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uncontrollable pitch.
    Brigitte jerked away. “Ow! Lance, you bit me!” She touched a spot of blood on her lip.
    He felt his hands curl into claws, the nails turn hard and black. Hair began to sprout all over his body. He tried to stop the transformation, but he didn’t know how. He stumbled backward. “Oh, God! Please no! Not again!”
    “No, Lance—that’s not your line!” Brigitte whispered to him.
    His muscles bulged; his face stretched out into a long, sharp muzzle. His throat gurgled and growled. He looked around for something to smash. Brigitte screamed, though it wasn’t in the script. Tossing her aside, Lance uprooted one of the ornamental palms and hurled the clay pot to the other side of the stage.
    “Cut!” the director called. “What the hell is going on here? It’s just a simple scene!”
    The klieg lights dimmed again. Lance felt the werewolf within him dissolving away, leaving him sweating and shaking and standing in clothes that had torn in several embarrassing places.
    “Oh Lance, quit screwing around!” Derwell said. “Go to wardrobe and get some new clothes, for Christ’s sake! Somebody, get a new plant and clean up that mess. Get First Aid to fix Brigitte’s lip here. Come on, people!” Derwell shook his head. “Why did I ever turn down that job to make Army training films?”
    #
    Lance skipped going to wardrobe and went to Zoltan’s makeup trailer instead. He didn’t know how he was going discuss this with the gypsy, but if all else failed he could just knock the old man flat with a good roundhouse punch, in the style of Craig Corwyn, U-Boat Smasher.
    When he pounded on the flimsy door, though, it swung open by itself. A small sign hung by a string from the doorknob. In Zoltan’s scrawling handwriting, it said “FAREWELL, MY COMPANIONS. TIME TO MOVE ON. GYPSY BLOOD CALLS.”
    Lance stepped inside. “All right, Zoltan. I know you’re in here!”
    But he knew no such thing, and the cramped trailer proved to be empty indeed. Many of the bottles had been removed from the shelves, the brushes, the latex prosthetics all packed and taken. Zoltan had also carried away the old cardboard box from the corner, the one containing the jar of special makeup for Lance.
    In the makeup chair, Lance found a single sheet of paper that had been left for him. He picked it up and stared down at it, moving his lips as he read.
    “Mr. Lance,
    “My homemade concoction may eventually wear off, as soon as you learn a little more patience. Or they may not. I cannot tell. I have always been afraid to use my special makeup, until I met you.
    “Do not try to find me. I have gone with the crew of Fraankenstein of the Farmlands to shoot on location in Iowa. I will be gone for some time. Director Derwell asked me to leave, to save him time and money. Worry not, though, Mr. Lance. You no longer need any makeup from me.
    “I promised you would become a star. Now, every time the glow of the klieg lights strikes your face, you will transform into a werewolf. You will doubtless be in every single werewolf movie produced from now on. How can they refuse?
    “P.S., You should hope that werewolves are not just a passing fad! You know how fickle audiences can be.”
    Lance Chandler crumpled the note, then straightened it again so he could tear it into shreds, but he didn’t need any werewolf anger to snarl this time.
    He stared around the empty makeup trailer, feeling his career shatter around him. There would be no more Tarzan roles, no thrilling adventures of Craig Corwyn. His hopes, his dreams were ruined, and his cry of anguish sounded like a mournful wolf’s howl.
    “I’ve been typecast!”

    -#-

Much at Stake

    Kevin J. Anderson

    “Much at Stake” copyright 1991 by WordFire, Inc. Originally published in The Ultimate Werewolf , edited by Byron Preiss, David Kellor, and Megan Miller, Dell Books, 1991.

    Of all the numerous Dracula films and books I’ve seen, very few focus on the historical Prince Vlad the