Chapter Thirty – The surprise call

Ariel had avoided her father like the plague for the last couple of days, and thankfully the old man had respected the distance. Neither her nor Kieran had gotten any calls from the old, which was a surprise. It was also a little worrying, but Ariel took the time to enjoy the peace and quiet.

It was on days like these, when the world was a quiet place and no one asked for her attention, that Ariel regretted never taken an education or gotten any old job. But it wasn’t her style – she would have gotten bored in the first five minutes. Yet, just walking around in an empty apartment wasn’t much better.

She had looked through every book Kieran had in his bookshelf, read bits and pieces of some that looked interesting before deciding reading wasn’t for her. She had started watching a TV show but got bored after the second episode and had spent the last hour just staring into the roof wondering what to do next. No, this domestic kind of life didn’t suit her. She had to do something, anything.

Like on queue her phone vibrated, the screen lighting up with the name ‘Mayor’ displayed in big letters. Ariel knitted her brows together; he had never called her in the middle of the day before.

“Hello” Ariel answered in her usual shipper, carefree tone. **“Ariel, glad I caught you. Could you come to my office at home? There is something I’d like to discuss with you”** Anthony sounded distressed, it got her attention. “When do you need me to be there?” Ariel was already up on her feet. **“How fast can you get here?”** Anthony asked as she was putting on her shoes. “Give me five minutes” She answered before hanging up, he was used to her doing that anyways.
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Five minutes later Ariel stood at the front steps of the mayor’s resident. It was a smaller house just on the outskirts of downtown, it had taken her no more than four minutes to jog there. “Come in” Anthony said as he opened the door, stepping aside to let her pass into the narrow hallway.

“Why are we meeting here?” Ariel asked as she kicked of her shoes, following after Anthony into the living room and office behind it. Normally they would meet at the town hall where he had his office. But they would also meet late in the afternoon, not in the middle of the day.

“It’s easier this way” Anthony explained as he gestured for Ariel to sit down in a worn-out couch by the window, while he took a seat on the chair opposite to her. “I guess so” Ariel answered as she looked around the room. She had never been in the private home of the mayor before, and it wasn’t anything like she had imagined.

The office was big enough to fit a desk and chair in the middle. The wall behind the desk was covered in bookcases, and the couch she was sitting on was part of a lounge set with a small table in between. The furniture was all old and worn, making her wonder if this was an inherited home that lacked some love and TLC.

“So. Over to business. I was just informed earlier today that there’s been observed several wolves coming into our area. A small pack in fact, and they have all resided on the Andvari property” Anthony started, and Ariel focused on the man before her. More wolves, as in more werewolves? She didn’t like the sound of that.

“What do you need me for?” Ariel asked. “I’ll get to that eventually, just hear me out first, okay?” Anthony answered politely. He was one of the few men who didn’t just hold their hand up to stop her, she appreciated it.

“We don’t know where they are from, or why they came here. I’m not well versed in this, so I’ve asked Doctor Jansen for some insight, but she hasn’t been able to return my calls just yet. They are still working on the campsite that burned to the ground a few nights ago and have asked her for help. We’re all small communities up here with minimal resources, and she is pretty good at her field. But I’d like to know more, and I don’t like to wait. I need to know if these newcomers are anything like the last. And if there is any reason to worry” Anthony finished, leaning back against his chair.

“So, you need me to do a little recon? Check out the area and see what’s really going on?” Ariel was intrigued, this was something out of the ordinary for her, and she loved it.

“Pretty much yes. Don’t trespass, just walk around the area, see if there is anything we need to worry about. And if someone is a threat to the people in town, put them down” Anthony had a more delicate way of asking her to kill creatures than most others, it was amusing, made her smile a little. Like she was doing them a favor by shooting them with an arrow. According to Lilith, she did though.

“Sounds easy enough. But it doesn’t really get dark now, so I can’t actually go around lurking in the shadows” Ariel pointed out. The midnight sun was both a blessing and a curse. Ariel loved the light days, feeling the sun on her skin and her mood lift after months of barely any light at all. But it also made it harder to sneak around. She had been lucky with the rogue arriving when it did, just days before the sun stopped setting.

“That’s true. So maybe try to make it a little more of a getting to know the neighbors, and a little less sneaking around?” Anthony suggested, and she wasn’t against it. She’d lived in town her entire life, yet she had never introduced herself to the Andvari family.

“Wait – hold up” Something dawned on her. The Andvari property. Adam owned that property, Talia lived on that property. The dots started to connect. “Adam is one of them?” Ariel asked in disbelief. There had been a wolf living in their town all this time, and no one knew?

“Adam Andvari is indeed a werewolf” Anthony confirmed. It had been kept a close secret for a reason, a request from the old mayor as a token of appreciation. And Anthony had upheld that until the secret had to be shared.

“Talia lives with Adam” Ariel blurted out. “Talia?” Anthony leaned forward, a puzzled expression on his face. “The Bell girl who died? That’s not possible” Anthony said, but Ariel didn’t listen. Her own brain was working a thousand miles per second, trying to connect more and more dots.

She was badly injured, everyone said she died. Even the doctors. There was a funeral, her entire family was there. They mourned her. All of them. And then she wasn’t dead, and she was living with Adam, who turned out to be a werewolf, and now there were more werewolves in town and she was in the middle of everyone and…

Ariel had to press both her hands against her temple, her head hurt from all the thoughts that were spinning in her head. It made Anthony looked at her with a worried expression.

“Ariel – are you okay?” His voice was too far away. Talia was alive because of Adam. Adam had saved her. Adam had managed to heal her. Talia was a werewolf – there couldn’t be any other explanation.

“She’s a wolf” Ariel whispered in the end. “That’s the only explanation. He saved her, she told me. He helped her recover, kept her safe. He turned her. That’s how. That’s the only way any of this is possible. Werewolves can heal any kind of injury, that’s why we always aim for the neck and use arrows, killing them in an instant. Or, that’s what Kieran told me. Wound them in a way that can’t be healed. Or use silver. Or both”

Anthony had moved from the chair to sit beside her without her noticing, now gently putting his hand over hers.

“That is a possibility yes” Anthony said slowly. If Adam had helped save the old mayors granddaughter, it was a good indication as to why he would keep his true nature a secret. But it didn’t explain why everyone still believed her to be dead. Why there had been a funeral and why there was a headstone with her name on it in the cemetery.

“Are you sure she’s still alive? You didn’t have a dream, or…” Anthony didn’t want to offend her, but there were too many things that didn’t add up. Then again, this was Ariel. He trusted her with these kinds of missions for a reason, because he knew she wouldn’t miss anything, big or small.

“Yes. I met her at the cemetery was it two days ago? Maybe three. We even went for a coffee after that, you can ask the owner of the coffeeshop if you’d like. We were there for hours, just talking about life. She told me about what she had done, where she had traveled, and I told her about what had happened here and to everyone she knew back then. She’d lost her memory after the incident and had just recently recovered it” Ariel told him.
She had her eyes locked on her hands; her body frozen in shock. This was all a lot to take in. Why had she not asked these kinds of questions before? What else had she missed out on? Could any of her friends from school be something other than human? She had so many questions, and she wouldn’t get the answers sitting there with the mayor.

“Anthony, I should go. There is… I just…” She couldn’t come up with any excuse and judging from his hand not moving it didn’t seem likely that he would let her wander off just yet.

“You shouldn’t go anywhere. You’re in shock, and your body is trying to catch up with the latest information. You’re going to sit here for a bit, and I’m going to go find us both something to drink, and then we can see if the two of us can make sense out of this” Anthony stood and walked over to a globe in the corner, opening it and fishing out a bottle of amber liquid.

“I know it’s midday – but we could both need something strong right now” He found two glasses in the shelves behind his desk and poured them both a decent amount of the whiskey in both glasses. He handed one to Ariel as he got seated next to him, putting the bottle on the table and finishing the drink in two swings. His face grimaced as the liquids burned its way down his throat.

“Cheers to that” Ariel said and downed her drink, putting the glass down and pouring herself another one. She wasn’t one to resort to drinking, it wouldn’t make any of the problems or new discoveries go away. But it would surely make her feel better about it.