The Halfbreed Threat

Part 5

That made him relax some more and he said, smiling, "It's not my fault you guys don't know how to have fun. Well if you say I have to, I will teach her to have fun, although she'll never be as cool as I am!" he had a big grin on his face as he ended his statement.

"Unless Vincent buys her a bike, one leather jacket and a pair of black sunglasses. Then we can call her Mini-Manny, but with better looks!" Karl smiled, sticking his tongue out.

"Hey family man! Why don't you go do some of your boring detective stuff and leave the fun to me?"

"Nice to see you two getting along again! I hate it when the kids fight." Vincent winked at them. "O.K. Manny go to the kitchen, I'll summon you when we are ready. Try to look friendly and non-dangerous. Karl if you want a coffee or something to eat, feel free to drop by the kitchen as well on your way out. I'm heading back upstairs to see if our guest is ready to come to breakfast." And with that he left the room.

As he headed up, creaking one step at a time on the old wooden stair case, he was thinking this noise is actually a good thing, since he was kind of announcing his arrival to Cassie. Even with regular human hearing you could hear him approaching. Vincent reached the door and knocked. Pausing for a bit, waiting for a 'come in' invitation, he took the time to see what an experienced werebear's impression might be.

"So Barry, what do you think of our guest? Everything in order?"

"Yes. In the sense she is still in there," he answered but continued quickly "and no, as in she is very scared. It's basically reeking of fear around here even through the closed door and you would feel it too if you had my nose. Guss can confirm." I looked at his blond, tall and slim quiet partner who nodded. Barry continued "and to top that up, sometimes it stops."

"What stops?" Vincent asked intrigued.

"Well when I smell the fear I smell human. Or human fear. When it stops - that's just it - the entire smell stops. Not just the fear. Even the human part of the smell disappears. Because you said never leave the door unguarded AND under no circumstances go inside, the first time it happened, I sent Guss outside to check for tracks. He shifted to his cat-form and was reaching the forest line when I heard her move in the room again and shortly after the human fear smell was back so I mind linked him to return. It happened a couple of times more since, but I didn't want to disturb your meeting with the boss and Manny. Figured you'd come up soon anyway."

"Thank you for the report Barry, good job and good thinking. Well since she won't invite me in, I'll have to invite myself." Barry smiled at his remark.

"Cassie?" Vincent said, knocking again, "since you won't answer me... I'm coming in."

*Author's Note

Many thanks for the reads, comments and votes (hopefully :D ).