Chapter 18
So I headed to the amusement park and soon found the same hot dog stand as before where the man with the scar over his right eye was selling his hot dogs. I stood in a corner staring at him with my face partially hidden under my hoodie. At 10pm, the man finally closed his booth and prepare to go home.
I discreetly followed him to the parking lot and waited in my car for him to drive away, and I then carefully followed him. Half an hour later, his car pulled into a quiet residential street in the suburbs and parked in front of a house at the end of the street.
He got out of the car, opened the front door and entered the house. Meanwhile, I snuck into his garden to see if there was anything suspicious. The garden was well maintained, and there was a BBQ shelf, a table and two chairs. As I was about to leave, I noticed three garbage bins in the corner of garden.
"I should check the garbage cans, in the detective movies all the important evidence is always found in the garbage." Thinking of this, I crept over to the trash bins and opened their lids. I had only started searching inside when was grabbed from behind.
"Don't move, or I'll slit your throat right now." The man was behind me, a sharp knife against my neck, and my two hands were pinned behind me with a death grip.
He pushed me into the house and bundled me into a room, which was pitch dark inside. I felt I must be right, and that he was a werewolf, because only werewolves can see so well in the dark, and a fight in the dark would be advantageous to him.
"What have you been following me for? Who sent you?" His voice was low and husky, and I tried to remember where his somewhat familiar voice had been heard before.
"I...I don't know what you're talking about, I was just trying to get some food out of the dumpster." I lied, hoping I could pull the wool over his eyes.
"Fucking bullshit!" I felt the knife cut through the skin of my throat, and I gritted my teeth and held my breath.
I rolled my eyes and lowered my voice, "Paul asked me to come."
I felt his hand holding the knife move a little. It seemed he was a little surprised to hear the name Paul; this reinforced my suspicion that he was a werewolf.
But soon the knife was against pressed firmly against my throat: "Say again, bitch, who is Paul?" he cursed at me in a low voice.
I was thinking about what lie to tell him when the phone in my pocket rang. The phone noisily broke the silence of the room in the silent room, and the man was unable to hear anything I said to him.
The man was annoyed by the sudden ringing of the phone and wanted to turn it off, but he only had two hands, so he dropped the knife and tried to free his hand to get my phone. "Don't move, your little body isn't strong enough to get away from me," he warned me in a hostile tone.
Without the threat of the knife, I bent down abruptly and threw the man over my shoulder, and he fell heavily to on his back on the hard floor. He was stunned that I had so much strength, and before he could react, I quickly drew the dagger from my waist and stabbed him deep over the heart.
He only screamed once before I covered his mouth with one hand and pushed the dagger deeper into his heart with the other. The werewolf would only die completely if I pierced his heart, and I couldn't give him any chance to fight back.
Before long, the man stopped breathing. As I studied his face and ran my hand over it, I tried to remember where I had met him. When my hand touched the scar at the corner of his right eye, the skin felt surprisingly smooth.
I scrubbed at the scars on his face, and soon they came off. They did not bleed and were quite shallow. As I continued to rub the scar area, I realised that he was wearing a human skin mask.
Once I had completely removed the human mask from his face, I was shocked that this man turned out to be a relative of Zoe's, and I remembered his name was Peter. I had met him a couple of times at family parties, so it was no wonder I thought his voice sounded familiar.
The phone rang again, and I looked at it, it was Beth. I picked up the call, and Beth's anxious voice blurted out, "Dory, where are you, why are you still back, it's so late?"
I quickly told her what had just happened.
"You stay inside, I'll be right there." she assured me.
Soon Beth came over. She embraced me and then pointed to the two men behind her. "They're here to handle this, let's go back now."
She lectured me as she drove: "Dory, you should have asked me to go with you. If something happened to you, Theo would have blamed me, and I couldn't let that happen."
I sputtered, "I'm sorry Beth, I was just suspicious of him but I never expected to be in danger."
"Well done anyway, Dory! We'll put someone on guard there to see who comes to his house in the next few days. The enemy has finally given himself away." Beth's tone was admiring.
I felt a little smug; finally I was of use.
Two days later, as I was practising shooting blindfolded, I heard a welcome voice, "Well done!" It was Theo, and I took off my blindfold, turned around and threw myself into his arms.
Theo kissed me on my forehead and on my cheek.
"You couple had better not show your affection in front of me again, I'll get jealous." Came Beth's voice.
I realized that I was being frivolous and tried to break away from Theo's embrace, but I couldn't move at all because his arms were wrapped tightly around me. I bashfully hid in his arms with my head bowed down like a child who had done something wrong.
"Today is a special day, and I have two dates tonight. You guys have fun by yourselves!" Beth said, leaving us behind.
"What day is today?" I looked up to ask Theo.
"Today is Lupercalia, and also a silly holiday for humans. I'll take you back to the werewolf world tomorrow, but tonight we'll go out for some fun to celebrate the successful completion of your training and the capture of a spy."
I had totally forgotten that today was Lupercalia, which is the festival where we celebrate the primal power of the wolf. I was very curious as to how humans celebrate the wolf day. I knew Beth had mind linked him and told him about the hot dog man being Peter the werewolf.
I said confidently, "I told you I'd be useful to you, and I wasn't lying."
Theo stroked my hair, "I picked a Gamma, of course she was going to be awesome. I'm going to reward you when we get back."
As we walked down the street towards Tower Bridge, I saw many street vendors selling red, pink, and white roses, wrapped in shiny paper and tied up with colorful ribbons. Once the sun set and the sky turned dark, the vendors lit candles and lanterns, and the love songs in the air added to the romantic ambiance.
Today was the humans' Valentine's Day.
I don't have any special feelings about Valentine's Day, but seeing so many girls on the street with roses in their hands, I was excited, if only I could receive roses from Theo.
"Gamma Aiden, hurry up, you're crawling along!" Theo said, as if he could see what I was thinking.
I realized this time that I was male right now, so I coughed twice and said in a gruff voice, "I'll be right with you!"
Theo took me to a bar, which was very crowded and featured a live band. We sat down on high bar stools; Theo ordered a vodka and Coke and I ordered a gin and tonic. I felt girls throwing curious glances at both of us, but of course I knew most of the glances were directed at Theo.
Because he was so handsome, his looks and his swagger seemed to overshadow all the others in the bar, and I sat next to him, like one of his followers lost in his undeniable charm and magnetism. But deep down I felt there was danger.