Wretch burst across the market, his coat tumbling from his shoulders as he ran, boots splashing through the puddles in the rain. Someone screamed from behind, but the sound dissolved in the screams of the crowd and the raving whispers. He had fought against his own nature, wrestled the thing in the mirror ever since they returned to the city and the blood dried on his claws. But now, in this moment, his entire being was set on one singular goal.
To reach those two figures.
He shot through the crowd, slipping between bodies at breakneck speed. He left the Richters behind, struggling to make sense of the situation while his skin roiled beneath the white shirt. One of the men held out his hand as he shouted something lost in the chaos. Twisting black tattoos coiled up his arms like living ink. Perhaps they burned. Wretch did not know.
He vaulted over a stack of barrels, placing one foot on a vendor’s stall and launching himself forward.
The stout man snapped a hand forward. A dozen cobblestones tore free from beneath his cloak. They hovered in the air for a breath, then shot toward him in a deadly spray.
Mid-air, Wretch kicked off the shoulder of a startled pedestrian. Arms burst from beneath his shirt, ripping through the white fabric. The limbs wrapped around his torso as he twisted through the air, turning himself into a protected bundle of conjured flesh.
The spray of stones cracked against his new limbs, breaking disposable bones and ripping through skin. Most stones missed, smashing into the crowd behind him with a crunch. Screams of anguish layered upon shouts of panic. It was all distant.
Before he hit the ground, Wretch’s extra arms, damaged and broken, slithered back into his skin. As his feet found solid footing, he exploded forward, his burning eyes never straying from the pair.
The taller man ripped a sword from under his cloak, swinging it forward in a blur. Wretch met it a moment later, a half-formed blade of bone jutting from his forearm, catching the steel with a shriek like nails on a chalkboard. A cut formed on Wretch’s forearm despite the block.
The taller Gulschak pushed words from his mouth, shouting over the screams reverberating through the market.
“Don’t lead them to him, Dima, you—”
He spared a glance at his colleague, frozen in shock. It was a glance he could not afford. Another bone-like protrusion severed his free hand, cutting it clean at the wrist.
The man grimaced in pain, stepping back and launching a downward cut that oozed desperation.
Wretch sidestepped the weak one-handed blow with ease. A regurgitation rose from his throat. A blob of viscous spit shot from between his teeth, catching the man by surprise. He raised his wounded arm to block. He was not fast enough. The corrosive substance splashed across his face.
The skin blistered and his eyes fizzed and shrank into twisted burns. A scream escaped his throat, hoarse and brimming with suffering.
His colleague, Dima, stumbled backward, a trembling cobblestone levitating by his side. Pearls of cold sweat running down his temple, his eyes wide.
Before him, Wretch descended on the blinded Gulschak in a storm of brutality entirely free of even a shred of finesse. His arms, each brandishing a scythe-like protrusion, cut in a haze of blurring white bone and blood.
The Gulschak hit the ground. Wretch did not let up, crawling onto the man, biting, ripping, and hissing.
“Ma… Marish?” Dima stammered, visibly struggling to control the levitating stone beside him.
Shouts from the market grew closer.
“Dima,” Marish rasped, his eyes melded shut. “Don’t run. You can’t run.”
Only months earlier, the Gulschak had stood on even ground with the Richters. Now their scout had effortlessly closed the distance and slaughtered the strongest among them.
Wretch’s claw plunged through Marish’s chest, shredding muscle and bone like paper. With a jerk, he tore free a spasming heart. Marish drew one final trembling gasp as Wretch poured the pulsing blood into his open mouth.
“Wretchy!” a voice called.
Dima stood paralyzed in shock. With a final shudder, the cobblestone dropped and clattered uselessly at his feet.
The man was visibly struggling, no doubt trying to wrench his power back under control while Wretch was distracted. He looked to the side. The rest of the Richters crashed through the market toward them, civilians crying out as they trampled past the wounded.
“I won’t run,” he whispered. “I have to die here.”
He reached for a dagger at his belt.
Suddenly, Dima froze. The hairs along his neck slowly rose. He glanced beside him.
Wretch was still seated over Marish’s desecrated body. Red gore covered his mouth and chin, dripping from fur-covered claws. But now he sat straight, frozen, his face twisted to the side. The black eyes with pupils of fire were trained ahead.
Straight onto Dima.
The man tried to pull the dagger free, but his fingers shook furiously. Wretch rose and walked toward him with a hunched back and quivering claws. Leaving red boot prints behind him.
Dima turned and ran in fear.
The Gulschak bolted from the scene, darting into an alleyway, tumbling against trash cans that rattled to the wet ground. Something closed in from behind. The tapping of soft steps. The sound of claws scraping against brick.
Dima did not look back. Grimacing, with his breath stuck in his throat, he staggered through the twisting alleys. Only months ago, he had trailed a youngling in the same way he now was hunted.
The Gulschak burst through a stack of discarded barrels onto a road. His foot caught the pavement and he tumbled to the ground. The road was not abandoned, and a handful of figures turned with questioning looks.
Dima crawled forward on all fours, tears in his eyes, up the steps of a decrepit house that looked abandoned. His hand caught the handle.
“Help,” he screamed at the top of his lungs as the door swung open.
“Master—”
A tail snaked around his throat, twisting tight and dragging him back into the street. Wretch was behind him, fiery eyes peeking out beside the back of the Gulschak’s head. A claw traced along the skin, a nose sniffing along Dima’s neck. The man went blue from lack of oxygen, holding out his hand and visibly struggling to levitate a cobblestone from the street.
“Don’t kill him!” came a shout from the alley. But Wretch was somewhere else, lost in a comfortable space that rejoiced at his nature.
Hot breath steamed against the struggling man’s ear and sharp teeth slowly sank into his neck. Blood sprayed onto the pavement, warm flesh slipping down Wretch’s throat. The few pedestrians who had stopped to stare at the spectacle turned and ran.
The rest of the Richters barreled out of the alleyway, Edmund in front.
“Son, don’t!”
It was too late. Wretch stood over the dying man, blood pumping from his neck like a fountain. Wretch slipped something from the Gulschak’s pocket. It was a white mask, contorted in perpetual surprise.
Wretch stared at the blood-soaked mask, his chest heaving fiercely. Steps approached from behind him, slowing from a run.
“Son, can you hear me?” Edmund asked carefully.
“I couldn’t hold it,” Wretch whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Edmund placed a soothing hand on Wretch’s shoulder. A squirm went through his flesh, traveling up his legs to his scalp. A burning urge jolted through his senses, urging him to rip the hand clean off. He fought it with everything he had, wrestling back control from the side of him that yearned for nothing but violence.
“Breathe,” Edmund said softly. “Just breathe.”
His heaving chest calmed, and with a final exhale, his shoulders slumped.
“Wretchy?” Astrid said, lacing her delicate fingers into his blood-dripping claw. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “Not at all.”
“They fell so easily. Are they really the same masks?”
Astrid squeezed his hand. “It is you who has grown.”
Elenya stepped up next to him, cleaver in hand. She held it raised, her eyes trained on the open door the Gulschak had opened with his last effort in life.
“Hold on to that feeling, Ratty,” she hissed. “We have company.”
A figure stood in the doorframe. He had striking blue eyes behind a pair of spectacles, black hair with white roots. Slowly, he trailed his gaze from the dead Gulschak on the ground up to the hunters. He looked calm, as if taking in a tragic painting in the halls of a forgotten museum. Behind him, a girl peeked out. She, on the other hand, gasped at the sight of the bleeding corpse and hunters.
“You and I truly are kin,” the man said.
The hunger and fury in Wretch melted away, replaced by a cold jolt that shot down his spine.
“You,” Wretch muttered. “They needed me to find you.”
Edmund drew his shield and Elenya’s face grew grim.
“Grendel,” Edmund said, and the rest of the Richters pulled forth their weapons. Wretch snapped the cross from his wrist. In the blood-drunk state, he had completely forgotten he even had weapons besides his body.
The man gave a calm glance to the woman beside him, then removed his glasses, tucking them into a breast pocket.
“Burn it all down. Escape to the underbelly, but be quick. There are no doubt others close by,” he said, walking down the steps onto the pavement.
With a flicker of light, his eyes lit up. A name pressed over them with a pressure that made the raindrops shake. With it, a primal fear nestled into Wretch’s burning chest. The shadows of the street flickered and moved, curling like claws and fangs.
Grendel, the White Death.
“You say they used you to find me, a way to work around even my protection against divination,” Grendel said, his voice turning into a growl and the skin of his face squirming as if a thousand worms crawled beneath the surface. “What did they do?”
“Retreat,” Edmund said, taking a step back.
Grendel drew a massive breath, his lungs expanding outward. With a great exhale, a thick mist flowed from his mouth, washing over them and covering the street in moments. It was thick, wet, and cool against Wretch’s skin, barely letting him see more than a few feet ahead.
The Richters turned and ran, Elenya’s hand yanking Wretch from a standstill.
A deep, inhuman voice came from all throughout the swirling mist.
“You will talk.”
“Oh brother of mine.”
Above the thick fog, a white pigeon flew through the rain. It landed on a nearby house and gave a chirp.
A block away, a carriage sped down the street, closing in on the road covered in the white mist. Inside the cabin sat four people crammed into the space. One of them was entirely covered in a white veil, her eyes glowing through the fabric, a Blessed from the church of the Saint.
She straightened her back.
“They found him,” she said distantly. “He used the mist, just as predicted.”
Kattla, Andryi, and Gregory, three members of the Hunter Corps, looked up at the figure.
“Finally,” Andryi said with a hoarse voice.
Gregory opened the door.
“Where?”
“Five hundred paces ahead,” answered the figure robed in white.
“Perfect. Gregory, you’ll crack it open, then we bind him down and capture him,” Kattla answered with a grim smile as they took off.