‘Why can’t you have a -‘ Windle began.
‘Can’t use a mirror,’ said Arthur.‘I thought the
turning-into-a-bat bit would be interesting, but the owls round here are murder. And as for the … you know … with the blood … well …’ His voice trailed off.
‘Artore’s never been very good at meetink people,’ said Doreen.
‘And the worst part is having to wear evening dress the whole time,’ said Arthur. He gave Doreen a sideways glance.‘I ‘m sure it’s not really compulsory.’
‘It iss very important to maintain standerts,’ said Doreen. Doreen, in addition to her here-one-minute-and-gone-the-next vampire accent, had decided to complement Arthur’s evening dress with what she considered appropriate for a female vampire: figure-hugging black dress, long dark hair cut into a widow’s peak, and very pallid makeup. Nature had designed her to be small and plump with frizzy hair and a hearty complexion. There were definite signs of conflict.
‘I should have stayed in that coffin,’ said Arthur.
‘Oh, no, ‘ said Mr Shoe.‘That’s taking the easy way out. The movement needs people like you, Arthur. We had to set an example. Remember our motto.’
‘Which motto is that, Reg?’ said Lupine wearily. ‘We have so many.’
‘Undead yes – unperson no!’ Reg said.
‘You see, he means well,’ said Lupine, after the meeting had broken up.
He and Windle were walking back through the grey dawn. The Notfaroutoes had left earlier to be back home before daylight heaped even more troubles on Arthur, and Mr Shoe had gone off, he said, to address a meeting.
‘He goes down to the cemetery behind the Temple of Small Gods and shouts,’ Lupine explained. ‘He calls it consciousness raising but I don’t reckon he’s on to much of a certainty.’
‘Who was it under the chair?’ said Windle.
‘That was Schleppel,’ said Lupine.‘We think he’s a bogeyman.’
‘Are bogeymen undead?’
‘He won ‘t say.’
‘You’ve never seen him? I thought bogeymen hid under things and, er, behind things and sort of leapt out at people.’
‘He’s all right on the hiding. I don’t think he likes the leaping out, ‘ said Lupine.
Windle thought about this. An agoraphobic bogeyman seemed to complete the full set.
‘Fancy that, ‘ he said, vaguely.
‘We only go along to the club to keep Reg happy,’ said Lupine.‘Doreen said it’d break his heart if we stopped. You know the worst bit?’
‘Go on, ‘ said Windle.
‘Sometimes he brings a guitar along and makes us sing songs like “Streets of Ankh-Morpork” and “We Shall Overcome”. * It’s terrible.’
‘Can’t sing, eh?’ said Windle.
‘Sing? Never mind sing. Have you ever seen a zombie try to play a guitar? It’s helping him find his fingers afterwards that’s so embarrassing.’ Lupine sighed. ‘By the way, Sister Drull is a ghoul. If she offers you any of her meat patties, don’t accept.’
Windle remembered a vague, shy old lady in a shapeless grey dress.
‘Oh, dear,’ he said.‘You mean she makes them out of human flesh?’
‘What? Oh. No. She just can’t cook very well.’
‘Oh.’
‘And Brother Ixolite is probably the only banshee in
________________________________________________________________
* A song which, in various languages, is common on every known world in the multiverse. It is always sung by the same people, viz., the people who, when they grow up, will be the people who the next generation sing “We Shall Overcome” at.
the world with a speech impediment, so instead of sitting on roofs and screaming when people are about to die he just writes them a note and slips it under the door-‘
Windle recalled a long, sad face.’ He gave me one, too.’
‘We try to encourage him,’ said Lupine.‘He’s very self-conscious.’
His arm shot out and flung Windle against a wall.
‘Quiet!’
‘What?’
Lupine’s ears swivelled. His nostrils flared.
Motioning Windle to remain where he was, the wereman slunk silently along the alley until he reached its junction with another, even smaller and nastier one. He paused for a moment, and then thrust a hairy hand around the corner.
There was a yelp. Lupine’s hand came back holding a struggling mop. Huge hairy muscles moved under Lupine’s torn shirt as the man was hoisted up to fang level.
‘You were waiting to attack us, weren’t you,’ said Lupine.
‘Who, me -?’
‘I could smell you, ‘ said Lupine, evenly.
‘I never -‘
Lupine sighed. ‘Wolves don’t do this sort of thing, you know, ‘ he said.
The man dangled.
‘Hey, is that a fact, ‘ he said.
‘It’s all head-on combat, fang against fang, claw against claw,’ said Lupine.‘You don’t find wolves lurking behind rocks ready to mug a passing badger.’
‘Get away?’
‘Would you like me to tear your throat out?’
The man stared eye to yellow eye. He estimated his chances against a seven-foot man with teeth like that.
‘Do I get a choice?’ he said.
‘My friend here,’ said Lupine, indicating Windle, ‘is a zombie -‘
‘Well, I don ‘t know about actual zombie, I think you have to eat some sort of fish and root to be a zom -‘
‘- and you know what zombies do to people, don’t you?’
The man tried to nod, even though Lupine’s fist was right under his neck.
‘Yeggg, ‘ he managed.
‘Now, he’s going to take a very good look at you, and if he ever sees you again -‘
‘I say, hang on,’ murmured Windle.
‘- he’ll come after you. Won’t you, Windle?’
‘Eh? Oh, yes. That’s right. Like a shot, ‘ said Windle, unhappily. ‘Now run along, there’s a good chap. OK?’
‘OggAy,’ said the prospective mugger. He was thinking: ‘Is eyes! Ike imlets!’
Lupine let go. The man hit the cobbles, gave Windle one last terrified glance, and ran for it.
‘Er, what do zombies do to people?’ said Windle. ‘I suppose I’d better know.’
‘They tear them apart like a sheet of dry paper, ‘ said Lupine.
‘Oh? Right,’ said Windle. They strolled on in silence.
Windle was thinking: why me? Hundreds of people must die in this city every day. I bet they don’t have this trouble. They just shut their eyes and wake up being born as someone else, or in some sort of heaven or, I suppose, possibly some sort of hell. Or they go and feast with the gods in their hall, which has never seemed a particularly great idea – gods are all right in their way, but not the kind of people a decent man would want to have a meal with. The Yen buddhists think you just become very rich. Some of the Klatchian religions say you go to a lovely garden full of young women, which doesn’t sound very religious to me …
Windle found himself wondering how you applied for Klatchian nationality after death.
And at that moment the cobblestones came up to meet him.
This is usually a poetic way of saying that someone fell flat on their face. In this case, the cobblestones really came up to meet him. They fountained up, circled silently in the air above the alley for a moment, and then dropped like stones.
Windle stared at them. So did Lupine.
‘That’s something you don’t often see,’ said the wereman, after a while.‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen stones flying before.’
‘Or dropping like stones,’ said Windle. He nudged one with the toe of his boot. It seemed perfectly happy with the role gravity had chosen for it.
‘You’re a wizard -‘
‘Were a wizard,’ said Windle.
‘You were a wizard. What caused all that?’
‘I think it is probably an inexplicable phenomenon,’ said Windle. ‘There’s a lot of them about, for some reason. I wish I knew why.’
He prodded a stone again. It showed no inclination to move.
‘I’d better be getting along,’ said Lupine.
‘What’s it like, being a wereman?’ said Windle.
Lupine shrugged. ‘Lonely,’ he said.
‘Hmm?’
‘You don’t fit in, you see. When I’m a wolf I remember what it’s like to be a man, and vice versa. Like … I mean … sometimes … sometimes, right, when I’m wolf-shaped, I run up into the hills … in the winter, you know, when there’s a crescent moon in the sky and a crust on the snow and the hills go on for ever … and the other wolves, well, they feel what it’s like, of course, but they don’t know like I do. To feel and know at the same time. No-one else knows what that’s like. No-one else in the whole world could know what that’s like. That’s the bad part. Knowing there’s no-one else …’
Windle became aware of teetering on the edge of a pit of sorrows. He never knew what to say in moments like this.
Lupine brightened up. ‘Come to that … what’s it like, being a zombie?’
‘It’s OK. It’s not too bad.’
Lupine nodded.
‘See you around,’ he said, and strode off.
The streets were beginning to fill up as the population of Ankh-Morpork began its informal shift change between the night people and the day people.