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"Move," Samuel shouted.
The muzzle punched straight through the service door. Steel shrieked. Nora held the photograph up to the lamp and watched wet silver letters crawl across the back.
THE HOUNDS REMEMBER THE HAND THAT MADE THEM.
The lamp died.
Tarin grabbed her coat and hauled her into the dark. Samuel spun, pistol up, and fired twice.
Blue-white muzzle flare lit the whole passage.
For one sharp second, Nora saw the thing on the other side of the ruined door. Low body. Six jointed legs. Brass ribs wrapped around a spinning furnace. Its head looked like a dog's skull, except the jaw split open four ways.
Both shots hit it square in the face.
It didn't even flinch.
The jaws snapped shut on the door and ripped the whole thing off its track.
"Those aren't market guards," Tarin said.
Samuel backed up fast. "I know what they are."
"Then perhaps you'd like to explain why the Inspectorate brought royal hunting machines into my basement."
"Your basement sells stolen memories."
"Sold. Past tense. Important distinction."
The hound squeezed through the gap.
Samuel fired again. The shot hit the furnace behind its ribs. Sparks showered the wet floor. The hound kept coming.
"Run now," he said. "Argue later."
Nora didn't need to be told twice.
The passage sloped hard under her boots. Pipes crowded both walls—some thick as her torso, others thin as wire. Hot vapor hissed out of cracked joints, mixing with the fog until she could barely see Tarin three steps ahead.
Samuel was behind her, one hand pressed to his burned abdomen.
He was slowing down.
She heard it in his breathing—short, sharp pulls through his teeth. The dressing under his armor had gone dark again.
The hound's claws scraped stone behind them.
Fast.
Too damn fast.
Tarin hit a fork in the conduit and turned left.
Samuel caught his shoulder. "No. That route climbs up to Saint Orra Station."
"Yes. Also known as away from the murder machine."
"The station will be sealed."
"And the right side floods every half hour."
Nora glanced between them. "Which one doesn't kill us?"
"Neither," Tarin said.
"Left," Samuel said at the exact same time.
The hound scraped around the last bend.
Nora shoved past both of them. "Great. Left it is."
They ran.
A vibration buzzed against Samuel's wrist. The cracked receiver built into his gauntlet flashed red. He kept moving, but the device buzzed again, insistent.
INSPECTOR PRIORITY ORDER.
Nora saw the words reflected in the polished edge of his breastplate.
Samuel clapped a hand over the screen.
Too late.
Tarin had seen it too. "Your friends calling?"
"They're not my friends."
"That answer came awful fast."
The receiver buzzed a third time. This time it opened the message on its own.
Evelyn Crowe's voice filled the narrow conduit, cool and crisp as a fresh sheet of paperwork.
"Senior Inspector Grey, your field authority remains temporarily active. Apprehend Nora Venn and surrender her to the nearest command unit. Compliance will restore your rank and clear all charges related to tonight's unlawful actions."
Nora stopped dead.
Samuel nearly ran into her.
Evelyn kept going, same calm tone—like she was ordering tea, not handing over a human being.
"The subject is unstable. Her condition threatens every citizen in Veyra. You've been misled by incomplete evidence and a criminal memory broker. Bring her home, Samuel."
Tarin huffed a dry laugh. "Criminal memory broker. I hate when people reduce me to my job."
"Silence," Evelyn said through the receiver.
Tarin's smile dropped right off his face.
The message was live.
Samuel lifted his wrist slow. "You can hear us."
"I can hear you, and I know exactly where you are."
A red location pulse blinked on his gauntlet screen.
Nora stared at it. "You've been tracking us?"
Samuel ripped at the clasp. It wouldn't budge.
Inspector armor was built to stay on during riots. Built to stay linked to command.
He slammed the gauntlet against a pipe.
The screen cracked. Evelyn's voice didn't stop.
"You're injured," she said. "You're not thinking clearly. Arrest her. Medical support will meet you at Saint Orra."
Nora took one step back from him.
Tiny movement.
Samuel saw it anyway.
Her right hand drifted toward the wrench tucked in her belt. Her left kept the photograph pressed tight to her ribs. Blood had dried from her temple down to her jaw, and her eyes were wide, angry, waiting.
Waiting for him to turn back into the man he'd been five hours ago.
An inspector with an order.
Samuel's pistol hung loose in his hand.
Tarin shifted to stand beside Nora. Not in front of her—he didn't have that kind of nerve. But close enough to step in if Samuel reached for her.
Evelyn's voice dropped, lower, almost gentle.
"She's not Nora Venn."
Nora flinched like she'd been slapped.
Samuel's fingers tightened around the pistol.
"I know," he said.
"No. You saw a memory fragment. You know nothing."
"Then tell her."
"This isn't the place."
"It's never the place with you."
The hound howled behind them.
Not an animal sound. A grinding, metal alarm that shook rust loose from the pipes.
Evelyn talked right over it. "Samuel, you can't protect her from what she is."
He looked at Nora.
She had the wrench out now.
Not raised. Not yet.
"Maybe not," he said.
Then he pressed the pistol to his tracking gauntlet and fired.
The shot blew the receiver apart.
Pain shot up his arm. Shards of armor sliced his cheek. Evelyn's voice cut into static and went dead.
For half a second, no one moved.
Nora lowered the wrench an inch.
Tarin stared at the ruined gauntlet. "That was very dramatic."
Samuel shook burning metal bits off his hand. "Keep moving."
"You could've just taken it off."
"I couldn't."
"I know. Still dramatic."
The hound burst through the fog.
Samuel shoved Nora out of the way.
The machine hit him square in the chest.
His back slammed into the wall hard enough to dent a copper pipe. The hound's front claws locked around his shoulders. Its furnace spun faster, whine high and sharp right next to his face.
Samuel jammed his forearm between its jaws as they split open.
Metal teeth closed on his armor.
Went straight through it.
He yelled as the jaws crushed the plate around his arm.
Nora swung her wrench at the hound's back leg. The impact rang through the whole passage. One joint bent sideways, and the machine kicked her across the floor.
Her shoulder slammed into stone.
The photograph flew out of her hand.
"Nora!" Samuel jammed his pistol under the hound's jaw and pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
The shot to the gauntlet had emptied the charge chamber.
The hound twisted its head.
His arm went with it.
Something tore near his shoulder. Heat followed, then blood—hot and fast, soaking his sleeve.
Tarin came out of the fog holding a glass memory vial in each hand.
"Close your eyes!"
He smashed both vials against the hound's furnace.
Blue liquid flashed into vapor.
The passage filled with voices.
Hundreds of them.
People laughing. Screaming. Whispering names. A kid singing the same four notes over and over.
The hound jerked away from Samuel. Its head snapped left, then right, trying to lock onto targets that weren't there.
Samuel slid down the wall.
His shoulder plate hung open. Underneath, four deep cuts raked across his upper chest and arm. One pulsed blood in time with his heartbeat.
Nora crawled over to him.
"Let me see."
"I'm fine."
"You're leaking through a hole in your armor."
"Then I'm mostly fine."
She pulled the broken plate back.
Samuel hissed through his teeth.
"Sorry."
"No, you're not."
"No. Hold still."
The hound thrashed in the blue vapor, claws carving deep lines into the stone. Tarin stood behind it, digging through his coat for another vial.
"I've got about ten seconds of dead strangers left," he called.
Nora pressed both hands over Samuel's wound.
He caught her wrist. "Go."
"What?"
"Take the left conduit. There's a maintenance ladder right after the first valve gate."
"We're not leaving you."
"The hound's keyed to Inspectorate armor. It'll stay focused on me."
Tarin finally found another vial. He held it up to the lamp and frowned. "This one's a tax clerk's honeymoon. Don't think it'll help."
Samuel pushed Nora's hand away. "You wanted to know which route doesn't kill you. The ladder. Go now."
Nora stared at the blood spreading across his chest.
Then she looked at the hound.
Its furnace had a crack across the lower housing from Samuel's earlier shot. A cluster of thin copper tendons kept catching on a bent gear. Every time the gear slipped, the head jerked toward them.
Broken machine. Bad repair. Worse timing.
But broken was broken.
Nora knew broken.
She stood up.
Samuel grabbed the hem of her coat. "Don't."
"You shot your own badge for me."
"I shot a receiver."
"It was attached to the badge."
"Nora."
She pulled free.
The last of the blue vapor thinned.
The hound saw her.
Its four-part jaw split open.
Tarin lifted the honeymoon vial. "I'm open to better ideas."
Nora picked up her wrench.
The photograph lay right next to it, face down. More silver writing had spread across the back, but she only caught three words.
BLOOD OPENS COMMAND.
The hound charged.
Nora ran straight at it.
Samuel tried to stand and nearly blacked out. "Nora, get back!"
She dropped under the first sweep of its claws. Metal passed close enough to snip hair off the top of her head. She rolled, popped up right next to its damaged furnace, and slammed the wrench into the bent gear.
The gear seized.
So did the hound.
One breath.
Then its back leg kicked her into the wall.
Her wrench spun away across the stone.
The hound turned in a tight, ugly circle. Its jaw snapped inches from her face.
Nora braced both hands against its muzzle.
The teeth kept closing.
Her boots slid through Samuel's blood on the floor.
"Come on," she grunted. "You cheap royal bastard."
A sharp edge sliced across her palm.
Blood ran down her wrist and dripped straight into the hound's open jaw.
The machine froze.
A low hum rolled through the conduit.
Nora stared at her bleeding hand.
The hound's furnace answered with a pulse of red light.
Once.
Twice.
Same rhythm as a heartbeat.
"Nora," Tarin said, quiet. "What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything."
Copper tendons shifted under the hound's ribs.
Not random anymore.
They reached for her.
Nora tried to yank back, but thin wires curled around her fingers, sliding into the cut on her palm.
Pain shot straight to her elbow.
She screamed.
Samuel hauled himself up and wrapped an arm around her waist. "Let her go!"
He pulled.
The hound's furnace slid open.
Heat hit his face. Inside the housing, gears turned around a dark central socket. There should've been a power stone seated there.
It was empty.
The machine had been running on a remote charge this whole time.
Now red-gold light poured from Nora's blood into the empty socket.
The damaged gear snapped back into place.
Cracked brass sealed with a sound like ice breaking backwards. Bent plates unfolded. The leg Nora had hit twisted straight and locked into place.
She wasn't tearing the machine apart.
She was fixing it.
No tools. Nothing.
Samuel tightened his grip on her. "Nora, stop."
"I don't know how!"
"Pull your hand out."
"I'm trying!"
The hound shuddered once, hard.
A burst of force blew out of its furnace and threw Samuel backward. He hit the floor, his torn shoulder crumpling under him.
The pain turned the whole passage white.
When his sight cleared, the hound was standing over Nora.
Perfectly still.
Perfectly repaired.
Wires still wrapped around her hand.
She stared up at it, chest heaving.
"Good dog?" she tried.
The furnace pulsed red again.
Tarin took one slow step backward. "Samuel. What is she?"
Samuel didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Because the hound lowered its head, pressed its muzzle to Nora's palm—
And the wires sank deeper.
Nora's scream cut off into a choking gasp.
Her eyes rolled back.
The photograph on the ground beside her began to burn.