Chapter 8 · The Hounds of Dock 4

"Stay behind me and don't make a sound," Vesper hissed, her blade sliding from its sheath with a metallic whisper. "If this thing so much as looks at you, I'm hauling you out of here by your collar."

Lucian didn't move. He sat in his wheelchair, the cold metal of his new spinal brace humming against his skin. He looked fragile—pale, trembling slightly—but behind his eyes, the Obsidian Rift was screaming. He could feel the predator before he saw it. It wasn't just a beast; it was a ripple of wrongness in the dark, a jagged tear in the air that smelled like ozone and rotting wet fur.

"Vesper," Lucian whispered, his voice thin. "It's already here."

"Shut up," she snapped, though she shifted her weight, stepping closer to him. Her shoulder brushed his, a brief, warm contact that contrasted with the freezing damp of the docks. "I've got this. Just keep your head down."

Then the shadows exploded.

A ten-foot nightmare of muscle and obsidian scales slammed into the crates ten yards away, sending splinters of rotted pine flying like shrapnel. It wasn't a dog—not any dog born on this side of the Rift.