The Compleat Werewolf
Page 26
“Nothing, Father. Just a file that I suddenly remembered needed checking.”
“No, John. There’s more than that. John, while you were gone, something peered at me through that door.”
“You’re getting jumpy, Father. Stop worrying.”
“No. John, there is a spirit in this place.”
“Fiddlesticks!”
“Oh, you may not feel affected; but after all, a man of my calling is closer to the spirit world than most.”
“Father, your parishioners are corrupting you.”
“No. Oh, I have smiled at many of their superstitions. I have even disbelieved in spirits. I knew that they were doctrinally possible and so to be believed; but I never believed in them personally, as an individual rather than a priest. But now— John, something peered at me.”
I swore silently and said aloud, “Calm yourself, Father.”
Father Svatomir had risen and was pacing the room, hands clasped like Felix the Cat. “John, my son,” he said at last, “you have been a good friend to me and my parish. I have long been grateful to you, and never been able to prove that gratitude. I shall do so now.”
“And how?” I asked, with a certain nervous foreboding.
“John,” he paused in his pacing and laid a hand on my shoulder, “John, I am going to exorcise the spirit that haunts this place.”
“Hey!” I gasped. “No, Father. Please!” Because, I reasoned hastily to myself, exorcising spirits is all very well, but when it’s your own spirit and if that gets exorcised—well, what happens to you then? “No,” I insisted. “You can’t do that.”
“I know, John,” he went on in his calm, deep voice. “You think that this is more superstition, on a level with the beliefs of my parishioners. But though you do not sense this … this thing yet, you will in time. I shall save you much pain and discomfort. Wait here, John, while I go fetch some holy water and check up the formula for exorcism. I’m afraid,” he added ruefully, “I haven’t looked at it since my days in the seminary.”
I seized his arm and opened my mouth in protestation too urgent for words.
“John,” he said slowly and reproachfully, “are you will-fully harboring a spirit?”
A knock on the door cut the scene short and gave me a breathing spell. I like Charlie, but I don’t think I’ve ever before been so relieved to see him.
“Hi,” he said, and “Hi,” again to Father Svatomir. “That’s the advantage of being celibate,” he added. “You can grow a beard. I tried to once, but the waitress down at the Greek’s didn’t like it.”
Father Svatomir smiled faintly.
“Three glasses, mine host,” Charlie commanded, and produced from under his arm a tall bottle of greenish glass. “Told you I had a surprise.”
I fetched three whiskey glasses and set them on the table. Charlie filled them with a flourish. “Noble stuff, this,” he announced. “Want to hear what you gentlemen think of it. There’s supposed to be a ritual goes with it, but I like it straight. Down the esophagus, boys!”
Was it Shelley who used the phrase “potable gold”? Whoever it was had surely tasted this liquor. It flowed down like some molten metal that had lost the dangerous power to scorch, but still glowed with rich warmth. While the subtle half-perceived flavor still clove to my mouth, I could feel the tingling heat reach my fingertips.
“By Heaven,” I cried, “nothing like this has happened to the blood stream since Harvey discovered the circulation. Charlie, my lad, this is henceforth mv tipple!”
Father Svatomir beamed and nodded. “I concur heartily. Tell us, Charles, what is this wondrous brew?”
“Tequila,” said Charlie, and I dropped my glass.
“What is the trouble, my son? You’re pale and trembling.”
“Look, Johnny. I know it’s high-proof stuff, but it hadn’t ought to hit you like that.”
I hardly heard them. All I knew was that the onetime barrier separating me from my murder was now removed. I had come to like tequila. I bent over to nick up the glass, and as I did so I saw a hand reach out from the consulting room. It touched the tequila bottle lightly and withdrew clutching a freshly dematerialized fifth.
Charlie refilled the three glasses, “Another one’ll put you back on your feet, Johnny. It’s swell stuff once you get used to it.”
Father Svatomir was still concerned. “John,” he insisted, “was it the tequila? Or did vou … have you sensed what we were speaking of before?”
I gulped the second glass. “I’m all right,” I protested. “A couple more of these and I’ll— Was that a knock?”
Charlie looked around. “Consulting-room door, I think. Shall I go check?”
I slipped quickly between him and the door. “Never mind. I’ll see.”
“Had I better go with you?” the priest suggested. “If it were what I warned you of—”
“It’s OK. I’ll go.”
My ghost was lolling back in my chair with his feet propped up on the desk. One hand held Fanny Hill and the other the tequila. “I got a good look at the guy that brought this,” he volunteered without looking up. “He’s all right.”
“Fine. Now I have to let in a patient. Could you briefly disappear?”
“Uh-uh. Not till the cock crows.”
“Then please hide. Try that cupboard—I think it’s big enough.”
He started for the cupboard, returned for book and bottle, and went back to shut himself up in comfort. I opened the outer door a very small crack and said, “Who is it?”
“Me, Dr. Adams. Nick Wojcek.”
I opened the door without a tremor. Whatever Father Svatomir might say about the other inhabitants of Cobbsville, I knew I had nothing to fear from the man whose daughter was my most startlingly successful cure to date. I could still see the pitiful animal terror in his eyes when he had brought her to me and the pure joy that had glistened in them when I told him she was well.
“Come in, Nick. Sit down and be comfortable."
He obeyed the first half of my injunction, but he fidgeted most uncomfortably. Despite his great height and his grizzled hair, he looked like a painfully uncertain child embarrassed by the presence of strange adults. “My Ljuba,” he faltered. “You got those pictures you tell me about?”
“I saw them today. And it’s good news, Nick. Your Ljuba is all well again. It’s all healed up.”
“She stay that way now?”
“I hope to God. But I can’t promise. So long as you live in this dump and breathe cement dust day in and day out, I can’t guarantee you a thing. But I think she’ll be well now. Let her marry some nice young man who’ll take her away from here into the clean air.”
“No,” he said sullenly.
“But come, Nick,” I said gently. It was pleasant to argue an old man’s foibles for a moment instead of fretting over your approaching murder. “She has to lead her own life.”
“You tell me what do? You go to hell!”
I drew back astounded. There was the sheer venom of hatred in that last phrase. “Nick!” I protested.
He was on his feet now, and in his hand was an ancient but nonetheless lethal-looking revolver. “You make magic,” he was saying slowly and harshly. “God would let my Ljuba die. You make her live. Black magic. Don’t want daughter from magic.”
“Nick,” I urged as quietly as I could, “don’t be a damned fool. There are people in the next room. Suppose I call for them?”
“I kill you first,” said Nick Wojcek simply.
“But they’ll find you here. You can’t get away. They’ll burn you for this, Nick. Then what’ll become of Ljuba?”
He hesitated, but the muzzle of the revolver never wavered. Now that I was staring my murderer right in the nose, I felt amazingly calm. I could see, in a clear and detached way, just how silly it was to try to avert the future by preknowledge. I had thought my ghost would warn me; but there he was in the closet, comfortably curled up with a bottle of liquor and a dirty book, and here I was, star
ing into Nick Wojcek’s revolver. He’d come out afterward, of course, my ghost would; he’d get in his haunting and go home. While I … only then I’d be my ghost, wouldn’t I? I’d go home too—wherever that was.
“If they get me,” said Nick at last, “they get me. I get you first.”
His grip tightened on the revolver. And at that moment my tardy ghost reeled out of the closet. He brandished the empty green tequila bottle in one hand, and his face was carefree and roistering.
My ghost pointed the bottle dramatically at Nick Wojcek and grinned broadly. “Thou art the man!” he thundered cheerily.
Nick started, whirled, and fired. For an instant he stood rooted and stared first at the me standing by the desk and then at the me slowly sinking to the floor. Then he flung the revolver away and ran terror-stricken from the room.
I was kneeling at my ghost’s side where he lay groaning on the floor. “But what happened?” I gasped. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” he moaned. “Got a little drunk … started haunting too soon—” My ghost’s form was becoming indistinct.
“But you’re a ghost. That knife went right through you. Nothing can wound you.”
“That’s what I thought. But he did … and here I am—” His voice was trailing away too. “Only one thing … could have—” Then there was silence, and I was staring at nothing but the empty floor, with a little glistening piece of light metal on it.
Father Svatomir and Charlie were in the room now, and the silence was rapidly crammed with questions. I scrambled to my feet and tried to show more assurance than I felt. “You were right, Father. It was Nick Wojcek. Went for me with that revolver. Luckily, he missed, got panicky, and ran away.”
“I shall find him,” said Father Svatomir gravely. “I think that after this fright I may be able to talk some sense into him; then perhaps he can help me convince the others.” He paused and looked down at the gleaming metal “You see, John? I told you they believed you to be a black magician.”
“How so?”
“You notice that? A silver bullet. Ordinary lead cannot harm a magician, but the silver bullet can kill anything. Evan a spirit.” And he hastened off after Nick Wojcek.
Wordlessly, I took the undematerialized tequila bottle from Charlie and paid some serious attention to it. I began to see now. It made sense. My ghost hadn’t averted my death—that had been an absurd hope—but he had caused his own. All the confusion came from his faulty memory. He was haunting not mine, but his own murderer. It was my ghost himself who had been killed in this room.
That was right. That was fine. I was safe from murder now, and must have been all along. But what I wanted to know, what I still want to know, what I have to find out and what no one can ever tell me, is this:
What happens after death to a man whose ghost has already been murdered?
Acknowledgments
“The Compleat Werewolf,” originally published in Unknown Worlds, April, 1942, copyright 1942 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of The Condé Nast Publications, Inc.
“The Pink Caterpillar,” originally published in Adventure Magazine, copyright 1945 by Anthony Boucher.
“Q.U.R.,” originally published in Unknown Worlds, 1942, copyright 1942 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of The Condé Nast Publications, Inc.
“Robinc,” originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, September, 1943, copyright 1943 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of The Condé Nast Publications, Inc.
“Snulbug,” originally published in Unknown Worlds, December, 1941, copyright 1941 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of The Condé Nast Publications, Inc.
“Mr. Lupescu,” originally published in Weird Tales Magazine, September, 1945, copyright 1945 by Anthony Boucher.
“They Bite,“ originally published in Unknown Worlds, June, 1942, copyright 1942 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of The Condé Nast Publications, Inc.
“Expedition,” originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August, 1943, copyright 1943 by Anthony Boucher.
“We Print the Truth,” originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, 1943, copyright 1943 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of The Condé Nast Publications, Inc.
“The Ghost of Me,” originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, June, 1942, copyright 1942 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of The Condé Nast Publications, Inc.
About the Author
Anthony Boucher was an American author, critic, and editor, who wrote several classic mystery novels, short stories, science fiction, and radio dramas. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle.
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Copyright © 1969 by the Estate of Anthony Boucher
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ISBN: 978-1-5040-5736-3
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