The cold winter air stings hard against my bare skin, raising gooseflesh. I've long become accustomed to cold weather, the price one pays for waking up in strange places three times a month with nary a stitch of clothing on your body. Thankfully, this isn't one of those nights, and for the moment I can pretend I'm just a man...a man named Jack Russell.

The balcony extends out over the New York skyline, one of the nicer perks of the lavish apartment I've found myself crashing in for the past few weeks. The beautiful - if slightly crazed - woman that's opened her home to me is sleeping in the bedroom behind me. Amazingly, my stamina outlasted hers, and for yet another night I'm left alone with nothing but my own thoughts. Three weeks since I returned from Colorado , and I'm still not altogether sure what happened to me last month. So many people are dead by my hand, and this time I don't have the excuse of my disease to fall back on. I'd willingly killed an entire compound of people, and the fact that they were all murderously deranged hasn't helped me reconcile the blood on my conscience. After all, I'm honestly only one or two steps behind them in madness.

"Don't blame yourself," he says, "you only did what you felt you had to do."

"You're not real," I whisper, closing my eyes in hopes that when I open them again, he'll be gone.

I'm not that lucky. He's obviously there - I see him - but it's like looking at a blurry photograph. You can make out the details and features, but only if you squint and cross your eyes. It's like he's made out of smoke and mist, but I still can't deny the fact that he's standing in front of me. His name is Gregor Russoff, and he's my father - deceased as of two months ago. He's a ghost...or a hallucination. I haven't made my mind up which yet.

"Son," he starts, trying - and failing - to place a comforting hand on my shoulder, "you can't waste your time with women such as her. What would your mother think?"

"What would Mom think?" I ask in return, waving my hand through his immaterial body. "I think she'd wonder why you let her believe you were dead for nearly twenty years, you son of a bitch."

"I did die, Jacob," he replies, "three times, in fact. Once, when the people of Balkan village executed me; once, atop Wundagore Mountain ; and - for what I hoped to be the final time - in my home of old age. You need to go see Roberto, Jacob. He can help you..."

"Help me with what?" I shout, forgetting that my voice probably carries inside the apartment. "The last time I saw that guy, he sent me to a deathtrap in Romania ! It's all his fault - and yours - that my life has been run through the fucking shredder again! You want to know what you can do, if you want to help me so badly?"

He looks at me with eyes filled by fatigue and regret. I say it anyway.

"You can drop dead for good."

And with an understanding nod, he fades away, dispersed on the night wind. You may be wondering what kind of man could say such things to his father, but in all fairness Gregor is my dad by name and biology only. The only father figure I had was a cruel man that treated me like dirt growing up...so, yeah, all the best heroes have daddy issues, I'm afraid.

"Jack," she says from the door to the bedroom, prompting me to turn around, "come back to bed. Your mad conversations with thin air have stirred my loins."

Her name's Sybil Dvorak, the Gypsy Moth, and she's filthy fucking rich. The apartment's hers, payoff for the millions of dollars she's made from running deviant sex clubs around the world, and she's the closest thing I have to a friend these days. We'd worked together back in Los Angeles , both of us part of the Shroud's Night Shift, and a chance encounter back in December reignited our sexual relationship. She's also probably insane, but as the saying goes: any port in a storm.

"Not right now, Sybil," I tell her, turning back to rest my hands on the balcony and stare at the quarter-moon hanging above the city. I feel my skin and hair begin to move before her hand touches me, my body tingling under her power. She calls it tactile-telekinesis, meaning she can manipulate organic materials with her mind. I turn back around in time to see her robe unraveling around her, making her as naked as me when she gets close enough to press our bodies together.

"You came back to me, Jack," she whispers in my ear between flicks of her tongue, "but I'm not foolish. I know you don't love me...I don't love you either, and that's what makes this so perfect."

She moves down my body slowly, using both her mouth and her telekinesis to get my body as aroused as possible. When she finally reaches my erect manhood, she takes it in her lips with the expertise only gained by years and years of study and practice. I close my eyes to savor the experience, and after a few long minutes I reopen them...to find my apparition of a father standing disapprovingly behind her.

"When you finish," he says, "get dressed. I've taken your words under advisement, son, and it's time I give you something. In a library in Greenwich Village is a book."

I'm climaxing in front of my dead dad...only slightly embarrassing. He's nice enough not to mention it.

"It's my book, Jacob. And in it is the one thing you've wanted your entire adult life."

He finally has my attention.

"A cure."

For Mature Readers Only

#11
December '05

Strange Tales Presents

Werewolf by Night

Friends In the Night

Written by Chris Munn

An hour later, I'm sitting in a taxi that's winding its way through the early morning streets of New York City . My father's sitting with me in the back seat, and I decide to let him talk. All I need is for the cabbie to decide I'm insane for talking to an empty seat, so I stifle my desire to tell Gregor to shove his history lesson up his ass. So like a good boy, I allow him to ramble on.

"In the last years of my life," he begins, "I dedicated myself to a kind of supernatural diplomacy. I was one of the greatest warlocks of my day, due to my tampering with the Darkhold before you were born, and as such I was given a fair amount of respect in the inhuman community. One task I undertook was to help end the animosity that had brewed between lycanthropes and vampires, and I was successful to an extent. But everything - and I mean this sincerely - everything else took favor behind my search for a cure for the wolf curse that had plagued my family for so many generations. I consumed myself with research into our genealogy and the genetics of lycanthropy. What I discovered was... surprising , to say the least.

"You know the story of how our family became cursed, traced back to Grigori Russoff centuries prior to your birth. Through my research, I found that story to be a lie...a myth perpetrated by Grigori himself after he fell into madness. It is true that his wife was kidnapped and murdered by the vampire lord, Dracula...what is untrue is how he became inflicted with the curse that he would pass on to us."

"I'm not sure I want to know the truth," I mumble, eliciting a raised eyebrow from the driver in the rear-view mirror.

"You've been comfortable in the lie, son," Gregor continues, "as I had been before I discovered the reality of our heritage. I think that is why I have not been allowed to move on to my final rest. I am to show you what I know - what I found and possessed - in an effort to heal the wounds between us."

"Hey, man," the taxi driver says as the car lurches to a curbside stop, "this it?"

I look over at my dad, getting an affirmative nod. "Yeah, apparently so," I answer while handing the guy a twenty, generously donated to me by Sybil. I open the door and step out into the sidewalk, while Gregor's ghost simply steps through the steel shell of the car.

The wind seems to pick up as I stop in front of the building, craning my neck to take in the massive steeples of what had to have once been a church. Classic gothic architecture, marking this building at perhaps a hundred years old, if not more. Old school gargoyles sit perched on the ledges adorning the stained-glass structure, accented in true horror movie pastiche by the flashes of lightning beginning to spark in the sky. I scowl when I feel the first few raindrops hit my cheek.

"What is this place?" I ask as I turn up the collar on my trenchcoat. My father floats toward the tall doors.

"It was a church devoted to a particular kind of religion in the last century," he begins, watching while I make my way up the many stone steps leading to the entrance, "a cult of Kali, the death goddess."

"I have some friends back west involved with the Cult of Kali," I offer up, "any connection?"

"The parish that called this building home were exterminated years ago by a man named Stephen Loss," he tells me before pointing toward the handles on the door, "and a few decades later the church was just another abandoned building. The curse of blood sacrifice had stained the building's aura, so no one who purchased it would remain inside for very long. It took a man with extraordinary emotional fortitude to transform this place into what it is today."

I push hard on the doors, escaping inside just as the massive torrent of rain starts to fall outside. Any pretense of the building being a church is lost when I get my first good look at the interior. Dad wasn't kidding when said this place was a library; books were filed in shelves that filled the area had previously kept a sacrificial altar. The stone floor was still stained black with the blood from hundreds of murders that had taken place, branding the building with a décor any goth club would likely kill for.

"This is the Library of Damned Works," Gregor tells me as I follow him through the stacks to the cleverly named "Help Desk" that sits in the back, "and it is here that my journal has been entombed. The man at the desk is named Samuel...invoke my name and he will help you with whatever you request."

I step up to the desk and catch a glimmer of recognition in the eyes of the pale kid sitting with his legs propped up on a stack of books. He was one of the vampires I met at Dad's funeral, the one that spoke during the eulogy. "Remember me?" I ask, attempting a smile.

"I remember that you stole my friend's body from his funeral," Samuel answers, kicking his legs off the books and returning to a normal sitting position, "and I'm assuming you're not here to apologize."

"Gregor Russoff was my dad, okay?" I admit, hands held up in a show of peace toward the vampire teen. "And he... left me some information about his journal, that it's supposedly being kept here."

Samuel's eyes me curiously for a few moments before swiveling around in his chair to face the computer which, frankly, looks completely out of place amidst the candles and chandeliers. He taps furiously on the keyboard for a few seconds, then stops to scratch his temple with a capped pen. "Well, hate to tell you this," he says, turning back to me, "but somebody's already checked it out. We don't allow any of the books to leave the premises, though, so whoever's got it is still here."

"I'll do a little browsing then," I say, "thanks."

"I don't understand," Gregor moans as we make our way through the massive shelving units, in search of another living (ha ha) soul in the building. "Roberto swore to me that no one would able to access the journal here. Why would they just give it up to someone?"

We turn the corner and discover the library's reading area, nestled snugly in front of a roaring fireplace. In one of the three chairs positioned in front of the fire sits a man with hair the color of blood, long and straight, hanging down over his leather coat. "That's it!" Dad announces, pointing at the book held in the man's hands. "That's my journal!"

"Excuse me, man," I say softly to the stranger as I make my approach, "but that book kinda belongs to me. Think you could part with it?"

The man lifts his eyes from the book and grins at me. The book is lowered to his lap, careful not to lose his page, and he reveals his bare chest. Tattooed on the skin is a pentagram. "You must be Jack," he says after his hand moves to offer me a seat in the chair across from him, "I've heard much about you."

"Jacob, I don't like this," Gregor says as I accept the invitation to sit, "I think we should leave."

"And I think it would behoove you to keep your mouth shut, little ghost," the demonic stranger responds, his eyes cast directly on the spot where my father is manifesting.

"Wait, you can see him?" I as confusedly.

The red-haired man laughs softly. "Of course I can see him. I'm not sure why Russoff here isn't resting peacefully in the deepest pit of Hell, but he's so minor that I suppose I can overlook it for the time being. Go away, old man...this conversation is for the living."

And just like that, with a look of pure horror on his face, Dad is gone...faded away in the blink of an eye.

"Jack Russell," he continues without missing a beat, "I have to admit a bit of surprise at this. I thought I'd met all the players throughout the years - Strange, Blaze, all of those - but I apparently overlooked you entirely. I'm amazed our paths haven't crossed before this."

"Who are you?" I ask as the hairs begin to rise on the back of my neck.

"My name is Daimon Hellstrom," he answers, "and I'm the Lord of Hell."

"You're the Devil?" I question, feeling immediately stupid after the words leave my lips.

"You could say I inherited the position," Hellstrom says with a laugh, "but that's not really important. I've been reading over this interesting bit of literature while waiting for you to arrive. Your father seemed to consider himself quite the scholar in his earthly days...there are pages of the Darkhold itself scribed in the pages of his manifesto."

"Get to the fucking point, ‘your highness'," I tell him, admittedly with a lot more confidence than I thought I'd have when faced with ol' Scratch himself, "and tell me what you want. Or just give me my dad's book and fuck off...whichever tickles your fancy."

The Devil scowls at me, and a shimmering black halo starts to crackle above his head. "I like you, Jack. Despite years living under a curse that would drive most men to suicide, you have managed to keep a fire to your soul. However, do not think I won't hesitate to shit on your beating heart after I've torn it from your chest. A few years ago, you entered my realm and faced down a very powerful demon, one which has gained regency over your wolfen kind since the dawn of man. That demon still holds your fate in its maw, Russell...and I've come up from the depths to give you a little piece of advice."

"And that would be?" I ask while lighting up a cigarette. I offer the pack to Hellstrom, a gesture to which he nods and accepts. After a moment of silence, of the two of us inhaling on the cigarettes that would no doubt give us cancer were we anything close to being normal men, he tosses the book into my lap.

"Seek out Stephen Strange," he tells me while standing from his chair, cigarette in one hand and a wide-brimmed hat in the other, "and remember the help that I've given you tonight. One day, soon, you may be asked to take up arms against me...do not be fooled by yet another lie, no matter how attractive it may seem."

And with a burst of hellfire, my companion is gone, teleported away to Satan knows where. The smell of brimstone and sulfur assaults my enhanced senses, causing the hairs in my nostrils to curl up and die. The journal clutched tightly in my hand, I wonder for a moment just what happened to Dad...surely Hellstrom didn't send him that far away. Maybe he's just terrified about being dissed by the Devil? As I make my way out of the book stacks, I catch Samuel sitting at his desk, nose buried in a book of his own. Taking the opportunity to slip out unnoticed, I shove the journal beneath my arm - under my coat - and make my way toward the door.

It's still raining when I get outside.

I've heard all the things that people say about Dr. Strange behind his back. People say he's pompous and arrogant, stuffy and infuriatingly vague; essentially, they say he's an asshole who professes to know more than he really does. And, honestly, I can understand all of that. The first time I heard him mention the "Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth," I nearly pissed myself out of stifled laughter. Strange is kind of a prick, but what people fail to realize is that in his line of work, he has to be one. Sure, there are some of us out here in the trenches, fighting the little demons that try to rise up and steal your kids away. But Strange fights the big dogs, the one who are out to enslave whole dimensions and turn our picture perfect lives into breathing hells.

So, no matter what his bedside manner is like, the man has my respect.

Of course, there is one big downfall to the Doc: he tends to forget about the little guy. I mean, I can't really blame him for letting guys like Blaze and Morbius slip under his radar when they're not staring him in the face, but it still wounds the pride a little. I can't remember the amount of times I've called him, looking for help with my lycanthropy, only to get his Oriental answering machine of a "manservant" telling me that he's unavailable. Well, this time he won't have that excuse...this time, I'm knocking on his fucking door.

Naturally, because it's nearly 5:00 in the ante meridian, I spend a bit of time standing in front of his Sanctum Sanctorum, getting wetter and wetter as I bang on the big metal clasps hanging from his door. Finally, after about fifteen minutes, someone finally answers. She's young, with curly black hair and dark skin - Greek, maybe Middle Eastern? - and she looks about how I expect: like I just woke her up out of bed. I open my mouth to ask about Strange, or even why Wong hadn't answered the door with his normal courteous bow. She cuts me off while the first syllable's falling from my throat.

"Jack...?" she asks, her eyes swimming with disbelief and confusion. "Jack, is that you?"

"Uh, yeah?" I answer, a little stunned as to how this girl knows me, because I know I would remember someone as stunning as this.

"It's been so long," she says while wrapping her arms around my shoulders, embracing me in a hug. The girl is gorgeous - and practically falling out of the robe she's wearing - but I still keep my hands to myself while dislodging her from around my neck. She can't be a day over twenty, judging by her looks, and suffice it to say that's an age I left behind me long ago.

"Look, uh, I'm sorry," I say (admittedly using her confusion to push my way inside the Sanctum...so I'm a bastard, sue me), "but I think you've got me confused with somebody else. Somebody also named Jack, but somebody else nonetheless."

And with my words, I apparently hurt her feelings badly. Wrapping her arms across her chest, her head hung low, she whispers softly in the house's foyer. "You don't remember me. I may look different, Jack, but what we had all those years ago should make you remember regardless."

She looks at me, our eyes locking, and a strange feeling of recognition hits me. I do know this girl...I just don't know from where.

"Topaz," she says.

Her name brings back memories I'd long forgotten, of a young girl that helped me during my first year of the curse. She'd been the magical familiar of a sorcerer named Taboo, who wanted to use me as a cure for his deformed, comatose son. She turned against him and saved me, using her mental powers to soothe the bestial wolf that shared my body...and we fell in love. It's been years - and I mean years - since we've spoken. Apparently, she's undergone some changes.

"Topaz?" I ask after a moment of shock, my hand raised to her brown cheek. "What the fuck happened to you? Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you, y'know, blonde and Caucasian? Not to mention older...hell, we're supposed to be the same age."

"I'm originally from Pakistan , Jack," she says coldly, stepping back away from my fingers, "and it took little effort to invoke a spell of shape-shifting, to honor my true heritage. I've been Stephen's apprentice for the past year, if not longer, and he's helped me hone my power."

"Well, uh, is the Doc in?" I ask, trying desperately to change the subject. Lord, she's still beautiful, even if she's completely unrecognizable to me now.

"Doctor Strange has been gone for several months," she says, "and I'm afraid no one knows where he's gone, or when he shall return...if ever."

Even in the dim candlelight that's illuminating the Sanctorum entryway, I can see the emotion in her face. She looks close to tears, though I'm not sure if it's because of Strange or me. She's refusing to look me in the eye again, though, so that should give me at least a little hint as to how awkward this should be. I want to take her in my arms, tell her how much I missed her after we parted ways; tell her that she was the first girl this old wolf truly loved. But the years are between us now, and all I can manage to say to break the uncomfortable moment of silence is: "Oh..."

"Milady Topaz," a voice says from the bottom of the staircase that sits at the end of the foyer, catching the attention of both her and me, "is this lout troubling thee?"

Standing on the last step of the staircase is a boy who looks about as young as Topaz herself does now, his long blonde hair falling onto his bare shoulders and chest. Thankfully, he does have pants on...it's what's attached to the pants that causes a slight growl to escape my throat. His hand crosses over his stomach to grasp the hilt of a sword hanging from his belt, his eyes narrowed in an attempt to stare me down.

"Go back upstairs, Arthur," she tells him, glancing back at me afterward, "Mr. Russell was just about to leave."

She turns and starts to walk away from me, and in a moment of spontaneity I reach out and grab her arm. "Topaz, please, I'm sorry," I start to say, but by the time it takes me to form the words, Arthur has already jumped the banister and is rushing toward us, his sword drawn. The metal blade swings in an arc toward me, stopping just below my chin.

"Remove thy hand from the lady's person," he says through gritted teeth, "or I shalt remove thy head from thy shoulders."

Topaz knows what's coming next when she sees the sweat start to break out on my face. I allow my coat to fall from my shoulders as the transformation kicks in, though I consciously slow it down enough to bare my fangs at him mid-way through. He doesn't back down, though, I'll give that boy that much credit. So I throw my head back and howl as loudly as possible, the wolf overtaking the man as the transformation takes hold. A moment later and my clothes are ripped into shreds by my misshapen body, and I fall onto all fours. I'm not normally this bestial when I trigger the change myself, but I want to put the fear of God into the punk.

Faced with a werewolf that's twice his size crouched in front of him, all drool and maddened eyes, Arthur takes a cautious step backward, his sword still at the ready. I want the boy's throat in my teeth; I want to taste his blood as it falls down my throat. I want to murder everything beautiful in the world, and for the first time in what seems like forever I'm actually thankful for my curse. Just as I'm ready to pounce, however, Topaz steps between us, her hand outstretched toward me.

"Jack," she says authoritatively, "you will leave. Now."

"Fine," I growl at her while scooping my coat from the floor, "whatever." The doors open magically as I lope toward them, allowing me access to the rain-soaked night once again.

An hour later and I'm back on Sybil's balcony, having scaled the side of the building in my wolf form. She doesn't know I'm here, and for that I'm thankful. Curled up in the corner of the small balcony, arms wrapped across my legs, I haven't been able to stop crying since I left Strange's house.

Dad's journal still rests in the inside pocket of my coat, protected from the torrents of rain that have drenched my body. I'm shivering despite myself, trying valiantly to control the tide of emotions that threaten to overtake me. I'm not crying over Dad, or even because of Topaz...I'm crying because I know my life will never get any better than this. For the moment, I don't even care that the book at my breast could possibly contain a cure for my curse.

All I can do is wallow in my self-pity, and question why I hadn't put a silver bullet in my head a long time ago.

I have no friends left. Sybil is only with me for the sex, or possibly for the danger, and as soon as she's had her fill of me I'll probably never see her again. Everyone else from my past has disappeared. I tried calling Jessica Drew from a payphone, only to get her answering machine.

"Hello, this is the office of Jessica Drew. I am currently out of the country on assignment, but if you leave your name and number I will get back with you at the soonest convenience."

Out of everyone, I miss Michael the most. Mike Morbius, the Living Vampire, is about as odd a cat as one could find, but by god he was the best friend I ever had. I don't even know where he's at these days, or if he ever found a cure for his vampirism. Some friend I am, huh?

"Jack," Sybil says from the door to her apartment, "is everything okay?"

"No," I answer her, yelling to be heard over the thunderclaps above us, "no, everything is not okay. I've fucked everything up, babe...and when I die, nobody's going to care."

"You have a visitor," she replies, "who may think differently."

I lift my head to see her step to the side, revealing another woman standing in the apartment behind her. "Oh no," I mutter, "tell me things didn't just get worse."

"Hi, Jack," the woman says from the dry safety of the apartment, obviously shaken by my appearance, "I need...I need your help."

I stand up slowly, careful not to slip on the wet concrete of the patio. I nod toward the girl, letting her know that I'm here for whatever she needs. How could I not help her?

Her name's Lissa Russell, and she is my sister, after all.

Next Issue: Lissa Russell, Jack's sister, is being hunted by a mysterious group desperate to unlock her connection to the curse of lycanthropy! Will Jack help her, or will the secrets revealed by Gregor Russoff's journal make him choose differently? Find out in part one of "All the Rage".