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Xavier's Secret
The howl came from under the floor.
We raided 69 Settler’s Avenue under a full moon, me and the police squad. We’d been tipped off two nights ago, but I’d delayed the raid until the full moon. The owner of the house was a certain Klaus Xavier. Wife died twelve years ago, officially of childbirth.
I’m Coltrane. Private Investigator Vince Coltrane, unofficially affiliated with the NYPD. I’ve been established… Man, I don’t even know how to translate it into your time. I handle special jobs.
Anyway, there’s Klaus mouthing off in his vest and soiled pants, saying stuff like he’ll knife us if we don’t leave. God, he smells to high heaven. Beer cans everywhere, living room lit by widescreen TV, cracked picture of wife on wall. There’s only one sofa. His bum-print’s practically carved into it.
Neighbour called us because Klaus’s daughter went missing five days ago. Usually, she’s out putting up the washing or walking herself to school. Social workers visit weekly. Them and school told us about her cuts and bruises. The usual stuff. She’d “tripped”.
When we found the trapdoor, we opened it up and found her there.
Belladonna Xavier, named after her mother, probably in a pitiful attempt to bring her back. She was howling fit to burst, covered in uncut hair down to the floor, chained up. According to Klaus and his shouted excuses, she’d cheeked him. God knows what passed for “cheeking him” in his insane mind.
Man, it felt good putting the cuffs on him. He mouthed off all the way to the car.
But that wasn’t why I came here to 69 Settler’s Avenue. No disrespect to Belladonna, poor girl, but I needed something else.
Wasn’t easy to get her to talk, though. Not right away. One of the female officers, PC Pryce, guided her to the van – maybe the poor kid was used to taking orders – and spoke to her the whole trip. I was there, saying nothing.
Belladonna weren’t the werewolf, though.
It took a few hours to get her to talk, coaxing her out of her shell. Fetched her stuffed bear. Let her watch TV – Hammer Horror, natch. Yeesh, PC Pryce got her playing pat-a-cake. What is the mortal world coming to?
I stayed in plain sight the whole time. Aversion therapy, or something. Over time she stopped glancing nervously at me. Got used to my presence. I ain’t that scary-looking, relatively.
The squad found her some nice clothes, and when she came back to the interrogation room, I sat opposite her and tried a smile. Give me some credit. I usually don’t bother with smiles. PC Pryce left the room.
After all that, I cut to the chase. “Here’s what I want to know. You went out for old Xavier. You got groceries and things. No one spoke to you – no one mortal. But someone taught you how to howl like that. That’s no feral child stuff. Wanna tell me who taught you?”
She didn’t talk at first. I bided my time. Time don’t mean a lot to a being like me.
Eventually, the little Belladonna said, “What are you going to do?”
“I work for a… ‘charity’. Looking for lost little lambs who wander away from home.” Lambs? Ha! I was laying it on thick. “Neighbour saw you learning the… lingo from some woman one night. Howling werewolf language. Who’s the wolf?”
“She’s my friend.”
“I know she’s your friend. I’m here to… help her get back home. Who is she?”
“She’s my friend.”
On and on and on this went, until PC Pryce came back and insisted I leave. I was stressing the “poor dear”.
Well, no point pushing. Let the girl stew for a bit, then come back. Had to be done, I’m afraid. Monsters and men never meant to coexist, so my boss once told me. Werewolves and little girls? No chance. Disaster beckoned. You couldn’t tame a wolf.
So they say.
I peeked through the glass. Belladonna howled at PC Pryce for a bit. PC Pryce shushed her, looking at us.
Well, well, well.
Pryce? I knew her. Decent type. Total sap for kids. Could be a real chatterbox off-duty.
Officially, I was doing the job. Looking out for eldritch strays to take back forever. But… nothing concrete here. Some cases just aren’t that cut-and-dry. Besides, anyone who can control themselves under a full moon? No problem.
I watched them play pat-a-cake. The job has its bright spots.
We raided 69 Settler’s Avenue under a full moon, me and the police squad. We’d been tipped off two nights ago, but I’d delayed the raid until the full moon. The owner of the house was a certain Klaus Xavier. Wife died twelve years ago, officially of childbirth.
I’m Coltrane. Private Investigator Vince Coltrane, unofficially affiliated with the NYPD. I’ve been established… Man, I don’t even know how to translate it into your time. I handle special jobs.
Anyway, there’s Klaus mouthing off in his vest and soiled pants, saying stuff like he’ll knife us if we don’t leave. God, he smells to high heaven. Beer cans everywhere, living room lit by widescreen TV, cracked picture of wife on wall. There’s only one sofa. His bum-print’s practically carved into it.
Neighbour called us because Klaus’s daughter went missing five days ago. Usually, she’s out putting up the washing or walking herself to school. Social workers visit weekly. Them and school told us about her cuts and bruises. The usual stuff. She’d “tripped”.
When we found the trapdoor, we opened it up and found her there.
Belladonna Xavier, named after her mother, probably in a pitiful attempt to bring her back. She was howling fit to burst, covered in uncut hair down to the floor, chained up. According to Klaus and his shouted excuses, she’d cheeked him. God knows what passed for “cheeking him” in his insane mind.
Man, it felt good putting the cuffs on him. He mouthed off all the way to the car.
But that wasn’t why I came here to 69 Settler’s Avenue. No disrespect to Belladonna, poor girl, but I needed something else.
Wasn’t easy to get her to talk, though. Not right away. One of the female officers, PC Pryce, guided her to the van – maybe the poor kid was used to taking orders – and spoke to her the whole trip. I was there, saying nothing.
Belladonna weren’t the werewolf, though.
It took a few hours to get her to talk, coaxing her out of her shell. Fetched her stuffed bear. Let her watch TV – Hammer Horror, natch. Yeesh, PC Pryce got her playing pat-a-cake. What is the mortal world coming to?
I stayed in plain sight the whole time. Aversion therapy, or something. Over time she stopped glancing nervously at me. Got used to my presence. I ain’t that scary-looking, relatively.
The squad found her some nice clothes, and when she came back to the interrogation room, I sat opposite her and tried a smile. Give me some credit. I usually don’t bother with smiles. PC Pryce left the room.
After all that, I cut to the chase. “Here’s what I want to know. You went out for old Xavier. You got groceries and things. No one spoke to you – no one mortal. But someone taught you how to howl like that. That’s no feral child stuff. Wanna tell me who taught you?”
She didn’t talk at first. I bided my time. Time don’t mean a lot to a being like me.
Eventually, the little Belladonna said, “What are you going to do?”
“I work for a… ‘charity’. Looking for lost little lambs who wander away from home.” Lambs? Ha! I was laying it on thick. “Neighbour saw you learning the… lingo from some woman one night. Howling werewolf language. Who’s the wolf?”
“She’s my friend.”
“I know she’s your friend. I’m here to… help her get back home. Who is she?”
“She’s my friend.”
On and on and on this went, until PC Pryce came back and insisted I leave. I was stressing the “poor dear”.
Well, no point pushing. Let the girl stew for a bit, then come back. Had to be done, I’m afraid. Monsters and men never meant to coexist, so my boss once told me. Werewolves and little girls? No chance. Disaster beckoned. You couldn’t tame a wolf.
So they say.
I peeked through the glass. Belladonna howled at PC Pryce for a bit. PC Pryce shushed her, looking at us.
Well, well, well.
Pryce? I knew her. Decent type. Total sap for kids. Could be a real chatterbox off-duty.
Officially, I was doing the job. Looking out for eldritch strays to take back forever. But… nothing concrete here. Some cases just aren’t that cut-and-dry. Besides, anyone who can control themselves under a full moon? No problem.
I watched them play pat-a-cake. The job has its bright spots.
The writing's pretty rough here, a lot of errors and confusing flow, so it took a while to figure out what's really going on and who's actually human. I'm not entirely sure what its hinting about Pryce. But I do find the hints at worldbuilding to be pretty interesting, so I think this has some nice potential. I have to read between the lines to see it, but there's some cool ideas here waiting to sprout.
bonus points for not actually showing the werewolf on-screen, and having it just be one piece of a much bigger mystery. I was worried it'd try to pull off some "gotcha!" twist at the end, and was glad it didn't.
bonus points for not actually showing the werewolf on-screen, and having it just be one piece of a much bigger mystery. I was worried it'd try to pull off some "gotcha!" twist at the end, and was glad it didn't.
That was interesting, but it took me entirely too long to figure out the stilted language was an intended effect because they're somewhere in he's from the UK. Might have been good to have some giveaways immediately, because the initial setting of NYPD is very different from the language the main character is using.
But then you call his partner PC, which, I was under the impression meant Police Constable in the UK. Therefore this is set in the UK? Then why's he with the NYPD? And why does he talk like that?
I do like the world building, but there was a lot confusing about the setting and the language used by the characters. If you'd gotten that cleaned up a bit, this would make a pretty interesting teaser for a series.
But then you call his partner PC, which, I was under the impression meant Police Constable in the UK. Therefore this is set in the UK? Then why's he with the NYPD? And why does he talk like that?
I do like the world building, but there was a lot confusing about the setting and the language used by the characters. If you'd gotten that cleaned up a bit, this would make a pretty interesting teaser for a series.
This is probably meant as a sort of "noir" style attempt, with relevant lingo. I agree with the others that the combination of NYPD-linked character and UK spelling is somewhat strange. I wasn't really distracted by the style: its suits the story quite well enough. I don’t think the flow is faulty. Language is scarce and disjointed, sure, but I think it is relatively efficient.
I's day the weakest spot here is the ending. Or rather the lack thereof. The story just stops, it doesn’t reach a suitable conclusion and leaves to much unresolved: what about the father, what about the daughter, what about the monster? I'd concur with the others: there’s a lot of good ideas here, you have to get a bigger hothouse to make them grow and bloom.
I's day the weakest spot here is the ending. Or rather the lack thereof. The story just stops, it doesn’t reach a suitable conclusion and leaves to much unresolved: what about the father, what about the daughter, what about the monster? I'd concur with the others: there’s a lot of good ideas here, you have to get a bigger hothouse to make them grow and bloom.
Ouch...
At this point, I have to admit my powers of prediction are no better than chance, because I honestly didn't expect this to fail the preliminaries. And yet here we are. Good thing I got insurance, at least. Phew!
>>Haze
>>Hap
>>Monokeras
I think the easiest fix for that confused American-Britishness issue would've been to change "NYPD" to "Metropolitan Police", since everything else is largely British. Unfortunately, I kept going back and forth over which side of the Atlantic to set this, and I neglected to edit out those inconsistencies. My mistake.
I'm a bit puzzled by the "rough writing" and "stilted language" charges. Monokeras understood what I was going for, so I wonder why it seemed so flawed to everyone else. Best I can guess is the use of sentence fragments, but they seem to me perfectly fine as a stylistic choice.
Also, did anybody get that Pryce was the werewolf? The entire ending was built around the implications of that fact. I deliberately refrained from spelling it out because, ironically, I was worried I'd get hit with a lot of "Hey! Show, don't tell!" feedback.
At this point, I have to admit my powers of prediction are no better than chance, because I honestly didn't expect this to fail the preliminaries. And yet here we are. Good thing I got insurance, at least. Phew!
>>Haze
>>Hap
>>Monokeras
I think the easiest fix for that confused American-Britishness issue would've been to change "NYPD" to "Metropolitan Police", since everything else is largely British. Unfortunately, I kept going back and forth over which side of the Atlantic to set this, and I neglected to edit out those inconsistencies. My mistake.
I'm a bit puzzled by the "rough writing" and "stilted language" charges. Monokeras understood what I was going for, so I wonder why it seemed so flawed to everyone else. Best I can guess is the use of sentence fragments, but they seem to me perfectly fine as a stylistic choice.
Also, did anybody get that Pryce was the werewolf? The entire ending was built around the implications of that fact. I deliberately refrained from spelling it out because, ironically, I was worried I'd get hit with a lot of "Hey! Show, don't tell!" feedback.
>>BlueChameleonVI
I can't even remember what I saw as errors, but now I realize it's probably that American/British speech dissonance. The story seemed to imply that Coltrane was some ancient creature so it made sense to me that he could be from NYPD but currently in Britain? Though he could have any dialect if he's that old.
The Pryce thing was waaay too subtle for me. The ending felt unsatisfying without that understanding, and I think with more clarity this might've gotten to finals. That's why I said it had "confusing flow", it was too difficult to understand what was going on.
But I did like the whole concept. It felt like it was subverting the "spooky demon child" horror cliche.
I can't even remember what I saw as errors, but now I realize it's probably that American/British speech dissonance. The story seemed to imply that Coltrane was some ancient creature so it made sense to me that he could be from NYPD but currently in Britain? Though he could have any dialect if he's that old.
The Pryce thing was waaay too subtle for me. The ending felt unsatisfying without that understanding, and I think with more clarity this might've gotten to finals. That's why I said it had "confusing flow", it was too difficult to understand what was going on.
But I did like the whole concept. It felt like it was subverting the "spooky demon child" horror cliche.