His face, usually a mask of sharp-edged disdain, fractured. The corner of his mouth twitched, the sarcasm dissolving into something akin to horrified comprehension. “This isn’t… a byproduct,” he said, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. “This is… what is this, Rostova?”
Dagnija ripped her hand free, gritting her teeth as calcium spikes ground along the tendon. She wiped the gray fluid on her lab coat, leaving a smear like damp ash. “Over-extraction,” she snapped, her tone brittle, a carefully constructed barrier. “The marrow reacted poorly to the accelerant. Common enough with unstable cellular structures. Nothing a fresh sample can’t fix.”
Ignat’s eyes narrowed. “Unstable cellular structures? Rostova, your samples are notoriously inert. They wouldn’t ‘react poorly’ unless their host…” He trailed off, his gaze sweeping over her face, searching for a tell, a flicker of truth beneath the ice. “Unless their host was already compromised.”
“My host is perfectly intact,” Dagnija retorted, a thread of ice woven into her words. She turned her back to him, snatching a pristine vial from a rack. “What we require is a new base. Something with sufficient bio-vitality to stabilize the graft. Something like… the spinal fluid of a freshly grafted hound.”
Ignat scoffed. “A hound? You intend to parade through the Lower City seeking a street mutt for your… 'unstable' marrow? You, Dagnija Rostova, risking your reputation on a scavenger hunt?”
“My reputation is my own concern, Zverev,” she said, pulling a long, hooded cloak from a peg. “And the Praetors won’t care where the base serum originates, only that it works. The freshest grafts are always found in the underbelly, where the body-brokers peddle their cheapest wares. Besides,” she added, turning to face him, a predatory glint in her eyes, “you wish to share the glory, do you not? Then you will share the… unpleasantries.”
Ignat stared at her for a long moment, the corner of his mouth hardening. The implication was clear: if he wanted a piece of her cure, he had to see her through whatever affliction she was hiding. He let out a low, disgusted sound. “Fine. But if we encounter any of Casimir’s rabid mongrels, I’m holding you personally responsible for the ensuing scandal.”
The fog of Voronya clung to the cobblestones like a shroud, thick and reeking of coal smoke and stagnant river water. Gas lamps cast sickly yellow halos, barely piercing the gloom as Dagnija and Ignat descended into the Lower City’s labyrinthine alleys. The air thrummed with the distant, guttural growls of grafted creatures and the faint, unsettling hum of somatic furnaces.
They moved through a narrow thoroughfare lined with sagging tenements, the windows like vacant eyes. The rhythmic scrape of a beast’s claws on the paving stones grew louder. Dagnija’s hand instinctively went to the bone-bladed scalpel she kept hidden in her cloak. “Stay sharp,” she murmured, her gaze piercing the murk.
Just then, the clatter of heavy boots echoed from a cross-street. Four figures emerged from the fog, clad in the dark, emblazoned livery of Casimir Vlas’s personal guard. At their head was a hulking brute, his face scarred, a thick chain wrapped around one fist. “Lady Rostova!” the brute bellowed, his voice raw. “Master Vlas demands your immediate return! He insists you’ve been… taken against your will!”
Dagnija halted, a bitter smile twisting her lips. “Casimir’s concern is as transparent as his ambition. Tell him I’m quite content.”
“Our orders are explicit, ma’am,” the guard insisted, stepping closer, his men fanning out. “We are to ensure your safety. And this… gentleman,” he added, glancing dismissively at Ignat, “is clearly an impediment to that safety.”
Before Dagnija could respond, a terrifying snarl ripped through the fog from behind the guards. A massive, six-legged beast exploded from the gloom, its grafted bone plates gleaming wetly, its maw dripping with saliva and razor-sharp teeth. Its eyes, milky white, fixed on the human figures.
“Rabid hound!” Ignat snarled, shoving Dagnija back just as the first guard screamed, the creature’s claws tearing through his arm. The beast, a grotesque fusion of three dogs, lunged for the next closest target. Dagnija found her left leg locking up, a sudden, agonizing stiffening from ankle to hip. The calcification. It seized her, rendering her immobile for a crucial second.
“Rostova!” Ignat roared, seeing her falter. Without hesitation, he threw himself between Dagnija and the charging monster, his own scalpel flashing in the dim light. He parried a snapping jaw, the beast’s foul breath washing over him, a wild fury burning in his eyes. Ignat planted his boots into the slime of the gutter, teeth bared, holding the creature off with savage leverage.
Despite the searing pain in her leg, Dagnija forced herself to move. Leaning heavily against a crumbling wall, she drew her bone scalpel with her right hand. The blade was honed to molecular thinness. The hound, distracted by Ignat’s furious defense, exposed a vulnerable seam where its multiple necks joined. Dagnija lunged, a swift, brutal thrust. The blade sank deep, severing nerve clusters and spinal cord in one clean, expert stroke.
The beast collapsed with a sickening thud, its six legs twitching spasmodically before falling still. Its milky eyes stared blankly at the gas-lit sky. Casimir’s guards, pale and trembling, took one look at the dead monster and their bleeding comrade, then fled into the fog, their heavy boots clattering into the distance. Dagnija, ignoring the throbbing pain, knelt beside the beast. Her good hand moved with practiced precision, harvesting the spinal fluid into a sterile vial.
Back in her hidden laboratory, the silence was heavy, broken only by the drip of alchemical reagents. Dagnija carefully transferred a droplet of the fresh hound fluid into a crucible containing a sample of her own calcified blood. Ignat watched, his expression unreadable, still shaken by the ferocity of the encounter.
The fluids swirled, a faint luminescence blooming within the crucible. Then, a sudden, violent hiss. The mixture began to bubble, churning rapidly, growing an unsettling, dull orange hue. Dagnija leaned closer, her brow furrowed. “The cellular integrity is… degrading too quickly,” she muttered, a tremor of unease in her voice. “The bio-vitality isn’t compatible with…”
Before she could finish, the crucible glowed crimson, a sharp crack echoing through the lab. The glass shattered outward with a sharp, concussive force, spraying superheated fluid and shards of ceramic. The blast extinguished the nearest gas lamp, plunging a section of the lab into deeper shadow, and leaving behind a acrid smell of burnt bone and ozone. The adjacent pipettes shattered across the zinc table, ruined.
No base serum. Seventy days.