Chapter 16

When he finally emerged into the outside world, Jack looked around and found himself standing outside before a large squat building. He appeared to be in some sort of intake area for loading and unloading cargo, next to the ramp leading underground from which he’d just emerged, multiple loading docks leading into the actual building above ground. Various lorries were parked at the loading bays, strangely enough, all the vehicles bore the logo of a local supermarket chain. In fact there were several workers in uniform all looking at him strangely as they loaded crates of food into the building.

Jack nodded to them nonchalantly before walking away. He walked to the front of the building and saw that yes, the building was in fact a supermarket. It appeared to be early evening and so there weren’t many people around, just a few shoppers going in and out of the supermarket. His stomach rumbled and he realised he hadn’t eaten or had a drink in who knows when, but he didn’t go in, firstly he had no money but also because he wanted to avoid too many public places.

He needed to consider his next moves, he needed more information. Speaking of information, he reached behind himself to his weapons harness and checked the briefcase full of dirty secrets was still there. It was, hopefully undamaged too.

He left the supermarket front carpark and wandered into town, he took off his helmet and enjoyed the cool breeze across his face. Luckily there still weren't too many people around so he could avoid unwanted attention. He passed by a large window of a local pub and spied a television screen, he stepped back and looked through the window. The television was playing the news, from what he could tell, there was a large crowd of people gathered outside the main UK hunters guild headquarters in London.

In curiosity, Jack opened the door of the pub and let himself in. Several people were in there and they silently watched the tv, Jack joined them from a shadowy corner.

“Good evening, I’m currently here in front of the United Kingdom hunters guild HQ to cover an incredible and shocking story,” a young woman spoke into a microphone for the camera.

“Early this morning we provided the news that the guild’s rising star, the world’s first lightning cultivator, Jack Errant had been accused of mass murder. However, we have since been informed by the police that the evidence they were supplied with was falsified!” she exclaimed in an uncharacteristically emotional voice for a reporter.

Likewise the onlookers in the pub gasped in shock and some swore in outrage.

“Jack Errant had not in fact murdered anyone, it has actually been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that at the time of all the murders, he’d been either with the Dire Woods expeditionary forces or on other business. And to add an even more tragic twist to this shocking story, before the police issued this statement attesting to the innocence of Jack Errant, the guild came forth with a statement saying that Jack Errant has been killed in an escape attempt!”

Again the people in the pub gasped in shock and discussed it amongst each other. Jack raised an eyebrow, he remembered doctor Farley had said something like that was going to happen, it's just too bad for them that their plan relied on him being actually dead. Oh well, on to much more important matters, how was he gonna get a cold beer in this place without showing his face or paying for it?

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He found out later, he was in the town of Wymondham, a small town in East Anglia. As it was, he was very far from home or anywhere else that he needed to be. He’d decided that he both needed to get the evidence he’d collected to the authorities and then go to London.

Why London? It was one of the last places anyone would expect him to turn up, thus anyone who knew he was still alive would be less likely to find and murder him in a dark corner somewhere. He also needed to show as many people as possible that he was alive and that Eric Flamewrought was full of shit.

In the end, he decided to take the train. First to Norwich, the main city in East Anglia, and then a three hour long ride all the way to London. He didn’t have any money or ID so he simply hopped the ticket barriers and avoided the ticket inspectors, his armoured attire did draw a few curious gazes however. He kept his helmet visor down, hoping no one would recognise it.

Eventually he reached the city of London, he’d been there only a few times before when he was much younger. He couldn’t say for sure but he was fairly certain there hadn’t been so many modern fortifications such as razor wire, large walls and Czech hedgehogs all over the place the last time he’d been here. Likewise, armed police were everywhere along with more than a few heavily armoured hunters, Greater London seemed to have really good coverage, much better than other places he’d been to, even York.

It took him a while to figure out where he was going but eventually he found out where the guild headquarters were located which served as both the main HQ for the UK and as the branch HQ for London. By the time he’d reached it, it was midmorning and still there was a large crowd of angry protesters outside its gates being held back by a line of riot police. A swarm of journalists were spread out, covering the story.

Jack observed it all from a distance and wondered what to do. He needed to get in, preferably discreetly and without fuss, not wanting to be swamped by a crowd of strangers or police. He needed an in.

Eventually he found it, a lone police officer standing stiffly some distance away by their car. Jack didn’t know what they were doing, maybe they were standing by in case they needed to provide support to the riot police, he didn’t care, Jack walked over to them.

The police officer noticed his approach after a moment and watched the strange hunter in full armour approach with some confusion and apprehension. Jack got close enough to tell the police officer was a woman, she looked slightly nervous at his approach and her hand strayed to her baton. He took off his helmet and showed her his face, she stared at him with an uncomprehending frown for a moment before it dawned on her.

“Holy fuck! You’re - !” she began.

“Yeah I know, listen, I need to get past that mess over there and into the building, can you help me with that?” he asked her brusquely, waving his hand at the crowd. Normally he’d try to be more charming but he hadn’t eaten or slept for two days, he was tired but amped at the same time and the adrenaline from surviving his ordeal just wouldn’t leave his system.

“Oh - but….I need…I need to inform my superiors,” she stammered nervously as Jack stared into face with a slightly haunted, off kilter expression.

“Why?” he asked her bluntly.

“Why? What do you…what do you mean why?......you’re alive. We need to tell someone,” she said, wilting slightly as Jack narrowed his eyes at her.

“I’m about to tell someone but I’m going to do it my way, I just need you to get me past that barricade. Can you do that for me?” He loomed over her.

“Oh god, well…okay, as long as you tell someone…you know…that you’re…alive,” she said lamely, as if just realising how silly she sounded. “I’m probably gonna get fired for this,” she glumly muttered to herself.

“Great, in return I’ll give you this.” He unhooked the briefcase from his weapons harness and handed it to her.

“Huh? What's this?”

“Incriminating evidence that could see a lot of powerful people put in jail for the rest of their lives, or maybe they’ll bring back the death sentence just for them, who knows?” Jack shrugged with a smile as he foisted the briefcase of doom upon her.

She looked at him incredulously for a moment. “Is it too late to ask you to turn around and go away?” she asked him bitterly. Jack chuckled before motioning his head to the crowd. With a sigh she followed him.

“What's your name anyway,” he asked her as they stepped onto a grassy lawn. They hadn’t reached the proper crowd yet, there were just a few people here and there observing the growing protest from the back.

“It's Mary,” she answered quietly.

“Jack,” he answered back, just to be polite.

The main guild building was similar in design to the one in York, it was a large glass and steel, ultra modern building located next to the river Thames, but much larger, it fit right in with the rest of modern London. Personally Jack still thought the HQ in Cambridge looked the best, he’d always found modern architecture to be a bit soulless.

They reached the rear of the crowd, it was pretty big already with at least a couple hundred people and growing. He saw various signs held up by people that said things like; ‘More Accountability’, ‘Monster Murderers', ‘Superpowered Bullies’, ‘Tyrants of the Future’ and many more things besides. Jack knew there were growing issues and tensions between Britain’s hunters and its civilians, but he’d never really paid too much attention to them before now. It seemed that his own little scenario had just kicked a hornets nest that had already been kicked plenty of times before.

He and Mary slid through the crowd until they got to the temporary crowd barriers and the line of riot police with their shields. Mary hesitantly walked up to them.

“Uh, hey guys. This er..hunter needs to get through,” she said in the least authoritarian voice Jack had ever heard. He began regretting picking this woman.

The two riot police in front of her looked at each other before shrugging and stepping aside. Jack blinked in surprise before quickly stepping through.

“Thanks guys, good luck Mary, I’m trusting you with that stuff,” he said as he walked away. She waved at him unhappily. He turned away and approached the main entrance of London headquarters.

Right before he entered, he turned around and faced the large crowd and all the journalists and cameras who had their attention focused on him because he was the only thing moving or standing in the empty area in front of the guild building. In front of everyone, he took off his helmet and smiled for a few moments. Total silence, everyone’s face was agape in shock.

He turned around, opened the large double doors and entered. Just as the doors closed behind him, he could hear the crowd start to roar before the sound was muffled.

Jack walked right up to the front desk and spoke to the young lady manning it.

“Where’s the….?” he stopped. Who did he need to speak to anyway? Apart from maybe punching Imogen Shriverston in the face, he needed to see someone else in authority.

“Where’s the……?” he began again before he saw a directory with a list of names and room number along with a map. He looked at it and saw where the head office was along with the guild executives conference room. That seemed like a good place to start.

He went into a nearby elevator and saw that the very top floor, floor thirty, where he needed to get to was locked behind ID access, he could only access floor twenty nine. He pressed the button for twenty nine and waited. The elevator was a glass one which gave him a scenic view of London from above, he saw the crowds of protestors and from their reaction, they could see him also.

After a minute he got to floor twenty nine and stepped into a large shiny hall with various luxuriously appointed furniture along with cafeteria-like seating, a bar and a place that served food!

He walked up to the counter and looked at what was being served. From the look of it, this little establishment was clearly a place where highly paid individuals and corporate executives ate their lunch. He grabbed two turkey sandwiches with cranberry relish and left without paying, ignoring the weak protests of the cashier behind him.

He tore open the package of the first sandwich and ravenously bit into it as he walked up to a wide set of stairs leading up to the top floor. It was protected by a waist high barrier that someone would have to scan an ID card over to get through, Jack simply hopped over it as he ate his sandwich. He walked up the stairs.

He looked around and saw a surprising sight. In a glass walled conference room with a panoramic view of the London cityscape along with a conference long table, were multiple people he knew. He could see all his hunter team; Meredith, Noah, Nate, Katie and Stacey looking extremely upset and angry. He also saw Cheryl and commander Harren along with director Welts, who rather than looking his usual calm cheerful self, currently had a fist buried in the thick solid conference table as he pointed another hand accusingly at a smirking Eric Flamewrought, glaring daggers at him. Jack could also see another blonde who he recognised as Imogen Shriverston and seated next to her was one of the tallest, largest man he’d ever seen. The man almost seemed to take up a quarter of the conference table by himself, he was almost as wide as he was tall and wore a tailored black and grey suit.

Jack watched what appeared to be a very heated argument between the various parties for a moment while he finished his first sandwich. Feeling slightly better and his stomach more settled, he quietly opened the door and slipped in unnoticed. He sat down and opened his second sandwich. No one noticed him at first as he continued to eat.

“You fucking piece of shit Eric! How could you!” Welts yelled in rage.

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Jack raised his eyebrows, he’d never even seen Welts annoyed before, let alone cuss. This was getting good already.

“How could I what, Welts? Hm?” Flamewrought smiled.

“You know what! You killed him! You were the one to fabricate the evidence that got the police so interested in him then you kidnapped and killed him! Admit it!” Welts cried out, his face twisted in rage. His fist plunged down into the solid oak desk again, splinters flew upwards and the room vibrated. Beware the wrath of a patient man.

“My goodness, those are some very serious accusations, Welts. Do you have any proof?” Flamewrought asked mildly.

Jack glanced at Imogen Shriverston, she cooly and impassively observed the exchange, her face betraying nothing. Still no one had noticed him, everyone was too busy with their own arguments.

Jack finished his turkey sandwich and stood up. He cleared his throat noisily. “Ahem! Ahem!”

The room quietened down and people looked over to him, it took a moment to register but they all had their own reactions.

“Jack!!”

“Errant!?”

“You’re alive!”

“Hah! I knew you weren’t dead!”

“Oh god I was so worried!”

“No!!!”

His team swarmed and surrounded him happily, hugging him and patting him on the back, the girls all teared up slightly, Nate picked him up in a bear hug and Jack had never seen Noah look so happy.

“Jack what happened!? The last we saw of you, they were hauling you away!” Stacey asked.

He smiled at her before turning to look at Eric Flamewrought with a smug smirk. Flamewrought glared at him with a furious expression, his eyes were wide, his mouth let out wisps of black greasy smoke from between gritted teeth.

“Do you want to tell them or should I?” Jack asked Flamewrought with a smirk.

Flamewrought opened his mouth to speak but Jack interrupted him.

“On second thought, shut the fuck up. It's story time!” Jack exclaimed theatrically.

Jack proceeded to tell his increasingly horrified audience exactly what had happened to him and what he’d witnessed. However, he decided not to mention Imogen Shriverston’s part in all of it, as much as he wanted her to go down for it, he didn’t want to hurt Meredith or Cheryl. He’d keep that little tidbit tucked away for a special occasion. He also neglected to mention his use of runes in his escape, that was another little secret he’d like to hold back for as long as possible, he was purposefully vague when he described how he’d gotten free and fought his way through the security.

When he failed to mention Imogen’s involvement, she looked at Jack with surprise and then speculation. He did however, make sure to tell everyone exactly what Eric Flamewrought had been up to.

Everyone was silent for a few moments after he’d finished his story. Flamewrought was the first to speak.

“He’s a lying shit! He has no proof!” he snarled.

“Actually I do have proof, or I did anyway.” Jack shrugged with a smile.

“Oh? And where is this proof?” the big man spoke in a deep rumbly voice. It was the first time Jack had heard him speak, while Jack had been telling his story the big man had just sat calmly and silently listening while others had interrupted and made comments.

“With the police, I recovered a whole bunch of creepy documents and a laptop from Dr Farley’s office,” Jack told them.

Jack hadn’t mentioned Farley by name during his story, but now that he had, the eyes of Cheryl and the big man went wide, even Imogen startled in surprise and looked at Flamewrought incredulously.

“Farley!? That maniac!? Wait, was he the doctor that was supposed to vivisect you Jack?” Cheryl asked. Jack nodded.

“Farley? Farley….that name rings a bell, who was that?” Welts asked in curiosity.

“Farley ... .was a doctor we’d hired a while ago, but we soon found out he’d been performing illegal experiments. We fired him and turned him over to the police, or at least we thought we did.” The big guy sent a questioning look to Flamewrought who defiantly stared back.

“Oh you’ve really shit the bed this time Eric,” Cheryl chuckled gleefully.

“Everyone whose name isn’t Cheryl, Imogen or Eric, please step outside,” the big man said calmly before any more arguments could begin.

Everyone slowly filtered outside and surrounded Jack again.

“Did you get any names of the hunters you fought against, Jack?” Welts asked.

“Nope, one guy in dark armour just claimed to be on a hunter team that got used to back up Flamewrought occasionally,” Jack answered.

“Hmm, I may know of that team, we’ll need to look into it.”

“Do you think Flamewrought will actually get into trouble with the police over this?” Stacey asked hopefully.

“I should think so, as long as the evidence Jack has supplied to the police gets to where it's supposed to,” Welts answered. However, just as he said that, Imogen stepped out of the conference room with her phone in hand.

“Hello? Detective Aubrey? Yes it's Miss Shriverston here……..oh? Ah well I’ll call you Wallace if you call me Imogen! Hahaha!” she let out a chuckle to whoever she was speaking to. “Listen, I need a favour…..” Meredith cringed as her mother passed by, heading down the corridor and disappearing around a corner.

A few minutes later, Eric Flamewrought burst out of the conference room with an angry look. He gave one last angry snarl at Jack who responded with a middle finger, he then stomped away down the stairs out of sight. Right behind him, Cheryl ducked her head through the door and beckoned everyone else back inside.

Once they were in, they stood before the big man and Cheryl who were both seated.

“This….has been a regrettable incident,” the big man said with some hesitation.

“Regrettable? That's one way of putting it I suppose,” Jack responded with scepticism. “By the way, who are you?” he asked the big man. Cheryl giggled while Welts guffawed before answering.

“Jack, this is Bernard Straken, one of the three founders of the guild alongside Cheryl and Imogen Shriverston, he’s also the overall CEO of the company,” Welt informed him good naturedly.

“Oh! My bad, nice to meet you I suppose,” Jack said as politely as he could. He gave the big guy another look. He was a very tall middle aged man, about six and a half feet in height and extremely broad, his bulk appeared to be equal parts muscle and fat giving him a very rounded but powerful looking physique. He had white skin streaked with the tell tale signs of petrified skin on his left cheek indicating he practised earth cultivation.

“And you young man, I am truly sorry that one of our hunters had to go through something like that,” Straken said, actually sounding like he meant it to Jack’s surprise.

“Well, apologies are one thing, but I hope we’re going to see some heads roll over this Straken,” Commander Harren growled out from where he’d taken a seat. “Putting aside the fact that the outpost and the guild make good money from Errant’s skills here, our hunters shouldn’t have to be looking over their shoulders because some overgrown superpowered manchild has a grudge,” he growled. Jack was touched, he didn’t know the commander cared, or he at least cared more than about the guilds income.

“Rest assured, I already have a team heading towards the location Errant informed us of, all personnel there will be apprehended,” Straken told them.

“And what about Flamewrought?” Stacey asked.

“His situation is a little more complicated,” Straken answered with slight discomfort.

“Why?” Jack asked.

“Essentially, he’s too powerful to take down, both figuratively and literally,” Cheryl answered unhappily. “He has too much money and so many powerful friends all over the world that he could squirm his way out of just about anything, he also has citizenship status in more than a few different countries. Before all this he was actually a successful entrepreneur so he already had powerful connections all over the world. Plus there is that one thing that's making the government increasingly nervous…especially since you appeared on the scene Jack.” She looked uncomfortable.

“Me? Why’s that?” Jack asked.

“Right now, almost no one in the world has any kind of facility capable of holding a powerful cultivator of B rank or higher, it would take entire teams of A and B ranked cultivators to guard such facilities and they don’t just grow on trees. As it is, if Eric Flamewrought actually allowed us to incarcerate him in any of the current British or Commonwealth prisons, he could simply walk through the walls and there's nothing anyone but me and one or two others could do to stop him unless we were to get other nation’s A plus rankers involved,” Cheryl explained.

“You said almost no one? Who does have a facility like that?” Nate asked in curiosity.

“The US has one and the Russians also claim to have one,” she told him.

“Hmm, if I go down for something, can I pick the one in the US?” Jack asked hopefully.

She snorted. “You’re actually part of the problem Jack.”

“Me? A problem? Nonsense, I’m a delight!” he jokingly protested.

“I mean that due to the fact that you’re a lightning element, you can short out and fry any and all electrical systems within any prison facility. We’d have to keep you in those restraints Eric had you in all the time, and apparently even those couldn’t hold you for long,” Cheryl explained with a helpless shake of her head.

“Oh yeah, the restraints, I was meaning to ask you about them. Is it true the guild started making those as soon as you guys found out about me?” he asked with a frown, looking at Cheryl, Straken and Welts.

Welts looked uncomfortable but before he or Cheryl could say anything, Straken stepped in.

“The guild enjoys a lot of privileges in this country, young man, but they don’t come without cost. When we were negotiating the terms of our existence with the government, we had to agree to a lot of compromises. One of which was to come up with a way of safely, reliably and humanely incarcerating cultivators who have become a danger to the rest of society. So yes, as soon as you showed us that lightning cultivation was possible, we immediately began working on a method of containing one,” Straken explained.

Jack didn’t respond right away, he thought about what Straken had said.

“I bet the Americans are making a cell just for you Jack!” Nate interjected cheerfully.

Jack turned to face him with a smirk. “Do you think they’ll let me pick out the furniture?”

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Jack sighed tiredly. “I don’t really wanna read this right now, where's that five star hotel you promised me?” he asked the PR guy who tried to shove the script back into Jack’s hands.

“We’ll take you soon I promise, all the room service you want. We just need to do this super quick press conference then it’s off to the spa with you,” he said encouragingly with a smile.

“Urgh! Fine, I’ll…..read from the script, let's just get this over with.” Jack snatched the piece of paper from the PR guy.

After his meeting with Straken and the others in the guild executives conference room, Jack had been informed that he needed to do a press conference in order to clear up any confusion about the situation. He’d been given a script on exactly what to say, obviously the script was vague and did its best to deflect blame away from the guild and all its affiliates, it didn’t even blame Flamewrought for being a raging psychopath or the police for making an arrest with clearly faulty information.

Jack doubted anyone would believe what was on the script and would most likely and gleefully speculate on just what precisely had occurred.

The fact that guild personnel under orders from Imogen Shriverston and Flamewrought had actually produced a dead human body and claimed it to be Jack definitely didn’t help matters.

Jack walked out onto a small stage up to a podium and looked out at the ravenous looking journalists and their camera crews. He then looked sideways to the nervous PR guy watching him from backstage, Jack gave him an evil grin. Jack said he’d read from the script, he didn’t say he’d read from all of it, or that he wouldn’t add his own spin on it.

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Two days later Jack was finally well rested enough to emerge from his hotel room, he was sitting with the rest of team Meredith on the ground floor of the hotel, eating in the hotel’s fancy restaurant. Everyone was taking advantage of the hotel’s hospitality courtesy of the guild, Jack and Nate had made sure to order as much room service as possible during their stay, even Noah had taken advantage just a little bit. Meredith, Stacey and Katie had gone to Milan in the end for a couple of days before coming straight back to London as soon as they were finished with their fashion shoot.

“I can’t believe you said that Jack, on national television!” Katie exclaimed in delight.

“Actually I think it was inter-national television,” Noah corrected with a small grin.

“Did Straken or the other execs say anything?” Meredith asked him eagerly.

“Well, your mum looked like she was going to strangle me and Cheryl was laughing too much to tell me what she thought,” Jack explained while smiling.

“What about Straken? He’s the guy in charge, he must’ve been pissed,” Stacey said cautiously.

“I couldn’t tell what he thought either, he’s kinda…inscrutable. Anyway, I just thought that since I survived almost getting sliced into little pieces in one of the guild’s black sights, that I had a carte blanche, you know. I can do whatever I like for a little while, I was just testing the waters, seeing what I could get away with if something like this ever happens again,” Jack explained, his grin never slipping.

“Haha! If what happens again? Are you trying to get kidnapped again Jack!? I think Flamewrought has a twelve year old daughter! Maybe you could get kidnapped by her too!” Nate joked and the whole table burst into laughter.

“You know I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many hunters before, London must have close to four hundred hunters just for this one city,” Katie remarked after everyone had finished laughing.

“Mm, I think they were fairly aggressive in their recruiting, they even poached other hunters from nearby territories,” Stacey said.

“Urgh, there’s way too many hunters here,” Nate remarked in disgruntlement.

“What? Afraid of a little competition Nate?” Stacey teased and giggled with Katie.

“No! But even though most of the hunters here are F’s and D’s, there’s no rank limit on the jobs you take here. So all the hundreds of hunters and wannabe’s and part timers can take any job they want! I mean, back in York I liked to treat myself to one C rank job a week, but here? There’s a waiting list! A waiting list!” he exclaimed incredulously. “We need to get out of here and go back home! Let's go back to the Dire Woods and kill something huge!”

“We’ve still got three more days on our prescribed leave,” Noah pointed out. “We can’t go back and hunt just yet.”

“Hm, so we just need some sort of disaster or….catastrophe to occur......hmm.” Nate sunk deep into thought, desperately trying to come up with a way to get into some sort of life or death situation. Jack wondered if Nate actually had a bit of a problem.

Unfortunately for Nate, nothing happened and Jack and the others were perfectly content to lounge around until they had to return to the Dire Woods.

Jack however, did have something productive he wanted to get done before he needed to get back to work.