Trip to Scotland Page II

==Howling Surprise==
However outside, where we left Morag to her own thoughts, we see, dark grey shapes gliding over the hills behind her. Looked like more wolf men, they came as pack of three on Morag's rear, two already approaching me and 2 on her right.They were closing in fast, there wasn't enough time to warn her going down the stairs. I take a few steps back, look at Garv, who is confused as to what is going on “Meet you down there” lean forward and take a running leap, through the window, to land on the ground, knee bent, fist hitting the floor, my head went dizzy, the ground seemed to be uneven to the eye when I had jumped.
With my head down I hear a growl to my left, I think I looked before I lept, literally, theres must have been a wolf there, but there's a shot fired followed by an "Abomination of god", made me chuckle to myself, "ta Reverend" I say quietly, recovering the wind that knocked out of me.
Raising my head up, I can see one of the wolves stops, some 40 yards away from Morag, just out of sight to the right of her. The beast with a few white flecks leans back on his haunches, lets out a snarling howl, which alerts Mrs Morag, the other 4 wolves howl in unison with white fleck one then starts to run towards her, its front hands with sharp talons pulling its body weight forward like a horse in the grand national.
Another shot is fired, "may your souls descend to hell" again the reverend is been too good of late with that shooting arm, however, i'm not the only one to realise this as a wolf, jumps from behind me on to the porch, I see collections of broken tile hit the floor behind me through my legs, christ that jump did me a wrong turn.
Observing this beast come closer to Morag, I know I won't be able to intervene the wolf. Morag already looks quite scared at the beast, she has already encountered them and knows what these things can do, I feel guilty that I'm the one to watch her, rather than safe her. It looks like she trips backwards in a panic, but then a slight hew glows around her, she regains her posture, facing the oncoming racing wretch. The beast meanwhile is taking bigger strides with its arms. Morag readied her hands, a slight smokey waves curled smoke from her body, the fiend is within about ten feet of her, lowering its head he takes a great leap, in the air, front arms with strained hands lunge for Morag, a jaw angled supernaturally wide, it was to be a carnivores blood bath, as time raced the smoke would go past Morag's hands and then recoiled back, getting faster and faster until – FWOOOOSH. The wolf, slumps to the ground, only its top half burnt, because the fiend was shot between the eyes, what a holy show off. The beast lands on the cart, was no more than a ash shape, that blew away from the force of coned explosion and settled like snow flakes on the cart and the ground as the body slowly slumps off the edge becaue of its own weight.
The rest of the pack, growled at Morag for the extinction of their brethren. They all raced towards her, I was now a good distance away from them but near Morag. I let out a roar to attract some attention, which was interrupted by Morag powering up her smoke, this time with each hand held in different directions, two volleys or swirling fire flame one of the remaining pack and singing one on the flank. The one that missed, rolled over, shook its head, and vaulted off a crate near the lodge, to land near the house, some way behind me, while one from the pack, that wasn't targeted does a few leaps and bounds for me. Morag has fwooosh to take them down, I just use my fist, sending one dog, yelping for the knock to his snout into a barrel of water. The wet dog, now goes for me again is about to swipe me with its razor sharp hands when he is blown through the middle with a searing flame, no blood is sprayed to my dissatisfaction, just ash and dog hair. I see now the ravid dog jumps and claws its way up the house, to where I can see the Reverend and Doc are spectating the fight. Checking if Morag is alright for me to go and carry on, I see the singed one come sneaking up behind her, he takes a leap, shoulder barging the cart, Morag falls off the cart landing on her side, toppling knee to chest. The dog, goes for the kill, while its prey is down, as it lands from a hop over the cart, Morag just touches the beast, sending it aflame, the dog howls and screams in pain, riving in this golden flame, its fur sending the blaze in all sporadic directions, the beast slumps to the ground, Morag gets to her feet and piles the flame onto the beast, making sure it is well done. After the fiend stops moving, the flames jump back to her hands and revert back to a smoke, circling her hands and body.
Suddenly from behind me, I hear a scream, Doc, while there is little growls coming from the room above where I jumped, the creature made it in, I could see by the claw marks and the windowsill partly shredded. Garvin is shouting, can't hear what he is saying, but the urgency in his voice leaves no doubt in my mind. the reverend is letting shot after shot fly, Morag passes me, shes gracefully stepping onto the porch of the building, with either hand, braced at her sides, the gas swirls are moving quite fast now. I think the best thing for me to do, is follower her up, just in case she is unsuccessful, or she can not stop. As she places her hand on the stair rail, I'm thinking, Christ the building will set on fire. The wood of the rail, turns black from her touch, then splits like the logs of a fire, I can hear a feint cracking too. As we reach the room I jumped from, I can see her hands move towards her chest, out of my line of sight, she moves throw the doorway, the Reverned is reloading his pistol, looking up he stops in wonder at the fire I can only feel; where Garvin is dodging and parrying this wolf, using a chair to hold it at bay; Doc is whacking it her cane; while Bobby is unconscious in the corner. The beast sees Morag, snarls then flings the chair with Garv against the wall, Steele drops a few of his silver bullets and fumbles to catch them as they fall, Morag lets out some echoed words, then again another fwoosh. This time the fireball has less speed, partially breaks mid way, but it still burns the fiend and sends its grilled carcase out of the broken window with beam of light. Shocked at this sight and the warm breeze that ruffles my coat in the spring night, I am not quite ready for when an exhausted and fully returned to her normal form, sways and falls into my arms. Morag was out cold. While the beasts were all on fire or ashed.
==Unusual Operation==
For once I was not wounded in a fight and nor had I killed a lot. My hands felt oiled, like they fully stretched wanting to do something else. But what to kill? Morag had all the fiends turned into campfires, the Reverend had shot a couple and attracted a third. I was bored.
Boredom soon ended, Belladonna comes back to us, after me, Garvin the Reverend had boarded up the window and the doors, to make the place a bit safer for the night. She strides in like she does, with her “thinking footsteps” muttering
“extraordinary... fascinating …. unbelievable” we can see her looking at the doorway to the kitchen hesitantly.
“What's up Doc” I ask.
She shuts the book looks our way, “Gentlemen, I have just consulted my Doctor's notes from when I learnt the new branch of medicine at the London Lodge. I turned to the Rippertech implants and I realise I have a chance to extract the heightened abilities of the werewolves and implanting it as a variety of ripper tech.”
“Short version Doc, I get bored easily” (boredom returned)
“Mr. Jensen, in your terms, I can give you werewolf marrow, which will give your bones an increased toughness.” I stood still for a moment, “Where do I sign?” Doc was ecstatic,
“Excellent we will start straight away” she said clapping her hands.
“Sorry Doc, did you find a lab in that library?” I asked.
“Well not entirely” she says sheepishly “More the case of the kitchen table”
“The where?” I question. “The Kitchen” she points at the door where there was still dirty pots and cuttings of mistletoe on the table.
“Does this mean I'll change into a werewolf, Doc?”
“No Mr. Jenson, only if you are bitten by one” she corrects me.
“That's alright then. So hows this going to work?
“Not easily” she says.
Stopped asking questions at that point. Just did as I was told and stripped to my underwear. She gave me something and it made me closed my eyes, like magic. I awake a few minutes later, a huge pain in my arm, then the same sides leg. I raise my head and have a look at what the problem is, then theres a huge twisting feeling then a piercing stabbing pain in my upper right arm. I reel my head backwards in the pain, letting out a scream of pain to see Doc ther with a white mouth mask on, a kitchen pinny holding a corkscrew covered in blood. All over my arm, the right one she is working on, floods with blood from her screw point.
“Garvin give me the chloroform he's woken up” “I can't Bella I'm still holding the door from the Reverend ...” “Abomination of God” someone screams, most likely the Reverend “... he isn't Steele, he's still the same Rigg to us.” “Oh never mind” Doc says picking up a bottle and pulling a cloth to it, “I'll do it myself” she says chocking me with the cloth.
==Monday 11th of April==
I wake in the morning, my whole body aches. More to the point. I can't move. All I can see is white bandages, I let a moan escape “Morning Mr Jensen, how do you feel” “Like a fight that I didn't know I had.” She chuckles. Let's get you up and walking.
Oh the agony, all my limbs felt like twigs waiting to break, “Oh Doc I don't feel so good”, I collapse into a chair. “The pain is too much and I feel... I feel helpless.” Doc gave me a sympathy morphine jab, and my bones seemed stronger and I was able to move a bit more fluidly, not so staggering.
So since the party had searched the church and couldn't find Archie like it was said in the Telegram, we decided to see if he had fled further up the hill where the ruins of a house is. We load our cart up with anything suitable from the lodge, and on we trot. The use of some of the rags in the bedrooms and the straw from their beds create a soft place for me to rest in while I recover from Doc's drilling. As we approach the house I open my eyes, I didn't get much sleep because of the holes in my body. The journey seemed to take half of the day but it was still quite bright when we got there. At then ruins, there was a chimney flume and that was all. The foundation still had broken bricks growing from chalked lines of the house, it looked like bashed and broken teeth of a jaw line. Garvin was inspecting the chimney and the surrounding area, he had noticed that the chimney was a lot deeper than the fireplace was set up, there was a large space, like some sort of pocket, behind the old rusted irons of the fireplace.
Imbedded above the fireplace was a poker, “That's strange” Garvin queried, “What a chimney” I ask, “No stupid, only this chimney stands and this poker above the fireplace hasn't being stolen” Garvin reaches up and try to unhooks it, but the poker is jammed, “Rig give us a hand, will ya” I hobble over and we take an end each and try and unhook the poker. I hear a metalic click, followed by lots of clicking as we push the poker upwards revealing it had a brass hinge underneath it. As we move this so the brass hinge became more visible, the fireplace moved further backwards, a slight soot and ash smell wafted towards us, covering our legs. Where the fireplace has been, because now it was further back, in what we had called a pocket, going underneath the fire irons, there was some stone stairs leading down.
We got lanterns out of our supplies and lit them. Garvin taking the lead, we edged down into this new room. When I was down there, both hands planted against the walls, I could see Garvin up ahead of several openings, all nicely crated archways, with symbols above them. Morag took one room, found a library loitered with literature, which she set down her lantern on a desk. In front, Garvin found a room, with many nicely waxed cabinets, and many posh brass handles on them, many were labeled with white pristine paper; Garvin rubbed his hands, then searched his pocket for his tools of trade. All that was left, where Garvin had checked and found no dangerous problems was the only room with a door. Doc opened this door, me near her, just in case we had unexpected company. The room was already well lit, with gas lights. We thought someone might be already there, but all we could hear was the hiss from the gas lights. I passed the lamp switch and went on ahead as quietly as I could, but I turned a corner and there were many doors with bars and wires connecting them to one another. I looked back at Doc and gave her a puzzled smirk, this was too complicated for my thoughts. Tutting silently she came over to me and made a puzzled noise, I looked at her as if to say “I told you so”, but she took no notice as she does. I was just about to touch it when I see Garvin come in, look at the light switch and abruptly whimpers out a sound that is like a cough. I look back at him, give him a look of “Nice stealth Garvin” and he wags his finger no, pointing to the switch. I come tramping over to him, and he arrogantly points out “Electric fence” “Erm Doc, don't touch the gate” I shout out, “Hello is someone there” a voice whispers, a weary one.
Flicking the switch, we move around the corner as a group. In one of the many rooms with the bars across them, which are cells, there is a frail man. We open the cell with force and trickery, the man was in a bad state, looked quite thin, overgrown hair. His cell was completely littered with vials with some funny Greek wording. When Morag came in, “Archie!” The man looked happy to see her, I just left them to it, had a walk around the place, the rest of the cells were empty. Before I turn to leave I can see the night is approaching us, there is a little underground window, letting some light into the cell, “We need to get moving if we are to make it back to the monastery guys.”
When we had returned to the lodge, the building had a different feel to it. Garvin went scouting up ahead, came back in a relaxed manner, the group were at ease, until that is “The beds have been slept in, pretty recently.” We had all slept on the ground floor “The monks came back?” I asked puzzled, “Of a sort” Garvin replied, which meant we weren't safe anymore in this lodge. The building was too small to make a suitable defense, so we went to the church. Helping Archie into one of the pews, Morag checking her friend for his needs noticed he was quite unsteady in the dusk of the evening. She asked for me to bind her friend just in case “he couldn't control himself.” She then came about and instructed that we could aid our defenses if we used the cuttings of mistletoe to the window and doors as wards for the werewolves. Doc got her tools out and made a paste in which Garvin was able to smear the exits with his finger. While this was going on, me and the rest of the group, went into the catacombs of the church to see if there was a possible openings the monks would know about, that we didn't. Sir Bobby, being the ever gracious man, thought this event would need more than a sword cane, so he grave robbed, yes a gent of high status, robbing a tomb for a sword and shield. This caused great distress to the Reverend, he raised his arms many times in protest to this robbing, turning his back to me, so I could take this opportunity to thieve a lovely ruby ring from another of the tombs.
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