“And yes,” he added quietly, “it’s loaded with the real thing.”
Rick’s vision swam. The silver in his blood made his heartbeat stutter, his limbs numb, his thoughts scatter. He let out a guttural growl, more instinct than threat.
“Come, come, now,” Gordon murmured. “It was always going to end this way. Fairy tales get one thing right—the big bad wolf never survives the story.”
With his last shred of strength, Rick growled and lunged, limbs straining past reason, the net searing through his nerves.
The gun fired.
Pain exploded inside him, white-hot and blinding. The world reeled, collapsing inward, and darkness took him.
{ X }
Monday, October 30
Chapter Fifty-Nine
(12:37 a.m.)
For what might have been hours or half a lifetime, Ash slipped in and out of a thin, sickly consciousness. Time had lost its shape; every second was a small eternity. His memory of the world above felt impossibly distant, swallowed by the silence of the chamber.
Gordon had come and gone twice—once to bring more candles, once to check the circle’s bindings—but Ash had barely registered him through the haze. At some point, he stopped trying to measure anything. Hunger gnawed at him in muted waves, but even that had dulled into something dreamlike, abstract. His throat was so dry it felt sealed shut; his limbs so heavy they barely belonged to him.
Candles guttered in the stale air around him, their trembling light making the shadows sway in slow, hypnotic arcs across the high ceiling. The stone beneath him sweated with damp, seeping chill through his skin. With nothing else to do, he just lay there, drifting between fever and sleep, sinking into a lethargy thick as tar. The thought of escape felt as remote as the sky. At some point, the idea of survival itself had thinned to a whisper.
The dead faces regarded him from the walls, their blank stares a quiet sympathy. Soon, his own would join them. But he wouldn’t give that son of a bitch the satisfaction of seeing him break. If he must die, he’ll die—but not without a fight. However useless it might be.
Eventually, a sound seeped into the edges of his stupor; small at first, barely distinguishable from the buzz of his own pulse. A gradual rhythm began to form, low, pulsing, almost musical.Chanting. No words, just vibrations, yet their notes crawled through him like a tide of ants. Pressure built in the air, thick enough that it made his skull throb.
Ash stirred, sluggishly pushing himself upright. The circle around him began to glow, the faint phosphorescent lines flickering to life as the chanting drew closer. Footsteps followed, many, and Gordon emerged from the tunnel. His silhouette took shape in the candlelight: shirt crisp, sleeves rolled, face gleaming with the smug serenity of someone who thought himself chosen.
Gordon’s smile deepened when he saw him. “Good. You’re awake.”
Ash said nothing. His throat refused sound. He could only glare through strands of matted hair.
Behind Gordon, the dead came shuffling in. They filled the archway and the corridor beyond, pale bodies swaying in eerie unison, mouths mumbling the same guttural hymn that had woken him. Their movements were jerky yet synchronized, as though guided by one pulse.
Gordon stepped closer, shoes tapping crisply against the floor. “I brought you a surprise.”
He gestured. Two corpses stumbled forward, dragging something massive between them.
At first, Ash couldn’t understand what he saw. Only a dark, enormous shape tangled in a steel net, an animal contorted with pain. Candlelight brushed fur, skin, muscle—and the breath left his lungs.
Rick.
The net clattered as they hauled him in and threw him down. The sound hit Ash harder than any blow. Rick landed on his side, half-beast, half-man, his movements sluggish, trembling. His shirt hung in rags; his pants were barely scraps. The fur along his arms was matted and thinning where the metal touched him, and a dark stain spread across his chest—blood, fresh andheavy, seeping through the ruin of his clothes. His breaths came shallow, ragged, each one a fight against whatever poison was eating him from the inside.
Ash’s vision blurred. “No…”
Gordon’s grin widened. “Told you I was ready for him.” He sauntered toward Rick, nudging him with his foot. “Remarkably durable. I aimed for the heart, but the silver lodged in his breastbone. Now it’s killing him slowly.” He glanced between them, pleased. “So you get to watch each other die. Quite poetic, really.”
Ash lurched forward, but the circle ignited. A lash of ghostly fire cracked across his skin, throwing him back. He staggered with a strangled cry. “Let him go. You can have me, but he’s done nothing to you.”
Gordon turned his head to Ash. “Nothing? He was the same as the rest of them. Tall, handsome, respected, treating me like I was invisible. A soft, simmering rancour lit his glare. “Besides, he just killed my mother. Shot her in the head.”
“You are insane!”
“Great minds always are, by the standards of their primitive society.” He strolled across the chamber, hands clasped behind his back. “He’ll be dead soon enough. Then I’ll take what’s left and bring him back again. Imagine it: my own werewolf servant.” He laughed softly, as though savoring a fine wine. He turned his gaze back to Ash. “But first, the main event. It’s time, my pretty one. The last piece for tomorrow’s ritual. The face that will crown the masterpiece.” He drifted to the table with the instruments and picked a knife, the candlelight running along its edge. “I’ll be honest,” he said. “This is going to hurt.”
