Ten feet from the door, Wilder knew something was off.
The scent of death hung heavy in the dank air, heavier than he would have expected if Nate was alive, like the feral hound had said. But who knew what lay behind the solid pine door? Nate could be alive but surrounded by corpses, stark reminders of what could happen to him—or those he loved—if he refused to work.
Wilder rattled the sturdy padlock and turned to Satira. “Don’t think Nate would object, do you?” She studied the padlock for a moment, then ran her fingers up to the heavy loop and along the metal plate bolted to the wall. Her hand dipped into her bag again and came out holding a flat sheet of paper.
Unfolded, it revealed several long strips of a pale, tacky looking substance. She peeled one from the paper and smoothed it over the metal plate. Then she dipped into her bag again and retrieved what looked like a perfume vial.
“You might wish to cover your nose,” she murmured as she replaced the folded paper. “This will smell unpleasant enough for me.”
Wilder pressed a gloved hand under his nose as Satira misted the liquid onto the substance she’d spread over the plate. It began to bubble, and then to eat through the metal plate that secured the lock to the door.
She stepped back and tucked the bottle back into her bag. “There. A firm tug should break the metal.” He tried it, and the door snapped open with a cracking noise. “Nate?” The room beyond was all but dark, even with the light cast by Satira’s lightstick. The scent of death was worse now, but mixed with an oddly familiar note—something that could have been another bloodhound if it hadn’t been just a little off.
Next to him, Satira shivered. “Nathaniel?”
Something stirred in the room. A boot against the floor, a quiet clink. Then— “Satira?” Satira made a choked noise and launched herself forward, but Wilder drew her up short with a steely grip around her arm. “Not yet. Not—something’s not right.”
She all but shook with nervous energy, but she didn’t try to pull away from him. “Nathaniel, we’re here to take you home.”
A click. Light flared so fast Satira reeled back, lifting an arm to cover her eyes. The illumination came from dozens of intricate glass bulbs lining the walls of a vast room, all hung above long shelves overflowing with tools and equipment.
Several worktables were arranged in a neat row across the center of the room, on which projects of various complexity rested. Nathaniel stood next to the closest bench, sallow and wild-looking, his usual neat vest askew and his spectacles gone completely. He squinted at them, gaze flickering over Wilder before fixing on Satira.
Regret filled his eyes before he closed them. “Take her away. Keep her safe.” He smelled like death, and even with his sickly pale expression, his face looked…different. Younger.
“What the hell did they do to you?”
“Nathaniel?” Satira sounded uncertain. “Is that you?”
“Perhaps not anymore.” He took a step forward, moving as if he barely had the energy to get his boots off the ground. “Satira, wait in the hallway.”
“But—”
“Now.”
The man might not look so much like Nate anymore, but he had Nate’s voice, and Satira seemed to obey it out of instinct. She tried to tug her arm free of his grip, and Wilder let her go.
The man looked like death, but he smelled like a bloodhound. “Nate, what happened?” Nate lowered his voice until the whisper was too low for Satira to hear in the hallway. “The vampire.
Lowe. He’s building his own army. Needed a weapon, and I wouldn’t build it. So he found a way to make me.”
He found a way to make me.
Wilder shivered, torn between fascination and revulsion. Lowe had abducted Nathaniel from his home, brought him here and turned him into a vampire—except that wasn’t all. It couldn’t be. “You smell like a hound.”
“I wasn’t strong enough to survive the change.” The words were blank. Numb. “So instead of giving me human blood, they gave me Hunter’s.”
Wilder’s skin prickled, and a cold knot formed in the pit of his stomach. “You can’t do that. It doesn’t—it doesn’t work.”
“It never has before,” Nate agreed. “But Hunter wasn’t created by the Guild.” The knot grew until Wilder thought he might vomit. “Archer did it.” Nathaniel didn’t answer. Instead he reached out a shaking hand. “You can’t let me finish this weapon, and you can’t bring me with you. I’ve been starving myself. Getting as weak as I can, but Lowe will work it out soon enough and order me to eat. He’s already ordered me not to kill myself. You need to do it for me.”
Fuck that. “Back up and tell me why we can’t take you with us.”
“Lowe’s powerful, Wilder. The border isn’t far enough. He made me. I’ll do whatever he commands, no matter how much I don’t want to.” Nate’s gaze slid past him, toward the hallway where Satira waited.
Rage roared up. “Not if I send him to hell where he belongs.” Satira’s voice came from the hallway, steady but more than a little tense. “Wilder? I think you should come out here.”
He kept his gaze riveted to Nathaniel’s face as he backed toward the door. When he turned to face the tunnel, he stopped short, a growl rising before he could stop it. “Archer.” His former colleague stood just beyond Satira, both hands upraised. She had one of her pistols pointed at his chest. A tiny frown tugged at her lips, and she looked more perplexed than afraid. “Ashamed as I am to admit it, he could have grabbed me. He didn’t.”
“Because I didn’t join up for this,” Archer muttered. “Untrained hounds and half-vampires?” Wilder pulled one of his own revolvers. “You joined up for kidnapping Nate.”
“No, I didn’t.” He held his hands a little higher. “I had nothing to do with that. The deal I struck with Lowe was only for Clear Springs. He’d already run everyone out, and he told me he wouldn’t kill anyone else if I let him have it.”
Satira’s hand dipped toward the floor, then snapped back up, this time a little lower. “If you hurt Nathaniel, I’ll blow your balls off. I might do it anyway for sending Wilder into a trap.” Even at gunpoint, he was contrary enough to argue. “I tried to warn you two away from it.”
“Enough.” Wilder was in no mood to discuss it. “You really want to help? Start now, here. Help me take down Lowe.”
Nathaniel’s voice came from behind him. “The weapon he’s had me working on—it kills vampires. I can’t turn it against him…but Satira could.”
Wilder’s first—and second and third—instinct was to get Satira as far away from the fight as possible.
“And you could show me how, right?”
“If he could, he would be doing it already.” Satira holstered her gun and turned to Wilder. “Nathaniel wouldn’t put me in harm’s way if he had any other choice.”
He made a concerted effort to relax his clenched fists. “Maybe. How long will it take?”
“Nathaniel?”
“Twenty minutes, with both of us working together.”
Wilder stalked up to Archer, not bothering to hide the challenge in his glare. “Want to go see if this new hound you turned is ready to kill some fucking vampires?” Archer’s jaw tightened. “Ready.”
“Just so you know, if he wants to take a few shots at you, I’m not stopping him.”
“Wouldn’t expect you to.”
Satira brushed her fingers over Wilder’s shoulder. “Don’t let anyone bite you. I’m possessive.”
“That goes double for you, sweetheart.”
Wilder and Archer navigated the darkened tunnel without any extra light, and it didn’t take them long to reach the young bloodhound’s cell. “You ready to get out of there yet?” The man stared at Archer, teeth bared, eyes wild. “Are you here to kill me?”