew against his side, scaring him so he cried out, loud, the exquisite gasp of breath again and as if in punishing response he heard cars, somebody's angry laugh and he tried to judge the moon, was it truly angel time? It was hard to see in the dark, harder than it should have been, but still it was flesh and not fur. Not time yet. He got up, paralytic slowness, all his responses deadened by the underwater cold, tried to move across the lightless street to the memory of the alley beyond. And in the motion the sound of a motor, his slow startle, one too many and somebody's laugh now a bellow, his running stagger a full-length moonlit sprawl and

oh God

the blessed flash of fur,
yes,
telescoping legs and arms into limbs that hit the ground running,
yes,
the one skin in which he could hide forever, the rhythm of safety in the sound of his claws grabbing purchase on the street into an immediate dazzle like lightning, growl like the biggest wolf in all the world, too big for even such a rib-scarred veteran as he; and past impact the taillights of the swerveless car reflecting on the scored and icy concrete the wordless husk, the rorschach blood of angels.

Nina Kiriki Hoffman

▼▼▼

THE baby, Joe, was still nursing when Amelia felt the change coming on, the first stirring of appetite for the forbidden, the faint current of unnatural strength, the hint that she would become the thing she feared and hated. She glanced toward the apartment's living-room window. Its white curtains were parted, showing that night had arrived as gently as first snow, shadows lodging among the buildings in drifts, melted in spots by the yellow warmth of the street lights. Now that she was thinking of it, she could taste the cool metal of twilight in the autumn air. Soon the moon would crest the hill above town. For the first of its three nights full, the moon would work on her weakly; she could resist change for a little while. But not all night.

Where was the babysitter?

Gently, Amelia pulled Joe free and tucked her breast back into her bra, buttoning her shirt. Rising from the folding metal chair, she carried the baby to the closet where she had set up his crib three months before.

Pregnancy had protected her from the moon change, and she had thought nursing would, too. She had prayed that this frightening mother-change in her body had driven out the other, unwelcome change entirely. For a year it had. Just in case, since Joe's birth she had arranged for a babysitter each full moon. Of course, the first time she really needed a sitter, the sitter was late.

Whom could she call? She glanced over her shoulder at the phone. The sitter first. Then, maybe, the man who had moved into the apartment downstairs two weeks ago. Amelia usually had trouble talking with strangers, especially men, but something about this man—his smell, perhaps, a musty, stale-sweat-in-body-hair scent that she would have dismissed as unclean, save for its strange attractiveness—had reassured her. They had spoken by the mailboxes three times. He had patted Joe's head with a gentle hand, and Joe had not minded.

What would Mother think of her even considering calling a strange man to look after her child?

Blast that thought. If Mother were alive and knew Amelia had a child at all, she would disown her daughter.

She put Joe in his crib and wound up the music-box mobile above it. By the light of a shell nightlight, plastic cardinals and bluebirds spun to the tune of Brahms' lullaby. The baby stared up at the birds. Amelia tucked the blanket in around Joe.

He was such a good baby. Gentle, quiet, undemanding. Just the way she had been as a baby, according to her mother. The way she had been all through girlhood.

She kissed Joe's forehead.

Change gripped her breasts, flattening them against her chest, her body shifting to absorb and redistribute tissue. She backed out of the closet and lay on the rag rug in the tiny living room, her eyes clenched shut, her mind grappling with the change, holding it at bay. When the hunger woke to fullness in her, would Joe be safe?

▼▼▼

Kelly Patterson sat on the dirty laundry in his armchair and looked at his apartment. In the two weeks since he had moved in, he had managed to get it as messy as any other place he had lived—crushed beer cans mingling with wadded potato chip bags and filthy socks on the floor, an assortment of dirty shirts and jeans draped across most of the furniture, and a couple of crumpled TV dinner trays on the lamp table, right next to the rings left on the wood by wet cans. Sawdust he carried home from the construction site in the cuffs of his pants and in the waffles on his workboots mixed with everything else, but its clean wood scent couldn't compete with the odor of decay, which was almost a color in the air, spiced but not diminished by the scent of soured beer.

By morning it would all be cleaned up and he would have to start over. No matter how much he challenged his animal self, it always rose to the challenge and exceeded it.

Kelly scratched a stubbled cheek. The night Sonya-the-sudden had bitten him—he had forgotten that she had asked him not to come by that night, and he had an album he was convinced she should hear—the night she had bitten him, he had visualized a lot of scenarios, but never one to match this reality. Who would ever guess that somewhere inside his sloppy self lurked a finicky creature?

Maybe he should stop teasing himself, leave the place neat once and see what his alter ego would do when housekeeping didn't get in its way. Adult-onset lycanthropy. It was still so new and weird. There were lots of experiments he hadn't tried yet. Like, what would he do in the woods? Maybe he should throw a couple blankets, kibble, and a dog dish into the Jeep, drive out into the woods and check it out—if not tonight, tomorrow. But he had never had any woods sense. What if he got lost? Lost, forty, and naked in the early morning. An ugly thing to contemplate.

He sighed. He stood up and went to the curtains, parted them a crack to check the progress of the night.

There was a thump from upstairs, then a drumming of heels. What was going on with Amelia-the-mouse? Mouse brown hair, mouse dark eyes, alive with the mouse wish to be invisible. Had someone come to visit her, and were they having a go? He had tried to imagine a man who could be the father of her baby, and failed; Amelia was a walking wall of don't-touch-me, though some of the shrug-off softened when he talked to her about the kid. Who could get close enough? Though there was something about her that tempted a person . . .

There was another sharp heel thump on his ceiling, and a low cry that sounded more desperate than satisfied. He straightened out of his habitual slouch, staring up, wondering if she needed someone or something.

The hot silver fire ran through him, starting from his heart and flowing out to his extremities, traveling like flame along gas lines. His fingers tightened on the curtain. He drank a long breath in, feeding the silver fire. Smells sharpened and sounds intensified; he knew that somewhere in the room was a rat he would soon enjoy catching and eating. He could hear it chewing on leftover pizza in the corner.

A floor away, he could hear Amelia, moaning his name. His first name. Something had to be wrong with her; he couldn't imagine her ever calling somebody male and older than she was by their first name, not under normal circumstances.

He chomped his lip, the pain waking him of change, dousing the silver fire. It was First Night, the loosest night of change; he could overmaster it, at least for a while. He gripped the knob of his front door. For a while. What if change caught him in Amelia's place? Scare her out of her skin. She'd get him in trouble, no question.

"Kelly!" she cried.

He opened his door and glanced out. Across the hall, Peter-the- snoop was peeking out. Peter waggled his eyebrows at Kelly and slid his door shut. Kelly sighed and ran for the stairs.

▼▼▼

Amelia had the phone's handset in her fist, but she couldn't dial the phone, not with change gripping her. Anyway it was too late. If the sitter hadn't left her building yet, she'd never get here in time.

Soon change would consume Amelia, and she would lose all her normal feelings, her restraints, her cares and concerns. She would go prowling, looking for victims. Before that happened, she must get help for Joe.

Her lower body locked, and the little tail began to grow between her legs. Clenching her fists, locking her elbows, she forced the tail back inside her.

"Kelly!" she cried.

Change whispered through her mind: Kill inhibitions. Mate with impulses. Take the night and make it yours. Your feet are made for wandering, and desire is your master.

The doorknob rattled, turned.

She panted short harsh breaths. She could feel her hips slimming, her shoulders changing. Her skin simmered as hair sprouted on chest and arms and legs and back.

Kelly, messy Kelly, slipped into the apartment. " 'Melia?" He knelt beside her.

She unclenched a fist long enough to grip his arm. "Joe," she said, her voice already low and harsh with change. "Will you watch Joe for me?"

"I, uh," he said. His face looked funny, and his smell had changed, though it was still just as enticing. She could feel the racing heat in him against the palm of her hand. "Okay—" he said, on a rising note.

She cried out. All her muscles locked, holding her still while the rest of change happened and she became the monster.

▼▼▼

It was going to happen. Kelly was going to change in front of somebody for the first time since Sonya had talked him through it. And this time it wasn't going to matter, because—

He wondered who or what had bitten Amelia.

What she was turning into didn't seem to be an animal. Its outline was human.

She shuddered and panted and sweated in front of him, her face twisted in pain and revulsion.

Change didn't hurt him like that. For him, it was as good as sex.

Amelia writhed. He felt he should be watching her, maybe soothing her somehow—a wet towel on the forehead? What?—but his own silver change pulsed through him, and he could no longer hold it off.

▼▼▼

Grinning, Adam sat up. Then he glanced down at his lap and frowned. Damn Amelia, the stupid bitch. Why hadn't she changed into his clothes? How could she let him wake up still in a skirt? Didn't she even
care
how he felt? He grabbed handfuls of skirt and ripped it off his body, enjoying the strength in his arms. And this blouse, so obviously feminine, pastel pink, soft and wimpy like the bitch—it had to go too.

Something warm was behind him. He narrowed his eyes. What had happened since last time? He turned and discovered a big black pointy- eared dog standing, staring at him with yellow eyes. Something funny about its paws—they were too big—but before he could get a good look at them, it leaned toward him. An edge of its black lip lifted, showing a canine. It made no sound.

"Shoo," he said. His voice wavered.

It took a step toward him.

He stood up, the shreds of skirt scattering around his feet. He stripped the shirt off and dropped it, then skinned out of Amelia's cotton underpants.

"Didn't know she got a dog," he said to the dog. He wasn't sure how it would behave toward him, either. Did he still smell enough like her to confuse it? He held out a hand to it, and it sniffed him, then backed up one step. "Look, I'll get out," he said. "Just gotta get some clothes first."

The dog sat, its gaze fixed on him.

He went to his closet, the one where she had kept a grudging wardrobe for him. But the clothes were gone. Baby music came from fake birds above a topless cage, and muted light from something orange on  the floor. The closet smelled like milk and talcum powder and pee. "Christ!" There was a baby in the cage, a little baby who looked up at him with big eyes. How could she have a baby? A baby in his closet. A baby and a dog! He would have to do something drastic to her. She couldn't keep switching things around on him while he was sleeping. It wasn't fair.

He took a step toward the crib and the big dog growled, low in the back of its throat. He glanced at it. The hair on its spine was standing on end. He shrugged and headed for the bedroom, where he found his clothes in her closet shoved over against the wall, crowded out by her own. Dumb bitch. She'd wrinkled his favorite shirt. He slapped his thigh, wondering if she could feel it. It hurt him too much to try again.

The dog was watching him from the bedroom door. It showed him its pointed tooth again. He dressed hurriedly. "All right, all right," he said, "I'm going out! Just a minute." He found the black socks in her underwear drawer, and his loafers (she hadn't polished them in more than a month. How could that be?) in the closet among a jumble of her shoes. The dog growled when he rifled her purse. "I need money to go out, don't I?" he demanded. The growl lowered, but it kept coming. Adam ignored it. Amelia had twenty-six dollars in her wallet, and a smudy driver's license with a short-haired photo of her on it. If he got stopped, he always said he was a male impersonator. He looked enough like her to pass, which was an uncomfortable thought. She was so unattractive. But most of that was the way she carried herself, always flinching, eyes downcast; her wardrobe was full of dark, neutral colors.