Gael took a slow step back, his boots scraping the warped floorboards, never taking his eyes off the hounds slinking out of their cages. Their three snarling heads twitched, the stitched seams pulsing like veins. Maeve's breath was tight behind her mask, but he could feel her just as tense beside him as they both backed out of the doorway.

"Easy now," he muttered, slipping a hand into his coat, fingers brushing past the usual vials and junk until they found something more appropriate.

A stick.

Not just any stick.

A stick of dog treats.

"Here you go, lads," he cooed, pulling it out and waving it lazily in front of them like he was at a bloody kennel. "You want the stick? Or maybe you want the stick? Who wants the stick, eh?"

The closest hound snarled at him, low and guttural. The others followed suit, padding forward, eyes glowing green, breath steaming hot. One of them in particular—the largest one in the room, easily his whole size—started growling like it was chewing on glass.

"... Yeah, I thought so."

Without another word, he lobbed the treat into the back of the room. It hit the far wall with a soft thud, but he didn't wait to see if they were distracted by it.

He pulled the door shut gently and leaned against it with Maeve, sharing an irritated look with the Exorcist.

"Hook, line, and sinker," he grumbled.

"This is a trap," she agreed with a nod.

Both of them dove left as the largest three-headed hound burst through the door behind them, wood and rusted iron flying. The hallway immediately lit up with snarls and pounding paws as the rest followed, claws tearing up the floorboards like it was paper.

Maeve recovered first by whirling on the hounds,, umbrella snapping open, her hands white-knuckled on the handle. She didn't even hesitate.

"I'll blast them! Ready your Art! I'll need you to replenish my blood supply—"

"Hold it," he said calmly, grabbing her shoulder and yanking it back as he pulled a vial from his pocket.

Then he hurled it at the ground.

The vial shattered, and the liquid inside—greysmoke tincture, a handy chemical to always have on hand—became exposed to the dusty air, exploding into a thick, heavy mist that made the hallway vanish in smoke.

Maeve sucked in a breath through her mask before hissing in his ear, "They can still smell us, Doctor, and I can't see a thing."

Gael grinned, pulling her closer by the shoulder as he flicked off both lanterns hanging off their hips. "Not if we're close like this. I got the 'Miasma Mantle' mutation, remember?" he whispered, watching through his night vision as the hounds in front of him stopped, confused. "Does this mutation actually work, or was it just a waste of points?"

The Exorcist visibly tensed as she listened to the hounds growl, pace around, and swing their heads from side to side, but as expected, they were sniffing uselessly. He reckoned the greysmoke tincture was even dulling their senses a bit, given how some of them were just bashing and crashing into the walls and windows like they were expecting a door there. He'd be sure to document this new bit of information once he was home.

"Just like that," he murmured. "We back off. Quiet now."

Step by step, breaths shallow, they edged back down the way they came. The hounds didn't follow. Between the smoke, his cloaking mutation, and the fact that moonlight just wasn't very bright out, they weren't getting noticed.

That was, until a creak came from behind them.

Both of them whirled at the same time, and Gael's vision darkened, tinted red, as his passive mutation kicked in.

His eyes locked on a vaguely humanoid figure through the smoke.

The girl.

Thin, frail, and standing at the end of the hallway in oversized tattered clothes, she could easily be mistaken for a ghost. It didn't help that her oily hair was long as a serpent and falling before her face. Gael raised both of his hands slowly while Maeve instinctively jerked her umbrella up like a blade, poised to strike—two different reactions to a ghost, he supposed.

But he couldn't speak. Not through the smoke. He didn't want to alert the hounds behind him who were still entirely oblivious, and judging by how the girl was staring straight at them, she was a true born Bharnish who could see through thick smog even without goggles. She could see them, and that meant he could communicate with her.

Fumbling for a piece of scrap paper inside his coat, he immediately started scribbling on it with a stick of chalk before holding it over his face.

'No fight.'

'You sick with parasite.'

'I can help.'

The girl twitched a finger. Slowly, steadily, she scratched her scalp like it itched too deep to reach, overgrown nails raking through greasy hair, and her back—Gael heard it before he saw it—cracked. All too loud. All too wrong.

"Yer lookin' down on me, aren't ya?" she growled. "Fuckin' high-nosed Vharnish dogs… havin' a good laugh at lil' gutter rat about not bein' able to read?"

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Gael blinked.

Well, I suppose I did say we had a twenty percent literacy rate.

Blood started pooling at her feet as three hound-shaped Myrmurs fell out of her spine with strings of bloody sinew attached to their backs. Her body couldn't handle it. Three Myrmurs, that was. He'd never know the pain of childbirth, but if he had to imagine, pushing three children out of his own back certainly sounded quite painful.

It didn't surprise him at all as she staggered a little off to the side, muttering under her breath.

"... A Caser. A Ravennnn," she drawled, her body shaking with the effort of holding herself upright as she leaned against the wall, her blood leaving a dark trail behind her. "A Caser… and a Raven... neither of ye are gonna let me live after ye've already seen my face, ay? No, ye won't. Now that ah've escaped ye once, ah've gotta go, don't 'ah?"

Gael opened his mouth, but before a word could escape, the girl threw her head back and screamed, shrill and piercing.

The Myrmur hounds behind her snapped to attention.

"'Ah just gotta kill ye first, then!" she screamed, pointing at the two of them, finger shaking. "Get them just as we planned, deariers! Rip 'em to shreds!"

The three Myrmur hounds lunged straight for them—fast, snarling, claws scraping—but neither Gael nor Maeve flinched.

They moved together just like they'd practiced.

Gael stepped left, swinging both cane and blade in one smooth arc. The first hound didn't stand a chance. It took the hit hard, yelping as it smashed sideways into a grimy window frame on the left. Glass cracked. Gael dropped low, ducking.

"Your turn!" he barked.

Maeve was already moving. Her umbrella swept over his head, heavy and sure, slamming into the other two hounds rushing them. The beasts crashed into the right wall with a thud, plaster falling in chunks.

While she shifted her grip, steadying herself, Gael popped back up behind her for a one-two stab into the ribs of the hound by the window, flinging it back as hard as he could. It howled in pain.

"Switch!" Maeve snapped.

She spun low again, letting Gael back off. Her umbrella came up, aimed at the other two hounds still staggering from her last blow. A twist of her wrist, a flick of the trigger and two blasts of blood shot out fast and sharp, slamming into their snarling faces. Burnt fur, burnt flesh. They shrieked and stumbled while Gael willed his blood to flow into the Exorcist through their chain, replenishing her blood supply immediately. Using his Art was as simple as a thought—all he had to do was reach deep inside him, 'grab' onto the warm sensation of bioarcanic essence inside his body, and concentrate it in his blood to make it flow through the chain.

It really is just a supercharged biological ability, huh.

It's just 'natural instinct' when it comes to using my Art.

All three Myrmurs backed off at the same time, their limbs twitching, their green eyes glowing brighter. Looking at them like this, they were almost indistinguishable from the biological modified hounds behind Gael—well, except for the three heads—but if he looked closer, he could see traces of their true Nightspawn nature: they had flakey chitin plates instead of skin on some parts of their bodies, their eyes were bulbous like that of a cicada, and their paws weren't quite paws, but rather some sort of spiky bug-like leg that gave them much more gripping power.

After all, they were merely pretending to be hounds.

"Plugs," he said, tossing Maeve a small pouch without looking. She caught it, ripped it open, and shoved the little wooden blocks into her ears. He did the same, and right on cue, the Myrmurs screeched in unison.

The windows on their left shattered. The hallway rattled. Even the glass on their hip lanterns exploded, but Gael had come prepared for his lenses. Since the last time they fought, he'd dripped extra hardening liquid onto his lenses to preserve their integrity, so when all was said and done—when the three hounds stopped screeching after what felt like an eternity to tilt their heads at the two of them, completely puzzled as to why they weren't falling over in pain—-they were still standing on their feet.

He would grin and taunt them if not for the smoke being cleared away by their sound waves as well.

The four three-headed hounds behind them were unaffected by the sound, so Gael turned around and pressed his back against Maeve's while she continued facing off against the Myrmurs.

"You have any more of those curious vials to smash?" she asked, grimacing.

He chuckled back, nervous. "I wish, but I'm fresh out."

"We'll do this the only way we know how, then?"

"Yep."

The hounds were impatient on both sides. The four three-headed ones barreled towards Gael, while the three Myrmurs sprang for Maeve.

They split.

A three-headed hound lunged. Gael slipped under its bulk, coat whipping behind him. Another snapped wide, jaws catching air. He ducked, twisted, drove his elbow into its ribs, and felt the crunch through chitin and cloth. A third barreled in, all three heads snarling. He sidestepped, barely, cane smashing into its middle skull.

The world blurred, but his body didn't fail him. Getting his ass beat by Fergal every single day for the past two weeks had burned speed into his bones, and now it paid off. His breath was sharp, ragged, but steady. His legs were pumping. His arms were swinging. He was using his enhanced speed to its fullest potential.

A bite caught his arm. Chitin plates cracked on his sleeve, but it held. The chitin plates he'd sewed into his clothes were working out as well. He growled, yanked his arm free, rolled low, then kicked out. The hound stumbled.

Scratch, bite, cut, again and again. But his coat held. His plate-reinforced blade and cane didn't break. He hadn't killed a single hound, but he wasn't dead yet.

He caught a glimpse behind him as he ducked and whirled mid-dodge, checking up on Maeve. In hindsight, he didn't need to. The Exorcist was a better fighter than him. She danced light on her feet, umbrella spinning as she blocked, swung, and fired blood in smooth and practiced chains, flowing between melee and range, steady as a cloak.

Getting their asses beat by Fergal daily really was the best thing that could've happened to them. They weren't fighting together together, and their coordination wasn't perfect, but… this was 'them'.

Hunter and Host.

Mid-swing, he twisted, shoved a snarling hound aside, and barked over his shoulder.

"Exorcist! Get to the girl and subdue her! Once she's down and those damn Myrmurs can't crawl out for a bit, I'll cut her open!"

"Got it!" Maeve shouted, breathless, her umbrella slicing through the air. "You have the elixirs with you, right?"

"Of course! Never leave home withou—"

But he didn't finish his sentence.

There was a gust of wind. Like a storm tearing through a hole in the world. Gael clenched his gut. He spun around to see what the source of the killing intent was, but it was already too late.

The girl's fly-like wings burst wide, and they were massive, jagged things, buzzing with fury. Right as he turned around, she tore through the hallway, past her Myrmur hounds, past Maeve, and barrelled straight at him.

Her hand clamped down on his shoulder as she flew past him as well.

"Shit—"

She yanked him hard, jerking him out through the window at the far end of the hallway, and his world spun as wind started ripping at his coat.

They were going up.

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