Guardians

Chapter 18: "A Deal"

"What?!" I cried out in surprise upon learning that the wolf was the man who had been at my parent's wedding. "Is he an Animagi?"

"No," Kari said standing upright. "He's actually... well... he's a werewolf." My jaw dropped even lower.

"Your eyes look like they're going to pop out of your head," Kari giggled.

"A werewolf?" I repeated, still stunned.

"Yeah," she responded. "Boy was I surprised when he told me. Of course tonight had to be a full moon! With you two in danger, as usual, I wanted to keep an eye on you. Do you remember when some of our stuff was stolen on the train, and he wouldn't tell us what he was missing? Turns out the Brethren stole his special potion thingy that keeps him from attacking anything that moves when he's a werewolf. Guess who had to change into a phoenix to try to keep him under control? Of course when they began to drag you away, I couldn't keep an eye on him and rescue you too." Exasperated at her own experience, Kari stared angrily at the door, and her facial expression changed to surprised puzzlement.

"Do you hear that?" she said as she reached for the door. "It sounds like Lupin's not alone..." Now that she had mentioned it, I could hear at least three voices shout out curses, both magical and vulgar, behind the closed door. Together we threw it open, but it was too late. Whoever had been there was gone, and so was Lupin. We were about to search the garage in case the werewolf was merely hiding when a polite cough behind us made us spin around.

"You should not have come back," Angelo said to Kari.

"Wait a minute, how did you...?" Kari tried to say, but for once she was speechless. Angelo focused his stare of disapproval to me.

"We gave you explicit orders not to go anywhere with that... Evrémonde," he said, expressing extreme loathing at the Frenchman's name. "And we also said that you could no longer remain in contact with Mr. Lupin and Miss Sky. You have failed on both counts."

"Now wait just one minute here!" Kari interrupted, finding her voice again. "It wasn't their fault! Evrémonde, or whoever that fat guy was, tried to drug them! And we came on our own. They certainly didn't know that we were coming!"

"You have interfered in our plans one too many times, Miss Sky," Angelo fired back angrily, "and that outburst will be your last by the time we are finished with you!" At the same time his wand appeared in his hand, and he was about to fling a curse at Kari when I stepped between them.

"Angelo, let's make a deal," I said, making a desperate gamble. "We keep Kari, and we'll follow your orders for another day, added to our week."

"Three days for that brat!" he haggled back.

"Two!" I compromised.

"Done," he replied, and he held out his hand. I took it and shook, but his skin was like ice. "Stay at the Leaky Cauldron, and we will arrange transportation for you." Giving a final glower at Kari, he swept his trenchcoat and walked out the door. Kari stuck out her tongue at the closed door and turned to me.

"By the way, where's our friend?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said, looking around. "I haven't seen him since... oh." We both looked at the boy on the floor. Noticing us at about the same time, he smiled and hiccuped.

"That soup was really good...!" he cried out, and he fell limp to the floor in a drunken stupor.