Alphonse Thibodeaux walked to the bar and poured himself a snifter of brandy. “Got to keep my mouth wet, else I might not talk so clear.”
“Or else you’ll be too drunk to speak clearly,” grumbled Lancelot.
Thibodeaux ignored him. “Ms. Lane, here be how it happen. It was early one morning when I was forty-two years old, ‘bout nine or eight year after the War Between the States, me near wore out before my time for workin’ so hard and eatin’ so poor, I found a girl beside a bayou near my home. I lived in an old plantation house south of the city then, and it was magnifique. That be to say ‘magnificent’ in American.”
Lois nodded. “I know a few French words, sir.”
“Maybe so, but us Cajuns don’t always talk like the French you Yankee folk learn about in school. Never you mind ‘bout that. That house was old but solid, even if the land around it mostly swamp. Not there no more, got bought out by developers. I was sad when they tear it down for a parking lot. Anyhow, I find this young woman, her clothes all wet and torn, and she bleeding from a jagged cut on her shoulder.”
He sipped his drink. “This some good brandy, Arthur. Anyway, I took that young woman into my house and put her in a bed upstairs. She be delirious, talking ‘bout how some dog or wolf gonna find her and kill her. Me and the maid took turns sittin’ with her, tendin’ her shoulder and givin’ her a little food and cool water, maybe a little wine sometimes. She don’t die, and her shoulder seem to heal, and she don’t get worse. But she don’t get better, either, for almost a month, like she been hurt inside her head.”
He turned and slowly walked across the room to stand beside the older woman. “One night, just before the moon turn full, the maid she come running outta that room like the Devil hisself been chasin’ her. She scream somethin’ ‘bout a big wolf at the window, never mind they been in a room on the second floor what got no balcony or outside steps. And she just about pass out when she grab me at the bottom of the stairs.
“I take hold of a double-barrel shotgun, ‘cause no matter what goin’ on up there I gonna protect my home and all who be in it. I run up the stairs and bust through that door and I see this girl kneeling on the covers and laughing, not one stitch of clothes on her, her arms around the neck of the biggest wolf I ever heard of, and Cajuns can lie ‘bout such things like nobody else.”
He swirled his brandy and looked down into the glass. “I lift my shotgun and pull the trigger and that big wolf spun quick as a house cat and hit the floor, but I done shot him and made him bleed. Made him bleed bad. But before I can shoot the other barrel into him, that girl come flyin’ at me and bite me on the hand.”
Alphonse held up his scarred left hand for Lois and Superman to see, then lowered it. “I hit that girl in the head with the barrel ‘cause she don’t let go of me no matter what I say. She hit the floor at my feet with her head busted in, dead. While I was fightin’ her off, that big wolf, he lunge at me and bite me just above the knee and I shoot him in the head with the other shell. I break that shotgun and put in two fresh shells, but the wolf, he already dead too.” He shook his head. “I still be real sorry ‘bout that girl. She didn’t need to die like that. Maybe I coulda helped her, if only I knowed about what she was startin’ to be.”
Lois cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Thibodeaux, but I don’t understand what you mean. What was she – starting to be?”
He lifted his eyes to her and said, “A werewolf, Ms. Lane. One of the Turned.”
Arthur crossed his arms and softly said, “Please, Alphonse. Just tell the story without excess drama.”
“But I don’t get the chance to tell it to somebody what ain’t heard it already too often, Arthur. Let me tell it my way.”
Arthur gave him an irritatingly superior smile and spread his hands in a ‘go ahead’ gesture. Thibodeaux nodded back and continued. “As I was sayin’, Madame Lane, Monsieur Superman, this girl and this wolf both be dead in my upstairs guest room, and me sittin’ on the floor leanin’ against the wall with my hand half-crushed and bleedin’ bad and a bad wolf bite on my leg. My maid – her name was Mimsy – she finally come upstairs to see if anybody left alive. She found me and bandaged my hand and my leg, and with her husband Jeremiah they took that dead girl and dead wolf out back and burned the bodies in a deep pit, then fill up the pit with dirt. I took to my bed, sick with fever.
“Two weeks later, that young man with the pretty blond hair what call himself Arthur now come to my front door. That day, he call himself Doctor Montrose. Mimsy let him in and brought him up to me, and when she left he tell me I got bit by a werewolf and now I gonna be one too.”
He paused both for dramatic effect and to gauge his audience. The rest of the company knew his story generally, but only Arthur had known the details. He hoped someone besides their guests would ask the obvious question.
Gwendolyn did not disappoint him. “Did you believe him, Alphonse?”
“Not at first, no, I don’t believe. But he show me how he change from man to wolf and back again, right there in my bedroom. I thought I be crazy with fever from the bite on my hand, but he convince me that my hand gonna be okay. And it was – sort of.” He lifted it again and flexed it as if testing it. “I can use that hand better now than I could before I find that poor unfortunate girl, but I still got that scar where she sink her teeth in. I think maybe it was ‘cause she not all the way turned yet, and ‘cause I got turned at the same time.”
Alphonse downed the remainder of his drink. “And that be the tale of how I come to be what I am now.” Then he looked straight at Lancelot. “I never hear about you, young Lancelot, how you be turned. You not a Natural, eh? So when you be turned?”
Lancelot furrowed his eyebrows and leaned in Alphonse’s direction, but Arthur stepped forward and smiled. “And Monsieur Thibodeaux has been a faithful member of our little family ever since then. We have hunted together, defended the group together, and kept our true natures hidden from human society since then.”
Lois looked from one man to the other, a puzzled expression on her face. “I don’t understand. If you’re trying to stay hidden, why did this woman on the bayou get killed? Who killed her? And who’s the Patriarch?”
Arthur opened his mouth, but Alphonse said, “Let me tell this part also, please.” The blond man nodded and took a step back. “They some werewolves what get born from other werewolves. They call themselves the Pure-Born or the Pureblood, or sometimes the Naturals, and they hate us, call us pretenders and fakes and craven and worse. But mostly they call us Turned Ones ‘cause we start out life as human. The Pure-Born ain’t never been human, got no idea what it’s like to be human, and mostly they think themselves better than human. Think humans be their natural prey.”
Lois’ eyes had gotten larger as he spoke. “You mean,” she almost stammered, “that there are werewolves in New Orleans who feed on humans?”
“Not all the time, Ms. Lane,” answered Guinevere. “This particular pack travels like a band of gypsies, hunting in Canada or the Pacific Northwest or the huge cities on the East Coast. Sometimes they visit Mexico or Central America. I do not doubt that at least some of the Bigfoot sightings in Oregon or stories of Chupacabra in Mexico are actually sightings of the Pureblood, laughing up their fur-filled sleeves at the fools they hunt and devour. This group has not been seen in south Louisiana for almost three decades.”
Alphonse took up the tale again. “Their leader name himself the Patriarch. He be a cruel one with no compassion for anyone or anything. I fought him once, and if Arthur and Lancelot don’t be there to help me, he kill me.”
Superman spoke up for the first time. “So let me get this straight. Natural-born werewolves can have baby werewolves, or any of you can bite a human and turn him or her into a werewolf, right?”
“Not quite,” said Arthur. “Only the Pureblood can Turn someone. Our bites and scratches only cause normal wounds, although we don’t carry the bacteria a normal wolf does. Any wounds we inflict usually heal cleanly.” He looked Superman in the eye and added, “And we do not kill humans without the most compelling reasons.”
“What about feeding?”
“We do not feed on humans, Superman. We hunt for fresh meat when we can get it, but our prey is deer and rabbit and such. It is only the Patriarch’s pack and a few others like them who engage in such abominations.” He sighed. “You know, Alphonse, you have all but convinced me that this old woman’s murder might indeed be the work of the Patriarch. I can adduce no other logical explanation.”
“Told you.”
“Never mind that!” blurted Lois. “What about that young man the police found with his head almost twisted off?”
The blonde woman spoke for the first time. “I assume you have seen most of the werewolf movies of the last century, Ms. Lane? Almost all the information in them is false. We do not become slavering, ravenous beasts when we change, and we are not compelled to change at the full moon except for the first full moon after being bitten. After the first time, the change is voluntary, although the compulsion to succumb grows stronger the longer we resist it. We can live for three to five hundred years after being turned, assuming we experience a natural death.” She smiled without humor. “Such an event is vanishingly rare.”
Jane cut in. “I’ve heard rumors that the Patriarch can change into that half-wolf half-human beast form.”
”Rumors only with no proof, Jane, and you know this. It is a legend at best, a story to frighten young pups at worst. But please allow me to continue.” The older woman stopped and walked to the bar, then poured a drink and tossed it back as if it were cool water. “If we die in our full canine forms, Ms. Lane, we do not revert to human. Both the Pureblood and the Turned heal from non-fatal injuries quite quickly and completely. Alphonse is the only one of us who bears a scar on his body from an injury. Though we are stronger and faster than a normal human, as I said, we do not transform into huge, vicious, absurdly muscular bipedal beasts with little to no self-control.” She put the glass down, then crossed her arms over her chest and looked away, then back at Lois. “If the Patriarch is indeed here, however, that murder was his work. As Lancelot has said, it fits his method of execution.”
Alphonse saw Madame Lane’s eyes change slightly. He followed her line of sight and noticed that Jane had turned her head and looked down. He wondered what Jane knew that would make what Teresa had just said untrue.
The out-of-state reporter refocused her attention on the bitter blonde. “But who was he? The male victim, I mean.”
The other blonde woman answered. “Probably one of the humans who learned about the Patriarch’s pack and, instead of running away, decided that he wanted to be a part of the group. Some criminal gangs have begun as human slaves to werewolf packs and then broken away. By that time, the gangs are too well known to be dealt with permanently, and the pack will slay one or two gang members to prove their dominance, then move on to redder pastures.”
“And you are?” Lois demanded.
The woman straightened and nodded regally. “My apologies for not presenting myself. My name is Teresa Wilding. I am not from Louisiana, and I’m sure you haven’t any humorous comments concerning my last name which I have not already heard too many times.”
“Yeah, probably not,” breathed Lois. “Uh, wait. Do you guys have human groupies too?”
Arthur shook his head. “No. I have no personal knowledge of any group of Turned Ones who keep human – ah, ‘groupies,’ as you term them. We prefer to remain invisible if at all possible.”
Alphonse watched the man and woman absorb the information they’d been given. The woman’s face slowly morphed from astonishment to guarded acceptance, while the Man of Steel’s expression remained a granite mask, with only a thinning of his eyes to hint at his thoughts.
After nearly half a minute of waiting and thinking, Superman stepped closer to the woman reporter and said, “So all of you are Turned, right? None of you are born werewolves?”
Silence descended as if a net had been dropped on them. Alphonse deliberately kept his eyes on Superman, whose face grew darker as the moments passed.
Finally Jane said, “No. I’m a Pureblood.”
Superman turned to her and nodded. “I thought so. Your scent is slightly different.”
Jane glared at him. “Are you telling me that I stink?” she snapped.
“Not at all. Your scent is different from the rest, like two varieties of the same perfume are different. All of you have slightly different individual scents, but yours has a – a hint of forest musk, for want of a better term – that the others lack. I’m not sure a normal human could tell the difference.”
She relaxed and put her hands in her back pockets. “Okay. Sorry for reacting like that. I tend to get those kind of insults from both sides. You know, ‘you stink of the Turned’ or ‘you smell so superior,’ that kind of thing.”
“Really? Then it might be that you’re all more human than you might like to believe.” Superman turned to Arthur. “What happens now? Are you going to let Ms. Lane go free, or are you planning to fight me for her?”
Arthur gave him a Luthor smile, all oil and slime. “I assure you, sir, that we never intended harm to Ms. Lane. In fact, I did not even intend that she meet us tonight. Our lovely Jane accomplished that feat on her own initiative.”
Superman nodded. “So, she’s free to go?”
“Of course. Do you require a guide to return her to her hotel?”
“I can find it.” He gestured to the reporter and followed her to the door she’d used earlier in the evening.
Jane lifted a hand. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”
Superman stopped. “I don’t promise to answer it, but, yes.”
“When you did that spin thing earlier, where did your other clothes go?”
“A quantum reality separate from this one that I can access by moving at relativistic speed.”
Jane’s eyes grew wide – and, surprisingly, so did Lois Lane’s eyes. “You’re kidding!” blurted Jane.
“Superman does not kid.” He reached past the reporter and opened the door. “You might pass that on to the others of your kind.”
Jane snorted. “The other Purebloods don’t like me very much.”
“I meant anyone else in your – social group – who might want to challenge me. I have no intention of intruding on your social structure just to see what happens, but I won’t allow anyone to murder wantonly. And I also have no intention of allowing any werewolf to intimidate me or harm Ms. Lane.” His gaze swept the room. “Not any werewolf, regardless of his or her origin. Everyone clear on that concept?”
Everyone but Lancelot nodded or murmured assent. Superman’s glare focused on Lancelot as he languidly poured another glass of brandy.
The glass never made it to his lips. It burst into shards as he held it.
“Ow!” Lancelot shook his hand and blew on it. “That hurt!”
“You hurt my feelings by not paying enough attention to me.” The Man of Steel crossed his arms and glared at the haughty werewolf. “I advise you not to make that mistake again.”
Lancelot might have lunged at the blue-clad man a second time had Arthur not glided between them. “He understands fully, Superman. Any future contact between you or Ms. Lane and our pack will be completely peaceful on our part.”
“Good.” With that, the hero swept out of the room, leading Lois Lane along the corridor.
Alphonse refilled his glass and drained his drink as Teresa examined Lancelot’s hand. “It’s not burned,” she announced, “just red with a bare hint of blisters. You’ll be fine before tomorrow. You’ve hurt yourself worse while cooking.”
“It is the principle of the thing, my dear,” he ground out. “The nerve of that man, scalding me in that manner!”
She dropped his hand and leaned back. “It was less damaging than him slapping you across the room, I think. Given what I’ve heard of his strength and what I saw him do to you just now, I doubt that any of us could best him in a fight. For that matter, all of us together might not be able to defeat him.”
Arthur bent to examine one of the larger fragments of Lancelot’s glass. “He would not even have to touch you to defeat you, if this is any indication.”
“I will not tolerate being treated in such a callous and cavalier manner!” Lancelot snarled back.
Arthur’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I believe that Superman will treat each of us, and all of us, however he wishes, Lancelot.”
“I wasn’t speaking of him,” replied the other.
Arthur nodded slowly. “I see. Thank you for your candor, Lancelot. May I suggest that you be more polite to physically superior beings in the near future?”
Lancelot glared at Arthur for a long breath, then spun on his heel and stalked from the room.
Alphonse smiled to himself. Superman surely hadn’t come to the Crescent City to roil the waters in their little pack, but that was what he had done. But then, maybe it was time to stir the soup a bit. The pack had gotten a bit stale under Arthur’s leadership, and while Lancelot was probably not a good choice as his replacement, there were others who might do as well.
A pity that girl Jane was a Pureblood. Now that girl held a world of promise. All she needed was a good teacher.
And if Alphonse could do anything, he could teach.
*****
Lois didn’t speak until they were in the high in the air above the city. “Well, that was different.”
Superman turned a granite visage to her as he began circling upward. “This isn’t like anything else we’ve ever dealt with, Lois. From now until we leave, we’ve got to appear to be married while in public but only friends in private.”
“Huh?”
“We’ve both showered since the last time we made love, so our scents aren’t on each other. I couldn’t have pulled off that ‘subbing for Clark’ routine if that weren’t true. It was one of the reasons I mentioned that Jane smelled different, to let them know that my sense of smell was at least as acute as theirs is.”
He stopped and hovered while she thought about what he’d said. His reasoning was logical, and it fit the evidence they had, including the testimony they’d gotten from Alphonse and the rest.
“Okay,” she finally said. “We’ll play monk and nun until we leave the city.”
“It’s more than that. We’ll have to behave as if we’re bugged all the time except when we’re in the air. Wolves have far more sensitive hearing than humans, and if they hear us being inconsistent we could blow our secret identities.”
“My secret identity being that I’m really Superman’s wife?”
He nodded. “Your life is more important than that secret, but not a whole lot else is.”
She thought some more, then nodded back at him. “Agreed. So what do we do now?”
“We go back into the police and newspaper archives and start looking for anything and everything to do with the murders in the early seventies. It might give us a lead on who or what to look for.”
“And if the purebloods find out who you really are?”
He gazed deep into her eyes. “That’s the risk we take to find the truth. It’s the same risk we’ve taken against Intergang, against Lex Luthor, against Diana Stride, and against everyone else we’ve ever come up against. But we can win, Lois, because together we’re stronger than either of us is alone.”
She leaned closer to his shoulder. “I almost wish you could take care of this one by yourself. I don’t mind telling you, I got a little scared back there before you made that dramatic entrance.”
He touched his forehead to hers. “This isn’t a Superman-only situation. I need your investigative skills, your ability to put together things that don’t look like they match up, your intuitive leaps of illogic, your determination to ferret out the truth. Either of us could do this alone, Lois, but it would take too much time. More people are going to die unless we solve this quickly. This is a case that needs both of us, one that demands that we blend our talents. ”
She sighed. “And what do we do when we corner this Patriarch? Are you going to kill him?”
He paused, then shook his head. “No. I will not deliberately take a life. And that includes werewolves who might take it into their furry skulls to make a meal out of you.” He straightened and turned toward their hotel. “I will, however, defend you against all and sundry evildoers, so long as I shall live.”
She chuckled. “I don’t remember that being part of the marriage vows.”
“Wasn’t. I just made it up.”
They shared a smile and a hug as he descended to a darkened alley.
*****
Andre was terrified. He had never seen the Patriarch this angry, and his companion had already paid the price. The man wearing the flat-brimmed hat and black duster had backhanded Roger off his knees and against a wall, where he slumped as if boneless to the pavement, unconscious and bleeding. Andre knelt where he had been, still quivering with fear.
“Now,” growled the tall dark man, “let me ask again. What happened to the two of you? I do not believe that a single human could defeat any one of my followers, much less a pair of them! And not even Jane could have defeated you both at once.” He reached out and lifted Andre to his feet with one hand. “Tell me,” he whispered roughly, “exactly what really happened to you, and why you have failed in your mission.”
“M-m-my lord, I beg of you! It happened just as Roger said!”
Andre felt the big man draw back a hand and he braced himself for the blow.
It didn’t land.
The big man released Andre so quickly he collapsed back down to his knees. “Tell me the story again.”
“Y-yes, my lord. Roger and I were patrolling, just as you had instructed us, when we found a human male in the alleys. I thought – we thought to question him. I attempted to soften him up first, but he defeated both of us bare-handed.” Andre dropped his gaze. “My lord – never have I seen anyone move so quickly or felt anyone strike so hard.”
“Really?” growled the big man. “He struck you even harder than I have?”
Andre closed his eyes in fear, then nodded. “Y-yes. My lord. Even harder than you.”
Again, the expected blow did not land. Andre opened his eyes to see his chief glare at him, not in anger but in deep study. The truth had been told, even if it had been an unpleasant truth. He did not – could not – flinch from the scrutiny. To do so might mean his death.
“You speak the truth.”
Andre nodded once. “It is so, my lord.”
The big man stepped back and frowned for a long moment, then pointed to two of the willing human slaves standing behind Andre with their heads bowed. “You two! Yes, you! See to Roger’s health. Give him a comfortable bed and a fresh meal. I will speak with him later to apologize for not believing his tale. And you will tell him that, else he will wonder why he is treated so well.”
He turned to Andre and lifted him to his feet. “The same with this one. They both had the courage to tell me something they knew I would not wish to hear.” He grasped Andre’s shoulder and nearly crushed it. “You have both proven yourselves faithful. I will not forget this.”
Andre jerked his head up and down in relief. “Thank you, my lord Patriarch.”
“Go now. Be refreshed. I wish to find this man who defeated two of my best without assistance. I must taste his scent with my own nose, see him with my own eyes. We will speak again at a later time.”
Andre never bothered to wonder if the Patriarch could stand against the man who had defeated both himself and Roger at the same time. He was too glad to be forgiven, and too relieved to be out of the Patriarch’s direct line of sight.
Those at whom the Patriarch looked too long often did not survive to tell the tale.
And it was too soon for Andre to execute his plan. The time was not yet right. Soon, though, the time would indeed be the right time.
