The creature ducked through the broken doorway and brought half the frame with it.
Wood burst inward. Rusted hinges spun across the floor. Lantern light climbed over a body built wrong from the ground up—too broad through the shoulders, arms long enough that its knuckles scraped concrete, skin stretched pale over ropes of muscle scarred by old bites and fresh tears. Chunks of nest-creature flesh hung from its jaw.
Its head twitched once.
Then it inhaled.
The sound dragged through the room like something being emptied.
Kael smelled rot, wet fur, and blood gone sweet.
Mara moved first.
She charged low and hard, machete flashing toward the inside of its knee. Smart angle. Disable movement, then finish later.
The blade bit.
A normal leg would have folded.
The creature barely noticed.
Its hand shot down, fingers wrapping around Mara's throat with casual speed.
Kael was already moving.
He hit the arm from the side, driving both hands into the elbow joint. Renn came in a breath later and slashed at the wrist with a hooked scrap blade.
The grip loosened just enough.
Mara tore free, stumbled back coughing, and spat blood on the floor.
"Appreciate the romance later," she rasped.
Dren fired.
The nailgun cracked three times in rapid succession. Metal spikes punched into the creature's neck and cheek. It jerked, more annoyed than hurt, and turned toward him.
Bad.
Kael saw it before Dren did.
"Down!"
Dren dropped as the creature lunged. Its arm swept across the filing cabinets, smashing steel drawers loose like toys. Papers burst into the air in a blizzard of yellowed records.
Sera moved through that storm like she'd been waiting for it.
She slipped behind the creature and drove the sharpened bone spike into the back of its calf.
The point sank deep.
Black blood splashed across her coat.
The creature roared.
Not loud—dense. A sound that hit the chest and rattled teeth.
It kicked backward blindly. Sera flew into a wall hard enough to crack plaster.
Renn's grin vanished. "Sera!"
Kael used the opening and climbed.
One foot on a fallen cabinet, then onto the creature's hip, then higher. He grabbed a fold of scarred flesh and hauled himself onto its back.
Heat radiated through its skin.
Its muscles writhed beneath him like cables under strain.
He jammed the broken knife into the side of its throat and dragged downward.
The blade snapped fully.
Worthless.
The creature slammed backward into a wall.
Kael got an elbow up before impact. Pain exploded through his forearm anyway. The second hit threw him off entirely.
He crashed across the desk and rolled onto the floor.
The lantern toppled.
Oil spilled in a shining arc.
Flame chased it instantly.
Fire bloomed across the floorboards.
"Perfect," Mara coughed. "Now it's ugly and lit."
Dren reloaded with shaking hands. "Any plan besides sarcasm?"
"Working on one."
The creature hated the flames. It recoiled, eyes—Kael saw them now, buried deep under folds of flesh—small and milky, but reactive. It turned away from the spreading fire and toward the stairwell.
Toward Sera.
Renn darted in front of it.
Too reckless. Too fast to stop.
He slashed twice across its face, drawing lines of dark blood. "Hey, corpse-breath."
The creature swatted.
Renn bent backward in a movement that looked impossible, the hand missing his nose by inches. He sprang away, laughing once.
"Slow."
Then he landed wrong.
Just a slight slip in oil.
Enough.
The creature caught his ankle.
Renn hit the floor and was yanked across the room, shoulders slamming over concrete. He stabbed wildly at the grip.
No effect.
Kael's chest pulsed.
Predatory Hunger surged so sharply it blurred the edges of his vision.
Blood. Fear. Weakness. Opportunity.
Consume.
Not now.
He forced it down and grabbed the broken table leg beside him. Heavy wood with a metal bracket still attached.
He sprinted straight at the creature.
Mara shouted something.
Too late to hear.
Kael drove the bracketed end into the nail wounds in its neck and pushed with everything he had.
The wood sank between torn flesh and lodged deep.
The creature convulsed.
Its grip on Renn opened.
Renn rolled clear, gasping.
Then the monster's free hand closed around Kael's torso.
Air vanished from his lungs.
His feet left the floor.
Ribs creaked under the pressure.
Up close, the thing smelled of old graves and sewer water. Strings of saliva hung from jagged human-like teeth worn flat in places, broken in others.
It studied him.
Not mindless.
Choosing.
Kael stabbed uselessly at its wrist with splintered wood.
Black spots crowded his sight.
Then Sera stepped from the smoke.
Blood ran from her temple. One eye swelling shut. The bone spike gone.
In both hands she held a short iron rod wrapped in wire and battery scraps.
Dren's voice cracked. "Wait—"
She drove it into the creature's side and thumbed the trigger.
Light burst white-blue.
The room filled with the smell of burning meat.
The creature screamed and hurled Kael away.
He hit the stairs shoulder-first and slid down three steps.
Sera dropped too, shaking violently from the recoil through the device.
Mara was there instantly, dragging her behind a cabinet as the creature thrashed through flame and debris.
"Everybody out!" Mara barked.
No one argued.
They ran through a rear records room while the front lobby tore itself apart behind them.
Shelves collapsed. Fire spread greedily through dry paper. The creature bellowed again, closer than it should have been.
Kael's left arm barely responded. His ribs stabbed with each breath.
Renn limped beside him, one ankle swelling fast. "Nice distraction."
"You were bait."
"I prefer decoy."
They burst through a loading door into an alley thick with smoke.
Cold air hit like medicine.
Mara shoved Dren ahead. Sera leaned on the wall, face gray.
"Move," Mara said.
Sera spat blood. "I am moving."
They crossed two streets before stopping inside the shell of a parking structure open to the night.
Only then did anyone speak.
Dren rounded on Renn. "You led it to us."
Renn's expression flattened. "No."
"You knew it was hunting."
"I knew it was near."
"Same thing."
"It isn't."
Mara stepped between them. "Later."
Dren pointed a trembling finger at Kael instead. "And him? Human intake on day one, now that thing follows the scent of fresh change straight to our door."
Kael met his eyes. "You want to say something useful, say it."
Dren swallowed whatever came next.
Mara crouched by Sera, checking the girl's pupils. "Can you stand?"
"I can stab," Sera muttered.
"Good enough."
Kael sank against a pillar before his legs decided for him. Every bruise had begun speaking at once. His chest still felt shaped like that hand.
Then came the hunger.
Worse than before.
It rolled through him in hot waves, focusing on the cuts across his shoulder, the blood on Renn's ankle, the scent of burnt flesh still clinging to them all.
Consume to stabilize.
He shut his eyes.
Not here.
Renn noticed first.
"You're pale."
"Shut up."
"That means bad."
Kael's fingers dug into the concrete beside him. Veins of black flickered under his skin and vanished.
Mara looked over. "How long since intake?"
"Hours."
She cursed under her breath.
Dren stepped back. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Mara said, "his body's trying to process stolen traits without enough biomass."
Kael forced himself upright. "Say it plainly."
"You need to feed," she said. "Soon."
"On what?"
Nobody answered.
Silence stretched.
Somewhere below the parking structure, metal clanged.
Then a wet dragging sound echoed up the ramps.
The creature had tracked them.
Dren went white. "No."
Mara stood slowly. "We can't fight it again like this."
Renn glanced at Kael. "Maybe we don't."
Kael understood before he spoke.
"No."
Renn crouched in front of him. For once, there was no grin. "You hurt it more than any of us. Your thing reacts to biomass, right? Then take from that."
"That thing nearly crushed me."
"Then don't let it grab you twice."
Mara's jaw tightened. "It could kill him before the transfer starts."
"It could kill us anyway," Renn said.
The dragging sound came closer.
Heavy.
Measured.
Not enraged now.
Patient.
Sera wiped blood from her lip and pushed herself upright. "I vote we gamble on the psycho."
Kael almost smiled despite the pain.
Predatory Hunger pulsed like a second heartbeat.
The monster stepped into view below, climbing the ramp on all fours, milky eyes fixed on them through shadow.
Its torn side steamed where Sera had burned it.
Black blood dripped in steady lines.
Kael rose.
Every instinct in him screamed to run.
Something deeper leaned forward.
Consume.
He picked up a length of broken rebar and started down the ramp.