Page 4 of Wolf's Redemption

Bek returned to the sofa and the disc. Clicking out of Wikipedia, her eyes caught on another link.

“Diary of a Madman.”

Below it, in amongst the text, the word Theban. Bek looked at the wall, beyond which her neighbor’s music still reverberated. Wasn’tDiary of a Madmanan Ozzy Osbourne album? She clicked on the link. Yes. And there, the explanation she’d been hoping for. Ozzy Osbourne had used the Theban script on the inside cover of the album.

Excitement buzzed in her veins. Maybe it wasn’t an artifact. If she could link this to Ozzy, it could be worth something. Hunting around for a piece of paper, she scrolled through Google until she found the Theban alphabet and set about translating.

Bek stared at the four lines she’d written.WTF?A bunch of gobbledygook. No wait. It kind of looked like… Could it be…Latin? And she was back again to it being an artifact. Maybe. Ozzy had once bitten the head off a live bat. Who knew what weirdness he was capable of? Another search through Google for Latin to English, then she transcribed the translation.

Bek threw her pen down on the coffee table. Four lines. A rhyme. She rubbed the little gold disc between her fingers, blood from her cut sinking into its grooves. She stared at the words again. Not a single mention of Ozzy, though it had an occult-like ring to it. She went back to her phone, clicking on links relating to Ozzy, Black Sabbath,Diary of a Madman.

Nothing.

Would her neighbor have any ideas?

Halfway to the door, Bek halted, the disc in one hand, her translation and her phone in the other.Am I crazy?I can’t trust him.He’d take it and hock it himself. Nope. She’d figure this out on her own.

Bek stared at the rhyme. What did it mean? She read the words out loud.

“Vanish from all human sight,

Those who favor moonlit night.

To bloodstone shall they return,

So no man of their secret learns.”

Darkness hit like a solid wall, sucking away her breath and making her ears ring. Bek reeled, lost her balance, lost all sense of up or down, and fell. Like a slow-motion video, she hung suspended in the air, arms flailing for what seemed like an eternity. Then she hit the floor with a thud.

“Oof!” That’d leave a bruise. Or two. Thank God she hadn’t dropped her phone.

“Damn it, Mrs. Wu. I said I’d pay rent tomorrow. You didn’t have to cut off my electricity.”

Bek closed her eyes and rested her forehead on the floor, the damp earth cooling her wine-flushed face.

Wait.Dirt?Her eyes snapped open.

She scrambled to her knees and turned on her phone, lighting up the surrounding space. Yes,dirt.And stone walls. No faded sofa, no peeling linoleum and no seventies-style kitchenette. The pervading smell of dampness replaced sweet and sour pork, and the guitar riffs of Black Sabbath were noticeably absent.

I haven’t drunk that much wine. Have I?

Maybe. And she’d not eaten since lunch. Was this some weird, alcohol-induced dream? Would she wake up in the morning with a pounding headache, a crick in her neck and a hideous floral pattern imprinted on her cheek because she’d passed out on the sofa?

Bek got to her feet, the cold seeping through the thin soles of her slippers and chilling her toes. Goosebumps erupted across her bare arms. A little too much realism to be a dream.

She swung her phone around.Where the hell am I?Some kind of…basement? Below The Spicy Dragon? A sinkhole, maybe?

It’d rained for two weeks straight. Pipes had burst all over the city, flooding streets, houses and office buildings. One had opened up down the street and swallowed a car.

Wide-eyed, she took in her surroundings. Mrs. Wu would be pissed.

But…If I’ve fallen in a sinkhole… Bek patted her body.Why am I still alive?Where were the signs of a collapse? The mud, the water and half a restaurant? The room was whole, devoid of anything but her.

A low chuckle broke the silence, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She swallowed, her fingers clenching around her phone. Slowly she turned, holding it out in front of her and lighting up the small space. Her heartbeat fluttered in her chest, and her hand shook, bouncing the light around like a strobe. Not an empty room. Not only her. There was a man.

A man chained to thefreaking wall.

He stared at her through strands of long, blond hair, his bearded face dirty, and reflected light from her phone glittering in his eyes. Shackles encased his wrists and neck, and the surrounding skin was blistered and raw. A torn shirt hung from his broad shoulders, and Bek’s gaze skipped across muscled pecs and ripped abs.

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