EMRYS

THE RAIN ANNOYED HIM.

It wasn't entirely terrible. In fact, the sound was rather beautiful. Pattering droplets made the woods feel less empty that time of night, as if millions of dewy friends were kissing the flora and fauna.

But the rain itself? Emrys could easily do without it.

It was the wet hair sticking to his forehead and the moisture tracing patterns down his face, stinging his eyes as it slithered between his lashes. Not to mention the way it made his clothes cling to every curve of his body, weighing him down after a taxing trek through the woods. The bone-chilling dampness made each gust of October wind even more bitter against his gooseflesh.

The worst part was the smell. Not the earthy tones that rose from the ground during every storm; those he found lovely and would have appreciated any other night when he could find solace wandering the woods.

Instead, the foul odor came from the mutilated beast at his feet.

The creature was revolting enough without its wetness enhancing the stench of rotting flesh, separated from the bone to escape its own grotesque appearance. Around its snout, the skin had peeled from its jaw to showcase rows of razor-sharp teeth.

Its face was nothing compared to its back, where the skin had receded from a bubbling, blackened protrusion along its spine—and, as Emrys had unfortunately discovered, the tumor was not skin-like at all. It had the quality of thick jelly, sticky with a viscous substance he never wanted to touch again.

The beast puzzled him, mostly because it wasn't a beast at all. Or it hadn't been at one point in its life.

Judging by the large build and what little remained of its face, it was all that remained of a Great Dane. A dog. One of the most loving and gentle Earthly animals he'd come across.

It had probably been someone's pet. No doubt called Fido, or Otis, or any number of cliché names that beings in this realm gave anything with canine resemblance.

Emrys had named the heavy mutt Lard. The title was fitting after carrying it into the deepest part of the woods, each half of its body slung over a shoulder like sacks of rotten food. But it wasn't long after naming the dog that he wished he hadn't. It only reminded him that it once had a home.

A family.

Now, the caring creature had been reduced to an animated sack of decay. Earth's first victim of the Darkness—and it would be far from the last.

A sniffle cracked his stoic wall with instant regret. If there was one thing worse than constant whiffs of wet, rotting flesh, it was charred, wet, rotting flesh. He glowered at Lard's carcass, where his flames had coated it in blackened scorch marks.

It wasn't that he'd wanted to burn it alive. It was just the only way to slow the damn thing down.

Being cold and drenched did not put him in the mood for stomach-churning odors, but if he couldn't rid himself of the smell, at least he could do something about his sopping wet clothes.

Emrys straightened his shoulders and let out a measured breath. Steam curled from his lips, mingling with the raindrops that sniped through its tendrils. Closing his eyes, he clenched his hands into fists, though his fingers lacked compliance after being numbed by the cold.

Warmth swelled in his belly, spreading to heat the clothes on his back. The fabric had already begun to dry, and steam rose from every raindrop that dared invade his space.

"What are you doing?"

The voice startled him, and he turned to find a light flickering beyond the treeline. A young woman approached, face masked in shadow by a darkened hood. She waved her phone's flashlight along the ground as she swerved to avoid roots and divots in her path.

"Took you long enough," Emrys complained.

Steam emerged from the woman's hood in a bitter huff. The light blinked in her hand, sputtering to match the pace of her steps.

"I know you hate this weather," she said, "but drop the warm aura before you cause another power surge. Electricity and magic don't mix, in case you've forgotten."

Emrys couldn't hide his hardening expression, not when his eyes brightened to a fiery gold. Every degree his body temperature rose quickened the flashlight's flickering until his blood reached a boil that no human could withstand. Steam billowed from his pores, and the woman's scowl was lost behind its blur.

The phone's bulb shattered.

"Emrys."

He uncurled his fists and the warmth faded. The deluge pounded once again, as if angry that it had been suppressed.

"Someone's grumpy tonight."

Emrys ignored her and yanked his own hood up, though the drenched material did nothing to shield him from the freezing rain. "Power surge?"

"You caused a blackout for a three-block radius around that coffee shop. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that this thing ripped a man's chest open and I should stop it from paper-shredding anyone else."

He gestured to Lard, who swam in the muck at his feet. The woman stepped closer to inspect the poor animal—from its broken body to its head, severed and lying inches away.

"Is that... a dog?"

Emrys nodded. "Entirely Corrupted."

Bending down, he grabbed a branch that had fallen in the storm. Messing with the dead-undead was the last thing he wanted to do with its stench already souring his stomach, but he braced himself regardless.

Emrys prodded the tumor on the animal's back. It dipped under the gentle poke, jiggling and wobbling like an overfilled water balloon. A forceful jab ruptured the gelatinous barrier. Thick, black goo streamed across the grass, gurgling as if the substance itself was alive.

In a way, it was.

By the time Emrys had gotten to the creature, Lard was nothing but a reanimated shell, controlled by the bubbling nastiness that had invaded its body.

"The progression rate is unbelievable," said Emrys, stepping away to avoid contact with excess fluid. "If this dog had been turning for months, we would've known long before now. I've never seen a creature get this bad in such a short span of time."

"You sealed the Barrier when you arrived. The Darkness should still be trapped in Astraela. How did it make it here?"

"I'm as confused as you are." Emrys threw his stick to the ground. "But these things aren't easy to kill. One blackout isn't an issue when it means saving lives."

"You can't risk blowing your cover. One wrong move and we're both dead. Besides..." She met his eyes with an unrelenting stare. "You need to conserve your power."

Emrys suppressed a groan. "What should I do, then?"

"Find a new way to take these things down. We can't resort to magic every time. They've got to be weak against something, and we need to know what that something is."

The tension was suffocating. Emrys had spent countless Astraelan nights beating his head against walls over potential ways to eliminate the Corrupted, and that was with full use of his power. The sheer thought of starting over made his blood pressure rise.

"Maybe she can help us," he offered. "She knows more about them than anyone—"

While he had been on the woman's bad side since their first meeting, the glare that ground his words to a halt proved that if they were not fighting on the same side, she would have ripped him limb from limb.

"She can't find out you're here."

"But she—"

"If you breathe a word to her, you'll be putting her in danger," the woman said. "She's a human. After what happened to Thana, do you want this girl's life on the line as well?"

Emrys winced. Despite the sting of her words, she was right.

Satisfied with his silence, the woman stepped away. As she trudged back in the direction she'd come from, she turned her head to throw one final bite over her shoulder.

"Get rid of the body. That smell will rot anything within miles."

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