What of the distant voices that he could not hear? Was anyone calling to him from the cities to the north or the south? Was anyone running from danger, screaming for his help? A sense of his ever-growing power filled him with a dark pride; how many nights could he ignore the voices? How many nights could he flee “the most dangerous game”?
But he was hearing something now!
Something had pierced the leafy portals of this sanctuary.
Somebody was in danger, terrible danger—and he knew this voice! “Reuben!” came the ragged scream. “Reuben!” It was Laura calling for him. “—I am warning you,” she was sobbing, “don’t you come a step closer!” Laughter—low vicious laughter, and the voice of another: “Oh, come now, little woman, are you going to kill me with that ax?”
21
HE SPED through the forest on all fours, darting in and out of the trees, hitting speeds he’d never achieved before.
“—My dear, you’re making this all too easy for me. You don’t know how it distresses me to shed innocent blood.”
“—Get away from me. Get away from me!”
It wasn’t the scent of evil that guided him because there was no discernible scent. What was a voice so menacing without a scent?
In two leaps he crossed the broad stone terrace and pitched his weight against the door, tearing the locks out of the wood.
He landed on the floorboards, and slammed the door behind him without looking back.
Laura, trembling, terrified, stood to the left of the huge stone fireplace, clutching the long wooden handle of the ax as she held it up with both hands.
“He’s come here to kill you, Reuben!” she said, her voice thick.
Across from her, to the right, stood a small slender and composed figure, a dark-skinned man. His features had a slightly Asian cast. He appeared to be perhaps fifty years old and he had short insignificant black hair and small black eyes. He wore a simple gray jacket and pants, and a white shirt open at his neck.
Reuben moved in front of him, coming between him and Laura.
The small man very gracefully gave way.
He was taking the measure of Reuben. He appeared as detached as a man taking the measure of a stranger on a street corner.
“He says he has to kill you,” Laura was saying, her words ragged and choked. “He says he has no choice. He says he has to kill me too.”
“Go upstairs,” said Reuben. He moved closer to the man. “Lock yourself in the bedroom.”
“No, I don’t think we have time for that at all,” said the man. “I see the descriptions of you were not at all exaggerated. You are a remarkable example of the breed.”
“And what breed is that?” asked Reuben. He stood a couple of feet from the man now, peering down at him, confounded by the utter absence of scent. Oh, there was a human scent that came from him, yes, but no scent of hostility or evil intent.
“I regret what’s happened to you,” said the man. His voice was even and eloquent. “I should never have wounded you. This was an unforgivable mistake on my part. But it’s done and I have no choice now but to undo it.”
“And you are the one behind it all,” said Reuben.
“Most definitely, though it was never my intention.”
He seemed entirely reasonable, and certainly far too slight of build to be of any danger to Reuben, but Reuben knew this was not the final form, no, not by any means, that the man would take. Would it be better to kill him now before the change started? When he was weak and defenseless? Or to drag out of him whatever precious information he might give up? Think of the secrets he might possess.
“I’ve been guarding the place for so long,” said the man, taking another step backwards as Reuben advanced. “It just went on for so very long. And I was never a very good guard, really, and sometimes not here at all. Yet it is unforgivable and if I’m to be shown the slightest mercy I must correct what I’ve done. I’m afraid my poor young ‘Man Wolf,’ as you call yourself, you should never have been born.”
Only now did a sinister smile come over his face, and with it the transformation coming on so rapidly that Reuben could scarce measure the changes before his eyes. The man’s clothes were ripped apart as his chest expanded and his arms and legs began to lengthen and swell. He ripped off his gold wristwatch and dropped it at his side. Fine shiny black hair sprouted all over him, thickening like foam. His shoes were torn into tatters by his clawed feet. He reached up and stripped the remnants of his shirt and jacket away, and brushed off the ragged fragments of his pants. The inevitable deep growl came out of his chest.
Reuben’s eyes narrowed: smaller, shorter arms, but who can calculate the power or the skill? And what huge paws he had and huge feet. His lower limbs were thicker than Reuben’s or so it seemed.
Laura drew closer to Reuben. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her against the fireplace with the ax still held high against her right shoulder.
Reuben held steady; he drew in his breath and reached for the quiet strength he knew he possessed. You’re fighting not just for your life but for Laura’s life, he thought.
The man was now a foot taller than he had been, his black mane like a mantle, but nowhere near as tall as Reuben in Reuben’s lupine form. His face had lost all recognizable sympathetic expression, eyes small and porcine and the mouth a muzzle with long curving fangs.
A pink tongue flashed behind his white teeth as he flexed his powerful thighs. All of his hair was black, even the undercoat of fur; and his ears had a hideous peaked lupine appearance that sickened Reuben because he feared that his own ears looked the same.
Hold steady, that was Reuben’s only thought. Hold steady. He was in a rage, but not a shuddering, trembling rage that causes one’s legs to turn to water or one’s hands to flail. No, not at all.
Something is causing this being to hesitate; something is not as this being would have it. Take another step forward.
He did and the dark wolfen creature stepped back.
“And so, what now? You think you’re going to dispose of me?” asked Reuben. “You think you can destroy me because of your mistake?”
“I have no choice,” said the creature, his voice a deep resonant baritone. “I told you. It should never have happened. I would have killed you with the others, the guilty ones, if I had known. But surely you know how utterly distasteful it is to shed innocent blood. When I saw my error, I released you. There’s always the chance, you see, that the Chrism won’t be passed, that the victim will simply recover; or that the victim will shortly die. That’s what so often happens. The victim simply dies.”
“The Chrism? That’s what you call it?” asked Reuben.
“Yes, the Chrism—that’s what we’ve called it for ages. The gift, the power—there are a hundred ancient words for it—what does it matter?”
“ ‘We’?” asked Reuben. “You said ‘we.’ How many are there of creatures like us?”
“Oh, I know you’re burning with curiosity for what I might tell you,” said the creature with subtle contempt. His voice went on with a maddening restraint. “I remember that curiosity more clearly than I remember anything else. But why should I tell you anything—when I can’t let you live? Am I indulging myself now, or you? It’s easier for me to be kind as I kill you, believe me. It’s not my intent to make either of you suffer. Not at all.”
It was grotesque, the cultured, polished voice coming from such a bestial face. And so this is how I look to them, Reuben thought—just this hideous and monstrous.
“You’ll let the woman go now,” said Reuben. “She can take my car. She can get clear of this place—.”
“No, I will not let the woman go, now or ever,” said the beast. He went on with perfect equanimity. “You sealed the woman’s fate, not I, when you gave her the secret of who and what you are.”
“I don’t know the secret of who and what I am,” Reuben said. He was buying time. He was calculating. How do I best attack him? Where is he most vulnerable? Is he vuln
erable at all! He took a step closer to the beast, and to his surprise the beast reflexively stepped back.
“None of it matters now, does it?” asked the beast. “That’s the horror.”
“It matters to me,” said Reuben.
What a macabre spectacle this must make for Laura, two such monsters sparring with words. Reuben took another step and the beast again gave ground.
“You’re young, hungry for life,” said the beast, words coming just a little more rapidly, “hungry for power too.”
“We’re all of us hungry for life,” said Reuben. He kept his voice low. “That is what life demands of us. If we aren’t hungry for life, we don’t deserve to live.”
“Oh, but you’re especially hungry, aren’t you?” said the beast spitefully. “Believe me, it gives me no pleasure to execute one so strong.” His small dark eyes flashed malevolently in the light of the fire.
“And if you don’t execute me, what happens then?”
“I’m held accountable for you, for your prodigious achievements,” he said contemptuously, “which have all the world clamoring to take you captive, cage you, narcotize you, laboratize you, and put you under the glass.”
Again, Reuben advanced, but the creature stood firm, raising one paw as if to fend Reuben off, a weak defensive gesture. How many other small cues was Reuben receiving?
“I did what seemed natural for me to do,” said Reuben. “I heard the voices; the voices called me; I caught the scent of evil and I tracked it. It was as natural as breathing to do what I did.”
“Oh, believe me,” said the other thoughtfully. “I am deeply impressed. You cannot imagine how many stumble, sicken, die in the first few weeks. It’s so unpredictable. All aspects of it are unpredictable. No one can conceivably know what will happen when the Chrism hits the pluripotent progenitor cells.”
“Explain this to me,” said Reuben under his breath. “What is the Chrism?” He pressed closer, and the creature again stepped back, as if he couldn’t stop himself. His thighs were still flexed, and his arms were slightly curved at his sides.
“No,” said the beast coldly. “If only you’d been a little more reticent, a little more wise.”
“Oh, so I’m to blame for this, am I?” Reuben asked calmly. Again, he edged closer and the beast took two steps back. He was close to the paneled wall. “And where were you when the Chrism began to work? Where were you to guide me or advise me, to warn me what I might expect?”
“Long gone,” said the beast with the first touch of real impatience. “Your truly fabulous exploits caught up with me halfway around the world. And now you will die for them. Were they worth it? Do tell me. Has this been the pinnacle of your existence so far?”
Reuben said nothing. It was now, he thought, now that he should strike.
But the beast spoke again. “Don’t think it doesn’t rip at my heart,” he said, baring his fangs as if in an ugly smile. “Had I chosen you for the Chrism, you would have been magnificent, the finest of Morphenkinder, but I did not choose you. You’re no Morphenkind.” It was the German word for “child,” the way he said it, pronounced as if it were spelled kint. “You’re odious, loathsome, an offense, that’s what you are!” His voice was angry, but steady. “I would never have chosen you, never even noticed you. Now all the world notices you. Well, this will end now.”
Now he’s the one playing for time, Reuben thought. Why? Does he know he can’t win this?
“Who put you to guard this house?” said Reuben.
“One who won’t tolerate what’s happened,” he said. “Not here of all places, not here.” He sighed. “And you, you contemptible boy, having your way with Marchent, his precious Marchent, and Marchent dead.” His eyes quivered and again he bared his teeth and his fangs without a sound.
“Who is he? How is he connected to Marchent?”
“You were the cause of her death,” said the creature in a small voice. A low rolling growl escaped him. “I turned my back because of you, not to spy on you and Marchent—you and your antics—and in that interval death came to Marchent! It was all you! Well, you will not remain while I draw breath.”
This infuriated Reuben, but he pressed on.
“Felix Nideck? Is that who told you to guard the house?”
The beast tensed, drew up his shoulders, and crooked his arms. Again, that rolling growl came out of him.
“You think these questions advance your case?” the creature snarled. A gnashing contemptuous sound came out of him, fully as eloquent as his words. “I’m done with you!” he roared.
Reuben rushed at him, claws out. He slammed the beast’s head into the dark paneling, and lunged for the beast’s throat.
In snarling outrage, the monster kicked at Reuben and drove frantically against Reuben’s face with his powerful paws. He held off Reuben with an iron strength.
Reuben yanked him forward by the hair of his mane and then hurled him against the stone mantel and the beast let out a strangled roar. He raked at Reuben’s arms with his fierce claws, and then brought up his knee and kicked Reuben again, this time in the lower gut, with tremendous force.
The wind went out of Reuben. He staggered backwards. Everything went dark. He felt the creature clutching his neck, the claws digging deeply into the fur trying to find the toughened flesh, the hot breath on his face.
In a roaring frenzy Reuben broke loose of him, slamming the creature’s inner arms with two monstrous blows from the backs of his paws and shattering the creature’s grip.
Again, Reuben hurled him backwards and his head again struck the wall. Instantly, he recovered and sprang at Reuben, those powerful thighs catapulting him forward, his paws driving Reuben back and down, scrambling, to the floor.
Reuben rose up under him, and with his right arm dealt him one fine blow that stunned him. But he came down over Reuben again, his fangs snapping above Reuben and then sinking into Reuben’s throat.
Reuben felt the pain, felt it infinitely more intensely than he had that night. In a positive fury, his paws thrust the creature up and away. He felt the blood gushing, the heat of it. He was on his feet, and this time he slashed wildly at the creature, kicking the creature as the creature had kicked him, raking the creature’s face with his claws, gashing open the creature’s right eye. The creature bellowed, and thrashed at Reuben, and Reuben lunged again and clamped his teeth down on the side of the creature’s face. He drove his fangs deeper and deeper, his teeth grinding the creature’s jawbone, the creature screaming in pain.
I can’t overpower him, Reuben thought wildly, but he’s not able to overpower me. Again came the creature’s knee, his foot, and those iron arms held him back. They were dancing together away from the wall. Hang on, hang on!
With a fierce growl Reuben ripped with his teeth, ripped as he had at the flesh of the mountain lion, and he knew in that instant that he hadn’t dared to use that full savagery until this minute. And now he must use it or die.
Again and again his left claw tore at the creature, at the creature’s gushing eye socket, while he held fast to his head with his aching jaws.
The creature was bawling, cursing, cursing in a language Reuben could not understand.
Suddenly the creature went limp. The iron arms dropped. A loud gurgling cry came out of him.
Reuben saw the beast’s one good eye staring forward, as the beast slumped but did not fall.
Reuben released him, released his torn and bleeding face.
The thing stood helpless staring upwards with that one good eye while the other eye socket pumped blood. And Laura stood directly behind the beast, glaring at him.
As the monster doubled over, Reuben saw the ax embedded in the back of the creature’s skull.
“I knew it!” the beast roared. “I knew it! I knew it!” He wailed in rage. Frantically he sought to reach behind himself for the ax handle but he couldn’t command his arms, couldn’t make them stop shuddering, couldn’t bring his paws down on the ax handle. Blood and foam pour
ed from his gaping mouth. He turned round and round, staggering to stop himself from falling, maddened, howling, gnashing his teeth.
Reuben pulled out the ax blade by its long handle, and as the creature reeled, he struck at the creature’s neck with his full strength. The blade crashed through the mane and the fur and sank into the flesh, severing the neck halfway. The monster went silent, jaws loose, slobbering, giving only a low hissing sound.
Reuben yanked the ax free and swung it with all his might again. Mercifully the blade went through, and the creature’s head fell forwards and crashed to the floor.
Before he could stop himself, Reuben had grabbed it by its thick hair and flung it into the fire. The body, as if deflated, collapsed heavily on the Oriental rug.
Laura let out a series of gasping cries. He saw her in front of the flames, bent double, moaning, rocking, pointing at the fire, and then she fell backwards against the nearby chair and tumbled to the floor.
Hysterically she screamed, “Reuben, get it out of the fire, out of the fire! Please, for the love of God!”
The flames were licking at the thing, licking at its bleeding staring eye. Reuben couldn’t stop himself. He snatched it free of the blazing logs and dropped it on the floor. The smoke rose from it like dust. A few errant sparks flared in its writhing hair.
Then it was a swollen and bleeding thing, a ruined thing, tangled with blood, and blind. And dead.
Come poetry, come fantasy, come wild imagination, come dreams. The gleaming black hair began to fall away from the head and the body which lay only a few feet away. With no force to retract it, it fell away as the head appeared to shrink, and the body to shrink, and in a nest of hair, hair dissolving slowly around them and under them, body and head were the man again, naked, and slashed and seeping blood and dead.
22
REUBEN SANK DOWN on his knees and sat back on his heels. All his muscles ached. His shoulders ached. The heat in his face was almost unbearable.
So I’m not a Morphenkind. So I’m odious, loathsome, an offense. Well, this offense to the species has just killed this Morphenkind with a little help, of course, from his beloved and her ax.