The cellar reeked of damp wool and iron. Erik's scalpel hovered above the wolfman's throat, trembling not from fear but the sacrilege of its edge catching moonlight. Ten years of Hippocratic oaths curdled in his gut as Lila's whimper echoed behind the wine racks.
"Don't," she gasped, but the wolfman's claws were already shredding her sleeve.
Erik plunged the blade left of the sternum.
The sound was wrong—less puncture than crunch, like snapping a rabbit's femur. The wolfman spasmed, human eyes surfacing beneath amber irises.
"T-thank…" Blood bubbled on his lips.
Erik recoiled. "Don't you dare finish that."
(Three cellars down, moss crept over a newly exposed patch of dungeon wall. Selena's childhood charcoal sketch glowed faintly: Lila as a doll with rusted chains around her neck.)
II. Contamination
The wolfman seized Erik's wrist. "She… was first…" His grip left five crescent burns.
Lila screamed. Not from pain—her own wrist now bloomed identical marks. Erik stared at his hand. The burns were moving, tendrils of black creeping toward his elbow.
"Scrub it!" Lila thrust a vinegar jug at him. "Before it roots!"
He plunged his arm into sour liquid. The burns hissed, twisting into a wolfsbane tattoo.
"Selena's welcome kiss," Lila whispered. Her chain bruises pulsed in sync with the tattoo.
Erik smashed the jug. "I save your life and get inked?"
"Saved me?" She lifted her sleeve. The wolfman's claw marks now glowed bioluminescent. "We're both her canvases now."
III. Graffiti of the Damned
Dawn found them picking through collapsed tunnels. Lila trailed fingers over weeping stone.
"Warmer here," she murmured. Her touch dislodged mortar.
The wall crumbled, revealing a child's mural:
Selena (stick figure with crown)Lila (rag doll with chains)A wolf pup (golden eyes dripping black tears)
Erik snorted. "Charming childhood."
Lila pried a charcoal chunk from the wall. It disintegrated, releasing a cloud of spores. They settled on her burns, morphing the glow into Selena's cursive:
Property of Subject 7B
"First locked doll," Erik read aloud. "Cheery."
Lila smashed her palm against the mural. "I'm not her damn collectible!"
The chains in the drawing rattled. Real ones fell from the ceiling.
IV. Oathbreaker's Lullaby
Erik woke chained to a stalagmite. The wolfman's corpse sprawled nearby, throat slit with surgical precision. His precision.
Lila hummed off-key nearby, scrubbing the wall with vinegar. Her sleeves were rolled up—the claw marks now formed musical notes.
"Stop that." His voice echoed like a stranger's.
"It's a lullaby." She scrubbed harder. The notes flaked off, revealing older text beneath: Sister's cage fits better when she sings.
Erik's tattoo throbbed. He pressed it against cold stone. "We need to find Ayla."
"Ayla's busy burning ghosts." Lila tapped the wall. A hidden panel slid open, releasing a draft smelling of Selena's honeysuckle perfume. "This leads to her old dressing room. Find anything lacy, it's probably booby-trapped."
V. Second Cut
The dressing room mirror still held Selena's lipstick scrawl:
Good girls don't bite
Erik's reflection twitched. His tattoo had spread—vines now curled around his neck.
"Lovely." He smashed the mirror.
Shards skittered across moth-eaten silk. One sliced his palm. Blood dripped onto a concealed floor safe. The combination dial spun autonomously, clicking to the rhythm of Lila's humming.
Inside: a syringe labeled 7A-7B Bonding Serum and a lock of infant hair (platinum, like Lila's).
"Found the family jewels," he called.
No response.
Lila lay curled by the mural, claw marks glowing as she traced Selena's childhood fingerprints. "She cried while drawing me," she murmured. "Tears eroded the limestone here."
Erik pocketed the serum. "Sympathy for the devil?"
"Empathy." She pressed her ear to the wall. "Hear that? The stones remember her nightmares too."
Distant howls shook dust from the ceiling. Not wolves—something laughing in human cadence.
Erik's tattoo pulsed. His right eye flashed amber.
Somewhere, a doll's porcelain finger cracked. Somewhere, a safe door creaked open on its own.
Postscript: The Mark Deepens
That night, Erik dreamt of Selena at nine years old, stitching wolfsbane into a nurse's uniform.
"You'll make a fine watchdog," she crooned, snapping his first surgical glove onto her doll.
He woke with his right hand fused to the serum vial. The tattoo now ended at his iris—a thorned chain tethering him to the dark.
Lila's humming drifted through the vents. It matched the safe's clicking.
Always clicking.