Vincard's breath caught as the abomination's triple gaze snapped toward his shadow. The three fused skulls tilted in eerie unison, red eyes flaring like furnace coals fed fresh blood. A low, grinding chitter rolled from its maws, and it surged forward, limbs scuttling with mechanical grace, each hooked foot punching sparks from the concrete.
Vincard reacted immediately, and ran.
Not toward the fight, he slipped sideways into the maze of rust, coat flapping like a crow. The creature followed, its bulk smashing through a stack of barrels with casual violence, venom dripping from the arched stinger and hissing where it struck metal.
He dove first into the gutted shell of a pressing machine, twisted plates and dangling chains forming a jagged cage. Pressing his back to cold iron, he slowed his breathing until it matched the district's dying heartbeat. The scar on his palm burned hotter.
„I should have brought one of the other potions with me," he thought bitterly. „There's no way I can win this fight."
Outside, the thing circled, claws scraping slow circles. Silk-like threads drifted from its spinnerets, brushing the air like blind fingers. One strand grazed the machine's edge. Vincard held perfectly still.
Then a new sound: shuffling feet, a wet moan. A lone bloodslave staggered from a side alley, drawn by the noise. Its red eyes locked on Vincard's hiding place. He moved like liquid, Mater Doloros flashed once, silent, burying itself under the jaw. The creature folded without a cry. He dragged the body deeper into the shadows just as the spider-thing's heads swiveled toward the fresh kill-scent.
It found the corpse in seconds. Claws tore it apart in wet shreds, searching. Vincard used the distraction to slip out the back, his heart hammering against the ribs.
He climbed next, scaling a rusted crane ladder slick with condensation and old oil. The structure groaned under his weight like an old man complaining. Halfway up, he wedged himself between the operator's cabin and a broken girder, coat blending with the shadows. Below, the abomination scuttled past, its eight legs clicking in perfect rhythm.
Then the stinger whipped upward, venom arcing in a glistening thread that splattered the crane's side inches from his boot. The thing had smelled him. Or felt him. Or simply knew.
He dropped, rolling across a catwalk and into a narrow service tunnel beneath a conveyor belt. Pipes hissed overhead, leaking greenish vapor that burned the eyes. He crawled on elbows and knees, vials clinking softly despite his care. Behind him, the creature tore the tunnel entrance wider, metal screaming as it widened the gap.
A cluster of three bloodslaves blocked the far end, former workers still clutching broken tools. Vincard didn't hesitate. He rose, dagger flashing in the sickly light. One fell with a throat cut; the second with a heart stab; the third he simply shouldered past, letting momentum carry it into the spider-thing's path. The abomination paused only long enough to impale the thrashing slave on its stinger, venom pumping. The delay was barely enough.
Vincard burst out into an open loading yard, wide, exposed, no cover but scattered crates and the skeletal remains of a loading gantry. The scar throbbed in time with his pulse, the silent watch in his vest ticking once, erratically, as if time itself stuttered. He sprinted for the far side.
The creature exploded from the tunnel behind him, faster than before, limbs blurring. Its triple heads rose high, red eyes locking onto his retreating form. Threads of silk shot forward, one snagging his coat hem and yanking him off stride. He slashed it free with Mater Doloros, silver blade severing the strand with a wet snap.
Vincard had to react quickly. He scanned his surroundings and spotted an alley about ten meters away.
The abomination vaulted a stack of crates in a single fluid leap, landing between him and escape. Its bulk filled the yard like a living barricade of chitin and rust. The stinger curved upward, dripping. The three skulls opened in unison, revealing rows of needle teeth and pale, writhing tongues.
Vincards chest heaving, dagger and revolver drawn but useless against something this size. No shadows left to claim him. The fog itself seemed to thicken, closing in like a noose.
The creature took one deliberate step forward.
Then another.
Its red eyes burned brighter, reflecting his own pale face back at him, distorted, small, already marked.
Vincard stood motionless, Aetheris in one hand, Mater Doloros in the other. The distance between him and the monster was barely ten meters. The three skulls tilted forward in unison, red eyes like glowing coals, the sting arched high like a scorpion, ready to strike.
But then something strange happened.
The creature froze. Not out of caution, nor out of calculation. It trembled. Its long, jointed legs buckled slightly, as if they suddenly no longer wanted to bear any weight. The chitin plates on its torso vibrated, producing a soft, metallic clang, like an engine being stopped against its will. The three mouths opened simultaneously, but no hissing, no growling came out. Instead, a high-pitched, almost childlike whimper echoed in the rusty bowels of the district. The red eyes flickered as if they had seen something Vincard didn't see.
„What the...?" He thought, his finger frozen on the trigger.
The creature took a step back. Then another. Its movements were no longer smooth, but jerky, almost hysterical. The spike lowered, the silk threads hanging limply like severed marionette strings. It turned halfway to the side, as if listening to something only it could hear, a sound beyond the audible world.
Vincard took advantage of the moment and pulled the trigger of Aetheris.
*Bang* *Bang*
Aetheris fired two silver bolts that struck the center of the torso. Black fluid spurted out, hissing like acid on steel. The creature screamed, a three-part, disharmonious cry that made the air vibrate.
It staggered, one of its legs buckling, its stinger lashing aimlessly through the air and striking only empty fog.
But it didn't fight back; instead, it fled.
The eight legs drummed frantically across the ground, tearing up pieces of concrete as it threw itself backwards into the darkness. The three skulls kept turning around, as if expecting an attack from behind, but not from Vincard himself. Within seconds, it was just a shadow beneath the silhouettes of the cranes, then swallowed up by the fog.
Vincard stood there, weapons still at the ready, breathing shallowly and controlled. His pulse was pounding in his temples, but his mind was cold. „This doesn't make sense..."
He slowly lowered Aetheris, his fingers trembling almost imperceptibly. Not from fear, but from confusion. The scar on his hand continued to throb, but no longer aggressively, more... alertly.
„Something had scared it away... Something that even this thing feared." He holstered Aetheris, wiped Mater Doloros on his coat, and slid it back into its sheath. The metallic smell of mercury and burnt blood hung heavy in the air. „I need to hurry."
Slowly, he turned around, his gaze fixed on the area where the unknown hunter, possibly Bartho, had been torn to pieces.
He quickened his pace toward the body, but then he heard it.
In the distance, from the direction in which the creature had disappeared, came a roar. Not an angry one, nor a hungry one. A pain-filled, tortured howl that split into three dissonant voices and then abruptly broke off, as if someone had slit its throat. The silence that followed was worse than the scream. It felt like a vacuum sucking the air out of the world.
Vincard's hand instinctively reached for his bandolier. He pulled out the vial containing a black mist. The glass was cold, almost icy. Inside, the substance swirled like a liquid shadow, pressing against the light as if trying to escape. He held it up for a moment, observing the swirling darkness.
„I prefer to play it safe..." He uncorked it with his thumb. The smell hit him, decay, old and sweet, like flowers that had rotted in a closed coffin. His stomach clenched, bile rose, but he suppressed it.
He put the vial to his lips and drank. The taste was worse than the smell: bitter ash, copper, and something alive that twisted in his throat. He almost gagged, forcing the liquid down.
Immediately, a coldness spread through him, not the cold of winter, but that of a grave. His veins burned as if liquid shadow were flowing through them. The world around him began to blur.
His skin became translucent, then transparent, then almost invisible. The mist from the vial crept out of his pores, enveloping him like a living cloak of darkness. He raised his hand; it was now just a shadow, its contours blurred like ink in water. Even the vials on his bandolier seemed to fade, as if they had become part of the same shadow.
He wasn't completely invisible. But for whatever it was out there that had just killed the creature. . . it might have been enough.