sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-09 09:10 am
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-09 09:10 am
Entry tags:
In The Blood, PG-13; 2 of 2
And I must borrow every changing shape
To find expression...dance, dance
Like a dancing bear
Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance...
***
The Times tried to sort things out later, but there are some stories that just won't ever really be told completely.
The shopkeeper swore up and down that he'd just been locking up when an unlicenced thief had pulled a one-shot and forced him to hand over the contents of the cash register, after which a giant demon had leapt out of the alley and attacked.
The man in the Watch cells said he'd been walking home, minding his own business, when a big black dog with orange eyebrows knocked him down and planted the one-shot on him. Captain Carrot took a rather dim view of this story.
The one witness, an elderly woman who was sweeping off her front step, claimed that the thief had been about to make a pretty clean getaway when a dog had indeed hurtled out of nowhere and knocked into the unlucky robber. According to her, it had wrestled the one-shot clean out of the man's hands, and was shaking the man like a limp chew-toy when a couple of Watchmen showed up and the dog bolted. She swore it was joined in its headlong flight by another, rather better-groomed dog.
Angua finally caught up with her Commander near Small Gods cemetery.
"Did you see that?" he asked, pacing back and forth in front of the gates, excitedly. "Did you see how fast it was?"
"You can take the man out of the uniform, but you sure can't take the uniform out of the man," she said with a sigh, and flopped down on the cobblestones. She was trying not to show how worried she was; he'd done that man pretty badly. He didn't seem to realize he'd nearly taken his arm off.
He'd told her about the Beast, once. She'd never seen it, except for a hint sometimes of animal rage in her Commander's eyes, quickly stifled. That had been it, clear enough. He'd have killed the man if he wasn't chased off. And he didn't notice.
Oh bloody hell.
"It almost makes it worth it, doesn't it?" he asked, sidling out of the way as a carriage rolled past. Angua looked up at him.
"I guess so," she said.
"A one-shot in my city! I hope he goes rabid," Vimes said. "I -- oh. No. What is that?"
"Smells a bit like Nobby? And a bit like privy carpet?"
"That's the scent."
"Hi, Gaspode," Angua sighed. The little terrier limped out of the shadows, warily.
"It's the horrible small dog that's always hanging about," Vimes said in surprise. "I know you."
"Sure you do. Everyone knows Gaspode. Give Him A Biscuit," Gaspode said depressively. Vimes stared. "What? Never seen a talkin' dog before?"
"Gaspode, this is Scruffy. He's new," Angua said briskly. "We're going to go run with the Pack tonight."
"Here, I know you too," said Gaspode suddenly. "Mister -- "
"Don't say it," Vimes barked.
"Ooh. Isn't this an interesting wossname," Gaspode chuckled wheezily. "Never fought I'd see you hangin' about in cognito street."
"If you tell anyone, I'll -- "
"Bite me? Make my night."
"I'll find you, Gaspode, and I'll give you a bath."
Even Angua winced. Gaspode cringed.
"There's no need to be talkin' about that," he whined. "I ain't done nuffin to you. Scruffy, was it? Never seen you before in me life."
"And you'd do well to remember it," snapped Suddenly-Glad-To-Be-Scruffy. All three froze as a howl went up from outside the city wall. Angua cocked her head, listening intently.
"Hubwards gate," said Angua.
"Doesn't sound like they're happy about me," said Vimes.
"I'm not hangin' about to find out," said Gaspode.
***
The Pack, as it turned out, was not the keen and cunning assemblage of vicious wolves that Vimes had imagined. Instead, it was more like a... well, like a hobbyist's club of some kind. Wolves of every size, shape, and colour, about thirty in all, were gathered at a little pond near the Hubwards gate, howling and greeting each other and generally making a racket. Very few were as sleek and well-groomed as Butcher and Angua; some even looked as though they'd encountered a rather bigger and more vicious version of whatever had attacked Vimes' tail.
All of them fell silent when he and Angua approached.
"Allo, Dog Anny," one of the wolves said. "This him, then?"
"Butcher were tellin' us about him," said another one. He tried to sniff Vimes' -- well, Vimes didn't give him the chance. His jaws snapped a few inches from the other dog's whiskers. Angua winced.
"Ooh, high and mighty," the other one said, unperturbed. "He's new, in't he?"
"Don't be common, Furry Dave," Angua said sharply. Furry Dave had the decency to flatten his ears and wag his tail apologetically. "Scruffy hasn't been one of us very long."
And don't intend to be one much longer, thought Vimes.
"Thinks he knows his business, though," said the first wolf who'd spoken. Vimes knew, without having to ask, that this was Lenny the Stink. "You're nuffin in this Pack, you get me, Scruffy?"
Aha. It was like that. Vimes regarded him coolly.
"And what're you, Stink?" he asked. Several of the others let out little growls of amusement.
"M'head Growler. That means I keep things orderly. Like a p'liceman," Stink said proudly. Angua and Vimes exchanged a solemn look.
"So who's your boss?" Vimes asked.
"Why?"
"I don't want to waste my time on small fry."
There was something about werewolves. They made Vimes suicidally witty.
"Small fry?" Stink asked, as if he hadn't quite heard him correctly.
"Well, I don't guess if I beat you it'll make much difference, one way or another," Vimes continued. Angua glared at him, but he pushed onward. "So if you'd point me in the direction of someone who actually matters in the Pack -- "
Stink leapt.
He was an experienced fighter, and in his own way was probably pretty good at the job of head Growler. He might have made a good copper. But Vimes was a better copper, and a faster thinker. Fighting on four legs was different from fighting on two, but the idea was the same. Stuff the Marquis of bloody Fantailler.
It was over quickly. Vimes sidestepped the leap, butting his head against Stink's paws and tripping him. The other wolf flipped over, and Vimes was at his throat, teeth closing over his skin --
He fought the sudden and terrifyingly overwhelming urge to bite. No, don't kill him --
But he leapt first!
That doesn't mean --
Kill.
Kill 'em all.
"Don't do it," Angua whined softly. "Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it."
Don't do it.
He fought down the red rage that was the incarnation of the Beast, the rage that rose faster and stronger and harder than it ever had before. His jaws tightened, and Stink whined too.
It was the look in the other wolf's eyes that finally did it. He tightened his bite just that much more, enough to draw blood, and then retreated.
This time, the growl that went up from the Pack was one of admiration.
"Looks like Scruffy's doing all right for himself," said Butcher, appearing from the shadows. "Let him up, Scruff. That's enough from you too, Lenny. No, Lenny, there's no need for that, nobody's taking your job." Butcher trotted around Vimes, his focus so intense that Vimes, still reeling from the battle, instinctively laid his ears back.
"I'm not going to bite you, Scruffy," Butcher said with a doggy laugh. Vimes had the sudden sense that Butcher was, in his own way, as powerful to the Pack as the Patrician was to the city. And as ruthless. "You're a friend of Dog Anny, and that's good enough for me. But I think it best if you wait a while until you run with the Pack. I think you ought to learn not to attack our Growler first."
"I didn't -- "
"Perhaps the next full moon, Scruffy," Butcher said firmly. "Anny?"
"Best we stay, si -- Scruffy," Angua said quietly. Vimes looked rebellious, but he sat quietly with her as the others took off for a distant farmyard. Chickens squawked.
"I didn't want to chase chickens anyhow," Vimes growled. Angua nodded.
"I know," she said.
"They aren't very nice, you're right."
"No, sir." Angua paused. "I'm going to remember what you did to Lenny."
"Oh yes?"
"Whenever I'm having a bad day, it'll cheer me up."
***
William de Worde was quite proud of saying that the Press never slept. Gunilla and Boddony, who actually had to run the press, weren't quite as enthusiastic about it, but since the Times brought in more gold than any mine either of them had ever seen, they tolerated it quite well.
It was true that the lights were rarely off in the Times office. Even when the editors of the paper did sleep, there was always someone fiddling with the mechanisms, or filing a late report, or picking up the early edition.
The old cellar had been boarded up after an unfortunate incident where two tons of molten lead cooked a man alive in it, but Ankh-Morpork was rich in cellars, and another one had been discovered and opened on the far side of the warehouse. Otto had half of it for his iconography equipment, and shared the other half as sleeping-quarters with the press-dwarves on the day shift.
All of whom were now awake, and most of whom were extremely angry about it.
"All right, all right, zere's no need to get zer garlic out," Otto said, waving his hand at them as he climbed up to the ground floor and gave Igor a weary look. "Go on, back to bed vith you all, I vill handle everyzing."
Otto was a black ribboner, and he tried hard to blend in. It wasn't easy. Not only was he a vampire, with all the slavery to tradition that it entailed, but he was the sort of personality who will always find a way to draw attention to himself, even if he doesn't really want it.
His pajamas, for instance.
Most vampires were completely at home only in evening-wear. You couldn't beat a good old-fashioned tailcoat for lurking around and attacking young women in. Otto had grasped the idea of modern clothing, but his sense of tradition kept creeping back.
There was no doubt they were pajamas. They were flannel. Red flannel, with little dancing bats on the pocket. And a waistcoat, and tails on the back. And a cape.
Igor, who considered himself a modern young man of Ankh-Morpork, took a minute to savour a real taste of the old country. Otto's slippers had smiling fangs sewn on the toes.
"Vill you have tea?" Otto asked, walking to a sad little stove in the corner and putting a kettle of water on to boil.
"Pleath," Igor said. "I know it's late but I wanted to come down as soon as I -- "
"Ah, yes, it iz fine," said Otto. "Tomorrow iz my day off, I vas goink to szleep in anyhow."
"I thought I ought to athk you about this," Igor said, sliding the book across the table to Otto, who picked it up and gave it a quizzical glance. "I'm on official Watch business," Igor said proudly. "Want to thee my badge?"
Otto examined the badge, too. He was a man interested in details.
"Vot business is zis?" Otto asked, holding up the book.
"Well, we've got a werewolf in the Watch who doethn't want to be a werewolf anymore. And the book says that there's a way to fix things if he hasn't been a werewolf very long."
"but I thought -- "
"A new werewolf," Igor said meaningfully.
"Ah. And vhere do I come in?"
Igor tapped the cover. "That's you, ithn't it? Otto Keirch? Otto Chriek? When the author biography mentioned 'a vell-educated man of szience whose other passions are iconography und young vomen', I thought of you."
"Szo you vant me to help you change zis man back into a human?" Otto asked.
"That's right."
"Who iz it, please?"
"Can't tell you that yet."
"Vould this be szomeone zer Times vould be interested in?"
Igor considered matters. Mister Vimes didn't like the newspaper much. He hated vampires. Well, he hated everyone, but he didn't even let vampires join the Watch.
He was going to go spare...
***
"Tho the quethtion ith, Mister Vimes, how badly do you want to be changed back?"
Vimes noticed that when Igor was nervous, his lisp got more pronounced.
"Are you telling me," he said, "that in order to get my human life back, I've got to give the Times an interview and I have to smile for an iconograph?"
"Yeth, thur," Igor said worriedly.
"That's all?"
"Well, I'm thure there's more to it than that. But that'th what you've got to agree to. And Otto wants to write a paper on it, if it works."
Vimes drummed his fingers on his sword belt. He was having difficulty with this bargain.
You're just being ridiculous. A little loss of dignity and privacy's a small price to pay not to have to buy a flea collar.
Or do you want to stay this way forever?
Normally, that sort of question, coming from the insistent little inner voice of good sense, would have ended the decision. This time, however...
You do want to be human again, don't you?
Don't you, Samuel Vimes?
Hadn't it been sweet when he hit that man in a flying tackle, teeth bared? Hadn't it been good to roam the nighttime streets again, and wasn't the knowledge pleasing, that only silver or fire could kill you? Didn't he secretly envy Angua, all these years, the ability to track a killer by invisible scent?
They called him a terrier anyhow...
He'd barely gotten four hours' sleep. By the time he and Angua returned to the mansion, it was almost dawn. Then Sybil had woken him with the news that Igor had found a possible answer. And he'd had to wash and dress and walk with Igor down to the Times office, which was getting awfully near. Behind them, Sybil and Carrot were strolling at a more leisurely pace, giving them time to talk.
"Well, we ought to know what has to happen, first. I mean, if his idea of solving the problem is a vampire bite, thanks, but I'll just be over here looking at collars."
"It's not that bad, thur."
"We'll see. You didn't tell him it was me?"
"No, thur. I think he thinks it's Carrot, sir." Igor stepped through the doorway before Vimes could hesitate, and shouted. "OTTO!"
"Ah, Igor, in zis vay," Otto's voice wafted out from another room in the bustling, noisy Times office. The various employees of the newspaper spared barely a curious glance for them as they crossed the floor.
Otto was bent over a bench in the little closet of a room, reading intently. He looked up when Igor and the Commander squeezed in, followed by Carrot and Sibyl.
"Commander, an unexpected...pleasure," Otto said carefully. "Zis is zer Lady Sybil, iz it not? Und of course I know zer Captain."
"Morning, Mr. Chriek," Carrot said, touching his helmet. Otto closed the book, laying it aside.
"Zo," he said. "Who is zer verevolf, pleaze? Or did zey send you instead, Commander?"
"It's Sam," Sybil said abruptly. Otto lifted a delicate black eyebrow.
"Zer Commander? How unusual. It vos not vhat I vos expecting. May I ask how, Szir Szamuel?"
"No," Vimes replied tersely.
"Very vell. How ironic, iz it not? A man famed for his misanecrophy -- "
"Mis-what?"
"You haff heard of misanthropy, yes?"
Vimes' lips worked silently. "Hatred of the dead -- "
"Ah?" Otto held up a finger. "Not qvite. Anecrophy."
"Hatred of the undead."
"You haff hit zer nail on zer nose," Otto replied. "Villiam vill be very pleazed. You haff spoken vith Igor about zer...payment for zis proczedure?"
"An interview. And smiling for an icono. And you get to print something about it in some obscure thing nobody ever reads."
"More or less," Otto said composedly. "A szmall price to pay, all zings considered."
"What are the things we're considering, exactly?" Vimes asked. "What do you have to do to me?"
"It iz a very simple proszedure," said Otto. "But somevot dangerous. I shouldn't even be telling you zis, I vill have a very hard time of it at zer next Temperance meeting -- " he saw Vimes' look, and subsided. "All right. It iz understood zat zis iz for rare cases only. Bitten men such asz youszelf may be treated only for a short vhile after zey first Change. Szay...two veeks. After zat, zer change iz...permanent."
"I'll take my chances."
"In zer procedure, all zer...all zer blood iz removed, you see?"
"What?" demanded Vimes. "I'm not having some vampire take all my -- "
"Hush, Sam," Sybil said sternly. "Do continue, Mr. Chriek."
Otto gave them the first nervous look they'd seen from him, and continued. "Zer morphic field is carried in zer blood, you undersztand."
"Well, thanks anyway," said Vimes. "But I -- "
"Tch!" Otto held up a hand. "Zen ve replace zer blood vith new blood, from a villing donor. Two, I should szay. Igor, if you vould..."
"Hold out your hand please, Mister Vimes," Igor said. Vimes reluctantly obeyed.
"Ouch!"
"Just a pinprick," Otto said. Igor had stabbed his finger with a needle, and was collecting the blood on a little glass plate. Vimes made a disgusted face as he tasted it, then quickly spat.
"Ay bee," he said, making the sort of noise more generally associated with wine tasting. "Positive, I'd thay."
Otto looked pleased. "Very good. Zat means ve can get blood from anyvon."
"Ay bee?" Vimes asked suspiciously.
"Oh yes. You haff heard zat zere are different blood types?"
"What, like ice-cream flavours? Chocolate ripple, strawberry pistachio?"
"Somezing like zat," Otto said gravely. "Und you vould not feed strawberry pistachio to a man who vos allergic to nuts, vould you?"
"Good."
Vimes turned to see Sybil, her face set. "I'll give my blood," she said.
"Me too," Carrot added, drawing himself up.
"You will not," Vimes answered. "Neither one of you. Carrot, you're going to have to take over while this goes on. Sybil, I'm surprised at you, someone's got to look after Sam."
"It vill not be zat bad," Otto assured him. "Ve can take blood from zer Captain, he iz a big sztrapping fellow, und ve vill need very little from Lady Szybil. You vill make your own, you szee, so ve need only put back vot is necessary."
"Angua can run the Watch -- " Carrot murmured.
"I don't like it," Vimes said sharply.
"You do not haff to like it," Otto replied. "You do not haff to undergo it. I vill not expect an answer today. Und of course, until you do decide, Villiam and Sacharissa do not know of zis. It vill be my...vell, I szuppose zer Ankh-Morpork vord is 'coup'. I understand zer last man who tried to interview you on zomething vas back on his feet in two days' time."
Otto was not a particularly brave man, but he had lived quite a long time in quite a vicious part of the Disc, and he was able to hold Vimes' gaze for a good minute before looking away.
"I'll have an answer for you tomorrow," Vimes growled.
"I avait it vith interest," Otto said, turning back to his book.
***
Sybil was a clever woman, and her husband was, generally, not a very complicated man; he thought complicated thoughts, but his instincts were simple. It was one of the things she most admired about him.
She knew better than to push him on an answer for Otto. She simply followed him out of the Times office and waited with Carrot and Igor as he lit a cigar and puffed it thoughtfully. When he finally came back to the present reality, he found himself the careful non-target of averted glances.
"I'm sure you have duties to attend to, Carrot," he said slowly. "Back to the Yard with you two."
Carrot saluted, still not quite meeting his Commander's eyes, and led Igor back down the street. Sybil waited a while longer.
"It's a small price to pay, Sam," she said softly. He glanced at her.
"Eh. Yes. Let's get a bite to eat," he said, absently.
"Sam?"
"Yes, dear?"
"We had breakfast an hour ago."
"Then let's have a walk."
Sybil shook her head and gave up. Sam on a case was excellent practice for parenting a five-year-old. He didn't really listen, he didn't really pay attention, and he didn't really care. She walked alongside him and talked to him about the dragons and some inconsequential household issues, while he smoked and thought and tossed his sword*.
* Which did keep people out of their way. A man who was that handy with a sharp weapon rarely had to step aside for anyone.
Yes, it was dangerous, but that was a minor consideration; living was dangerous, being a copper was dangerous, being Sam Vimes was apparently an inherent danger. Dangerous procedures did not hold much terror for him.
And yes, Vimes' pride rebelled at the thought of tamely going along with Otto's interview and iconograph (he'd never smiled for an icono in his life), but Sybil was right; it was a small price to pay to be human again, and pride healed.
Did he want to be human again?
Of course. Of course he did. Why wouldn't he? It wasn't any kind of a life, being afraid of the moon.
On the other hand, he felt stronger than he had in years. Even now he could track people passing by their smell. To be able to slip into another body and wander the streets at night...to be the beast...
He snapped out of his musings when he realized that there was a Palace guard standing in front of them, politely blocking the sidewalk.
"The Patrician would like to see you," the guard said, and then, because Vimes was a bit more powerful than he used to be, "sir."
"Did I have a meeting...?" Vimes asked, turning automatically to Sybil, who shrugged. "Right, I'd best go."
"We'll have an early dinner this evening. Don't brood on it, Sam," Sybil said, patting him on the shoulder.
***
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
***
Down in the streets, the overall smell of "city" kept him from being distracted; besides, after a few hours human, you stopped noticing scents quite so sharply. Still, in the dry air of the Patrician's anteroom, five floors above the street, Vimes could read the history of the Oblong Office's morning. An Assassin had been here, probably Downey (peppermint humbugs, steel, and silk); Vetinari was writing -- there was the sharp scent of ink, and a warmer, thicker smell, sealing wax.
"He'll see you now," said a clerk, emerging from the office. Vimes rose and passed into the Patrician's chambers.
"Good morning, sir," he said. Vetinari looked up from his desk.
"Is it?" he asked, laying his quill down.
"Sir?"
"I understand you've been to the Times office this morning."
"Following a case."
"Chriek explain the procedure to you, did he?"
Vimes gaped. He shouldn't have been surprised, of course Vetinari would find out; he was just surprised he'd found out this quickly.
"Come now, Vimes. The howl reports a new werewolf in the city, and the Times reports that he likes to harass criminals. Take these into account with your early nights of late, your so-called illness yesterday, during a full moon, and a visit to Otto Chriek, whom I know personally to be a man of very, shall we say, broad interests regarding the supernatural...it was not difficult. I do occasionally partake of a little simple deductive addition."
Vetinari steepled his fingers, and looked at Vimes over their tips. Vimes thought privately that Vetinari's simple addition was complex trigonometry to anyone else. With some of the numbers missing.
"Not that it doesn't have its advantages, I suppose. Hard on a marriage, though. And of course there are those factions in the city which have a very... anti-undead sentiment, as I'm sure you are aware."
Vimes felt that Vetinari was quite subtly taking the piss, and suspected that the Patrician was having far too much fun doing it.
"Werewolves, certainly, are more...acceptable than vampires, but I believe that there are those who do not differentiate. And, of course, silver is quite cheap at the moment. With the new mines opening in Uberwald, et cetera."
Vimes growled. Vetinari's eyebrows lifted fractionally, in warning.
"Is that a threat?" Vimes asked.
"Sir Samuel, what possible gain would that give me? If I wanted you dead, I should have you killed. I would not do you the discourtesy of empty threats. It's very difficult to threaten a man over something he cannot control, at any rate. Therefore, what options remain?"
Vimes returned his stare, more calmly than he felt. "Coercion into taking Otto's offer, for one. Blackmail, for another."
"Such common, ugly words," the Patrician sighed. "Do I take the first option to mean you are considering...embracing the inner wolf, as it were?"
"That's no business of yours."
"You are a city employee, Vimes. That makes it my business," Vetinari said sharply.
"But not your decision," Vimes answered, just as sharply. Vetinari sat back, and smiled.
"Very true, your Grace," he said. "Did Mr. Chriek tell you about the side effect of the procedure? Short-term, but quite interesting. Humans also carry a certain morphic resonance in their blood. Carrot's...born-in charisma, for example."
Vimes blinked.
"D'you mean," he said slowly, "that if I took a transfusion from Carrot, I'd stop knowing where commas go and instead know everyone's name?"
"I don't pretend to understand all the intricacies of it, but -- "
"I'd be a were-Carrot?"
"For a few days, until your own field re-asserted itself. I can see why Otto was afraid to tell you."
"But that's -- "
"Sir Samuel, I do not have time to counsel you on the appropriate course of action," Vetinari continued. "However, if you should decide to undertake this procedure, I should be happy to lend a hand. I understand two donors are required."
As usual, in any conversation with the Patrician that touched on matters outside of city governance, Vimes began to feel shock creep over him. "You...want to give blood?"
"You've bled often enough for the city, Vimes. Let it bleed for you a little." Vetinari glanced down at his desk. "Oh yes, and I've received a letter of complaint from the Guild of Plumbers, they say that the River Patrol boat is blocking several Guild sewage pipes. Sort it out, would you?"
Vimes, now thoroughly wrecked by the morning's events, fell back on his training and saluted.
"That is all, Commander, thank you."
He didn't remember leaving the office or lighting the cigar stub or walking down to Sator Square, or even buying the sausage off Dibbler. He did come to his senses in time not to eat it, and some very unfortunate pigeons, who had never done anything to deserve it, got the sausage instead.
Vetinari and Carrot, he thought giddily. I'll be a cold, calculating bastard who can't spell and thinks he's a dwarf.
And then it dawned on him.
And then he smiled.
He was getting faster, anyhow. It'd only taken him five or ten minutes to figure out Vetinari's angle in telling him, this time round.
***
Angua was waiting for him when he got back to the Watch house; sitting on the steps leading up to his office, hands clasped between her knees, she looked almost like a child waiting for a parent's return.
"I couldn't go," she said, by way of greeting. "I couldn't sit there and listen to everyone talk about it. I'm sorry."
"For what? Sybil and Carrot came, and Igor."
"When are you going to do it? It has to be soon, doesn't it?"
He walked past her, gesturing for her to follow him up to his office. "I don't know that I'm going to have it done at all."
He could smell the confusion on her. "But you're not going to...are you?"
"I don't know yet." He held the door for her, and closed it behind them. Angua stood on the carpet in his poky little office, indecisive.
"You don't know what to tell me to do, do you?" he asked, circling her. "If you say I should take the treatment, that means it's a terrible thing to be a werewolf, and we both know that's not true. But if you say you think I shouldn't..."
"It's not really a good life, for the city," Angua said miserably. "It's hard on people. Especially if you're not born to it."
There was a long pause.
"It doesn't matter, really," Vimes said reflectively, moving away from her.
"Doesn't matter?" Angua asked. "It doesn't matter to you? Being a werewolf?"
"No. The advice you have to give, Sergeant, it doesn't matter right now. There's nothing you can tell me that would help me in the slightest. So you don't have to tell me anything." He slouched into his seat, and smiled at her. "Feels better, doesn't it?"
She just stared at him.
"You're not responsible for this. You don't have to be the one to fix it."
"It was my family -- "
"Angua," he said slowly. "You. Are not responsible. For this."
She looked like nothing so much as a dog that's been scolded.
"We're going out tonight," he said. "It's the last night for the full moon, right?"
"Yes, sir..."
"I'll meet you outside the Hubwards gate, then, at Archer's Folly. After sundown. That's all, Sergeant."
She turned and went, her face closed, her body stiff and almost awkward with confusion. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so harsh, but Angua was a grown woman, and she could survive a few sharp words.
He felt for his cigars, selected, bit, spat, lit, inhaled. And began to sort through the paperwork on his desk with a considerably lighter heart.
The decision had been made. In the split second where Angua's own indecision had been so painfully plain, he knew. And that made everything easier.
***
He went home early and dressed for the occasion. He put on his second-best Watch armour, with fewer dents but without the gold decoration, and tucked his silver cigar case into his pocket with a handkerchief. He oiled his belt, and made sure his sword hung handily on it. He tucked the truncheon of office into the special pocket Sybil had sewn into his britches.
There was dinner, good solid Watchmen's food, meat and starch. He talked to Sybil, who still had a watchful, questioning look in her eyes that he tried to ignore. He sat with his son and read "Green Eggs and Fried Slice" by Dr. Sluice, who had obviously encountered Sham Harga's cooking at some point in his literary career. He kissed them both, and left them in the nursery.
He kept a pair of cheap boots, these days, in a front hall closet, hidden from the servants and Sybil under an old mackintosh. He pulled them on and felt the stones of the ancestral corridor through his feet.
Flat flagstone, evenly laid, with good solid mortaring inbetween. Yep, that was his front hallway, all right. Helmet, yes; sword, badge, boots, armour. Yes. Cigar case and truncheon. Yes.
Sometimes a man is defined by the things he carries with him.
He smiled to himself, at ease for the first time in days, and walked out into the city, which was turning red in the setting sun.
***
Angua, who had Changed before leaving her flat, smelled the cigar smoke long before she reached the Hubwards gate.
Archer's Folly was a strange construction, a few minutes' walk outside the gate, invisible from the road leading in. A massive stone arch protruding from the wall gave some shelter, but its purpose was a mystery, like so many little architectural oddities are in old cities.
The Commander was seated on a low bench inside the Folly, out of the moonlight, smoking contemplatively. He looked like he used to, back before the Watch really started to grow, back before he was a Duke and a politician. She'd seen him like that often enough -- late at night, hunched in some warm, dry place in the cold, wet city, making no trouble on the empty early-morning streets. Back when there were only twenty or thirty of them, life seemed much simpler. Back when she didn't have to think about her family in Uberwald, or the trouble they could cause.
Trouble, like Scruffy.
She sat, a little distance away, and watched him. Mister Vimes was often in a world all his own, inside his head, thinking things the rest of the Watch could only guess at*. If it wasn't for the fact that he was a cynical, hard-edged bastard, he might even be considered a bit of a dreamer. Not more than once, however, and not without incurring terminal injuries.
* Carrot called it "Thinking Elsewhere"; the rest of the Watch called it "Look out, don't bother him."
He was off in his head now, obviously; wasn't even smoking the cigar, just clenching it between his teeth and letting it burn. But even without thinking about it, she saw thirty years' coppering at work. He might not have noticed her, but his face was already turned to where she sat.
She wondered, for the first time, if maybe -- when he was thinking elsewhere -- he was actually talking to the Beast.
Movement; he raised a hand in greeting, and stubbed out the cigar. He'd seen her. Or smelled her.
She trotted forward, nodding her head in greeting; wolf language was mostly in the body, no matter what anyone said. He slid off the bench, crouched, and put a hand out, tapping the collar around her neck, the one that carried her Watch badge.
"Does this make you any less a wolf?" he asked, absently. She cocked her head. "Angua, I'm not going to have Otto bleed me white. I think there are better ways."
He straightened, and unbuckled his cape and breastplate, setting them on the bench. His chainmail and sword-belt followed.
"No, it's all right," he said, when she turned her head away so that he could continue. "Do you want to see a magic trick, Angua?"
She blinked, wondering if her sudden confusion was because her Commander was acting like a loon, or because he was speaking Human and she was hearing Wolf.
"A man's got to know who he really is."
She watched, horrified, as he reached into his pockets. One hand came out holding the truncheon, palm pressed to the little silver plate. The other was wrapped tightly around his cigar case. His skin was already turning red. To her werewolf eyes, the two objects glowed with a terrible black evil.
And then he stepped into the moonlight.
And Angua fought down a wave of terror.
***
He felt the moonlight, felt it reaching down and flipping every last little switch in a werewolf's body. The silver burned his hands, the moonlight wanted to Change him.
A man's got to know who he really is. So if the Beast is stronger, best to know it now, Vimes thought, as the skin on his hands began to whiten, to move through the worst of the pain into the burning, throbbing ache of badly scorched skin. He didn't think it was. But didn't he live in the daily fear of losing control of the chain that held it? Even after everything? It wasn't tame. It was still there, red-eyed and growling. Best to give in here and now if it was stronger, and if it wasn't, he might even get his humanity back.
And his thoughts in Vetinari's own voice: So the choice is yours, isn't it? Humans have their own morphic fields. Angua was born to this, she hasn't got a choice, and that's all right. But you can choose, if you're strong enough.
Well?
One of his hands wanted to be a paw. The cigar case began to slide out of his palm. His ears felt as though they were moving. His eyes, changing, seeing the world differently -- caught between colour and dim shadows.
But the silver still burned, and the pain was like a sharp slap to a drunk man.
So what are you? Human or werewolf?
What do you really want?
Angua was whining, circling him, urging him to let go of the silver, don't let it kill you, you stupid git --
His teeth were sharpening, but he could still smile. Yes, no matter what shape you're in, you're a stupid git, there's no doubting that.
His legs didn't want to work quite right. He felt his knees hit the ground, felt the sharpening of his teeth and --
And --
Sybil. Sybil and Sam. Sybil and Sam. Carrot, Angua, Detritus, Colon, Nobby, even Vetinari. That was the world he belonged to, the world of civilisation, even the civilisation that he hated for being flawed and dangerous. Sybil and Sam. Not in the world of the Pack. He didn't belong to the Pack, and they knew it.
And he knew it. However much you want the Beast, you don't belong there. Any more than you belong to the past.
Sybil and Sam.
Angua was outright howling now, somewhere in the background, but all he could do was look down, at his hands. The cigar case had fallen first, and then the truncheon, and there were white-hot marks on his palms. One of them was a perfect reverse image of the little shield on the truncheon. The other one was square, lined where the grooves in the top of the case were.
But they were human hands.
He looked up, into the dark starry sky that A'Tuin was constantly moving through, up at the little moon that circled the Disc nightly.
Colours.
Angua's nose dug its way under his left arm, and she shook the fabric gently with her teeth.
Human arm.
His knees hurt.
Human knees.
He smiled again.
Stronger than the Beast. Stronger than a bite. A red stain welled up through his shirt, blood from the scar.
Human blood.
And then Sam Vimes fell over, passing out in a very human fashion.
***
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
***
Angua, gripping her Commander's collar in her teeth, managed to drag him far enough into the stone gloom of Archer's Folly to Change herself, though it took a powerful force of will. His hands were blistered and bleeding, now, and his eyes rolled back in his head. She fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, cursing him for a damn fool, and tore off the arms of it, wrapping the tattered remains around herself because a naked woman and an unconscious man, outside the city walls, was not an ideal situation to be in.
The Pack was howling. They'd heard her panicked calls for help. Now she wished she hadn't made them.
She bit the fabric, ripping it into strips, tying them quickly around his bleeding hands and wrapping one as best she could around the scar that was trickling blood still.
What had the bloody fool done? By rights he should have Changed as soon as he stepped into the moonlight. You did NOT fight the Change. Not if you wanted to keep your sanity. You didn't stand in the moonlight holding two pieces of silver while it burned your hands, and while your morphic field...
Well, what had it done?
It had blurred. As though a god had reached down and smeared a thumb across the crisp outlines of the Commander's body. And it had...it had split.
He hadn't Changed. It had been terrible, like seeing Wolfgang after his fall down the river, patchy and unsure of just what he wanted to be. But he hadn't Changed. Anger and fear warred for dominance in her mind.
That bastard, he'd fought the Lore again.
There was a growl outside the archway. She looked up. None of the Pack had seen her as a human, though most of them knew who she was.
Butcher wasn't there. Neither was Bloody Haleh. Well, we know what those two are doing, don't we, she thought bitterly. The two who might actually keep this rabid lot from shredding us. Most of the decent ones are staying home tonight, aren't they? The ones who will actually stop and think before ripping a human's throat out.
Instead, there's Furry Dave, who's not very bright, and Barking Mad Barker, who hates all humans, and Lenny the Stink, the one Scruffy embarrassed in front of the whole Pack. Scruffy, who couldn't fight back even if he could Change, which at this point is highly unlikely...
"What's this now?" Lenny barked, his tongue lolling out, amused in a predatory sort of way. "I think we've interrupted something, don't you, Barker?"
"Lover's tryst?" Barker answered. "I think a cold bucket of water'd do them a world of good."
"You don't want to fight me, Lenny," Angua said. She slid her legs up under her, ready to leap if she had to. Stay human as long as you can, there's a dozen of them and one of you, and you have to be able to think clearly...even as her own Beast, the one she'd been born with, growled and snarled.
There's two, remember that, there's the Pack and there's the Watch, and you belong to both of them...
"Sure I don't," Lenny answered. "I want to fight him."
"Pick on a defenceless human. Butcher'll kill you if you do," she threatened.
"I'm not afraid of Butcher."
"You should be."
"I've got a score to settle with Scruffy, and that smells like Scruffy. Watch Commander, huh? Who'd have thought? Love bite, Dog Anny?"
Vimes moaned, softly, and one of his hands twitched.
"The wolf who bit him," Angua said slowly, "Got his head bashed in against a rock. He played the Game and he bloody beat them all, Stink, as a human. So if you want a go at the Commander of the City Watch, you'd better be sure you can kill him, because otherwise he'll kill you."
"Him? He's a dog, like you. Look at that!" Lenny said, to the others, who were forming a casual, almost invisible semi-circle around the Folly. "She's got a collar! There's a reason we call her Dog Anny!"
One of the others snarled too. Angua let anger overtake fear, because they could smell fear, but they could also smell homicidal rage.
Lenny leapt, not for the Commander, but for her. She brought her arms up and around in an arc that connected solidly with the side of his head, sending him sideways into the stone. He landed on all fours and shook his head, stumbling out into the moonlight again. Others were already moving forward.
"Mine," Lenny growled. "They're mine."
He leapt again, this time low, going for Vimes' throat. Angua tried to move, but she couldn't get in front of him fast enough --
There was a whizzing noise and a sharp thock! and Lenny jerked sideways, a crossbow quarrel in his ribcage. Three more landed near the others. Someone was firing down from the top of the city wall.
Oh, gods, Carrot, thank you --
"Cease and desist, or it's assault on an officer of the Watch!" Carrot's voice drifted down. "I mean that! It'll go very hard for -- "
Lenny snarled and made one last attempt. Whiz, thock! A second bolt connected soundly, sending him backwards. The rest of the attackers were scattering.
Bloody Haleh and Butcher came bolting through the grass from the direction of the Hubwards gate, teeth bared. For a moment Angua thought they were coming to kill her and the Commander, that they were going to stand with the Pack against the Watch, but then Butcher closed his jaws around Lenny's neck, and Haleh darted in front of Vimes, hackles raised.
Butcher shook Lenny like a rag, throwing him to the ground and gripping the bolts with his teeth, pulling them until they came out. Lenny shrieked in pain. Haleh circled Angua and Vimes, worriedly.
"We heard the howl and thought we'd best get help," she whined. "Butcher didn't want humans interfering, but four against fifteen isn't a fair fight, even if it's us."
"You went to a human for us?" Angua asked softly.
"We are the Pack. We protect our own." Haleh sniffed the Commander's unconscious form, warily. "Even if he isn't anymore."
Beyond them, Butcher was ripping Lenny apart. Angua tried not to watch. That wasn't human justice or wolf justice. It was werewolf justice. It was terrible, but it was right, for them.
"It's the way of things, Dog Anny. Humans oughtn't to become werewolves," Haleh said sadly, nudging Vimes' ear with her nose. "We are vicious beings. It's our nature. We can't choose one morality or another. But we can try to control it."
Lenny had stopped screaming. He just lay there, a bloody mess, barely breathing. Butcher sat on his haunches and howled, a great blood-drenched howl of triumph and warning. They could hear human feet pounding towards them.
"Your Scruffy could have taught Lenny a thing or two about self-control," Haleh continued, as if her mate hadn't just thrashed a fellow creature to death's door. "Shame."
"What's a shame?" Angua asked, in a hushed whisper.
"Shame he's human again."
"Is he?"
"It's his rightful place, Dog Anny. Somehow he made it back." Haleh trotted over to the silver cigar case and the rosewood truncheon, which were still lying outside the Folly. She inspected them warily.
"We'll take care of Lenny," she said, as Butcher picked up the limp werewolf in his enormous jaws. "Let humans take care of humans."
By the time Carrot arrived, leading a small army of constables, Haleh and Butcher had vanished. Angua, who would rather be a wolf than a half-naked woman, shrugged out of the shreds of Vimes' shirt and Changed just before Carrot rounded the corner. She pushed her nose against Vimes' shoulder, and looked up at the Captain, meaningfully.
The other officers crowded around, until Carrot pushed them away; he checked the Commander's pulse, lifted him easily, and carried him out into the moonlight, expectantly.
Nothing happened. Not even a twitch, not even a sigh.
"Get his things," he ordered, and the others hurried to pick up the truncheon and case, armour and the torn shirt. Angua rubbed up against Carrot's leg, close to tears with relief.
"Are you all right?" Carrot asked softly, while the others were busy. Angua bobbed her head.
"CAPTAIN!" one of the officers called. "There's blood on the ground!"
"Just get his things, please," Carrot replied calmly. "I imagine..." he paused. "I imagine the Commander was pursuing a thief and was taken by surprise*. It's been a lean winter, the wolves around here are probably still looking for anything they can get. You, Blenton, run up to Scoone Avenue and tell Lady Sybil the Commander's been hurt and we're taking him to the Watch House. Someone find me a cart to put him in, we'll have Igor take a look at him. Crossbows out, everyone, those wolves could still be around."
* Which considering Vimes' pride was almost as bad as being a known werewolf, but not quite.
Angua, watching the Commander's head loll over the edge of Carrot's arm, felt a shiver of fear returning.
***
Igor, fussing and making various professional noises of concern, dealt with the scar first, which didn't want to stop bleeding; when he finally did stitch it up and apply some sort of thick, clear salve to it, Vimes moaned again, and his eyes opened.
"It's burning," he said, hoarsely.
"Yes, sir," Igor replied unflappably. "Lie still, pleath."
He watched, worriedly, as Vimes drifted back out of consciousness and his tense muscles relaxed. He turned over the right palm and unwrapped the makeshift bandage from it. Angua paced back and forth under the table, whining, while Carrot went upstairs to deal with the milling policemen who weren't quite sure what to do.
He arrived in the front office at the same time as Sybil, who turned pale at the sight of her husband's armour lying empty on the table. Her hands trembled as she reached for it.
"Where's Sam?" she asked.
"Igor's seeing to him. He'll be fine," Carrot said, with all the confidence of the desperately hopeful.
"What happened?"
Carrot looked around at the others, who were watching him carefully. If Mister Vimes was out of things, that meant Captain Carrot was in charge.
"Bandits," he said finally.
***
The basement cells were by and large a damp, chilly place, bad for recovering from injuries. Igor, in his first days at the Yard, had taken a sledgehammer and some mortar and built a chimney up from the furthest room. He'd lined the room with some old tapestries from the attic, and it says a lot for an Igor's interest in anatomy that he didn't see anything inappropriate about frolicking nymphs decorating the walls of a sickroom. They were certainly educational, though not perhaps in the way he intended.
At any rate, it was a warm, dry place with a crackling fire, and it was good for invalids who couldn't be moved very far. Sam Vimes lay on the bed closest to the fire, well-bandaged, while Sybil slept fitfully on another bed nearby.
Angua, who'd been coaxed back up to the second floor barracks by Carrot for at least a few hours' sleep, found herself wandering aimlessly down to the sickroom as soon as she was dressed the following morning. She wanted to see things for herself, wanted to ask Vimes some questions.
He hadn't woken again. Igor, who'd kept vigil, allowed her to relieve him and went off for some shut-eye. She sat down in one of the hard wooden chairs, watching the fire intently.
She must have let her thoughts drift, she must have been tired, or she would have smelled Haleh long before the woman entered the room. And it was a woman; Angua had never seen most of the Pack in their human shapes. She was followed by a man who could only be Butcher.
"We wanted to pay our respects," Haleh said softly. "This is Scruffy, then."
Angua nodded and crossed her arms protectively against her chest. Werewolves, for all they were pack animals, did not like other werewolves in their own private territory.
Haleh and Butcher were a strange pair, as humans. Butcher she'd known in Uberwald, but Haleh wasn't from a mountain clan, at least, that she knew of -- probably she came from the four or five wide-scattered plains families. She was tall and lean, dark-haired, with a predatory look and the smell of the slaughterhouse district still on her. She seemed uncomfortable in her clothing. Butcher was not that much taller than her, with sandy hair and an ugly but friendly face that belied keen, intelligent eyes.
Angua noticed that they were examining her, too.
"You're uncommonly pretty," Butcher said bluntly. "If I'd known he was head of the Watch, I'd not have called him Scruffy. He's got a hell of a thousand-yard stare to him. I should have guessed."
Haleh touched one of the Commander's bandaged hands.
"Lenny has been...removed," she said quietly. "He is no longer a member of the Pack."
"Is he still alive?" Angua asked.
"If he survives the plains," Butcher answered. "I left him near the coaching road. If he's not hunted down, he should live on. More's the pity, but I believe that's a just sentence. Yes?"
"Mister Vimes wouldn't want him killed. He was just doing what werewolves do," Angua murmured.
"He was doing what beasts do," Haleh replied. "We can choose not to be beasts. This one did."
"How did he do it?" Butcher asked.
"I don't know. He just fought the Change. He was holding silver."
"Good for him," said Haleh. "Every day we walk the fine line, Dog Anny. We can choose to be vicious beasts, or we can choose to accept the rule of law. We had hoped that giving Lenny the power of the law would make him respect it. Obviously, we were wrong. We would like to offer you his position in the Pack."
Angua stared at her.
"I know you don't run with us very often, but if you did...the next time someone tries to attack a human, perhaps someone will speak out before it comes to blood," Haleh continued.
"Growler?" Angua asked.
"If you'd like it," Butcher said.
"Can I think about it?"
There was a grunt, and a new voice spoke. "She's already a copper. What more do you want?"
The Commander had rolled onto his side, and was staring at them with clear eyes, though his face was a mask of pain. "I think I should have let Otto bleed me," he said, with a weak smile. Angua matched it.
"You're a stupid git for fighting the Change," she said.
"I know."
"It was bloody dangerous, what you did."
"It had to be done."
"Lenny tried to kill you."
"Did he succeed?" Vimes asked, with a grimace. Haleh laughed gently.
"Congratulations, Scruffy. You fought the Lore with sheer force of personality. No wonder your people are so loyal. You must be a remarkable man."
"Pull the other one," Vimes mumbled, his eyelids drooping.
"We'll go, then, Dog Anny," Butcher said. "You think about what we said."
They had made it all the way to the stairs before Angua came to the doorway, torn indecisively between following them and staying with the Commander.
"Butcher, Haleh, wait," she called. They paused, and she glanced hesitantly at Vimes, who flicked the few un-bandaged fingers he had, and then winced. She left the doorway.
"I'll be Growler," she said. Butcher's ugly face broke into a broad smile.
"See you at the next full moon, then," he said. "And...wear your badge. On your collar. It suits you."
Haleh gave her a last, brilliant smile before the pair climbed the stairs. From behind, she could hear her Commander calling for her assistance, and Lady Sybil's sleepy voice.
Two packs. The wolves and the Watch.
That was all right. No matter where you go, you're a copper.
END
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I loved Haleh and Butcher, too.
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XOXOXOXO
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You write a mean Discworld, Sam. This, as all of it is, was a pleasure to read. You capture Vimes so well.
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