“Let’s Skinturn at moonrise and frolic a bit,” I suggested. “You’d make a delightful lady wolf. Or, hmm, I wou—Never mind!”
She shook her head. “I can’t, Steve, dear.”
“Sure, you can. You’d need a T-spell, of course, but—”
`That’s just it. You have lycanthropic genes; all your need to change species is polarized light. But for me it’s a major transformation, and . . . I don’t know . . don’t feel able to do it. I can’t even remember the formulas. I guess I’m not able, any more. My knowledge has gotten even fuzzier than I expected. I’ll need refresher courses in the most elementary things. Right now, only a professional could change me.”
I sighed. I’d been looking forward to wolfing it. You don’t really know the world till you’ve explored it with animal as well as human senses, and Ginny was certainly a part of the world- Whoa, there! “Okay,” I said. “Later, when you’re an adept again.”
“Of course. I’m sorry, darling. If you want to run off by yourself, werewise, go ahead.”
“Not without you.”
She chuckled. “You might get fleas, anyhow.” She was leaning over to nibble my ear when we both heard the footsteps.
I rose to my feet, muttering inhospitable things. A form, shadowy under the velvet sky, approached us over a path which snaked inland. Who the devil, I thought. Someone from the village, ten miles hence? But—My nose in human shape is dull by my wolf standards, but suddenly caught a smell I didn’t like. It wasn’t an unpleasant odor; indeed, its pungency seemed at once to heighten Ginny’s half-visible beauty to an unbearable degree. And yet something in me bristled.
I stepped forward as the stranger reached our patio. He was medium-tall for a Mexican, which made him shorter than me. He moved so gracefully, no more loud than smoke, that I wondered if he could be a werecougar. A dark cape over an immaculate white suit garbed the supple body. His wide-brimmed hat made the face obscure, till he took it off and bowed. Then light from a window touched him. I had never met a handsomer man, high cheekbones, Grecian nose, pointed chin, wide-set eyes of a gold-flecked greenish gray. His skin was whiter than my wife’s, and the sleek hair was ash-blond. I wondered if he was a Mexican national, let alone of native stock.
“Buenas noches, senor,” I said curtly. “Pardon, pero no hablamos espanol.” Which was not quite true, but I didn’t want to make polite chitchat.
The voice that answered was tenor or contralto, I couldn’t decide which, but music in any case. “I’ faith, good sir, I speak as many tongues as needful. I pray forgiveness, yet having observed from afar that this house was lighted, methought its master had returned, and I did come with neighborly greeting.”
His pronunciation was as archaic as the phrasing: the vowels, for instance, sounded Swedish, though the sentences didn’t have a Swedish rhythm. At the moment, however, I was surprised by the words themselves. “Neighbor?”
“My sister and I have made abode within yon ancient castle.”
“What? But Oh.” I stopped. Fernandez hadn’t mentioned anything like this, but then, he himself hadn’t been here for months. The Fortaleza and grounds belonged to the Mexican government, from which he had purchased several acres for his hideaway. “Did you buy it?”
“A few rooms were made a right comfortable habitation for us, sir,” he evaded. “I hight Amaris Maledicto.” The mouth, so cleanly shaped that you scarcely noticed how full it was, curved into an altogether charming smile. Had it not been for the odor low in my, nostrils, I might have been captivated. “You and your p fair lady are guests of Senor Fernandez? Be welcome.”
“We’ve borrowed the lodge.” Ginny’s voice was a tad breathless. I stole a glance, and saw by the yellow windowlight that her eyes were full upon his, brilliant. “Our . . . our name . . . Virginia. Steven and Virginia . . . Matuchek.” I thought, with a cold sort puzzlement, that brides were supposed to make great show of being Mrs. So—and-So, not play it down in that fashion. “It’s very kind of you to walk this far. Did your . . . your sister . . . come too?”
“Nay,” said Maledicto. “And truth to tell, however glad of your society, ’tis belike well she was spared sight of such loveliness as is yours. ’Twould but excite envy and wistfulness.”
From him, somehow, unbelievably, in that flowering night above the great dim sea, under stars and sheer cliffs, that speech to another man’s wife wasn’t impudent, or affected, or anything except precisely right. By the half-illumination on the patio, I saw Ginny blush. Her eyes broke free of Maledicto’s, the lashes fluttered birdlike, she answered confusedly: “It’s kind of you . . . yes . . . won’t you sit down?”
He bowed again and flowed into a chair. I plucked at Ginny’s dress, drew her back toward the house and hissed furiously: “What the devil are you thinking of? Now we won’t get rid of this character for an hour!”
She shook free with an angry gesture I remembered from past quarrels. “We have some cognac, Senor Maledicto,” she said. It would have been her best smile she gave him, slow and sideways, except that the faintest tremble remained upon her lips. “I’ll get it. And would you like a cigar? Steve brought some Perfectos.”
I sat down while she bustled inside. For a moment I was too outraged to speak. Maledicto took the word. “A charming lass, sir. A creature of purest delight.”
“My wife,” I growled. “We came here for privacy.”
“Oh, misdoubt me not!” His chuckle seemed to blend with the sea-murmur. Where he sat, in shadow, I could only make him out as a white and black blur, those oblique eyes glowing at me. “I understand, and shall not presume upon your patience. Mayhap later ’twould please you to meet my sister—”
“I don’t play bridge.”
“Bridge? Oh, aye, indeed, I remember. ’Tis a modern game with playing cards.” His hand sketched an airy dismissal. “Nay, sir, our way is not to force ourselves unwanted. Indeed, we cannot visit save where some desire for us exists, albeit unspoken. ’Twas but . . . how should a man know aught from our dwelling, save that neighbors had arrived? And now I cannot churlishly refuse your lady’s courtesy. But ’tis for a short time only, sir.”
Well, that was as soft an answer as ever turned away wrath. I still couldn’t like Maledicto, but my hostility eased till I could analyze my motives. Which turned out to be largely reaction to a third wheel. Something about him, maybe the perfume he used, made me desire Ginny more than ever before.
But my rage came back as she hovered over him with the cognac, chattered too loudly and laughed too much and insisted on having the Maledictos to dinner tomorrow! I hardly listened to their conversation. He talked smoothly, wittily, never quite answering my questions about himself. I sat and rehearsed what I’d say after he left.
Finally he rose. “I must not keep you,” he said. “Moreover, ’tis a stony path to the Fortaleza, one with which I am not well familiar. Thus I must go slowly, lest I lose my way.”
“Oh! But that could be dangerous.” Ginny turned to me. “You’ve been over the trail, Steve. Show him home.
“I’d not afford you that trouble,” demurred Maledicto.
“It’s the least we can do. I insist, Amaris. It won’t take you long, Steve. You said you felt like a run in the moonlight, and look, the moon is almost due up.”
“Okay, okay, okay!” I snapped, as ungraciously as possible. I could, indeed, turn wolf on the way back, and work some of my temper off. If I tried to argue with her now, the way I felt, our second night would see one Armageddon of a quarrel. “Let’s go.
He kissed her hand. She said farewell, in a soft, blurry voice, like a schoolgirl in love for the first time.,
He had a flashlight; it made a small, bobbing puddle of radiance before us, picking out stones and clumps of sagebrush. The moonglow on the eastern ridges grew stronger. I felt it tingle along my nerves. For a while, as we wound across the mountainside, only the scrunch of our shoes made any noise.