Darkening Moon

by Gaja J. Kos

  The place was a lab, but one that seemed built in haste.

  The equipment was state-of-the-art, although all of it was movable, as was the examination table. The only reason it hadn’t moved during my struggle was because someone had the foresight to not only use the built-in brakes, but fortify the legs with crude, yet efficient blocks. I swallowed past the uneasiness lodged in my throat.

  This must have been where they cut up those bodies, trying to figure out what went wrong with the merger.

  But why was I here?

  Unfortunately, no clear answer presented itself. Aside from the lightheadedness, I felt, as well as looked, the same.

  And if I wanted to stay that way, I really needed to stop thinking about strangers looming above my nude, unconscious form, and start moving instead.

  Quickly, I padded over to the steel sink—the only thing in here that was actually welded in place—and washed away the blood that had already started to crust. I swiped some worn baby blue scrubs from the hanger by the door, grimacing as the smell of blood, magic, and death assaulted my senses. At least there were no visible stains on them, for which I was immensely grateful.

  Once dressed, I rummaged through the drawers for a mask to complete my ensemble.

  I needed my nose to scent as much as possible, but it would do if I had to hide in plain sight. So I stashed it in my pocket, then armed myself with a few sharp surgical knives.

  A shiver slithered down my spine as I held a vicious-looking scalpel in my hands, coupled with the unwanted memory of Manfred Weber’s body.

  I closed my fingers around the blade.

  The fear transmuted into fury, and I embraced it, fed it into my every cell until bloodlust lurked just beneath the surface. I tucked a blade underneath the waistband of my scrubs, the other hidden in the palm of my hand, then inched towards the door. As my heartbeat became more rapid, I told myself that all I needed to do was survive long enough for Morozov to pick up the signal.

  I froze.

  The signal.

  I lifted my thumb and index finger to my left ear, squeezed the earlobe… And found nothing.

  Motherfucker.

  The bastards hadn’t only stripped me of my clothes, they’d taken the jewelry, too.

  Was the earring somewhere inside the building? Or had they ditched everything long before they transported me here?

  Did Morozov even have the faintest idea where the fuck I was?

  For a moment, I thought my mind would collapse under the weight of all the shit as dread wreaked havoc on my insides, but then I remembered Greta. Remembered Voit.

  They were here somewhere—I felt it in my bones—and even if the cavalry wasn’t coming, I could still do everything within my power to get them out.

  Best case scenario, we all get to walk. Worst case, I take down as many of these fucks as I can before stumbling headfirst into the underworld myself.

  It wasn’t ideal, but it was something to go on.

  I gripped the small knife tighter in my sweaty hand, then tried one more option. Afanasiy.

  His image filled my mind, my body, my soul. But when that familiar heat started to pool under the surface of my skin, it stayed there. I cursed under my breath, only I wasn’t truly disappointed. If demonic powers worked in here, then Voit would have escaped a long time ago.

  There was no one to rely on but myself. It would have to be enough.

  I would have to be enough.

  Letting out a breath, I closed my eyes and strained my hearing. There were several voices on the other side of the nondescript gray door, although none in the immediate vicinity.

  This was my chance.

  I tried the handle. Locked. Another thing I’d expected.

  I inched back as far as the room would let me, then sprinted at the fucking door with all the speed and strength I possessed.

  My shoulder collided with the steel, the impact making me grind my teeth. The hinges gave way, the resistance disappearing so suddenly I lost my footing as the door tumbled down to the ground on the other side with a loud crash.

  I followed.

  But never made it past the threshold.

  25

  An invisible force was erected between the metal lining of the doorframe. The field shoved my already out of balance body back hard enough to send me flying across the space like I was nothing more than a ragdoll.

  I crashed into the medical equipment, breaking gods know what, but luckily my bones weren’t among it.

  Cursing, I pulled myself back on my feet and called on that power that still rested inside me. Lena’s magic answered, sweeping through my flesh before it exploded outward and washed across the space.

  I didn’t wait to see if it worked. Instead, I ran, right at the barrier, believing I would get through.

  Still, when I emerged on the other side, the relief nearly swept my feet from beneath me.

  I skidded across the corridor, then pushed off the wall, steadying myself. A bunch of crates were stacked atop one another just a few steps away, so I ran over and hunkered down behind them.

  The instant I was sure I made myself small enough that nobody would notice me crouching there, I called Afanasiy’s image to mind. Heat washed over me, the sense of him as well, but before the awareness could evolve, the connection was cut off, Lena’s magic disappearing.

  Fuck.

  Thirty seconds had never felt this short.

  I clung on to the hope that he had at least received the message, if not my exact location, then shimmied out of my hiding spot. The corridor didn’t offer any clues as to where I should go, but away from the mini-lab seemed like a good fucking idea. Unfortunately, that was the exact same direction that struck me as the most populated.

  The corridor forked, leaving me disgustingly vulnerable.

  It took every ounce of my concentration to sample the smell and predict which path would be the one to lead me around the throng of people without taking me too far off course. While I didn’t doubt my captors would notice the bashed door—and the fact that their prisoner was missing—sooner rather than later, I still couldn’t announce my presence to everyone by rolling like a tank into what I suspected was the main part of this fucked-up establishment. The headache I felt earlier became a vicious throbbing that spread across my entire skull, right down to my teeth. But I didn’t dare let go of a single thread as I took a left turn, examining every bloody nuance embedded in the air.

  Whether the gods were on my side or I just caught a spill of good luck, I didn’t run into anyone as I prowled forward. Nor did I hear any alarms.

  The mass of people was still concentrated in the area I marked out earlier, and this part of the building with dust and grime lining the corners seemed sparsely used. Then again, maybe it was only the labs that were kept in pristine condition.

  I slowed to a crawl when the scents became thicker in the air, a sickening combination of dark magic and fear, underlined with so much agony my eyes watered. Instinctively, I tried to lower my sensitivity, but before I turned down the dial, a single trace captured my mind.

  A scent I knew from my earliest memories.

  Greta.

  A surge of fury swelled up inside me, and it was all I could do not to throw caution to the wind and break into a maddening run. But my sister was smack in the middle of that stomach-churning ocean of smells. The only thing I would accomplish by rushing to her side would be getting locked up again.

  Up ahead, the corridor branched anew. I stuffed down the urge to hurry and padded over to the corner. The path on my right opened into yet another illuminated and, save for the doors that looked like they hadn’t been touched in weeks, utterly bare hallway. The one on my left, however, was submerged in darkness.

  The prominent staleness of the air confirmed the section wasn’t in use.

  I hid behind a discarded desk that was pressed up against the wall just as footsteps sounded from the opposite corridor. A spindly man rounded the corner.

  His
already pale skin looked sickly in the white-on-white setting, and the fact that a lab coat of the same color hung loosely around his form didn’t ameliorate the effect. But for his harmless appearance, his scent revealed him as the monster he truly was.

  My anger skyrocketed as I smelled the fear of his subjects all but entwined with his own human aroma. It spoke of countless hours spent hurting individuals who did not have the mercy of being unconscious.

  When the bastard strode past me and down the hallway I came through earlier, I followed.

  With his human ears, he failed to sense my approach until it was too late. I closed my hand over his mouth and, without even blinking, sliced his throat with the knife.

  Blood sprayed across the white walls, a vicious splatter that spoke plainly of the fatality of the wound, as if hearing his heartbeat fade weren’t telling enough.

  I should have been sickened by the display, by my own violence. Instead, I reveled in the man’s death, allowing it to feed my bloodlust. It wasn’t the thrill of the hunt that sharpened my senses, my reflexes, but the expectation of another kill. And it drove me forward.

  The magic barriers ruling the space prevented me from shifting, yet for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel the need to change form in order to be lethal. The bloodied knife was a pleasant weight in my hand—as was the longer, menacing blade I pulled from the waist of my scrubs.

  I took down three more men—another doctor and two guards—before I reached a small balcony overlooking the main area. Their blood clung to me like the most sensual perfume I’d ever smelled, but while I wore it with pride, I had to make sure to stay well away from the vents and their treacherous currents so that none of the scent would carry down to the throng of people—human and supe alike.

  There was a fair chance someone would find their corpses, but it would take time for them to retrace their steps and sound the alarm. They had no communication systems in place that I could see, and the corridors I’d left the bodies in were as remote as they got.

  Most importantly, none of the evidence gave away my location.

  I half knelt, half crouched, and took in the sight before me.

  Beyond the railing, the bare cement floor was littered with occult symbols I didn’t recognize, some drawn in chalk, some blood. I noticed a couple of them emitted a faint glow on their own, while others were surrounded by candlelight and gods knew what else that acted as sustenance for what I suspected was dark fucking magic. But what caught my attention wasn’t the arcane expo—it was the way the symbols seemed to be connected to the scientific equipment organized in various stations across the space. As if…

  I frowned and crawled closer to the edge.

  Lena had said the warlock she’d hunted down had called on black magic to separate a demon from his essence and then thrust it upon himself and his men. But this…

  Not even the bloodlust thrumming through my veins could ease the onslaught of nausea.

  Hooked up to one of the machines and surrounded by a protective circle was a pair of people. Even from up here, even with my lacking knowledge of whatever the fuck they were playing at, it was clear the bastards had managed to merge magic with technology.

  Machines and symbols worked as one, a sort of infernal circuit that was drawing the very essence from the female demon on the left and thrusting it into the vampire on the right.

  I watched their faces contort in agony. Watched their bodies twitch as they both fought the process that would mutate the very core of who they were.

  One depleted of everything.

  The other imbued with powers that never should have been his.

  But it was useless. As machines tended to do, the thing pumped away regardless of their struggling, stealing from one and giving to the other as the magic commanded.

  Fuck. Neither of them seemed they had all that much time left…

  I slithered back across the balcony. When I’d almost reached the first of the two doors that would take me back to the corridor, I saw what the initial shock had made me miss.

  Cells.

  What seemed like at least thirty cells lined the entire eastern wall. At arm’s length from the scientists, but just far enough from where the experiments took place on the main floor that I’d overlooked them the first time. The cells were protected by a barrier of translucent, shimmering magic, although it struck me as a bit of an overkill given the state of the individuals trapped within.

  The majority were knocked out, oblivious to their surroundings. And the few that could move did nothing more than shift on the ground, their bodies too frail, too diminished to support their weight.

  I doubted even one of them was capable of crawling.

  My wrath and horror merged into a seething mass that burned so hot inside me it felt as if it were about to spill over and scorch the entire building until nothing but ashes remained.

  And maybe I would let it, when the time came.

  But right now, I had to find a way to open those damned cells.

  And I needed to do it before the faint rise and fall of Greta’s chest I could hardly see from my perch up top stopped forever.

  26

  Walking away from that balcony was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life.

  Everything inside me was raging, my instincts yelling at me to leap over the railing and just kill everyone in sight. But I was just one werewolf.

  Under different circumstances, I could probably take them all on and come out on top. They were scientists, not fighters.

  Unfortunately, I had no idea what kind of surprises these bastards could conjure up with their link to dark bloody magic.

  I had to keep my wits about me. Even if it meant going slow.

  Once I was far away enough from the ledge that those down below couldn’t spot me, I straightened up and slunk back into the corridor. Thanks to my detours, I’d seen most of the lower level on my way here, and unless there were additional rooms hidden behind those cells, which I for some reason doubted, there was nothing useful there. Just a bunch of chambers for prepping their subjects and conducting fucking autopsies when the experiments failed.

  Up here, on the other hand, lurked possibilities.

  Although the reek of magic, fear, and utter wrongness was prevalent, other scents flowed beneath. Ones that reminded me of bureaucracy and hours spent behind computer screens.

  If the floor below was the body of this place, this level right here was the brains.

  I pressed my back against the wall and inched farther underneath the harsh artificial lights. Too late, I remembered my killing spree, the liberal letting of blood that took the edge off my fury—and when I looked back, rust-colored smears marked my passage.

  Fortunately, they were faint enough to miss unless someone took a keen interest in the wall, but I wasn’t taking any more chances.

  I stepped away and continued my exploration down the center of the corridor. If anyone showed up, I’d just have to drop them before they could cry out.

  Given my current state, it wasn’t an outcome I was exactly opposed to.

  Reassured, I kept going. There were no security cameras spying on me, no tech to monitor what was going on in the hallway. They probably didn’t need it, what with the magical lockdown and captives diminished to the point where death was offering her hand.

  Besides, feeds could be tapped into by someone who knew what they were doing. Even hidden behind arcane shields, technology was susceptible to hacking. At least as far as I knew, no one had figured out an energy-based antivirus program yet.

  But while these bastards clearly weren’t taking any unnecessary risks, they also hadn’t anticipated that one of their victims would have a nice little magic-annihilating bomb adhered to her teeth, allowing her to slip past the otherwise impenetrable barrier.

  With that in mind, I stalked around the bend, constantly filtering through the information embedded in the air. My stomach twisted as the aroma of ham sandwiches and fruit filled my nostril
s, the groan coming from within announcing my hunger to the world.

  Obviously, more hours must have passed from my snatching than I’d originally thought if my body’s cravings were fucking up my stealth.

  I pressed my hand to my midsection to snuff out the sound, then crept past the closed kitchenette doors. As soon as I left them behind, the reek of gore came back full force, effectively obliterating any sort of desire for food.

  Seconds passed until I grew sufficiently accustomed to it to reach deeper. And that was when I found what I had been looking for.

  Traces of paper, coffee, and electronics merged into a single thread.

  I followed the scent to yet another nondescript door. The handle gleamed as if numerous hands had touched it, and combined with the scent, it made me believe I had the right place.

  Only one way to find out.

  Senses open to the max, I edged closer. The room was devoid of life. I curled my fingers around the handle, trying to figure out how I could break the lock with minimum sound when I felt the distinct approach of three individuals prickle at the back of my neck.

  Shit.

  Double-shit when I realized one of them was a supe.

  If I forced my way in now, I might as well howl away my location.

  My immediate surroundings offered little cover, the only usable thing a small pile of discarded equipment set up against a wall. It wasn’t ideal, and if the trio decided to take the right corridor instead of the left, I’d be completely and utterly fucked. But it was the only place where I could hide without retracing my steps all the way to the damned kitchenette.

  I hardly even drew breath as I tucked myself in a ball behind the cobweb- and grime-covered back of what appeared to be a generator and listened to the footsteps. A rattle of keys caressed my senses, followed by the click of the lock.

  A curse drifted through my mental tones.

  Of course they had to go into the one room I had to be in.

  But when only one of the two humans walked inside while the other and the supe continued their march away from me, a cold smile curled up my lips.