The Fifth Elephant

full of werewolves and his automatic husbandry circuitry cut in to respond with “yes, dear,” or “choose any color you like” or “I’ll get someone to sort it out.” Fortunately his brain itself had its own sense of self-preservation and, not wishing to be inside a skull that was stoved in by a bedside lamp, rewrote Sybil’s words in white-hot fire across his inner eyeball and then went and hid.
    That’s why the response came out as a weak “What? How?”
    “The normal way, I hope.”
    Vimes sat down on the bed. “And…not right now?”
    “I very much doubt it. But Mrs. Content says it’s definite, and she’s been a midwife for fifty years.”
    “Oh.” Some more brain functions crept back. “Good. That’s…good.”
    “It’ll probably take a while to sink in.”
    “Yes.” Another neuron lit up. “Er…everything will be all right, will it?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Er, you’re rather, you’re not as…you…”
    “Sam, my family have bred for breeding. It’s an aristocratic tradition. It’s practically what being an aristocrat means . Of course everything will be all right.”
    “Oh. Good.”
    Vimes sat and stared. His head felt like some vast sea that had just been parted by a prophet. Where there should have been activity, there was just bare sand and the occasional floundering fish. But huge steep waves were tottering on either side, and in a minute they would crash down and cause cities to flood, a hundred miles away.
    More glass tinkled, somewhere downstairs.
    “Sam, Igor’s probably just dropped something,” said Sybil, seeing his expression. “That’s all. Probably just knocked a glass over.”
    There was a snarl, and a scream, abruptly cut off.
    Vimes leapt off the bed. “Lock the door after me and push the bed against it!” He paused for a moment in the doorway. “Without straining yourself!” he added, and ran for the stairs.
    Wolfgang was trotting across the hall.
    He was different this time. Wolf ears sprouted from a head that was still human. His hair had grown around him like a mane. Patches of fur were tufted on his skin, and were mostly streaked with blood.
    The rest of him…was having trouble deciding what it was. One arm was trying to be a paw.
    Vimes reached for his sword, and remembered that it was back on the bed. He rummaged in his pockets.
    He knew the other thing was here, he remembered picking it up off the dressing table…
    His fingers closed on his badge. He held it out.
    “Stop! In the name of the law!”
    Wolfgang looked up at him, one eye glowing yellow. The other was a mess.
    “Hello, Civilized,” he growled. “You wait for me, hey?”
    He ducked into the corridor that led to the room where Carrot lay. Vimes tried to catch him up, saw claw-tipped fingers curl around the door and haul it out of its frame.
    Carrot was reaching for his sword—
    And then Wolfgang was flying backward under the full weight of Angua. They landed back in the hall, a rolling ball of fur, claws and teeth.
    When werewolf fights werewolf, there are advantages to either shape. It’s an eternal struggle to get a position where hands beat claws. And body shapes have lives of their own, a dangerous attribute if it is allowed to act unchecked. A cat’s instinct is to jump on something that moves, but this is not a correct action if what is moving has a fizzing fuse. The mind has to fight its own body for control and the other body for survival. Mix this together, and the noise suggests that there are four creatures in the whirling ball of rage. And each one of them has brought several friends. And none of them like any of the others.
    A shadow made Vimes spin around. Detritus, in shining armor, was aiming the Piecemaker over the banisters.
    “Sergeant! No! You’ll hit Angua, too!”
    “Not a problem, sir,” said Detritus. “’cos it won’t kill ’em, so all we have to do, see, is sort out der bits that are Wolfgang an’ belt him over der head when he gets himself back together—”
    “If you fire that in here his bits will be mixed up with our bits and they won’t be big bits! Put the damn thing down !”
    Wolfgang couldn’t control his shape well, Vimes saw. He couldn’t quite manage to be full wolf or full human, and Angua was making the most of that. She was ducking, weaving…biting.
    But even if you put him down you couldn’t put him out.
    “Mister Vimes!” Now it was Cheery, beckoning urgently from the passage that led to the kitchen.