An Eye For An Eye

Cinquante-Neuf

Hearing the door knock, I paused the music playing and headed to the front door to see who it was.

Charles. He stood on the doorstep with his clothes dripping water and his hair soaked.

“I think I know who’s killing the wendigos,” he said, he sounded a little out of breath.
“Did you run here?” I asked and he nodded. My eyes widened and I took a step back to let him inside. “Deuc’s in the kitchen.”
“Thanks,” he said as he walked inside and headed straight to the kitchen. After watching the rain fall and bounce off the floor for a few seconds, I shut the door.

I headed upstairs to grab Charles a towel so he could dry himself off a little in the kitchen.
“It’s someone called Mark Hampton, he used to work there a few years ago,” Charles said, speaking so quickly I could barely understand him. He nodded in thanks as he took the towel from me and wiped his face. “But the owners sold the store to Marvin Kennedy who wanted to run a family butchers. He tried to sue them but the case didn’t hold up at all.”

“So he’s killing them in revenge?” I asked with furrowed brows.
“I think so,” said Charles as he frantically nodded. “I didn’t deal with them last year and I tried to find the last owner but they seemed to have just disappeared.” Charles breathed heavily and stopped for a moment to catch his breath.
“It’s alright,” Deucalion said calmly. “Thank you, Charles. This is very useful.” Charles just nodded and tried to dry his hair with the towel.

“I would have called but I broke my phone,” he said with a frown.
“Oh no,” I said sympathetically. “How?”
“Dropped it in water earlier and now it won’t turn on,” he sighed. I wondered if the phone had dried out properly yet, it might still have a chance of surviving.

“So… what happens now?” I asked, turning to look at Deuc. Now that they knew who it was, what were they going to do?
“We have to find out more about him,” said Deuc as he picked up his cup of tea. “Where he lives, what he is, if he can fight. And then we take care of him.”
“Take care of him?” I repeated and Deuc nodded.
“Whether that’s threatening them and making sure they never come near us again or whether it’s something a little more… violent, well, that depends on how they want to deal with it.”

I nodded, something more violent likely meant death. Death was a way of making sure they wouldn’t ever cause any trouble. But hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
“He’s the one who keeps coming to visit us,” Charles said quietly and I furrowed my brow. Remembering Charles mentioned someone yelling about wanting their job back while he was on his lunch break, my eyes widened.
“The one you said about the other day?” I asked and he nodded. Deuc simply drank his tea.
“Security people at the office block have stopped him from coming in now but he’ll probably try again.”
“That might end up being useful,” mused Deuc as he set his cup back down on the kitchen counter. “Maybe we can get someone to follow him from the offices or something like that.”

I offered Charles a drink and he accepted a cup of coffee. It was the last sachet but I didn’t mind, I was planning on shopping tomorrow and I could always get more. I was still drinking more tea than coffee anyway.

“Would you like a lift back to your apartment?” I offered as I glanced through the window. The sky was darker despite the fact that it was the middle of the day.
He shook his head. “I have about fifteen minutes left of my lunch break,” he stuttered. I still couldn’t believe Charles was an attorney-at-law when he could barely talk to people he knew. Maybe he was better at talking to strangers because he didn’t know them and they didn’t know him. “I’d appreciate it if you dropped me off there though.”
“Yeah, of course.” I said.

Charles quickly finished the rest of his drink and I grabbed the car keys and slipped on some shoes. After pressing the button on the keys to unlock the doors, Charles and I dashed to the car and rushed to get in and shut the doors to avoid getting soaked, though Charles was still fairly wet.

By following the directions Charles gave me we managed to reach the towering office block where Charles worked.
“Hey, you said you were on your lunch break, right?” I asked as he pressed the button to release his seatbelt.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, nodding quickly. He seemed eager to get out of the car.
“Have you eaten anything?” I asked. He had run to the house and even with the extra speed being a werewolf provided, it had probably taken all of his lunch break. Hesitantly, he shook his head. “Just try to eat something before you go home, alright?” He smiled and nodded.

“See you later,” he said before getting out of the car, slamming the door shut, and sprinting towards the doors of the office block. When he was out of sight, I started to drive back home, enjoying the sound of the rain hitting off the roof of the car. This was progress and one step towards having a lot less to deal with.