Vyrmin

by Gene Lazuta

  “What are you saying?” Conway asked, almost as a whisper.

  “What I’m saying,”—Norris smiled—“is that the time has come for the werewolf to enter the twentieth century. If we just went back to creeping through graveyards and howling at the moon, mankind and all his wonderful technology would wipe us out in six weeks. We wouldn’t stand a chance.

  “But we’re human, too…after all. Actually, we’re probably the most human animals on the planet. We have the capacity for abstract thought; we’ve just been ignoring it because it’s easier…and more fun…to let ourselves go and do what comes naturally. What we need is organization. A system. We need to kill large numbers of people quickly so that we can get a handle on the Flock’s size again. So we can get ourselves in control again. Then, after we’ve trimmed the planet’s human population to a manageable number, we can ease off, let the Flock recover a little, and hunt in any way we please.”

  “Like stocking a pond for fishing,” Conway said.

  “Exactly,” Norris agreed. “But don’t think that I take human life lightly. This is a serious business.”

  “If that thing you’re holding can make wishes come true,” Conway said, “why don’t you just use it to change things the way you want and be done with it? Why go to all this trouble?”

  “You still don’t get it.” Norris frowned. “And that surprises me a little. The stone alone doesn’t really change anything. We do that. The stone is just the doorway through which a person must pass on the road to becoming what he envisions himself to be. It lets you be what you are, or what you think you are, anyway. It let my ancient great-grandfather become the monster that he and his tribe thought he was, and therefore laid out the ground rules for every werewolf that’s ever been since.”

  “And that’s why my gun didn’t kill Detective Cooper,” Conway mused aloud.

  “That’s right,” Norris agreed. “Guns are new. There’s really no place for them in the system, since they were unheard of when the original father started it all. They cause damage physically sometimes, but they aren’t integrated into the lore beyond the old silver bullet routine, which I think was probably a fluke. Someone must have gotten lucky once, and it stuck. Maybe whoever did it didn’t even shoot a real werewolf. Knowing the way humans do things, that wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

  Conway wasn’t looking at Norris anymore. He was looking at the .38-caliber Policeman’s Special that he was holding at the end of his arm, pointed at the park ranger’s face, and thinking, Will it do the job? If I shoot him, will he die?

  And the sheriff saw it: up, over Norris’ head, on the black slope of the Retreat. Norris’ back was to it, as were the backs of all the Wild and the twelve new Vyrmin wolves. But Conway was facing it…

  And he saw it!

  Think! his mind screamed. There’s got to be something you can do!

  But when Norris spoke again, the words almost shattered Conway’s spirit.

  “Ah, you’ve finally noticed the torches,” he said, still smiling. “They’ve been busy in town since you left. The witness made quite an impression on them, and all those juicy bits of evidence you left at the graveyard really blew on the embers. Also, two of those deputies you sent into the woods after me doubled back and headed for town. They stirred up a real firestorm, and the mob will simply follow the light”—he raised his arms and indicated the glow around himself—“until they find us, here. But by then, we’ll be gone, and what’s left of you will only serve to inflame their frustrations.”

  “Gone where?” Conway asked.

  But Norris ignored him. “First things first,” he said, turning to the one-eyed beast standing to his left.

  Behind and up, Conway could see the sparkling prickles of yellow and pink working their way down the side of the black Retreat and disappearing below the fuzzy tree line. How many villagers were coming? he wondered. And how many were already working their way through the woods? How long would it take for them to arrive? And what would happen when they did?

  The beast to Norris’ left bowed its head and grunted, “Hail, my brother. Hail…to the…new…way,” as it held out the bone it was holding in its huge hand.

  Norris took the offering and examined it for a moment before finding a spot that seemed to catch his interest. One end of the bone was rounded and natural. But the other had been sharpened and notched—like an arrowhead. After testing the point with his finger, he fit the moonstone into a pit in the bone near the apex of its tip and raised it high over his head.

  At first nothing happened. Every creature standing near him studied the bone without so much as moving. Conway ran his eyes over the expectant faces, looked at Norris’ calm smile, and then looked at the place in the bone where the young man had lodged the moonstone just in time to see a sparkle emanate from there, die, and then grow.

  “It’s happening,” Norris said, softly.

  Conway swallowed.

  The beasts in their line began to stir.

  The bushes and trees surrounding the grounds rustled, making the sheriff think that the first of the villagers had arrived before he realized that it was the Man in the Woods who was making the sound.

  “My dear!” Norris announced, not really as a shout, but loud and confident. “Come to me!”

  And from overhead came the flapping of wings.

  Conway looked up just in time to see the demon drop. It glided down on wings of leather, settled itself on the ground close to Norris’ feet, and looked at him, hard.

  Norris returned that look and screamed, “Behold!” as he thrust the bone higher into the air and seemed to command the very stars to obey him.

  It should have been ridiculous.

  But it wasn’t.

  Conway was sure that the young man could do whatever it was he intended. He was sure that he could make the moon move if he so wished. And, as the sheriff watched, that’ just what the moon appeared to do.

  In a flash like lightning a beam shone down from the moon, reflected off the end of Norris’ scepter, and engulfed the demon where it stood. The creature disappeared in the light for an instant and then reappeared when the light faded—just as quickly as it had come. In the place where the hairy, apish little monster had been, there now stood a woman of regal proportion—no longer a blond European, as her previous incarnation had rendered her, but a brunette American. She could have been anyone, but whoever she was, she radiated an aura of competence, intellect, and—incredibly—honesty.

  The grin on Norris’ face was truly evil for the first time. His eyes sparkled when he saw the naked beauty before him, and extending his hand, he spoke to Sheriff Conway without taking his eyes off the woman.

  “Now, that’s more like it. Beauty and the Beast, all rolled into one. Who would suspect her of anything unkind? Who would look at her and say, ‘I’m afraid’? What man could deny her anything she asked for? And who wouldn’t be surprised when the moment of truth arrives, and she makes someone bleed?”

  The creature stepped forward and took Norris’ hand. The instant their skin touched, a sparkle of bluish light crackled around them and made the hair wave on their heads.

  Norris smiled, “The old spark’s still there.”

  The woman said nothing, but studied him with deep, blue eyes so filled with suppressed energy and desire that there seemed to be a physical bridge through the air from her to him as she took her place at his side.

  There was a sound in the forest, not far away.

  Shouts.

  Human voices.

  But where?

  Norris turned his head in response to the call and then looked at the sheriff.

  “What’s next, eh, Sheriff?” he said, lowering the bone and brandishing it before himself. “How will I use the stone to change the world? Isn’t that what you’d like to know? Because that’ exactly what I’m going to do! What’s next? Well, just for argument’s sake, how about this?”

  He turned then, abruptly, pointing the bone out before him
as his spine bowed and his neck thrust his head forward. Aiming the bone directly at the one-eyed beast next to him, he shouted, “Meet the future Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States!”

  From the bone’s tip shot a ray of the purest silver light that Conway had ever seen. When it hit the beast, it literally knocked him off his feet, creating a sound like a sonic boom, and a flash that blinded the sheriff, making his hands come up before his eyes automatically.

  When the light faded, and Conway could again see, a beautiful young man was lifting himself to his feet from the spot where the ape-thing had fallen. The fellow’s hair was auburn, his skin was a rich, creamy white, and his physique was perfect. Involuntarily the sheriff imagined him in the robes of a priest and realized, in an instant, that he would cut an awesome and convincing figure.

  The young man blinked and ran his hands over his chest. He looked like Woodie Norris, a little, but this Woodie Norris could have easily been a movie star.

  Norris grinned and pretended to blow the smoke off the end of the bone, as if it were a pistol and he a matinee cowboy.

  “Get it, Sheriff Conway?” he asked as an aside.

  The trees rustled harder, and Conway couldn’t tell whether it was the villagers or the Man in the Woods this time.

  “Or how about the future head of the United Nations Security Council?” Norris asked, spun, and let fly with another silver bolt.

  A lovely woman of obviously African descent appeared where there had been a female beast before the flash. She was nearly as beautiful as the demon woman had become, but without the sensuous lips or heat-radiating eyes. She was professional-looking and had a demeanor of the natural-born leader. She was examining herself and she looked up with a smile that appeared as if it were crawling out of her skull through her mouth and spreading over her face.

  “She understands,” Norris announced. “Don’t you, my dear Zonoria?”

  The beautiful woman nodded and said, “They’ll trust me.”

  Norris laughed. “They certainly will. And why not? You’re not ugly anymore. And everyone knows that beautiful things are never bad. Only ugly things are bad! Isn’t that right, Sheriff?”

  Before Conway could respond, a rustling in the trees stole his already divided attention, grew louder and deeper before it peaked, and then settled. The Man in the Woods stepped from the shadows, arrayed in his full beard, flowing white robes and grim-faced frown.

  There were bones dangling in his hair.

  The sight of him made every muscle in Conway’s body feel as if it had turned to wood.

  The spirit and the Blood Prince regarded one another for a long, silent time before Norris finally observed, “You don’t approve, oldest of us.”

  The Man in the Woods was standing only about ten feet away from Norris, which placed him almost an equal distance from the sheriff. From where he stood, Conway could smell the odor of the thing, the musky, woodsy scent of animal fur and raindrops that called to something deep inside him, while at the same time repulsing another, equally important part of himself.

  “No,” the Man in the Woods said. “I don’t approve. It’s not as it has been. It’s different now.”

  “I made it possible for us to win, to triumph, to overcome and to finally dominate forever.”

  “It’s not a question of winning. There is no triumph…no final…no end. It’s a question of being. We need only to survive. Forever is nothing if forever is our prize.”

  Norris raised the scepter and pointed it at the old man, who stood stony and still.

  “I carried your secret and answered your summons,” he said, softly. “I accepted the memories of my birthright and took the stone to myself. I am what has been, what is, and what is to come. I am the Nurrenvelt, and older. I am the Blood Prince, as it was your wish for me to be. I am the future of the Wild, and without me, there will be no being. We cannot survive without this change.

  “Now, decide.”

  “I will remain as I am,” the Man in the Woods said.

  And Norris nodded. “As is your right. But you will not ruin this for the rest of us. We’ve earned our chance.”

  “They’re coming,” the Man in the Woods said, offhandedly.

  And Conway heard the voices in the trees again…closer this time…much, much closer.

  “I know,” Norris said.

  “How will the others escape?” the Man in the Woods asked.

  Norris said nothing.

  “Shall I make the shadows to hide them?” the Man in the Woods asked. “Shall I make the trees to bend, and the darkness to mask their retreat? Shall I dazzle the eyes of the Flock with sights and make them afraid? Shall I protect them, as it has been my pleasure in the past? Or does this new way discount the love of centuries?”

  “We will do without your help, for now,” Norris said, sternly.

  And the voices in the trees almost formed words.

  “So be it,” the Man in the Woods said, raising his arms. “Although I weep at the thought, I will bid thee farewell. But if thou should find a need for that which I have given in the past, call unto me, and I shall give of myself again.”

  “I know,” Norris said. “And I love you for it, my father.”

  Something very important was happening at this instant, and Conway knew it. He suspected what it was but could not yet identify it exactly. Something more than the surface event was going on, but he didn’t have time to sort through the details for the truth because, as the Man in the Woods turned and sent one last baleful glance over his shoulder at the spot where the Blood Prince stood with his bride, the first flickers of torchlight danced in the darkness.

  The old man was gone before Conway knew it, and Norris was now looking his way.

  “It’s time,” the young man was saying with tears in his eyes.

  Conway raised the gun.

  Norris didn’t smile this time.

  With every ounce of will he possessed, Conway was searching his mind for some hint, some clue, as to what he might do to hurt this monster—this beautiful, muscular, handsome monster with his ravishing companion. He was literally tearing through the pages of all the stories about the Vyrmin he had ever heard. Ripping through the words of his grandmother and others. Searching for just one indication of what his course should be, because he knew that this was his last chance. Get it wrong and it was over…get it wrong, and everything was over.

  “Don’t play fair,” his mind said.

  And Norris looked into his eyes.

  There was light everywhere by this time. It was almost funny to be standing in the forest at night, and yet to have your eyes filled with so much light that they could hardly handle it all. There was so much light, radiating up from the snow of the burial grounds—the dead spot, as Norris had called it—that the sheriff hardly saw the first faces of the frightened villagers emerge from between the trees with their torches, and axes, and knives, and pikes.

  In that moonlike glow, all the objects that the people carried shone eerily, as if their edges had been coated with…

  Silver!

  Conway was amazed.

  The people had coated the blades of their axes, their kitchen knives, their harvesting scythes, with silver. They must have melted every silver dollar, every silver chain, every set of grandma’s silverware and silver plates in Harpersville to come up with enough of the stuff to do the job. They must have talked it through. They must have listened to Emil Lockner, the witness. They must have believed the old stories.

  They must think they knew what’s happening.

  And that’s when it hit him.

  That’s when the sheriff really saw, and his rage boiled up from inside like a volcano.

  “You lied!” he screamed, silencing everything and making the whole world hold still for an instant.

  “You fucking bastard!” he cried, trembling now and holding his gun with both hands. “It’s not just you!”

  And, having said it, the sheriff fired his gun.<
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  34.

  He could feel the power climbing his legs, up from the ground. He didn’t really understand it, but he didn’t need to. All he needed was the knowledge that what he had been told was not the whole truth, because, he suddenly realized, it wasn’t just Norris who could do things with the power around them. Anyone in the circle was part of that power, though how much control someone else could exert, especially someone who had only realized the truth within the last couple of seconds, remained to be seen.

  When Conway fired his gun, he wasn’t thinking about killing Bobby Norris. As a matter of fact, Bobby Norris was probably about the farthest thing from his mind. What he was thinking about was the stone. He was concentrating on it, seeing it in his mind to the exclusion of everything else and making it a part of his consciousness. When he squeezed the trigger, the stone was the only reason he had for doing it. And the power vibrating under his feet—the power that the burial grounds possessed, and the power that responded to Norris’ moonstone energy—ran up his legs and into his brain and over his whole body as the gun exploded…

  And the bullet flew true.

  Norris was screaming even before the bullet hit…

  That was physically impossible, Conway knew, but that didn’t matter here anymore. Norris was screaming as the end of the bone he had been using to channel the moonstone’s power exploded with impact, and then he was crying and holding a hand over his face as the shattered scepter fell and blood shot from between his fingers.

  A terrible, swelling sound rolled up from the forest, like the approach of a thousand horses rumbling the Valley’s floor. It shuddered through the air until Conway could feel it in his bones, in his brain, in his bowels, and it made him drop his gun and clutch at his head, covering his ears with his hands as he watched Norris stumble around with both bloody hands covering his face, and the demon woman—who had looked so beautiful before, but who was allowing her true nature to show through in licks of vision that disappeared as quickly as hallucination—opened her mouth to scream.

  And then Norris crouched, gathered his strength, and tore his hands away from his face, looking Conway directly in the eye.