Page 28 of Hounded

His inspection covered the city block first, then turned on the drugstore beside us. When he peered through the glass, I made a soft, strangled sound that failed to capture his attention.

“He’s interesting.” Whitney gestured at the scene beyond the window. Indy stood near the checkout counter with a few plastic bags lined up his arm. He swung them idly while scrolling through his cellphone.

“I saw you talking to him,” Whitney said.

Shaking my head caused my hair to swish across my shoulders. “Exchanging pleasantries. That’s all.”

It was unconvincing. Desperate.

“Do you smell that?” Whitney tipped his head back and scented the air.

I almost thought he meant the sweat prickling down my back, but I knew better.

“Poor air quality here,” I said between increasingly rapid breaths. “Pollution, smog—”

“It’s sweet.” Whitney sniffed the wind again. He turned toward Medimart’s automatic doors as they swished open and a woman exited. “It’s coming from inside.”

11

Loren

Brooklyn, New York

April 8th, 1922

There was a scent in the air; something I didn’t recognize. New York had changed in the time I’d been away from it. Cars rolled down the streets, and electric lights set the nights aglow. Buildings soared into the sky, and the subway rumbled underfoot. But the smell was new. It felt warm and tasted sweet, and it grew more potent the farther I roamed from the bustling city streets.

Down an alley toward a darkened doorway, the aroma became almost tangible. I strained my eyes as though I could see it leading me. The locked door should have turned me away, but my hound howled inside me, thrashing like I was a cage holding him back. He wanted to break in and see what had lured us. I hesitated.

Standing in the shadow of the building, my hound’s will overpowered mine. It took little more than a thrust of one shoulder to snap the brittle lock and allow me access to the lightless space beyond.

The smell of mold and rust with a chemical tang tempted me to cough. While my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I drew my polearm from a pocket of shadow, letting it stretch to its near six-foot length in my grasp.

The low ceiling forced me to stoop as I crept forward and almost walked into the chain dangling from an overhead bulb. I tugged on it, and the light hummed alive. Golden yellow beamed across the room, and I could discern my surroundings at last.

It was a shoddy excuse for a laboratory, with a long wooden table taking up most of the available space. Buckling leather restraints lay open atop it, and dark stains on the surface brought a fresh wave of that rusty odor I’d noticed before. No, not rust, rather the metallic notes of old blood.

Shelves lined the room’s perimeter, storing bottles of murky fluid and cups stuffed with gleaming golden flight feathers and tufts of brown hair. Crowded alongside those vessels were smaller vials filled with clear, shimmering liquid.

A scuffling sound spun me around, and I leveled my glaive, blade end glinting, toward the source of the noise. A whimper and more rustling answered my movement. Then, I spotted it.

A wire cage about three feet square sat on the floor. Through the grid of metal, I glimpsed a scrawny, wretched young man with his head crudely shaved sitting cross-legged in the cramped space. Plain, ill-fitting clothing swathed his huddled form, and rubber tubing trailed from a needle taped to his arm. He looked starved, and bruises speckled his exposed skin. A shudder shook me as Ithought back to Hell’s kennels, where I had been stored in similarly squalid conditions for months on end.

The caged man met my gaze. His wide, golden eyes were sunken in the hollows of his gaunt face. He was younger than me, maybe by as much as ten years. I couldn’t tell if it was his build or the tight squeeze of confinement that made him seem so small.

I glanced around the room to ensure we were alone. My focus lingered on the wooden table and restraints while I tried to make sense of the scene I’d stumbled upon. The man—boy?—was a prisoner here, likely subjected to some manner of scientific experimentation. The inquiry that had no answer, though, was why?

The young man stayed deathly quiet as I turned toward him. A length of rubber tubing trailed from his arm, siphoning blood into a glass jar on the table beside him.

Treasure, my hound growled.Protect.

My glaive dissolved in a wisp of smoke, and I crouched to creep forward. At my approach, the captive shrunk into the corner of his cage.

The intoxicating smell I’d chased from blocks away was overwhelming now. It was coming from this trapped man. Something exotic and inhuman. I snuffled a breath, struggling to place it.

While I stalled, the fear in the young man’s too-round eyes struck a familiar chord in me. It ached.

Protect, my hound insisted.

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