021   Rumor - Porto without owner

In the Anderson house restaurant, Alice filled the rectangular wooden table with food. Louise and Kim sit uneasily at the table. Of course, Kim had a hatchet in his hand under the table and two daggers in his boots.

"Must I be here?" Louise asked anxiously. If she could, she would like to hide in the basement.

Alice took up a plate of egg rolls and walked to Ryan's office under the call of the bell. When she passed Louise behind her, she stroked her trembling shoulder: "it's going to be okay. I haven't seen anything."

Louise smiled reluctantly. She and Alice had established a friendship. The Banshee did not hide her power. So Louise knew very well what Alice meant by 'seeing'. But she was still careful to lean against Kim, who had prepared weapons. After thinking for a while, she changed direction and leaned against Benjamin, whose ears had turned into sharp wolf ears, toward the side of the office.

Alice walked out of the dining room with her plate, passed the empty stairwell, turned a right angle, and pushed the back door of Ryan's office open.

"So you haven't killed anyone." Ryan said to the man sitting across the desk that he saw Alice come in and nodded at her.

Alice handed the egg roll to the man and took away the plate in front of him. Alice was still wearing the makeup Louise put on her, smiled at Ryan and exited the office with the used plate.

The man didn't dislike oil stains. He picked up an egg roll and sent it to the mouth. He said vaguely, "I don't. I don't want to do that." James looked at the half bitten egg roll, nodded and said calmly, "this is the best egg roll I have ever eaten."

"Oh?" Ryan became interested: "I never knew shapeshifter had so-called taste sense. I thought you ate everything."

"You are not wrong." James solved the remaining half of the omelet: "we can't feel the taste. However, we can still feel the taste of food. I like soft or crisp food. I hate hard things."

"Like bones?" Ryan asked with a smile.

"Yes, like bones." James nodded and began to solve the second omelet with a serious expression.

Ryan reached out and took away the egg roll that James was about to deliver to the mouth, and put it aside with the plate: "well, James, overeating is one of the original sins. Don't let my rising favor for you disappear. Now, tell me everything."

James looked at the food that had been taken away. His face was still expressionless. He wiped the oil stains on his clothes.

"You won't like what you're going to hear." James turned and looked at Ryan's office. "How many vampires are here?"

"Just me." Ryan was not in a hurry. Just now he had made it clear that the shapeshifter in front of him was not the one who caused the disturbance in Porto, "and a werewolf, he left a phonenumber for you at Porto police station. And the Banshee who made you egg rolls, you just met."

"Werewolf, Banshee?" James had a puzzled expression on his face for the first time: "so, what are you here? The monster museum?"

Ryan chuckled, "didn't you see our sign when you came here? [Anderson funeral home], don't ask such obvious questions."

"So your last name is' Anderson '? How long have you lived here?" James asked coldly.

"10 years."

"So Porto is your territory." James nodded and shook his head. "I've never heard of it."

"Are you here to fight for our territory?" Ryan didn't deny what James said.

"No." James continued to shake his head. "I said you wouldn't like what I was going to say."

"Don't care what I like. Go ahead."

"Among the underground creatures, there is a rumor: Porto is a land without owners."

Ryan touched his chin. He really didn't like this rumor, which means that there will be countless Alien creatures pouring into Porto and taking it as their own paradise.

"The rumors are false. I am here. This is my city." Ryan made a cold summary.

"This is what you say alone, against thousands of words. You should understand the meaning of rumors." James said to the point.

"Who started this rumor. The vampire ancestor family?" Ryan stood up and poured himself a glass of bright red 'wine'.

James' eyes moved with Ryan, and his thinking expression disappeared. He continued to say in a flat tone: "no, if it were those people, I wouldn't be here. The rumor began inside Porto."

Ryan drank up and frowned, "that's impossible."

Ryan trusts Anthony. As the Mayor of Porto, Anthony can't allow outsiders to enter Porto.

James shook his head: "you vampires always keep your eyes high. The composition of human society is not just the upper class. Just like us, there are vampires who think they are noble, unrestrained werewolves, banshees who have been eliminated by the times, and shapeshifters with low blood lineages like me."

"What do you want to say?" Ryan turned to look at James. Did Porto already have an underground alien organization? This was even more impossible.

"As I said, rumors are circulating among underground creatures, those lower level aliens who are outside the mainstream."

Ryan frowned and asked the previous question again, but did not give his own guess: "who started the rumor? How did it get out?"

"I didn't know it until today." James pointed to the phone on Ryan's desk: "a shapeshifter who controls Porto's telephone line. I think if my partner detective Curson doesn't look in the wrong direction, his name is David, an ordinary employee of Porto Telecom."

Cross Ryan's office, cross the empty stairwell, turn a right angle and enter the restaurant of Anderson house.

Benjamin's fingers on the rectangular wooden dining table jerked back! Five deep scratches appeared in the dry and hard scratching sound!

Louise shook as she approached Benjamin. "What's the matter? Benjamin, what did you hear?"

"Nothing." Benjamin shook his head, the fluff on the wolf shaped palm faded and turned into a normal palm.

Louise carefully moves the chair towards Kim

**********

It's three twenty-one in the afternoon.

"Attention, passengers to Porto. At 3:30, the train XXX to Porto will start. Please board the train as soon as possible and check in your large luggage. I wish you all a pleasant trip. Attention, passengers to Porto. At 3:30...."

A man with a black wide brimmed hat lowered the brim to cover his eyes and tightened his coat, which was not very warm. His clothes looked very old, but fortunately they were clean. He took a small bag, took a ticket out of his pocket and handed it to the conductor.

"Have a nice trip." The conductor, who was taller than the man, took a mechanical look at the ticket and handed it back.

The man nodded, "I hope I can really have a good time in Porto," the man thought, and boarded the train.

There are not many people on the train. To the east of Porto was Massa Bay, so those who were still on the train went to the terminal - Porto.

The man looked at his seat and found someone sitting opposite him. He didn't want to get in touch with people, so he walked to the empty seat.

After sitting down, the man put his bag in his arms, which was his only possessions. Two hundred dolls and fake identity documents.

The man breathed a sigh of relief. He took off old gloves and put them on the small table, but he didn't take off his hat. He didn't want others to notice his special hair color. The man looked out of the window. What will happen in the future? I hope Porto will be a paradise as the rumors say.

*******

Although it is very important to create suspense, I don't want people to treat this lonely man as a bad thing. Therefore, I think I should tell you that this man is me.