White Fangs

by Christopher Golden

"There's no ship," Jack replied. "No captain. You want to stay with us, you do your part."

  Ghost tilted his head, then gave a small shrug as if he found this eminently reasonable. He strode swiftly from the sitting room, every step full of animal power.

  "I don't have to search the rooms," he called back to them. "I could smell him as we came up the steps."

  A moment later Ghost returned, carrying the corpse of a slender man in his mid fifties. Len Truman's throat had been torn out, but the ravaged flesh was curiously blanched. Blood had spattered his nightshirt, but far less than there ought to have been.

  "He was still in bed," Ghost said. "That's where it found him."

  Nobody asked him to clarify that statement. The circumstances of Len Truman's death were clear. A vampire had murdered Len Truman while he slept. Jack studied the late merchant's wife and took two steps toward her.

  "No," she whispered, shaking her head, as though she feared he might strike her. But Jack knew it wasn't violence she feared. Not now.

  "This is damn inconvenient," Callie said. "I came all the way up here. If I don't get paid, I got no way to pay my way home."

  Sabine shushed her and approached Belle Truman, who flinched at first but then allowed herself to be touched. Grim-eyed, Sabine removed Belle's hand from her neck and turned her slightly so that the gloom filtering through the curtains revealed two small wounds on her throat, crusted over with dried blood.

  "Why didn't it kill her?" Sabine asked, glancing at Callie.

  "Some they kill. Some they just sip at for a while, get 'em weak and confused. Does somethin' to their minds, bein' taken that way, like they got some kinda enchantment on 'em," Callie said. Then she glanced at Jack. "But it'll be back. No question. Once they get a taste, they might take a little at a time, but eventually they take it all. It ain't just blood they drink; it's life."

  The tears had begun to dry on Belle Truman's face. Jack thought he saw a flicker of hope there, and for a moment he believed she felt relief that they had come to her aid. Then she met his gaze and the defiant animosity in her eyes made him realize his mistake; it had been Callie's words that gave her hope. Now that she'd been touched by the vampire — blooded by it — she yearned for its return. Something about the process had begun to corrupt her already.

  "Get out," she said, her voice flat and terse.

  "We've got to get the sheriff," Hal said. "Jack, will you go? I don't want to leave her."

  Jack nodded. He had no idea how much of the vampire's evil influence and power its infection might have given Belle Truman, but Callie was there with her silver bullets and her expertise. If danger arose, she would handle it. He almost asked Sabine to come along just to keep her away from Ghost, but then he noticed the way that the werewolf was staring at the ragged wound in Len Truman's throat. He held the corpse like a precious child, but gazed at that wound with a diabolical hunger.

  "Ghost, why don't you come with me," Jack said.

  The former captain shot a dark look at him. "Afraid you won't find your way back?"

  "Put the body down and come with me."

  Jack glanced at Callie, who sensed the tension between them and slid a hand to rest on the gun at her right hip. Ghost saw it, too, and knew what kind of bullets were in that gun.

  "You're not fast enough, woman," he snarled. "Trust me."

  But he dropped the corpse of Len Truman to the wooden floor, where it hit with the crack of breaking bone, and stepped over the dead man as he strode to the door without looking back.

  "I'll be quick," Jack said, his eyes meeting Sabine's before he hurried after Ghost.

  He caught up to the hulking monster at the bottom of the stairs but said nothing as they walked out to the main street. When Jack turned right, leading the way toward the sheriff's office, Ghost laughed softly.

  "What's funny?" Jack asked.

  "You," Ghost said, shaking his head in amiable amusement. "You can't make me human, Jack. And you can't tame me."

  "No," Jack agreed. "Though I do wonder if you can be civilized."

  Ghost did not respond. When Jack glanced at him, he saw that the monster's expression had turned contemplative, as though he wondered the very same thing.

  When Jack had last been in Dawson, the sheriff had been a man named Forster, an unwashed lout with a bad mustache, skin like leather, and body odor powerful enough to kill hawks flying overhead and cause them to plummet, dead, to the street. Expecting the beady-eyed Forster, Jack felt distinct relief when he and Ghost entered the jailhouse to find a new man wore the badge. A single glance told him a great deal about the current sheriff. Five foot seven, he'd have been a couple of inches taller if not for the curve of his back that put him in a permanent slouch. Perhaps fifty, he had thinning hair but a much more impressive mustache than his predecessor's. His gut was of ample girth, as if he'd never let a plate of food pass with taking his toll upon it, yet instead of making him seem ridiculous, his barrel-shape only leant to an overall air of formidability. Jack had seen arms as thick as the sheriff's before, but only on dockworkers in Oakland and San Francisco.

  "And who might you be?" the sheriff asked, glancing around from where he'd been hammering a nail into the wall, presumably to hang a framed painting that rested on top of his desk.

  Jack thought about offering his hand to shake, but the sheriff held a hammer and nail, and anyway didn't seem much interested in formalities.

  "I'm Jack London," he said. "This is Ghost Nilsson. It's my second trip to Dawson, sheriff, but Ghost is a newcomer. We just arrived with a small group — all that's left of the passengers who came upriver with us on the Fort McGurry."

  The sheriff grimaced, looked like he might be about to curse loudly, but fought the urge. His knuckles were white on the handle of his hammer.

  "I'm guessing you weren't hit by bandits or pirates," the sheriff said.

  Jack saw Ghost smile at the mention of pirates, but fortunately the monster said nothing.

  "I think you know exactly what attacked us," Jack said. "They stalked us through the night, killed most of our companions. We were lucky to make it to Dawson alive."

  "Lucky don't even cover," the sheriff said, stroking that long, thick, drooping mustache. "Miraculous is more like it. But you're wrong, Mr. London. Lots of whispers in Dawson about what's out there . . . what sneaks in here at night . . . but know what it is? Not me."

  "There's more," Ghost said, his voice a low rumble. He seemed to be sizing up the sheriff. For all the breadth of Ghost's shoulders and the thick cables of his muscles, Jack thought he saw respect in Ghost's eyes.

  "Isn't there always more?" the sheriff asked, finally putting the hammer and nail back on his desk and facing them fully, ready to do his duty, whatever it might be.

  "A woman in our party, Callie King, was hired by Len Truman to come to Dawson to try to help with your . . . pest problem," Jack explained. "Seems she's encountered this sort of thing before and Truman knew it. Our first stop was his store, which was still locked up tight. We checked on the Trumans upstairs and found Len dead and his wife . . . unwell."

  "Son of a bitch," the sheriff said, shaking his head sadly. Jack saw a flicker of suspicion touched his eyes and he studied them both a little more closely, lingering on Ghost. "How do I know —"

  "You don't," Ghost said sharply. "But we left others behind with Mrs. Truman, including a boy named Hal Sawyer, who is a friend of Jack's. If his word means anything to you, he'll vouch for us. If not . . . you can try to arrest us."

  The sheriff bristled at the challenge in Ghost's tone. Ghost grinned, as if hoping the man would decide they were murder suspects and attempt to put them in jail, and for a moment Jack thought the sheriff might do just that, not because he had any real reason to suspect them of a crime but because he was the kind of man who wasn't used to anyone riling him up on purpose. One of the rules Jack lived his life by was very simple. He'd learned it on the street at the age of nine, thanks to a bully who'd coveted a baseball glove
Jack had found in the attic of the house where he and his mother and sister were living.

  Don't poke the bear, the bully had said, unless you're ready for the teeth.

  Jack had knocked out several of the bully's teeth that day, but that hadn't diluted the wisdom of the words. The problem here was that the sheriff thought he was the bear. A lifetime of reinforcement had made it natural for him to make that assumption, but today it could maim or kill him.

  "Look, sheriff," Jack said, stepping between them. "We're not a part of this. The only reason we're involved is because we were on that steamer with Callie King and wanted to see her safely to her destination. But we'll go back to the Trumans' place with you and answer whatever questions you have. After that, a bath and a meal would suit us both. I know he nights are short up here this time of year, but this last one felt like forever."

  The sheriff seemed mollified by this. He looked thoughtful a moment and then nodded. Resting one hand on his gun belt, he thrust out a hand. "Walrus Killebrew."

  "Pleased to meet you, Walrus," Jack said, shaking his hand.

  "My momma named me Walter, but some folks think Walrus fits," Sheriff Killebrew said, arching an eyebrow. "Best if you keep your thoughts on that to yourself." He glanced at Ghost. "What about you, sir? Where did you come by your name?"

  Ghost shook his hand, both men taking the other's measure again.

  "I should be dead," Ghost said. "But somehow I'm still here."

  "Fella, I wake up every day thinking the same thing," Sheriff Killebrew replied, giving Ghost's hand a firmer shake before letting it go.

  A strange, grudging respect seemed to have formed between them like a temporary truce, though Jack thought both men would be keeping an eye on each other. Sheriff Killebrew turned to Jack and gave another thoughtful pause.

  "I said I don't know what they are . . . these things," the sheriff said. "But there's at least one man who thinks he knows. I guess Hal will have told you lots of folks in Dawson blame the Indians. There's talk the Tlingits have called demons down on us 'cause we're stripping the gold from their ancestral lands. But there's a fella named Kikono — kind of a medicine man type for the local Tlingits — who has an interesting story to tell."

  "And what does he say?" Ghost asked, scratching at his beard, blue eyes haunted with curiosity.

  "Ask him yourself," Sheriff Killebrew said, gesturing toward the door behind him. "He's back there in a cell."

  "For what crime?" Jack asked.

  "For his own damn protection," Sheriff Killebrew explained, exhaling to release a stress Jack hadn't realized he was carrying. "Scared as people are, half the town thinks killing Kikono is a grand idea — thinks maybe he's the one brought these demons down on us to begin with."

  "You don't believe that?" Ghost asked.

  Sheriff Killebrew smiled. "Up till a couple of months ago, the most trouble Kikono ever caused in Dawson was getting so drunk he'd slip off his stool down at the bar. He's a crazy old man, but he's nice enough. The only demons he's been raising are the ones in the whiskey bottle."

  Intrigued, Jack nevertheless worried they'd been gone too long and Sabine and the others might begin to wonder what had become of them.

  "Shouldn't we head over to the mercantile first?" he asked.

  A sad, grim look passed over the sheriff's face. "Another few minutes ain't gonna make Len Truman any deader."

  "I remember you," Jack said.

  The old Tlingit Indian had glanced up at the sound of their approach and a shard of memory had flickered across Jack's mind. He could picture the guy in the saloon, telling stories about all of the myths and legends of his people, trying to warn the stampeders who'd arrived in Dawson in search of gold that they might find things out in the wild that they hadn't come looking for. He had never known the man's name. Everyone had referred to the man as "the crazy old Indian" or simply "the drunk," though the latter was less specific, as there were many drunks in Dawson; it was, after all, a place of heartbreak and failure.

  Kikono frowned, studying Jack's features as Sheriff Killebrew unlocked his cell and swung open the door.

  "I don't know your face," Kikono said, "but you feel familiar, like I should know you."

  "My name's Jack London."

  The old man paused, his contemplation written in all the deep lines of his leathery countenance, and then he shrugged. Whatever thought or memory he'd been chasing, he'd given up on it. When Jack and Ghost entered the cell, though, Kikono frowned even more deeply. He sniffed the air, then held up a hand. "You stop there," he said to Ghost.

  "Me?" Ghost asked, amused.

  Kikono looked at the sheriff. "It would be even better if he were outside the bars, or behind his own."

  "You know this fella?" Sheriff Killebrew asked.

  "No," Kikono said, eyeing Ghost sternly. "I know his breed."

  "He's all right," Jack said, though they all must have heard the way his voice wavered uncertainly. "We're all friends here."

  Kikono smiled at the absurdity of that. "Why are you here?"

  "A lot of people died around us last night," Jack said. "The things that killed them looked like polar bears. One of 'em lost its head, and then it looked like a man. A friend of ours calls them vampires. The sheriff says you know what they really are."

  Kikono sniffed and nodded. "I have heard the word 'vampire.' It is as good a word as any. They are old spirits. Evil. They slip through the cracks in the world and prey on the people. The blood spirits find a way into the people as they do into the world, and they wear the bodies of the people like shirts, but they are not the people. Once many Tlingit were bitten by them . . . taken. For many years, they were kept at bay, eaten or killed or driven into hiding in the stones of the earth by their fear of a greater evil, a man cursed to be a monster."

  A knot of ice formed in Jack's gut. He heard Ghost grunt and glanced over to see that the huge pirate had become more alert, head slightly cocked, eyes peering incisively at Kikono.

  "The Wendigo," Ghost said. "You're talking about the Wendigo. It kept them away from this area?"

  Jack held his breath.

  "Yes," the old Tlingit said, dark wisdom and sadness in his eyes. "The Wendigo. The cursed man. It killed many men and women and children itself, of course. It kept mostly to its own territory, but now it is gone. The blood spirits — what you call vampires — they know only hunger. Now they have the freedom to kill as many as they can, feeding on the blood of some and tearing out the spirits of others to make them hollow . . . to make room for more of their kind to come into our world."

  A terrible weight rested on Jack's shoulders. His stomach twisted in revulsion. He had killed the Wendigo himself, destroying a monster . . . only to make way for an even greater evil to spread its wings.

  Ghost must have read his mind. The former pirate captain clapped him on the shoulder. "You know what they say, Mr. London. Nature abhors a vacuum."

  If he'd had one of Callie's guns in that moment, loaded with silver bullets, Jack might happily have shot Ghost Nilsson dead. Instead, all he could do was turn away from the grinning pirate and stride from the cell, and then from the jail.

  It seemed there were always more monsters to kill.

  Chapter Eight - The Memory of Monsters

  Every time I bathe, it's to wash away the memory of monsters.

  Jack sat in his iron bath, in his hotel room, in the haunted town where his experience of monsters had begun. The Dawson Hotel had burned down six months previously, Hal had told him, and he was glad. It had been there that the slave drivers had captured him and his friend Merritt, and mortally wounded their friend Jim. Human monsters, true, but they had been so affected by the savagery of this land that Jack wondered whether they had been a little more — or a little less — than human. From them to Lesya and the Wendigo, and after that, his long sea journey with werewolves.

  And Ghost. The most human of beasts, but perhaps the greatest monster of all.

  "Because he's int
elligent," Jack whispered. His voice sounded loaded and heavy, breaking the silence of his room with deep pronouncements. "Because he's a monster with aims beyond tending his hunger, and his base needs." Ironically, it was Ghost's humanness that gave that monster the possibility of change.

  Jack sighed, letting the muck and filth of their journey soak away from his skin. He washed and laid back, eyelids drooping even though it was daylight outside. He could have slept forever . . . Close his eyes and let reality bleed away, welcome in dreams of home and family and those rough, innocent years he had spent as a child trying to be a man — stealing oysters, working in the tannery, riding the railroad . . . Travelling many miles in search of himself, when he was always close at hand.

  With adulthood and adventure had come real responsibility. Jack sighed as the guilt washed in again. In what had been the greatest fight of his life, he had killed the Wendigo. It had been an inevitable confrontation, and it was only afterward that he had considered the ramifications of what he had done. In slaying the beast, he had ended its wretched hunger, and freed the region of its unnatural stain. How many men, women, and children had he saved, who would otherwise have fallen victim to its urges? He could not count, nor would he ever know. He had sailed away from the Yukon content in his actions, even pleased that the Wendigo itself could at last find peace. He had not for one moment guessed that the Wendigo's death would have doomed so many more to something worse than death, if what Kikono said was true. And Jack had no reason to doubt the old Tlingit.

  The guilt was a cool seam through his soul, though he was sure no one would condemn him. Ghost's reaction to the scenario only served to anger Jack more. As they had walked back toward the hotel together, pausing at the store to collect Sabine, Ghost's constant chuckling had set Jack's nerves on edge. Sabine had asked what was wrong, but Jack had waved her away. It was not something he could bear to discuss in Ghost's presence, not when the big pirate would only revel in Jack's predicament. He would see it as a weakness in Jack, whereas Jack viewed his own guilt — consuming and painful though it was — as the greatest mark of his humanity.