“I owe so much to Berkeley,” Miss Garton said. “It will mean so much to me to see the campus and the city again.” Miss Garton has the starring human role in “Fangs of the Forest.”
Miss Garton was a student at the University of California when she received her first chance in films. She is a member of Mask and Dagger, honorary dramatic society, and Rho Rho Rho sorority.
Wolfe Wolf glowed. This was perfect. No need now to wait till term was over. He could see Gloria now and claim her in all his wolfish vigor. Friday—today was Wednesday; that gave him two nights to practice and perfect the technique of werewolfry. And then—
He noticed the dejected look on the 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 up into the hills, past the Big C and on into noble wildness that seemed far remote from all campus civilization. His brave new legs were stanch and tireless, his wind seemingly inexhaustible. Every turning brought fresh and vivid scents of soil and leaves and air, and life was shimmering and beautiful.
But a few hours of this, and Wolf realized that he was damned lonely. All this grand exhilaration was very well, but if his mate Gloria were loping by his side…And what fun was it to be something as splendid as a wolf if no one admired you? He began to want people, and he turned back to the city.
Berkeley goes to bed early. The streets were deserted. Here and there a light burned in a rooming house where some solid grind was plodding on his almost-due term paper. Wolf had done that himself. He couldn’t laugh in this shape, but his tail twitched with amusement at the thought.
He paused along the tree-lined street. There was a fresh human scent here, though the street seemed empty. Then he heard a soft whimpering, and trotted off toward the noise.
Behind the shrubbery fronting an apartment house sat a disconsolate two-year-old, shivering in his sunsuit and obviously lost for hours on hours. Wolf put a paw on the child’s shoulder and shook him gently.
The boy looked around and was not in the least afraid. “He’o,” he said, brightening up.
Wolf growled a cordial greeting, and wagged his tail and pawed at the ground to indicate that he’d take the lost infant wherever it wanted to go.
The child stood up and wiped away its tears with a dirty fist which left wide black smudges. “Tootootootoo!” he said.
Games, thought Wolf. He wants to play choo-choo. He took the child by the sleeve and tugged gently.
“Tootootootoo!” the boy repeated firmly. “Die way.”
The sound of a railway whistle, to be sure, does die away; but this seemed a poetic expression for such a toddler, Wolf thought, and then abruptly would have snapped his fingers if he’d had them. The child was saying “2222 Dwight Way,” having been carefully brought up to tell his address when lost. Wolf glanced up at the street sign. Bowditch and Hillegas; 2222 Dwight would be just a couple of blocks.
Wolf tried to nod his head, but the muscles didn’t seem to work that way. Instead he wagged his tail in what he hoped indicated comprehension, and started off leading the child.