The howl wasn't just a sound; it was a physical vibration that rattled Andrea's teeth. It felt heavy, ancient, and entirely too close.
"What the fuck was that?" Andrea choked out, her green eyes darting toward the mouth of the alley. "Is that a wolf? In the middle of the city? Tell me that's just a really big, really loud husky."
Viktor didn't answer. He didn't have to. The way he struggled to his feet told her everything she needed to know. He moved with a jerky, agonizing effort, his muscles bunching and rippling beneath his ink-covered skin. The wound in his side hissed as the rain hit the charred flesh, that strange, acrid smoke rising in thin tendrils.
"We... move," he rasped.
"Move? You can barely breathe, you giant oaf!" Andrea grabbed his arm, trying to provide some leverage. She expected him to be heavy—he was a mountain of a man—but the moment his weight leaned into her, she felt like she was being crushed by a tectonic plate. "Jesus! What do you eat? Lead weights?"
"Run, Andrea," he growled, his hand clamping onto her shoulder.
Suddenly, the heat radiating from him spiked. It wasn't the heat of a fever anymore; it was the heat of an engine being pushed past its redline. His fingers dug into her scrub-clad shoulder, and for a terrifying second, Andrea saw his fingernails lengthen into something sharp, black, and predatory.
He didn't just lean on her. He pulled her.
With a strength that defied every law of biology she'd ever studied, Viktor surged forward. He was dragging her, his steps heavy but impossibly fast for a man who should have been in hypovolemic shock.
"Wait, wait! My bag!" Andrea scrambled to grab her medical kit, nearly tripping over her own feet as Viktor hauled her toward the far end of the alley.
Thwip.
A shadow detached itself from the rooftop above them. It landed with a bone-jarring thud twenty feet away, blocking their exit. In the dim glow of a flickering streetlight, Andrea saw it.
It wasn't a person. Not exactly. It was a man—or it had been once. Now, it was a hunchbacked nightmare, its jaw elongated, its eyes glowing with the same sick, yellow light she'd seen in Viktor's for a split second. It let out a wet, clicking growl, its long, spindly fingers scraping against the brick wall.
"Oh, hell no," Andrea whispered, her legs turning to jelly. "I am definitely having a stroke. This is a stress-induced hallucination. I'm actually passed out in the hospital breakroom and—"
"Quiet!" Viktor pushed her behind him. The movement was so violent and swift it made her head snap. He stood between her and the creature, his chest heaving, his tattooed back arching as a low, rumbling vibration started deep in his throat.
The creature leaped.
Andrea screamed, covering her eyes, but the sound of the collision made her peek through her fingers. Viktor hadn't flinched. He'd caught the thing mid-air with one hand around its throat. The sheer force of the impact should have snapped Viktor's arm, but he held the thrashing monster like it was a disobedient toddler.
With a guttural roar, Viktor slammed the creature into the dumpster. The metal crumpled like tinfoil. Before the thing could recover, Viktor's hand shifted—his claws truly out now—and he ripped into the creature's chest with a sickening, wet tear.
Andrea felt the bile rise in her throat. "Viktor, stop! What the fuck are you—"
The creature dissolved. It didn't die; it literally disintegrated into a pile of black, foul-smelling ash that washed away in the rain.
Viktor slumped back against the dumpster, his breathing coming in ragged, bloody hitches. The gold in his eyes was fading back to that icy blue, but his hand was still twitching, stained with black ichor.
"Your... car," he managed, his voice barely a whisper now.
"My car?" Andrea was shaking so hard she could hear her teeth clicking. "You just... you just killed a shadow monster with your bare hands! You're smoking! Your eyes were yellow! I am calling the police, I am calling the army, I am calling a fucking priest!"
Viktor grabbed the front of her hoodie, pulling her face inches from his. "They... are coming, Andrea. More of them. If you stay... you die."
The logic of a normal person finally kicked in. She looked at the pile of ash, then at the massive, bleeding man who had just saved her life despite being half-dead himself.
"My car is a piece of shit, Viktor," she snapped, the sass returning as a desperate shield against the insanity. "It's a 2005 Corolla with a missing hubcap and a check engine light that's been on since the Obama administration. If you get blood on the upholstery, I am going to kill you myself."
She ducked under his massive arm, hauling his weight onto her shoulders. This time, he didn't resist. He leaned into her, his hot breath ghosting over her ear, making her skin break out in goosebumps that had nothing to do with the cold.
"Drive," he whispered.
They stumbled out of the alley and toward the curb where her beat-up silver car sat under a streetlamp. Every shadow felt like a claw, every rustle of the wind like a howl. Andrea fumbled with her keys, her hands slick with rain and his blood, finally clicking the locks open.
She shoved him into the passenger seat—it was a tight fit, his massive frame taking up almost the entire cabin—and scrambled into the driver's side.
"Where am I going?" she asked, jamming the key into the ignition. "The police station? The ER? A church?"
"My... dacha," he groaned, his head hitting the headrest.
"I don't know what a dacha is, Viktor! Use your words!"
"North... just drive... North..."
Andrea slammed the car into gear, the engine whining in protest as she peeled away from the curb. As she glanced in the rearview mirror, she saw three more shadows leap from the rooftops into the alley they had just left.
"Great," she whispered, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. "I'm an accessory to a supernatural mob war. My mother was right. I should have gone into accounting."
Beside her, Viktor let out a low, pained groan, his blue eyes fluttering shut. His hand, still stained with ash and blood, fell onto her thigh, the heat of his skin searing through her damp scrubs. Andrea didn't push it away. She just drove, her heart screaming as she sped toward the outskirts of the city, leaving her normal life in the dust.