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Pain was the first thing to return.
It was a dull, deep ache in his bones, as if they had been broken and hastily glued back together. A sharper, burning agony radiated from his muzzle and the soft tissue of his nose, the memory of the silver powder a searing brand on his senses. Every muscle fiber screamed in protest, heavy and leaden, the ghost of the beast's immense strength leaving his human form feeling frail and hollowed out.
Jack Russell came back to himself in stages, like a diver struggling toward a distant, shimmering surface.
First was the cold. The damp chill of earth seeping through his clothes. Then came the smell—rich, loamy soil, the dry scent of decaying leaves, the sharp tang of his own sweat and the coppery residue of blood in his mouth. He must have bitten his cheek during the transformation.
He opened his eyes.
Darkness. Not the absolute black of a sealed room, but the deep, textured gloom of a forest at night. A sliver of moonlight, the real moonlight, filtered through a thick canopy of trees, illuminating the small, shallow depression beneath a thicket of tangled roots where he lay. He was curled in a fetal position, naked and shivering, his body covered in a fine sheen of grime and dried blood that wasn't his.
The memories returned not as a coherent narrative, but as shattered, visceral fragments.
The blinding silver light.
The roar tearing from a throat that was not his own.
Elsa's face,pale and determined.
The satisfyingrip of fabric as he dragged Thorne...
...and the excruciating,soul-deep burn of the silver cloud.
A groan escaped his lips, part pain, part self-loathing. He had lost control. Completely. The lunar resonator hadn't just triggered the beast; it had poured gasoline on the embers that always smoldered within him. He had become the very thing he fought so hard to contain—a mindless weapon.
He pushed himself up onto his elbows, his muscles trembling with the effort. The high-gravity feeling of post-transformation fatigue was a familiar burden. He took stock. No major injuries, thanks to his healing factor. The silver burn on his face and in his nasal passages was already fading from a searing pain to a raw, itchy tenderness. It would be gone by morning.
But the other wounds, the ones that never truly healed, were wide open. The shame. The failure.
A rustle in the undergrowth, twenty yards to his left.
Jack froze, every sense snapping to attention despite his exhaustion. His hearing, still sharper than any human's, picked up the soft, almost silent footfall. Too light for a deer. Too deliberate for a raccoon.
He was being hunted.
Slowly, carefully, he shifted his weight, his eyes piercing the gloom. He could make out a silhouette, tall and lean, moving with an unnatural grace through the trees. There was no aggression in its posture, no attempt to conceal its approach. It was simply… waiting.
A familiar, faintly metallic and antiseptic scent carried on the breeze.
"Morbius," Jack croaked, his voice raw from disuse and roaring.
The silhouette stepped into the dappled moonlight. Dr. Michael Morbius, the living vampire, stood with his hands clasped behind his back. His pallid skin seemed to glow in the faint light, and his expression was, as always, a mix of clinical detachment and weary sympathy.
"Jack," Morbius replied, his voice a dry whisper. "I am relieved to see your consciousness has returned. Your… other self… was remarkably adept at evading pursuit."
Jack slumped back against the tree roots, too weary for pride. "Did I hurt anyone?"
"Aside from Dr. Thorne's pride and a significant portion of the Griffith Park landscaping? No. Elsa is unharmed. She is currently securing the source of the lunar energy." Morbius tilted his head, his dark eyes studying Jack with unnerving intensity. "The transformation was… extreme. Even for you."
"It wasn't a normal transformation," Jack said, closing his eyes against the memory of that invasive, commanding signal. "It was like being… puppeteered. Thorne had a device. It broadcast a signal, a command. It tried to make me attack Elsa."
Morbius was silent for a long moment. "A command frequency. Intriguing, and deeply troubling. It suggests their research is far more advanced than we presumed. They are not merely studying lycanthropy; they are attempting to engineer it."
Jack opened his eyes, a cold dread settling in his gut that had nothing to do with the night air. "They know who I am, Morbius. Thorne knew my name. He knew about the Russoff curse."
The vampire's expression grew graver. "Then this is not a random encounter. You are their primary objective."
The rustle came again, closer this time. From the opposite direction. This footfall was different. Heavier. Clumsier. Human.
Morbius's head snapped toward the sound, a low hiss escaping his lips. "We are not alone."
Before Jack could respond, a beam of bright white light cut through the trees, pinning them both in its glare.
"Freeze! LAPD! Hands where I can see them!" a young, nervous voice shouted.
A police officer, looking no older than twenty-five, stood at the edge of the thicket, his service pistol held in a shaking two-handed grip. His eyes were wide, darting from the pale, gaunt figure of Morbius to the naked, dirt-covered man huddled on the ground. He was way out of his depth, and he knew it.
Morbius took a slow, deliberate step forward, placing himself between the officer and Jack. "Officer," he said, his voice a calming, hypnotic rasp. "There has been a misunderstanding. My friend is ill. I am his physician. We require no assistance."
The officer's gun wavered. "I… I got a call about a… a naked maniac in the park. You need to come with me." His eyes landed on Jack's form, taking in the streaks of dirt that could be mistaken for blood, the powerful, battered physique that spoke of anything but illness. Fear overrode the nascent hypnotic suggestion. "Both of you! On the ground! Now!"
Jack saw it happening in slow motion. The officer's finger tightening on the trigger. Morbius, preparing to move with vampiric speed, an action that would inevitably end with a dead policeman.
The beast was gone, but the protective instinct, the need to shield others from the fallout of his curse, was a fundamental part of the man.
"Officer," Jack said, his voice stronger now, cutting through the tension. He slowly, very slowly, raised his empty hands. "Look at me."
The cop's frantic eyes shifted to him.
Jack held his gaze, letting the man see the utter exhaustion, the regret, the complete lack of threat. "I'm not going to hurt you. My friend isn't going to hurt you. We're just leaving. Lower your weapon, and you go home to your family tonight. It's that simple."
He put every ounce of his will into the words, not as a command, but as a plea. As a promise.
For a terrifying second, the gun didn't move. Then, inch by inch, the barrel lowered. The officer's breath hitched, a sob of relief and confusion. "Just… just get out of here," he whispered, taking a stumbling step backward. "Get out of the park."
Morbius gave a curt nod. "A wise decision."
He moved to Jack's side, shrugging off his long, dark coat and draping it over Jack's shoulders. "Can you walk?"
Jack nodded, using the tree to pull himself upright, the heavy coat swallowing his frame. He looked at the young officer, who was now holstering his weapon with trembling hands, looking lost and terrified.
"I'm sorry," Jack said, the words meant for more than just this moment.
He turned, and with Morbius at his side, he melted back into the shadows of the park, leaving the world of men and its simple terrors behind, walking toward the far more complex horrors that awaited.
The journey back to the city's edge was a silent, grim procession. Morbius moved with a spectral silence, a stark contrast to Jack's heavy, weary footsteps. The vampire's coat was a poor shield against the chill that had settled deep in Jack's bones—a chill that had little to do with the night air. Every shadow seemed to hold the echo of a snarl, every distant siren a reminder of how close he had come to crossing a line that could never be uncrossed.
They found Elsa waiting for them at a pre-arranged location: a derelict auto-body shop whose owner had a healthy fear of the supernatural and a willingness to be paid in cash. She was leaning against a workbench, cleaning the components of her rifle with a methodical intensity that betrayed her own frayed nerves. The air smelled of grease, ozone, and the faint, acrid tang of the silver powder she'd deployed.
She looked up as they entered, her eyes scanning Jack from head to toe, a diagnostician assessing damage.
"You're in one piece," she stated, her tone flat. "More than I can say for the Rose Garden."
Jack said nothing. He found a stained mechanic's stool and sat, the weight of Morbius's coat feeling like a lead apron.
"The resonator?" Morbius asked, gliding to the other side of the bench.
"Neutralized," Elsa replied, snapping a component back into place with a sharp click. "The core was a crystalline matrix attuned to absorb and amplify ambient lunar radiation. Sophisticated. Military-grade. I shattered it. The energy signature is gone." She finally looked directly at Jack. "Thorne got away. Slipped out a service exit while you were... occupied."
A fresh wave of shame washed over him. "He had a remote. It wasn't just amplifying the energy. It was broadcasting a signal. A command. It tried to make me attack you."
Elsa's cleaning stilled for a fraction of a second. "I know. I was there." The unspoken words hung in the air: I saw it in your eyes.
"He knew my name, Elsa. He knew about the Russoffs. This wasn't random. They were waiting for me."
"We have a more immediate problem," Morbius interjected, his voice a low hum. "The police response, while handled, confirms that Promethean has successfully blurred the line. They have framed your transformation as a public menace. You are no longer just a supernatural entity to be covered up; you are, in the eyes of the authorities, a naked maniac loose in a public park. It will make moving around significantly more difficult."
Jack let out a bitter, exhausted laugh. "Great. So now I'm a fugitive from the people I was trying to protect from the people who are trying to dissect me. It's a real party."
"Save the self-pity, Jack. We don't have time for it." Elsa slammed the magazine into her rifle, the sound echoing in the cavernous space. "Thorne called you the 'original article.' He said your bloodline was the 'key.' They're not just creating feral humans. They're trying to reverse-engineer you. And after tonight, they have a full data set of a forced, command-driven transformation."
The reality of it settled on Jack's shoulders, heavier than any fatigue. He was a blueprint. A specimen. Every fight, every loss of control, wasn't just a personal failure; it was handing another piece of the puzzle to his enemies.
"What's their endgame?" he asked, his voice hollow. "An army of feral, mind-controlled werewolves?"
"Unlikely," Morbius mused, steepling his fingers. "Mindless ferals are unstable, unpredictable weapons. The command signal suggests they seek control. The ultimate goal would be an army of transformed individuals who retain their tactical intellect and follow orders without question. A military that can shrug off bullets, heal from wounds, and possess superhuman strength, all while being utterly obedient."
"The ultimate soldier," Jack whispered. The horror of it was staggering. He saw it then, not as a monster, but as a tool. A thing to be used, replicated, and discarded. It was a fate far worse than being feared.
"Exactly," Elsa said. "And you're the only successful, stable template they have. Thorne won't stop. He'll be back with a better resonator, a stronger signal, and more men. He's not going to just study you from a distance anymore." She met his gaze, her own eyes hard as flint. "He's going to try to take you. To cage you. And use you to build his perfect army."
Silence descended upon the garage, thick and suffocating. The three of them—the werewolf, the vampire, and the monster hunter—stood at the center of a storm that was only beginning to form.
Jack looked down at his hands. Human hands. They were trembling slightly. He remembered the feel of Thorne's trousers tearing in his grip, the sheer, savage power he had wielded without a thought. That power was a poison, a curse that threatened to destroy everything he touched. But in the hands of someone like Thorne, it would become a plague upon the world.
He couldn't run. He couldn't hide. The curse had made him a target, but his own choices, his own will, had to make him a shield.
He lifted his head, the exhaustion in his eyes burned away by a slow-burning, cold fire. The melancholy was still there, the deep-seated sorrow of his existence. But it was now fused with a newfound, unshakeable resolve.
"Then we don't wait for him to come to us," Jack Russell said, his voice low and steady, filling the quiet of the garage. "We find out where he's building his phase two. We find his lab."
He stood up, letting the coat fall from his shoulders. He was still naked, covered in grime, but he stood with the grounded, formidable presence of a man who had finally accepted his war.
"And we burn it to the ground."
To Be Continue...