Cruel and Unusual - serialised novel EXCLUSIVE to Steemit Part 59

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Episode List From 1 – 52
Then: 53 54 55 56 57 58

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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

As he watched, more fur grew and disappeared. His nose elongated and then, a moment later, flattened – both alterations disturbing and uneven. He realised that his father had spoken truthfully, he was not a full Wolf and his powers were greatly reduced in comparison to others which he sought to compete against.

In desperation, he consumed all the glands and noted that the transformation was still unsatisfactory. When his mouth came to resemble a misshapen leer, so twisted that he found it impossible to close, he could watch no more. He turned the mirror from him in disgust. It fell to the floor and shattered.

He knew then that he must become full-Wolf as his father had offered.

He realised a moment later that if that one fact was true, then others must be true also. He was in grave danger from those of his father’s species. They were hunting him and now he knew they could kill him and hide the fact of his disappearance – they could murder him and dispose of his body with total impunity.

Jack realised that he must take up his father’s offer to bite him and make him full-Wolf before he was captured and executed by those who hunted him.

As he thought on it, he came to one last conclusion – Jack was not consumed by the bloodlust that he had been overtaken by the previous time he had consumed the glands. Either the effects had been imaginary or they were minimised by the pre-pubescent glands. One other option occurred to him; perhaps he did not change every time he consumed glands?

He had to find his father!

Jack made haste to dress and return to his lair, where he hoped his father would be waiting for him.

If David was not waiting, then at least he knew where to find his son, and because of his precautions, Jack knew that he was at least safe there.

Jack had to keep to the shadows; he could not risk taking a Hackney carriage because of the way he still appeared – a misshapen and even deformed man, much in the guise of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was portrayed in the novel – surely, anyone seeing him as such would have no misgivings in denouncing him as a monster, perhaps even as Jack The Ripper! The irony that he should be captured because of his appearance after the care he had taken to disguise and hide his actions was not lost on him.

David was not there when Jack arrived.

He had not expected him to be but he had hoped. Jack waited for only a few minutes and left. He did not know where to begin his search and wandering aimlessly through the city would only bring more chances of the other Wolves catching sight or sense of him and therefore chances of his capture – what had David called them? Sentinels?

What Jack could not have known was that David was already captured.

After Jack had left to go home, David had made sure that he was safe before going his own way. It was on his way back from Jack’s property and to his own that Hazel had appeared in front of him, so silent was she that for once, David was startled.

The element of surprise played by Hazel worked well and David was thrown mentally off-balance and she knew it.

“So this is the reason that you were so opposed to the Sentinels presence in your city, David? You have spawned a Throwback and you were trying to protect it from us. You have done very well so far in the fact that we have not yet captured and executed it but our time is drawing near, there are enough of us now to find and execute it, and we shall.”

“You are mistaken, Sentinel Exemplar.” David gave a small bow in greeting in an attempt to cover his shock at being confronted. “That is not the reason that I am opposed to your presence.”

“Oh? Then why?”

David realised that she was enticing him into her trap and his mouth snapped shut on his reply.

“Oh no, David, refusing to answer will not save you. I know your guilt and you are being arrested. The sentence will not be proclaimed until we see how co-operative you are in the capture of the Throwback.”

“I will not co-operate in his capture.”

Hazel smiled but said nothing. Her smile was enough for David to realise that even though he knew she was trapping him, he still walked into that trap.

“How did you know?” he asked at last.

Hazel looked at him, her eyes blazed with a gold light. “I am Sentinel Exemplar; it is my job to know.”

“But you did not know at the meeting, you allowed me to stay and listen to your plans.”

“Why do you think I allowed you, a relative whelp in terms of age and experience, to stay and listen? To hear the pain and anguish of those families that lost their loved ones to this anomaly. The very anomaly that you created and for whatever reasons, did not follow the First Laws and you suffered it to live.”

Hazel glared at David and he had the common sense to lower his eyes in shame at her words.

“The Throwback that is even now, playing a part in the destruction of our very society, for if it is captured, then the Humes will finally have proof positive that we exist,” she said.

“Not for more than three hundred years have we faced such a danger and if you do not know our history, it was the time when a bitch betrayed our kind – her own kind – and wolves were hunted to extinction and when I say ‘wolves’ I also mean ‘Wolves’. If it comes to the worst, David,” she spat his name with such hatred that he flinched.

“We shall be hunted and eradicated and it shall fall to you. That is the reason that I am holding back on your sentence, for if you do not help us and we have to find this Throwback ourselves, it will take longer, and therefore, the danger to us as a whole is magnified. If one Wolf is killed because of this, I shall hold you directly responsible for his death. Now, will you help us or no?”