It had been a day since our conversation with Karen's parents, Karen and I were at Joe's diner waiting for Chris and Mr. Brown who went to relay the information of the dire beast to Chris' dad. We ordered fries but we barely touched it, we just kept looking at the parking lot to see when they would pull up.
"What if he doesn't believe us? Chris' dad I mean, what if he doesn't believe there's a dire beast" Karen asked.
"I've been thinking about it and he definitely won't believe us"
Susan gave me that look that says 'That's not helpful'
"What? I'm not trying to be negative. Let's state the facts, the only confirmation we have of the dire beast is the Alchemist whose identity we can't expose and we are taking this information to an AMU operative with the sole hope that he'll believe it because his son is the one telling him"
"You know, a simple ' if it didn't work we'll figure something out' would've been sufficient.
I gave a sarcastic smile " If it doesn't work out we'll figure something out"
Karen grabbed a fry and threw it at me " Shut up"
"They're here" I pointed to Mr. Brown's car entering the parking lot. The car stopped and Chris exited the front passenger seat then Mr. Brown drove off. We waited for Chris to join us. He walked into the diner with a plain face, it was hard to tell if their conversation went well.
"Hey guys" Chris said as he sat next to Karen.
"My Dad didn't come in with you?" Karen asked.
"No, he said he had something he had to do. He said he'll see you at home"
"How did the conversation with your dad go?" I asked.
Chris gave a heavy sigh "If I'm being honest, I have no idea but of all the ways I pictured it playing out it went rather well"
"Well that's a very satisfying answer but we're going to need more clarity buddy" I said.
"My Dad was all mean at first saying he can't discuss an ongoing investigation with citizens but when we got to the dire beast he paused, I don't know what was going on through his head but he admitted that the bite and claw marks were bigger than a werewolf's"
Karen had a smile on her face "Great! That should prove that the werewolves are innocent and that the dire beast really is out there"
"It's not that simple" Chris responded.
"Why not?"
"Because when my Dad asked how many eye witnesses have seen this dire beast, our answer was one. That person being the Alchemist and we all know he's not going to step out and give a statement to the AMU"
"Damn. So what did your dad say was going to happen? Where do we go from here?" I asked.
"He said that we don't have enough evidence to officially take this to the AMU but he'll keep an eye out"
"So we are back where we started" Karen sounded frustrated.
"We're not" Chris said. "Hopefully the AMU or the Alchemist will hunt this thing down and then things can go back to normal"
"Speaking of the Alchemist, Susan invited us to have dinner with her Dad" Karen said.
"You're serious?" Chris voiced. "Why in her right mind would she think that we would go to dinner at her place, with her Dad?"
"She said she wanted to clear the air and show us that we're all on the same side" Karen answered.
I cleared my throat "All of us?"
Karen shook her head "Uh no, I told her that Fred stays out of it. I made it seem like you had no knowledge of what's going on. Did you run into her at school today?"
"I did, she came up to me at the basketball court, turns out we both had a free period. I tried my best to act normal the whole time"
"What did you guys talk about?" Chris asked?
"Nothing much, just what I've been up to lately and other small talk. Maybe she was trying to find out if I knew something, I think I played it smoothly though"
"Obviously Fred can't attend this dinner" Karen turned to Chris "It's another chance to find out more about him. I'm going, are you?"
"Walking into the lion's den. Sounds like fun. My mum's working the nightshift at the hospital anyways and I didn't really feel like cooking so now I have dinner options"
"I can't let you guys walk in there alone" I said.
Karen sighed "You keep forgetting I'm a werewolf. If anything goes wrong I'll manage"
"And I'm human. I'm totally going in defenseless." Chris said with a shaky laugh. "I need to find a way to keep up with you guys"
Karen had a smug grin on her face "Don't worry, I'll protect you".
Chris blinked slowly with a deadpan look "Get over yourself"
"I don't have to go inside" I said. "I can stay in the car or outside to lend a hand if you need it"
Chris turned to Karen "Didn't your parents ground you?"
Karen sighed "You mean when the two of you ran out of my house when my parents yelled at me?"
"In our defense, your Mum is scary when she's mad" Chris answered.
"I'm not grounded, but I'm expected to be home before the AMU's curfew" Karen said.
We all agreed to called our parents to tell them we had dinner plans, I called my Dad because predictably my Mum would likely argue about how it wasn't safe in town right now. She would be right but I needed to be there tonight. My Dad said he would tell my mum but I needed to be back before curfew.
The AMU curfew starts at nine so the dinner was scheduled by seven. We pulled up close to the Adler's, I was going to stay in the car so I couldn't be too close to be spotted.
"Wait" I called out as Chris and Karen exited the vehicle.
"What?" Chris inquired. I took out my phone and placed a call to Chris.
He stared at his ringing phone all confused. "I'm right here. What's with the call?"
"Answer it" I responded. "Put it on speaker, I'll mute my mic on this end so they can't hear me. This way I can hear what's going on inside or if you need backup"
"Smart" Karen said.
They both walked over to the house and rang the doorbell.
"Hey guys" Susan greeted. She sounded happy to see them. "I'm glad you guys decided to come"
"Hey" they both responded.
"Hey kids" Mr. Adler said in the background. "Well come on in"
Not being in the house made it hard for me to tell what was going on but judging by how Chris and Karen had barely said a thing it was obvious they were uncomfortable, but knowing Karen that was about to change.
"Listen kids" Mr. Adler said. "Let me start by saying I'm sorry about the other day. I've been told on several occasion that my people skill is somewhat lacking"
"It could be because you spend most of your time in the woods?" Karen said in a very bold tone, I couldn't help but think 'wow'.
Chris laughed awkwardly "What Karen is trying to say is thank you for inviting us to dinner to try to clear the air because we really want to do the same"
"No worries" Mr. Adler responded. "You guys are important to my daughter and I want to fix this so I'll answer any questions you may have, but first let's eat"
After about twenty minutes of hearing cutlery clank against each other and very awkward small talks they got back to the topic at hand.
"So the dire beast, when did you first find out it was in Stowe?" Chris asked.
"Alchemists have a sort of channel which we share information, someone spread word about a dire beast causing trouble in Vermont. At first I thought the person might have been over exaggerating but two more alchemists confirmed sightings. The beast seemed to be travelling, killing people along the way and covering it up"
"By covering it up you mean digging ditches and burying the bodies?" Karen asked.
"Yes, but we don't think it's the beast that's burying the bodies" Mr. Adler said.
"Another interesting thing is the alchemists say the ditches they found doesn't look like it was dug by an animal, one of the alchemists even claimed to have found a shovel hidden in the bushes nearby" Susan said.
"So this thing can shift from monster to man?" Karen asked.
Mr. Adler cleared his throat "We don't know, the whole thing doesn't make sense but from the trail of the towns with incidents Stowe was next and we had just moved here, so I decided to go out and see if I could track any signs of it and I did, claws marks on trees too big for a werewolf or any other animal"
"This was on the night of the full moon?" Karen inquired.
"No" Mr. Adler responded. "I didn't think it really was a dire beast but from the size of the claws it was obvious I couldn't take it on my own, so I went out again on the full moon and tried to lure the beast out so the wolves would help in taking it down but instead I ran into someone who almost deep-fried me with lightning coming out of his fists"
"Do you guys have any idea who that could've been?" Chris asked, trying to see if they knew about me.
"We honestly have no clue" Susan answered.
"Lightning boy and this creature showing up at the same time can't be a coincidence, maybe he's the one covering up the dead bodies" Mr. Adler said. "Anyway, it wasn't until the morning of the incident that I actually set eyes on the dire beast, I tried to track it to see if I could find where it nests, that was when I heard screams and rushed over as fast as I could but it was too late. I tried to put up a fight, I hit him with a sedative smoke bomb and fired a couple of rounds but it didn't seem to have any effect, it just came right at me. Luckily I was able to roll out of the way and make a smoke screen to get away. Now you know everything"
"Since the AMU hasn't kicked our door down, does that mean you haven't told anyone about my Dad being the Alchemist?" Susan asked.
"We haven't" Karen responded. "But other werewolves saw him on the night of the full moon and they told the AMU about the Alchemist so your Dad should really hold off on dressing up in creepy masks and going into the woods for a while"
Mr. Adler laughed "You have spirit, I like it. Thanks for the heads up"
"How do you kill a dire beast?" Chris asked.
"A dire beast isn't your common supernatural, they are extremely rare. The lore on how to kill this thing differs and none of the other alchemists have any idea how"
"My Dad told us a lore about how a dozen werewolves were able to take down a dire beast on a full moon"
"We still have two weeks to the next full moon" Susan said.
"A creature so big it's probably like ten feet, how can it hide from the AMU so well?" Chris asked.
"It's taller than ten feet, from what I saw I'll say fourteen feet" Mr. Adler responded.
"That's not terrifying at all" Chris said.
"Thanks to the lore your father told you we know one way of killing this thing is ripping it to pieces" Susan said. "Hey can I ask you guys a question about Fred?"
I sat up straight in the car seat wondering what she was going to ask.
"Sure" Karen responded.
"Why doesn't he know about this? I mean you guys are going off into the woods and having dinner at my house trying to get answers and he's just in the dark about all of this?"
Karen took a brief pause before speaking, I wasn't in the room but I could picture her and Chris trading looks "My father told me that sometimes being a good person means shielding your friends from your burdens, not because you don't trust them but because you care enough not to let your mess become their burden. I intended on doing this alone because I didn't want my friends to get hurt but Chris got too involved before I could sideline him, if Fred knew what we were doing he would be here asking questions alongside us. He would be all in, at least this way I can protect one of my friends"
"I respect that" Mr. Adler responded. "Since I can't go into the woods as freely as I would like thanks to the AMU patrol, I'm going to have to find a way to get information about the dire beast to the AMU, I'll keep you guys updated"
"We've already informed the AMU" Chris said.
"How? Did they believe you?" Susan asked.
"My Dad is one of the soldiers" Chris answered. "He said he would look into it"
From how the conversation went from that moment on it seemed that Chris and Karen were a lot more relaxed and spoke more freely, perhaps we could trust the Alchemist.