Gary Brandner - The Howling

"You're not interrupting a thing," Karyn said. "Please come in. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Or a drink?"

"Have you any wine?"

"Burgundy?"

"A glass of burgundy would be nice." Inez took the four books Karyn had asked for and stacked them on the low table in front of the sofa.

Roy leaned down and fanned the books so he could read the titles. He looked quizzically at Karyn. "Wolves?"

Karyn walked past him into the dining alcove, where she poured two glasses of wine from a decanter. "Yes, wolves," she said shortly. "Would you like some wine, Roy?"

"No, thanks, I think I'll get a little exercise. Take a walk before it gets dark." Roy brushed Karyn's cheek with his lips, said goodbye to Inez, and left the house hastily. Like a man set free, Karyn thought.

She carried the wine back into the living room and sat down on the sofa with Inez. In a very short time the two women were chatting warmly. Inez Polk was intelligent and witty, and shared a surprising number of Karyn's interests and opinions. It had been a long time since Karyn had felt completely relaxed with a stranger. By the time she refilled the wineglasses they were fast friends.

"So what is it with you and the wolves?" Inez said, getting around to her reason for coming.

"You won't laugh?"

"Try me," Inez said. Her expression was dead serious.

Karyn told her about the howling in the woods; how it was far off at first, and quite close the night Lady had disappeared. She told Inez about Roy's skepticism and the sheriff's explanation that it was coyotes.

"And you think there's a wolf out there?" Inez asked.

"I don't know. It sounded like a wolf to me. If that's what got my dog, it had to be as big as a wolf. Lady was no fighter, but I don't believe a coyote would attack her."

"And nobody else has mentioned a wolf?"

"No."

"Mm-hmm. Well, maybe there's a clue in those books?"

Both Karyn and Inez were quick scan-readers. They divided the library books and went through them, and soon they had learned more about wolves than they really wanted to know.

From the several species discussed they chose the gray, or timber wolf, Canis lupus , as the most likely. This wolf, they read, was the largest found in America — as big as five feet long, including eighteen inches of tail. Some huge specimens had been found in Canada weighing 175 pounds.

Wolves were fierce fighters and exceptionally intelligent, with a diet consisting primarily of smaller animals, but when hunting in packs they could pull down prey much larger than themselves.

The most significant fact the women found was that, except for a few hundred hanging on in the forests of northern Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, there were no wild wolves left in the United States.

"What do you think then, Inez? Could it have been a coyote I heard? Or an owl, for God's sake?"

The thin woman was silent for a minute while she appeared to organize her thoughts. Finally she said, "No, it wasn't any coyote. Or an owl, either."

"Was it in my head, then?"

"No, you heard something, all right."

Karyn studied the other woman for a moment. "You never did tell me why my ordering books about wolves brought you out here tonight. You have some idea what this is all about, don't you?"

"Yes," Inez said slowly. "I have an idea."

"Well, come on, let's hear it."

"Let me tell you a little about myself first. I am thirty-nine years old, never been married, and live alone with my potted plants, which I do not talk to, no matter how great the temptation. Every summer I take a trip somewhere alone, meet nobody worth knowing, and come back alone. I read a lot and I have a good collection of classical records."

"Inez, I — " Karyn began.

"No, I am not making a bid for sympathy. I like my life the way it is. Aside from a certain lack of intellectual stimulation, I like living in Pinyon. However, people there think I'm a little odd. Not dangerous odd, but kind of amusing odd."

"What makes you think so?" Karyn said.

"You haven't heard it all yet," Inez interrupted. "For one thing, I used to be a nun."

"A nun?" Karyn repeated.

"Yes, I was a Carmelite. There are quite a few of us failed nuns around today. Unlike most of the others, I didn't leave because of any argument with the Church. In my case it was a personal matter."

Karyn studied the angular woman and tried to visualize her in the traditional nun's habit. Inez simply did not have the round, soft face that one associated with the cloister.

"You're not going to tell me I don't look like a nun?" Inez said, smiling.

Karyn laughed. "As a matter of fact, that's just what I was thinking. Anyway, you were telling me about why you are interested in wolves."

"That's the point I'm leading up to. My interest is not exactly in wolves. You see, I've lived in Pinyon for eleven years, and with a lot of spare time I made a kind of hobby out of local history. Before long I noticed a strange pattern of occurrences in and around Drago. I was intrigued because the pattern seemed to tie in with my other hobby."

"Which is?" Karyn prompted.

Inez drew a deep breath before she answered. "Diabolus."

"The devil?"

"You think it's an unusual study for a former nun? Let me tell you, Karyn, that a belief in God requires a counterbelief in Satan. You must know your enemy before you can defeat him."

Karyn stared in amazement. "All right, Inez," she said, hesitantly, making an effort at reason, "but what has… Diabolus to do with me and Drago? Are you saying it's the Devil who is howling in the woods?"

"No, not the Devil himself." Inez Polk's eyes fell away for a moment, then returned, bright behind their lenses, to meet Karyn's gaze. "I think," she said, "that Drago has a werewolf."

Karyn stared at Inez for a full ten seconds after her shocking suggestion, waiting for some indication that she was joking.

"You're serious, aren't you?" Karyn said finally.

"Deadly serious. Karyn, before you close your mind, please hear me out. Do you know anything about werewolves?"

"Do you mean lycanthropy?"

"No, that's just what I don't mean. Lycanthropy is a disease, a form of mental illness in which the victim imagines himself to be a wolf. He acts like a wolf, losing the power of speech, running around on all fours, growling, and eating raw meat."

"But isn't that what a werewolf is, really?"

"No. A werewolf is a human being who actually, physically, changes into a wolf."

Karyn shook her head. "Inez, I just can't relate to this. We're two grown, reasonably intelligent women. And here we sit discussing werewolves as calmly as though we were talking about fruit flies." Karyn continued very slowly, reasonably. "Inez, you were a nun. As far as I know you're still a Catholic. How can you say these things?"

"Nothing I have said is contrary to the precepts of the Church. If I accept the existence of God as Good, I must also accept the existence of Evil. That's capital-E Evil. Call it whatever you want to — Satan, the Devil, the Anti-christ."

"Do you mean that werewolves and the Devil are one and the same?"

"No. The werewolf is a servant of the Devil. No one becomes a werewolf by chance. It's like witchcraft. In return you pledge your everlasting soul."

"People willingly become werewolves?"

"Once it was not at all uncommon. In the Middle Ages life could be an ugly, painful existence if you were very poor, and the price of your soul did not seem too much to pay for the powers of the werewolf."

"But today surely there can't be people still making deals with the Devil."

"Not many, I imagine. Not in the old way."

"Then where would a modern werewolf come from?"