One, a hulking brute with sinews like rusted cable, landed precariously on the desk, its claws gouging deep furrows into the polished wood. Its twin, leaner and faster, sprang directly at Ovidia, hot, foul breath washing over her face.
Time seemed to stretch, thick and viscous as raw somna-tar. Ovidia’s hand, already fumbling for the small, carved pouch secured to her belt, moved with a frantic, desperate precision. Her fingers brushed against the familiar coarse linen, extracting a tightly bound packet of crystalline dust – a potent somna-sleep agent, refined to incapacitate even the most robust trench-mages. It was her last resort, her trump card against Valdas himself, but now it was for the beasts.
She flicked her wrist, preparing to unleash the blinding cloud, but Valdas moved faster. A blur of motion, a guttural roar that seemed to tear from the very depths of his lung-seared chest. His hand, still clamped around her wrist, yanked her violently backwards, away from the lashing claws of the second hound. As she stumbled, disoriented, he snatched the sedative from her grasp, tearing the packet open with his teeth.
“Foolish woman!” he rasped, the crushed crystals showering over his face. He inhaled deeply, a ragged, wheezing breath that drew the fine grit into his lungs. Ovidia watched, horrified, as a faint, ethereal green glow began to emanate from his very pores, swirling around his head like a spectral halo. The compound, meant to sedate, seemed to ignite something within him, not dampen it.
His trench-magic flared, not in its usual controlled, precise bursts, but as a wild, uncontrolled conflagration. The air shimmered, the gaslights dimmed, and a dense atmospheric pressure descended upon the room, making Ovidia’s teeth ache. Valdas flung her behind him with a single, brutal shove, then pivoted to face the prowling horrors. His eyes, usually a cold, calculating steel, now burned with a terrifying, almost ecstatic rage.
The beasts recoiled, sensing the sheer, raw power radiating from him. The beast on the desk whimpered, its green eyes contracting in something akin to fear. Valdas didn’t hesitate. He raised a hand, not in a complex incantation, but a simple, devastating gesture. A torrent of raw, unrefined somna-force erupted from his palm – not a structured spell, but a pure, annihilating wave. It slammed into the brute on the desk, tearing through its shadowy form like paper. The creature shrieked, a sound of agony and dissolution, before disintegrating into a cloud of foul-smelling black ash that swirled momentarily then vanished, leaving only a lingering stench of sulfur and burnt dreams.
The other two quadrupeds, emboldened by their numbers, launched themselves simultaneously. Valdas met them head-on, his movements brutally efficient, imbued with a strength Ovidia had never witnessed in a human. He twisted, ducking under a snapping maw, and drove his elbow into the flank of one, a sickening crunch echoing in the ruined study. As it staggered, he seized the other by its scruff, a low, savage growl rumbling in his own throat. With a terrifying surge of strength, he slammed the two beasts together, their forms colliding with a wet thud. The green glow around him intensified, and then, with an ear-splitting screech, the creatures simply imploded, their forms collapsing inward, leaving behind nothing but dissipating tendrils of black smog and the lingering scent of ozone.
Silence descended, heavy and absolute, broken only by Valdas’s ragged, wheezing breaths. He stood amidst the shattered glass and splintered wood, his coat torn, a thin trickle of blood running from a gash above his brow. But he was alive. And terrifyingly potent. The somna-sleep crystals, meant to render him inert, had instead become a catalyst for a primal, destructive force. Ovidia stared, her mind reeling. He was immune. More than immune – he had *weaponized* her sedative.
“The tunnels,” Valdas rasped, his voice raw, his eyes still burning with a faint, residual green light. He didn’t wait for her. He moved towards a tall, ornate grandfather clock, its pendulum stilled, its face cracked. With a grunt, he pushed it aside, revealing a narrow, dark opening in the wall. “They will be here again. And I will not fight them here.”
He didn’t look back, simply disappeared into the gloom. Ovidia hesitated, glancing at the lingering wisps of nightmare-smog, at the shattered windows, at the empty space where the three monsters had been. The syndicate would be back. Voss would be involved. And Valdas… Valdas was a different kind of monster entirely. She followed him into the pitch-black maw of the servant tunnels.
The air within was thick with dust and the faint, metallic scent of old iron. It was a labyrinthine network, known only to a few trusted servants and the Ward’s architect. Ovidia had studied the blueprints obsessively, a contingency plan for every possible disaster. She could hear Valdas’s heavy, uneven breathing ahead of her, the scrape of his boots on the rough-hewn stone floor. Her own breath came shallow against her ribs.
This was Voss’s doing. It had to be. The way Valdas had drawn her into his orbit, the impossible coincidence of their shared room at the Stygian Eel Inn—Voss had engineered their meeting.
Voss was the architect of this trap, forcing them together to seal the blood-contract.
She stumbled, her hand brushing against the damp, cold stone wall. Valdas, who had been ahead, stopped abruptly. The darkness was absolute, save for the faintest, almost imperceptible glow from the faint green residual magic clinging to Valdas’s tattered coat. The air was close, heavy. She could hear his breathing, still a little ragged, but controlled now. The silence stretched, taut with mutual suspicion and simmering fury.
Suddenly, a hand shot out, iron-hard, gripping her upper arm. Valdas yanked her forward, pressing her against the cold, rough stone. Her head hit the wall with a soft thud. He was too close, his scent – blood, ozone, and something uniquely his, something earthy and dangerous – filling her nostrils. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, the tremor of his muscles. Cold sweat prickled her spine.
His voice, a low, dangerous whisper, scraped against her ear. “Did you really think you could drug me twice and get away with it, Doctor?”