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heaved the giant, mute piano and smashed it onto its side. The severed piano wires jangled like a rasping old woman trying to sing. The bartender stood up and brought out a gun, firing four times in succession, but they were only theatrical blanks, and not silver blanks either. Lance knocked the gun aside, grabbed the bartender’s arm, and hurled him across the stage, where he landed in a perfect stunt man’s roll.
    Lance Chandler stood under the klieg lights, in the pool of blue gel filtering through the skylight simulating the full moon. He bayed a beautiful wolf howl as everyone fled screaming from the stage.
    “Cut! Cut! Lance, that’s magnificent!” Derwell clapped his hands.
    The klieg lights faded, leaving the wreckage under the normal room illumination. Lance felt all the energy drain out of him. His face rippled and contracted, his ears shrank back to normal. His throat remained sore from the long howl, but the fangs had vanished from his mouth. He brushed his hands to his cheeks, but found that all the abnormal hair had melted away.
    Derwell ran onto the set and clapped him on the back. “That was incredible! Oscar-quality stuff!”
    Old Zoltan stood at the edge of the set, smiling. His dark eyes glittered. Derwell turned to the gypsy and applauded him as well. “Marvelous, Zoltan! I can’t believe it. How in the world did you do that?”
    Zoltan shrugged, but his toothless grin grew wider. “Special makeup,” he said. “Gypsy secret. I am pleased it worked out.” He turned and shuffled toward the soundstage exit.
    “Do you really think that was Oscar quality?” Lance asked.
    #
    The other actors treated Lance with a sort of awe, though a few tended to avoid him. The actress playing Brigitte kept fixing her eyes on him, raising her eyebrows in a suggestive expression. Derwell, having shot a perfect take of the transformation scene he had thought would require more than a day, ordered the set crew to repair the werewolf-caused damage so they could shoot the big love scene, as a reward to everyone.
    Zoltan said nothing to Lance as he added a heavy coat of pancake and sprayed his hair into place. Lance didn’t how the gypsy had worked the transformation, but he knew when not to ask questions. Derwell had said his performance was Oscar quality! He just grinned to himself and looked forward to the kissing scene with Brigitte. Lance always tried to make sure the kissing scenes required several takes. He enjoyed his work, and so (no doubt) did his female co-stars.
    Zoltan added an extra-thick layer of dark-red lipstick to Brigitte’s mouth, then applied a special wax sealing coat so that it wouldn’t smear during the on-screen passion.
    “All right you two,” Derwell said, sitting back in his director’s chair, “start gazing at each other and getting starry-eyed. Places everyone!”
    Zoltan packed up his kit and left the soundstage. He said good-bye to the director, but Derwell waved him away in distraction.
    Lance stared into Brigitte’s eyes, then wiggled his eyebrows in what he hoped would be an irresistible invitation. He had few lines in this scene, only some low grunting and a mumbled “Yes, my love” during the kiss.
    Brigitte gazed back at him, batting her eyelashes, melting him with her deep brown irises.
    “ Wolfman in Casablanca , Scene 39, Take One.”
    Lance took a deep breath so he could make the kiss last longer.
    “Action!” The klieg lights came one.
    In silence, he and Brigitte gawked at each other. Romantic music would be playing on the soundtrack. They leaned closer to each other. She shuddered with her barely contained emotion. After an indrawn breath, she spoke in a sultry, sexy French accent. “You are the type of man I need. You are my soul-mate. Kiss me. I want you to kiss me.”
    He bent toward her. “Yes, my love.”
    His joints felt as if they had turned to ice water. His skin burned and tingled. He kissed her, pulling her close, feeling his passion rise to an