A werewolf among us

the time, afraid of growing bored again, went to the glass patio doors and discovered that they opened on
vocal
command. He stepped onto the slate-floored balcony, which was shielded from the elements by the slanted, spout-flanked, red-shingled roof. Below, a lush valley opened like the center of a flower, cut through by a blue stream of water, spotted with stands of pines and, now and again, a copse of gray-leafed trees.
    Above the valley was the storm.
    A towering bank of thunderheads had moved stolidly out of the east, black as a carboned anvil. A dozen quick, silvery Eyes of Climicon darted in and out of the dense clouds, drawing them forward with clever atmospheric chemistry.
    The thunderheads moved as fast as a freight train, across rails of air on wheels of vapor.
    St. Cyr pulled a chair to the railing and sat down, intrigued.
    Over the roof of the house, moving in from the mountains behind, a second storm front tagged after and sometimes swept across the spherical Eyes, bearing down on the deep evil of the thunderheads. This massive cloud formation was a softer color, more gray than black, more blue than purple.
    At ground level the wind had subsided, though it was clearly still a power at higher altitudes as it jammed the two centers of atmospheric disturbance into the area above the valley.
    St. Cyr realized that, in an incredibly small area, the wind appeared to be blowing from two entirely different directions, evidenced by the opposite line of drive behind each front. He supposed this was a relatively minor feat for Climicon on a planet where costs were no object. After all, in recent years they had graduated from weather control to complete terraforming of worlds once unsuitable for human settlements.
    Lightning forked between the behemoths overhead.
    A moment later, thunder cracked down the valley, a thermal whip that brought an auditory punishment.
    Across the valley, in the foothills at the ankles of the next spine of gray mountains, sheets of rain obscured the trees, sliced quick gulleys in the exposed earth, and gushed forward toward the stream below.
    And out of those fluttering curtains of rain rode a man on horseback, bent low over his mount's neck, slapping its shoulders with his free hand. He dug his knees into the beast's sides, as if he were riding without benefit of a saddle, but he seemed in no danger of falling off.
    St, Cyr stood, now oblivious of the storm except as it was a backdrop to the rider. The approaching figure carried with it an air, a mood, that somehow made him uneasy—something he had noticed with the aid of the bio-computer but which he was as yet unable to pin down and define.
    The rain lashed at the rider's back, pushed by the winds, which had once again kissed the earth. Yet he managed to remain ahead of the worst of it, still slapping his mount's neck and shoulders, still bent low so as to be almost a part of the four-legged creature under him.
    As the rider drew nearer, taking the slopes of the valley toward the lowest step of the Alderban house,
St. Cyr saw that he carried a rifle strapped across his broad back, Slung across the shoulders of the horse were two objects: a saddlebag made of dark leather—and a pair of bloody boar's heads, which dripped crimson and glared out at the passing world with bared fangs and rigor-mortised snarls.
    The man took the last hundred yards toward the swiftly irising doors of the stables, and as he drew close to St. Cyr's position, the cyberdetective saw tangled black hair, a broad and Slavic face, fierce dark eyes. The hand that slapped the horse, urging it on, was as large as a dinner plate and looked, consequently, too large to eat with. Beneath the tight-fitting black shirt, muscles bulged and twisted as if they were sentient creatures in their own right.
    The hunter was laughing, heedless of the blood that spattered over his trousers from the dangling boars' heads, unconcerned about the lightning that chattered down to the earth all across the valley. The only thing in the world, at that moment for that large dark man, was the race. And he was laughing at the elements because he knew that he had won it.
    He disappeared through the stable door.
    The door winked shut.
    And the storm broke over the house with the force of a small hurricane, almost taking St. Cyr off his feet as he staggered back into the safety of his quarters.
    Inside, he listened to the rain and the pea-sized hailstones as the deluge battered the roof and