Writing Fiction novels - a progression 6

Here it is... the last of my unfinished projects. I think I've left the best for last (my opinion... you're entitled to yours, and of course I welcome them).

The point of this 'progression' series is that I'm asking people that read my work for their (your) opinion. I'd like to finish the one that holds most interest for my readers.

Ash's story is going to go to print and I have a heck of a job on to get it ready in time for SteemFest2 but I believe it can be done. If we manage it, I'm going to take some copies to SteemFest2.

Daughters of Le Fey, will go on for a while yet, and I don't want to inflict my teachings on you too much (I don't want to sound like I know everything there is to know about editing. The truth is, I don't). There's so much to do with that one, that I'm not including it in this series.

Tomorrow, maybe tonight... I'll list all six of my unfinished projects and ask you to vote on them. I'd appreciate a little feedback on the one (or two or six) that you like best and I'll be upvoting the comments that give me good advice (of course, that's subjective). I'm also going to gift some Steem/SBD to the advice I think is especially useful - even if it's critical of my work. So get reading and deciding which you'd like to see in book form next.

You can't know how much I appreciate every comment I receive on my work, it really is the very best thing a writer - one that wants to improve - can ask for. The harshest critique can sometimes be the biggest favour. (Not that I want you guys to be mean... let's not make me cry, ok?)

Pictures from Google Free to Use and Pixabay Images

Here it is then. The sixth and final project:

Ancients And Gods

The last few nights before the first of the three full moons had a strained feel to them.

The atmosphere was heavy with tension and Wolves avoided each other to prevent argument or fight breaking out. Red was just as tense, but for a different reason.

She was looking forward to the Full Moon as ever, but before that, there was something else, an impending doom had settled over her, clouding her thoughts and setting her nerves on edge. She didn’t feel that something was about to happen, she knew it.

Red took her dog Rom and they went out. She didn’t take the car, there was no need; they could get to where she needed to be in around the same time as she could drive there, but without the car, there was less indication to anyone else that she was there.

They loped across fields, jumped fences and hedges and she took Rom to a place where he could clamber up to the railway lines.

The steep slope of the embankment was a mile out, but so much the better; she could stroll into town above all the action and keep an eye on things from a vantage point that no one thought to check, especially if they were new to the area.

The massive brick arches stretched across the town, too big to ignore, yet because they were a permanent feature, they were hardly noticed until a train went by overhead. It got dangerous then, but Red knew where safety indentations had been built into the wall. Two men could fit in each indentation, making a train’s passage less dangerous.

Rom was a well trained and calm dog, he trusted Red to keep him safe, as she did with him. She made him sit with his face to the wall, his back toward the track and the train went past without incident; not even a passenger saw them in the gloom of dusk as they hunkered in the safety of that indentation.

Red had cloaked her presence to a high degree and she knew that even if Anton had been on the other side of the track, he would have to actually see her to know she was there, such was her skill. But Anton wasn’t there, the Wolf she was tracking was younger than Anton, and Red knew it was not as skilful as her friend and mentor, no Wolf was.

Red hopped up onto the top of the wall and scanned the marketplace below.

She soon saw who she was looking for, a newcomer to the town, someone that had approached Victoria to ask for safe harbour over the nights of the Full Moon. He asked for protection and leave to hunt. Victoria waved him away, dismissing his request.

“I will not grant you safe harbour. I will certainly not give you protection and it is begrudgingly that I grant you leave to hunt. I despise Wolves like you, Perun, sly, devious and cunning, jumping from one side to another in conflict, you are as unlike your brothers and father as the moon is unlike the sun. Get out of my sight and if you are still here as the moon begins to wane, be careful, for I may be tempted to go a-hunting for the first time in decades and I will be intent on clearing out the trash.”

His barely concealed snarl angered Victoria and she stood up. Perun had the sense to make a hasty bow and back out of the reception room where Victoria had given him audience.

As he backed out of the doors, he bumped into another Wolf, one that he had neither seen nor sensed and the collision startled him.

He turned around in anger until he saw the Wolf he had collided with. Red was as annoyed that Perun had arrived in town as Victoria had been.

“Hello Perun, it’s been a while,” she said, her voice thick with danger.

“Get out of my way, Imp,” he said, and he swiped his arm across before him as though to sweep her out of his way.

The action would have worked on another Wolf of Red’s age but Red had an advantage. From the time she was first Wolfed, she had been progressing in leaps and bounds at an unimaginable rate, unprecedented in history or legend and Perun’s arm didn’t complete the sweeping motion as he had expected. It was like a human trying to sweep away a brick wall, using only his arm. Perun’s arm stopped dead in its arc and the impact took him by surprise. He looked closer at the Wolf standing in his way and seemed to at last recognise her.

“Ah, it’s you,” he snarled.

“Yes, Perun, it’s me. And what did I promise to do if ever we met again?” Red asked in a cold, emotionless voice.

Perun looked at her as though he knew the answer but wasn’t certain she actually needed him to voice it.

“Well?” she said, folding her arms, scowling at the other Wolf.

“You claimed that you’d disembowel me where I stood and hoist me from the nearest rafter by my innards for all to see.”

“That’s right and do you have any reason to believe I was lying when I said that?”

“No,” he said in a quieter and less insolent tone.

“No,” she said. “So why are you still here in my sight?”

Red was smiling as she entered Victoria’s reception chamber.

“Ah, you’re here at last,” Victoria said. “We have a problem.”

“I don’t think it’s as big a problem as you think,” Red said.

“No, I heard you. Was he very frightened?”

“A little subdued, I believe,” Red said.

Perun scowled again as he heard the laughter following him down the corridor.

“I didn’t mean that scabby mongrel,” Victoria said. “There have been two requests for safe harbour and leave to hunt.”

“Now what are the chances of two such requests in the same month?” Red said, musing on the question.

“I agree, it’s extremely rare; keep an eye on it for me, would you?”

“Of course, do I get a clue as to who I’m keeping an eye on?”

“I gave you that clue when I said ‘keep an eye on it’. Have a think about it; I believe you’ll be surprised.”

So the night before Full Moon, the night after the chance meeting with Perun, Red was out above the town, keeping an eye out for whatever it was that Victoria was hinting at.

Rom was on alert and Red knew it was not a train approaching that had him on point.

Down below the vantage spot, shadows deepened in the gloom. The streetlights were lit and their sodium glow leeched the colour from the surroundings but that didn’t mean that Red couldn’t see everything.

The Wolf, Perun was stalking a woman. Red watched with mild interest. He knew that he was flouting Victoria’s hospitality by hunting outside of the Full Moon but Red was no ‘jobsworth’, she wasn’t about to stop him having fun, he wasn’t the Wolf she was looking for and if he wanted to chance Victoria’s wrath, Red wasn’t about to stop him.

Perun caught up with his prey as she paused to light a cigarette. The glow from her lighter illuminated her face for a moment before her hand encircled it to protect it from gusts of wind.

He sidled up to her and placed his hand on the wall behind her, closing her in between the wall and his body. She squinted at him through the plume of smoke from her cigarette and the squint turned to a scowl. Red smiled, she could tell from the woman’s demeanour that she was not receptive to Perun’s advances.

Red sensed another Wolf and her attention wavered from the woman and her unwanted paramour. There was another Wolf down there in the market place but Red had not spotted it yet.

Sitting on the skeleton of one of the market stalls, the Wolf waited and Red saw the newcomer. How had the Wolf managed to get there without Red seeing? Then she saw, some of the market stalls had their boards leaning against the framework and the shadows were sufficient to conceal a slim form if they crouched and moved fast. The newcomer was certainly a slim form and as Red watched, proved to be fast too.

Red was alarmed; she saw that Perun was intent on making his kill right there in the market place, under the gaze of the CCTV cameras. Did the fool not realise that the new technology of the 21st century meant that stealth was of the utmost importance?

Apparently he either did not know or didn’t care, for Red saw the snarl as it crossed his face and she was far too far away to stop him making his kill. But the newcomer wasn’t. She stood upright then, making a sharp movement, catching the woman’s eye.

Perun saw the distraction only because he looked to see what his victim was looking at and he took his arm from the wall, leaving the woman room to dodge between him and the wall and get away.

Red saw the expression on Perun’s face as the newcomer approached. He curled his lip in a nasty grin and spoke one word, “Princess.”

Red relaxed a little, she realised the two knew each other and so she could continue observing for a little while.

‘Princess’ made a sharp movement; she looked to have slapped Perun’s face. Perun’s expression suddenly changed. His mouth opened in surprise and immediately the look on his face changed to utter shock. He grasped his throat and Red’s olfactory senses picked up the sharp metallic tang of blood as it gushed from his throat in a torrent that reminded her of a century since, when Jack the Ripper was terrorising Whitechapel.

Red’s jaw dropped and she could do nothing but watch as the Wolf she didn’t know turned to look at her before she morphed to wolf form and decimated Perun’s body. Red could hear the snarls and sounds of tearing flesh from her vantage point and she watched in a mixture of horror and fascination.

Not horror because of the act of extreme violence, but horror at the thought of the damage limitation operation she would no doubt be put in charge of when Victoria learned that two Wolves had been scrapping in Red’s jurisdiction and Red stood by and watched it happen.

Red looked from the scene of carnage, up to the three tall pillars that housed nine cameras in all. Red’s surprise was complete when she realised that the cameras were all turned away from the market place and had not captured the scene after all.

She understood at once that Victoria had arranged everything and while Perun had asked for safe harbour and his Lycaeon’s protection, someone had beaten him to it and had asked for and gained permission to murder Perun.

Red thought hard. Was there a declaration on Perun that she didn’t know about? Had he broken First Laws and was running in fear for his life because of a bounty upon his head? She didn’t recall one.

What the hell was going on?

Red made a call to The Crew and the Wolf that answered surprised her again.

“Sentinel Exemplar, hang up the phone, go home and make arrangements to meet with the Lycaeon in the morning.”

“What?” Red’s voice was a loud whisper; she realised it was too loud and she ducked to crouch below the top of the wall.

“Sentinel Exemplar, I believe you heard my instruction.” And the line went dead; the Wolf had hung up on her.

“Rom, to me,” she said and set off at a run back towards home.

She slammed the front door as she went into the house. Luke came to the living room door, saw the fury etched on her face and ducked back inside.

He heard her crashing and banging through the kitchen as she made a cup of coffee but he stayed where he was, trying to watch the program he’d been interested in before she came back.

Rom wandered into the living room and sat by his side. Luke looked down at the dog and he looked back up at him. Luke grinned, Rom’s expression said it all – ‘I’m keeping my head down too.’

Red brought Luke a coffee and put it on the side table.

“I didn’t want a drink,” he said but didn’t continue when he saw the murderous gleam in her eyes. “Thank you.”

They watched the TV for a few moments but Red couldn’t contain her anger for long.

“What the hell is she up to now?” she said, spilling coffee as she put down her mug with a little more force than was necessary.

“Who?” Luke ventured, his curiosity meant he was no longer concentrating on the TV.

“Victoria! Our beloved Lycaeon! She’s interfering in Sentinel business, MY business and she’s not telling me who, what, where or why!” Red said and glared at the screen.

“Tell me,” Luke said.

She turned toward her husband and he didn’t flinch as most would have done if that glare was directed at them. “I went on a wild goose chase, or so I thought. Victoria sent me looking for a Wolf that had recently requested safe harbour from her. I had no idea who I was looking for, but I went anyway. I know most Wolves who have settled in this area, so you’d think I could find one stranger, wouldn’t you?”

“What did she say?”

“She told me to keep an eye out,” Red said.

“Is that it?”

“Yeah, no other clue, whether it’s male or female I’m supposed to be looking for; nothing,” Red said. “I saw Perun. He’s a slimy bastard still and he had permission to hunt on the Full Moon but he had gone out tonight and I saw him stalking a Hume. He was just about to strike, in front of the CCTV cameras, when the Hume was distracted. Perun looked and saw another Wolf. The Hume got away but the other Wolf killed Perun right there on the edge of the market place where the three main sets of cameras are. She sliced his throat with something. I smelled the blood even from where I was up on the viaduct. I phoned The Crew for an emergency clean up and that bastard told me to hang up and bugger off!”

Luke was silent, Red needed to work it out for herself and he saw the moment that she had clarity.

“The other Wolf, she had a scar down her face. Her eye is gone. I see what Victoria meant now when she told me to keep an eye out. But why did The Crew know more about it than I did?”

“Maybe Victoria intended you to see without putting her slant on things so that you can make up your own mind without interference of her opinions?” Luke said.

“Yeah, probably,” Red said. “But who was the Wolf that killed Perun? Not to mention the fact that I now have to hunt her down and bring her to trial.”

“Trial? But I thought you’d seen her murder him? Surely that’s against First Laws and a trial is unnecessary? She could be executed by you without a second thought,” Luke said, his brow creased in a puzzled frown.

“Yeah, but I’m curious. If she wanted to kill Perun, she could have done it anywhere. Why did she follow him here and ask the Lycaeon’s permission first? Why draw attention to herself? If she hadn’t, Victoria wouldn’t have sent me out to keep an eye on things and I wouldn’t have seen the attack. She could have been in and out without anyone knowing any different. To be honest, if I’d heard Perun had been murdered, I’d have turned a blind eye to it and I certainly wouldn’t have put any effort into finding the Wolf responsible.”

“You can’t be selective in your duty as Sentinel,” Luke said. “I’ve never known you to even think of turning a blind eye.”

“I’m willing to make exceptions where certain Wolves are concerned. There are a select few whose murder wouldn’t cause me to leave a half finished coffee, even if I saw it happen. I certainly felt that way about Perun. I called The Crew because I didn’t want the mess left on the streets, not for any other reason. That Wolf did the world a favour when she took him out. I’m curious as to what she’s going to do next.”

They were in bed, drifting off to sleep when Red was suddenly alert. “He called her ‘Princess’,” she said.

“I call you that sometimes,” Luke murmured.

“No to my face, you don’t,” Red said. “But he wasn’t using a term of endearment; I didn’t get the feeling that it was a relationship gone badly. He said it like it was her title. Looks like I have royalty on my patch.”