Unnatural Creatures

“And the girl. They brought a girl here with them. If she’s still alive.”

Fergus took careful aim at the steeple, fired, and ducked back behind the car as a bullet missed him by millimeters. “Missed him again! By all the kings that ever ruled Tara, Moon, there’s got to be a way in there. How about tear gas?”

Moon snorted. “Think you can reach the firing gap in that armored turret at this angle?”

“That girl…” said Fergus.

Wolf waited no longer. As he sprang forward, the gunner noticed him and shifted his fire. It was like a needle shower in which all the spray is solid steel. Wolf’s nerves ached with the pain of reknitting. But at least machine guns apparently didn’t fire silver.

The front door was locked, but the force of his drive carried him through and added a throbbing ache in his shoulder to his other comforts. The lower-floor guard, a pasty-faced individual with a jutting Adam’s apple, sprang up, pistol in hand. Behind him, in the midst of the litter of the cult, ceremonial robes, incense burners, curious books, even a Ouija board, lay Emily.

Pasty-face fired. The bullet struck Wolf full in the chest and for an instant he expected death. But this, too, was lead, and he jumped forward. It was not his usual powerful leap. His strength was almost spent by now. He needed to lie on cool earth and let his nerves knit. And this spring was only enough to grapple with his foe, not to throw him.

The man reversed his useless automatic and brought its butt thudding down on the beast’s skull. Wolf reeled back, lost his balance, and fell to the floor. For a moment he could not rise. The temptation was so strong just to lie there and…

The girl moved. Her bound hands grasped a corner of the Ouija board. Somehow, she stumbled to her rope-tied feet and raised her arms. Just as Pasty-face rushed for the prostrate wolf, she brought the heavy board down.

Wolf was on his feet now. There was an instant of temptation. His eyes fixed themselves to the jut of that Adam’s apple, and his long tongue licked his jowls. Then he heard the machine-gun fire from the turret, and tore himself from Pasty-face’s unconscious form.

Ladders are hard on a wolf, damned near impossible. But if you use your jaws to grasp the rung above you and pull up, it can be done. He was halfway up the ladder when the gunner heard him. The firing stopped, and Wolf heard a rich German oath in what he automatically recognized as an East Prussian dialect with possible Lithuanian influences. Then he saw the man himself, a broken-nosed blond, staring down the ladder well.

The other man’s bullets had been lead. So this must be the one with the silver. But it was too late to turn back now. Wolf bit the next rung and hauled up as the bullet struck his snout and stung through. The blond’s eyes widened as he fired again and Wolf climbed another rung. After the third shot he withdrew precipitately from the opening.

Shots still sounded from below, but the gunner did not return them. He stood frozen against the wall of the turret watching in horror as the wolf emerged from the well. Wolf halted and tried to get his breath. He was dead with fatigue and stress, but this man must be vanquished.

The blond raised his pistol, sighted carefully, and fired once more. He stood for one terrible instant, gazing at this deathless wolf and knowing from his grandmother’s stories what it must be. Then deliberately he clamped his teeth on the muzzle of the automatic and fired again.

Wolf had not yet eaten in his wolf’s body, but food must have been transferred from the human stomach to the lupine. There was at least enough for him to be extensively sick.

Getting down the ladder was impossible. He jumped. He had never heard anything about a wolf’s landing on its feet, but it seemed to work. He dragged his weary and bruised body along to where Emily sat by the still unconscious Pasty-face, his discarded pistol in her hand. She wavered as the wolf approached her, as though uncertain yet as to whether he was friend or foe.

Time was short. With the machine gun silenced, Fergus and his companions would be invading the temple at any minute. Wolf hurriedly nosed about and found the planchette of the Ouija board. He pushed the heart-shaped bit of wood onto the board and began to shove it around with his paw.

Emily watched, intent and puzzled. “A,” she said aloud. “B—S—”

Wolf finished the word and edged around so that he stood directly beside one of the ceremonial robes. “Are you trying to say something?” Emily frowned.

Wolf wagged his tail in vehement affirmation and began again.

“A—” Emily repeated. “B—S—A—R—”

He could already hear approaching footsteps.

“—K—A— What on earth does that mean? Absarka—”

Ex-professor Wolfe Wolf hastily wrapped his na**d human body in the cloak of the Dark Truth. Before either he or Emily knew quite what was happening, he had folded her in his arms, kissed her in a most thorough expression of gratitude, and fainted.

Even Wolf’s human nose could tell, when he awakened, that he was in a hospital. His body was still limp and exhausted. The bare patch on his neck, where the policeman had pulled out the hair, still stung, and there was a lump where the butt of the automatic had connected. His tail, or where his tail had been, sent twinges through him if he moved. But the sheets were cool and he was at rest and Emily was safe.

“I don’t know how you got in there, Mr. Wolf, or what you did; but I want you to know you’ve done your country a signal service.” It was the moonfaced giant speaking.

Fergus O’Breen was sitting beside the bed too. “Congratulations, Wolf. And I don’t know if the doctor would approve, but here.”

Wolfe Wolf drank the whiskey gratefully and looked a question at the huge man.

“This is Moon Lafferty,” said Fergus. “FBI man. He’s been helping me track down this ring of spies ever since I first got wind of them.”

“You got them—all?” Wolf asked.

“Picked up Fearing and Garton at the hotel,” Lafferty rumbled.

“But how— I thought—”

“You thought we were out for you?” Fergus answered. “That was Garton’s idea, but I didn’t quite tumble. You see, I’d already talked to your secretary. I knew it was Fearing she’d wanted to see. And when I asked around about Fearing, and learned of the temple and the defense researches of some of its members, the whole picture cleared up.”

“Wonderful work, Mr. Wolf,” said Lafferty. “Any time we can do anything for you— And how you got into that machine-gun turret— Well, O’Breen, I’ll see you later. Got to check up on the rest of this roundup. Pleasant convalescence to you, Wolf.”