Dalton Reed wanted to build a home where a dead city stood. For now he had none. He crouched under a tilted slab of concrete and watched the sun drop. Three nights he had shivered here. Three nights scavengers had circled his fire. He rubbed his hands and looked at the ruins spread below him. Someday people would live here again. Tonight he might not survive to plan it. His wolf pressed against his leg, ears flat. The desert had hardened the animal into muscle and scar, but even a good wolf could not fight off a pack alone. Dalton scratched its neck. "We need walls," he said. "Real ones." He had already climbed the old water tower twice to scout. From up there he had seen it: a heavy armored truck on its side, half a field away. Its steel panels were battered but whole. Reinforced windows. One door facing the sky. A shell built to stop bullets could surely stop the cold. He waited for full dark, then moved. The wolf ran ahead, low and quiet. Dalton reached the truck and climbed onto its exposed flank. He pried the top door open. Inside smelled of oil and rust, but it was dry. Three bodies of space. Thick walls on every side. He dropped in and felt the wind cut off at once. Then the wolf snarled. Dalton climbed back to the opening. A shape crossed the field toward him. It was not a man. Six heavy legs moved a body of cracked gray stone. Orange light glowed in the seams between its plates. It stopped at the truck and turned one bright eye up at the door. The steel shell felt suddenly thin. Dalton froze. The creature circled the wreck once, testing. A stone leg struck the panel near his head. The whole truck rang and shifted, but held. The armor that had failed its old crew was holding for him now. He stayed still and kept the wolf pressed down beside him. He did not breathe. The creature raked the steel again. Then it lost interest. It turned and walked back into the dark, its glow fading between the ruins. Dalton let out a long breath. He pulled the door shut above them and dropped the latch. For the first time in days, no wind touched him. The wolf circled twice and lay down against his chest. Dalton pressed his palm to the cold steel wall and felt how solid it was. "This is it," he whispered. "This is where we start." He had his shelter at last. But he had also seen what walked these ruins by night. If he meant to build a settlement here, he would have to drive that stone thing out first. And he had no idea how.

Morning came gray and cold. Dalton knew he could not stay boxed in the truck forever. To build his settlement, he had to move through these ruins. But the stone creature owned the dark, and he did not know where it slept or hunted. Any street he walked could be its street. So he climbed the water tower again, this time to watch, not to scout for shelter. He needed to learn the thing's paths before it learned his. From the top he mapped the blocks with his eyes. He marked scorched walls, broken windows, a fallen tower of mushroom-shaped stone at the edge of the field. He watched for hours. Then he saw movement below, and it was not the creature. A woman crossed an open lot fast and low. She wore a scout's vest heavy with pouches. She stopped at every corner, checked both ways, then ran. She moved like someone who had been hunted and lived. Dalton climbed down and cut across to meet her. She drew a pistol before he cleared the rubble. "Stop there," she said. "I'm not trouble." He raised his hands. "I have shelter. Steel walls. You look like you need them." Her eyes flicked past him, then back. "Maya," she said, and nothing else. She did not lower the gun. "There's a stone thing out here," Dalton said. "Six legs. Glows. I don't know where it dens." "I do." She said it flat. "I've been tracking it two days. I have to. It sits between me and the river." Dalton's chest tightened. "Show me." Maya studied him. "Why." "Because I mean to build something here. I can't build blind." She holstered the gun. She pulled a folded scrap of paper from a pouch and crouched. On it she had drawn lines, a rough map. She tapped one shape. "Old manor. Sits low, mushroom-capped, half fallen. Face carved over the door." Dalton knew it. The fallen tower he'd marked. "It dens inside by day. Feeds at dusk, works a wide loop, comes back before dawn." Dalton looked at the marks. The creature had a home. It had a schedule. The dark was no longer blind. "Why help me?" he asked. "One reason. Your walls." She stood. "A supply burn's coming. I need a place off the road for a night. That's the trade." He held out his hand. She shook it once, fast, and let go. They crouched together in the rubble while she walked him through the loop, corner by corner. When she finished, Dalton could see the safe hours and the safe streets in his head. He had his answer. He knew where the thing slept and when it hunted. But knowing the den changed everything. He could not just avoid the creature now. To have this city, he had to go to that sagging manor and drive the thing out of it.