Chapter Text
The Lake
The mirror stretches from bank to bank, a plane of inky blackness teeming with a thousand sickly lights from the stars overhead. Fifty, maybe sixty feet of deep dark liquid saturated with diseased life—fish, frogs, worms, arthropods, all writhing and hissing beneath the polished ebony sheen of viscous water.
The cigarette dangles from his fingertips, its fleeting lifespan smoked away by the tongue of fire creeping up the wrapping paper. As the rush of nicotine surges into his hungry bloodstream, he flicks the spent cig. The glowing ember darts into the night, falling in a slow arc, until the water devours it with a faint plop.
“We ready?” Chris Redfield asks, brushing the ash from his fingers.
“Ready,” Canine grunts.
Canine’s gloved fingers test the tension in the tripwire, hooked to the rail of the walkway above the sluice gate that separates the great mass of tepid water from the mucky sunken ground behind. Looming above the barrier of concrete and steel, the old tower pierces the night sky as a needle. Perched upon the top floor balcony, Umber Eyes and Tundra have a vantage point over the entire lake. And, more importantly, are poised to deliver prompt ballistic vengeance in any direction—including that of Salvatore Moreau’s skull, and possibly most of his torso along with it. Fifty-cal is not a round that discriminates between individual portions of a sack of meat.
Chris eyes the bloated mass of flesh filling up a wooden dining chair, dangling off the edge of the walkway by two rickety legs.
“Overwatch.” He clicks his communicator.
“We’re set,” comes Tundra’s voice, followed by the click of a bolt action. Moreau’s head is now a ripe cantaloupe in the crosshairs of one of the most powerful sniper rifles in the world. Along with his shoulders and most of his torso—fifty-cal tends to ventilate its targets pretty well.
“Go.” Chris nods at Canine.
With a smooth motion, Canine fixes the syringe to the thin plastic cannula dangling from the wrist of Salvatore Moreau. As his thumb depresses the plunger, and the cocktail of naloxone and bemegride floods the captive’s bloodstream, Canine’s sharp eyes study Moreau’s face, watching carefully for the constriction in his pupils indicating successful reversal of the barbiturate.
Chris rests a hand on the pistol in his hip holster. Moreau’s a wild card, an unforeseen variable, and one he could cut loose—literally—without any great loss to his team. The sickly man emits a muffled grunt from his swollen throat, as the explosives strapped to his chest bounce like windchimes. The tripwire groans audibly against the tension.
Mother could only be one person. And depriving her of a potential asset is always a point gained.
Had the team encountered Moreau in open combat, there wouldn’t even be a moral quandary to navigate. He’d be a red smear on the bank of the lake. But killing a BOW in the field is one thing—executing a captured prisoner, one with no visible capacity to resist, is quite another.
Moreau sputters, his eyelids flicker, and the man suddenly pitches forward in the chair. The old wood creaks, the carbon-fibre restraints groan. Canine steps back, raising the rifle to his shoulder, lining the barrel up against Moreau’s temple.
Awake. Well, now’s the time to face the issue head-on.
Chris takes position directly opposite Moreau, the moon at his back.
“Rise and shine.” He snaps his fingers, and Moreau’s eyes focus blearily on his hand. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
A frog-like croak erupts from Moreau’s throat, as a glob of viscous drool trickles down the side of his mouth. “Wh—what—”
“Let’s start slow. Yes or no questions.” Chris snaps his fingers again in front of Moreau’s eyes. “Your name is Salvatore Moreau. Correct? Yes or no?”
Moreau’s crusted eyelids snap against each other rapidly. His gaze shifts lazily from Chris, to Canine, and then the pale and nervous-looking Romanian lady at the periphery. “Y—yes,” he answers at last.
Chris turns sideways, meeting Elena’s gaze briefly. The unease and anxiety in her eyes radiate like heat off a gas lamp. Even here in the remote mountains, stories circulate from village to village, lingering ghosts of the Cold War. Tales of men snatched up in the night, of black sites, of knives and hammers and the sadistic procurement of information; tales of spooks and phantoms, of dark glasses and high-powered rifles, of bodies left hanging from trees.
Tales—nothing in comparison to the real thing.
“You’re the resident of this estate. Yes or no?” Chris snaps his fingers again.
“Yes,” Moreau moans.
“Now, I want you to show me you can follow instructions,” Chris says sternly, as he retrieves his flashlight and flicks the beam in brief bursts over Moreau’s face. The misshapen man contorts his face against the blinding light, lips peeling away from yellow teeth.
“Raise your right hand.” Chris swings the light away from the man’s face.
With agonising slowness, Moreau’s oedematous right arm lifts above his shoulder.
“Barbiturate compliance,” Canine murmurs softly at Elena’s direction. “The sedative dulls the inhibitory centres of his brain. Makes him more suggestible.”
“Why’s he shining the light in his face?” Elena whispers.
“Overloads his visual cortex. Gives his brain no space to recover,” Canine drawls, as if reciting a page from granny’s cookbook instead of Section Eight of the BSAA Field Manual.
Chris looks away from the pair. Moreau’s right hand, drifting slowly downwards, finally plops limply onto his lap.
“Now I’m going to ask a few questions. You’ll answer them in the simplest way.” Chris snaps his fingers again. “State your date of birth.”
“November the seventeenth. Nineteen—” Moreau pauses to swallow a glob of spit. “Nineteen-oh-four.”
Chris frowns. Hundred-and-twenty-one? Either confabulation on a background of neurological injury, or he’s dealing with a contagion more than a century in the making.
Let’s take it at face value for now.
Chris moves on. “State your birthplace.”
“This village,” Moreau says weakly, straining to pull his face out of the beam of the flashlight. Chris keeps the light trained on Moreau’s face, giving no respite. “Please—”
“Continue,” Chris cuts him off. “Spell out your last name.”
“M-O-R-E-A-U,” Moreau rattles off.
“Start with simple questions. Questions they’ll answer truthfully.” In a low voice, Canine continues his crash course in field interrogation to an increasingly-pale looking Elena. “It lets you gauge their baseline, and gets them psychologically inclined to telling the truth. The tempo is important—mix in critical questions with simple ones, and give them no time to think. Thinking means lying.”
Chris snaps his fingers, causing Moreau’s jaundiced eyes to focus momentarily.
“Year of the first world war. You must have been there,” Chris barks. “Respond now.”
“Nineteen-fourteen.” Moreau’s head lolls to the right.
“State your involvement in the ongoing bioweapon outbreak.” First strike—Chris delivers it decisively.
“I wasn’t—it wasn’t my—” Moreau stammers. “I was only the—the—”
“Where did you graduate medical school?” Chris ploughs on.
“Poland, the Jagiellonian University.” Moreau answers. His voice is steadying, the syllables growing less slurred and more distinct.
“State your relationship to the individual by the following name—Miranda Elefteriu.” Now for the kill-shot. Chris’s trigger finger twitches against the polymer grip of his pistol.
Moreau groans. His lip droops lopsidedly to the left, disgorging a speck of phlegm. Then, finally, he speaks. “Mother—my mother—”
“Biological?” Chris asks sharply.
“No—” Moreau whimpers, “I owe her—she owns me—everything is her, everything.”
“What is the capital of Romania?” Chris pivots to a non-critical question.
“Bucuresti,” Moreau answers, his lip suddenly snapping back into place along with his clarity of speech. “But in the first war, it was Iași.”
Something’s going on here. Something beyond fanatical devotion or slavish worship, a key neural pathway in Salvatore Moreau’s mind has been fashioned into a safety mechanism. A latch secured over a lockbox guarding crucial information.
Data encryption. The thought springs into his mind, unbidden. Chris briefly wonders where the notion came from, before remembering with a pang of regret.
Ethan.
“I can sedate him some more,” Canine mutters, readying the syringe.
“Wait.” Chris raises his hand, squinting at Moreau. Or rather, his eyes. Swivelling in their sockets, his eyes no longer appear froglike. More like—a fish. A pike, peering sharply at the water’s surface, alert and active.
“Mother is important to you.” Chris flashes the light at Moreau’s face again, and the bloated man recoils once more. “Mother’s mission is important to you. Isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Moreau says clearly. “It is.”
Mother. Miranda. Trigger words that seem to drag Moreau’s brain to a screeching halt, freezing all activity and rendering him nearly catatonic. But everything else—he begins to glimpse a shadow of the mind that had assembled the impressive catalogue of achievements displayed upon the walls of his office.
The mental barrier looms large over the criticality of the interrogation, its shadow swallowing up the bulk of intel that would be most valuable to Hound Wolf. Leaving him with no choice.
Let’s get around it.
“Definition. Mother’s mission is your mission.” Chris snaps his fingers. “Your mission is important. Yes?”
Moreau manages a nod. “Important. Yes.”
“Shot of naloxone.” He motions at Canine, who freezes with the syringe in his hand.
“Boss, you want him more awake?” Canine snaps.
“Do it. We’ve got an angle.” Chris nods at the masked operative, who shrugs before attaching the syringe of opioid reversal agent to the cannula and depresses the plunger.
Moreau suddenly bucks in his chair, causing the wooden legs to squeak in protest as he tips forward. The four legs of the chair slam down onto the concrete, and he lurches forward, spitting once onto the ground, before fixing his eyes on Chris.
“You,” he says. “What do you want?”
“We want to help with your mission.” Chris snaps his fingers twice. “Your mission is important to you. Important to us.”
“Yes,” Moreau repeats like a creaky gramophone. “Important to me. Important to you.”
“We want to help with your mission.” Chris repeats the keywords, segueing effortlessly into the monotonous, machine-like tempo of what the manual dubs primary voice, the tone of suggestion. A concept with its origins in hypnotherapy, distilled from the mire of pseudoscience and quackery and married to the hard scientific foundation of neurophysiology. Insistent. Commanding. “Your mission is important. Tell us why it is important.”
“Important—” Moreau repeats. “Important, because if the reservoir falls, our mission is in danger. I must protect the reservoir.”
“Why is the reservoir important?” Chris waves the flashlight over the captive’s face.
Moreau blinks. “The child’s location will be compromised.”
“What child?” Canine says, before Chris silences him with a raised finger.
“The child.” Moreau turns blearily to Canine. “She is here. Under the reservoir.”
Chris glances at the lake. “Explain.”
“Flooded—for a reason.” Moreau strains against his bonds, before slumping back into his chair. “Didn’t want anyone to find it. She made me flood it. And then—made me this.”
“Made you—what?” Chris asks.
“This.” Moreau’s head dips. His eyes stare at his bulbous abdomen. “Her child, her Lord, her—thing. Useful to her. Useless—to anyone else.”
“Your mission is important.” Chris snaps his fingers. “What are you protecting here?”
Moreau lifts his head, his eyes keen and unclouded.
“Rose,” he says finally. “My Rose. Here, under the water.”
Chris rests his hands on his hips. To his immediate left, Canine grunts with satisfaction.
“Are you afraid, Moreau?” Chris probes.
“Yes.” Moreau’s answer arrives without hesitation. “Afraid.”
“Why?” asks Chris.
“Afraid of you. Of mother. Don’t want—don’t want to die,” Moreau blurts out.
“We won’t hurt you.” Chris softens his tone. “We will protect you. Do you understand me?”
Moreau blinks twice, and his lips twitch. “How—will you?”
“We are experts. We can guarantee your safety.” Chris switches the flashlight off. “But only if you promise your cooperation.”
“Cooperation?” repeats Moreau.
“Your mission is important.” Chris reaches down, and unhooks one of the carabiners on Moreau’s restraints. The strap loosens, and Moreau’s arms come free. At his side, he hears rather than sees Canine raise his rifle in preparation to shoot. “You can trust us, Moreau,” he speaks in a clear voice, inches from Moreau’s face. “You can trust us.”
“You—trust you?” Moreau murmurs.
“Your mission is important,” repeats Chris. “Do what we say, we protect you. Protect your mission. Do you understand?”
Moreau stares at Chris for an eternity, his slitted pupils dilated, his amphibian-like face contorted in concentration. Chris holds his gaze, forcing his own eyelids open until the corners of his eyes begin to burn.
Then, at last—
“I understand,” Moreau concedes. “I will—cooperate.”
“Good.” Chris nods. Then, he turns to Canine. “Now. Exit protocol.”
“Fantastic.” Canine fixes a full syringe to the cannula. As he pushes the plunger in, Moreau’s head goes limp, and he melts into the chair, his eyes glazed over.
“What—” Elena interjects in a strained voice. “Why put him to sleep again?”
“Midazolam. Erases short-term memory over the past few minutes.” Canine detaches the syringe and replaces the stopper over the cannula. “He won’t remember what he’s told us. But he will remember that he was mighty cooperative. When he wakes up, there’s a good chance he’ll be a friendly little frog.”
“Fifty-fifty chance.” Another cigarette appears in Chris’s hand, summoned by the deft legerdemain mastered only by a nicotine addict.
“Interesting that you went for protocol 3C.” Canine gives Moreau a sideways glance. “Humane option. Would have expected 7D.”
“What’s 7D?” Elena asks in a shaky voice.
“We inject him with a cocktail of adrenaline, atropine, and metaraminol,” Canine explains coolly. “Keeps his blood pressure up, and reduces the chance of bleeding out.”
“And?” Elena prods, leaning closer.
“And then we start cutting off body parts, starting with the fingers.” Canine finishes. “Boss, spot me one?”
Chris hands a cigarette over with a frown. Pulling the cloth mask down to expose his mouth, Canine pops the cigarette in, flicks his lighter open, and sets fire to the cigarette end with a single smooth motion.
“You are insane. Both of you.” Elena turns from Chris to Canine, the rifle trembling in her grip. “What kind of work do you even do?”
“The necessary kind,” Chris responds, lighting his cigarette with the dented Zippo he’s carried around for years.
“I still think we should’ve wasted him.” Canine shakes his head. “More trouble than he’s worth.”
“Not till we find out about this child.” Chris exhales a cloud of smoke. “And figure out what’s under this lake. The mission takes priority—Moreau is just one more stepping stone to rooting out Miranda and destroying her bioweapon threat once and for all.”
“Miranda? I heard him say the name. But I didn’t make the connection till now.” Elena repeats, stepping closer to the pair. “Are you talking about—Mother Miranda?”
As one, the two operatives pivot on their feet to turn to her, cigarettes pinched between their fingers.
“The fuck do you know?” Canine blurts out.
Chris drops the cigarette, crushing it to a smoking stain with his boot. Elena steps backwards, eyes wide.
“Elena.” His voice is hard. “Tell me everything.”
Dimitrescu Castle
The shout reverberates through the castle with a power beyond mere pitch and volume—a power birthed from the gifts of noble birth and blood, and the glory of the Cadou. The power of the great Lady of House Dimitrescu, now at its moment of greatest peril.
“My daughters! Attend me at once!”
Bela spots the swarm of flies converging upon the upper landing, before descending to the lower floor, as red hair, pearly white teeth, and bright eyes manifest in the cloud. As Daniela reforms herself flawlessly at the antechamber of the castle, Bela seethes—again—at the injustice of having to ascend the stairs one at a time from the kitchens. Like a mortal.
“Here, mother,” she says, nearly at the same time as Daniela, as she finally reaches the ground floor.
Her mother looms imposingly over them, her expression dark, her flowing dress pouring over her figure onto the floor around them as a marble plinth of a towering statue.
“Where is Cassandra?” she demands, eyes flitting from one daughter to the other. “Why has your sister not returned?”
Bela catches Daniela’s eye. Both of them shake their heads in unison, before Daniela ventures to answer.
“We—I don’t know, mother. We’ve been busy with the man-thing.” She steals a glance upwards at her mother. “But Cassandra hasn’t been gone this long before.”
“Mother Miranda—our goddess—is here, at our castle. And this house—my house!—is in disarray!” Lady Dimitrescu snarls. Her yellowish teeth peek from behind her lips, where a veneer of lipstick had been crudely painted over with rough impatience. “What shall I tell her?”
Bela remains silent, her hand absently patting the bundle concealed beneath her cape. Daniela shares her sister’s discretion, falling mute and lowering her head.
“Well—it matters not,” their mother intones. “We must make ready for Mother Miranda. I do not know the purpose of her visit. But she has asked that we all be assembled. I will make—apologies—for Cassandra’s absence.”
The tiling has been arranged expertly in the shape of a blooming flower, with its locus at the very centre of the hall. Bela studies the floor with single-minded focus, averting her gaze from her mother and her wrath. She has no problems recalling the words stolen from the air by that human device and its electronic ear.
“I will see your prisoner myself. And your daughter—I will have words.”
Her mother sees no problem in lying to her own daughters. Had Bela not been forewarned, had she not eavesdropped on her own mother, she would be standing here unaware that her life would soon be forfeit.
Will mother truly give me up?
In the face of impending danger, the assurance of her preparation seems threadbare. Her advantage is simply the advantage of the condemned prisoner to look upon the guillotine and the blade suspended above her head. Knowing the manner of her death, and being unable to avert it.
But I’ve got a chance.
Hope, that pernicious creature, clings to her heart still. Sapping her concentration, dampening her dark thoughts with its chittering voice.
That’s all I need—a chance.
Bela looks up suddenly, as the chamber groans. Guttural, inorganic, gathering in intensity, vibrating off the walls, as the sliver of moonlight slices into their ancestral home as a silver blade.
The great doors are opening. Behind them, a clamouring chorus of growls and hisses drowns out the noises of the twilight.
A gust of cold wind; Bela winces, Daniela shrieks. Snow and sleet pour in, painting the floor a dirty white in a wide cone. The cold batters her body, but she stands her ground, eyes forward. To her right, her mother does not so much as flinch.
As the doors open inwards, she sees the shapes of about a dozen lycans pushing the doors, hunched over like chattel slaves. Then Bela’s eyes widen as the moonlight illuminates the scene in the courtyard beyond.
An army of lycans, almost beyond numbering. Flooding the courtyard, spilling over onto the stone steps, stretching all the way to the walls and portcullis. Shrouded by what seems to be the largest blizzard in living memory, tearing and howling against the walls of her home.
And above them—
The pounding of warm blood drives her mind into a frenzy, scrambling the evidence of her eyes—at first, she sees a flock of birds, silent and suspended in the frigid air against the backdrop of falling snow. Then, the shape of a gigantic bird, borne aloft by the beating of terrible wings.
Finally, as her vision sharpens, she sees. She sees.
An angel on high, carried in the air by the beating of eight black wings, each pair beating the air with its own mathematically precise rhythm. It hovers in the air, regal and unassailable, its sacred garb flowing to its bare feet. A gilded mask obscures its face, yet does nothing to obscure its contemptuous gaze as it studies the contents of the castle now laid bare.
Mother Miranda.
The hiss of shifting fabric draws her eyes to her right. Bela finds her throat now fully clogged up by her beating heart.
She has never seen her mother kneel before.
“Mother Miranda,” Lady Alcina Dimitrescu declares in a voice worthy of royalty, “I am at your service, and so are my daughters. You honour me with your presence at my home.”
“Kneel,” she hisses at her daughters. Bela quickly gets down on one knee, as her sister does the same to her left. Her mother pulls the hat from her head, and places it over her bent knee.
The hovering figure remains at the centre of the courtyard, unhurried, disdainful. The blizzard rages all around her, tearing at the trembling lycans; yet her hair does not so much as twitch in the wind.
Mother Miranda raises a hand—and snaps her fingers.
The sudden silence stings against Bela’s ears as much as a deafening roar—and the return of warmth against her skin makes her recoil. The snow, the storm, the wind—
Gone. As if a hand had twisted a tap in the sky.
Bela’s mind whirls as the staggering realisation jostles aside all her preconceptions, as disruptive to her mind as a stone hurled into a glass window. She had known, always, that their goddess is powerful beyond measure; she had ascribed some sort of internal logic to the scope of her power, within the bounds of what the Cadou is capable of.
And now it is all swept away by one simple demonstration.
She commands the weather.
Perhaps, after everything, she had been hoodwinked by the man-things and their reductive ways of observing the world—first by Ethan Winters, then by the disembodied voice from her pocket. Sluggishly, slavishly, they chop the realm of the unknown into mundane, definitive pieces, dictated by their meagre knowledge of cells and biology and electricity, where all is governed by invisible and inexorable laws of which they have absolute knowledge.
It made her forget. Forget, after all, that the unknown has teeth. And that above the mortals, and above still the superior creatures on the upper rung of the food chain, and far above even the fundamental laws of the universe—there are gods.
More than an expression of her power, more than an intimidation display. Bela knows with certainty that the goddess is showing her ability to trap all of House Dimitrescu within the castle—or kill them outside of it.
Mother Miranda descends, wings beating in harmony, her bare feet touching noiselessly on the stone steps. As she passes the doors, a posse of lycans detach from the main body to push the doors closed. Then, upon the floor of the castle, they prostrate themselves in debasement, whining and mewling softly like the animals they are.
Why does the goddess accept the worship and service of these—beasts? Low as they are, dull of mind, incapable of anything besides the basest of impulses and the most onerous of tasks. Unless of course—the simplest explanation. To Mother Miranda, to a goddess in the flesh, the difference between the mindless lupine beasts and the scions of House Dimitrescu are as the difference between higher and lower castes of ants. Merely gradations of hierarchy in lifeforms so far below her as to be worthy of nothing but contempt.
Their goddess approaches with slow, even steps, casting her gaze around the interior of their castle as she begins to remove her black gloves—slowly, one after the other, holding them in her left hand like dead ravens.
“Alcina,” she speaks. A tremor runs through Bela’s body, igniting alarm through each particle of her flesh. “Rise.”
“Thank you, Mother Miranda.” Her mother ascends slowly, replacing the hat upon her head. Her expression seems—uncertain.
“And your daughters, too.” Mother Miranda flicks her fingers at Bela’s direction. “They may rise.”
“Thank you, Mother Miranda,” Daniela says hurriedly as she rises to her feet. Bela manages to mutter the same words before rising as well.
So when will the axe fall?
The golden mask obscures all but the eyes and lips of the goddess. Bela seeks the tell-tale light of imminent anger, or violence, or suspicion, in the twin lights of her pupils and the creases around her lips. Nothing. Only a smooth alabaster wall of utmost control, betraying nothing.
“I granted you three daughters, did I not?” the goddess says. “Where is your third?”
Her mother glares at Bela, then Daniela. “She is on the hunt, Mother Miranda. I sent her to seek out my enemies, and not to return until they are dealt with.”
“Your enemies,” repeats Mother Miranda. “And who would they be, pray tell? Surely your enemies are mine also?”
She looks directly at Bela. Bela forces herself to maintain her gaze, keeping her face stoic, hoping not to appear insolent. All the while, her heartbeat continues to accelerate out of control.
“Bela?” Mother Miranda says. “I am told you brought a prisoner to the castle.”
Her blood suddenly chills, and her throat dries like a sun-ripened plum. Bela pauses—control, control—choosing her next words carefully, before speaking. “Yes, Mother Miranda. A man-thing was snooping about the village.”
“And why did you not kill this—man?” Mother Miranda asks. “I believe my orders were explicitly clear. And your mother would certainly have communicated them to you.”
Bela had been forewarned, and launches into her prepared answer. “There was something interesting about his blood. I decided not to act hastily, and brought him to the castle for further investigation.” She pauses. “He is in our dungeons. Waiting for you, my goddess.”
“Yes, he is, Mother Miranda,” her mother interjects, the deferential tone giving way to growing confidence. “For that reason, I dispatched Cassandra to the village. If there is one of him, there may be more. She has my clear instructions to cleanse the village of any living thing she finds.”
“Hm.” Mother Miranda remains impassive. “And I suppose this is the reason for Cassandra’s tardiness?”
“Cassandra’s a careful girl,” Daniela pipes in, a smile on her face. A glare from her mother wipes the smile away, but she perseveres in a softer tone. “She won’t leave the village until her mission is complete.”
Mother Miranda regards Daniela coldly. At last, she waves a hand. “Fret not. I do not intend to tarry overlong.”
“Of course, Mother Miranda.” Lady Dimitrescu nods. “I will have our prisoner brought up to you now. Bela, could you—”
“You need not trouble yourself,” the goddess drawls, silencing the countess with a raised palm.
She crooks a finger. On cue, the posse of lycans detach themselves from the door and assemble at her side. Drooling, slobbering, and whimpering softly, they dress their ranks pathetically, brandishing their weapons. Bela’s nostrils could retreat back into her skull. Her eyes water.
“My lycans will bring him to me.” Mother Miranda gives the subtlest tilt of her chin. Instantly, the rancid horde detaches from her side, racing down the staircase to the kitchens. They jostle down the stairs, shoulder to filthy shoulder, weapons jostling in their grips. Bela feels her throat tighten.
Nadia.
Things are out of her hands now. But the voice had been right about one thing.
Amat victoria curam. Victory loves preparation.
And with this turn of events, the needle of the compass tips ever so slightly away from utter destruction to the faintest hope of survival. And perhaps more. In the trail of the snow-stained, filthy beasts, she sees the path to safety marked out by muddy footprints. Because if they are the first down the stairs—
She forces her gaze onto the lead lycan, just visible over the furred backs of its comrades, ambling down the staircase with a bow slung over its shoulder. At the junction where the steps bifurcate, the beast pauses to sniff the air. Behind it, the other savages growl and bark impatiently.
Painfully, the lead beast’s snout swings to the left, pointed as a dagger down the broad stone steps leading to the kitchens. The noose tightens around Bela’s chest, cramping her ribs, driving her warm breath against her heart.
Then—sluggishly—the creature turns to its right, towards the stairs leading to the dungeons. It barks once, brandishing its paw at the air. The scent is caught, and its origin is beyond doubt; the dungeons beckon, and the mob answers with a chorus of baying and snapping, thundering down the steps.
Bela arrests the exhalation of relief from her nostrils, keenly aware that the goddess behind her sees all and knows all. Nadia—skulking, conniving castle maid that she is—has avoided discovery. Her heart swells and quickens with the rush of warmth.
Her eyes pivot back to the furred backs jostling for space in the narrow sloping corridor, feet pounding on ancient steps, weapons rattling in lupine hands. Undisciplined, concentrated, unwary.
Bela counts the horde. Counts the steps, counts the seconds. And above all—
Be surprised. Flinch. Be startled.
She’s watching.
Step fifty-eight. The lead lycan, scrambling downwards in its apelike gait, sees no reason to pause or check its advance. One foot forward, down onto the step—and Bela hears, fainter than even the puff of breath from her own lips, yet as shrill as the crack of ice across a lake, the sound she has been praying for.
Click.
“—it is a simple instrument, versatile enough to accommodate a variety of triggering mechanisms. Tripwires, pressure plates, lasers, temperature sensors, you name it, we’ve done it. But if you really want security, I recommend redundancy. Double up, triple up, and wire the payloads to trigger simultaneously. The inch-wide nosing just above each step of the staircase is a good place to hide a tripwire, and if you can find a loose tile to conceal a pressure plate, even better. Now follow the subsequent instructions, and you’ll have a basic IED—”
Five years ago, Bela had been dispatched on a hunt. A villager had managed to smuggle in a cache of weaponry in clear disobedience of Mother Miranda’s decrees, and had barricaded himself in a shack overlooking the valley.
The hunt itself had been straightforward. The swarm had been hers, then, and she had swooped through the air as a bird of prey, borne aloft by a million flies. She had laughed, as the hapless man-thing discharged round after futile round of ammunition into her scattered body, feeling the whistle of bullets and the stench of fear. It had been little but play and sport, a game to see how far she could push the limits of the man-thing’s terror before he succumbed to despair and began to blabber and whine.
When he had squared his jaw, and retrieved a curious plastic object in the shape of a pinecone, she had cocked her head inquisitively. When he yanked hard on the cap of the object, tossing a flimsy metal ring at her, she had laughed, mocking him for a sham of a marriage proposal. Even when he closed his eyes and clutched the thing to his chest, she had not understood. She had never seen a grenade before.
The detonation—
A sphere of air and heat expanding rapidly, obliterating flesh and bone in an instant, rushing over her as a tidal wave. She had screamed and flailed, feeling the thousand little deaths of her swarm form, the dissipated consciousness of her body reeling and fraying against the concussive force. Bullets she could weather, but the roar of explosive violence left no gap or hollow for her swarm to surge through unharmed. Dimly she had been aware of the man—whatever is left of him—collapsing onto the floor of the cabin, while she scrambled to reassemble her form, shrieking pure rage and pain.
She would never admit, even to herself, what respect had risen unbidden for this most unexpected of man-weapons even as she lay on the floor of that cabin, silent and placid. She would survive, of course. That much had been certain even as she nursed her wounds, her swarm rebuilding itself fly by fly. Except the day had been exceptionally warm, an aberrant spike in temperature in the usually cool Carpathian autumn. Ten degrees cooler, and the swarm would have been rendered inactive.
She would have perished in the blast.
Now the fleeting milliseconds pass, her mind dragged back unwillingly from the past to the perilous present, the now that proceeds the soft click sounding off the stone steps of her castle halls.
Bela had thought to feign surprise, preparing to jerk her body appropriately in shock and confusion.
Unnecessary.
Her ears go first. A shrieking, howling reality surges over her before the thin muscle in her inner ear tugs the miniscule stapedius away from its contact with her trembling eardrums, shielding her from the absolute worst—then her throat, tightening as if in a snare, air rippling through the fragile muscle down into her lungs.
The cold stone floor greets her hands, her back, and the thundering headache informs her of her violent contact with the ground. Bela rolls onto her front, her eyes flashing a thousand points of light with each excruciating blink.
Her vision clears.
The staircase is—gone. As is the adjoining wall of the kitchen, and the support pillar adjacent to the staircase. All swallowed up by a chasm that now yawns into the lower depths of the dungeon. A chasm that has swallowed up the lycan horde whole, as a whale swallows a pod of krill.
Near the edge of the gap, along the fragments of the ruined steps, an exuberant smear of crimson gleams fresh with a minced garnish of pulverised lycan innards.
“—follow my instructions. And you’ll turn these household supplies into a bomb. One capable of delivering the yield of an equivalent mass of C4.”
For one more second, the world holds its breath.
Daniela breaks the silence.
“Ethan! The dungeons!” shrieks her younger sister, rising into the air in a cloud of flies.
“The prisoner!” bellows her mother in a voice like thunder. “He’s escaping! Seize him!”
Bela turns her head ever so slightly. In the blurred edge of her vision, Mother Miranda remains motionless. Silent. Disdainful.
There had been one chance. One path through the darkness to safety—one scenario in which Ethan Winters’s escape could be accounted for without implicating Bela or her family. To engineer the escape to occur in that exact moment where Mother Miranda is under their roof, to absolve her family entirely of blame.
The original plan would have been for Bela to trigger the explosive herself. Hence the need to implement a three-second delay in the fuse. At full sprint down the stairs, Bela would be clear of the blast—almost—by the time the tripwire had snapped.
She had underestimated the radius of the explosion.
In the span of a heartbeat, Bela offers a grudging prayer of thanks to the lycans that had taken her place in oblivion. Because now—now, hope surges forward.
She falls perfectly into her role, reciting her next lines with the ease of a practised thespian.
“We must hurry!” Bela shouts from a hoarse throat. “To the dungeons!”
“I’m coming!” yells Daniela, rushing for the stairs.
“Wait.” The command floods the room as an icy avalanche floods a valley. “Be still.”
Three pairs of eyes turn to Mother Miranda. Bela’s heart threatens to tear her ribcage apart like a savage hound. She forces her face into uncomplicated surprise even as she meets her goddess’s stony gaze.
“That was a bomb. There may be more.” Mother Miranda folds her hands together, betraying not a hint of fury nor anxiety. “Your daughters could be walking into a trap.”
“But—Mother Miranda—” her mother protests, before their goddess silences her with a raised hand.
“I will send my own.” Mother Miranda claps her hands together once. The sound echoes through the hall as the snap of a whip. “Străjer!”
Thunder rumbles through the hall. The floor vibrates, ancient stones thrumming within their hollows. Then comes a low-pitched doom. And another. And another.
Footfalls.
Bela turns. Not to the castle doors, which remain closed, guarded by the faithful detachment of lycans. But to the far end of the antechamber, where the twin staircases snake upwards in their curved arcs. And beneath, in the shade of the giant archway, a shadow stirs.
A mass of snakes, writhing and shimmying in the gloomy light. Or so it seems, until the great mass detaches itself from the darkness and reveals itself. The pale striated muscles ripple in the light of the chandelier, adorned by a tattered overcoat and the crudest suggestion of plate armour wrought from deformed iron. Across its pauldron and half-chest plate, the imprints of clawed digits gleam across the seams and edges. The beast had shaped its own armour, not with hammer or anvil, but with its own hands. Wiry tendrils curl and twist around its shoulders, bearing the marks of one of the goddess's many gifts, and the source of its strength.
Uriaș. The older, and larger, brother to the great beast slain by Ethan Winters in his monstrous form. Bela stares, transfixed, as the behemoth lumbers forward with deliberate steps. The scrape of iron on stone draws her attention to its right arm, dragging some ponderous burden from the shadow—and then, a titanic mace, nearly twice as long as she is tall, emerges into the light.
How did the beast come in?
Bela’s blood chills in her arteries.
And how long has it been here?
“Search the dungeons. Bring me the prisoner, if he is there.” Mother Miranda nods at the monster. The beast stares back from behind its iron mask, its snout twitching. Then its jaws open, revealing a maw of yellow fangs and the viper-head of a red tongue.
“Yes,” it growls, and Bela flinches.
Many times had she seen the beast from afar, plodding across the snow in some errand or other. It would never obey her, or her mother, or indeed any of the Lords. The goddess alone commanded the giant, and Bela never once resented her for hoarding the service of such a hulking, stupid beast—or so she had thought.
She never considered it to be capable of speech.
And what else?
Her eyes follow the Uriaș as it marches for the ruined staircase, surprisingly nimble despite its great size. At the edge of the chasm, it drops its mace with a thunk, and stops to sniff the air. Reaching one clawed hand down into the dark, it frowns and grunts. Then, with the tinkle of shattered stone, the hand emerges into the light, clutching a ruined segment of copper pipe, charred and splintered at both ends.
“Bomb,” barks the beast.
Intelligent. Bela’s heart quickens in her chest.
The beast bends forward, staring into the gap. Then, it simply steps into thin air, and plunges into the darkness.
The floor rumbles. The chandelier shakes, the glass bulbs tinkling in their sockets.
Any minute now.
Two explosives wired to the side of the vat into which Ethan’s blood had drained, now torn open from his brutal escape. An iron nail pinched precariously between two delicate clothespins completes an electrical circuit, designed to be dislodged by a vibration of sufficient amplitude.
From within the chasm, the beast grunts. Then, the sound of a paw striking the ground.
Boom.
Bela falls to the ground once more, as a shower of dirt and debris burst from the chasm. The blast—smaller than the first, but no less disorientating—seems to shake the castle on its foundations. To her side, Daniela gasps, her scythe clutched in white-knuckled fingers.
Perhaps the explosion had been enough. The pipe-bombs (the voice had called them that) would have directed their fury straight at the great beast. It had armour, yes, but could it have been enough, dare she hope—
A grunt echoes from the chasm. Then, a single word emits from the darkness.
“Bomb.”
Bela bites her lip. To her left, her mother glares ahead with burning eyes at the chasm that marks beyond the shadow of a doubt the greatest insult to House Dimitrescu. Violence wrought upon her home, her castle.
What would she do if she knew I was behind it?
Bela forces her eyes forward. Watching, listening, as the behemoth shuffles through the dungeon underneath. A shriek of iron being ripped apart. Then the crackle of shattered tiles crushed underneath a great weight.
The seconds drag on into minutes. All the while, Mother Miranda remains where she is. A silent watcher, as unmoving as a carven archangel standing vigil over a sarcophagus.
Then a grunt. And the Uriaș leaps out of the chasm in a single bound, landing on the floor with a crack as the tile splinters under it.
“Have you completed your search?” asks Mother Miranda in a casual drawl.
“Yes,” replies the beast.
“And is the prisoner gone?”
“Yes,” it grunts.
A harsh intake of breath. Under her gold mask, Bela sees the faint edges of her nostrils dilating. And knows, even though her voice does not waver, that the goddess is on the cusp of terrible wrath.
“How,” asks the goddess in a low voice, “did the prisoner escape?”
“Explosives, must be.” Bela’s voice emerges without her consent. As the blood turns to ice in her chest, she presses on, knowing how close she is to oblivion. “The man-thing must have blasted his way out.”
“How?” Her mother steps closer to the chasm, her giant gloved fingers balling into fists. “My daughters, you must have searched the man-thing before torturing him! How did he smuggle weapons onto his person? How did he break free and use his—his bombs? How—”
The beast barks, a violent noise that brings her mother’s tirade to a sudden halt. For a moment, the countess—far taller than even the Uriaș—seems poised to strike the creature for its impudence. Then, as if suddenly feeling the cold fury of Mother Miranda, and being reminded of the creature’s position in her service, Lady Dimitrescu retreats.
“No,” the creature huffs.
“Not a bomb, then.” Mother Miranda leans forward. “How did the prisoner escape?”
“Help.” The monster shrugs its shoulders.
“Help? From whom?” Mother Miranda’s voice is almost a whisper.
The Uriaș pauses, shaking its scruffy mane as if a wolfhound worried by fleas. Then, it reaches a hand into its longcoat.
It lifts the hand into the light.
“Traitor,” says the Uriaș simply.
The steel scythe winks in the light, gleaming with its sheen of dried blood. The beast turns the handle slowly, until the carved letters are brought before its keen, lupine eyes.
It reads aloud: "Bela."