He raised his hands, slowly, with open palms, without any sudden movements. The hood slipped halfway down his head, revealing his pale, sweat-drenched face and the white hair that hung in strands across his forehead.
"Hey!" His voice was hoarse, little more than a croak. "It's me! Vincard, from the government! Open the gate!"
Nothing.
Just the soft hiss of the gas flames and the distant dripping from a leaky pipe. The towers remained dark. No shadow stirred behind the embrasures. No calls, no metallic clanking of chains.
Vincard ran his fingers through his hair. Something wasn't right. The guards were supposed to recognize him. He had fulfilled their mission. He had found Bartho... or rather, he had found what was left of him.
He raised his voice, louder this time. "Can you hear me? I have to get in! It's important! The whole zone is in danger!"
Silence again.
Then, finally, a faint light appeared in one of the towers. Two figures emerged from behind the railing, silhouettes clad in leather coats and gas masks. One raised a binoculars. The other placed his hand on the end of his rifle.
Vincard breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. Can you see me? It's me, Vincard Kilied. Let me in."
But there was no call back, nor a nod. Instead, a soft, metallic click, rifles being unlocked.
"What's going on?," he shouted. "I worked for you! I found your damn hunter! Open the gate!"
One of the guards, the one with the binoculars, leaned forward. The mask distorted his voice into a tinny growl. "Stay where you are. One more step, and we'll shoot."
Vincard laughed briefly, dryly, in disbelief. "You're shooting? At me? I'm the one you sent in!"
"That's exactly why," said the second guard, his voice flat and cold. "The order is: no one comes in. Not even you."
The words hit him like a punch in the gut. "Are you kidding me? I completed the mission! I—"
"The mission was never to make it out alive," the First One interrupted him. "You were supposed to go in. And stay. That's it."
Vincard gazed up toward the towers. The rifles were now aimed directly at him. "This is madness," he said quietly, almost to himself. "You can't just—"
*Bang*
A shot rang out.
The bullet struck him in the left shoulder, a hard, searing blow that sent him stumbling backward. He fell to the ground, knees first, then his hands into the mud. Warm blood seeped through the fabric of his coat, staining it dark.
"You damned bastards!" He roared, his voice hoarse with pain and rage. "I'm from the government! If you let me die here, you'll be in trouble beyond your wildest imagination! You're doomed without us!"
The guard with the rifle leaned over the railing. "The government?" he called back, almost amused. "The government can't do anything to us..."
Vincard pressed his hand against the wound; blood seeped through his fingers. He tried to get up, but his left leg buckled. The pain was searing, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
The second guard raised his rifle again. The barrel was pointed directly at Vincard's head. "Stay down," he said calmly. "Or the next shot will be more accurate."
Vincard gazed up at the masks, at the cold eyes behind them. No pity, nor hesitation. Just a cold command.
He rolled to the side, using the overturned cart as cover.
*Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang*
Bullets sent sparks flying from the metal and tore splinters from the wood. He kept crawling, each breath a surge of fire in his chest, blood leaving a dark trail in the mud.
He reached the next alley and threw himself behind a wall. He was breathing in short, ragged gasps. His shoulder throbbed, and his arm was going slightly numb. But he was alive.
He looked at the wound; unlike before, it wasn't closing on its own. "Mercury bullets," he remarked quietly.
Then he suddenly heard a moan behind him. It wasn't human, not anymore. It was the wet, gurgling sound of a throat half-dissolved by plague-rot, a noise that slithered between a whimper and a growl. Vincard spun, too fast, his vision swimming, and he saw it slumped against the far wall of the alley, a thing that might once have been a woman. Her skin was split in places, peeling back like old parchment to reveal muscle glistening with unnatural oils. Her fingers twitched, nails black and curled into claws.
Vincard barely had time to register the blur of movement before the teeth, sharp, needle-thin, and slick with blackened saliva sank into the meat of his right arm. Pain lanced up to his shoulder, white-hot and immediate, but worse was the wet pop of flesh parting. He recoiled instinctively, slamming his elbow into the creature's temple. The Bones cracked, but she didn't let go.
Vincard drew Mater Doloros with his left hand and stabbed her in the throat. The blade punched through rotted flesh with a wet crunch, grating against cervical vertebrae before jerking free. Black fluid gushed over his wrist, steaming where it met his skin. The creature spasmed, her jaw unclamping from his arm with a sickening tear of connective tissue.
Vincard seized the opportunity; his fingers, slick with blood and plague rot, dug into the creature's face. He grabbed its head and whipped it to the side. He felt the spine crunch like wet chalk as it slammed against the alley wall.
Once.
Twice.
On the third impact, something gave way with a hollow crack, and the creature went limp, its milky eyes rolling back. Black ichor oozed from its nostrils and pooled in the hollow of its slack jaw.
Vincard's breath came in ragged, wet heaves as he stared at the ruined skull in his grip. The creature's ichor seeped between his fingers, viscous and warm, but then something shifted.
A tremor ran through his scar, the old wound suddenly alive. The black fluid wasn't dripping away. It was being pulled, thin filaments of corruption drawn into the jagged line of his scar like ink into blotting paper. The creature's flesh withered where he touched it, muscles shriveling to leathery husks, its stolen vitality thrumming under his skin in a sickening tide.
Vincard stared at the withered husk in his grip, then at his own arm where the creature's teeth had torn into him moments before. The ragged puncture wounds were already closing, not the slow, deliberate knitting of natural healing, but something else. Something hungry. Thin black lines pulsed beneath his skin, pulling the edges of each wound together like stitches made of shadow. Even the gunshot wound in his shoulder, which had stubbornly refused to heal under normal circumstances, now seeped a sluggish trickle of blackened blood before the flesh began to mend.
Vincard dropped the husk of the creature, watching it crumble into dust that stank of rust and spoiled milk. His hands shook, not from fear, but something worse. A quiet, gnawing hunger curled in his gut, satiated yet eager for more. He wiped his fingers against his coat, but the black ichor had already vanished, absorbed into his skin like ink into parchment.
"What has that madman done to me?" He muttered to himself. He flexed his right hand, watching thin black threads pulse beneath his skin before fading again. The stranger's "gift" was rewriting him from the inside out.
....