Cruel and Unusual - serialised novel EXCLUSIVE to Steemit Part 65

Here are the links to catch-up, read again or start from the beginning

Episode List From 1 – 52
Then: 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

Images below from Google, Getty Images, and Pixabay

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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Hazel felt different emotions than those David experienced at the slaughter.

She turned to David with a look in her eyes that had him backing off in terror. She reached forward with a hand that had begun transformation and she grasped him by the throat.

As his eyes bulged with the pressure she exerted, he saw her eyes change colour, first to the usual preternatural yellow and through to a bright and sparking golden colour, flashed through with deepest black flecks.

As her other clawed hand reached forward to tear his head from his body, he imagined that he saw those flecks radiating from the inner pupil to shoot out from her head in a dazzling display. He could still see the sparks as his decapitated head hit the ground and then, as it rolled, he saw his body crumple and fall to the ground and then nothing. Perhaps his son could have explained that the illusion was probably due to his brain being starved of oxygen, causing hallucinations, but then again, perhaps they were not hallucinations.

Hazel lifted her face to the sky and though it was still daylight, she howled her wrath, knowing that any Wolf within earshot would understand that the chase was on in earnest.

She waited until two Wolves had located her and once she had given the instruction for three bodies to be disposed of with respect and honour and one to be given to pigs, she set off to find her quarry.

Hazel went forward with great vigilance, she had seen what the Throwback was capable of and did not wish to suffer a similar fate to her three companions. The scent of the Throwback was dwindling but she realised then that the silver would have had chance to dissipate if she left it long enough.

Jack heard the screeches behind him and knew that he had bought himself some time. He had to work quickly and to do what he needed to, would take perhaps more time than he had.

He made his way back to his laboratory, passing through more than one slaughter yard in order to confuse any pursuing Wolf and with any luck, throw them off his scent.

Keme had to be forced into his Wolf form somehow and because it was no longer the Full Moon, Jack’s vast knowledge of the Werewolf legend, lore and attributes would be tested to the extreme.

Jack knew that Keme was but a young Wolf and therefore should be susceptible to outside influences that could force a change but even these could take time – which was the commodity that was in shortest supply.

At first, Jack tried disembowelling one of the animals he had purchased just the day before, for this purpose. Keme watched with a mild curiosity, but nothing more.

Then Jack tried the ancient methods, the ones that Hunters had used for generations to hunt Werewolves. Blood was sprayed in Keme’s direction, stale and almost congealed blood and also fresh gore from the body of the dog he had just killed. Keme sneered in response to Jack’s attempts. Keme realised what Jack was trying to do and so he concentrated on not changing his form.

When Jack picked up a flask of liquid and removed the lid, Keme could not help but sniff at the scent coming from the container. When Jack put back the stopper and then threw the flask at the cage bars for the container to smash and spray the liquid onto the captive, Keme could never have expected the change in his body that was forced upon him.

Almost in an instant he was Wolfen, full Wolf, snarling his displeasure at Jack and before he could concentrate once more and change his form back to humanoid, Jack doused the animal with another bottle-full of strange smelling liquid.

Keme collapsed onto the dirt floor within moments of the second dousing. Jack watched and smiled.

“The first bottle contained urine from a female wolf – that in itself would not have been enough to force your change, but the wolf in question was in season, ready to mate. Added to the liquid was also Mary Kelly’s heart and pituitary gland, I took them when I had killed her; I pulverised them and only added the pulp on a whim. You see, I had to have you in your Wolf form because I need your strength.”

After a few moments, Jack noticed that Keme had stopped moving, he was barely breathing and Jack opened the cage door, he was full of impatience but not as eager as to chance that the Wolf was playing ‘possum’. Armed with a staff of silver, Jack poked Keme’s body and when he did not move, he touched the silver cane to one of Keme’s front paws, on the tender area between the pads. The flesh sizzled but the animal did not flinch, but he did grunt his pain.

“Ah, paralysis.” Jack mused, half to himself.

He dragged the Wolf from the cage and set about his next task.

He took exquisite care in the operation and, ignoring the moans of pain and performing with uncommon skill; he flayed the pelt from Keme’s form all in one single piece, leaving the skinned body intact and perfect – and deceased.

Keme expired during the operation; Jack had heard the death-rattle and checked for vital signs, of which there were none. He assumed that shock had worked with the distilled aconite to send Keme’s body into deep shock which slowed his heart to such a rate that the body could not survive the strain.

On one more whim, Jack sliced the scalpel across the base of the palm on his left hand and pulling the tongue through the dead Wolf’s teeth, wiped saliva along the self-inflicted wound.

Jack thought it best to cover all eventualities, in case the ceremony did not work as he hoped. Then, after binding his wound, Jack set forth to begin the ceremony that would turn him from a despicable abnormality to a powerful creature that he knew as ‘Werewolf’.