The Map of Chaos by Félix J. Palma Page B

enough time to order his thoughts and decide what to do. For the moment, the only thing he knew for sure was that he had no intention of sharing his discovery with Sinclair. He wanted to interrogate the countess alone, so that she would be able to answer all the questions bubbling inside his head, even if the majority of them bore no relation to the case.
    â€œAs you know, gentlemen, our department is responsible for looking into the supernatural, everything that is beyond man’s comprehension,” Clayton heard the captain explain as he ran his fingers over his dragon-shaped lapel pin. “Alas, as on this occasion, most of our investigations turn out to be hoaxes. This is something Inspector Clayton is starting to learn, isn’t it, my boy?” Clayton felt obliged to nod in agreement. “But even the cases we can only explain by resorting to the fantastical show us that the supernatural rarely coincides with popular folklore. Werewolves are a perfect example. They first appeared in Greek mythology, but it wasn’t until the Middle Ages that stories about werewolves began to proliferate. Our files contain a cutting from a German gazette dating back to . . .” Sinclair frowned, trying to recall the date.
    â€œFifteen eighty-nine,” Clayton said wearily.
    â€œYes, precisely, fifteen eighty-nine. And it gives an account of children whose guts were ripped out by a supposed werewolf in the town of Bedburg. It is the oldest account we have, but by no means the only one. There are countless such stories. Hundreds, nay, thousands of cases that have only helped the werewolf myth grow. And yet myths are simply facts that have been filtered through the popular imagination, which has a tendency toward theatrical, nauseating romanticism that ends up distorting reality until it becomes unrecognizable. Thanks to those myths, and to penny dreadfuls like Wagner the Wer-Wolf or Hugues the Wer-Wolf , most people today think of werewolves as wretched creatures who at each full moon are transformed into wolves against their will and, overwhelmed by a terrible bloodlust, are driven to kill indiscriminately. Among the many other foolish notions, the power to turn into a werewolf is said to be obtained from drinking rainwater accumulating in wolf tracks, or from wearing a belt made from wolf hide, or from being bitten by another werewolf. Since you can verify the fallacy of the first two for yourselves, allow me to demonstrate the impossibility of the third by means of a simple calculation: if werewolves, like vampires, turned all their victims into creatures like themselves by biting them, before long the entire world’s population would cease to be human. Reason allows us to refute the other fascinating traits with which folklore has endowed those creatures. The moon’s influence, for example, is an idea that originates in the myths of southern France. I am sure you will all agree that running through a forest during a full moon is much easier than in the darkest night, making it likely that the first time a murderer was branded as a werewolf, it was for the sake of mere convenience. In any event, we have known about the moon’s influence since ancient times; its effect on the tide, the weather, men’s mood, and, er . . .”
    â€œCertain female complaints,” Clayton suggested.
    â€œIndeed, certain female complaints. And so, if werewolves did exist, the effects of the moon on their behavior would undoubtedly be the least fantastical aspect of their nature.” Sinclair paused and then turned to the doctor with an ironical smile. “As for silver bullets being an infallible weapon against werewolves, Doctor Russell, I’m afraid that is something that, for the moment, only you and a handful of others know about. Perhaps one day it will become just another indisputable characteristic of those creatures. For that to happen it would suffice for authors to decide to