Capitulum Octavum

It was later that day that I met Giles Scott for the first time. I was shown by Marcos into a small office. It was not Giles's usual office, but a more cheerful one, apparently for guests, and I was the only one there for several minutes. There was a wooden desk in front of a large window, and also some chairs, and two walls were lined with books, some very old, but not so old as the books that lined his main office. In one corner of the room was a large standing globe; but the globe was not of the earth but of the moon. The wall that had neither books nor window was lined with cabinets and tables of matching mahogany, mostly filled with stones and curious knick-knacks from all over the world.

I bent down and looked at one of the stones on the table nearest to me. It was a pinkish stone, as big as large hen's egg. I say 'pinkish', but in fact it seemed to shift somewhat in hue depending on how exactly you looked at it.

"Opal," a quiet voice right next to me suddenly said, causing me to jump. "'It seems to blush and turn pale as if it had a soul.'"

It was Giles himself, of course, his dark eyes looking at me from his feverishly pale face with a disconcerting stare. His pallor somehow made both his slightly curly hair and his eyes seem darker than any hair and eyes should be. He wore a custom-tailored suit with a silver-striped tie and a black vest.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't hear you come in."

He seemed amused. "People rarely do. Won't you have a seat?"

As I sat down in the chair he indicated, he said, "Would you like something to drink?"

"No, thank you," I said. "I don't drink."

"I rarely drink myself," he said, sitting in the chair across the desk from me. "In general, I only drink to calm myself when I am in a state of excitement; and things excite me very rarely. Do you smoke?" He pulled a cigar case out of a drawer.

"No, sorry."

"No apology needed. I only keep them around for others, since I am not a smoker myself. No drinking, no smoking, no gambling." He smiled a smile that was marvellously ambiguous between pleasantness and sarcasm. "I am a man of very few vices."

He leaned back in his chair and regarded me for a moment with one of his unsettling gazes. Then he said, "You are a journalist?"

I hesitated. "In the strict sense, no. I am a historian."

"A much more respectable trade. In what do you specialize?"

"Superstitious practices in Greater Germany in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries."

"That must be a very large field of study."

I do not know what I had expected him to say, but it was not that. "Well, yes," I replied lamely.

"But I take it that it is not in your role as a historian that you are here today?"

I hesitated again. "Well, yes and no."

"The envelope suggested you had information on the recent murder of that girl out in the park."

"I do."

He waited patiently. At least, I suppose it was patience; his eyes seemed to bore into me.

"Perhaps I had better begin at the beginning," I felt myself blurt out.

"That is often the best way to begin," Giles agreed, with a slow nod of the head that managed again to achieve that remarkable borderline between affability and sarcasm.

"I first met Joanne in college; she was a journalism student and I, of course, was a history student. We became fast friends, and throughout our undergraduate years we were largely inseparable. After college, however, we went separate ways. We did keep in touch, with occasional correspondence, and we saw each other about once every other year, but that's about it.

"A few years back, however, Joanne came to me saying that she had uncovered something extraordinary, but that it needed to be investigated carefully before she did anything with it. She couldn't trust it with anyone else, she said, so she had come to me. Also, it had some relationship to my field of study. She had discovered, she said, a secret Wolf-cult with roots going back to medieval Germany. The members of this cult thought of themselves as werewolves." I paused here and waited for him to respond, but he said nothing, simply looking at me with the same patient but disconcerting look.

"How she came across it originally, I do not know. I also didn't make much of it at the time. But what she had was interesting from a historian's perspective: symbols, old names, fragments of stories. I promised to look into them and get back to her. And I did. Some of them I couldn't trace, some of them I could. But it was always very sketchy. I sent what I could find to her, and largely set it aside, except that part of me kept a look-out for anything in fourteenth- or fifteenth-century Germany that might indicate an interest in wolves. Whenever I did, I would mark it in case she would happen to need it, and when I had a fair stack of such things, I sent them to her. It didn't happen often.

"Then a little over a year ago she came to me in great agitation, saying she had stumbled on something even larger than she had thought. She brought me copies of everything she had gathered, which by this point was a quite considerable stack. She also had video footage that was somewhat startling: people vanishing suddenly into shadows, and the like. I didn't know what to make of it, but she said she did: there was indeed a cult of the Wolf, and its members did not merely think they were werewolves, but actually were."

I stopped and reflected. "If it had been anyone else," I said, "I would have laughed at it. But Joanne was no flighty individual, nor was she gullible. She had sense. I promised at least that I would look over what she had brought me and do some research on my own. She said that she had some leads that needed to be followed, and that she would be incommunicando for some time. I got two small packages from her after that, with additional materials; they had no return address, and the postmark was different in each case. That was all until I read the news report about her death, mauled by an animal 'while camping alone in the park'. In the meantime, though, I kept my promise. I went through everything she had gathered and did further research on my own. And I became convinced that she was right, at least in general. There were werewolves among them. And chief among them was Aegidius, sometimes Gide, sometimes Egidio, sometimes Gilles, sometimes Giles, called the Scot. You are he. But more than this, the day after she died I received a last package from her, with a full letter. I know about Eric, I know it all."

He smiled. "Oh, not all, I think. But you are right, I am Aegidius, and master of the Wolves."

"You admit it all?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I? Seeing the mind of a mere human is not as easy for me as seeing the mind of a Wolf; it is full of shadows, not lit by the moon. But I have moonlight enough in me for the both of us. And it is enough for me to see that nothing I could say could convince you otherwise, and that you know enough that there is no use pretending. But still I would pretend, and still I would deny, were it not for one thing: you knew quite well that coming here would be the death of you. I would inevitably find out eventually, but you would have had more time; instead you willingly ran toward the end. Why was that?"

"I came here to ask a favor from you."

He smiled. It was cold, having nothing of the affability of his previous smile, but it still was sarcastic. "The prey asking the predator for a promise? And what would this be?"

"That you not kill me before you give Joanne the justice she deserves. That Eric, or whoever it was that killed her, die in turn."

His eyes locked mine, and he rose something. He still was somewhat boyish in appearance, and still sickly-pale, but somehow he was also a thing of majesty and terror. I had a sense of vertigo. It seemed as if I saw spread before me an extraordinarily vast panorama of centuries of night, filled with wars and destruction; with plagues and famines; with great Gothic churches, and monks in choir, and friars preaching crusade; with uprisings and revolts and revolutions; with great sailing ships and conquistador armies; with the rising and falling of civilizations. It all seemed too real, too sharp, too clear; for it was lit with the light of a vast and unwaning moon. He stepped around the desk and looked down at me as I, unable to break the gaze, began to tremble, knowing that this was an angel of death come for me.

But after holding me gaze for so long it seemed unbearable, he looked away, gazing as if at something very far off. "Non potest," he said softly to someone or something that was not me. "Non potest ab homine tolli quod sit rationalis, non totaliter; etiam in damnatis manet conscientia."

He looked down at me again; but his gaze, while as unsettling as ever, was no longer terrible. "You do not know," he said. "You do not know what it is to bear this quasi-morbus animorum, this second languor of nature. The moon-wolf in me recognizes you as a threat, and his strength is mingled with the madness of the moon. I cannot outlast him, and no matter how much I tried to prevent it, there would one day come a day in which my strength would give out, and you would die. But I promise you this: you will not die before I have killed the Wolf who killed Joanne." He looked away again. "Go now, before I waver in the decision."

And so I walked out. As I did, Seneca passed me, and he found Giles in a contemplative pose, looking down on the globe of the moon. "I was expecting for the interview, Sen," Giles said abstractedly, reaching out his hand to set the globe spinning.

"I apologize," said Seneca. "But it is Elsbietka. She has something important to tell you. She is in your study."

Giles nodded and Seneca left.

It was about ten minutes later when Giles entered his study to find Seneca sitting beside an agitated Elsbietka. She was holding an already opened envelope.

"Well," said Giles, "What is it?"

She said nothing, merely handing him the envelope. He pulled out a piece of paper and looked at it briefly. "This is written in blood," he said.

"Yes," Elsbietka said.

"And there is moonlight in it. One of yours?"

She nodded. "An acquaintance in Krasnoyarsk."

"The acquaintance in Krasnoyarsk?"

She nodded again. He turned back to the letter.

"'As one Scion of Lykaios to another, I felt obliged to inform you that something of yours was unfortunately destroyed. Ivan.'"

"You do know what this means?" said Seneca. "If he can convince others that he is a Scion of Lykaios -- well, you know what the legends say about the Scions of Lykaios."

Giles cast a sarcastic glance at him. "Yes, I know what the legends say; I made up half of them."

"Could it be true?"

"That he is a Scion of Lykaios?" Giles looked thoughtful. "It is impossible to rule out. Vsesalevich and I hunted down all the ones that were known, but Lykaios was ancient. How remarkable it would be to find out after all this time that I am still not the only one! But it is unlikely."

"Regardless, if he can get enough people to believe him -- and who in the age of Aegidius would dare claim it if he did not think he could get people to believe it?--it will be a problem."

"In fact," said Giles, handing the paper and envelope back to Elsbietka, "it changes nothing essential. But it does give some questions to ask." He looked at them both a moment, then said, "Elsbietka, please do me the honor of staying the night here" -- despite the 'please' it was not a request -- and we will talk more over breakfast tomorrow. In the meantime, I think I will take a walk alone in the garden."

Capitulum Septimum

The Aegidian Building had been made to look innocuous and nondescript, and, as it sat on the edge of a small financial district, this meant that it was four stories of blank glass facade with nothing but its address above the door. A small fountain that stood out front was adorned with a statue that was a jumble of streaks and spheres. I have never learned what it represented; incoherence, perhaps. In any case, it was exactly like any number of modern sculptures adorning any number of financial buildings with sheer glassy walls in any number of financial districts in any number of cities across the world.

If you enter by the front door, you will find a small lobby with a marble floor, a security desk, and two elevator doors at the end; and that is as far as you will ever get. It is even possible that the elevator doors do not open at all. If you inquire about the Aegidian Corporation, you will be given a brochure that talks vaguely about what it calls 'international investment consultancy'. You will then be firmly told that you must leave.

As many such buildings do, however, it has a small parking garage, which also has a set of elevators. These elevators do not have buttons for floors, only a single keypad on the outside to open the door and another inside to operate the elevator; each floor has its own keycode combination. Up you go to whichever floor you choose, there to find a new security desk. The Aegidian Building is a very secure building.

On one of these secure floors is a conference room, and it was there that a meeting of Primes was held at about the time Giles, Seneca, and Jolie would usually have been sitting down to breakfast. There were several of them already there when the three entered. Giles went immediately to one of them, a dark-haired woman with a narrow, girlish face.

"Elsbietka," he said, kissing her on the cheek. "It is good that you have come; we will need your counsel. How are things out east?"

"As good as ever," she replied. Her voice was deep and slightly husky, but still a woman's voice.

Jolie, who was immediately behind, followed suit, and the two kissed each other on the cheek; but it was a very coolly perfunctory kiss on the part of both of them.

"It is good to see you," said Jolie with a tight smile.

"Jolie Corday! It is, indeed," said Elsbietka with an equally tight smile.

"We should have these meetings more often," said Giles cheerfully. "It is always good seeing friends." He sought out Seneca, who had moved to another small cluster of people on the other side of the room, and, catching his eye, gave him a look.

Seneca immediately stepped to the center of the room and cleared his throat. "We have a great deal discuss, so perhaps it is best if we get seated and begin."

The conference table was a long one with curved sides. Looking to the left of Giles we see Seneca, in a wine-colored sweater-vest and a matching bowtie. To his left is Elsbietka, her dark hair somewhat disordered. The delicate-looking woman who looks in her thirties, the one with the short blond hair, is Charlotte; she is actually a distant relative of Jolie. The square-jawed older-looking man to her left is Alexander. Across from Alexander, the woman with the very short curly hair, is Sarah. Next to her is her fraternal twin, Simon. The large, ruddy-faced man with small eyes is Cotton. And next to him, of course, is Jolie, looking perfect as always, which brings us back to Giles, still pale with the pallor the mind associates with terrible sickness.

For me to transcribe the early part of the meeting would be pointless, for it consisted simply of Seneca summarizing what you already know, with Jolie occasionally interjecting a comment and a question occasionally coming from one of the others. Through it all Giles spoke not a single word; he merely turned an attentive gaze to each Wolf in turn. And each Wolf, when those dark eyes rested on him or her, was unsettled by it.

"The major problem we face," said Seneca, summing up, "is our lack of information. Vsesalevich, as far as we know, is dead. Our sources in Yakutsk have gone silent, whether because they are dead or have thrown in their lot with the new regime, we do not know. And we still do not know what happened."

"Yakutsk was always of mostly symbolic importance, anyway," said Elsbietka. "Vsesalevich was most likely to be there, if he was anywhere. If my advice had been followed a few years ago" -- and here she shot a dark look at Jolie -- "we would have worked harder to get insiders in some of the fringe Packs."

"Past policies are under review," said Seneca drily. "At present our focus should be on plans."

"We will need to send people to investigate," said Alexander. "Dangerous work. And there are so many places to start -- Novosibirsk, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk...."

"I would recommend Krasnoyarsk," Elsbietka said. "The Packs of Krasnoyarsk Krai are quite large, relatively speaking, and notoriously restless."

Simon leaned forward. "And what do your sources say?"

She looked sharply at him. "What do you mean?"

"Come now," Sarah said. "We all know that you're not the kind to let things be; you've probably been working on getting information about the fringe Packs for years now."

"Agents in Krasnoyarsk, I wouldn't doubt," said Simon.

Giles looked with interest at Elsbietka, and she broke under the glance. "They have gone silent, too."

"I find it more and more disturbing that this could have all happened without our knowing anything of it," said Seneca.

"Wait," said Alexander, "don't we have one of their agents? The fellow in England?"

"No," said Giles quietly, the first word he had spoken since the meeting began. "We do not have him."

"Why?" asked Cotton with outrage. "Surely he didn't escape?"

"No," said Giles, "he didn't escape. I killed him."

The silence at the table was very deep; the quiet matter-of-factness of the way in which Giles had stated it had, I think, as much to do with its impact as the statement itself. After a few minutes, Cotton said, "But it was full moon." He perhaps meant it to sound incredulous; but it came out as little more than a broken whisper.

"Yes," said Giles, suddenly amused. "It was full moon." He leaned forward and looked around the table, amusement still on his face. "He was a Prime, and it was full moon, and I ripped the moonlight out of his soul, and I tore his heart out of his chest, and he died." He leaned back suddenly. "You are all young," he said, "very young. What, after all, do you know of Lykaios? He was dead long before you received the Bite, long before any of you were born. And thus I can see how it would be tempted to think that all the stories about how Lykaios was called the Invincible, and how I killed him under full moon, were just tall tales, or maybe stores with some grain of truth that grew in the telling over centuries. Particularly since it must seem so very long ago, a legend from out of the hazy mists of time. But I did beat the unbeatable Wolf, the one who had lived so long that he could not even remember his original name, the one every Wolf of the day feared; and the moon was full and bright that night. And I killed this one, too, during full moon.

"Or perhaps you believed the story, but thought that it was so long ago that I had forgotten how I did it, or that it was a unique happening resulting from some freak of fortune. After all, the stories all say that only one Prime has ever been killed at full moon. But there have been others; Lykaios was just the only one worth mentioning. But in this case you can confirm it, if any doubt lingers. Ask Aveline, or Roysa, or this newly minted Wolf, Eric, who comes to us courtesy of some no-name renegade. They left me alone in a room with him, and he was alive; they returned, and he was dead."

The others at the table shifted uneasily in their seats. After an uncomfortable minute or two, Cotton cleared his throat and tried again. "Perhaps it would have been better to have kept him alive; we could have extracted further information from him."

Everyone in the room knew that the event was a sign of the yawning chasm between Giles on the one hand and all the other Primes on the other; everyone knew that Giles had raised it as a banner of his superiority, an emblem of the Wolf-King, a reminder of their place. And thus to everyone's ears this attempt to treat an almost unthinkable action expressing almost unthinkable power as a mere prudential miscalculation sounded as limp as his previous protest. But Giles simply shook his head.

"I stole the moonlight inside of him; I extracted everything he had to tell. It is good, however, that the point has been raised. For I am Aegidius, Death at Full Moon, Scion and Slayer of the Invincible Wolf, the Wolf who can do what no other Wolf has ever found possible, and I assure you," putting his hand on his heart, "that in the conflict to come I will win. I want to be very clear about that. I do not promise comfort and ease, but I promise you that I will not be outmaneuvered or outpowered by any Prime now living. I am beyond mere Primacy. Some of you are young enough, or came to know me late enough, that you only know this by rumor. But there are Wolves who know it. Jolie, for instance." He turned and looked at her; she was looking at her hands.

"Do you remember, Jolie, the time when we hunted down that rebel Pack in the Franche-Comté? You know, the one led by the Wolf who killed Charles Louis outside Saint-Nizier -- what was his name? Hugh, I think?"

"No," said Jolie, still looking at her hands, "it was Alain; Hugh was his brother."

"We made them pay with terror before they died, didn't we?"

"Yes," said Jolie, still looking at her hands.

He leaned back, his face still full of amusement. "But this is no time for old war stories." He rose to his feet. "As Seneca noted, information is our primary concern. Get me information about the Pack of Krasnoyarsk Krai, or anything else that might be of use!" He looked down at Jolie. "Will you be returning to the Manor with us?"

She finally looked up from her hands. "No," she said, "Cotton and I have business to discuss on this renegade Wolf problem."

Giles nodded and smiled and took his leave.

In the elevator, Seneca asked, "Did you discover anything?"

"Of course," said Giles cheerfully. "There is nothing so effective as getting people who hate each other in one room and then having them threatened by a notorious killer. Cotton certainly, and Charlotte probably, are with Jolie; Elsbietka doesn't have any inkling because Jolie wouldn't trust her to keep quiet, and rightly so, she would gladly prefer a chance of killing Jolie to joining with her any day of the week. The rest are various shades of in-between, waiting to see how things tip."

"Does Jolie have any idea that we know? That last bit was heavy-handed."

"Does it matter? If she has any sense -- and she does -- she has been taking that possibility into account from the beginning. But you are quite right; I overdid it. Even after centuries I still can't resist giving that last little jab."