The dark hand drifted toward the Aberrant, slow as smoke, sure as a verdict. It did not strike. It only passed.
Then it stopped moving. For two heartbeats nothing else moved either.
Boots, breath, even the hanging dust seemed to wait.
The hybrid creatures, all its mismatched mutations and borrowed parts, went slack like the brain had been unplugged from the meat.
One of the masked men found his voice first.
"Is. Is it dead just like that?"
Diviners stepped in. Their fingers traced signs across their turtle shells. They peered inside. Some tuned in, reading whatever their divinizing could read.
Jekyll did not trust readings. He trusted what he specialized.
He checked blood. He pinched muscle, pressed along bone, watched for the little betrayals a living body could not hide.
He looked for the stubborn heat of hunger. It was still there.
Under their masks, the Diviners sweated, as if their own arts were accusing them of stupidity.
