Chapter 19

Late morning the next day Jack was watching the morning news with faint feelings of anxiety, hoping to catch word of the aftermath of his misadventures the previous night, also hoping his involvement remained unknown.

As luck would have it, the story of a large warehouse in York burning down was covered in the morning news, and apparently the police were unaware of any wrongdoing except by the criminal gang operating out of it. The police called to the scene hadn’t managed to make any arrests because they’d had their hands full dealing with a bunch of escaped monsters and mutated animals running rampant. They had then needed to call in a team of hunters for assistance.

Overall though, despite the lack of arrests, the uncovering and destruction of the warehouse was considered a huge success because it revealed a network of other blackmarket warehouses and hubs throughout North Yorkshire and beyond.

The police also put out a rather frantic seeming warning or plea over the news and social media for people to ‘for God’s sake’ please stop buying Forest Munchlings and to immediately turn over any that they had to the hunters guild for euthanization, no questions asked.

The blackmarket warehouse burning down was just a side story however, as news became known of a massive luminescent bank of multicoloured storm clouds appearing near Paris in France. The storm had appeared overnight while everyone was sleeping and after just a short couple of hours a titanic spider-like monster had crawled out of the storm.

It stood close to two hundred metres tall and wide, towering over nearby buildings. In the darkness of the early hours of the morning it appeared to be near pitch black with red glowing lines forming a network of what looked like blood vessels running up and down its body and limbs. It had a set of eight massive thick legs covered in chitin armour set around a spider like thorax and abdomen.

The titan spider creature rampaged through the northern half of Paris for hours before any opposition appeared just before dawn.

Needless to say the French military and all its hunters gathered everything they had to fight the beast and save what they could of the city and its people. Jack watched in fascinated horror as helicopters and other aircraft strafed the monster, unleashing one devastating barrage of missiles after another, countless explosions filled the area around it but nothing seemed to penetrate its armour as it simply shrugged off the attacks and continued to rampage.

A shaky live camera view from a news helicopter zoomed in to show dozens of non-uniformed but heavily armoured individuals charging through the streets towards the spider titan at a terrific speed. They navigated the flames, the falling debris and wreckage strewn road with ease and covered hundreds of metres faster than Olympic sprinters. They were the French monster hunters, the French answer to the British hunters guild. Most of Europe had modelled its monster hunting efforts after Britain’s example.

The French hunters all bravely raced forward and seemed to be moving to go directly underneath the main body of the beast, a pretty gutsy move considering the number of giant legs that were frenziedly smashing up and down, churning up the concrete like it was mud. Plus with the massive number of explosions the military were pasting the area with, Jack could barely imagine what it would be like to be down there at that moment, you’d have to be a true hunter to charge into something like that.

The hunters reached a spot directly beneath the monster and began to throw out some amazingly powerful large scale elemental attacks at the underside of the beast's abdomen.

In fact many of them seemed to be channelling their efforts into massive combined attacks, phenomenal plumes of concentrated high pressure blue fire rocketed upwards and washed over the underside of the beast's abdomen. It let out an ear splitting screech in pain that had Jack wincing, his television fizzed and went to static briefly. The beast staggered to the side, crashing through several rows of terraced houses. The combined flame attacks cut off, another group of hunters stepped forward, after a momentary delay several thick streams of white water jetted forward from the group and slammed into what passed for the creature’s head. The creature recoiled and brought its legs up to shield itself as the stream of high pressure water pummelled it, eventually however, just before the water cut out, one of the creatures front limbs was sheared off.

It let out another terrifying screech in pain and clumsily scrambled through the wreckage it had created, the group of water cultivators staggered to their knees in exhaustion. It seemed the hunters had the monster cornered and injured, that they just needed to finish it off.

However, before the hunters could continue their attack, the spider rose to its full height, it stood up with its remaining limbs fully extended and straight so that the spider stood high up into the sky. The red lines on its body began to pulse and throb with bright crimson light. It then suddenly dropped back down, bringing its abdomen nearly crashing down into the ground, from its abdomen came a thick red mist that rapidly jetted out all around it and covered the entire battlefield in short order.

Jack's TV screen was nothing but red for over a minute as the news crew worked frantically to find another camera view with a better angle. Eventually another camera was found which showed what was happening, the camera was some distance away and showed the giant spider limping somewhat but still moving at a rapid pace. It was moving northeast away from the city, swiftly making for the horizon, injured but alive, pursued by several military helicopters.

As for the hunters it had left behind, once the red mist partially cleared, multiple hazmat garbed soldiers were shown moving through the remnants of the mist towards the hunters last known location.

They were found easily enough, most of them appeared uninjured, in fact many of them were just standing or sitting still, not moving at all, staring blankly into space. But when the first soldier touched one of the hunters, all hell broke loose, again.

The hunter reacted violently, she screamed in panic and threw out a punch that went straight through the soldier's hazmat facemask. She then jumped on top of him and proceeded to bathe the unfortunate soldier in flames, all the while screaming in terror.

Like a chain reaction the rest of the hunters all stirred from whatever stupor they were in and began wailing in horror and terror. They noticed the hazmat garbed soldiers in their midst and then they noticed each other, it became a free for all. Each and every hunter attacked each other and the soldiers in a terrified frenzy, massive elemental attacks were fired off without rhyme or reason except to kill everything and everyone around. The soldiers started firing their weapons at everyone around them and the situation didn’t get any better from there.

The video feed of Paris suddenly cut off and the view was returned to the newsroom in Britain, however none of the anchors looked able to speak for several moments, their faces were pale with shock.

Jack sat back and let out a breath, after that the news just continued to show the story and go over what had happened, but didn’t present any new information. Jack switched the tv off and began pulling on his clothes and armour.

This was the third appearance and attack by a giant monster spawn in about two years, there were many theories as to the reason for the so called titan’s spawning but no one really knew why or how they spawned. The storms they were born from simply seemed to appear randomly from thin air before vomiting out a colossal beast, no one seemed able to predict it.

Jack wondered if the various governments of the world had been hoping that what happened in Britain, Oxford was a fluke or accident, and that what happened in the USA Texas was just a coincidence. However, since the Paris incident could conceivably be considered a pattern, then perhaps more titans were on the way.

Trying to put what he saw out of his head for now, Jack finished pulling on his armour and headed out to his car. There were barely any reporters outside his place that day, for which he was grateful, he quickly got in his car and drove to the guild.

Upon arrival he headed straight to the jobs and requests room and looked at the rather long exclusive jobs list he had, or as Cheryl put it, his to do list. He had a number of hunts and harvesting jobs from Gary the smith and Steven the taxidermist, as well as a number of hunts from director Welts.

Jack began trying to think how he would get through the somewhat worryingly long list until he saw something that stuck out, a hunt for a Black Shuck.

He vaguely remembered Dr Joolton from the local university mentioning this when he saw him last, Cheryl may have also told him to hurry up and get on with it too. He tapped the screen for the hunt and saw the hunt details. Just like with the hunt for the red caps the details were sparse and pretty much told him to just meet with Dr Joolton again.

It could be interesting Jack thought to himself, or incredibly creepy like last time. He shrugged and was about to tap the hunt accept icon when he heard a boisterous voice from behind him.

“Yo Jack!” He turned around and saw Nate across the room, waving at him cheerfully. Nate walked over.

“Long time no see man! I heard you’ve been extremely busy!” Nate slapped his shoulder, grinning widely.

Jack smiled too, glad to see an actual friendly face. “Heya Nate, yeah, feels like forever doesn’t it? And yes, it seems I have been busy, much busier than I wanted to be actually. Sorry I haven’t seen you or the others for a while, I’ve just been…..dealing with stuff,” Jack said, suddenly feeling guilty for not contacting his friends for several days.

“Nah! No worries! Shit happens in this business. Though colour me impressed, more than a few people in this place have said they wanted to kill Barry. No ones ever actually gone and done it though! Hahaha!” Nate burst into laughter.

Despite himself Jack couldn’t help but let a wry grin slip onto his face. “Hehe, yeah. But seriously though, you’re not…you know…uncomfortable about it? I mean…..” Jack leaned forward and lowered his voice, not wanting to be overheard admitting to something. “If I hypothetically killed another person, that's bad right? Traditionally that's always been frowned upon in most human societies, well….some of them anyway.” He eyed Nate who smirked in amusement.

“Nah, Cheryl actually told me what happened, more or less. From the sounds of it, things went down pretty much how I would have expected. There were loads of nasty rumours floating around about Barry and his friends, you weren’t the first hunter they were shaking down but I guess you were the last. This was bound to happen eventually, only a matter of time really. Eventually Barry was going to try something with the wrong hunter and get himself hurt or killed, which I suppose is exactly what happened. Huh.” Nate shrugged, looking completely unconcerned.

“Hmm, if there were so many nasty rumours about him, then why was he allowed to still be a hunter in the first place? I mean, I get that his dad is a big shot but still, don’t we have a code of conduct or regulations or something? If he was really that bad then the guild should’ve been able to boot him out, surely.” Jack frowned.

“Huh, I don’t think you realise how much pull his daddy’s got, actually I heard that him and the other Oxford titan slayers are gonna get knighted soon,” Nate mentioned.

“Knighted? Oh god, the man’s already an arsehole, nevermind getting a knighthood. Wait, that means Cheryl’s getting a knighthood too right? That's actually pretty cool, do we call her Ser Cheryl then? Or is it Dame Cheryl?” They both laughed, but inwardly Jack was pleased for her.

They continued chatting for a few minutes about recent events before Nate noticed the hunt Jack had up on the terminal.

“Hm? A Black Shuck? What's that?” Nate asked, cocking his head to one side.

“Not sure, I think it's a type of dog monster thingy. It's part of a number of hunts I’m doing for this guy, Dr Joolton, he wants me to hunt and find out about various monsters that are a part of our folklore and myths and legends and stuff. Take a look.” Jack brought out his pager and showed the selfie he’d taken with the tied up Red Cap he’d found in a goblin den.

“Haha! Is that a….Red Cap? I’ve killed some of those before, they’re a type of goblinoid right?” Nate asked.

“Yep, they’re apparently a part of our folklore too. We’ve stories and legends about them from way before monsters and magic became a thing. That's what Joolton is investigating, I think, why so many monsters from our old myths and legends are alive today,” Jack explained.

Nate looked deep in thought for a moment. “Sounds pretty interesting actually, you think this Dr Joolton might have some answers?” he asked.

“Maybe, I don't know anyone else who’s investigating it, but it is intriguing no? Hey….do you wanna team up for this? The pay is only a couple of thousand but I could do with the help, this is probably gonna be as much of an investigation as a hunt and you've got good tracking skills.” Jack looked at Nate hopefully.

“Sure thing,” Nate smiled. “It looks really interesting and I’ve never even heard of a Black Shuck before, much less hunted one. You wanna bring the others in on this? Stacey, Zack and Rachael?” Nate asked.

Jack thought about it before answering. “Yeah ok, it would be good to see them.”

They both looked down at their pagers and sent out a few texts to find out where the others were. Stacey responded saying she was available and currently in the guild hall, Rachael and Zack said they were both about to embark on a hunt for a Pygmy Wyvern and couldn’t make it.

With that Jack and Nate headed towards the guild hall.

They found Stacey sitting at a table near the bar along with four other people, all hunters from the look of their armour and weapons leaning against the table, two young men and two young women about Stacey’s age.

She looked over to them and smiled brightly as Jack and Nate approached.

“Hey guys!” she greeted them before standing up to give Jack a hug. “Jack! I heard what happened! Are you ok? Are you alright?” she asked in concern, holding him at arms length and examining him.

Jack found himself unable to move as her grip effectively immobilised him, Stacey was much stronger than her five and half foot slim frame suggested.

“Yep yep, all good here,” he assured her.

“Good,” she said with relief before continuing. “I told you to stay away from Barry, I told you to stay low,” she berated him.

“Hey! It wasn’t my fault! I wasn’t offered much choice in the matter,” he defended himself. “Didn’t Cheryl or whoever tell you what happened?”

“She did, but still…..” she trailed off looking pensieve.

“You think all this still could’ve been avoided?” he asked her sceptically.

“Well-” she started but was interrupted by one of her companions.

“Did you really kill Barry?” Jack looked down at a young man wrapped up and wearing a mixture of strange dark camouflage canvas and fabrics.

“Ross!” Stacey objected.

Jack hesitated before answering. “Er, I don’t think I'm supposed to admit to anything, or say anything at all actually,” Jack told him.

“Yeah, thought so.” The young man, Ross, turned to the rest of his companions around the table. “That means he killed him,” he said matter of factly to everyone.

They all smirked but still regarded Jack with a mixture of wariness and curiosity, although one man did seem to be looking at Jack somewhat more intensely, with a trace of anger in his eyes.

“Is it true you can use other human beings to draw elemental essence from?” The guy giving Jack the evil eye spoke up, he was wearing a set of red and blue tough looking leather and plate armour.

“Nigel! Rude! For god’s sake! Jack! I’m so sorry! I swear they're not normally like this,” a flustered Stacey apologised before giving Nigel a dirty look. He stared up at her for a moment before seeing how angry she looked and sullenly averted his gaze, pretending to look at the tv above the bar instead.

“Eh, it's cool. I’m getting used to it,” Jack waved her off, unconcerned. He followed Nigel’s gaze to the tv, it was just showing some advert with a beautiful woman modelling a luxurious white and red fur coat from a monster.

“So anyway, Nate, Jack. You two said you had a job?” she asked, bringing Jack’s attention back to her.

“Yeah, we’re gonna go hunt a Black Shuck,” Jack told her. She looked confused for a moment before taking her pager out of her pocket and tapping away at it, a few seconds later she spoke.

“The Black Shuck, three confirmed sightings in the UK, multiple confirmed civilian deaths. Suspected to be a form of canine type monster, size seems to vary from between that of a large dog to a horse. Only seen on dark misty nights, only one confirmed successful hunt in Wales,” she read from the guild bestiary on her pager before looking up. “That's not a lot to go on. Hmm….I love a good mystery, I’m in!” She smiled brightly at them.

“Great!” Nate smiled, he offered her a high five which she took while laughing with amusement.

“Stacey! You shouldn’t go with these guys!” Nigel protested, standing up.

“Oh really? And why not Nigel? Hm? It's just another hunt, a D ranked hunt at that,” she said to him, putting her hands on her hip.

“I don’t trust ‘em, they’re sketchy as hell,” he said defensively. At that Jack felt indignant, sketchy? Him? “Nate never works with anyone, he’s been a part of loads of teams but he always leaves, why is that huh? And the lightning cultivator is still new at this and I somehow doubt he limits his cultivation to just monsters and mutated animals, god knows what he really gets up to.” He aimed a suspicious glare at Jack.

At that, Jack’s eyebrows raised. “Ouch,” he said. He was now beginning to feel rather insulted at this point.

“Besides, we’re your team, not them.” Nigel jerked his head to Jack and Nate and looked at them derisively. Jack glared back but Nate just looked amused by the whole thing.

“Nigel!” Stacey growled at him before sighing. “Whatever, I said I’m going so I’m going, I’m perfectly entitled to take other hunts with other hunters, like everyone at this table already does.” She looked at Jack and Nate. “Let's go guys.” Then she turned back to the table. “Flora, Sarah, I’ll see ya later. Keep Ross and Nigel in line for me will you?” she grinned. The two women who so far hadn’t said anything both stood up to hug her goodbye.

“Sure thing Stace, good luck.”

“Bring back a souvenir!”

Jack, Stacey and Nate walked out of the guild hall and back to the jobs and requests room where they accepted the hunt.

A few minutes later Jack’s pager rang and he answered.

“Hello? Speaking?” he asked.

“Jack? Is that you?” came the voice of Dr Joolton.

“Yep, it's me. I accepted your hunt, you want to meet right? Same place as last time?”

“Yes! Excellent thank you! Same place as last time, I can be there in an hour. See you soon.” He hung up.

Stacey and Nate looked at Jack. “Where’s the same place as last time?” Stacey asked.

“Lily’s cafe on Blossom street, they make decent coffee over there,” Jack informed, Nate and Stacey perked up with interest at the mention of coffee.

With that they set off to the cafe, when they arrived they still had some time to wait so they went inside out of the chilly December air and sat down.

They made idle conversation over cups of coffee and ignored the stares of the other patrons, all three of them were sitting in the quaint little cafe wearing their combat armour. Both Nate and Stacey each had a very large sword leaning against the nearby wall, the sword Nate had was the one he’d shown to Jack in the nature reserve. But the one Stacey had was different, she normally wielded a normal sized curved sabre, although the sword she had now still resembled a sabre, it was now the size of a great sword if not larger.

The sword blade extended to a metre and a half, the blade had a thick width of almost ten centimetres and got thicker at the end of the curving blade which curved forward over the hilt. The hilt looked more like that of a traditional cavalry sabre with a guard extending from the base of the blade to the base of the hilt, except the entire thing looked like it could easily accommodate a two handed grip with room to spare.

“New sword Stacey?” Jack nodded to the massive sabre leaning against the wall.

“Yeah, Gary made it for me, people say he does good custom jobs and Nate recommended him. He’s your smith isn’t he?” Stacey asked, looking smug.

“Yep, does it have any special tricks? Gary likes his gimmicks. It's pretty big too.”

“Tricks? Hmm, you could say that. The metal is nothing special, just carbon steel with some tungsten in. But Gary forged it so that it would have small pockets of water sealed inside the blade,” she told him and seemed pleased at the look of confusion on Jack and Nate's faces.

“Pockets of water? Inside the blade? What does that do?” Nate asked, tilting his head.

In response Stacey silently extended her hand to her blade, the sword then began to rise from its position and float over to her.

“Oh! You control the water inside the sword! Hey, that's pretty neat!” Jack exclaimed, very impressed.

“Yep, pure elemental abilities are all well and good in a fight, but you should never underestimate the person swinging around a gigantic piece of sharpened metal like it weighs next to nothing,” Stacey informed them smugly.

They chatted a while longer, Jack looked at the tv above the front counter of the cafe and noticed an extremely beautiful familiar face framed by a mane of golden hair on it.

Meredith Shriverston, it seemed she was being interviewed on the local news channel. Apparently she’d just taken down an Onyx Behemoth near the city of Scarborough, a high B rank hunt bordering on A rank and she’d done it solo.

The interview was taking place with the dead monster behind her, it was a gigantic mass of black scales and fur. It steadily gave off a multicoloured light and vapour in the background as she answered various questions set by the interviewer, she answered them all with a charming smile and light polite laugh. The interviewer who was female seemed completely in awe of her, or enamoured.

Meanwhile at the edges of the impromptu interview, held back by a police cordon were crowds of interested onlookers and more than a few people who seemed to be fans of Meredith. Several people in the crowd, both men and women proclaimed their love for the beautiful hunter, Jack spotted a hastily scrawled sign that said ‘Marry me Meredith’.

Watching the whole thing, Jack felt vaguely annoyed, or perhaps frustrated was the term. Here he was, just about capable of dealing with oversized insects and hairless badgers with anger issues, but she was out there soloing gigantic monsters that looked like they could punt a tank.

Stacey however simply looked at the tv in fascination, if it were possible for someone to have stars in their eyes then she would. Jack noticed with mild amusement that she was biting her lip and her pupils were dilating.

“God, just look at her, she's incredible,” she said in wonder.

Jack snorted in amusement and rolled his eyes, Nate just shrugged, looking bored.

“You do the same job as she does, I’ll bet you’re just as strong too,” Jack said.

“Pff! No way! I could never do what she does, she’s a C ranker and rumour has it she’s almost ready to rank up again! How can I compete? Huh!?” she asked with an oddly wild look of desperation and admiration in her eyes.

“You’ve tried to get up to C rank before, right? How many times?” Jack asked.

“Urgh………sev……seven times,” Stacey admitted glumly. “I always choke and the assessor has to step in to save me. I’m never gonna rank up again! I suck!” She rested her forehead against the table, going into full depression mode.

Jack shared a panicked look with Nate, they had a frantic silent conversation over Stacey’s head which ended in a confused series of finger miming and pointing before Jack decided to bite the bullet.

“Nah, you don’t suck. I’ve seen you fight and kick ass way too much to believe that. You just need to keep hunting and cultivating, get stronger and get better. You’ll get there eventually,” Jack told her, trying to be as comforting as possible. He didn’t really know what he was saying or if it had any worth, but it was better to say something rather than nothing at all.

However, it seemed his words had some effect. She raised her head off the table and took a deep breath. “You’re right! I do kick ass! I don’t suck! As soon as I’m eligible again I’m gonna do the promotion hunt for C rank and I’m gonna pass!” She slammed her fist down on the table which had the whole cafe vibrating, causing several of the other patrons to look over to their table in concern.

“That's the spirit Stacey!” Nate cried out with a smile, just happy to go along with it.

A little while after Stacey was finished having her existential crisis Dr Joolton finally arrived.

“Hello Jack! And I see you brought friends, I noticed the hunt accepted message had other names on it,” Joolton greeted the hunters with his usual joviality.

“Hello Dr Joolton, nice to see you again.” Jack smiled before standing up and shaking Joolton’s proffered hand. “This is Stacey and Nate, they’ll be joining me on the hunt. I thought their experience might be valuable here if this turns into a bit of an investigation again,” Jack told him.

“Ah! Excellent idea young man! Excellent! Hello there Stacey and Nate!” Joolton said warmly.

“Hello sir,” Stacey nodded politely.

“Heya!” Nate greeted him with a cheerful grin.

“Excellent! Right then, shall we get to it? I’ll bet you're dying to know what I discovered from your findings from the Red Cap hunt hmm?” Joolton grinned excitedly.

To be honest Jack was only a little curious and could take it or leave it at this point, exterminating the little critters and knowing the best ways to accomplish it was enough for him. But Joolton seemed so enthused and excited to share what he knew.

“Absolutely, I’m definitely curious about what you found out.” Jack sat back down with Nate and Stacey and Joolton took the extra seat before speaking.

“So,” Joolton began. “Did you know that the substance the Red Caps use to dye their hats red isn’t entirely blood, we analysed the stuff covering some of the hats and it turns out it's a substance from an unknown plant extract. Unknown! We don’t know what it is! Can you believe it! We’ve had people combing the woods and other locations in order to find the plant but so far we’ve come up with nothing, isn't that fascinating!?” Joolton leaned forward excitedly, grinning happily.

Nate yawned and Stacey surreptitiously kicked him in the shins under the table.

“Uh yeah, a plant. What else?” Jack asked politely.

“Well, obviously we’re incredibly interested in the runes and sigils that were painted and carved into the weapons and other things you brought us. Such markings denote a form of language which in turn denotes a higher level of intelligence than we’ve ever thought these creatures to possess. And language indicates a form of society, maybe even a civilisation, though not one we would recognise as such,” Joolton explained, or lectured.

At this however Stacey scoffed and even Nate looked sceptical. “Er, civilization? Society? They’re monsters, they don’t have anything like that. They’re predators spawned into this world to kill and eat us, they don’t have a civilization, they’re creatures of instinct,” Stacey said with tightness in her voice.

“Oh I don’t mean a civilisation like we have my dear,” Joolton said blithely, to which Nate and Jack's eyes widened in alarm as Stacey’s eyes narrowed. “I mean they have more of a primitive tribal society, a hierarchy based on strength and brutality.”

“Uh huh, you were saying about the runes and stuff Doctor?” Jack tried to get them back on topic.

“Ah yes, well the erm…..vocabulary of the Red Caps you hunted seemed to be somewhat limited, we’re still analysing but we need to expand our data pool. So the University has obtained government funding for an ongoing study, from now on whenever a hunter in the UK see’s something that looks like a runic language written down by a humanoid or otherwise sentient monster, then the hunter can take a picture of it and send it to us. Once a member of the hunter’s guild surveyor corp has verified it then that hunter gets paid. That should massively increase what we have to work with!” Joolton smiled happily.

“Weren’t we supposed to be hunting a dog or something?” Nate spoke up, clearly bored.

“Oh yes! That's right, the Black Shuck.” Joolton leaned forward and looked at them mischievously. “I hope you three like ghost stories.” He chuckled. “So, the Black Shuck, mentioned numerous times throughout our history but more often in the latter half of the previous millennium. It's described as a large black dog and in the past its sighting was often considered a bad omen, one of impending doom, though never directly interacting with anyone. In this modern age however, it or the creature named as the Black Shuck has proven to be quite hostile and predatory. At the moment a large black dog monster that only comes out on dark misty nights is terrorising the people of Cambridgeshire, just north of the small city of Ely. I believe this to be the legendary Black Shuck. I would like you three to find out as much about it as you can and hunt the beast for me,” Joolton told them.

The three of them were silent for a moment, processing the information before Nate spoke up.

“Is this what it's like to be one of Charlie’s Angels?” he wondered.

Jack and Stacey snorted in amusement before Stacey spoke to a bemused Joolton.

“In Cambridgeshire? That's a little out of our jurisdiction, we’ll have to get permission from our branch director but that shouldn’t be a problem. We accept the hunt,” she told him with a firm nod.

“Oh marvellous! Excellent! Thank you so much! This is going to be splendid! I’ll be eagerly awaiting the results of your hunt! Again thank you!” Joolton thanked them profusely. The four of them walked outside the cafe before parting ways, they watched Joolton walk away with a spring in his step.

“Huh, weird guy,” remarked Nate. Both Jack and Stacey looked at Nate oddly for a moment before both deciding not to say anything.

A moment later Stacey took charge. “Ok guys, if we want to hunt outside North Yorkshire, we need to get a permit from our branch HQ. Let's go.” They followed her back to HQ where Stacey approached the front desk in the atrium and spoke to the two receptionists there.

Jack and Nate hung back while Stacey took care of business and relaxed in the seating area. A few moments later Stacey went over to them.

“We need to fill out this form and give it to Charlie,” she told them with a regretful sigh. Immediately Jack put his finger on his nose, straight after Nate did the same, Stacey looked confused for a second before she realised what was happening and put her finger on her own nose too late.

“You guys! C’mon!” she whined.

“You know the rules Stace, nose goes, haha!” Nate laughed.

“Aww!” But she begrudgingly sat down and began writing in the form. While she was doing that, Stacey’s hunting team emerged from the jobs and requests room and wandered over. The two girls and Ross both smiled and looked amused, but the one known as Nigel glared daggers at Jack.

“Back already Stacey? That was fast,” one of the girls commented with a smile.

“The hunt is outside of North Yorkshire, we’ve got to get permission to go,” Stacey replied absently while she was writing.

“Oh really? Where are you going?” Ross asked.

“Apparently the hunt is in Cambridgeshire, near Ely,” Jack told them.

Nate got up excitedly. “Road trip! Oo oo! Road trip! Oo oo!” He pranced around an annoyed Nigel who tried to swat him away.

“Right, all done. You two sign here.” Stacey grabbed Nate by his armour and dragged him over to the table before shoving a pen into his hands. Once he and Jack had both signed the form she got up.

“I’m gonna give this to Charlie, if I’m not back in five minutes come get me.” With that she left the atrium through a door next to the front reception desk.

Jack and Nate silently stared at Stacey’s hunting team, Stacey’s hunting team awkwardly stared at Jack and Nate. In the end, after an awkward goodbye to Nate and Jack they left.