Cruel and Unusual - serialised novel EXCLUSIVE to Steemit Part 14

Cruel and Unusual - serialised novel EXCLUSIVE to Steemit Part 13

Exclusive for Steemit - serialisation of Cruel and Unusual – my second novel

Episodes:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Jack was not an unintelligent man and so realised that asking strangers for information on his intended quarry could prove hazardous to his safety. Although he was wealthy, he did not have unlimited funds (and those which he had started with were dwindling after his extensive journeying) but he was willing to pay a Private Detective to do the searching for him.

The Private Detective, a man named Syndhurst was thorough and efficient and had located what seemed to be the correct man after only a few nights searching in the poorer parts of Boston.

The detective informed his client that the man he had found was willing to meet with Jack for a price. Jack surmised that the price had been hiked up by Syndhurst but in his excitement didn’t bother too much about that.

Syndhurst escorted Jack to the seediest bar that he had yet been inside and stood close by whilst he conducted his business with the whiskey-soaked trapper.

For the cost of a good hangover, Jack found the information that he needed but when asked if he would act as a guide back into the mountains, the trapper declined and no amount of alcohol could induce him to rethink his decision.

Jack left, a little disappointed but determined to find the Shaman the trapper had told him about; as well as the Shaman’s grandson whom the trapper had begun to talk about and then refused to elaborate on. If nothing else, Jack could tell that the trapper had ‘clammed up’ when he realised what he was saying. Jack was curious about the things he had been told. He was more than inquisitive about the things that he had not been told.

It was quite possible that if the trapper had agreed to guide Jack into the mountains, he could have arrived earlier, but as it happened, he missed his goal by a matter of weeks. The winter camp was abandoned and it took longer yet to find the new camp. By this time, the tribe’s Shaman’s grandson had departed.

It was only by more good fortune that Jack was able to glean the information he needed. Jack used a cane, not to help him walk, but purely for fashion. On the tip of the cane was a carved wolf head and a boy from the camp saw it and assumed that he was a friend of another visitor - one that had left a few weeks earlier.

“Friend of Anton?” The boy asked with an innocence that beguiled Jack, pointing to Jack’s cane.

“What? Oh yes, friend of Anton.” Jack agreed.

The boy pointed to a group of men and went off again, playing with his friends.

Jack approached the group that had been pointed out to him with an instinctive caution. The men turned to look at him after a few moments, a scowl on each of their faces.

“I am trying to find the man called Anton. Please could you tell me if he is here?” Jack asked, tipping his hat towards the men.

“Who told you that he was here?” The more ancient looking of the men asked.

“I have followed him from Europe. It is of great urgency that I find him,” Jack said.

“He returns to Europe. You have had a wasted journey.” The old man turned his back on Jack to show that the conversation was at an end, but Jack persisted.

“Was he successful in his quest? Did he get what he came here for?”

“Go away stranger. You are fishing. I do not know how you know Anton, but you know nothing of his quest here. Leave. You are not welcome.” The expression on the old man’s face made it clear to Jack that the discussion was closed but still he tried.

“And the caged wolf is that still here?”

An angry silence descended and Jack at last decided that discretion was the better part of valour, bowed with respect and left, hoping that he could keep his skin intact until he could get back to his own camp and his guide. Jack had an uneasy feeling all the way back and he felt no easier the following morning, nor the morning after. Not until they had left the harsh mountainous country did Jack begin to regain his ease.

Jack was impatient to be home but navigating his way across America was still a long and arduous task. All he could be thankful for was that his guide was knowledgeable of the terrain.

Jack arrived back in Liverpool with as much knowledge on Werewolf lore as any one person alive, he guessed. Add to that the fact that he was part Werewolf already; he now thought that he was an authority on the subject, second to none.

He knew how to kill a Werewolf, how to prove that a person suspected of being a Werewolf was one and then how to force it out of wolf form and into its true human form.

He even had certain methods at his disposal to force a man into his wolf form against his will and since his three month stay with the healer woman in Bavaria, he also had the knowledge on how to make himself wolf at will. What he did not yet realise was that he also had the inherited ability to sense such creatures.

Jack took it upon himself to begin experiments to draw the elusive creatures to him. He knew that the Full Moon was when they were at their most active and therefore, it made perfect sense to search out a creature at the time close to a Full Moon.

On a whim one Saturday evening in February, Jack strolled out to see if he couldn’t utilise the knowledge he had gathered.

He found himself in the area where some of his patients called ‘home’. These patients were not Duchesses or Ladies however, they were more likely to describe themselves as ‘Seamstress’ – which happened to be the term used by most prostitutes if they were required to give an occupation, either to the Magistrate, the police or the Workhouse Infirmary.

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