Werewolf by Night #17

Jack and Topaz arrive in California where the Committee has long awaited their return…

In the bell tower of the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Werewolf and Topaz try to evade the Parisian police. Topaz uses her telepathic powers to calm the beast, but the stress of the past few nights have taken their toll on her, weakening her mastery over her abilities. During a brief lapse, the Werewolf goes wild and attacks the gendarmes, but Topaz is able to regain control until the moon sets and the beast becomes Jack Russell again. The couple finally manages to catch a flight back home to L.A.

At the home of Jack's step-father, Philip, and his sister, Lissa, the reunion is mostly warm, but Lissa expresses her fears about her upcoming eighteeth birthday, and the possibility of succumbing to the family curse. Outside the house, a Committee spy reports to his masters.

At the Committee's headquarters, the supreme leader, Baron Thunder, weaves plots whose desired outcomes are known only to himself. He provides for his lieutenants a demonstration of the Behemoth, a gigantic automaton.

Over the next few weeks, Jack buries himself in research to find a cure for the curse. Recalling next-door neighbor Raymond Coker's interest in the supernatural, Jack pays a visit, but is rebuked by Coker who acts insulted. Coker, alone in his apartment and about to perform some ritual, frets that Jack suspects the truth.

At the movie studio where Jack's friend Clary Winter works (and which, he's learned, had a connection with the hunter Joshua Kane), Jack asks a producer if Kane left any notes behind (notes which Jack hopes might mention the cure Kane's brother, Luther claimed to have). The producer gives Jack the name of Kane's lawyer, but that seems a dead end.

That evening, Topaz arrives at Jack's apartment as the moon rises, and he beomes the Werewolf. Topaz strains to keep the beast calm for hours until the Behemoth bursts in. The automaton tries to capture the Werewolf but its soft clay-like body is no match for the beast's claws, and it is recalled by its masters.

Topaz barely keeps the Werewolf at bay till morning, when Jack reverts to human. Believing her powers are waning, Topaz tells Jack she's leaving for her native India.

In the meantime, Baron Thunder considers other means of capturing the Werewolf.

The next day, Lt. Lou Hackett pays a visit to Jack, asking about a werewolf.