Read Online Fool Moon by Jim Butcher - Free Book Online Page B

theriomorphs. So are werebears, weretigers, werebuffalo . . .”
    “Buffalo?” I asked.
    “Sure. Some Native American shamans could do a buffalo. But almost everyone does predators, and until pretty recently, wolves were the scariest predator anyone around Europe could think of.”
    “Uh, okay,” I said. “And there’s a difference between types of werewolves?”
    “Right,” Bob confirmed. “Mostly it depends on how you go from human form to wolf form, and how much of your humanity you retain. Don’t burn the coffee.”
    I turned down the flame beneath the beaker of coffee, annoyed. “I know, I know. Okay, then. How do you get to be a wolf?”
    “The classic werewolf,” Bob said, “is simply a human being who uses magic to shift himself into a wolf.”
    “Magic? Like a wizard?”
    “No,” Bob said. “Well. Sort of. He’s like a wizard who only knows how to cast the one spell, the one to turn him into a wolf, and knows how to get back out of it again. Most people who learn to be werewolves aren’t very good at it for a while, because they keep all of their own humanity.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well,” Bob said, “they can reshape themselves into the form of a wolf, but it’s pretty much just topology. They rearrange their physical body, but their mind remains the same. They can think and reason, and their personality doesn’t change—but they don’t have a wolf’s instincts or reflexes. They’re used to being sight-oriented bipeds, not smell-oriented quadrupeds. They would have to learn everything from scratch.”
    “Why would someone do something like that?” I said. “Just learn to turn into a wolf, I mean.”
    “You’ve never been a peasant in medieval France, Harry,” Bob said. “Life was hard for those people. Never enough food, shelter, medicine. If you could give yourself a fur coat and the ability to go out and hunt your own meat, you would have jumped at the chance, too.”
    “Okay, I think I’ve got it,” I said. “Do you need silver bullets or anything? Do you turn into a werewolf if you get bitten?”
    “Bah,” Bob said. “No. Hollywood stole that from vampires. And the silver-bullet thing is only in special cases. Werewolves are just like regular wolves. You can hurt them with weapons just like you can a real wolf.”
    “That’s good news,” I said, stirring the potion. “What other kinds are there?”
    “There’s another version of a werewolf—when someone else uses magic to change you into a wolf.”
    I glanced up at him. “Transmogrification? That’s illegal, Bob. It’s one of the Laws of Magic. If you transform someone into an animal, it destroys their personality. You can’t transform someone else without wiping out their mind. It’s practically murder.”
    “Yeah. Neat, huh? But actually, most personalities can survive the transformation. For a little while at least. Really strong wills might manage to keep their human memories and personality locked away for several years. But sooner or later, they’re irretrievably gone, and you’re left with nothing but a wolf.”
    I turned from the potions to scribble in my notebook. “Okay. What else makes a werewolf?”
    “The most common way, back in France, was to make a deal with a demon or a devil or a powerful sorcerer. You get a wolf-hide belt, put it on, say the magic words, and whammy, you’re a wolf. A Hexenwolf .”
    “Isn’t that just like the first kind?”
    “No, not at all. You don’t use your own magic to become a wolf. You use someone else’s.”
    I frowned. “Isn’t that the second kind, then?”
    “Stop being obtuse,” Bob chided me. “It’s different because you’re employing a talisman. Sometimes it’s a ring or amulet, but usually it’s a belt. The talisman provides an anchor for a spirit of bestial rage. Nasty thing from the bad side of the Nevernever. That spirit wraps around a human personality to keep it from being destroyed.”
    “A kind of insulation,” I