in on him so beautifully. He heard a voice whispering as if in his ear: "Burn him, burn them." This was an ugly, acid voice.
His heart was thudding, and his body tensed. All over his skin came the ecstatic rippling sensation. A fount inside him let loose with a gushing power that straightened his back.
It was happening, all right, the wolf-hair was covering his body, the mane descending to his shoulders, and the waves of ecstatic pleasure were coursing over him, obliterating all caution. The wolf-hair grew from his face as though invisible fingers coaxed it, and the keening pleasure made him gasp.
His hands were already claws; as before, he tore off his clothes, and kicked off his shoes. He ran his claws over his thick hairy arms and chest.
All the sounds of the night were sharpened, the chorus rising around him, mingled with bells, fleeting streaks of music, and desperate prayers. He felt the urge to escape the confines of the room, to spring off into the darkness, utterly indifferent to where he might land.
Wait; photograph it. Get to the mirror and witness it, he thought. But there was no time for that. He heard the voices again: "We,ll burn you alive, old man!"
He leapt up to the rooftop. The rain scarcely touched him. It was no more than a mist.
Towards the voice he bounded, clearing one alley and street after another, scaling the taller apartment houses and flying free over the lower buildings, springing over the broader avenues effortlessly, and heading towards the ocean, buoyed by the wind.
The voice grew louder, mingled with yet another voice, and then came the cries of the victim. "I won,t tell you. I won,t tell you. I,ll die but I won,t tell you."
He knew where he was now, traveling at his greatest conceivable speed over the buildings of the Haight. Ahead he saw the great dark rectangle of Golden Gate Park. Those woods, yes, that dense fairy forest with its secret hollows. Of course!
He plunged into it now, moving along the wet grassy ground and then up into the fragrant trees.
Suddenly he saw the ragged old man running away from his pursuers, through a tunnel in the bracken, surrounded by a sylvan camouflage in which other witnesses cowered under shining tarps and broken boards as the rain came pouring down.
One of the attackers caught the man by the shoulder and dragged him out into a grassy clearing. The rain soaked their clothes. The other attacker had stopped, and was setting afire a torch of curled newspapers, but the rain was putting out the fire.
"The kerosene!" shouted the man who held the victim. The victim was punching, and kicking. "I,ll never tell you," he wailed.
"Then you,ll burn with your secret, old man."
The scent of the kerosene mingled with the scent of evil, the stench of evil, as the torchbearer splashed the fluid on his torch and it burst into flame.
With a deep rolling roar, Reuben caught the torchbearer, his claws digging into the man,s throat and all but splitting his head from his shoulders. The man,s neck snapped.
Then he turned on the other assailant who had dropped the shuddering victim and was loping across the clearing in the downpour towards the shelter of the far trees.
Effortlessly Reuben overtook him. His jaws opened instinctively. He wanted so with all his being to dig out the man,s heart. His jaws were hungry for it, aching for it. But no, not the teeth, not the teeth that could give the Wolf Gift, no, he could not risk that. His snarls coming like curses, he tore at the helpless man. "You would have burned him alive, would you?" - clawing the flesh off his face, and the skin from his chest. His claw raked through the carotid artery and the blood spurted. The man sank down on his knees and fell over, as the blood soaked his old denim coat.
Reuben turned back. The kerosene had spilled in the grass and was burning, spitting and smoking in the rain, giving the ghastly scene a hellish light.
The old man who had been the victim knelt huddled, his arms tightly wrapped around his body, staring at Reuben with large unquestioning eyes. Reuben could see the old man flinching in the rain, flinching as the cold rain beat down on him, but Reuben couldn,t feel the rain.
He approached the man and reached out to help him to his feet. How powerful and calm he felt, the blaze flickering near him, the