William found out about the kidnapped children the same way everyone else did—on the evening news. The story had already seeped into every corner of the city: whispered in grocery lines, mumbled on buses, slurred over drinks long after midnight. Only the police seemed to know more—but even they, judging by the hollow confidence of their press conference, were stumbling in the dark.

He sat motionless before the screen, a dull ache building behind his eyes. He told himself to stay out of it, to leave the investigation to professionals. Yet something in the reporters' strained voices, in the vagueness of the details, crawled under his skin.

And then there was Milagros.

Even when unseen, her presence lingered behind him—a shadow that breathed against his neck, whispering, demanding. The mental link between them had grown stronger these past few weeks, thickening around his thoughts until they weren't entirely his own anymore.

"Stop it," he muttered, pressing his palms to his temples. "Get out of my head."

There was no answer, but the pressure didn't leave. He needed something to occupy him, anything that would smother the rising noise inside. Maybe a little midnight detective work would do.

By the time he reached the house, the streets had gone still—emptied of all but stray plastic bags tumbling along the wet pavement. A frayed strip of police tape fluttered in the wind. The house itself looked tired, used up: peeling paint, windows filmed with grime, a gate that whimpered at the gentlest touch.

William inhaled deeply. The air was cold, carrying the taste of ozone and rain-slick asphalt.

"Lovely place you picked," he muttered to no one. "Guess I'll roll out the red carpet."

He hesitated only a moment before ducking under the yellow tape that read, Crime Scene – Do Not Enter.

Inside, darkness pressed tight around him. Without his flashlight, he would've been blind—but his catlike eyes carved out the shapes in muted shades of gray. Every room looked as if a storm had passed through: overturned chairs, shattered crockery, a child's toy with its head torn off resting under a window.

And that smell. Sharp, clinging—tobacco. Heavy enough to choke on, as though someone had tried to smoke away something far fouler beneath it.

"Jesus," he grumbled, tugging his sleeve over his nose. "Cops must've gone through a whole carton in here."

The reek made him dizzy. He forced shallow breaths, focusing on subtler traces—and found it: a faint, metallic tang beneath the smoke. Blood, nearly erased but not gone.

"Too many damn notes in this symphony," he whispered, the words trembling through his clenched teeth. His heightened senses, normally a crutch he trusted, were betraying him tonight—turning discordant, unreliable.

He scanned the hallway. The beam of his eyes caught small details as he moved: a toppled shoe rack, a child's backpack resting on its side, a smudge along the wall. He stopped.

A handprint. Small. Faded at the edges.

"A girl?" he murmured, crouching. "Or a boy?"

Silence.

Somewhere deeper in the house, a hinge moaned. Slow. Careful.

William rose sharply.

"Hello?" he called, pitching his voice into something steady.

No response. Even the wind outside seemed to hold its breath.

Seconds stretched thin. He could hear only his own breathing, the creak of floorboards old enough to remember things better left forgotten.

"Relax," he muttered to himself, realizing his claws—he still thought of them as fingernails sometimes—had dug splinters from the floor. The faint lunar light spilled through a break in the roof above him, washing his hands in ghost-pale silver.

"Where was I…" he started, but the word trailed away as a sudden chill slid down his spine, clean and absolute.

Something was with him.

He hadn't heard it move, hadn't felt the air shift—only sensed that presence behind him growing denser, as if the darkness itself had taken a breath.

And before thought could catch up to instinct, it struck.

The impact tore the air from his lungs, his vision buckling. For an instant he thought the floor had tilted, that the earth itself recoiled—and then the world snapped into white noise.

The air was driven from his lungs. He flew backward, hit the wall, and slid down like a rag doll dropped from a height.

"Christ… what the—" he started, but didn't finish before something slammed into him again. The world broke apart into noise and pain.

Then came the roar.

It wasn't just one voice—it was many. A chorus of anguish and fury: a woman's scream, a child's wail, an animal's snarl. The sound gnawed at the base of his skull until his vision shook.

"Why the hell do you bastards always come from behind?!" he shouted, lunging away from the darkness. His claws sliced through empty air—and then found something. Something solid. Wet.

Whatever it was, it staggered back, hissing like a cat scalded with boiling water.

And he saw her.

Or the wreckage of what had once been a woman. Her face was wrong—cut apart and reassembled without care, the pieces not quite fitting. Where her eyes should have been, there were twin caverns of black, tendrils worming outward like the roots of a drowned tree. Her skin had the gray-green hue of rot, streaked with cracks where decay had set in.

"Jesus…" he breathed. "Wait—you're the nanny. The one they said was murdered…"

No answer. Only a noise, wet and scraping, like sound forced through a throat filled with dirt.

Then she moved—too fast, too violently.

He dropped and rolled. Her attack missed by inches. His claws brushed her cheek and left a deep wound. From it oozed not blood, but something clay-dark, glistening, and foul.

"Hey!" William shouted, trying to steady his breathing over the thunder of his heart. "Listen to me! I need to know—where are the children? Where are they?!"

Her reply was a shriek like nails dragged across glass. She lunged again, her body jerking in spasms, as if unseen strings pulled her apart at the joints.

He caught her arm mid-swing, the bones cracking under his hand—but she didn't react. No pain. No fear. Only a mindless, starving rage.

Another rush—the air split around her. He raised a hand, but she seized his wrist with impossible strength. The sound of grinding bone tore a grunt from his throat. From hers came only a rumble, low and desperate, the growl of an animal that had forgotten what a human voice was.

"Can you hear me?!" he shouted between breaths. "Where are the damn kids?! Say something!"

Nothing. Only another surge forward—her teeth sank into his shoulder. The bite burned cold; he screamed, lashing out instinctively. His claws ripped across her side, and a thick black fluid gushed from the wound, heavy with the stench of rot. It stung his throat with bitterness.

She hissed, mouth yawning wider, almost splitting her face in two. But she didn't stop.

"No," he rasped, shoving her away. "If talking's useless—then we'll skip to silence!"

He wrenched free, whipped his shoulder forward, and drove an elbow into her jaw. Something cracked. Her head twisted grotesquely, mouth stretching to her ear like a broken doll's hinge. And still—she came at him.

Seconds stretched into eternity. The world collapsed to sound and stench: the rasp of their breathing, the slick thud of blows, the thick perfume of corruption.

Her fingers closed around his throat, crushing down, but William caught a rhythm—waited—and then drove his claws forward.

The sound they made was brief and wet, almost gentle.

The points slid up under her jaw, carving through throat and spine. The flesh gave way with a noise like tearing cloth. What poured out wasn't blood but a dark syrup, gleaming like oil in the moonlight.

She went still.

For a moment, her hands kept twitching, as though the body hadn't been told it was dead yet. The rattling in her throat turned to a bubbling gasp. Then, silence.

He yanked his claws free and stumbled back, breath rasping, pulse hammering against his ribs.

The smell of decay clung thick in the air, heavy as smoke.

He stared down at her collapsed body, at the spreading pool beneath it, black and glinting like tar.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, not sure why. Not sure to whom. "You weren't human anymore."

The house settled into quiet once more.

Outside, rain began to fall, patient and soft, tapping against the windows like fingertips—washing the darkness from the glass, but not from what remained inside.

William stood over what was left of her, every sense strung tight as wire. The rain outside deepened, the sound of it working into the room—a low, steady rhythm that matched the drumming of his pulse. He knelt slowly, his knees clicking. The body twitched once more, an echo of nerve reflex or refusal to end.

He reached out. Her flesh had gone soft; beneath the surface it felt almost fluid, like mud packed into human shape.

The flesh was still moving. Barely. With each blink of lightning, he saw the tissue quiver and settle, like something alive was remembering which way to crawl. Her mouth had slumped open, teeth slick with black residue. The smell worsened.

He wiped a sleeve across his mouth and forced himself to look closer. The wound at the throat wasn't just exuding fluid—it was breathing. Slow, rhythmic.

"Jesus Christ…" he whispered.

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