XXIX
The loading dock is a world apart from the velvet‑draped auction hall. It loomed like a tomb all cold stone, stacked crates, metal shelving, and the faint ozone smell of lightning residue from the cages. It was utilitarian and brutalist. Lanterns swing overhead, their light warped by the fog pressing against the open bay doors.
That's when the carriage arrives. Not the elegant kind meant for guests.
This one is built for transport. No filigree or gaudy decorations. Painted in a stark black.Four shade‑horses pull it. The spirit did not look strong enough to pull such a hefty carriage, gaunt creatures with translucent hides and faint blue veins glowing beneath their skin. Their hooves don't clatter so much as thud, like striking packed earth instead of stone. Their breath spills out in long, cold ribbons that vanish before touching the ground.
The carriage itself is reinforced. The sides are reinforced and iron‑bound, riveted, with sigils burned into the wood. A vehicle meant to carry dangerous cargo.
The driver climbs down first. He's grey‑skinned, half‑faded, the edges of his form flickering like a dying candle. His long greatcoat hangs off him like it remembers a body he no longer fully has. Gloved hands move with mechanical precision as he ties off the reins.
He doesn't look at you. He doesn't look at the alien. He barely looks alive.
Then the footman hops down from the back rack, leaping from the place where a trunk would normally sit. He lands lightly, boots silent on the stone. Younger than the driver, but still pale, still hollow‑eyed. His uniform is immaculate and rough. A clean dark leather duster coat, polished buttons, a wool knit pork-pie cap with brim pulled low.
He gives a curt nod to the auction representative. "Pickup for the Madam," he says, voice flat, practiced. His gaze flicks to me for a fraction of a second as if checking inventory.
Behind me, the alien shifts in its new collar, the faint red glow pulsing like a heartbeat.
The footman gestures toward the open carriage door.
"Come on in Miss. We'll secure the specimen for you." Specimen.
The word hits like ice water.
The driver unlatches the reinforced side panel, revealing the interior. Cold iron padded
restraints, anchor points, and a faint shimmer of containment wards etched into the walls.
This isn't a carriage for passengers. It's a reinforced carriage for heavy cargo.
And right now, I'm holding the remote leash to something the aristocrats consider extremely valuable.
The footman steps closer, lowering his voice.
"Madam wants you seated comfortably inside as well. She requests to greet your acquisition personally."
The alien's eyes burn yellow/green as if insulted. He didn't consider himself anything but a scientist, and not an acquisition.
The collar hums as he carriage waits.
And the fog outside thickens, as if eager to cover the world in an eerie blanket.
Mr. Vaude bows his goodbye at the edge of the cargo hold with a sweep of arms and slick bow. The moment Mr. Vaude's silhouette disappears behind the cargo doors, the carriage lurches forward and the world outside becomes a blur of fog, broken reflections, and the hollow clatter of hooves on stone.
We make off down the barren streets. The population of shades had already abandoned them to shelter for the night. The carriage drives as the shattered mirror sky is lit with foreign moonlight. The iron clad carriage clatters through the shards of light and cobblestones. We take turns through empty streets and alleys, and suddenly the footman detects creatures following us from behind. A hunting party has gathered behind the carriage. Hounds and horses in shade and shadow. The glint of sharp metal and long teeth glittering in the shattered pieces of moon. The streets echo hollow and empty.
Every shade with half a mind has already fled indoors, shutters bolted, candles snuffed. Only the foolish, the desperate, and the hunted remain outside at full dark.
The shattered mirror‑sky above us glitters with fractured moonlight. Sharp, jagged pieces of silver that shimmer as the carriage passes beneath them at increasing speed. Each shard reflects the world wrong, bending the light into eerie angles that make the horses look stretched, the buildings taller, the fog thicker.
The iron‑clad carriage rattles over cobblestones with sharp clacks, the reinforced walls groaning with every turn. Inside, the alien sits unnervingly still, collar pulsing faintly. I keep the remote leash clutched in my hand, its weight a constant reminder of the power I never asked for.
We take a sharp turn into a narrow street.
The sounds behind us grow louder as they draw closer.
Someone had organized our hunt. Someone with the means to capture me, and the alien with me.
The footman stiffens on the rear platform. His head snaps toward the fog‑drenched street behind us. He leans out, squinting into the fractured moonlight. Then he curses under his breath.
"Riders are catching up."
The driver snaps the reins, urging the shade‑horses faster in odder angles. The carriage jolts violently, wheels skidding over uneven stone, taking corners in unsettling tilts.
I twisted toward the small, barred window in the back panel as I witnessed shapes emerging from the fog.
Tall, elegant, half‑shadow creatures with manes like drifting smoke. Horse-shades similar to the ones that pulled my carriage. Their riders sit straight‑backed in aristocratic hunting attire long coats, high collars, gleaming buttons. Their faces are pale masks, eyes glowing faintly like embers.
Running alongside them, long toothed hounds, much more solid than the hat-man's fog hounds. Spectral hounds trained to hunt game, steady at the horse's heels. Lean, silver and white furred things with elongated jaws and too many teeth, their bodies flickering between solid and shadow. Their paws make no sound, but their breath fogs the air in long, hungry ribbons.
The moonlight catches on metal that adorns the riders.
Long rifles are holstered next to curved blades.
Hooks meant for capturing, not killing.
A hunting party. An aristocratic one.
The footman's voice is tight, almost fearful.
"They might not be after just the beastie," he mutters. "They may also be after you."
My blood runs cold.
The alien lifts its head, eyes burning brighter.
"Correction, assessing value," it murmurs. "They are after us both."
The riders fan out, forming a crescent behind the carriage. The hounds surge forward, their green eyes gleaming in the broken moonlight.
The driver shouts, snapping the reins again.
The horses scream a sound like metal tearing and the carriage surges forward. But the riders are faster. And the hounds are gaining.
The footman draws his blade, bracing himself.
"Hold on," he growls. "This is going to get ugly."
The alien's collar pulses once, like a heartbeat.
We turn a sharp corner on the smooth stoned road. The carriage skids to a halt so violently I'm thrown against the wall. The shade‑horses scream a thin, metallic sounding neigh and then everything goes still.
We've been cornered. A blind hill rises ahead, a tight curve behind. No way forward. No way back. The fog thickens like a curtain being drawn, and then the riders emerge from it one by one, their silhouettes long and distorted in the fractured moonlight.
A hunting party gathers around the carriage. They disguised themselves as aristocrats.
Their horses are half‑shadow, half‑bone, and manes drifting like smoke. Their uniforms are the old hunting garb with high collars, long coats, silver buttons, but the bodies wearing them are wrong. Faded. Flickering. Some missing pieces entirely.
One rider dismounts his horse, his left arm ending in a ragged stump of static. Another has no lower jaw, just a hollow glow where a mouth should be. Their clothes are ill‑fitting, torn beneath the fine coats the rags of common shades forced into aristocratic livery.
Hired thugs. Disposable muscle.
Not one of them looks like they could give an order.
Which means someone else is watching. Someone hired them to catch me. The footman barely has time to draw his blade before they swarm the carriage. Hands cold, half‑solid bang at the carriage sides looking for a weak spot. The door is yanked open as door hinges are broken. I'm dragged out first, boots scraping the cobblestones. The alien is hauled out next, its collar pulsing red as the riders struggle to keep hold of its shifting form.
The hounds circle us, teeth glinting like broken glass.
My heart slams against my ribs.
My thumb slips into my pocket, brushing the remote.
The buttons are small.
Raised and distinct the buttons graze my thumb. I had to remember the right one.
The dial for intensity, the trigger, the shock command. The cut-off switch.
The alien's eyes flick toward me, glinting a flash of green fire, as if it senses the movement.
The riders tighten their circle.
One steps forward, voice hollow and echoing through a half‑missing throat.
"Orders were clear. Bring the tethered one. Bring the soul breaker. Alive."
Just alive.
The alien shifts, its collar sparking faintly. Its voice vibrates through my skull, low and urgent.
"Choose carefully."
The riders close in. The hounds growl.