Vera Sandstorm's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The stranger breathes steady now, color back in his face. Vera pushes off from the warehouse wall and looks down at him. The formula worked on something that wasn't him. Something that had been inside him or attached to him. She needs to understand what that means. The fox appears at the mouth of the alley. Its fur is dark now, matted with foam. It watches her with eyes that don't blink. Then it turns and runs. Vera hears it before she sees what follows. The scrape of claws on brick. The wet sound of breathing too large for any animal she knows. A shadow fills the alley entrance, wider than the gap between buildings. Scales catch the streetlight. Teeth longer than her forearm. The creature lowers its head and its breath washes over her, hot and rank. She doesn't move. Phantoms don't have heartbeats to speed up or skin to go cold, but she feels something shift inside her chest. The thing that carried the fox inside the stranger — this is what it became when her formula forced it out. The behemoth takes one step forward. Vera reaches into her coat and pulls out the second vial. She'd prepared two doses. If the formula reacts to supernatural flesh, she needs to know how much it takes to destroy it instead of just displacing it. The creature's jaw opens. Vera throws the vial. Glass shatters against scales and copper liquid runs down its chest. The behemoth screams. Its body convulses. Flesh bubbles and splits. It lurches backward, clawing at itself, and then it runs. The alley goes quiet. Vera stands alone with the stranger at her feet and the knowledge that her formula doesn't just reverse death. It burns through anything that shouldn't be alive. She looks at the empty space where the creature stood. She'd spent years believing the formula was meant to restore life. But what if she'd been measuring it wrong the whole time? What if it was never about restoration at all, but about purging what doesn't belong?