“I was wondering if you could display one of these pictures in your shop window?” Isidor smiled.
“What is it?” the man asked, snatching the advert from Isidor’s hand. But before Isidor had a chance to say anything, the man screwed up his flabby face and said, “‘Have you been pushed?’ What’s that s’posed to mean?”
“That’s what we wondered,” I whispered to myself, checking out the tuffs of thick, black hair that covered the man’s arms and shoulders.
“No can do,” the man grunted and pushed the advert back across the counter. “Is it some kinda joke?”
“No joke,” I said.
“Please,” Isidor said.
“But what does it mean?” the man asked again, chewing on the end of his cigar, not taking his eyes from us. “It seems weird to me and weird means trouble as far as I’m concerned.”
“No weirder than this town,” Isidor frowned.
The man didn’t say anything at first, he just stared straight back at Isidor. Then, he took back the advert, looked down at it and said, “The wolves came and they changed everything.”
“The wolves?” Isidor asked, shooting a glance at me.
“You musta heard of the wolves?’” the man huffed, sounding out of breath.
“I guess,” I breathed, thinking of the Lycanthrope — the wolves that I had known from my past life. “What about them?”
“They took our children,” he whispered. “They took all of them.”
“Why?” Isidor asked him.
“Because that’s what the wolves do isn’t it?” the man suddenly snapped. “That’s what they’ve always done — that’s just the way it is.”
“The way what is?” I asked him, shaking my head.
“Did you not do history at school?” he came back at me, mopping sweat from his cheeks, or were they tears?
“It wasn’t my strongest subject,” I told him.
“But still, you must know about the wolves?” the man pushed, dumbfounded that we seemed not to know what he was talking about.
I looked at Isidor and he looked blankly back at me. As if seeing that neither of us had the faintest idea what he was talking about, the man said, “The Treaty of Wasp Water. You must have heard of the Wasp Water Treaty? You know, the great battle that took place there two hundred years ago between us and the wolves?”
“No, remind me,” I told the man, my heart racing. “I must have missed that history lesson.”
“Well go look it up,” the man snapped, tired now of our ignorance.
“We know a town called Wasp Water,” Isidor cut in. “We’ve been there.”
Then, taking the cigar from the corner of his mouth, the sweaty-looking man said, “You’ve been to Wasp Water, you say?”
We both nodded at him.
“You lie,” the man gasped.
“Why do you say that?” Isidor asked him.
“Because he would have never let you leave,” the man whispered and peered about the shop just in case someone we hadn’t seen might be listening.
“Who?” I asked him, my mouth turning dry.
“The one and only human the wolves have welcomed into their pack,” the man explained.
“What’s his name?” Isidor pushed.
With his jowls wobbling from side to side, the man shook his head and said, “No one knows his name — not his real name. Where have you two been for the whole of your lives? I can’t believe you’ve never heard of the Wolf Man — the only human to live amongst the wolves. Now get out before I change my mind.”
“About what?” Isidor asked him.
“Putting your advert up in my window,” he barked.
“But I thought you said it was weird,” I said.
The man glanced up from the words written on the advert and said, “Maybe it’s time I pushed back?”
Chapter Twelve
“Potter!” I gasped. “You scared the hell out of me!” and although he had scared me, I was so glad to see him again. I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. He kissed me back, but there was something wrong, it was like he was holding something back somehow.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him, looking into his dead, black eyes. Rain dripped from his chin and ran over his naked chest and down his stomach.
“Let’s get out of the rain,” he said, leading me towards the summerhouse. We climbed the steps. Potter pushed against the white wooden door and it squealed on rusty hinges as it opened. He closed it behind us and for a moment, I stood in the centre of the small, wooden building and listened to the sound of the rain drum against the roof. Potter came towards me, and with the flat of my hand, I brushed the raindrops from his face, shoulders, and chest. His skin seemed to tighten and mine tingled as I touched him. He took my hands in his and bringing them up to his mouth, he kissed them. It had been a while since I had sensed such emotional sentiment from him.
“Potter, what’s wrong?” I breathed.
“The world really has changed since we left it, or came back to it,” he said. “I don’t really know which it is.”
“What’s happened?” I asked. “Apart from the name changes and the logo on my iPod…”
“That’s nothing,” he cut in. “I mean, the world has really changed.”
“How?” I asked, my heart now beginning to race.
Potter let go of my hands and ran his fingers through his hair. Then staring at me, he said, “It’s my worst nightmare.”
“What is?” I almost screamed at him, just wanting to know what he had seen on the other side of the manor walls.
“Wolves are living amongst the humans,” he whispered.
“But they always have,” I reminded him. “Just like the Vampyrus lived amongst the humans.”
“Those Vampyrus and Lycanthrope that lived amongst the humans before, lived in secret,” Potter said. “The humans never knew of their existence. The humans never knew that the people who were murdering them and their children were Lycanthrope who were living in secret amongst them. Only the Vampyrus knew that, and it was my job to track them down and punish them for their crimes. But there aren’t any Vampyrus anymore and it’s like there never was.”
“How do you mean?” I asked him, the sound of the rain beating off the roof of the summerhouse now growing louder.
“It’s like the Elders changed history somehow when they snatched all the Vampyrus back and sealed The Hollows forever,” Potter started to explain. “With no Vampyrus to keep the Lycanthrope in check, they’ve left their hiding place beneath the Fountain of Souls and now live openly amongst the humans as their equals somehow. Where the Vampyrus had once worked as doctors, police officers, formed bands like U2, and helped design the iPod, this world, or this version of it, everything that the Vampyrus achieved, every little influence that they had, is now down to the Lycanthrope.”
“So what does that exactly mean?” I asked him, sensing his concern — or was it fear?
“It means we’re in deep shit!” he snapped. “The Lycanthrope are killers…” he started.
“But maybe they’re different now,” I said, but not really believing it myself. “Maybe they’re not a race of serial killers…”
“Yeah and perhaps the tooth fairy really exists,” Potter growled. “They can’t help themselves, you should
