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Chapter 5 - Herr von Fell's Wagon

Entering Herr von Fell's wagon was no challenge. As Mr. Cortes himself exclaimed: "The damn fool left his door unlocked!" Upon entering it, Alexander could truly believe that he had entered Acheron. Herr von Fell decorated his wagon as he did his home in Whitby and so Alexander was introduced to the evil-hearted pastime of trophy hunting.

Upon the walls of the wagon were the heads of a few beasts such as a Siberian tiger and even the cranium of the Maneless lion Heinrich could be seen, but while the cranium of a human being, a Frenchman, may have given Alan reason to pause, it was Heinrich's head that gave caused Alexander to stare in shock. Heinrich may have tried to kill him on Halloween, but the Northern caracal did not believe that the Maneless lion deserved that fate.

"Look! The keys!" Alexander looked at Alan, noticing the keys upon a desk. The redheaded boy stepped forward to grab them only to pause. Following the gaze of his master's nephew, the feline could see what the reason was: upon a perch was Herr von Fell's golden eagle Hermann, glaring murderously at the intruders.

Hermann was dark brown in colour, with lighter golden-brown plumage on his napes. As a male, he was twenty-six inches long and a wingspan of five feet and eleven inches, the exact width of Herr von Fell's wagon. Unlike Beelzebub or even Roxana when she had been under Herr von Fell's ownership, the Prussian never harmed Hermann. Wherefore was anyone's guess, though with how Germans loved golden eagles, that may have been the reason.

Alexander, Roxana, Alan and Mr. and Mrs. Cortes all expected Hermann to attack, only for the raptor to begin crying out. That was no doubt worse than attacking.

Thus, Charles Salazar entered the scene.

Charles Salazar was fifty-eight years old and muscular with a sufficient amount of padding upon his body. He was a balding man with a long mustache and an even longer beard, the latter going down to his waist. His attire consisted of a light green shirt, a dark green vest, black trousers and shoes of the same colour. Though hardly a fighter, he had a brutal and vicious temperament and according to rumour, had been the chief torturer of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy. There may have been prejudice towards the Romani people, but torturers were like mercenaries: as long as they were competent at their job, people didn't care what their ethnicity was.

Upon seeing Mr. and Mrs. Cortes, the Puppet Master's eyes narrowed. His voice little more than a growl, he began to utter: "You treacherous—" only for his expression to change upon seeing Alexander and Roxana. Becoming smug, Salazar ignored his fellow Romani and instead looked straight at Alan. "Well, well, you must be Captain Smith's nephew. I honestly can't see why he would want to add your head to his collection, you are not particularly good-looking, quite common I'd say, but I must thank you for returning Roxana and for bringing your uncle's new caracal as well."

"They are not here to stay." Stated Alan, glaring at Salazar. "And neither is Gemma." Turning to Mrs. Cortes, he then asked: "Who is this?"

"Charles Salazar." Answered Mrs. Cortes.

"You know my appellation, young man." Said Salazar with a shark's grin as he approached menacingly. "Now how about telling me yours?"

"So, sorry, sir, but I'm not going to be here long enough for a chat." Commented Alan, attempting to try and make his way past the puppeteer. Alexander and Roxana tried no such thing, however. They arched their backs, narrowed their eyes, and flattened their ears to make themselves look more intimidating, but alas, Salazar was not so easily intimidated.

Roughly pushing the older Mr. Cortes aside, Salazar lunged forward with his hands aimed for Alan's throat. "That is too bad! I like to hear the appellation of my victims!" The moment that Salazar lunged forward was the moment that Alexander and Roxana struck. Feeling the claws of the caracals cut through his trousers and into his legs, the Puppeteer let out a loud scream that one would have hardly thought was genuine, seeming to have been something that would have come out of an actor's mouth rather than a puppeteer. Wheezing in pain, the Puppeteer backed away staring at the two felines and uttered: "Devil cats! Herr von Fell will put an end to you!"

And with that, Salazar made his exit.

Confused, Alan commented: "That was anti-climatic."

"Salazar's bark is worse than his bite." Stated Mrs. Cortes. "He is primarily a puppeteer by trade after all. It is Diego you have to be particularly careful of."

"Where is he then?" asked Alan as he took the keys.

Alexander and Roxana both stared out the open wagon, expecting someone else to appear. Beelzebub, Herr von Fell, both, maybe even this Eduardo Diego. But thankfully, no one appeared.

"Off sulking somewhere." Answered Mr. Cortes. "He and von Fell got into an argument, he lost, so he went off to sulk."

"Like he always does when he loses." Added Mrs. Cortes.

A new scent coming to his nostrils, Alexander's ears perked up. Was this the scent of Diego? Or that other one that had been mentioned? Carol? He knew not, all he knew was that it was the scent of a stranger and here at the Herr von Fell Circus, how could he be certain that it was not the scent of yet another enemy?

As Alan and Mr. and Mrs. Cortes made their exit from the wagon, Alexander and Roxana both looked at Hermann crying out for aid. Where was everyone? Why was no one else coming? Had Herr von Fell no other minions besides Salazar, Diego and Carol? There had been another, Albers by names, but he had been slain by the maneless lion Heinrich on Halloween.

Staring up at the cranium of Heinrich upon the wall, Alexander could only wonder how many more poor creatures had suffered such a fate. Never could he have imagined the evil done by such blackguards the villains known as big-game hunters who were perfectly willing to drive entire species to extinction. For what? For pleasure! Such people could never be trusted. Such people could not be human like Alan, Gemma or Captain Smith, not true humans that Alexander and Roxana knew the kind hands of. No, these people were closer to the ape than they were to the kind humans that the two caracals knew.

Following after Alan and Mr. and Mrs. Cortes, Alexander looked to the left while Roxana looked to the right. Their eyes wide, their ears moving back and forth and their noses sniffing furiously, the two knew that there was someone new nearby, but Roxana alone recognized the scent and even then, it belonged to an individual she had never been sure about, kind one moment and cruel the next. To Alexander however, it was merely the scent of a stranger, one he could not be certain did not belong to a foe.

Then came a sound to their ears, it was the sound of Beelzebub's grunting. He was searching for them, wandering around the camp, Alexander and Roxana were only thankful that the Monkey-Man did not have a sense of smell as they did.

Running to catch up to the three humans, the two caracals prepared themselves for an ambush. If it did not come from Beelzebub, it may have come from the other.