Chapter 18

The further he travelled down the long corridor, the louder and more apparent the screaming and other inhuman noises became. Along the corridor he walked, he came across multiple doors behind which lay different gym type rooms. He checked them all. Whenever he found a person hiding in them or people just wondering what the hell was going on and too afraid to find out, he would tell them to leave the building as quickly as possible.

With several people fleeing to safety behind him, Jack turned to the large set of double doors at the end of the corridor. According to a nearby floor plan, it was supposed to be the main gym area with various pieces of exercise equipment with doors connecting to the lockers and swimming pool.

Jack took a deep breath and marched up to the doors. He could hear sounds of fighting behind it, the ring of metal weapons, crashing, screeching and the occasional gun shot seeped out from the thick doors.

Without further ado he pushed the doors inward and was confronted with the sight pandemonium. It looked like a free for all brawl between humans and monsters spread out over a large gymnasium. The hall had two levels with a mezzanine area and both the ground floor and upper floor were taken up by the fighting and slaughter.

Police officers, gym clothed civilians and people clad in normal street clothes wielding guns and elemental abilities all appeared to be fighting each other as much as the monsters. The monsters were the same ones Jack had encountered in the reception area. The creatures were everywhere, dozens and dozens of them all over the place, attacking everyone indiscriminately, swarming over fallen and broken gym equipment and climbing the walls, jumping on top of people.

He watched as one of the special cultivating police blew a monster’s head apart with a shotgun while his partner cooked another one with a blast of fire. Elsewhere, a non-uniformed gunman seemed to be attempting to choke a civilian with a barbell to the throat before a police officer tackled him to the ground and wrestled with him.

Jack heard some gun fire and whipped his head around to look into a far corner, where he saw several gunmen firing into a barrier made from the broken ground of the gym floor. Upon a further look, he saw Russel crouched slightly behind the wall with several civilians cowering behind him.

Jack rushed across the gym and powered into the backs of the gunmen, as always he channelled a healthy amount of lightning into his body and collided with the apparent enemy. They went down with pained, strangled gasps, jerking and spasming from the strong surge of electricity they’d just received.

Russel looked around the wall he’d raised and upon seeing Jack and the enemy on the floor, he quickly stepped round and delivered a boot to the heads of the half dozen assailants, knocking them out. A couple of sharp cracks were heard for two of them as he did so, but he didn’t seem to care.

Russel grabbed Jack's shoulder, not concerned with the lightning still running through him. “Take care of the monsters quickly, I’ll focus on escorting the non-combatants out. Is the area outside clear?” he asked quickly but still seeming calm. Russel never lost his cool.

“There were some monsters outside but I took care of them all,” Jack replied.

“Good, get to it then.” Russel hefted his immense tower shield and took up a protective position in front of the civilian gym goers as he led them to safety through the fighting. He made sure to grab several others on the way, but there were still plenty more people trapped by the monsters and brawling humans.

With his orders set, Jack got to work. He flooded his body with lightning up to what he was comfortable with, drew his short sword and zipped towards the nearest set of monsters, moving far faster than most people could hope to keep up with.

He destroyed the first group of monsters that were attacking a desperate group of civilians. They’d been fending off the monsters with heavy gym equipment and weak blasts of elemental fire and water, but just before Jack arrived, one of the creatures darted in and seized a woman by her leg in its jaws. Jack plunged his blade into its spine and slashed out around him with quick bolts and his sword. He told the group of humans to stay put and wait for his fellow hunters to rescue them before he targeted the next set of monsters.

He passed a struggling police officer who was frantically trying to halt the jaws of a salivating monster from tearing into him; the officer held a rifle in its fangs as the creature chomped on it in a frenzy. Jack quickly darted in and thrust his sword through its ribs before heading off.

He approached a confusing, large melee of non-uniformed gunmen, police and monsters. A gunman shot a police officer only to be set upon by a monster from behind and was quickly savaged to death. A police officer shot a gunman with his sidearm and unloaded the rest of the clip into several onrushing monsters whilst backing away, he ran out of bullets and the rest of the monsters leapt upon him as he let out a scream.

The armoured cultivating police officers seemed to be working in pairs and were methodically killing everything around them, however they were outnumbered. More than one pair were overwhelmed, riddled with bullets or buried under monster bodies.

Jack approached the nearest cluster of monsters and got to work. He didn’t recognise the species of these creatures, nor whether they were truly monsters or mutated animals, but as far as rank would go, he would place them at a low D. For someone who’d been punching above his weight class since the very first day he’d become a hunter, they were easy pickings for Jack.

He zipped around the battlefield, too fast for anyone or anything to touch, a quick blade to the ribs or neck usually enough to take care of the monsters he targeted. He also made sure to knock out any gunman he came across. After he’d taken out enough of the enemy throughout the gym, the police began regaining control of the situation, surrounding and slaughtering the remaining monsters and either incapacitating or killing the armed gunmen who’d attacked them. Jack didn’t know who the gunmen were, but he had his suspicions.

Jack saw Russel slaughtering monsters on the other side of the gym whilst he continued to escort civilians outside.

He continued to run around the gym, upstairs and downstairs, taking out every monster he could until the entire room was clear.

Later on, he and Russel, having just finished a sweep of the whole gym for any monstrous stragglers, were standing outside on the road while the police swarmed over the area. Everything was cordoned off as the police and ambulance crews went about their business, dozens of gym goers were brought out of the building to be taken to hospital and the police arrested and escorted several gunmen to police vans.

Jack and Russel observed it all along with several other guild hunters who had arrived as back up and helped with the cleanup operation. After a little while, director Adrian Welts approached them after he’d been talking to some of the higher ups amongst the police contingent.

“Top work you two! As always! Top work!” he told them cheerfully with a smile.

“Thank you director,” Russel responded with a nod.

“Yeah, no worries. So do we know what this was all about? I thought this was just supposed to be a search with maybe a few arrests, what was with all the monsters? And the gunmen?” Jack asked, though again he had his suspicions.

“Ah well, after a search the police have found various pieces of evidence that point to this place being used as a recruitment centre for the Cult of Four,” Welts explained.

“A recruitment centre?” Jack had suspected the cult, but he didn’t know anything about them using it as a recruitment centre.

“Yes, it seems the cult uses this gym as a front and uses it to look for anyone with promise in cultivation. We don’t know too much more than that, though I suspect the cult has a lot more of these facilities than we realise, there will likely be a great deal more scrutiny placed on them in the future,” Welts said grimly.

“Then what about the monsters? What are they called? Or are they mutants?” Jack asked.

“They’re monsters actually, they’re called Grey Fangs, a low D rank monster. We’re not entirely certain how the cult managed to get a hold of them nor how they kept them secure without anyone noticing, another matter to investigate I suppose. Anyway you can see them start to disintegrate right now.” Welts pointed to the broken windows of the gym and Jack turned to see thin multi coloured light and vapour stream outside.

“Oh! I gotta go!” Jack remembered he needed to cultivate from his kills before they disappeared. He bade goodbye to Welts and Russel before returning back inside the gym.

While he was cultivating, he made sure to take a selfie of himself with a bunch of dead Grey fangs in the background and promptly sent it to Nate.

****************************************

Later that day, Jack met up with the rest of team Meredith minus Stacey at the guild branch headquarters. It was the evening before they were due to return to the outpost. They were all sitting in the guild hall enjoying a meal and drinks.

“Aargh! So unfair! Why can’t my jobs go so wrong!? Why can’t I get kidnapped and have to fight my way out of an underground secret base!? Why you!? Why not me!? WHY!?” Nate cried out against the unfairness of the world. At the time Jack had sent Nate the selfie of him and the slain Grey Fangs, Nate had been bored out of his mind whilst travelling on the train back up north to York.

“I don’t know,” Jack said innocently. “I just have one of those faces I suppose, everyone wants a piece of me.” Jack grinned at Nate’s disgusted face.

“Urgh! The next time we get some time off, I’m not letting you out of my sight! The next time things go horribly wrong, I’ll be there!” Nate vowed in determination.

“To help and support him?” Katie questioned with a smile.

“Huh? Oh yeah sure, that too,” Nate casually said with a shrug and a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Speaking of someone wanting a piece of Jack, they’re playing his press release in London from a few days ago,” Noah informed them, pointing to the nearest television screen.

“Oh this should be good!” Katie said gleefully. “I wonder if they edited it or if they’ll play it all!”

Everyone looked to the nearest television screen where they saw Jack standing at a podium in front of a room full of journalists and cameras.

“Ahem….” The Jack on screen cleared his throat as he looked at a piece of paper in his hands for a couple of moments.

He looked up and to the side, towards off stage at the PR guy standing just out of sight. “Are you sure anyone’s gonna believe this?” Jack sceptically asked the PR guy in front of everyone watching and listening.

No one could see it, but Jack remembered the suddenly pale face and look of horror the PR guy had displayed to him when Jack had said that. He smiled at the memory, a terrific start.

The Jack on screen looked back to the waiting room of journalists who all had gleeful smiles on their faces, like sharks with noses full of the scent of blood.

“Right then, I’ve got this script which I’m supposed to read from so…..you'll have to bear with me. Um let's see here…..three days ago on Tuesday morning I was arrested by the police on suspicion of multiple murders. Yes, arrested…..is that what they call being shoved into a van not even owned by the police and brutally beaten before being taken to an undisclosed location? Huh, ‘k.” Jack shrugged as he continued to look over the script.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Meanwhile the crowd of journalists murmured amongst each other and tried to ask him questions. Jack ignored them.

“Ahem..however the police had been provided with faulty information with regards to my guilt…..hmm, it did seem like they jumped the gun a little didn’t it? I mean, they suspected me of being a really high profile mass murderer and didn’t even think to check my alibis? Yeesh.” Jack was shown to continue to pour over the script.

“Er lets see here….um, no I don’t think I can say that with a straight face, nor that either, or that…….” Jack looked up at the PR guy off stage. “Now let's be serious, no one in their right mind is going to believe this bit about mistaken identities, so let's not even bother okay?” Jack, now watching himself on screen, remembered the PR guy had crumpled to his knees at that point and looked to be on the verge of tears.

Jack looked back to the journalists and was about to speak again before he suddenly turned back to the PR guy. “Who even was that fake body you guys flaunted anyway? Nevermind, I’ll find out later.” Jack turned back to the journalists.

“Right! Where were we? Oh…..um, it was all an unfortunate misunderstanding…well I suppose you could call it that, it was certainly unfortunate I’ll tell ya that much! Eric Flamewrought definitely didn’t arrange any of this because of the incident with his son’s death and that he wanted revenge on me.” Jack gave a large, slow, exaggerated wink to the room. “Ahem, rest assured the police are continuing their hunt for the true murderer with the full cooperation of the UK hunters guild and both organisations will continue to diligently serve and protect the public to their full capabilities.” Jack flipped the sheet of paper over to see if there was anything on the back, but it was blank.

“That's it, I’m not supposed to say anything else. Um right, suppose I’ll hand you over to the guild spokesperson for a bit of Q and A then, everyone have a great day!” Jack waved to the room full of journalists and exited stage left. On his way he passed a smartly dressed woman who was coming out to address the crowd. She gave him an open mouthed look of horror as they passed each other as if to say ‘what have you done to me?’. She stepped up to the podium in front of the room full of journalists, they all looked like carnivores with fresh meat in front of them.

“Um….any - any - quest……questions?” she stammered in a small, trembling voice.

Back in the guild headquarters, team Meredith watched the slaughter.

“Wow, if they hadn’t before then the PR department will definitely blacklist you now Jack,” Meredith remarked with an amused smile.

“I try my best.” He grinned.

They watched as the press conference finished and the view shifted back to the anchors in the newsroom. Two anchors, a man and woman were presenting.

“Well, Mr Errant is certainly….er..honest? Forthright?” A female newscaster remarked in bemusement.

“Yes, well whichever way you want to call it, it's pretty clear something not quite right happened over in the guild and there seems to be a bit of a cover up in my opinion,” the man said.

“Did you hear the remark he made about Eric Flamewrought towards the end? It seems Jack believes this was all brought about by Flamewrought holding a grudge against him over his son’s death.”

“Indeed, in fact we were never really told the full story on that particular event either. Somehow I doubt we’ll ever be told the full story here as well,” the man remarked slightly bitterly.

“Yes, however we have actually heard that on an apparently unrelated note, Eric Flamewrought has decided to leave the UK hunters guild and has joined one of the USA’s slayer guilds out in California,” the woman said.

“Ooh! California, I heard the weather is so nice there, I’m actually kinda jealous,” Katie said as they watched.

Jack was slightly jealous too, it could be very grey in Britain, weather wise. But now at least Eric Flamewrought was out of the country, he could even go down to Cornwall if he wanted. However he knew this wasn’t over, there was no way Jack was going to forgive or forget. One of them, either Jack or Flamewrought, was going to have to die.

The news continued for a little while, mainly covering the ongoing story and manhunt for the suspected lightning cultivating murderer who’d been going all over the British isles, killing people. It was thought that the killer was a lightning cultivator because the human corpses left behind always looked like they’d been heavily electrocuted on the insides with a scalded skin red hand print shape somewhere on the body.

In fact the police had managed to pull fingerprints from the markings, so they should’ve been able to see that they didn’t match the ones that the guild had on file for Jack’s own fingerprints. The male newscaster also questioned that little fact.

The news story showed a map of the UK with red marks on all the sights the killer was known to have visited and it was pretty much all over the nation, from the very south of the country in England to the very Northernmost part in Scotland. It even had red spots in Wales and East Anglia, they were in every cardinal direction, North, South, East and West.

There looked to be well over a hundred sights, it was worse than he’d thought. Jack groaned in exasperation and rubbed his face, all amusement faded. He pointed at the map on the tv.

“That right there, that's why I didn’t say anything about lightning cultivation to the public.” He shook his head and sighed. The rest of the group looked on grimly.

“How do we even know it's just one person? Could it be multiple killers?” Noah questioned in concern.

“Uh uh, it's just one killer,” Meredith confirmed.

“How do you know?” Katie asked.

“My mother is coordinating with the police in the investigation, she told me they were only able to pull one set of prints belonging to one person from each of the bodies,” Meredith said and the group all nodded in understanding. Jack made sure to keep his face set, he still remembered Imogen Shriverston’s involvement in his abduction.

He thought back to the conversation he’d had with her, just after the press release back in London.

Imogen Shriverston was quite possibly the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She was about in her late thirties or early forties but looked far younger. She had a luxurious mane of long golden hair like her daughter and pale white skin, her face looked to be the ideal of feminine beauty. She wore a white shirt, slightly unbuttoned to show off some generous cleavage, a short pencil skirt and heels.

“You absolute bitch,” Jack greeted Imogen as he walked into her office. It was a large spacious affair with a magnificent view of the London skyline, the interior was luxuriously appointed with comfortable furniture all around and a massive desk in front of a full window wall letting in natural light. Imogen was leaning against her desk, looking at him in amusement.

“Oh come now Jack, don’t be like that, you survived in the end didn’t you?” She gave a light chuckle. “I’m very impressed.” She gave him a small seductive smile and leaned forward slightly.

“Yeah, no thanks to you, that maniac was going to have me dissected! And you were going to let it happen!” He pointed at her accusingly. Ridiculously beautiful or not, Jack couldn’t help but despise her, it didn’t matter how much she let him stare down her shirt.

“Yes, in fact I wasn’t aware of that particular detail, I thought Eric was just going to beat you up and then kill you, perhaps with a little bit of light torture added on. I certainly had no idea of Dr Farley’s involvement.” She put on an air of innocent puzzlement.

“You just thought he was going to beat me up and kill me? Light fucking torture!? Oh well I suppose that's alright!” Jack responded sarcastically.

“Oh good then!”

“No! Not good! Why did you even want me dead in the first place? We’ve never even met! What have I ever done to you!?” Jack asked her angrily.

“My daughter,” she responded darkly, now no longer looking quite so relaxed or cheerful.

“Meredith? What about her?” he asked in confusion.

“You took my baby girl into one of the most inhospitable places on the planet, a place that has seen A ranked hunters slaughtered. I’ve seen Cheryl come back from some of her hunts in that place in the past, exhausted and barely alive from all her injuries. And you took my daughter in there with you!” Imogen hissed out, mirroring Jack's earlier anger.

“Wait….I took her? I think you need to have a chat with your daughter. There was no taking, if anything it was almost the other way around. In fact, the very day I met her, one of the first things she told me was that she wanted to rank up to B and lead a team into the Dire Woods,” Jack explained to her incredulously.

“She…..wait what? She never said anything like that to me before…is that true?” she asked, her anger momentarily forgotten in her surprise.

“Yeah, I mean I also wanted to go to the Dire Woods too, so she invited me along to form a team with her and a few others. Didn’t you know that was what she wanted? And did you really set Flamewrought on me in revenge for that?” he questioned her in annoyance.

“Well, if you’d died or were otherwise permanently incapacitated due the charges brought against you, I would’ve been able to use my influence to have her team disbanded and Meredith transferred back to London,” Imogen cheerfully explained.

“Uh huh, I’m sure that's right where she wanted to be, overprotective much?” Jack mocked her.

“It's a mother’s job to protect her daughter!” Imogen retorted.

“Probably shouldn’t have let her become a monster hunter then.” Jack shrugged. Imogen simply narrowed her eyes at him. “So now what?” he asked.

“Why didn’t you say anything to Straken or anyone else about me?” she asked suspiciously.

“I’m friends with your sister and your daughter, I didn’t particularly want them to be hurt from all this, so I kept quiet, for now anyway,” he finished ominously.

“So what? You want something from me in return?” she asked in amusement.

Jack shrugged. “To be honest, not really. I think I'm okay just holding this over your head for the future.” He grinned at her but she just chuckled again.

“Hold it over my head all you want Jack, but I’ve already taken steps to ensure my involvement in all this never gets out. The guild, the police, the media, even the government wouldn’t dare come after me. And even if concrete evidence suddenly emerged making me look guilty as sin, I could simply whisper a few words in the right ears and it would all go away. You might find it rather difficult to blackmail or threaten billionaires with as much political clout as me, just for future reference,” she informed him in amusement.

“Well damn, just how corrupt is this place?” he asked rhetorically, beginning to wish he’d thought ahead to bring some sort of recording device to this meeting.

“No more than any other multi billion pound corporation. Now then, I’ve already spoken to the police about the ‘evidence’ you collected from the guild blacksite. They’ve returned it to us due to the fact that it would be inadmissible as evidence in court,” she told him.

“Damnit!”

“Indeed, now I believe that concludes our business, I now know why you didn’t say anything to anyone about me and I know you won’t say anything now,” she told him with a warning look.

“Oh yeah? Well maybe I still tattle on you anyway, mud sticks after all,” Jack said defiantly.

“To some people it does, to some it doesn’t, if you were to say anything it might make things mildly uncomfortable and irritating for me for about five minutes until I've dealt with the situation but trust me, you would be significantly worse off after the whole affair is over than me,” she explained grimly before sighing. “How about this Jack, you’ve already got one A plus ranking cultivator out for your blood, you don’t need another, so I’ll extend an olive branch to you. I’ll leave you alone and I’ll make sure Eric leaves the country, then you can keep quiet and we can both go on with our lives without some sword of Damocles hanging over our heads, how about that?” She smiled at him.

“Hmm, just one question,” he responded.

“Oh?”

“Did you know about what they were doing in that place? Those experiments Farley was doing, extracting elemental cores from living test subjects and probably other stuff too, did you know?” he asked darkly.

She looked at him for a few moments with an indecipherable expression. “Jack….I know we didn’t meet each other on the best of terms and you probably don’t think the world of me right now but…..believe it or not but I’m not a monster. I knew about the site, just like all the others because we have plenty that do actual good, legal work, but I didn’t know precisely what was going on there, in fact Flamewrought had overall control of that particular facility as one of our executives and board members. And obviously we gave him too much freedom,” she said with a regretful sigh.

“Uh huh, so it's all Flamewrought’s fault then? Convenient,” he replied with scepticism.

She just shrugged.

Back in the guild in York several days later, Jack sighed at the memory, he’d taken her up on her offer in the end, though he still wasn’t fully convinced he couldn’t have taken her down if he blabbed, she might’ve been bluffing. But he also wasn’t fully convinced it would’ve done anything at all, and there was still Cheryl and Meredith to consider as well. In the end it was probably best if he didn’t say anything at all, probably.

The evening wore on, as Noah, Jack and Nate compared battle tactics and Katie and Meredith spoke about their time in Milan, Stacey made her appearance. She appeared extremely cheerful.

“Heya guys!” she said happily as she sat down at their table.

“Hey Stace! Where’ve ya been?” Katie asked.

“Oh….nowhere, just been out on my promotion hunt, no big deal.” Stacey examined her fingernails casually.

“Your promotion hunt?” Jack asked.

“Ooh! Tell us! How’d ya do?” Meredith leaned forward excitedly. Everyone held their breath.

“Ah, well…….I PASSED!” she let out a squeal of joy and both Katie and Meredith hugged her.

“Nice work Stacey!” Jack happily congratulated her.

“Mm, well done!” Noah praised her.

“Ah….nice - nice work Stacey,” Nate also congratulated her, though he seemed uncomfortable for some reason.

The group celebrated Stacey’s promotion to C rank into the night.