Emmett sat perched on a massive, rusted pipe deep in the Berlin underworks. His legs dangling over shallow stagnant water. The pipe vibrated every so often, groaning like some buried beast struggling to breathe. Heat built within its walls, swelling with an angry hiss, then released with a violent rumble.

  The air here was rancid. The stink of rot and stagnant filth clinging to everything. Emmett did not notice, or he no longer cared.

  He lifted the bottle in his hand and stared at it blearily. Some nameless liquor, harsh enough to strip paint, sloshed weakly at the bottom. His fingers trembled as he forced the last swallow down his throat. It burned like poison and offered no warmth.

  The city above shuddered with distant artillery causing the whole foundation to tremble. Ripples shivered across the black pool before him as thin shafts of pale light trickled down through cracks and grates in the cistern roof. Catching particles of dust that hovered over the water like lazy gnats.

  He stared at the bottle a moment longer, then hurled it in a careless arc. It struck the water with a hollow splash and bobbed once before sinking beneath the surface with a gurgle. The sound echoing along the brick tunnels, swallowed by the dark.

  Henri sat beside him on the pipe, calm as a man on a picnic bench rather than the bowels of a dying capital. Smoke drifted from his cigarette in thick, languid curls, wreathing his face in a haze. He watched the water without blinking, his cigarette clamped loosely between his fingers. He looked almost content. That, more than anything, set Emmett’s nerves twitching.

  "Where are we, Emmett? Do you know?" Henri asked again, voice level and almost conversational, as if they were discussing the weather.

  Emmett ignored him and slid off the pipe. His boots splashing into a shallow puddle, filthy water licking at his trousers. His vision swam, and he swayed like a man on a sinking boat. His pulse thundered in his ears, loud enough to drown out thought. The liquor was part of it. The pervitin roaring through his bloodstream was the rest. His body hummed with a sick artificial vigor, his mind bucking against his skull like an animal in a trap.

  "I think I'm going to vomit, Henri," Emmett muttered, gripping a pipe for balance. His voice sounding like it belonged to someone else.

  He leaned forward and retched violently. What little remained in his stomach splattered onto the bricks below. The smell curled up into his nose and turned his insides again.

  "Too much, Emmett. Too much," Henri said quietly. No anger. No sympathy. Just a simple observation.

  Another wave hit, and Emmett lurched forward again. Bile and mucus spilled from his mouth, dripping down his chin. His muscles trembled, his knees threatening to give as the world spun. His thoughts scattered like kicked embers and something clawed its way out of his memory, sharp and uninvited.

  He shut his eye and pressed his palms to his temples trying to stave away the past. But it did not matter. The memory burst through anyway like water through floodgates.

  "Mon dieu..." Adele had said, recoiling as he nearly vomited on her. A tired smile crept across his lips, and he remembered being in Beaulieu-sur-Argonne. Where he had met the young woman. He recalled her disgusted scowl as she stood before him.

  In his mind’s eye he saw her again, basket in hand, eyes flashing with both fury and annoyance. A soft smile spread across his face as he remembered feeling like a stupid boy caught doing something shameful. Then the cold shock of well water as she had dumped a bucket over his head. The way it stole his breath and left him sputtering.

  Emmett let out a breathless, humorless laugh. It echoed off the cistern walls, sounding cracked and wrong. He tightened his grip on the pipe, knuckles white.

  "Henri," he said, voice hoarse, though he was not sure why he spoke the name or what answer he wanted.

  The Frenchman continued studying the water, as though it held answers only for him. Smoke trickled from his nostrils with a slow exhale, drifting around him like a funeral veil. He did not look at Emmett when he spoke in a low tone.

  "Why did you almost kill her, mon ami?"

  The question slid into Emmett’s thoughts like a knife under a rib. The memory of Adele dissolved, leaving only the sting behind his eyes and a lump swelling in his throat that felt foreign, unwelcome, and dangerous. He swallowed hard, jaw flexing, and lifted his head. The cistern was empty again. Henri was gone and in its place, only darkness and the distant drip of foul water.

  Emmett straightened, feeling a wave of anxiety. His chest tightened and he realized in that moment how alone he felt without the specter. He looked across the pool and as though conjured out of the filth, Adele appeared. Her dark braided hair fell over her shoulder the same way it always had. She had that same effortless elegance he had always known her for. She smiled gently and it made Emmett feel like the walls were closing in.

  He found himself staring at this new apparition. She hummed something softly as she seemed to walk in place. He found himself longing to rush over but instead, he shook himself free and turned away. Boots scraping on slick stone. He pressed both palms to his temples and sucked in a long breath through his teeth.

  "Why did you almost kill her?" Henri asked again, voice drifting from somewhere behind him.

  "Stop," Emmett snarled. His voice cracked like a whip. "If I’m imagining you, then you should already fucking know."

  Henri reappeared beside him, strolling as though on a Sunday walk. Hands shoved deep into his pockets, cigarette hanging lazily from his lips.

  "I do not know why, mon ami," Henri said calmly. No judgment. No malice. Just infuriating sincerity.

  "Then I don’t know either," Emmett growled. He pushed forward, deeper into the tunnels. His steps were uneven, as though the ground shifted under him. He could have checked the map stuffed into his coat pocket. He knew that. Yet he did not. The thought of stopping made his skin crawl.

  "Why did you almost kill her, Emmett? Did you not care for her?" Henri asked. Still beside him. Still impossible.

  The words struck something raw. Emmett clenched his teeth and ignored him. His stomach twisted again, but he welcomed the nausea. It was real. Pain was real. Reality was slipping, but pain still held.

  "Why did you kill her?" Henri suddenly asked.

  Emmett stopped dead. His breath froze in his chest. He turned slowly and stared back down the tunnel he had just come from, half expecting Adele to be standing there again.

  "I didn’t kill her," he whispered. The words felt fragile, like if he said them any louder it would be a lie. He knew what his blade had intended. He remembered the rage, the betrayal, and then the swell of her belly. His child. Their child.

  He had not killed her. Even as his mind slipped, he was as confident of that fact as if were etched in his bones. He had almost though, the memory cut deeper than any wound he had ever received.

  "I didn’t kill her. I didn’t," he repeated, the words spilling out faster, desperate now. Almost as if he were trying to convince himself. He spat, flecks of saliva hitting the stones.

  Henri appeared at his elbow again, not a sound announcing his arrival.

  "Why did you kill her?" Henri asked patiently.

  "Shut the fuck up!" Emmett roared. His voice echoed down the narrow tunnel. He swung at Henri, but his hand passed through the specter without resistance. Henri did not even blink. Of course he didn’t. He wasn’t real. He was a ghost wearing memory for skin.

  Henri nodded, as if satisfied with the answer Emmett had not given. His smile was soft. Understanding. Infuriating.

  "Why did you kill her?" he repeated.

  Emmett spun and stormed away, boots hammering the stone. The tunnel twisted left, then right. The air shifted. The stink of the cistern gave way to something thinner, almost breathable. He needed out. He needed space. He needed silence.

  Henri walked beside him, keeping perfect pace. His cigarette glowed faintly, yet the air held no scent of burning tobacco. He opened a dented tin, plucked another cigarette from it, and held the tin out to Emmett.

  "Mon ami, smoke?" Henri offered with a pleasant smile.

  Emmett stared at the cigarette as though it were a lifeline. He wanted it. God, he wanted it. But he knew better. The tin wasn’t real. The cigarette wasn’t real. Henri wasn’t real.

  He let out a long, exhausted sigh that seemed to drain what little strength he had left.

  "Stop, Henri. Just stop," Emmett said, voice stripped bare.

  Henri held the cigarette in his hand a moment longer, looking expectant. Eventually the specters face fell into a look of faint disappointment. He tucked the cigarette back into the tin and returned it to his coat with a single, resigned nod.

  "For the better I suppose," he murmured, voice gentle. "Smoking is bad for you, mon ami."

  Emmett huffed out a bitter breath and turned away, boots splashing as he started down the tunnel again. Henri did not follow. He remained where he stood, watching Emmett with the stillness of a gravestone.

  "Why did you kill her?" Henri asked.

  Emmett froze. His muscles seized, his jaw tightening. For a moment he felt as though his teeth might crack under the pressure. He spun and stormed back toward Henri, rage and fear twisted into something brittle.

  "I did not kill her," he growled. His voice shook. He stepped in close, almost nose to nose. "I did not kill her."

  Henri shook his head slowly. His eyes were soft. His smile was not cruel; it was pity wearing the shape of resignation.

  "Not Adele, Emmett," he said. "Margerite."

  The name hit him like a slap across the cheek. His world reeled. A cold chill slithered down his spine, lifting the hairs on the back of his neck. His mouth worked, but no sound came. Henri crossed his arms as though settling in to wait, smoke drifting lazily from the cigarette he now held between his fingers.

  Movement flickered behind Henri.

  Emmett’s gaze snapped past him. A small figure stood there. Too large boots. An oversized red coat that swallowed her frame. A scarf knotted carelessly and trailing almost to her knees. Blonde hair sticking out from beneath a knit cap.

  Margerite.

  She smiled shyly, hands tucked behind her back as though hiding a treat she meant to share. Her presence was impossibly gentle.

  Emmett made a strangled sound and staggered backward, nearly slipping on the filthy floor. His vision tunneled. His pulse became a drumbeat. As his vision focused on his long dead sister, Henri disappeared from sight as if swallowed by the dark until all there was, was her. Just as he remembered her.

  He turned and fled, boots hammering against the stone. As if to flee from his past and who he was.

  "No, no, no," he rasped. His breath came jagged and hot. "No, no, no, no."

  He plunged into the twisting arteries of Berlin’s underworld, running deeper and deeper. The bulbs hanging along the walls flickered with sick red light, bathing the walls in a color that could only be blood. Pipes groaned. Something distant roared as his feet splashed through rancid puddles, the water fanning out in crimson fans where the light caught it.

  "Stop it," he gasped, voice cracking. "Stop it, stop it…"

  His boot suddenly struck something loose. He pitched forward and crashed to the ground, skidding through a shallow sheet of water. He pushed himself up on trembling hands, and as his hands came free of the surface he realized something.

  The liquid around his fingers looked thick. Dark. Red.

  Blood.

  It clung to his skin, dripping from his palms in syrupy globes. Emmett stared, mind refusing to accept what his eye insisted was there. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. He wiped his hands against his trousers, but the smear seemed to only thicken and flow freely. Spreading like the guilt that swallowed his soul.

  He recoiled, horror twisting his face. Wiping his hands furiously against his coat. A vein attempt to rid him of the truth.

  There was blood on his hands.

  A soft splash pulled his gaze up.

  Margerite stood inches away. Her scarf fluttered gently, though there was no wind. Beneath her cap, her blonde hair fell in soft curls. She looked exactly as she had that fateful winter morning. Small. Trusting. Unbreakable in her innocence.

  He tried to speak but his voice died before reaching air. Only a strangled exhale escaped.

  Margerite’s gaze dropped to his blood stained hands. Her expression didn’t change. She seemed to accept the sight as though she had always known it would be there. Her small green eyes lifted to meet his single red rimmed eye that mirrored hers.

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  "Why don’t you like me, Emmett?" she asked. Her voice was tiny. Wounded. The same voice that had asked him that same question once before. When they journeyed to the pond together.

  Emmett sagged forward, his hands falling to his knees. His breath shuddered as though it had to fight its way out of his lungs.

  "I don’t hate you, Margerite," he whispered. His voice trembled like a man confessing at the gallows. "I never did."

  Her lips curved into a small smile. Not forgiving. Not accusing. Simply present.

  "Did you mean to push me?"

  Emmett’s eye squeezed shut. His face tightened as if struck. He forced breath into his lungs, shame twisting inside him like a rusted blade.

  "No," he whispered. "Not like I did. Marge… I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry."

  He opened his eye slowly.

  Margerite still stood before him. Her tiny form was unchanged. Except now a thin ribbon of blood trickled from her nostril, down her lip, soaking into the wool around her throat like a spreading wound.

  Emmett stared, breath trembling. His hand rose on instinct, reaching for her cheek.

  His fingers passed through her as though she were made of smoke.

  A fresh fracture tore through his already splintered sanity. His lip quivered. His palms, slick with imagined blood, trembled helplessly.

  "I don’t hate you, Emmett," she whispered. “I never hated you.”

  Her voice was soft as falling snow. Too gentle. Too kind. A mercy he had never deserved.

  His throat tightened. His hands, still dripping scarlet in his fevered mind, reached again. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to tell her everything he had buried, everything that had poisoned him since that winter afternoon. The years of guilt that had wormed through his soul until rot became the shape of him.

  "Margarete," he choked. The name scraped out of him like splinters.

  She smiled once more, patient and serene.

  As he reached out to her with a trembling hand, he heard footsteps echoing through the tunnels. Heavy. Unhurried. Drawn toward him like wolves following a wounded stag. The air thickened. The hair on the back of his neck rose.

  He turned to see three figures looming at the mouth of one of the adjoining passages. Tall silhouettes, ears twitching, eyes gleaming with predatory reflection in the dim red light.

  The one in the center stepped forward. In the gloom its muzzle and jaw caught the light. And recognition slammed into him.

  His breath locked in his throat.

  It was like seeing the ghost of the one who had torn him apart in France. The one who had stolen his eye and left him mangled.

  Emmett staggered back. His heel slipped in the slick water and he nearly fell.

  "No," he breathed. His voice cracked. "Not you."

  His vision swam. The walls rippled and his mind pulled him back to that muddy bombed out village, frost clinging to the ends of his hair, blood running warm down his cheek as pain seared through him. The memory peeled open inside him like a fresh wound.

  The hybrid tilted its head, confused.

  A human’s voice barked from behind it, sharp and commanding.

  "Wer sind Sie? Was machen Sie hier? Stehenbleiben!"

  The words hit Emmett’s ears like puzzle pieces dropped into place one after another. Who are you. Stop. The thoughts fumbled through his mind, half-formed, meaningless. Who was he? He could not recall. Not here. Not now. Not with the past clawing at him.

  He spun and bolted into the nearest tunnel, boots splashing wildly. Margarete watched him go, eyes calm, as though she had always known he would run.

  "Halt! Ich sagte Halt!"

  The shout chased him down the corridor. His lungs burned. His heart hammered like a trapped animal. Thought dissolved into instinct. Flight consumed him.

  He crashed through puddles, pushing deeper into the labyrinth. His scars burned as if freshly torn. He could feel the claws again. The bite. The white-hot spike of pain as a clawed thumb drove into his skull and took his eye.

  "Fassen Sie ihn! Bringen Sie ihn zurück!"

  The command bounced off the walls and into Emmett’s skull. His blood ran cold.

  They were after him.

  The same that had destroyed him once. The same kind that had marked him forever. They were coming to finish the job.

  His legs staggered, caught somewhere between memory and present terror. He forced himself forward, breath tearing out of him in ragged bursts. The tunnels seemed to tighten, coil, and pulse like veins. Every shadow was teeth. Every echo a claw.

  His mind shrieked one truth.

  Run.

  His breath tore at his lungs. He had to get away. He could not be caught. He would not be dragged back into the jaws of the past.

  "Run, Mon Ami!" Henri’s voice rang out, a hollow echo that bounced through the corridors like church bells calling the damned to kneel. Emmett sprinted harder, shoulders slamming off brick as he stumbled forward. Behind him came the pursuit. Heavy boots striking stone. The rasping grunt of inhuman lungs inhaling the foul reek of mildew, rot, and fear.

  The sound grew closer. Too close.

  His vision swam and narrowed. The world funneled into a single line of collapsing brick and flickering bulbs. A bitter taste crept up his throat, threatening to choke him. His green eye bulged wide, panic carving terror into every muscle.

  "Halten Sie an! Bleiben Sie stehen!"

  The command cracked down the tunnel like a whip. Stop. Submit. Accept the end. Lay down and let the past swallow you whole. Let guilt finish the work it had begun years ago.

  It was then that something shifted inside him. Cold. Electric. Terribly clear.

  The weight of inevitability pressed against him. They would catch him regardless. There was no ladder out of this pit. Only a cliff, and the long drop waiting below. He could practically feel his feet toeing the edge of that cold abyss that would swallow him forever.

  His sprint faltered. His steps slowed. His pulse steadied into something grim and final. His terror slipped off him like an old coat. His jaw set. His muscles locked. His face hardened into something carved from stone and hatred.

  Then he felt it. The uncomfortable jab digging into his thigh with each stride. His pistol. Tucked into the waistband of his trousers. He hadn’t recalled it until now and the realization that he had it, was like a beacon through the fog that swallowed him.

  He reached down, fingers curling around the cold grip of the Walther P38. The motion was automatic, born not of thought but of instinct, sharpened by every nightmare that had welded itself into his bones.

  Clarity struck him like a hammer.

  "I’m done running," he gasped.

  He stopped dead in the tunnel. The lights flickered along the walls as if suddenly afraid of what stood before them. Emmett lifted the pistol and without hesitation smashed the butt of it into the closest bulb. Glass burst with a sharp crack. Darkness swallowed him whole.

  Breathing. Not his. Theirs.

  He could hear them closing in. Their lungs heaving. Their boots scraping. The faint rattle of gear. Their shape took form in the dark. Predators. Advancing.

  His eye narrowed.

  "Not again!"

  His roar tore from the bottom of his soul as he squeezed the trigger. The pistol exploded in light and sound. The gunshot thundered through the tunnels, shattering the silence and replacing it with a shrill whine that tore into his skull.

  For an instant the tunnel stuttered into stark clarity. The nearest wolfman’s golden eyes widened, pupils flaring in shock. Emmett saw the lupine features, the snarl, the flicker of realization. Then the beast staggered violently as the round punched into him.

  Emmett fired again.

  The flash lit the walls, turning puddles into molten mirrors. The concussive blast rolled through the narrow hall. His ears rang until sound vanished entirely. But his finger kept working the trigger. Again and again

  Each fiery burst revealed fragments of motion. The wolfman stumbling, his comrades running into him. Their silhouettes weaving, recoiling, confused by the sudden eruption of violence from a man they presumed mad.

  He did not hesitate. Did not think.

  Emmett fired like a man exorcising a demon from his own flesh.

  The Walther bucked in his hand, the slide snapping back and forth as it chambered another round. The second wolfman was lifting his weapon, its features twisted into that same hateful snarl Emmett had seen before his face was torn apart. That muzzle filled with sharp teeth. Those same burning eyes. The memory slammed into him as hard as the recoil. He fired twice. The first round punched into the creature’s chest. The second crushed through fur and sinew into the throat. Its eyes widened and it stumbled back, crashing into the third hybrid as if someone had cut its strings.

  The third wolfman’s rifle discharged as the body slammed into him. A single muzzle flash tore open the dark, the bullet whistling against stone and sending a cascade of sparks and red dust showering the corridor. Emmett ignored it. He ran towards them now, his boots striking the ground with manic purpose.

  Emmett pulled the trigger a final time. The slide locked open with a metallic clack. Empty. The last round striking the wolfman square in the ribs. It staggered, weapon dropping, claws scraping the wall as it reeled.

  He did not slow.

  A snarl ripped from his throat as he lunged at the remaining hybrid. He swung the empty pistol like a hammer. The butt of the grip cracked against the creature’s skull just as it straightened. The impact vibrating up Emmett’s arm. The creature’s head snapped to the side. Its fangs flashed white in the flickering dark and it let out a guttural roar of fury.

  Before he could swing again, the wolfman launched itself at him with terrifying speed. The two bodies slammed together and Emmett crashed backward onto the wet bricks. The air burst from his lungs, but he barely registered the impact.

  He felt massive hands digging into his neck. Its fingers wrapped around his throat like iron bands. Hot breath blasted across his face, rancid and bestial. Its muzzle opened wide. Rows of teeth glistening in the low light. Words spilled from its snarling mouth, but they were drowned beneath the drumbeat of Emmett’s pulse and the ringing in his ears. His vision swam. The low red light flickering behind the monster.

  He had been here before. Pinned. Helpless. A man crushed under something that had no right to exist. A nightmare made flesh.

  But this time, he did not feel fear. He felt hatred. He felt cold purpose. He felt the sharp, razor edge of survival. The animal panic that had consumed him was drowned in the face of clarity.

  His right hand slid from the creature’s wrist down to his hip. His fingers wrapped around the knife handle. The motion was smooth, practiced, instinctive. He drew it in one fluid pull and rammed it upward into the hybrid’s eye.

  Half the blade disappeared. Emmett felt the sickening grind of bone as the tip struck the skull. The creature froze. Its snarl remained fixed like a grotesque mask. Its remaining eye widened as if its brain struggled to understand what had just happened. The crushing grip on Emmett’s neck loosened.

  He wrenched the blade free, and before the creature could react he drove it sideways into the meat above its hip. The knife shearing through fur and flesh.

  The hybrid howled, its brain finally catching up.

  Emmett twisted, shoving with the full strength of a man who had nothing left to lose. The hybrid toppled sideways, clutching at the wound, its howl breaking into a rasping shriek.

  Emmett rolled to his feet, seized the creature’s arm, wrenched it upward and grabbed the back of its skull. His fingers tangled in coarse fur. His boots anchored as he slammed its face down into the floor. He could not hear the impact, but he felt it vibrate through his bones like a tuning fork struck by the hammer.

  Before it could scramble away, he plunged the knife into its bicep. The blade slipping in clean with little resistance. Then with a savage motion he dragged it toward himself, ripping through muscle and sinew. The hybrid screamed, its voice shrill and ragged, but the sound was swallowed behind the ringing in Emmett’s ears. The creature lashed out, hooking his legs around sending Emmett stumbling where he crashed shoulder first into a wall lamp.

  The fixture jerked, and its protective cover fell free.

  Darkness swallowed him whole.

  For a heartbeat, silence. Then the bulb flickered once like a dying star.

  A flash of light revealing thick blood on the bricks. The limp bodies of the first two hybrids sprawled at impossible angles.

  Darkness.

  Another flicker. The second hybrid’s mouth hung open, tongue lolling grotesquely, one eye gone where a bullet had torn through. Blood bubbling from the socket.

  Darkness.

  A third flicker. The last surviving hybrid huddled against the wall. It clutched the ruin of its arm, its mangled bicep pouring blood. The empty socket where its eye had been wept crimson down its cheek like a grotesque tear. Its ears twitched, body shaking, breath hitching.

  The light flickered once more.

  Its gaze met Emmett’s.

  Pure terror.

  The beast was afraid of him.

  He lunged forward with a guttural roar that never reached his ears. The ringing drowned everything. When the bulb flickered to life again, he saw the creature’s hand lifted in a desperate attempt to shield its face.

  Emmett’s blade punched through the palm and buried itself in the hybrid’s shoulder. The creature bellowed, its arm jerking back.

  Emmett seized it by the scruff of the neck with his free hand, hurling the wolfman to the floor. The knife tearing loose as the hybrid fell.

  The light flashed.

  The Wolfman lay collapsed at his boots. Its lone eye shone wide with primal terror, its limbs scrambling for purchase on the slick stones. The instinct to escape overwhelmed whatever training or discipline it once had. It was reduced to fear. Pure, unfiltered fear.

  Emmett drank it in like water.

  The light flashed again.

  He rolled the creature onto its back with the heel of his boot. The hybrid twisted and reached with its injured hand toward its belt. Emmett saw the glint of metal. A bayonet.

  The bulb flickered.

  Emmett crushed the reaching hand under his boot. The creature let out a high-pitched yelp that broke into a choked, strangled whine.

  The bulb snapped alive.

  Emmett tore the bayonet from the sheath and tossed it aside. Metal clattered against stone as it slid away. He grabbed the creature’s struggling wrist before it could strike again.

  The light pulsed.

  He pinned the hand beneath his knee, pressing it hard against the hybrid’s chest. The creature tried to wriggle free, its body convulsing beneath his weight. Emmett leaned over it.

  The bulb flickered.

  His hands moved toward the wolfman’s face. Its muzzle snapped open, fangs flashing white, saliva stringing between its teeth. It lunged to bite him.

  The bulb flared bright.

  Emmett caught its muzzle with both hands and forced it sideways, slamming it into the floor. Its remaining eye locked onto him. The terror in that gaze was unmistakable. It saw death staring back.

  The light sputtered.

  Emmett’s thumb pressed closer, inch by inch as the creature bucked wildly. Feet kicking at wet stones in a useless panic. Its head twisted but could not break free of his grip.

  The bulb flickered again.

  Emmett’s thumb plunged into the wolfman’s remaining eye. The soft resistance gave way to wet heat. The hybrid spasmed under him. Its scream tore into the air, but Emmett heard nothing. Only the hammering, ringing in his skull.

  The light flashed.

  Blood covered his knuckles. His knife was suddenly in his hand, though he did not remember reaching for it. The blade drove into the wolfman’s throat. He felt the grating of cartilage. Felt the steel split something vital as he practically sawed into the soft tissue. Blood fountained up the blade. Bubbles of spit and gore oozed from its mouth as it thrashed.

  The bulb gave one final burst of light, then died.

  Darkness swallowed the world.

  Emmett did not rise. He stayed atop the hybrid, hand locked on the knife, forcing the blade deeper until the creature no longer twitched. Until there was no more air rattling in its ruined throat. Until he was certain there would be no coming back.

  His lungs heaved like bellows. His pulse hammered behind his eye. Slowly, shapes emerged in the gloom. The remaining bulbs down the tunnel flickered feebly, providing just enough glow to paint the carnage in thin strokes of red and shadow.

  He lifted his arms. Blood dripped from his fingers. Not in sheets, not like the hallucination from moments before. It trickled, congealing at the joints. Real. Thick. Warm.

  His gaze slid to the knife now resting across the dead hybrid’s chest. Emmett snatched it up with a shaking hand and pushed himself to his feet. His legs trembled beneath him. His breaths came ragged and uneven. He stood amid three bodies and the stench of death.

  Henri’s voice drifted into the air like a breeze from a graveyard.

  “Mon Ami.”

  Emmett turned sharply. Nothing. Only shadows.

  “Emmett, where are we?” Henri’s tone echoed through the tunnels, soft and oddly patient. “There were some men with these creatures, and we are lost. Perhaps they know the way.”

  Emmett wiped the blade against his coat and stared into the darkness. The voice had come from everywhere at once. No direction. No source.

  He opened his mouth to answer, but the words tangled and died in his throat.

  Henri spoke again. Closer this time. Too close.

  “Do not leave me behind.”

  Emmett’s hands clenched around the knife and his eye narrowed.

  “Where are they?” Unteroffizier Schmidt whispered. His voice barely carried, but in the silence of the tunnel it might as well have echoed. He glanced to his right. A young soldier clutched his rifle so tight his knuckles were bone white. His breathing came shallow and quick. He recognized the same strain tightening his own stomach and resented the boy for wearing fear so plainly on his face.

  Gunfire had erupted only moments ago. Three shots at first, then a barrage. Snarls followed. Wet, awful sounds punctuated by pained whimpers. And then silent save for the steady drip of water, the shuddering of pipes in their fixtures and their own breathing.

  No one should have survived what the Sturmwolfe brought upon a man. Schmidt had watched those abominations tear through armed units like scythes through wheat. He had seen men break at the sight of them. Yet the longer the quiet dragged on, the more doubt wormed into his thoughts.

  “Should we investigate?” The soldier whispered, his voice cracking as he adjusted his grip on his rifle.

  Schmidt exhaled slowly and checked his watch. Five minutes. Five minutes of nothing. His mouth opened to order a cautious advance when something brushed the edges of his hearing.

  He froze.

  “Quiet,” he hissed, lifting his hand. The young man obeyed, though his trembling did not ease.

  At first Schmidt thought the sound was another dripping pipe or shifting steam line. Then the tune settled in, low and rough, as if dragged across gravel. It was singing.

  Someone was singing.

  That made no sense.

  Schmidt stiffened. The young soldiers eyes grew wide as he swung his rifle upward, the bolt clacking as he chambered a round. Schmidt mirrored him without thinking, raising his own weapon and aiming into the black.

  The voice grew clearer. It was low and ragged, and cheerily out of tune. It echoed against the stone, as though the walls themselves hummed along. Schmidt frowned when he realized the words were English. He strained to translate, piecing them together from memories of lessons he barely paid attention to years ago.

  “Now he’s downtown in jail…”

  “Nobody to go his bail…”

  “The judge done said that he refused the fine…”

  “He’s in the Jailhouse now…”

  Schmidt’s throat tightened. The voice grew nearer. Closer.

  “He’s in the Jailhouse now…”