“The vessel’s heart,” Olenka yelled, her voice thin against the din, pointing a gloved finger at a brass shutoff on the upper flank. Steam hissed from around its threads, a constant, searing leak. “That’s where they laced it. To keep the head of steam stable. He’s the gasket.” Drevik squinted, making out the faint, iridescent sheen. Woven into the threads of the heavy brass valve, pulsing with cold jade light, was the final quill, the last sliver of the Ossuary-Crane’s stolen soul-plumage. It vibrated with the rhythm of the heir’s charred tissue, a grotesque symbiosis of divine fragment and steel engine. The air shimmered, blurring the iron ribbing. Blistered skin, sickly pale and marbled with black veins, pulsed and heaved within the firebox maw, perpetually consumed, perpetually regrowing. “We need to reach that shutoff,” Drevik shouted, his voice shredded by the roar. He pointed to the primary exhaust vents, high up on the opposite wall, caked with soot. “If we choke those, the draft backs up. It might loosen the quill.” Olenka nodded, her eyes calculating. “Too much, and this whole place blows. The old manor won’t hold.” “It’s a risk we take,” Drevik said, already moving. “Can you find a way to reach them? I’ll create a diversion.” She pointed to a series of precarious-looking maintenance ladders bolted to the iron towers. “I know a path. But you need to move fast. When the compression spikes, the pipework will fight back.” As Olenka began her ascent, scrambling upward, Drevik scanned the floor. He lifted a heavy, discarded stoking rod, its tip blunted and blackened. He needed to draw attention, to hold the patrol’s gaze while she climbed. The central tank hummed, a low, guttural growl vibrating through his shins. Soot scraped his windpipe. Three stokers clad in grease-soaked hide aprons were inspecting dials near a lower feed-port, faces running with grey sweat. Drevik took a deep breath, the air tasting of burnt meat and ozone. He brought the stoking rod down hard on a loose pipe section, striking a ringing gong-stroke that cut through the roar. The stokers spun around. “Hey! What are you doing down there, drain-cleaner? Get back to your pit!” Drevik hammered the iron again, louder this time, stepping backward to pull them from the ladder foot. The stokers cursed and advanced, clogs scraping over slick tile. One lunged with a heavy pipe-wrench. Drevik caught the blow on the iron rod, the shock rattling through his collarbone. There was no grace to it—only leverage and brute muscle beneath the reeking flues. High overhead, Olenka reached the first exhaust vent. She drove a steel wedge into the hinge, jamming the damper shut, then scrambled to the next flue. The reservoir's thrum deepened, vibrating through Drevik’s molars. Joints screamed as live vapor vented along seam-lines, and the bronze dials along the casing began to creep upward, brass needles jittering. “What’s happening?” one stoker yelled, spotting the quivering indicators. He waved toward the upper gantry. “The dampers! Someone jammed the flues!” Drevik shoved the lead worker into his companion, driving them back from the base. The vat shuddered under trapped vapor. Steam around the brass shutoff erupted into a whistling jet, scalding the air. The master indicator pegged into its crimson hatch marks. “Now, Drevik!” Olenka screamed from the catwalk, having choked the final exhaust. “Pull it!” Drevik cracked his rod across the nearest stoker's knee and lunged for the shutoff. Blistering vapor charred his threadbare mittens. Through the weave, the divine vane radiated bone-chilling cold against the superheated fitting, trapped between metal and swelling flesh. He locked his palms around the quill's base and hauled backward with his full weight. The vessel shrieked, seams popping along the rivets. With a wet, tearing snap, the plumage tore loose. Scalding mist and droplets of black blood sprayed his forearms. He stumbled back, gripping the silver barb as its light flared blindingly. With the soul-shard extracted, the unholy fuel inside the grate broke containment. Deprived of the divine anchor that regulated its consumption, the meat swelled at hideous speed. Veins the thickness of cables pressed outward against the grate bars. Dial faces shattered, showering the floor with glass shards. Bolts snapped free like gunfire, and the iron shell began to distend like a blister. “Get back!” Olenka shrieked, scrambling down the ladder. Drevik sprinted clear, pressing the prize to his ribs. The swelling mass ruptured the combustion chamber with a concussive boom, spewing ruptured iron, embers, and weeping marrow across the flagstones. Weakened by decades of slag and salt, the floor plates gave way with an ear-splitting groan, caving downward into a cavernous basement. Below, in the exposed vault, a room-spanning expanse of pale, mountainous meat heaved under lantern light—Margrave Zallur's true form, stewing in his own runoff. But before Drevik could orient himself, a screeching whistle tore through the masonry from the rail-yard outside. The Flesh Express. Steel rails shuddered beneath the foundation as the locomotive began to roll, dragging cars packed with immortal cuts toward the cities beyond.

Sacrilege in the Boiler Room