Sorry I missed yesterday’s instalment. Here’s a short recap:
… His forehead changed and flattened - as did the slope of his cranium - the hairline moving forward. At the same instant, his mouth began to protrude from his face, bringing the nose with it and elongating his jaw. The teeth moved by themselves to fill the new jaw, they became longer and pointed - a visible and lethal sharpness as his lips drew back from them. His hairline was continuing forward - like water burbling over shale - down his face, changing texture as it enveloped skin. The hair passed over his jaw line and down his throat on into the open collar of his shirt. His eyes turned from dark brown to preternatural yellow as the hair sprouted along his lengthened nose. Then, as the transformation of his face had finished, his tongue, glistening with saliva, touched the tip of one front fang in a final and theatrical gesture.
The face of the full moon watched over this horrifying tableau and still the woman’s gaze never faltered.
…
He stood still and quiet for a moment and then, pride and arrogance gleaming in his eyes, continued to set the scene for her.
"I need no introduction; you can see exactly what I am. I belong with the dark terrors that reside in the back of your mind. I am the embodiment of what you humans hope does not exist and try to convince yourselves so, yet still fear is real. I am a Werewolf! My kind have inhabited your stories and nightmares for centuries, you delight in the telling and re-telling of stories which scare you to death and what happens when you encounter such a being? Do you revel in the experience? No, you scream and plead and beg for it not to be so. Well, I fulfil my part of the bargain; I want you to honour your part. All you need to do is make a break for it; your flesh will taste so much better if you pump adrenalin into it." His voice sounded deeper because of his distorted vocal chords.
She waited until he had finished his speech and then said: "Oh, you're a Werewolf are you?" Sarcasm dripped from every syllable. “Is this how you scared the woman last night? You weren’t satisfied that she was probably terrified out of her wits because you were attacking her in the first place? You needed that extra edge to make her really scared… but why? What purpose does that serve you? I don’t believe that it’s just the adrenalin taste that does it for you, there has to be more.”
The predator was astounded - she still did not run! He was wearing the countenance of every sane person’s nightmares and she was questioning him! What the hell was wrong with her? Could it be that she didn’t believe her own eyes? He had never encountered a reaction such as this.
She continued in her verbal onslaught. "Actually, I'd describe you more as a Rogue-Wolf, and unless I miss my mark, you’re a Throwback."
Now he was the one thrown into disbelief, and she continued.
"You are bringing too much attention to the gates of our society; your kills are conspicuous and excessive. You have to be stopped for all our sakes!"
Too late he realised that his new 'victim' was nothing of the sort and roles had been reversed. Now it was he that got the adrenalin dump as she sprang forward. Hitting him low in the abdomen with her shoulder, she knocked him against the opposite wall with far more force than he had done with her moments before. Heaving him up on her left shoulder sliding him up the wall, she twisted and her right hand came around to catch him under his chin. Then she pushed hard on his throat, holding his head up and almost immobile, taking his weight from her shoulder. As her fingers tightened on his windpipe, cutting off most of his air supply, he soon realised that he was fighting for his very life. His kicks and swings were ineffectual at best, each swing blocked, no kick ever landing because of how close her body was to his. He was forced to calm down and listen to her.
"I have been tracking you for months, Jervais Marchand, even before you started your killing spree in this country in fact. I have studied your case and I now know of all the crimes you committed in Europe. I know the judgement and sentence that was handed down to you. I also know what conditions were put upon your acceptance of this sentence. You have broken the terms of agreement.”
She paused, giving him time to realise the grim situation his murderous hobby had brought him to. “I have the authority to deal directly with you. You now have three choices.”
She ignored his attempts to remove her fingers from his throat as she held up her index finger close to his face, to indicate one choice. “With the evidence I have against you, combined with your previous record, I can ship you back to France to let your authorities deal with you - again.”
She added her middle finger to the index finger to indicate his second choice. “I can take you directly to our authorities or…” her ring finger was added to the other two: “As an appointed Sentinel, I carry out the final option in the sentence you were handed - doing what you should have done if you had any courage or sense of honour - I can end it for you now, rather than you committing suicide, for I don’t think I can trust you to carry that out. Well? What do you want?"
He stopped his half-hearted struggling for the moment, both hands upon her wrist, but she still held him off the floor by the throat.
The partial metamorphosis back to his human face was far swifter than the theatrical change of earlier. His human eyes held hers and pleaded for more mercy than he had ever shown to his victims.
She smiled at the irony.
"They'll kill me if you take me back!" He croaked past the pressure on his windpipe.
"Or I'll kill you now."
"What will your authorities do?" he ventured, hopeful of punishment lighter than the other alternatives.
"They'll kill you too, but I don't know how quickly. At least if I do it, you'll not suffer."
He took a while to come to a conclusion, but then sighed, nodded once to her and dropped his hands from her wrist. She was about to begin when he spoke, almost too quiet to hear and she held off to listen.
The first four parts are here:
Part 1
@michelle.gent/my-first-novel-serialised-for-steemians-original-content
Part 2
@michelle.gent/my-first-novel-serialised-for-steemians-original-content-chapter-1-part-2
Part 3 – no, don’t argue, I know what it says, but trust me… @michelle.gent/4zdzw8-my-first-novel-serialised-for-steemians-original-content-chapter-1-part-2
Part 4 –
@michelle.gent/my-first-novel-serialised-for-steemians-original-content-chapter-1-part-4