Jody Lynn Nye lists her main career activity as "spoiling cats." She lives northwest of Chicago with two of the above and her husband, author and packager Bill Fawcett. She has published more than thirty-five books, including six contemporary fantasies, four SF novels, four novels in collaboration with Anne McCaffrey, including The Ship Who Won; edited a humorous anthology about mothers, Don't Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear!; and written over a hundred short stories. Her latest books are A Forthcoming Wizard (TOR Books), and Myth-Fortunes, co-written with Robert Asprin (Wildside Books).
Bradley Newton turned one of the silver objects over in his hands. The Eastern European man with shiny black hair and a pockmarked face slumping in the Naugahyde armchair on the other side of the utilitarian desk looked deliberately insouciant. Bradley wanted to wipe that smirk off his face, and off the lawyer's, too. He kept his own round face expressionless.
"So, Mr. Elanovitch is willing to pay whatever fine you assess, inspector," the attorney offered. "We maintain that he did not understand that his import of these items was considered to be excessive."
"Import? Smuggling is the word I would use, counselor," Bradley retorted. That jerked the European man to attention, but only for a moment. He was not threatened by the plump inspector on the other side of the desk. Bradley picked up another silver artifact from the heap before him, this one long and thin like a fountain pen, but with a knob shaped like a snail shell on the top.
"Customs and Excise is vigilant about these things. Your client has lived in the United States for six years, and traveled in and out of the country over twenty-eight times a year. He must know the limits on imports. If he never read Form I-6059B, then he's one of the few who hasn't."
"Fine me and release my goods," Elanovitch intoned, bored, plucking at the armrest with idle fingertips.
"Either you arrest me, or you don't. We offer to pay. Take it or leave it. Or unless you want something for yourself, eh?" His weaselly black eyes fixed on Bradley's hazel ones. "Your annual pay is probably much less than my business makes in a day."
That made Bradley's blood pressure shoot up, but he kept his temper down. His supervisor and at least one other credible witness were on the other side of the two-way mirror that occupied much of the fourth wall in a largely featureless interview room, and the interview was being recorded on videotape. If they made him react, they won, and they knew it. "Bribing a federal official is a felony," he said, shaking the knobby cylinder at Elanovitch. "This is a serious matter, and . . . ouch!"
He looked down at his hand. Blood dripped from the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger. A curved, triangular blade no longer than his thumbnail had popped out of the bottom of the silver artifact. He snatched out his handkerchief and squeezed the area to stop the bleeding. The blade had left a crescent-shaped mark in the skin. He looked up at the horrified men on the other side of the table. "The importation of concealed weapons is another crime, Mr. Elanovitch."
"I did not know that was there!" the European bellowed, actually alarmed. "It is an accident! Nothing I bring in is illegal. It is household instruments, historical of age. I pay fine and I get you bandage. I even say please."
"We won't debate the extenuating circumstances," the lawyer interjected, "if we may settle this matter swiftly, without the government bringing charges?"
"What about physical assault on a government agent?"
Bradley countered.
"That's just an owie, inspector," the lawyer said. "A little Bactine and a Scooby Doo bandage will make you all better. What will it take to get us out of here before dinnertime?"
Bradley realized, not for the first time, that he disliked the lawyer much more than his client. He wanted to break out of his own skin, leap over the desk and throttle the attorney, then hammer the importer to death with his own suitcase of contraband. If it wouldn't punish him more than the other two, he would have kept them there until midnight.
"I can't promise that there will be no charges pressed in the future, but this time United States Customs is willing to accept a substantial fine, plus the customs on each item over the legal allowance." Coolly, he pulled the printing calculator to him from the side of the desk and began to tap in numbers. Large numbers. This fine would be substantial, partly to make Elanovitch think a thousand times before doing it again, and partly because his attorney was such a jerk. It was the only revenge he was permitted to take.
Bradley hunched over the wheel of his subcompact in the traffic leaving O'Hare Airport. Another day, another criminal who thought of him as a patsy. He had worked for Customs for fifteen years. At forty-two, he had twenty-three years more before he could retire. Another
54.7 percent of his life facing the same endless conflict with petty criminals, the pugnaciously ignorant and the downright exploitive criminals who passed before him day after day after day.
Bradley walked into the house and almost called out before he remembered that Angela was in Columbus with the kids, visiting her folks. They would be gone for a week. It was spring break. A twinge of regret made him ache for the carefree college days and just after when the two of them had been able to run off to Florida during spring break. For the hell of it. Just for fun. It seemed like nothing he did these days was just for fun. Not even sex. Even sex was getting to be boring. The relic of the teenager buried deep within him was shocked. He never in a million lifetimes thought he would ever feel that way, and he loved Angie. He adored her. It didn't stop the miserable cycle of his day-to-day life from grinding him down.
Over a dinner made up of leftovers from the refrigerator, he watched the Discovery Channel on television. He felt like going away from it all, leaving the suburbs and his boring job and becoming a deep-sea fisherman. On television pulling up cages full of king crabs looked dangerous, disgusting, cold, and terrifying. All of that was better than what he had to do now. Pull in a half-ton net with his bare hands? Great! As long as he didn't have to enumerate each crab on a form in triplicate.
"It's a midlife crisis," he told himself, as he sorted the recyclables from the non-recyclable trash and threw them into separate garbage bins. "That's all."
Knowing that was his problem didn't help. He had always laughed off the notion he might have a midlife crisis, but it was worse than he had dreamed. He thought he would just have an urge to buy a red sports car and hang out with a blonde half his age, but there was no joyful anticipation in the prospect. He felt gloomy to the depths of his soul. Was this what he was going to do for the rest of his life? He wished he could talk to Angela, but even more, he wished she could understand what he was going through.
Three more days of Elanovitches, TV dinners and missing his family dragged by. Bradley didn't like sleeping alone. He missed the kids. He missed the noise and the chaos and the feeling that he belonged to something better than he was.
He woke with a start and scanned the bed for Angela's familiar body that ought to have been there beside him, half-curled on her side under the light quilt, warm and comforting by her mere presence. She wasn't there. He remembered again. Three more days until his family returned. Soon. He tried to settle down, but he was too restless. It felt as if the sheet was rucked up under his rear end. He wriggled to settle the lump. It wouldn't smooth out.
The light of the full moon shone between the bedroom curtains he had forgotten to close before he fell asleep. He kicked off the comforter. He had to get out of the bedclothes. They were stifling, smothering him in their pillowy bonds. Bradley fumbled for the bedroom light.
"Aah!" he yelled.
Someone was in the room with him!
"Who are you?" he screamed at the black-bearded man.
The other's mouth moved at the same time his did. The intruder was wearing his boxer shorts! He realized suddenly that he was looking at his own reflection.
"No!" Bradley cried. He must be still dreaming. He slapped his hands against his body, refusing to believe in the black hair that covered him everywhere except his eyes, lips and palms, wiry and coarse as a terrier's. He flung himself off the bed, trying to run away from his horrible image, but it seemed that the whole house was full of mirrors and shiny surfaces. The hairy man leaped out at him again and again. Bradley stumbled down the stairs, through the living room and the kitchen, and out into the night.
He had to get away from the nightmare. Something must help him to wake up. He raced along the street, covering ground faster than he ever could in the daylight. Bradley looked down to see curving claws between his toes. His feet looked twice as long as usual. Something slapped him in the backside. He glanced behind, and saw a two-foot-long tail.
Run away! his brain shrieked.
He plunged in between houses, crashing through bushes and trees, trampling garden plots. Blue-flowered stalks grabbed at his legs in the Sullivans' yard. Why were there hydrangeas in his dream? He hated hydrangeas! The beam of the streetlight at the corner struck glints off the shining hair on his hands and arms. To get away from the sight, he dashed across the street and into the forest preserve.
Part of his mind shouted at him that the preserve closed at sunset. Trespassing on state land wasn't allowed. The rest of him, the wild part, laughed at restraint. It forced him to open up his stride, until he was running flat out across the prairie. He panted in terror, gasping in oxygen until it felt as if the top of his head would come off. His legs carried him faster and faster. He started laughing. The pure adrenaline exhilarated him. He felt giddy. He dropped to all fours and discovered he could gallop still faster, leaping over streams and paths, bounding over benches. Bradley found an open patch of grass and rolled around on it. That felt good! He flipped over and ran in a circle, chasing the tail. It eluded his snapping jaws.
What had happened to him? What was he?
All he could think over and over again was werewolf. The spooky books his son loved to read at night talked about mystical transformation, the fear of silver bullets, and how the man-wolf beast howled at the moon. Maybe he had turned into a werewolf, but he wouldn't do that.
He paused, the tail swinging out of reach.
Why not?
Bradley sat down on his haunches, cleared his throat, pointed his nose toward the moon, and launched into the best howl he could muster.
"A-woo—ha ha ha ha!"
The mournful sound was so at odds with how good he felt that he started laughing in the middle of it. He pulled himself together.
No, seriously, he told himself. Howl. He took another breath.
"A-wooooo!"
That was better. With a little practice, he could be really good at it.
His legs began to twitch. His altered body got impatient at sitting in one place. He had to run some more. Flipping onto his long feet, he ran, loving every mile. He thought he could never grow tired of the joy of the wind in his face. No wonder dogs with their heads hanging out of car windows looked so happy.
He suddenly knew the secret they never talked about in any of the horror movies or TV shows or books. Being a werewolf was So. Much. FUN!
Bradley sped up a hill, his pads pounding on the dirt path. A browsing deer he surprised leaped up and away from him. The scent excited him. He fell into pursuit, racing after its shape in the cold blue moonlight. He had an urge to bury his teeth in its throat. He wanted the taste of its blood on his tongue.
The deer wasn't waiting around to satisfy his urges. It increased its lead on him by lengths, leaping effortlessly over park benches and around the reeking outhouses. Bradley galloped, his tail straight out behind him. He never realized how fast deer could run. He gave it all he could, even pulling within ten feet of it, but the deer took a sharp left and dashed across the well-lit main road next to the forest preserve. Bradley windmilled to stay upright as he veered to follow, but headlights struck him. He got off the road just in time. A pickup truck roared past him, honking its horn in irritation. The deer disappeared into the trees on the other side. Bradley watched it go. The wild part of him felt dismay.
He tottered back into the woods. He was more exhausted than he could have believed. It had been years since he had gone running. He preferred to jog on the treadmill or around the track at the health club, at no more than 3.5 miles an hour. He was exhausted, and his feet and palms hurt. Gingerly, Bradley picked his way back to a park bench and curled up underneath it in the comforting dark.
Just a short rest, he told himself.
"Awright, mister!" a harsh voice roused him out of sleep. "I suppose you're gonna tell me your prescription medications make you sleepwalk, huh? Get up!"
Bradley blinked at a pink sky and a black silhouette shining a yellow circle of light in his face. He tried to remember where he was and failed. The police officer grabbed him by the arm and hauled him to his feet. Bradley realized with a start that the black fur that had covered him was gone. As was most of the pair of underpants he had been wearing when he left home. Modesty was just barely preserved by the scrap of cloth around his belly. The rest of his shorts had been torn to shreds by the bushes. His skin was covered with scratches and bruises.
"I'm all right, officer," he said, straightening his back to try and look dignified. The officer eyed him. Obviously, he failed.
"Don't need to go to the emergency room?" the officer asked. "Did someone dump you here?"
"Uh, no," Bradley said. "I . . . uh, sometimes I sleepwalk," he added. The policeman shook his head as though disappointed he hadn't come up with a more colorful explanation. Bradley wished he sounded more original, but he didn't want to be branded a kook. No one would believe he had been transformed into a werewolf. In the cold light of dawn, he didn't completely believe it himself.
"Come on," the officer sighed. "Get in the cruiser. I'll take you home."
Bradley let himself in the unlocked back door and took a long, hot shower. It was a good thing his wife and kids weren't there. They might have bought the werewolf explanation, but Angela would have been mortified that he had to be brought home by the cops.
The matter of his transformation distracted him throughout the day. He was pretty sure that lycanthropy didn't run in his family. He hadn't eaten or drunk anything unusual, unless he counted a couple of exotic frozen entré es from the food store. He'd never had a reaction to Chicken Madras before, especially not breaking out in fur and a tail. No, the only possible vector of transmission of his werewolfness had to be that artifact that cut him: Mr. Elanovitch's contraband. He wanted to get a second look at it.
Casually, so as not to draw special attention to his query, Bradley checked the confiscated goods locker first thing the next morning. To his disappointment, all the Elanovitch articles were gone. The importer's lawyer had reclaimed everything as soon as the Customs Office had opened. Bradley hesitated to contact the importer. He couldn't think of a good excuse. He didn't want to seem weak by bringing up the minor injury, nor appear to be asking for the artifact as a bribe. The object didn't seem to have had an on/off switch anyhow, nor did it have a plainly visible "reverse werewolf curse" setting on it. Bradley wished he could find out more about it. His practical mind pushed all speculation to the rear. Flights had been arriving since before dawn from foreign countries. He had a backlog of queries to cover.
The memory of the night's adventure kept his spirits up as he faced a dozen Mr. Elanovitches over the course of the day. They all lied to him. They all acted cocky and bored. He was forbidden by the rules to threaten them. They frustrated him because they enjoyed being dishonest, enjoyed making an illicit profit off the government that protected them. They laughed at him, a plump, middle-aged man, and at the United States of America that employed him to help protect its economy. Bradley concentrated on doing his job. He just kept thinking of that rush of air in his face. More than once, he caught himself smiling a little. The expression unnerved more than one of his opponents on the other side of the desk. If they could only have seen me, he thought, imagining the terrified look on their faces. Pay your fine, he imagined his employers saying, or our werewolf will rip out your throat. That would make it worthwhile getting up in the morning again.
He couldn't wait for the evening.
Bradley gulped down his TV dinner hot right out of the microwave, not even bothering to sit down. Eagerly, he watched for moonrise. As the orange edge of the pocked, full globe peered up over the horizon, Bradley felt his ears prick up. Literally. He felt them with his fingertips as the rounded pinnae stretched up and became pointed. He ran to the mirror to watch. Fur sprouted all over his skin from five o'clock shadow to bearskin rug in moments. His teeth turned to fangs in a long, underslung jaw. His hands and feet lengthened noticeably, and the tail pressed against the back of his underwear. Bradley lowered the band to make way for it. He was going to have to have special shorts with a hole for the tail. His chest bulged forward, and his waist curved in against his spine. He patted the new convexity with delight.
This time he was aware of the animal nature trying to impose its will on his human senses. The stale smells of the house made him feel claustrophobic. The walls seemed to move in on him, trapping him. He wanted the sweet scent of the woods. Before he knew it, he was racing for the back door on all fours. He had to reach up to turn the knob, then he was out across the backyard into the leaf-dappled twilight.
Bradley had never had an athlete's physique before. It felt as good as it looked. He ran faster than Michael Johnson or any Olympic star. He would give up everything if he could do this night after night forever. He dashed all over the neighborhood until the moon was at its height, dousing everything in pale blue light.
The scents were everywhere. They overpowered his conscious mind. He tasted the smell of warm blood on the air. Living animals were all around him. He wanted something—no, craved it. He wanted to feel life. He wanted to feel it between his hands, between his teeth, tearing the heart out of a living creature. Part of him was horrified, but it was overtaken by the wild sensation of the forbidden. What could they do to him? He was power incarnate! He would have prey!
Bradley galloped through the streets on all fours, seeking that prey. That musky smell had to be the raccoons that turned over the neighborhood garbage cans. He ran towards the strongest concentration of smells. Unfortunately, smelling went both ways. They detected him long before he arrived at the place they had just been. They had fled up trees, where he could not follow, or into their well-defended burrows, claws and teeth facing out. He didn't want to dig for blood. He wanted to leap upon his victim!
He went to the park, where the playground equipment swung empty. The scent of young, sweet human blood floated to his nostrils, but the taste was old. It was after ten o'clock. The children had a curfew, imposed only that spring by the state legislature. They were all inside. Even the tough kids got tired of being rousted out of the parks by the cops night after night. Bradley turned away from the swing set in disgust. How inconvenient! Someone had to be out walking somewhere.
He smelled fresh blood and headed toward it, trotting from thin grass onto tarmac. The convenience store, yes! People came and went from it all night long. He slunk around the side of the building on all fours, and watched for a stray, unwary human.
His eyes were dazzled by the parking lot lights. He had never noticed it before, but the convenience store had lights more powerful than those in a ballpark. To his heightened senses, it was like getting slapped in the face with a flashlight over and over again. He saw cars pull up to the six spaces near the door. Humans hopped out of them, but they were inside the store before he could make himself spring toward them through the glare. Within moments, they emerged again with slushies and hot dogs. They got back into their cars and drove away. One looked promising. A girl in a low-cut tank top that revealed her slender throat came out to a convertible with a bag in one hand. Forcing himself to ignore the lights, Bradley wiggled his backside, and sprang. As she pulled out of the space, he thundered toward her. The car lurched out of reverse and shot out of the parking lot with Bradley in pursuit. Wait until she stopped at a light. He'd leap over the back of her car and tear her to pieces!
The speed limit on the road was only thirty-five, but the girl had to be doing at least ten over the limit. Bradley cursed all lawbreakers as he chased her through several stoplights, including one she sailed through on amber. Her posture remained easy, and she swayed her head to the music blaring out of her radio. She didn't see him. How could she miss a full-grown wolfman, unless she never looked in the rearview mirror. Kids! He let out a howl. In response, the girl in the car turned her radio up.
Bradley galloped around the streets, looking for a victim on foot. He tried the shopping mall. At that hour it was closed and empty. The grocery had just shut. Even the cart boys had left. The schools and the junior college were desolate. Not one single warm body was out on the sidewalks where he could kill them.
It was the suburbs. No one walked anywhere. They drove out of their attached garages already in their cars, and rode around in parking lots until they found a space close to the door. How was he to find prey to satisfy his urge?
He turned back toward his neighborhood, ready to give up in dismay. Then, his keen hearing picked up the distant sound of hysterical barking. He knew that yap! He turned on one foot and hurtled in that direction. The Lermans on the corner of his street had an obnoxious little dog. Bradley had despised it from the moment it had arrived. He stopped in the shadow of a bush and sank to his belly. Narrowing his eyes, he focused on the yard. He saw the dog through the trees lit up like a fluorescent glow stick. Now was time for revenge for all the times it piddled on him, attacked his ankle, yipped incessantly for hours out on its chain in the yard. He would tear it to tiny, quivering pieces!
Bradley hurtled toward it on all fours. It saw him. At first it dashed toward him, barking frantically. His scent hit it. The dog yelped and turned around. It scampered in the direction of the back door of the house. It couldn't possibly make it before Bradley descended on it. He bared his teeth and leaped, cutting off the dog's escape. It froze. Bradley laughed.
"Die, you miserable Beanie Baby!"
He lunged. The dog cowered, its legs shaking.
Good sense brought Bradley barreling to a halt in spite of himself. What was he thinking? It was his neighbor who left the dog out all the time and wouldn't get it obedience training.
No, he should terrify the pesty little monster, not kill it! That is what it deserved.
Bradley stood over the small dog and howled. The animal stood its ground for a moment, but the primal sensation of predator meets much, much larger predator kicked into its small wad of neural tissue. It let out a sound that was the canine equivalent of Ayieeeee! It circled around Bradley and went tearing back toward the house. It scrabbled hysterically at the door with its little claws, yelping to be let in.
Satisfied, Bradley galloped away. When the door opened, he heard with his extended hearing Mr. Lerman swearing. The dog raced into the house, still crying in terror. He bet he wouldn't see it outside again until its bladder was bursting.
Bradley returned to the house happy but exhausted. So he wasn't going to find live prey. He could put up with that. He could not wait to show Angela his new shape. She'd be knocked out. In the meanwhile, he had one more night of wild freedom until she returned.
He got home from work in time to greet the family as the car pulled into the driveway. Bradley kissed them all and carried the luggage inside. He kept looking at them while they ate dinner at a local family restaurant, doting on them, wondering how he got along for seven whole days without them. He was dying to tell them about his transformation. Twelve-year-old Mark would be thrilled. He wasn't too sure about ten-year-old Elizabeth, who covered her eyes during scary scenes in the movies. But
Angie had to know.
"What are you looking at?" his wife asked him, squirting mustard on her hamburger.
"Uh, just glad you're back," he said, hastily picking up French fries and stuffing them into his mouth. This wasn't the place to tell them.
Mark had to go to band practice. Instead of griping that he had had a long day at the office, Bradley cheerfully volunteered to drive him to the junior high. Angela gave him a strange look, but she didn't say anything. He decided he wouldn't tell them, not yet. He wanted to show Angela first.
Just before moonrise, he pulled her into their bedroom and locked the door.
"What are you doing?" Angela demanded.
Bradley sat down on the bed and patted the mattress beside him. She shook her head and stood with her arms crossed and worry on her face. Not a good start, but he had to tell her. He took a deep breath.
"Honey," he began, "I have something I have to tell you."
"You're gay?" she blurted out.
Bradley gawked at her. "No! Where did you get that? Figure skating makes me sick. No. I'm . . . a werewolf." Her expression turned from concern to naked disbelief. "Yeah, right. I've got laundry in." She started for the door. He jumped up and took her arm.
"No, really, honest, honey! It happened a couple of days after you left." He told her about the silver object, about Mr. Elanovitch, about the transformation and racing through the forest preserve. He skipped the part about the girl in the convertible.
She listened, searching his face as if trying to decide whether he was crazy or deluded.
"Brad, I don't know what to say. I mean, I don't know whether you're crazy or trying to pull something on me. Just tell me what it is, all right? I know you're bored out of your mind with your job. Are you telling me you want to quit your job and go into acting? Is that it?"
Bradley threw up his arms in frustration. "Forget it! Wait until moonrise. You'll see."
They stayed together at opposite ends of the room, waiting for the edge of the lunar globe to appear over the trees. Against Angie's objections, he opened the window so he could jump away from her if he felt some urge to harm her.
The moon rose. Bradley braced himself . . . and nothing happened. He ran to the mirror and stared at his face. Grow! he thought at the stubble on his chin. But it didn't. He ran back to the window. The moon was rising, wasn't it?
The tension in Angela's body melted away.
"Uh-huh," she said.
"But . . . " he said. Angela shook her head and unlocked the door, leaving him staring out of the window.
What was wrong with him? For three days he had been a man-beast, a creature out of legend. He was an ordinary person again, overweight, with thinning hair and a 401k account.
He ran into Mark's room and thumbed through the books on the shelf. In the story he pulled out, it said that the werewolf only roamed during the full moon.
The moon was no longer full. It had dwindled at its right-hand edge to a shape like a face. It reproached him. Bradley moaned. The magic couldn't be over!
He got up several times that night to consult the mirror. The bland, ordinary face that stared back at him refused to transform. He wanted that sense of transformation. He had to have it back, but it wouldn't come back. He returned to work more miserable than he had ever been. When he got home at night, he did his chores and played with the kids, but he found it hard to find anything to be enthusiastic about. The midlife crisis came back so bad that not even three red sports cars or a dozen blondes could help.
Angela regarded him with pity and exasperation as she watched him mope around the house.
"Honey," she said, as he hoisted the full garbage bag out of the kitchen can, "I want you to find someone to talk to. Is there such a thing as Werewolves Anonymous? Because you are an addict."
Bradley regarded her with suspicion. "You don't believe me."
Her expression was kind, not cynical. "No, not really. But you've imagined yourself into something powerful. I know you hate your job. You always talk about how it's killing you. Maybe it is. Start looking for something else. That'll help. Or how about a hobby? You're always talking about taking up a hobby. I love you. I hate to see you being miserable."
"It was so great," he said sadly, as he took the white bag out to the trash can.
Angie was right. He had to snap out of it. Maybe he had been dreaming for three nights in a row. Shellfish gave him weird dreams. Maybe this time the combination of stress, TV dinners and the Ambien he had to take to put himself to sleep gave him hallucinations. He settled back into their ordinary life, resolved to find a counselor and take up woodworking, or something.
Life at work continued to be miserable. One so-called international businessman who had been caught with ten containers full of designer knockoffs had had the nerve to threaten him personally with a lawsuit for restraint of trade. The government ombudsman assured Bradley he was not individually liable for government regulations, but it still kept him from sleeping at night. It got so bad that he took a double dose of sleeping pills against the warning on the front of the bottle. Sleep dragged him deep into his pillow, but his dreams were active and weird.
He felt a fierce nudge in the ribs.
"Brad! Brad, wake up!"
He tried to crawl out of the dream, where he was being prodded into a corner by a barber holding a rattail comb.
"Brad! Wake up! You're hairy!"
"I am?" The drug haze receded, and he realized he could see her in the dark. He felt his jaw and his ears. Thrilled, he leaped up and turned on the lights. They flooded his brain, much more light than he needed, but he wanted her to see. "See?" he said. "I told you." It came out "Grrr grrr gghhh." He tried again, but he didn't need to. Angela screamed, but more with delight than fear.
"Oh, my God, you're not going crazy!"
Bradley got control of his tongue, palate and vocal chords. "You thought I was?"
"Well, naturally I thought you were. Who believes in werewolves?"
"I do. You should, too. Look at me." He pounded his bulging chest.
Angela surveyed him up and down. Her eyes widened, then she got a coy look on her face.
"Who is this big, hairy creature in my bed? I certainly hope he's not going to attack me." She threw herself down among the pillows, arms up over her head. "Is he?"
Bradley could never resist it when she lay like that. He dived for her and wrapped her in his arms, mouthing her neck. She let out a shriek of delight.
Leaving her limp and satisfied, he jumped out of the window and ran through the neighborhood. He couldn't help bellowing his delight, hearing echoes in the deserted streets. There were some annoyed shouts and barking from distant dogs, but he didn't care. He felt great. The curse hadn't gone away. In fact, it had some fabulous fringe benefits.
Three days of the lunar month helped keep him sane at his job and managing the kids' full schedule of activity during the other twenty-five. Enthusiasm for Angela's new, hairy suitor made the marriage bed a more interesting place than it had been in years. Bradley also discovered his senses were boosted during the non-wolf times. He found things the kids had lost by smell. He cleared pests out of the yard, including the gopher he had been unable to unseat for years. The Endangered Species Act wouldn't let him kill or harm it, but never said a damned thing about werewolf eviction. He had never been in better shape in his life. Three days of intense physical activity per month started to whittle away the suburban paunch. His muscle tone improved to the way it had been when he played soccer in school.
"I have to admit I'm envious," Angela said one evening, admiring his trim solar plexus. "Is there a way I can get in on this?"
"Should we have two . . . you-know-whats in the family?" Bradley asked.
"Why not? Frankenstein had his bride. How about the Wolfman?" She tickled the whiskers at the side of his jaw. He just couldn't resist that.
"I'll figure something out," Bradley promised. He would find Elanovitch. It was what Customs and Excise was best at, after all.
They had not told the kids yet. He was still trying to figure out how, but since Angela had taken the news so readily, he doubted the kids would have problems. It only interfered with their social life a little.
As the keeper of their social calendar, Angela was the one who coordinated with their friends for nights out.
"No, sorry, we can't get together on Saturday," she told someone on the phone. "That's one of Brad's hairy days and we've got a date that night. Can you imagine what a mess he'd make of the Olive Garden? How about Tuesday instead?"
Bradley was a changed man at work. Instead of slinking in in the morning, he strutted. His supervisor noticed the boost in his confidence, handing him the tough cases. Instead of dreading them, Bradley came to enjoy them. He just pictured the head of his interviewee on the body of the yappy little neighbor dog, racing toward its house. His success rate soared.
"Newton," his boss barked at him. "Got a big problem for you. I want you to handle it yourself."
Brad was instantly on guard.
"What is it, sir?"
The supervisor's mouth went up in the corner. "Mr. Elanovitch is back," he said. "The guy just doesn't know when to quit. This time we've really got him."
Bradley matched his grin, and he felt the wild blood rising in his veins. But the practical side of him made itself felt, too.
"Say, sir, can we keep him until after moonrise?" Bradley asked, hoping he didn't sound too eager. "Mr. Elanovitch and I have a lot to talk about."