Unnatural Creatures

Fergus waited until the G-man had left the room. Then he leaned over the bed and asked confidentially, “How about it, Wolf? Going back to your acting career?”

Wolf gasped. “What acting career?”

“Still going to play Tookah? If Metropolis makes Fangs with Miss Garton in a federal prison.”

Wolf fumbled for words. “What sort of nonsense—”

“Come on, Wolf. It’s pretty clear I know that much. Might as well tell me the whole story.”

Still dazed, Wolf told it. “But how in heaven’s name did you know it?” he concluded.

Fergus grinned. “Look. Dorothy Sayers said someplace that in a detective story the supernatural may be introduced only to be dispelled. Sure, that’s swell. Only in real life there come times when it won’t be dispelled. And this was one. There was too damned much. There were your eyebrows and fingers, there were the obviously real magical powers of your friend, there were the tricks which no dog could possibly do without signals, there was the way the other dogs whimpered and cringed—I’m pretty hardheaded, Wolf, but I’m Irish. I’ll string along only so far with the materialistic, but too much coincidence is too much.”

“Fearing believed it too,” Wolf reflected. “But one thing that worries me: if they used a silver bullet on me once, why were all the rest of them lead? Why was I safe from then on?”

“Well,” said Fergus, “I’ll tell you. Because it wasn’t ‘they’ who fired the silver bullet. You see, Wolf, up till the last minute I thought you were on ‘their’ side. I somehow didn’t associate good will with a werewolf. So I got a mold from a gunsmith and paid a visit to a jeweler and—I’m damned glad I missed,” he added sincerely.

“You’re glad!”

“But look. Previous question stands. Are you going back to acting? Because if not, I’ve got a suggestion.”

“Which is?”

“You say you fretted about how to be a practical, commercial werewolf. All right. You’re strong and fast. You can terrify people even to commit suicide. You can overhear conversations that no human being could get in on. You’re invulnerable to bullets. Can you tell me better qualifications for a G-man?”

Wolf goggled. “Me? A G-man?”

“Moon’s been telling me how badly they need new men. They’ve changed the qualifications lately so that your language knowledge’ll do instead of the law or accounting they used to require. And after what you did today, there won’t be any trouble about a little academic scandal in your past. Moon’s pretty sold on you.”

Wolf was speechless. Only three days ago he had been in torment because he was not an actor or a G-man. Now—

“Think it over,” said Fergus.

“I will. Indeed I will. Oh, and one other thing. Has there been any trace of Ozzy?”

“Nary a sign.”

“I like that man. I’ve got to try to find him and—”

“If he’s the magician I think he is, he’s staying up there only because he’s decided he likes it.”

“I don’t know. Magic’s tricky. Heavens knows I’ve learned that. I’m going to try to do my damnedest for that fringe-bearded old colleague.”

“Wish you luck. Shall I send in your other guest?”

“Who’s that?”

“Your secretary. Here on business, no doubt.”

Fergus disappeared discreetly as he admitted Emily. She walked over to the bed and took Wolf’s hand. His eyes drank in her quiet, charming simplicity, and his mind wondered what freak of belated adolescence had made him succumb to the blatant glamour of Gloria.

They were silent for a long time. Then at once they both said, “How can I thank you? You saved my life.”

Wolf laughed. “Let’s not argue. Let’s say we saved our life.”

“You mean that?” Emily asked gravely.

Wolf pressed her hand. “Aren’t you tired of being an office wife?”

In the bazaar of Darjeeling, Chulundra Lingasuta stared at his rope in numb amazement. Young Ali had climbed up only five minutes ago, but now as he descended he was a hundred pounds heavier and wore a curious fringe of beard.

14

NALO HOPKINSON is a Caribbean writer of horror, myth, magic, and science fiction, and is equally as good at whatever she chooses to write. Here’s a contemporary story that feels like an old myth.

Gilla swallowed a cherry pit, and now her mouth is full of startling words she’d never normally speak. In the old stories of the saints, trees take root through flesh, but in this one, a gift from a tree transforms into teeth.

“There was a young lady…”

“Geez, who gives a hoot what a…what? What is a laidly worm, anyway?” Gilla muttered. She was curled up on the couch, school library book on her knees.

“Mm?” said her mother, peering at the computer monitor. She made a noise of impatience and hit a key on the keyboard a few times.

“Nothing, Mum. Just I don’t know what this book’s talking about.” Boring old school assignment. Gilla wanted to go and get ready for Patricia’s party, but Mum had said she should finish her reading first.

“Did you say, ‘laidly worm’?” her mother asked. Her fingers were clicking away at the keyboard again now. Gilla wished she could type that quickly. But that would mean practising, and she wasn’t about to do any more of that than she had to.

“Yeah.”

“It’s a type of dragon.”

“So why don’t they just call it that?”

“It’s a special type. It doesn’t have wings, so it just crawls along the ground. Its skin oozes all the time. Guess that protects it when it crawls, like a slug’s slime.”

“Yuck, Mum!”

Gilla’s mother smiled, even as she was writing. “Well, you wanted to know.”

“No, I didn’t. I just have to know, for school.”

“A laidly worm’s always ravenous and it makes a noise like a cow in gastric distress.”

Gilla giggled. Her mother stopped typing and finally looked at her. “You know, I guess you could think of it as a larval dragon. Maybe it eats and eats so it’ll have enough energy to moult into the flying kind. What a cool idea. I’ll have to look into it.” She turned back to her work. “Why do you have to know about it? What’re you reading?”

“This lady in the story? Some guy wanted to marry her, but she didn’t like him, so he put her in his dungeon…”