XXX
The coachman is lying on the ground knocked out. The footman's blade had been confiscated during the fight and was held in the hand of one of the disguised thugs behind him. The footman sits beside the coachman looking worse for wear and dirty, both being guarded by a thug in a red vest hanging with brass buttons, a red feather to match tucked in his hat, his scarred face half faded and without distinct features.
I fought not to break down in my anxiety. Nothing in my regular life had prepared me for an old-fashioned carriage chase complete with kidnapping highway men. The riders shove me harder, forcing my knees to grind against the cobblestones and dirt. The hounds circle, breath cold on my skin, their long jaws dripping fog. The thugs in their ill‑fitting aristocratic coats tighten the ring around us, but even among their flickering, half‑rotted forms, one figure stands out.
He steps forward with the slow, confident gait of someone who has never once been prey. Tall. Straight‑backed. Blonde hair slicked neatly behind his ears, catching the fractured moonlight like polished gold. His cheekbones are sharp enough to cut, his eyes bright and full — too full — with spirit. Not a hint of the grey rot that clings to the others.
His hunting outfit is immaculate.
Black boots polished to a mirror shine confidently tapped with every stride. Every piece looked bespoke and solid as he stopped in front of me.
Coat tailored perfectly to his frame. Leather hunting gloves spotless.
At his side trots a hound, not a regular shade‑hound like the others, but something or a curated breed with long ancestral lines, leaner, with a long snout and a tongue lolling lazily as if this were all a game. Its eyes glow a deep, hungry amber.
The thugs part for him like water.
He stops in front of me, looking down with a smile that is all teeth and entitlement.
"I've caught you, little fox," he says, voice rolling with that unmistakable aristocratic accent buttery smooth, cultured, and dripping with amusement.
His gloved hand reaches out, brushing a strand of hair from my face with the casual intimacy of someone handling a pet.
Behind me, the alien stiffens, collar pulsing red.
The leader's eyes flick to it, then back to me.
"Two prizes in one night," he murmurs. "We are delighted…to have you."
My thumb presses harder against the remote in my pocket, pushing the dial to maximum, one arm in shadow behind me and hidden from direct view.
The buttons are right there. I formed a plan.
The alien's gaze burns into me, silent but urgent.
The aristocrat leans closer, voice warm against my ear.
"Do be good, little fox. I'd hate to ruin such a rare specimen." I couldn't tell whether he referred to me or to the alien.
The moment the thought forms in my mind, I push it outward. I communicated with the being near me, not with words, not with sound, but with that strange, thin thread that has existed between me and the alien ever since it tore me from my body.
A telepathic pulse.
A whisper without breath.
Listen. I need a distraction.
The alien's head turns a fraction, just enough for its green‑fire eyes to meet mine. The riders don't notice they think it's just shifting under the weight of its collar. But I feel the alien's attention sharpen, like a blade being drawn.
I push harder on the remote's trigger for the alien's collar. It loosens away from his long neck, electric shock probes no longer touching the skin, effectively turned off.
They'll take me. They'll take you. I need chaos. Something to break their formation. I'll handle the rest. Contact your people as soon as possible.
For a heartbeat, nothing.
Then—
A ripple of cold slides through my skull, like a hand brushing the inside of my mind.
"Your plan is reckless."
Its telepathic voice is quieter than before, almost a whisper beneath the riders' jeers and the hounds' growls.
"Reckless," it repeats, "but… viable."
The aristocratic leader steps closer, boots gleaming, hound panting at his side. His smile widens as he looks down at me, as if savoring the moment.
"I do enjoy a chase," he murmurs. "But catching you like this? Kneeling? It's almost too easy."
His gloved hand reaches toward my face again.
The alien's voice cuts through my mind like a spark.
"On your signal."
My thumb presses against the remote in my pocket, the raised button I'd been feeling for minutes now. The one that controls the collar. The one that could send a shock through the alien's body set to maximum.
A distraction. A violent one.
The aristocrat's fingers brush my cheek. His eyes glint with greed.
The hounds lean in, teeth glinting.
The riders mill around, having fulfilled their contract by capturing us.
And in the space of a single breath, I send one last thought across the telepathic thread between us:
Now. The alien moves before anyone realizes what's happening.
One moment it's kneeling beside me, collar pulsing red.
The next, its form flickers, stretches, and a long, shadow‑slick limb lashes outward with impossible speed.
The aristocrat barely has time to blink.
The tentacled limb snaps around his throat with a wet, electric crackle snapping, not choking him, but fastening something around his neck.
The collar.
The alien has stolen its own collar and slapped it onto him.
The shock probes bite into the aristocrat's pale skin, embedding just enough to make contact. His eyes widen in pure, aristocratic outrage.
"You— how dare—"
He never finishes.
Because my thumb is already pressing the button for the electric shock.
The one I set to maximum. The one meant to subdue a shade‑breaker with enough voltage to shred a spirit.
I press down with a firm click.
The remote vibrates in my palm.
The collar surges with a burst of red‑white lightning.
The aristocrat's scream is not human.
It's a tearing, ripping sound — like silk being shredded underwater, like a soul being pulled in two directions at once. His body convulses, back arching, boots scraping against the cobblestones as the shock tears through him.
His hound yelps and leaps back, tail between its legs.
The hired riders recoil, flickering violently, their half‑rotted forms glitching in and out of solidity as the aristocrat's spirit flares like a dying star.
His pristine coat smolders. His polished boots scuff.
His perfect hair frays.
And his eyes widened in surprise. Those bright, full, unfaded eyes go wide with something he has probably never felt in his entire privileged existence. Fear.
He collapses to one knee, then both, hands claw at the collar as the shock continues to pour through him. He rolls back and forth, mundane dirt covering his pristine outfit.
The alien's voice slides into my mind, cold and triumphant.
"Effective."
The riders panic. They didn't know what to do. If they touched him, they would get shocked too.
The hounds scattered. The aristocrat's scream fractures into static echoing into the night, and into the rolling fog.
The fog doesn't just thicken. It awakens.
The aristocrat's scream tears through the night like a blade, and the fog reacts instantly. It was not drifting, not swirling, but contracting, as if inhaling. Every hound in the hunting party freezes mid‑snarl. Their ears flatten. Their tails tuck. Their bodies tremble. Then they break.
Some bolt into the alleys, claws skittering on stone. Others collapse into whimpering heaps, finding something solid to hide behind. A few simply vanish into the fog entirely, dissolving like frightened smoke. The riders aren't much better.
Their half‑rotted forms flicker violently, their borrowed aristocratic coats glitching around them. One drops his reins. Another's horse rears and bolts. A third tries to shout an order, but his voice cracks into static. Because they all feel it.
Something huge has stirred. Something that hunts by sound and sight.
Something that knows the scream of a wounded shade means food.
Something that has been waiting in the fog for a long, long time.
The fog around us ripples, not like mist, but like muscle shifting under skin.
A low, resonant vibration rolls through the street, deep enough to rattle my bones. The riders go silent. Even the alien stiffens, its skin flickering weakly.
The aristocrat, still spasming from the shock, tries to lift his head.
"No… no, not now—"
His voice breaks, because he hears it too.
A second vibration. Closer. Hungrier.
The fog parts just enough to show a silhouette — massive, hunched, wrong. A shape that moves like a wolf but stands like a man. Green eyes glow through the mist, brighter than the hounds', brighter than the alien's in the mirror sky's borrowed moonlight.
A fog‑beast made its way toward them. Not one of the small ones.
Not a pitiful feral scavenger. A primal hunter.
The riders panic.
"Retreat!" one shrieks, voice cracking.
"Fall back!" another yells, already fleeing.
"Leave the specimens— RUN!"
The aristocrat tries to scramble to his feet, but his legs buckle. The collar sparks again, as I press the button and he collapses with a strangled cry. He wasn't going anywhere until I got some answers.
The fog‑beast hears him.
Its head snaps toward the sound.
And the fog itself seems to lean forward, eager, as the creature steps fully into view — towering, skeletal, claws like iron, breath steaming with stolen soul‑light.
The alien's voice slips into my mind, cold and razor‑sharp.
"Your distraction has arrived."
And the beast begins to charge at the mob of riders, horses, and hounds.
"Into the carriage!" I yelled. The aristocrat had long passed out from shock and fright. I tossed him into the reinforced carriage with a little help from the driver. The alien being scrambled in behind.
The footman is the last to act. He doesn't waste a second. He leaps to the horses, unbuckling the braces and reins with practiced speed. One slap to each flank and the shade‑horses explode into motion, galloping into the night with a sound like thunder swallowed by fog. They vanish almost instantly, their eyes like glowing veins streaking into the darkness. Their instinct would carry them safely away. He could whistle and call them back at any time. The four of us sat packed as the windows were closed and the doors latched shut. The reinforced walls and door leaving us in tightly locked in darkness.
Four bodies packed into a space meant for cargo, not people. The alien's shifting silhouette takes up half the interior. The unconscious aristocrat slumps against the wall, collar still glowing faintly. The driver and footman brace themselves on either side of the door. We all listened to the screams of the formerly arrogant, hired thugs, easy prey for a prime fog beast.
We waited in the dark for what seemed like forever. The silence doesn't fall all at once.
The sound dies piece by piece, like candles snuffed in a long hallway.
First comes the hounds. Their panicked yelps echo through the fog, then cut off abruptly replaced by the breast's wet, muffled crunches. My stomach sours at sound of something large feeding. The sound of teeth closing around spirit‑light and tearing it free. Then the riders.
Their shouts turn to screams as their hiding places are routed out.
Their screams turn to static. Their static turns to nothing.
Each one is caught, dragged, or simply vanished into the fog as the prime fog‑beast hunts them down with methodical, predatory precision. Their ill‑fitting aristocratic coats flutter like torn flags before the fog swallows them whole.
The horses scattered. Their hooves thud into the distance, fading fast. Shade‑horses are smart enough to know when a predator outranks them. They melt away into the darkness, running into far alleys, behind broken walls, into the skeletal remains of buildings — anywhere the fog‑beast's attention isn't.
Inside the carriage, the darkness is absolute.
No cracks. No moonlight.
Just the reinforced metal walls and the tight, breathless space where the four of us are pressed together. Me, the alien, the driver, the footman, and the unconscious aristocrat slumped like a discarded doll.
The alien's form shifts beside me, silent but alert.
The driver holds his breath.
The footman grips his hands so tightly his knuckles creak.
Outside, the fog‑beast prowls.
We hear it move — slow, deliberate, massive.
A scrape of claws against stone.
A low rumble that vibrates through the carriage floor.
A sniff, long and searching, as it tests the air for survivors.
Then— THUD.
A heavy impact against the side of the carriage makes the walls shudder. Dust falls from the ceiling. The aristocrat's limp body rolls against my leg.
Another sniff. It draws closer, hungrier.
The beast knows the thugs are gone.
It knows the hounds and horses are gone.
And now it's checking the last sealed container in the street.
The alien's voice slips into my mind, a whisper sharp as a scalpel.
"Do not move. Do not breathe loudly. It is deciding whether to test the metal."
The footman's breath hitches.
The driver squeezes his eyes shut.
I press my back against the cold wall, heart hammering so hard I'm sure the beast can hear it.
Outside, the fog shifts.
The beast exhales — a long, hot breath that fogs the cracks around the door. Claws scratch with long screeches. Its sniffs inhale around the door's surrounding seal.
Then… Silence.
Just the terrible, waiting silence of a predator deciding whether the meal inside the metal box is worth the effort. And all we can do is wait in the dark, hoping the reinforced walls hold.
I whisper to the alien shape nearby. "You are free of your collar. No more electrical interference. Can you contact your crew now? We won't last forever in here."
It holds one appendage in the air, reality around it ripples in smooth waves. The pressure in the cabin increases like diving into deep water. Pulses ripple in reality, somehow communicating to his people.