Purgatory of the Werewolf - The Wolf of Dorian Gray (Book 2)

Chapter 17 - The Hunter's Moon Part 3

Later that night, Ella was astride a Corinthian in a third-rate hotel near Bethnal Green Road. She had spread her petticoat over them both on a thin feather bed, partially unhooking her corset in the front to expose her perky breasts. She moaned distractedly in response to the drunken thrusts of the clumsy wool merchant beneath her.

Harold Black had made his fortune by selling some of his family's ancestral farmlands in order to purchase a minor wool mill in Leeds. As the son of a sheep farmer, he knew the trade well. He married the daughter of the richest sheep farmer he could find and now had more supply than he could sell. His business had increasingly taken him away from his plain-looking wife and into the waiting arms of dollymops in the various cities he visited. Harold had taken one look at the comely shape and inviting smile of the young whore with short, dark hair and taken her immediately to the nearest room for hire.

As the Hunter's Moon rose in the sky, her moans became louder and more urgent. Harold mistook this to mean he had brought his whore to the heights of passion through his manly prowess and closed his eyes while gripping her hips and rocking his body all the harder. He congratulated himself as her moaning turned to screams and neglected to notice as Ella writhed in agony as her bones cracked and remade themselves.

Her corset ripped in two and her breasts sprouted hair and doubled in size. Her skin turned black and tore, then healed itself over larger muscles and forearms. The wool merchant shuddered and reached his climax as blood dripped from her mouth and eyes and her jaw elongated, sprouting vicious teeth.

Harold blinked away the spattered blood and moved one hand to wipe his eyes. He paused as his other hand registered the coarse hair between his fingers attached to what was once Ella's hip. "Wot da 'ell?"

The she-wolf's muzzle descended and tore into the wool merchant's neck. His yell quickly cut off as her teeth ripped out the soft throat. Her hairy arms easily held down the thrashing man as she began feeding on her first kill—still alive.

Ernie Crow was annoyed to be on duty as the pay collector at the hotel that night. It was supposed to be his night off and he had planned to spend it warm in bed with his wife Nonie and two-year-old son Otho. Hershel should have been working that night but had likely overindulged in drink yet again. This wasn't the first time that the lazy son of the owner of the hotel had missed work and Ernie had been summoned in on his night off. Someday he would do them right by moving on from this accursed job. It was embarrassing to have to interrupt the lecherous men and women who used the hotel for their debauchery. Most paid by the hour and only for one hour. It was his job to carefully monitor the clock and once the hour was up, either throw them both out or collect another two shillings.

The strange noises coming from room two barely registered as he pounded on the door. "Time's up. The cost is two shillings for another hour or four shillings for the rest of the night."

Silence from the room inside. He knocked all the louder. "Do you hear me? Which is it, the coin or the street?" Ernie could hear a muffled scraping sound from inside and began fumbling with his keys to unlock the door. "Oy! You'd best not 'ave damaged anything or I'll call the constable straight away."

He swung open the door and took a step inside. The lamp had been smashed on the floor and the room was dark save the moonlight from the window. "Ah, now you've gone and done it..." he paused as he saw the partially devoured body on the bed. "Blessed Saint George, what have you done?"

The dark figure crouching by the bed stood to its full height of two meters. An image of Ernie's wife and son warm in their bed flashed before his eyes as he slowly backed away. "No, please. It should not be me. Hershel was meant to be collector tonight."

The she-wolf roared and crashed into Ernie, throwing him back into the hallway. She pinned him there as he began weeping and disemboweled him with two ferocious swipes of her claws before throwing him to the ground bleeding. Several of the other hotel guests opened their doors to investigate what was disturbing their trysts. They met their ends while fleeing through the bloody hallway towards the street. The newspapers would later call it the 'Red Hotel'.

One lucky man was able to escape the she-wolf by throwing his trousers at her and running as fast as he could out between the buildings. She paused, suddenly wary on the unfamiliar cobblestone street. She could smell trees in the distance and the need for the safety of the forest temporarily overcame her instinct to chase fleeing prey.

A rare snow began to fall as she padded on all fours and out of the city. There was a faint musk-trail of a male wolf in the area and she followed it away from the cramped buildings and strange noises of the city.