Chapter Text
Coordinates 47° 0′ 0″ N, 25° 30′ 0″ E
Munții Carpați
Unnamed Village
“Our Father, who art in Heaven—”
“Cease your blasphemy!” Anton snarls. “Mother Miranda will slaughter us all for that!”
“Hallowed be thy name.” The missionary continues to stare out the window, clutching at the crucifix at his neck. The rusted, ancient frame rattles with the force of the blizzard outside, its fury muffled by the thick wooden walls of the cabin.
“Iulian, how’re you over there?” Anton barks past the hallway, still training the Luger on the window. The shapes are getting closer.
“Got eight rounds! I count seven—eight lycans, coming in fast!” the old gamekeeper replies, his voice breaking. “Mother protect us—” he whimpers, almost too soft to hear.
“She will, my friends, she will.” Luiza places a calming hand on Anton’s shoulder. “I believe it. Now we must do our best and survive this—”
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done—” the missionary quavers, eyeing the shadows closing in on the cabin.
“Shut—up!” Anton backhands the thin, beardless youth across the face. “If you’re going to keep yammering away, take this and be useful!”
The missionary blinks, finding a hatchet in his hands. He whimpers, before placing the weapon gently upon the table.
“Friend, I—I have taken an oath against the bearing of arms,” he sputters, before making the sign of the cross.
Anton grasps the man of the cloth by his frock. “First lycan comes through that door, you’re live bait!” The burly woodsman flings the youth to the floor. “Come here, preaching your nonsense! Blaspheming our gods! Looking down on us from, from—”
A thud from above.
As one, the tired and fearful eyes spin to the ceiling.
“Merciful mother—” Luiza moans. “They’re on the roof.”
Iulian fires his shotgun just as the lycan crashes through the roof. Cold wintery air explodes into the living room, roaring like a deafening tempest, as the shaggy shape writhes on the floor, claws raking the wood.
“Again! Again!” Anton roars over the howl of the blizzard, turning his pistol to the floor. The Luger discharges again and again, the semi-automatic mechanism chambering each round with a weary clink.
The beast rises, anaemic skin stretched over an animalistic skull, baring its teeth just as Iulian lines up the second shot.
The blast takes the monster’s skull off at the jaw, cleaving its head in half through the nape of its neck. The elongated limbs spasm once, then fall silent.
“On earth, as it is in heaven—” the missionary whispers, to himself if no one else. And then leaps to his feet, as the jagged shadows on the floor shift menacingly.
“More!” Anton raises the Luger skyward. And now mingled with the monotonous howl of the blizzard—the feral howls of lycans gathering in their packs.
Luiza looks up, hands pressed to her bosom, right into the eyes of a savage hirsute face peering from the hole in the roof.
This is the end.
Then—
The lycan is dragged backwards suddenly. And the chorus of jubilant howls suddenly turn to shrieks of rage and surprise.
“What—”
The front door explodes. Luiza shields her face as shards of ruined wood fly like shrapnel; Anton cries as he teeters off balance, while Iulian trains his shotgun on the great black shape now sprawled across the carpet.
His eyes widen, and his finger slips from the trigger.
A lycan. And very, very dead. Its eyes are glassy, its lips frozen in a teeth-baring rictus. Iulian follows the horrific wound trailing from its collarbone down across its breast—the edge of shattered ribs, the loops of uncoiling intestines steaming from the residual heat.
“Dear Mother on high—” Iulian wheezes. “This beast has been cut in half.”
He peers past the ruined door, out into the raging storm, and his heart freezes in his chest.
The lycans are attacking. Not at the cabin, no longer—but something in the distance, something approaching.
The roar of animals. The crunch of bone. The sickening sound of wetness hitting the ground.
Screams of rage. Of pain.
Footfalls, heavy and unnatural.
And then something emerges from the snowstorm.
Iulian raises his shotgun.
Not a lycan.
He stares, uncomprehending. He barely notices the other two figures behind it, not until he hears one yell out, and Luiza answer with a cry.
“It’s Elena!” Luiza calls, rushing towards the door. “And Leonardo—Mother be praised! They made it!”
All the while, the figure continues to approach. Never breaking stride, even dead in the face of the threat of Iulian’s shotgun and a round of buckshot. In fact, the expression on the outsider’s face—mild frustration?
Iulian swallows, as the stranger’s blood-splattered features grow more visible. Auburn hair matted to his scalp, slick with unimaginable amounts of gore; a mountaineer’s jacket soaked with blood, sleeves running so red as to almost seem dipped in wine. A pale complexion, waxy in the moonlight. The stranger does not even flinch as a length of innards slides slowly off his shoulder, plopping to the ground limply.
The outsider raises a bloody hand.
“My name,” he says in a voice far too gentle, “is Ethan Winters. These people need your help.”
Alcina Dimitrescu stands at the balcony, the cold stone of the balustrade under her gloved fingers.
The night is restless.
Spots of light dance throughout the valley, darting erratically between the shadows of ancient trees and ruined half-collapsed houses. Mindless lycans on patrol, or in pursuit of some scent or other. Beasts of burden, barely worthy of notice. She’s seen one or two of them spill the oil from their lanterns and set themselves on fire, some weeks ago. Their dying shrieks had warmed her heart, if only a little.
She inhales, her nostrils flaring. Her lips pucker as she chews on the scent as she would a fine vintage, bringing the taste to her tongue. Her pale cheeks flush. Her nose wrinkles.
Terror.
That in itself is unsurprising, and hardly unfamiliar. She’s smelled it before on moonless nights, the terror of some village idiot caught out in the open by a lycan hunting party wafting up to her castle to serve as a delicious amuse-bouche before dinner.
Or when a servant girl happened to annoy one of her daughters—oh yes, that lilt of enticing aroma, mingled with the smell of urine dribbling down slender legs. Even dull menials could sense their impending doom; the despair wrought by that knowledge was almost as delicious as the torment itself, before her daughters dragged the poor creature off into the dungeons.
Yes, yes. But of course! On nights when her daughters set out to the village on their hunts, screeching and laughing freely, to take whomever they wished—yes! Rising from the valley, a glorious bouquet of terror!
No.
She knows the smell well, can distinguish every subtle note in its composition. But here, tonight, a harsh note clashes against her palette and her breath catches in her throat.
Terror from humans is plentiful, of course. Plentiful, and as common as the cheap vin de pays that might as well be dishwater. The poor man-things balk and gibber at every little noise, every trick of the light.
But terror from lycans?
Alcina Dimitrescu sniffs again. Stiffens. Underneath her hands, the balustrade cracks.
“Cassandra!” Her voice vibrates with command. “Come here!”
The words have barely echoed, when the flies immediately hiss from their cracks in the stone to gather behind the gargantuan lady of the castle. By the time Lady Dimitrescu turns around, the swarm has assembled into the shape of a pale, gaunt figure wreathed in black funereal garb.
Her daughter bows gracefully, crimson-stained lips peeling open in a smile. “Yes, mother?”
“Something stirs in the valley. I want to know what.” Alcina sweeps her hands out. “Bring your sisters. Search the village. Whatever it is—bring it to me.”
“Of course, mother.” A chorus of buzzing, a harsh hiss—and then the swarm is gone.
Alcina Dimitrescu turns back to the balcony, continuing to stare. Sending her daughters out should have quietened her heart. Nothing could resist them—their perfection, the strength of the Cadou—any defence prepared by men would crumble before them. In fact, part of her mind had wondered if sending all three of them had been overkill.
The other part—the louder part—continues to murmur with worry and growing disquiet.
It will be sunrise soon.
It’s when she finally hands her father over to Anton and Iulian that Elena Lupu collapses to her knees.
Ears ringing, heart pounding, her lungs rubbed raw and blistering, she stays hunched over as the weariness threatens to overwhelm her. Only when a warm hand curves under her armpit does she jerk back, her eyes fluttering open.
Luiza’s face swims into view. “Come, Elena—your father is safe, he will be safe with us. Come—”
“Father—wounded—lycans attacked,” she manages to gasp hoarsely. “He’s injured—”
“We have warm soup. The priest—the Catholic—he has medicine in his bag. We will tend to your father. Now come, Elena.” Luiza tugs at her arm, and Elena struggles to her feet.
“Ethan Winters—” Elena hisses.
She feel’s Luiza’s hair brush across her cheek as the older woman turns her head. “Your friend—the American? Westerner? He walked away—he has not returned—”
“We must—barricade the house—get into the basement—can’t—get in—” Elena limps forward hurriedly, each step bringing a sharp sting of pain. Her ankle is sprained.
“The lycans? We just avoided an attack—something drove them off.” Luiza stiffens, as if spotting something in the distance. Then her shoulders relax. “We will guard against them. Iulian could—”
“No, no—not lycans—” Elena whispers, clawed fingers suddenly grasping Luiza’s collar. The matron starts, eyes wide. "You don’t understand. Not—not them. Him.”
“Elena?” Luiza mutters.
“Don’t let him in.” Elena looks over her shoulder, frantic eyes darting from tree to tree. Every shadow a threat, every howl of the wind the growl of a beast. “Don’t—he’s not what you think he is.”
hungry
Ethan grips at the stump of a dead tree, the bark splintering under his palm. Charred, ancient. Split in half.
He should be far enough now. Elena won’t be able to spot him. Not without a pair of binoculars—or the scope of a sniper rifle.
feed
His vision is grey and red. The forest might as well be a watercolour of gradations of black, the shadows of branches and vines blending into each other like a mass of writhing eels illuminated by wan moonlight.
Spots of red dart past his vision—flies, bearing their tiny dots of vitality. Red.
eat
The burner phone almost slips from his fingers when he finally pulls it from his pocket. The sting of the overpowering white light scalds his eyes.
He taps the only number on the contact list.
“It won’t stop—the fucking injections don’t work,” Ethan spits into the receiver, tossing an empty syringe to the ground with his free hand. “It’s getting—worse—”
“Conservation of mass. It’s the founding principle of the universe—there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The fungal stimulant was only ever a stopgap measure.” The voice is steady. Casual. And—run through a voice-changer—utterly unrecognisable. “Do you believe me now, Ethan Winters?”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” His back slams into something solid. Ethan realises he’s leaning against the dead tree. His knees—aren’t all there.
Something is growling. Something to his front, and left. Ethan feels a small trill at the forefront of his brain warning of danger. He can barely care.
“You burned through a lot of mass, and a lot of energy, in a very short time. That pain you’re feeling, that hunger, that’s the bank calling you about an overdraft,” the voice replies. “Widespread apoptosis. Neuroglycopenia. Myofibril degeneration.”
Ethan lifts his left hand. “But—before, I managed to heal—”
“Don’t be stupid, Ethan. Reattaching a severed hand or two is nothing more than chump change. The biomass is still intact on both ends; the neurovascular bundle can be reconnected. What you just did, on the other hand, that’s a debt that needs to be paid, and quick. Biomass needs to be refuelled. Your cells will convert the fungal matter to usable ATP in minutes.”
“And if not—” Ethan gasps.
“Then Rose is lost.” The voice doesn’t even hesitate.
Ethan clutches at his chest. The pain is constant now, a staccato burst of agony contracting around his chest.
“Mia died for her. Your wife—she died protecting your daughter from gunfire.” The phone crackles with another whistle of static. “You are already dead, Ethan Winters. You decide if your daughter joins you, or not.”
No.
“Tell me what I need to do.” Ethan straightens his back, pushing himself off the tree.
“You know what needs to be done.” A burst of static over the phone. A cloud passing overhead, interrupting the satellite connection.
“Be specific, motherfucker.” Ethan takes a step, then another. Something pulls at him. Forward, in the direction of the harsh growls.
Then he sees it.
He hadn’t gotten all the mutants. Not immediately, it seems. The bastards are tougher than they look. Mindless, feral and bestial—it seems something remains of the animal brain after all. The urge to prolong life for even an hour, a minute; the irresistible impulse to crawl away and survive, scratching and clawing against the inevitable.
The Vârcolac is alive, but only just. Nothing remains of its right arm below the shoulder; its left is not much better, a mangled mess of jagged bone wrapped in a fleshy kebab of macerated muscle and marinated in dark viscous blood. Through the wound in its ribcage, a lung peeks from between the snapped ends of a rib, inflating and deflating like a succulent pink balloon.
The lupine creature kicks feebly, yelping and snapping its jaws at Ethan. One leg has been violently wrenched out of the hip socket, dangling by a pathetic tether of fleshy tendon.
Ethan looks at the product of his handiwork. The furious, ecstatic slaughter outside the mountain cabin, that whirlwind of death that left his sleeves soaked with blood and brought a wild terrified look to Elena’s eyes.
Do all the others—the dead ones—look like this?
To his eyes, now, the creature is a pulsating mess of red.
“Acts chapter 10, verse 13,” the voice comes over the phone.
“What?” Ethan says.
“Get up. Kill and eat.” The line goes dead.
The phone slides out of his hand, onto the grass below. Ethan staggers closer. The pull is stronger than ever.
hungry
What do I do?
No. He knows. Which is worse. His body knows, it’s always known. He’s not been thinking about what to do—he’s been trying to hold it back.
Ethan feels his body vibrate, the tendrils of mutamycete writhing under the thin layer of pseudo-skin. It will happen. It wants to happen.
Mia.
I’m sorry.
He lets it.
The thing that was Ethan Winters drops to a crouch as its arms elongate and its back arches, its body finally giving up on the charade of humanity. Its forearms split, muscle fibres parting along their planes as dark fungal material forms into calcified blades, curved like the talons of some tremendous corvid. The same black runs down his back, the winter jacket—or a convincing imitation of it—withering away as the mycelia making up its disguise are reassigned to more useful functions.
Its mouth opens, first in a growl, then in a terrible shriek of all-consuming want. Then opens wider, and wider—and its jaw separates at the hinge and splits at the seam of its chin, talon-like fangs pointed forwards.
Its eyes, bare white, stare ahead in frank hunger as it prowls forward.
What’s left of its brain—what’s not consumed by the need—wonders if that last look in the mindless Vârcolac’s eyes is fear.
And then it pounces, and the night is full of the creature’s screams.
[REDACTED] field log, 001
Prototype mutation HEPH01-A, label [MYCO-BLADE]
The formation of fungal material into rudimentary cutting edges is an established, albeit imperfect, mutation among the bio-organic constructs known as mutamycete. The fungomorphic organisms (labelled [LYCANS]) shape the calcified edges of dead fungal hyphae into sharp blade-like projections on their paws, analogous to keratinised claws or fingernails, which they then use for evisceration and climbing.
The mutation HEPH01-A, however, has taken this adaptation to its logical extreme. By manipulation of ribosomal DNA and cyclic-AMP pathways, the resultant production of calcified fungal matter is reinforced with a microstructure of steel and titanium, with the end result being a streamlined spine of calcified crystal with immense resistance to tension and compression, and a monofilament edge comparable to modern nanotech knives. The resultant—blade—is approximately three to five feet in length with a fixed hinge at the styloid process of the ulna bone, and may be deployed from one or both arms.
I have catalogued four separate instances of subject Ethan Winters using such a blade to cleave a [LYCAN] completely in half. Of particular note is the fact that the resultant fungal superstructure is fluid and mobile—the blade can be dissolved nearly immediately and then reconstituted instantaneously with no loss of efficacy.
Further testing and optimisation highly recommended.
-AJM