Monster Party Book One: I hunt, therefore I am!
Chapter Twelve: When captured by the Axis and forced to tell the truth...
Alexander was having the dream again.
It wasn't as common these days, but every so often like a wound that had failed to heal properly, it made its presence known.
"So I lost..." He heard his own voice whisper, his throat was far too parched to be capable of proper speech at the moment.
He was laying flat on his back, held in place by manacles that felt like they weighed more than the entire world.
"Correct. You lost. You, your rabid band of followers and your 'invasion' have been crushed.
The marks you left on my land will fade. The damage will be undone in time, soon enough only the history books will recall your actions, if even they bother to." As he spoke Alexander's vanquisher came closer now, gazing deeply into his eyes.
"Was it worth it? Was it worth it to cause so much chaos? Why do you insist upon being such a beast? What say you, you who would have torn this entire nation down given half a chance? WHAT SAY YOU NOW!" That damnable voice demanded of him.
It was only a dream though, and so Alexander didn't have to stick to 'the script' and he could say whatever he wanted, even if his throat was so dry he could barely say anything at all.
He motioned for his captor to lean closer. Alexander could find the strength for only two words, but they would make perfectly clear exactly how he felt about the accusations being leveled against him.
"F**k you..." He wheezed out and threw his head back his lips opening and closing in spasms of silent laughter.
Then he woke up, and discovered that even though he had left his dream, he was still bound hand and foot, only with leather straps instead of metal manacles.
"Out of the fire and into the frying pan..." Alexander muttered to himself.
"Ahh you're finally awake Mr. Diamondclaw!" Doctor Fran noted.
"Hey, you finally got my name right. Well that's something..." The adventurer reflected.
(Scene Break)
Delphi slowly crept towards the guest cottage.
She shouldn't be doing this, she was betraying her father. But... but, she could not shake the feeling that father was betraying her with the way he was treating these people.
Alexander had been summoned to his laboratory, she'd overheard Felix talking with him on her way out for a swim. As much as she feared the jungle, she could not resist the siren call of the ocean.
When she'd returned he still had not been back with Florence, that wasn't so strange of course her father had stayed up lots of late nights preforming experiments on animals before. Except that a quick trip to the menagerie had shown that there were no missing animals who might be currently going under the knife in the laboratory.
She'd even accidentally caught sight of Orson wheeling in a tray filled with boiling water, white cloth, and fresh scalpels. It was everything that one would need for surgery, except a patient... unless Alexander was the 'patient' who as going to be operated on tonight.
Her father studies animals, her father experimented on animals, Delphi knew that had long ago accepted it.
What she could not accept was that her father. sweet kind Doctor Francis Vaster was about to study... about to experiment on... another human being who had only helped him.
So she headed for the guest cottage and looked around. James and Miriam should have been here, they'd mentioned that they would be sleeping in the main room while Cal and Devi took the private one and Alexander and Florence should have been off in the jungle.
That meant James and Miriam were the closest, it was only right that Delphi went to them for help. Except that neither of them were present inside the room... it seemed as empty as it had before they'd come, except for a large ornate coffin, neither her father nor his servants had moved it here and James and Miriam certainly hadn't carried it in with them when they first arrived... had they?
"Delphi, you must be brave." The young girl told herself.
She had already come here to betray her father, compared to doing that what did she have to fear from opening up a coffin? Still, as she looked upon it, she saw words printed upon the lid in fancy golden script.
"Rør ikke katten uden en handske?" She muttered to herself. Delphi could recognize the letters (well most of them) but the words they made up no sense.
They must be from the language of some nation who her books did not cover. Gazing down at them for a moment, she tried to puzzle out their meaning... something about a cat and a handshake?
It didn't matter.
She grabbed the lid, heaved, and the coffin remained firmly closed.
"OH COME ON!" Delphi moaned, bad enough that she should be forced to deal with something as bizarre and ominous as this, but the coffin lid was so heavy that she had trouble shifting it on her own. Taking a deep breath she made another attempt.
"Come on you stupid piece of wood, open!" She heaved with all the might she could muster, and a few seconds later Delphi promptly wished that that the coffin lid had stayed shut.
She wasn't sure what she had been expecting but it certainly was not what she ended up getting.
For out of the coffins sprung the Crimson Cat, the nightmarish feline that had for so long dwelt in the back of her mind since she saw it broke into her father's menagerie. Fur puffed up it hissed in anger at her and Delphi took off running as fast as she could.
She slammed the door shut behind her and wished with all her might that it would be possible for her to have barred the door from the outside in order to shut the creature in. There was no way to do that without locking herself in with the beast, and nothing, NOTHING could make her do that!
She could not bar the door, could not think clearly, all she could do was run. Delphi got about all of twenty feet before she promptly tripped on a root, and fell face first in the dirt.
It wasn't fair, father was going crazy, Akanga's servants were coming and going throughout the estate as they pleased, now all she needed to do was to come down with the animal melding disease and her life would have completely and utterly come apart.
She closed her eyes and waited to feel jaws close around her throat. But instead she felt warm strong arms go around her and help her up.
"Hey are you all right Delphi?" James Firecat asked, polite as ever.
Delphi spun her head around looking for any sign of the beast that had been chasing her just moments ago. She saw no sign of it, but didn't let that make her feel safe, cats were nothing if not experts at hiding from their prey until they struck.
"Keep your eyes open, it could be anywhere!" Delphi warned him.
"What could be?" James asked eyebrows arching upwards in confusion.
"The Crimson Cat!" Delphi spluttered wondering how James could have possibly caught up with her without seeing the beast, unless it had stayed in the guest room for some reason while James had approached from somewhere else entirely.
"Oh, don't worry about it, that's me. Sorry about hissing at you back there, Mirri and I were sort of in the middle of something important when you opened the lid." James tossed off out this particular explanation as if he was talking about the weather as opposed to something that had caused Delphi some rather serious mental trauma for the last few days.
"What?" She couldn't even bring herself to shout it at his face no matter how much she wanted to, instead she could only have it roll out in a voice so shocked it was all but utterly emotionless.
James lifted his wide-brimmed hat revealing a pair of familiar furry cat ears.
"Yeah I'm a werecat. Not the kind of thing that I wave and shout about but you probably were pretty close to figuring it out after you saw me come out of the coffin right?" He asked, his tone of voice as innocent and gentle as ever.
"YOU KNOCKED ME DOWN!" Delphi's anger had finally managed to roll its way to the forefront of her mind.
"No I didn't you tripped on that root." Said James in confusion pointing at the offending bit of botany in question.
Delphi shoved James so hard that her own chronic inner ear issues caused her to lose her balance and fall to the ground again, even worse James had the audacity to remain standing.
"Not right now! I meant back when you first showed up, the night you robbed my father's menagerie!" She reminded him bitterly.
James courteously bent down and began to help Delphi to her feet again (how dare he be so chivalrous at a time like this!) without a moment's hesitation.
"Well it was a small door. I could have either knocked you down and gotten past you or waited around till you decided to scream your head off and your father showed up. Listen I have nothing but respect for his work and his efforts to help the animals and people of this island, but vivisection has never been one of my favorite hobbies in the world and I really didn't want to end up occupying a cage of my own, not that Alex would stand for something like that of course." James answered.
That just made it worse in Delphi's eyes, it would have been one thing for the charming handsome lad to be possessed with some kind of inner darkness that her struggled mightily to suppress. That was, well was almost down right heroic when viewed in the right light, especially if he had contracted the condition by way of some Vistani's curse or the bite of a fiend that he was bringing to justice.
It was clear however from his easy confidence and glib mannerisms that James Firecat did not suffer from lycanthropy, say rather he reveled in it!
"Does Miriam know?" Delphi demanded angrily her heart going out to the obviously betrayed woman who this cad was catting around on.
"I'm surprised you even have to ask, that was her coffin we came out. Don't worry she told me her your father already knows she's a vampire and wasn't about to make an issue of it." James explained tossing out still more world shattering bits of news like a kindhearted nobleman tossed coppers to his servants.
He did it with equal disregard for what those who received his 'gifts' made of them.
"That's it, I GIVE UP!" Delphi exclaimed kicking at the dirt in irritation careful to keep her balance throughout this time.
"I can't believe I ever thought I would betray father to help any of you! I imagine Alexander must have done some horrible things of his own in the past which makes him deserve to get vivisected!" Delphi bellowed her mouth running so far ahead of her brain that the two would have needed semaphore to communicate.
"Doctor Fran is going to vivisect Alex?" James asked his brown eyes suddenly going wide.
(Scene Break)
Alexander strained against the straps as he realized it was not a normal table he was bound to, it was the Table of Life itself...
"You're only wasting your time Alexander. I use same straps to hold back both man and beast. Your bindings are strong enough to keep a bear restrained, just the thing for dealing with uncooperative patients wouldn't you agree?" Doctor Fran noted his voice a cruel mockery of its normal self.
"You know... I'm starting to think you're not really a doctor." Alexander reflected as he abandoned his efforts to break free.
"That all depends on how one looks at things. I will admit when it comes to curing disease by the application of potions and tinctures I still have a great deal to learn, but surgery... I am an all but unrivaled expert at surgery. After all, I am Frantisek Markov, ruler of Markovia!" Frantisek announced with wicked glee.
"Markov..." Alexander spoke the word slowly, as if contemplating each and every single syllable of it extremely deeply.
As his vision continued to clear he was able to see that "Doctor Fran" was now dressed only in a simple apron, and that he was not a man, not really, he was a gorilla with a human head.
"I do believe I've heard stories of you, the pig butcher who decided that butchery wasn't enough to sate his interests." Alexander ruminated.
"Oh yes." Markov admitted openly.
"Butchery, bah! Any dullard with a blade can go about the business of separating head from neck, or limb from body. Surgery on the other hand, surgery with all its nuance and brilliant intricacies is an activity fit for a king! Sadly even a king will run out of patients to treat sooner or later if they insist on dieing halfway through the operation." Frantisek Markov reflected ruefully.
"I should have suspected, a beast with the head of a man, so many creatures neither man nor beast, would have suspected... but the last time I checked an atlas Markovia was a landlocked nation. So what are you doing out here as an island?" Alexander inquired, sounding almost genuinely aggrieved at this particular twist of fate.
"That is a mystery even to me Alexander. Sadly I find a man typically has time in his life to study only a single such question." The Darklord admitted openly.
"By the way Markov, good job, this entire act was much craftier than what I'd been told most Darklords are capable of. You changed your name, grew a beard and mustache, didn't keep the same initials, didn't spell it backwards, didn't use some kind of obscure anagram, you had another 'Darklord' ready to be your scapegoat, you even said you were from Larmodia instead of Barovia and given how long you claimed to be alone on this island no one would raise a fuss about how atrocious your accent was!
Sadly I can't give you top marks because you insisted only changing Frantisek to Francis instead of something completely unrelated like Douglas." Alexander pointed out, hoping to keep his captor talking just a little bit longer.
"I'll keep in that mind the next I'm fortunate enough to have guests." Markov noted without emotion.
"By the way, do you really think you're going to get away with this? My companions, Florence especially, are going to notice that I've vanished before long." He reminded Frantisek.
"Felix will spin a tale from them about how you're too busy helping me in the lab to join them for a meal, in fact that will be the Mist's own truth! It won't have to hold together long, just until they help themselves to breakfast. The mushroom sauce will be given a little extra flavoring, a powerful sedative derived from the mushrooms of this island.
Orson and Felix will handle things from there, though I'll also have a few dozen of the broken ones loyal to me on hand just in case. I could have captured you all in one go of course, but now that the Table of Life is finally within my grasp, I simply could not wait till morning to try it out!
I am certain what I learn in tonight's experiments will be key to helping me break my curse and return to the body of a proper human instead of this bestial mockery I am forced to make do with!" The gorilla bodied man boasted happily.
"Do you have a plan for how to deal with Mirri? She told me how you already know she's a vampire, even if you could get her to eat something in the first place it it's remarkably difficult to poison someone who is already dead." Alexander pointed out.
"Ah yes, dear Miriam. I do not think that any subduing will be required on her account. We are two of a kind you see, power calling to power, the strong were made to rule, the weak to be broken and forced to serve! For too long I have been a King without a Queen, a God without a Goddess for my Pantheon, she is worthy of ruling at my side.
Truly Alexander you have brought so very many gifts to me, and so I will do my utmost to repay the favor. You will make a splendid Broken One, I will see to it that you alone are given a chance to claim Akanga's head!" The Darklord ruminated.
"How do you plan to explain to Delphi what happened to your guests?" Alexander needled Markov continuing to search for a verbal chink in his captor's armor.
"I've raised my daughter better than that. Unlike my not so dear but oh so very departed Ludmilla, Delphi knows better than to question what I do behind closed doors. " Frantisek Markov insisted as he gave Alexander's restraints a few testing tugs to make doubly sure of their strength.
"You know, I'm not sure if this occurred to you yet or not Markov, but, you could... just stop. You wish to make yourself fully human again? WHY? Aside from a few shipwrecked castaways there aren't any true humans left in all of Markovia!
Haven't you heard the saying about how in the land of the blind a one eyed man can be king? At this point managing to fix your condition would probably jut make you more of an outcast!" Alexander insisted.
Markov shook his head mournfully.
"Ah if only it were so simple. You fail to grasp the true nature of my goals Alexander. Restoring myself to a human body is only the first step. I have been plagued with all manner of problems as I sought to attain that step, from a dearth of patients to Akanga and his band of rebels, but soon, soon they will be no more.
With the Table of Life to aid me I shall craft the most perfect, most powerful, most obedient broken ones yet and they shall finally crush that leonine nuisance along with his foolish followers! Once I have accomplished that, I will remake my broken ones next! Under my knife their cracks will be mended, I shall find a way call forth brilliance from the base flesh of beasts! I will accomplish with my tools in a few hours what it took the gods millenia!" Frantisek Markov bellowed his boast/challenge at the top of his lungs.
"No wonder you claimed to have been from Lamordia... Let me guess, you learned the tongue reading Victor Mordenheim's papers on human anatomy didn't you?" Alexander was unable to keep himself from muttering dourly.
"It's a beautiful language and indeed we shared some most insightful correspondence before my unexpected geographic relocation. It was hard enough to find couriers before, and sadly none of my experiments on avians have retained the ability to fly so homing pigeons were out of the question as well, thus we have not exchanged missives in far too long.
Granted, he has some absurd notions on what constitutes 'life', feeling that it can be imbued through the mere manipulations of diodes, switches and the elements. Possibly that might be enough to force some semblance of existence into flesh that has long since past on but it not truly life!
Perhaps a unique few like Miriam are chosen to continue on beyond the normal bounds of mortality but otherwise the departed should be left in peace. Committing acts of surgery upon the dead? Where is the point to it if you can not make records of how the subject reacts? Fie on such foolish notions!
Likewise, he refuses to recognize my own brilliance on the subject of how by manipulating a subject's cerebral tissue it is possible to increase or decrease their mental facilities not to mention alter their personality.
If he was disappointed with the way his 'son' was acting he should have taken him back under the knife, for what piece of art is ever so perfect that it can not be improved by another round of revision? I once had hopes of inviting him to Markovia to personally oversee and comment on my work, but alas he was ever the recluse. Do you know if he has been doing well recently?" Markov inquired with something approaching genuine concern.
"Sorry I haven't been to Lamordia recently, try asking Cal when it's his turn." Alexander informed the Markov.
"I shall make a note of it." The sanity impaired surgeon declared with dreadful earnesty, and with that the momentary stay of execution the adventurer had won was spent.
"The question is, what is a man?" The Darklord asked to the room at large.
"From what I've seen most are nothing but a miserable pile of secrets." Alexander answered abruptly, though for a Darklord in mid rant Frantisek Markov took the interruption with surprisingly good grace.
"How very droll. Do be serious with me Alexander, you see this is the question that I have dedicated so much of my energy and time to trying to answer. Is it the mind? Is it the hand? The opposable thumb? The upright manner? Perhaps it's the spine, or forward facing predatory eyes. Something as simple as communal nature or mysterious and unknowable as the mythical soul." As Markov spoke he started to examine a series of countless scalpels hung before him before his large rough hand eventually seized around one in particular.
"This one will do. What is a man? That is precisely what we're about to try and find out together..." Frantisek insisted as he began to approach the bound adventurer.
The blade began to descend ready to make the first and most important incision when suddenly Alexander cried out.
"Wait! Frantisek Markov, though I did not know your true name at the time, I served you faithfully! Did I not bring you this very Table of Life I now lay upon? I think it is only fair that this should earn me a boon..." He pleaded.
The scalpel was momentarily withdrawn and then his captor suddenly laughed. Not the cruel mocking laugh of a jailor to his prisoner but Doctor Fran's normal jovial booming laugh.
"A boon? A boon you would have of me Alexander? An interesting proposition, have I not come most dramatically into your life?" He asked not so much to Alexander as to his pair of followers for all of a sudden both Felix and Orson fell to the floor and pressed their faces into its tiles without hesitation.
"Diosamblet..." They whispered pitifully.
"I have come to bring you power!" Markov noted his voice growing still louder.
"Diosamblet." The pair repeated.
"I have come to bring you justice!" He announced.
"Diosamblet!" It was a shout now.
"I have come to bring you pain!" His voice rumbled like thunder.
"DIOSAMBLET!" At the same time Orson and Felix wailed out the title like tortured souls.
"Let the judgment proceed!" He declared before suddenly leaning in and whispering into Alexander's ears.
"That means you may ask for you boon. But do please spare us the silliness of any further please for your release, humor is rare enough gift in Markovia but fresh fully human beings are even rarer.
I simply must be allowed to practice my craft, practice makes perfect after all. Do not fear, I have improved with tremendous leaps and bounds form the days when I once slaughtered hogs. Now with the Table of Life, I shall bestride the world of surgery like a colossus!" Markov noted with growing anticipation.
"If you wish to make me into a half man half beast... before you do, do you think you could at least see fit to making me a whole man first? It's my right eye you see..." Alexander pleaded his voice sounding pitiful, weak, and spent.
Frantisek Markov actually took a step back away from Alexander and considered this for a full minute during which time his two servants remained in their poses of utter and complete supplication before finally reaching his conclusion.
"Diosamblet is merciful! You shall have your boon Alexander! I shall make a whole man out of you and so much more as well! So let us have a look at the damage to be repaired shall we?" Markov commanded as he returned to Alexander's side.
He made one swift slash with his scalpel and the strap holding the eyepatch to Alexander's head was severed. Then Markov reached out with his free hand and began to push it aside, interested to see just what lay beneath.
In his long life Frantisek Markov had seen (and inflicted) all manner of deformities and injuries so he though himself well prepared for whatever might lay beneath that eyepatch be it a normal eye turned milky white, sealed shut by some nasty scar, one punctured by some pinpoint tiny cut oozing repulsive fluid or even an empty gaping hole which hinted at the now completely missing ocular organ.
Still, for all of his years as a sawyer of bones and slicer of flesh what he saw beneath that patch still came as a shock to the Darklord.
It was an eye.
A seemingly perfectly healthy and functional eye.
But it didn't belong in Alexander's face, it didn't belong upon the face of any human being. It was the right size, but its was a deep golden yellow color and as the light being cast down from overhead struck it fully, it reflected the stuff back with an unnatural glimmer.
Frantisek Markov gazed deeply into that eye as he looked upon Alexander's face with almost childlike glee and amazement as if he had just discovered the biggest most brightly wrapped birthday gift imaginable.
"You see Markov, no matter how hard I try to get rid of it, it just won't come out!" Alexander cackled with a sudden manic energy.
"That eye... I've seen its like in my wolf broken ones. That however, that was a closer to the transplant of an entire head, crude but not completely without some manner of success none the less, in your case though...
Just the eye, and transplanted so smoothly that even I will admit I did not suspect it in the slightest. To do that would require a surgeon even greater than myself! You must tell me Alexander, who did this to you!" Frantisek requested, for the moment he was more interested in the alterations that had already taken place to Alexander's body to worry about inflicting any of his own.
"I did this to myself Markov, because I once considered myself above the 'monsters' of this world because I was 'fairer' to look upon than they rather than purer of spirit. When I refused to believe that foulness could be a treat for the eye, or goodness be something that would turn the stomach. I deserved to have this mark placed upon me and have my body twisted for my arrogance.
You know, when we first arrived on this island, you told me if we stayed too long we might be struck down by an illness which would cause us to take on the aspects of beasts. Well doctor..." Alexander's explanation of his past suddenly switched gears with a startling abruptness.
Even more startling his body suddenly began to transform, inflicting upon itself the sort of changes in seconds that Markov had brought to his broken ones over hours or days of surgery. Hair grew and thickened into fur, blunt teeth became predatory fangs, ears migrated from the side to the top of the head, Alexander's muscles which were already well developed now became extravagant.
"You could say I'm symptomatic." A creature that was now more wolf than man declared in a voice that was somehow perfectly human.
By the time Frantisek Markov was able to comprehend the words the first strap had already burst. It was the one around Alexander's neck, the weakest, thinnest, and least important, for while it might complicate surgery its defeat wouldn't offer a captive any true chance of escape.
At least such had been his original thought process on the mater.
It was a presumption that was challenged by the way his newest patient however now lunged his furred head forward and with one snap of his great jaws bit cleanly through the restraints holding his right arm in place.
His left was freed with equal abruptness and the claws fell upon the straps holding his legs without mercy. In moments a silver furred monster which seamlessly blended the bipedal nature of the a man with the carnivorous bearing of the wolf and a size greater than either on its own pushed itself off of the table.
Unrestrained it now stood as tall and nearly as wide shouldered as Frantisek himself.
"You skimped on the avian saliva didn't you, I can tell..." The silver furred wolf monster boasted.
For a brief moment the pair just stood there the Darklord a mix of gorilla and man and his 'prisoner' a mix of wolf and man both taking stock of the other.
Then Markov struck, burying his scalpel in the wolf creature's right shoulder, his primate strength easily driving his weapon home up to its hilt through fur, flesh, and muscle.
Except there was so much fur flesh and muscle to be found upon the wolf creature...
Whatever that scalpel's virtues as an instrument of surgery or torture it was ill-suited to the challenges of slaying a beast as large as the one which now stood before the Darklord.
"I think you're gonna to need a bigger blade." The wolf noted with bemusement before it struck out with is left claw, a horizontal sweep that no normal wolf could have ever employed.
It knocked Markov a few paces but did him no real damage.
"You would dare to strike the Diosamblet?!" Orson roared, Markov's ursine servant had content to be his normal placid self even while events as amazing as Alexander's transformation were taking place.
The sight of another attacking his master however he would not countenance and began to lumber forward intent on reducing this foe before him to a broken and ruined pulp. He never got the chance however, momentarily given the freedom to move how it pleased the wolf monster bent its knees and jumped.
The large chandelier which provided light to the operating room was hung nearly fifty feet from the floor, but the wolf monster cleared the distance in one seemingly effortless leap. It balanced there for a few short seconds clearly aware that it's new peach was of a rather precious nature given its own weight.
"I am afraid we will have to reschedule our appointment Doctor..." It uttered, it's cultured voice still shockingly at odds with its bestial body.
Then it jumped again, and plunged through the thatch roof Markov's home like a furry boulder leaving a most surprised and incensed Frantisek Markov in its wake. For a several long seconds silence hung in the room like an oppressive fog until the Darklord finally broke it.
"I liked that scalpel..." He admitted to no one in particular.
(Scene Break)
"Well I'm tempted to wish him luck." James chuckled with a wide smile.
"I'M NOT JOKING!" Delphi screamed at him.
"Neither am I." The werecat replied.
WHAM!
Suddenly a blurry shape crashed through the roof of the estate.
The creature headed straight for them, leaping off the roof and landed a moment later.
It was the largest wolf broken one Delphi could possibly imagine, and its fur glistened silver rather than more traditional white or gray.
It just... stood there, looking at her, as if wondering if there was even enough meat on her bones to make her worth the effort of eating.
"Hey Alex, looks like you're having a bit of an eyepatch emergency. You're lucky that I always keep a few stashed away just in case!" James made casual conversation with wolf broken one in a tone so flippant Delphi was certain that they couldn't possibly be seeing the same thing.
"Glad to see you're up already James, it makes things much less complicated." The wolf broken one said in Alexander Diamondclaw's voice.
Well now at least Delphi knew that she was the one who was having delusions.
James reached into one of the many pockets of his red jacket and produced a black eyepatch on a string. The wolf broken one leaned down (otherwise even standing on tip toe James wouldn't have been tall enough to reach its head) and James slid the eyepatch into place over the creature's right eye.
A moment later it's body seemed to contract in upon itself and began to shrink as it transformed from an exceptionally large wolf broken one, into the shape of Alexander Diamondclaw, his black outfit in an unsurprisingly unruffled shape. At least except for a scalpel buried in his right shoulder which he casually yanked free, flesh and fabric both melding together in the wake of its removal.
"Much better, James go get the others. We're leaving, now." Alexander commanded.
James saluted and raced off back into the guest house. That left an increasingly distraught Delphi alone with Alexander.
"You, Miriam, Father, James... all you ship people ARE MONSTERS!" Delphi clutched at her temple in pain.
"How certain are you that you're truly human, that you're a monster also?" Alexander asked suddenly. The question did Delphi's already shaken mind no favors.
"What... what do you mean?" She whimpered.
"Are monsters found in the way one is looks, the way one is born, or the way one acts? After having of enough of your father's 'hospitality' to last me a life time I'm going to go see if some 'monsters' don't treat me a little better. So do you want to come with me and meet Akanga or stay here?" Alexander informed her.
Meeting Akanga, going straight into the lion's den. But on the other hand, was she really any safe here?
If, if... if she didn't understand father at all, she had no way of knowing how he would react if he found out that she had warned James, and father always found things out sooner or later.
Two horrible choices, and in the end no choice at all.
"I'll go with you." She muttered.
Alexander didn't even bother with further word, she just scooped Delphi up over his shoulders and took off running.
End Chapter
Author Notes Chapter Twelve: It took me about a dozen different attempts/tries to finally find a song lyric I liked for this chapter. Just thought you might want to know. Thankfully there's always Sabaton to fall back on for an awesome song lyric that fits the mood (I needed something that sounded horrific and dark yet didn't obviously hint at a sudden reversal of fortune) though of course if you know your Sabaton, the song line is from "Resist and Bite" with the full line being
"But when captured by the Axis
And forced to tell the truth
We'll tell it with a smile,
We will surprise them with a laugh"
Which of course very much fit Alexander's situation and how he responds to it.
Anyway, this chapter also contains my first honest to goodness surprise even to people who are familiar with Neither Man Nor Beast. Okay technically James being a werecat was a surprise, but we'd barely gotten to know James at all so it hardly counts. Now unlike Mirri in her coffin I doubt anyone saw this coming. That said, I did leave a few clues for you to pick up on if you were looking close enough that hinted at what might be going on under Alexander's eyepatch/that he wasn't a normal human.
Lets count them off so you can reflect on how good (or bad) I am at foreshadowing.
Right from the first chapter Captain Stewart remarks on how his own first mate wears an eye patch despite having two perfectly good eyes. This should serve to plant the idea in your head that not everyone who wears an eyepatch has only one eye.
Also consider the naming convention, those three who present themselves as something other than what they really are, are James FIRECAT, Mirri CATWARRIOR and Alexander DIAMDNOCLAW while the three who open about what they are simply Devi Skye, Cal Wright and even the dryad is simply Florence Bastien, which is far more believable than any of the three proceeding names.
From chapter three onward, Mirri has made her disdain for most mortals/everyone other than James pretty clear, and as Chaotic Evil personality raw strength is just one of the few reasons she would agree to follow someone. So why is it that she refers to Alex with a respectful "Sir" and follows his orders? Because he's something other than a normal mortal.
In chapter six, Florence called Alex a beast and Alexander takes pride in the notion that there are none beastlier than him.
In chapter seven Cal says that Alexander is like a "Booze Bloodhound" playing up the fact that he has superior sense of smell than most people.
In chapter nine Alexander tells Doctor Fran/Markov not to consider where the parts of him other than his heart come from, and as we'll eventually find out, oh but is there a story behind where his right eye came from.
Also at the end of the chapter Alexander is mentioned alongside Mirri as suffering a headache from hearing the gong rung, which suggests his hearing is a lot keener than that of a normal person.
In chapter ten we find out Alexander's sword is named Wolf Claw. Which is sort of a strange name for a sword unless... it's the claw he uses when he doesn't have any others.
In the chapter eleven, we find out that Cal's glasses are reading glasses. The alchemist is far sighted, and shoots better (at least against targets that are a long way away from him) when he takes his glasses off. This touches on the theme on people owning items that in theory impair their capabilities.
Also, yeah as you might guess from his dream Alexander was something of a bastard in his past to say the least. Probably something like three failed power checks before he turned his life around.
Double also before you even ask, no Alexander is not a werewolf. After all the effort that I put into detailing James' efforts to find enough fresh meat to get by on, if Alexander required even more (though he could be slightly less choosey since wolves are scavengers) then it would be the height of bad writing not to touch on his eating habits up to this point in the story.
Triple also before you get cute, Alexander is also not a wolfwere (mystical wolf that can turn into a human being) either. That would be stupid because it would require him to be a good version a creature which is evil by default and have their own society to reinforce said evilness (or at least for 'evil' defined as seeing eating humans as okay) and would over all make him a good version of Harkon Lukas which is a stupid idea from start to finish pretty much the ultimate Gary Stu. If you need proof that he is not either of the above creatures, notice that when Alexander is in his "hybrid form" his voice does not get distorted unlike James'.
Alexander Diamondclaw is complicated and we'll learn more of his back story and powers as more books come out. For now, as you might suspect, yes he can only transform out of his human form when he's not wearing an eyepa