Warren Murphy: Wolf's Bane

"His name's Jean Cuvier. Some kind of secondstring lieutenant in the Cajun mob before the FBI grabbed Fortier. His specialty was fixing sporting events. He started yapping to the Feds and wound up with a contract on his head and asked the government to help him out. He squealed on the stand about Fortier's dabbling in extortion. He told the jury about Fortier acid-blinding a jockey who forgot he was supposed to lose a race. After the verdict, Cuvier was relocated to Nebraska. Omaha."

"He will be next," Chiun said, not making it a question.

"Maybe," said Remo. "I'm gonna go baby-sit him for a while and hope the wolf man comes back. Then we'll know for sure if it's one of Dr. Judy White's little experiments or a guy in a wolf suit. But somebody is bound to try for Cuvier. Fortier's attorneys have a motion for a new trial pending in the Seventh Circuit, and it could go either way. If it goes back to trial and he's eliminated all the prosecution witnesses, Fortier walks."

"When the killers come for this Cuvier, they will be forced to reveal their true nature," Chiun mused. "This will put your mind at ease."

"Huh? How?"

"To know their origin is to understand them. Once you understand them, then you will know you are not responsible for their being or culpable in their crimes. It is as the Emperor says, Remo-they are not necessarily the offspring of the madwoman Judith White."

Remo wasn't buying it. "But another set of cannibal killers springs up just a few months after Dr. White slips through the net? Not likely."

"Maybe it is. Since we encountered the cannibal woman, Smith has doubtless inveigled his electronic information machines to look for the telltale signs of an attack matching the nature of Dr. White. The killers were there, but only now has it come to the attention of Emperor Smith."

"I think you're reaching for straws."

"I do not reach for straws. Ever. Also, consider that perhaps this creature is not a product of Dr. White and is not a masquerader in a costume, but a true wolf man."

"Huh?"

"Spoken like a true Master. It is unlikely, I agree, that an American would have such powers. All the more since his ancestors came from France. If he was Asian, now, perhaps..."

"You don't believe in werewolves, do you, Little Father?"

Chiun regarded Remo with a frown. "Such tales are not unique to Europe and America," he said at last. "Koreans have never sought communion with the lower beasts, but it is not unknown in China and Japan, where degradation of the species is routine."

"A Chinese wolf man?"

"In fact, the were fox is more common," Chiun replied. "No doubt, the lowly Chinese once attempted to improve their ignoble mental state by interbreeding with a wiser animal. The end result, predictably, was not as they intended."

"You're not serious." Remo had conjured a mental image. "I can't picture it. I mean, I guess I can see a Chinese were-fox, but what I can't picture is the actual mating between the human and the fox."

"I chose not to even attempt to visualize such a thing," Chiun said rancorously.

"Especially since you gotta know the fox is not going to be a willing partner," Remo added before Chiun could continue. "So the poor thing probably had to get tied up or something."

"Doubtless."

"So you're talking about Chinese bondage bestiality."

"No," Chiun replied firmly, "it is you who keeps talking about it."

"It's outlandish. I don't believe it."

"That is because you are incapable of using a computer and thus cannot know that such outlandish things are reality. Ask the Prince Regent to locate such material on the Internet. I seriously doubt he will fail to find photographic evidence of some poor fox enduring what I have described. I'm sure you will find it utterly fascinating and it may pique your interest in a new hobby. Now may I continue with my story?"

Chiun's tone told Remo that it was a rhetorical question and he had better not answer at all if he didn't want to get slapped upside the head.

"It is well-known that in some parts of China there are foxes who can take on human form at will," Chiun said sternly. "For some reason best known to themselves, they nearly always take the form of women, to entice some lowly peasant from his toil and trap him in a web of sensual delights before they rob him of his meager senses and his life."

"That sounds more like a succubus," said Remo, "but we're talking werewolves here. Full moons and silver bullets. Pentagrams and Michael Landon. Did you ever see the movies?"

"There is, of course, a classic story of a werewolf from Korea," Chiun said. "The fairy tale told to Korean children says the man in the story is a common woodcutter. What the Korean legend fails to recall is that it was actually a Master of Sinanju."

"I hope it's not Master Pak," Remo warned. Chiun looked at him askance and slightly confused. "Why do you hope it is not Master Pak?"

"Because Pak's the one who met the vampire, right?"

"Yes. Why does this matter?"

"Come on, Chiun, didn't you ever see the Universal black-and-whites where they started pairing up monsters without logical explanation? Even when I was a kid it strained my credulity."

"Are you speaking of motion pictures?"

"Yeah. Like in Frankenstein Versus the Wolf Man. They had the wolf man just happen to stumble across Frankenstein's castle. So, never mind that the wolf man could have been running around in any forest in all of Eastern Europe, it's pure coincidence he finds the one place where there's another monster. "

"Do you have a point?" Chiun demanded.

"There was one that was even worse but I can't remember which-it had the Frankentsein monster and the wolf man and Dracula. The big three 1940s monsters all ending up together for no adequately explained-"

"Enough!" Chiun barked.

"What? What?"

"You are babbling, imbecile!"

"I'm just trying to tell you that I'm gonna have a hard time believing that Master Pak ran into both a vampire and a werewolf."

"It was you, not I, who mentioned Master Pak!"

"So was he the one who met a werewolf?"

"No, white blabbermouth, it was Master Hun-Tup."

Remo considered that and nodded. "The guy who rode around with Marco Polo."

"As you would have learned long, long ago if you would only have exerted the will required to lock your grotesquely swollen lips together long enough to allow me to speak!"

"Long ago? We just started discussing it thirty seconds ago."

"An eternity of interruptions."

"Hey, fine," Remo said, tightly closing his mouth and pantomiming locking them with a key. "Mm. Mmmmm?"

"I'll be satisfied only if you manage to keep them like that long enough for me to finish telling the history of Hun-Tup's encounter with a werewolf."

Remo looked at him expectantly and, Chiun noticed, not a little sarcastically.

"Master Hun-Tup was traveling when he came to Kanggye. The people, when they realized they had a Master of Sinanju in their midst, came to him in great numbers, offering to collect a great sum of gold from every citizen for miles around if he would rid them of their terrible menace-a wolf of enormous size, who attacked and devoured men, women and children. Hun-Tup turned down their offer, for the Masters of Sinanju worked only for kings and emperors. Not the common rabble. Still, he was intrigued, and he went into the forests near Kanggye and quickly found the spoor of this great wolf."

Remo fought back the urge to ask, "You have wolves in Korea?"

Chiun glared at the almost-interruption he had seen on Remo's face. "Master Hun-Tup followed the trail and found himself face-to-face with a ferocious wolf. Hun-Tup wounded him mortally with a single blow to the skull, but didn't kill the beast instantly. He was curious about the beast, and where it went to die, he hoped, would tell him something of its nature. And he was correct. He followed the fleeing beast's trail of bright blood, which led him to a lonely peasant's hovel. There, inside, he found an old hermit lying on the bed, naked except for bloody rags wrapped tight around his wounded skull. Hun-Tup attempted to speak to him, but the old man would not answer. Soon he died and was transformed into a wolf once more."