The call came in the next morning. Solomon's contact at the precinct—a detective who knew about the supernatural—reported two children missing from the neighborhood near the old cemetery. Elijah and Solomon drove out before dawn.
The cemetery sat on a hill overlooking the city, its gates rusted and chained. But the chain had been cut recently, and fresh footprints led inside.
Elijah's touchstone was hot in his pocket.
"What are we dealing with?" he asked.
Solomon pulled out a journal and flipped to a page with a sketch of a small, hunched creature with long fingers and a featureless face. "Wesen. Called an Alp. Germanic folklore. It feeds on breath—sits on a sleeper's chest and steals the air from their lungs. But these ones have been taking children. Probably keeping them alive for later feedings."
"Why children?"
"They're easier to carry." Solomon led the way through the cemetery, stepping over fallen headstones. "And their breath is… purer, according to the old texts. The Alp consider it a delicacy."
Elijah's stomach turned. He focused on his new awareness, letting the wolf's senses stretch outward. The pulse he'd felt before was stronger here, a cold thrum beneath the earth.
"There," he said, pointing to a mausoleum. "It's coming from inside."
The mausoleum was small, its door ajar. Inside, a staircase descended into darkness. Solomon handed Elijah a flashlight and drew his own weapon—a crossbow loaded with iron bolts.
They descended. The air grew thick, heavy with the smell of earth and something else, something sweet and cloying.
At the bottom, a chamber opened up. The walls were lined with old coffins, but in the center, a nest of rags and bones held the two children—a boy and a girl, no older than seven, their chests rising and falling in shallow sleep.
And crouched beside them was the Alp.
It was smaller than Elijah expected, no bigger than a toddler, but its limbs were too long, its joints bending wrong. Its face was smooth, featureless except for a small, round mouth that opened and closed silently.
It hissed when it saw them.
Solomon fired. The iron bolt struck the Alp in the shoulder, and it screeched, scrambling up the wall. "Get the children!" Solomon shouted.
Elijah ran. He scooped up the boy, then the girl, their bodies frighteningly light. The Alp dropped from the ceiling, landing between him and the stairs.
It lunged. Elijah dodged, but the creature's claws caught his arm, tearing through his jacket. Pain flared, then faded—the wolf's healing already working.
Solomon fired again, and the Alp fell back, screeching. Elijah ran for the stairs, the children clutched against his chest. He climbed, his legs burning, until he burst out of the mausoleum into the gray morning light.
Behind him, the ground shuddered. A crack opened in the cemetery earth, and the mausoleum began to sink. Solomon emerged a moment later, covered in dust, dragging the Alp's limp body.
He threw it into the fissure. "They'll seal it from below. The barrier can handle that much."
Elijah knelt, checking the children's pulses. They were alive. They were breathing.
He looked at his torn sleeve, at the blood already drying on his skin. "They'll wake up?"
"They'll have nightmares for a while. But they'll live." Solomon pulled out his phone, called the contact, and gave the location. "Ambulance will be here in five. We should go."
As they walked back to the SUV, Elijah felt the wolf stir—not with danger, but with something like approval. You protected them, the whisper seemed to say. That is what we do.
Elijah looked back at the cemetery, where the fissure had already closed, leaving only broken earth. He was no longer just a rookie. He was something else now.
---