Unnatural Creatures

by Neil Gaiman

  Wolf started up, lips drawn back and muscles tense. There was nothing human in sight, but someone had spoken to him. Unthinkingly, he tried to say, “Where are you?” but all that came out was a growl.

  “Right behind you. Here in the shadows. You can scent me, can’t you?”

  “But you’re a cat,” Wolf thought in his snarls. “And you’re talking.”

  “Of course. But I’m not talking human language. It’s just your brain that takes it that way. If you had your human body, you’d think I was just going meowrr. But you are were, aren’t you?”

  “How do you…why do you think so?”

  “Because you didn’t try to jump me, as any normal dog would have. And besides, unless Confucius taught me all wrong, you’re a wolf, not a dog; and we don’t have wolves around here unless they’re were.”

  “How do you know all this? Are you—”

  “Oh, no. I’m just a cat. But I used to live next door to a werechow named Confucius. He taught me things.”

  Wolf was amazed. “You mean he was a man who changed to chow and stayed that way? Lived as a pet?”

  “Certainly. This was back at the worst of the depression. He said a dog was more apt to be fed and looked after than a man. I thought it was a smart idea.”

  “But how terrible! Could a man so debase himself as—”

  “Men don’t debase themselves. They debase each other. That’s the way of most weres. Some change to keep from being debased, others to do a little more effective debasing. Which are you?”

  “Why, you see, I—”

  “Sh! Look. This is going to be fun. Holdup.”

  Wolf peered around the hedge. A well-dressed, middle-aged man was walking along briskly, apparently enjoying a night constitutional. Behind him moved a thin, silent figure. Even as Wolf watched, the figure caught up with him and whispered harshly, “Up with ’em, buddy!”

  The quiet pomposity of the stroller melted away. He was ashen and aspen as the figure slipped a hand around into his breast pocket and removed an impressive wallet.

  And what, thought Wolf, was the good of his fine, vigorous body if it merely crouched behind hedges as a spectator? In one fine bound, to the shocked amazement of the were-wise cat, he had crossed the hedge and landed with his forepaws full in the figure’s face. It went over backward with him on top, and then there came a loud noise, a flash of light, and a frightful sharp smell. For a moment Wolf felt an acute pang in his shoulder, like the jab of a long needle, and then the pain was gone.

  But his momentary recoil had been enough to let the figure get to its feet. “Missed you, huh?” it muttered. “Let’s see how you like a slug in the belly, you interfering—” and he applied an epithet that would have been a purely literal description if Wolf had not been were.

  There were three quick shots in succession even as Wolf sprang. For a second he experienced the most acute stomachache of his life. Then he landed again. The figure’s head hit the concrete sidewalk and he was still.

  Lights were leaping into brightness everywhere. Among all the confused noises, Wolf could hear the shrill complaints of Robby’s mother, and among all the compounded smells, he could distinguish the scent of the policeman who had wanted to impound him. That meant getting the hell out, and quick.

  The city meant trouble, Wolf decided as he loped off. He could endure loneliness while he practiced his wolfry, until he had Gloria. Though just as a precaution he must arrange with Ozzy about a plausible-looking collar, and—

  The most astounding realization yet suddenly struck him! He had received four bullets, three of them square in the stomach, and he hadn’t a wound to show for it! Being a werewolf certainly offered its practical advantages. Think of what a criminal could do with such bulletproofing. Or—but no. He was a werewolf for fun, and that was that.

  But even for a werewolf, being shot, though relatively painless, is tiring. A great deal of nervous energy is absorbed in the magical and instantaneous knitting of those wounds. And when Wolfe Wolf reached the peace and calm of the uncivilized hills, he no longer felt like reveling in freedom. Instead he stretched out to his full length, nuzzled his head down between his forepaws and slept.

  “Now the essence of magic,” said Heliophagus of Smyrna, “is deceit; and that deceit is of two kinds. By magic, the magician deceives others; but magic deceives the magician himself.”

  So far the lycanthropic magic of Wolfe Wolf had worked smoothly and pleasantly, but now it was to show him the second trickery that lurks behind every magic trick. And the first step was that he slept.

  He woke in confusion. His dreams had been human—and of Gloria—despite the body in which he dreamed them, and it took several full minutes for him to reconstruct just how he happened to be in that body. For a moment in the dream, even the episode in which he and Gloria had been eating blueberry waffles on a roller coaster seemed more sanely plausible than the reality.

  But he readjusted quickly, and glanced up at the sky. The sun looked as though it had been up at least an hour, which meant in May that the time was somewhere between six and seven. Today was Thursday, which meant that he was saddled with an eight-o’clock class. That left plenty of time to change back, shave, dress, breakfast, and resume the normal life of Professor Wolf—which was, after all, important if he intended to support a wife.

  He tried, as he trotted through the streets, to look as tame and unwolflike as possible, and apparently succeeded. No one paid him any mind save children, who wanted to play, and dogs, who began by snarling and ended by cowering away terrified. His friend the cat might be curiously tolerant of weres, but not so dogs.

  He trotted up the steps of the Berkeley Inn confidently. The clerk was under a slight spell and would not notice wolves. There was nothing to do but rouse Ozzy, be Absarka!’d, and—

  “Hey! Where are you going? Get out of here! Shoo!”

  It was the clerk, a stanch and brawny young man, who straddled the stairway and vigorously waved him off.

  “No dogs in here! Go on now. Scoot!”

  Quite obviously this man was under no spell, and equally obviously there was no way of getting up that staircase short of using a wolf’s strength to tear the clerk apart. For a second, Wolf hesitated. He had to get changed back. It would be a damnable pity to use his powers to injure another human being. If only he had not slept, and arrived before this unmagicked day clerk came on duty; but necessity knows no—

  Then the solution hit him. Wolf turned and loped off just as the clerk hurled an ashtray at him. Bullets may be relatively painless, but even a werewolf’s rump, he learned promptly, is sensitive to flying glass.

  The solution was foolproof. The only trouble was that it meant an hour’s wait, and he was hungry. Damnably hungry. He found himself even displaying a certain shocking interest in the plump occupant of a baby carriage. You do get different appetites with a different body. He could understand how some originally well-intentioned werewolves might in time become monsters. But he was stronger in will, and much smarter. His stomach could hold out until this plan worked.

  The janitor had already opened the front door of Wheeler Hall, but the building was deserted. Wolf had no trouble reaching the second floor unnoticed or finding his classroom. He had a little more trouble holding the chalk between his teeth and a slight tendency to gag on the dust; but by balancing his forepaws on the eraser trough, he could manage quite nicely. It took three springs to catch the ring of the chart in his teeth, but once that was pulled down there was nothing to do but crouch under the desk and pray that he would not starve quite to death.

  The students of German 31B, as they assembled reluctantly for their eight-o’clock, were a little puzzled at being confronted by a chart dealing with the influence of the gold standard on world economy, but they decided simply that the janitor had been forgetful.

  The wolf under the desk listened unseen to their gathering murmurs, overheard that cute blonde in the front row make dates with three different men for that s
ame night, and finally decided that enough had assembled to make his chances plausible. He slipped out from under the desk far enough to reach the ring of the chart, tugged at it, and let go.

  The chart flew up with a rolling crash. The students broke off their chatter, looked up at the blackboard, and beheld in a huge and shaky scrawl the mysterious letters

  ABSARKA

  It worked. With enough people, it was an almost mathematical certainty that one of them in his puzzlement—for the race of subtitle readers, though handicapped by the talkies, still exists—would read the mysterious word aloud. It was the much-bedated blonde who did it.

  “Absarka,” she said wonderingly.

  And there was Professor Wolfe Wolf, beaming cordially at his class.

  The only flaw was this: he had forgotten that he was only a werewolf, and not Hyperman. His clothes were still at the Berkeley Inn, and here on the lecture platform he was stark naked.

  Two of his best pupils screamed and one fainted. The blonde only giggled appreciatively.

  Emily was incredulous but pitying.

  Professor Fearing was sympathetic but reserved.

  The chairman of the department was cool.

  The dean of letters was chilly.

  The president of the university was frigid.

  Wolfe Wolf was unemployed.

  And Heliophagus of Smyrna was right. “The essence of magic is deceit.”

  “But what can I do?” Wolf moaned into his zombie glass. “I’m stuck. I’m stymied. Gloria arrives in Berkeley tomorrow, and here I am—nothing. Nothing but a futile, worthless werewolf. You can’t support a wife on that. You can’t raise a family. You can’t— Hell, you can’t even propose…I want another. Sure you won’t have one?”

  Ozymandias the Great shook his round, fringed head. “The last time I took two drinks I started all this. I’ve got to behave if I want to stop it. But you’re an able-bodied, strapping young man; surely, colleague, you can get work?”

  “Where? All I’m trained for is academic work, and this scandal has put the kibosh on that forever. What university is going to hire a man who showed up naked in front of his class without even the excuse of being drunk? And supposing I try something else—say one of these jobs in defense that all my students seem to be getting—I’d have to give references, say something about what I’d been doing with my thirty-odd years. And once these references were checked—Ozzy, I’m a lost man.”

  “Never despair, colleague. I’ve learned that magic gets you into some tight squeezes, but there’s always a way of getting out. Now, take that time in Darjeeling—”

  “But what can I do? I’ll wind up like Confucius the werechow and live off charity, if you’ll find me somebody who wants a pet wolf.”

  “You know,” Ozymandias reflected, “you may have something there, colleague.”

  “Nuts! That was a joke. I can at least retain my self-respect, even if I go on relief doing it. And I’ll bet they don’t like naked men on relief, either.”

  “No. I don’t mean just being a pet wolf. But look at it this way: What are your assets? You have only two outstanding abilities. One of them is to teach German, and that is now completely out.”

  “Check.”

  “And the other is to change yourself into a wolf. All right, colleague. There must be some commercial possibilities in that. Let’s look into them.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Not quite. For every kind of merchandise there’s a market. The trick is to find it. And you, colleague, are going to be the first practical commercial werewolf on record.”

  “I could— They say Ripley’s Odditorium pays good money. Supposing I changed six times a day regular for delighted audiences?”

  Ozymandias shook his head sorrowfully. “It’s no good. People don’t want to see real magic. It makes ’em uncomfortable—starts ’em wondering what else might be loose in the world. They’ve got to feel sure it’s all done with mirrors. I know. I had to quit vaudeville because I wasn’t smart enough at faking it; all I could do was the real thing.”

  “I could be a Seeing Eye dog, maybe?”

  “They have to be female.”

  “When I’m changed I can understand animal language. Maybe I could be a dog trainer and— No, that’s out. I forgot: they’re scared to death of me.”

  But Ozymandias’s pale blue eyes had lit up at the suggestion. “Colleague, you’re warm. Oh, are you warm! Tell me: Why did you say your fabulous Gloria was coming to Berkeley?”

  “Publicity for a talent hunt.”

  “For what?”

  “A dog to star in Fangs of the Forest.”

  “And what kind of a dog?”

  “A—” Wolf’s eyes widened and his jaw sagged. “A wolf dog,” he said softly.

  And the two men looked at each other with a wild surmise—silent, beside a bar in Berkeley.

  “It’s all the fault of that damned Disney dog,” the trainer complained. “Pluto does anything. Everything. So our poor mutts are expected to do likewise. Listen to that dope! ‘The dog should come into the room, give one paw to the baby, indicate that he recognizes the hero in his Eskimo disguise, go over to the table, find the bone, and clap his paws gleefully!’ Now, who’s got a set of signals to cover stuff like that? Pluto!” He snorted.

  Gloria Garton said, “Oh.” By that one sound she managed to convey that she sympathized deeply, that the trainer was a nice-looking young man whom she’d just as soon see again, and that no dog star was going to steal Fangs of the Forest from her. She adjusted her skirt slightly, leaned back, and made the plain wooden chair on the bare theater stage seem more than ever like a throne.

  “All right.” The man in the violet beret waved away the last unsuccessful applicant and read from a card: “‘Dog: Wopsy. Owner: Mrs. Channing Galbraith. Trainer: Luther Newby.’ Bring it in.”

  An assistant scurried offstage, and there was a sound of whines and whimpers as a door opened.

  “What’s got into those dogs today?” the man in the violet beret demanded. “They all seem scared to death and beyond.”

  “I think,” said Fergus O’Breen, “that it’s that big, gray wolf dog. Somehow, the others just don’t like him.”

  Gloria Garton lowered her bepurpled lids and cast a queenly stare of suspicion on the young detective. There was nothing wrong with his being there. His sister was head of publicity for Metropolis, and he’d handled several confidential cases for the studio; even one for her, that time her chauffeur had decided to try his hand at blackmail. Fergus O’Breen was a Metropolis fixture; but still it bothered her.

  The assistant brought in Mrs. Galbraith’s Wopsy. The man in the violet beret took one look and screamed. The scream bounced back from every wall of the theater in the ensuing minute of silence. At last he found words. “A wolf dog! Tookah is the greatest role ever written for a wolf dog! And what do they bring us? A terrier, yet! So if we wanted a terrier we could cast Asta!”

  “But if you’d only let us show you—” Wopsy’s tall young trainer started to protest.

  “Get out!” the man in the violet beret shrieked. “Get out before I lose my temper!”

  Wopsy and her trainer slunk off.

  “In El Paso,” the casting director lamented, “they bring me a Mexican hairless. In St. Louis it’s a Pekinese yet! And if I do find a wolf dog, it sits in a corner and waits for somebody to bring it a sled to pull.”

  “Maybe,” said Fergus, “you should try a real wolf.”

  “Wolf, schmolf! We’ll end up wrapping John Barrymore in a wolfskin.” He picked up the next card. “‘Dog: Yoggoth. Owner and trainer: Mr. O. Z. Manders.’ Bring it in.”

  The whining noise offstage ceased as Yoggoth was brought out to be tested. The man in the violet beret hardly glanced at the fringe-bearded owner and trainer. He had eyes only for that splendid gray wolf. “If you can only act…” he prayed, with the same fervor with which many a man has thought. “If you could only cook…”

  He
pulled the beret to an even more unlikely angle and snapped, “All right, Mr. Manders. The dog should come into the room, give one paw to the baby, indicate that he recognizes the hero in his Eskimo disguise, go over to the table, find the bone, and clap his paws joyfully. Baby here, hero here, table here. Got that?”

  Mr. Manders looked at his wolf dog and repeated, “Got that?”

  Yoggoth wagged his tail.

  “Very well, colleague,” said Mr. Manders. “Do it.”

  Yoggoth did it.

  The violet beret sailed into the flies, on the wings of its owner’s triumphal scream of joy. “He did it!” he kept burbling. “He did it!”

  “Of course, colleague,” said Mr. Manders calmly.

  The trainer who hated Pluto had a face as blank as a vampire’s mirror. Fergus O’Breen was speechless with wonderment. Even Gloria Garton permitted surprise and interest to cross her regal mask.

  “You mean he can do anything?” gurgled the man who used to have a violet beret.

  “Anything,” said Mr. Manders.

  “Can he— Let’s see, in the dance-hall sequence…can he knock a man down, roll him over, and frisk his back pocket?”

  Even before Mr. Manders could say, “Of course,” Yoggoth had demonstrated, using Fergus O’Breen as a convenient dummy.

  “Peace!” the casting director sighed. “Peace…Charley!” he yelled to his assistant. “Send ’em all away. No more tryouts. We’ve found Tookah! It’s wonderful.”

  The trainer stepped up to Mr. Manders. “It’s more than that, sir. It’s positively superhuman. I’ll swear I couldn’t detect the slightest signal, and for such complicated operations, too. Tell me, Mr. Manders, what system do you use?”

  Mr. Manders made a Hoople-ish kaff-kaff noise. “Professional secret, you understand, young man. I’m planning on opening a school when I retire, but obviously until then—”

  “Of course, sir. I understand. But I’ve never seen anything like it in all my born days.”

  “I wonder,” Fergus O’Breen observed abstractly from the floor, “if your marvel dog can get off of people, too?”