Page 75 of Hallow Hill at Halloween: Part One

I dropped the spoon into my soup, which caused it to splash onto the tablecloth. Not a lot, but enough to cause the wait-staff to come running. While they were busy doing the best they could to restore the elegance I’d ruined, I turned in my chair to face the werewolf.

Through clenched teeth, I said, “What are you doing here, Vuk?”

He looked up at the server closest to him and said, “I’ll have one of those.”

“No. You will not!” I countered.

“Why not? It’s not like you have a date.” He looked around.

“This chair is taken.”

With a too-charming, crooked smile, he said, “Looks available to me.”

For some reason, that telling of the truth infuriated me. I noted that he did look exceptionally handsome in his tux with crisp, white pointed collar and long, luscious hair. I also noted the room had gone completely silent. As to be expected everyone was staring at us.

John David cleared his throat. “Rita. Did you bring a surprise plus one?”

“I certainly did not! He’s caused me enough trouble. I don’t know how he knew about the occasion.” I glanced his way. “Or what to wear.”

I didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that out. Everybody in Hallow Hill had been talking about the party nonstop and I would’ve bet dimes to dollars he had phenomenal hearing.

“In that case, it seems we have a guest who’s both uninvited and unwanted,” John David said. To Vuk, he said, “Will you leave voluntarily, or do we need to form a security detail?”

Vuk looked at each person at the table individually then said, “I’m hoping you’ll be kind enough to let me stay. After all, you have a no-show.”

As if I was possessed, I heard myself saying, “What would it hurt to let him stay now that he’s here? He is, after all, the last werewolf and I’m sure he’s quite lonely.” I looked at my host pointedly. “We can understand how that must feel.”

John David’s lips pressed together as he seemed to be considering.

“Here’s a proposition,” he said. “The creature can stay if just one person other than you votes yes.”

Asking for an oral yay or nay, John David went around the table one by one. Every single guest had voted no with only one person left to be tallied. Esme.

Looking at me with a wicked gleam in her eye, she said, “I say yes.”

I could feel waves of surprise travel through the room.

“Well,” John David said. “Fair is fair. The werewolf…”

“Vuk Redfurd.” I interrupted. If he was going to stay, I thought people should know his name and stop referring to him as “the werewolf”.

“Yes,” John David said drily. “He may stay so long as he doesn’t cause trouble.”

From the far end of the table I heard Jeff laugh at that as if the idea of a werewolf not causing trouble was too ridiculous for contemplation.

By the time the voting was done, an unconcerned Vuk Redfurd was just finishing his soup. As the server took it away, he was looking at the bowl like he’d very much like to lick it.

He turned his attention to me. “Nice party.”

“It is. Once again, why are you here?”

“Same as everybody else. The food.” With that, he reached out, grabbed one of the roses and ate it while I looked on with open mouth.

“Vuk. That is decoration. You’re not supposed to look at it. Not eat it.”

He tore his gaze away from me to look at the flowers. “Look at it?”

“Yes.”

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