older professor’s face, and a small remorse smote him. “How did things go last night, Oscar?” he asked sympathetically. “How were your big Walpurgis Night services?”
Fearing regarded him oddly. “You know that now? Yesterday April thirtieth meant nothing to you.”
“I got curious and looked it up. But how did it go?”
“Well enough,” Fearing lied feebly. “Do you know, Wolfe,” 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 halfhearted 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 damned near 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 goodbye 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 off up 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