The Talisman

“Wolf!”

He tipped the bottle up, and the awful cold taste of rotted grapes filled his mouth for the last time. The bottle was empty. As he swallowed, he heard it shatter as one of Morgan’s bolts of lightning struck it. But the sound of the breaking glass was faint . . . the tingle of electricity . . . even Morgan’s screams of rage.

He felt as if he were falling over backward into a hole. A grave, maybe. Then Wolf’s hand squeezed down on Jack’s so hard that Jack groaned. That feeling of vertigo, of having done a complete dipsy-doodle, began to fade . . . and then the sunlight faded, too, and became the sad purplish gray of an October twilight in the heartland of America. Cold rain struck Jack in the face, and he was faintly aware that the water he was standing in seemed much colder than it had only seconds ago. Somewhere not far away he could hear the familiar snoring drone of the big rigs on the interstate . . . except that now they seemed to be coming from directly overhead.

Impossible, he thought, but was it? The bounds of that word seemed to be stretching with plastic ease. For one dizzy moment he had an image of flying Territories trucks driven by flying Territories men with big canvas wings strapped to their backs.

Back, he thought. Back again, same time, same turnpike.

He sneezed.

Same cold, too.

But two things were not the same now.

No rest area here. They were standing thigh-deep in the icy water of a stream beneath a turnpike overpass.

Wolf was with him. That was the other change.

And Wolf was screaming.

18

Wolf Goes to the Movies

1

Overhead, another truck pounded across the overpass, big diesel engine bellowing. The overpass shook. Wolf wailed and clutched at Jack, almost knocking them both into the water.

“Quit it!” Jack shouted. “Let go of me, Wolf! It’s just a truck! Let go!”

He slapped at Wolf, not wanting to do it—Wolf’s terror was pathetic. But, pathetic or not, Wolf had the best part of a foot and maybe a hundred and fifty pounds on Jack, and if he overbore him, they would both go into this freezing water and it would be pneumonia for sure.

“Wolf! Don’t like it! Wolf! Don’t like it! Wolf! Wolf!”

But his hold slackened. A moment later his arms dropped to his sides. When another truck snored by overhead, Wolf cringed but managed to keep from grabbing Jack again. But he looked at Jack with a mute, trembling appeal that said Get me out of this, please get me out of this, I’d rather be dead than in this world.

Nothing I’d like better, Wolf, but Morgan’s over there. Even if he weren’t, I don’t have the magic juice anymore.

He looked down at his left hand and saw he was holding the jagged neck of Speedy’s bottle, like a man getting ready to do some serious barroom brawling. Just dumb luck Wolf hadn’t gotten a bad cut when he grabbed Jack in his terror.

Jack tossed it away. Splash.

Two trucks this time—the noise was doubled. Wolf howled in terror and plastered his hands over his ears. Jack could see that most of the hair had disappeared from Wolf’s hands in the flip—most, but not all. And, he saw, the first two fingers of each of Wolf’s hands were exactly the same length.

“Come on, Wolf,” Jack said when the racket of the trucks had faded a little. “Let’s get out of here. We look like a couple of guys waiting to get baptized on a PTL Club special.”

He took Wolf’s hand, and then winced at the panicky way Wolf’s grip closed down. Wolf saw his expression and loosened up . . . a little.

“Don’t leave me, Jack,” Wolf said. “Please, please don’t leave me.”

“No, Wolf, I won’t,” Jack said. He thought: How do you get into these things, you asshole? Here you are, standing under a turnpike overpass somewhere in Ohio with your pet werewolf. How do you do it? Do you practice? And, oh, by the way, what’s happening with the moon, Jack-O? Do you remember?

He didn’t, and with clouds blanketing the sky and a cold rain falling, there was no way to tell.

What did that make the odds? Thirty to one in his favor? Twenty-eight to two?

Whatever the odds were, they weren’t good enough. Not the way things were going.

“No, I won’t leave you,” he repeated, and then led Wolf toward the far bank of the stream. In the shallows, the decayed remains of some child’s dolly floated belly-up, her glassy blue eyes staring into the growing dark. The muscles of Jack’s arm ached from the strain of pulling Wolf through into this world, and the joint in his shoulder throbbed like a rotted tooth.

As they came out of the water onto the weedy, trashy bank, Jack began to sneeze again.

2

This time, Jack’s total progress in the Territories had been half a mile west—the distance Wolf had moved his herd so they could drink in the stream where Wolf himself had later almost been drowned. Over here, he found himself ten miles farther west, as best he could figure. They struggled up the bank—Wolf actually ended up pulling Jack most of the way—and in the last of the daylight Jack could see an exit-ramp splitting off to the right some fifty yards up the road. A reflectorized sign read: ARCANUM LAST EXIT IN OHIO STATE LINE 15 MILES.

“We’ve got to hitch,” Jack said.