Cruel and Unusual - serialised novel EXCLUSIVE to Steemit Part 56

Want to catch up? Want to start right from the beginning? Want to read the episodes all over again?

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Episode List From 1 – 52
Then: 53 54 55

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Please read the start of the story using the link above. I promise, it’s well-worth the time to check it all out. At least then, this excerpt will make more sense

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David changed his features back to human again and took great stock of his son and his words.

He saw the bottle but did not quite understand what it contained but decided to take no chances.

“Very well Jack, I shall go.”

“I suggest that you never return and that you never approach me again. I can kill you father and for what you did to my mother, the misery you caused her and the pain she suffered, not only in her illness, but in missing you. For that agony alone, I would have no regrets in causing you as much pain as I possibly could.”

Jack held the bottle in front, as though it was a deadly weapon and David believed the threat and left with only a snarl in response to the warning.

Jack knew then that his time at his house was finished. This could be the very last time he was here and he took steps to remove all equipment and resources from the building – or at least the necessities that he would utilise in his new and secret workshop.

Jack planned to spend the rest of the day taking everything that he could to his new laboratory. He had not intended to spend the day thus but needs must go when the devil drives.

He moved a rudimentary camp to his workshop and made it as comfortable as the basic conditions would allow.

He had a pallet for a bed so that he was not lying directly on the cold, hard floor and a wood-burning stove for basic cooking and warmth – although he did notice that for at least a few days of the month, cooking and heating would be the last of his priorities.

If his clothing became dirty or dishevelled, he did not care, for he had in effect; cut himself off from his work, his Club and his colleagues and associates. He was determined to continue his experiments and see them through to their conclusion.

Jack had left some of his belongings at his house, such as his journal, the Grimoire and his notebooks for he did not want them to become damp.

Once he had removed most of the items necessary for his continued experiments to the laboratory, he closed up his house and ensured that everything was cleared away – including the crockery in the kitchen – Jack left and didn’t look back.

That evening, though he was hidden from the moon’s glow in his laboratory, he felt its pull on his wolf psyche and he could not resist, though he tried.

Without the adrenal glands to give him the boost on changing, Jack found that he was not performing as he had the previous evening and, frustrated beyond measure, he followed a young woman along a darkened street.

Jack was about to make his move when she saw him and stopped under a street light.

“’Ere, who are you following?” she shouted to him, her voice quavering with fear.

Jack didn’t answer her but continued towards her. She saw the gleam in his eye and became more frightened, looking around her but unwilling to move from the relative safety of the street light’s meagre glow.

“Don’t come closer mister, please. You’re frightening me.” She was at least honest.

Jack was close enough that he could smell the stale sweat on her clothes but he paused before he got close enough to touch her, he could hear someone approaching at a run. He turned to see two men sprinting towards them. The woman did not recognise the men, he saw that by her expression and so, not needing any other encouragement other than fear of capture, Jack turned and fled.

He did not see the woman clinging to the arms of one of the men, relief on her face and in her manner. Jack did not see the other man continue for only a few steps in pursuit of him and then turn back towards the woman that had so nearly become his next victim. He heard their conversation but not the words and he realised that she had indeed known the men, they had come to her rescue but Jack was furious with himself. He felt that he could have dispatched all three of them, had he only known that they were not Wolves, but Humes.

Discretion is the better part of valour and if he had to play the same scenario again, he would behave in much the same way.

By the same philosophy, he could do no more than believe his father when he had told him that Wolves were so much more powerful than he. He had felt the sheer strength of his father’s arm as he shoved him backwards and he had seen for himself that his father’s visage could alter at will and so for the time being at least, Jack must behave accordingly and not take chances when it came to other Wolves.

If he had to make a choice between an encounter or escape, he must always choose escape. He made a mental note to re-evaluate the theory that he, as the sum of his parents, was an improved version of both species.

Jack had stopped once he realised that he was no longer being chased and he looked back to ensure he was safe. His anger erupted then; he had missed a chance of acquiring more glands to enable him to change to full Wolf.

Jack stalked through the almost deserted streets in search of a lone woman to take advantage of.

Instead, he found a boy. Jack saw the boy standing with his back to Jack, his head bowed and his attention on the ground; he was poking something with a stick. The something was lying in the gutter and seemed to be quite bulky, half as big as the boy. Jack could smell a foul stench and realised that the boy had discovered a dead something and, curious, was examining it in his own way.