Rain slithered down the flickering neon sign of Marty's 24-Hour Convenience Store, its cracked letters bleeding crimson light onto the sidewalk. Inside, Leo pressed his chapped knuckles against the register's cold metal edge, counting the seconds until his shift ended. The smell of stale coffee and microwaved burritos clung to his threadbare sweater – three washes past its last thread of dignity.
"Move your ass, Leo! Stock the damn chips!" Marty's roar carried the sour tang of last night's whiskey. The shop owner's gold wedding band left a pale stripe on his finger – gone since Tuesday, same day his wife stopped answering calls. Leo wondered if the pawn shop down 5th Street now held both.
He didn't flinch when the door clattered open. Not at the stench of wet leather and weed. Not even when the muzzle of a Tec-9 nudged his temple.
"Register. Now." The voice belonged to a kid – couldn't be older than seventeen – with spiderweb tattoos crawling up his neck. Behind him, two shadows shifted, their boots crunching broken Slim Jims underfoot.
Leo's palms left damp ghosts on the counter. Sixteen dollars and thirty-seven cents. The number looped in his skull like a prayer. That's all they'll get. But as the Spiderweb Kid leaned in, Leo caught the glint of something worse than greed in his eyes – the manic sheen of someone high on more than power.
The gun jerked toward Marty's office. "Safe. Code."
Glass shattered. Leo's head whipped around. Marty lay sprawled by the beer fridge, blood pooling around his ear like a macabre halo. The security camera's red eye blinked lazily above, its lens cracked by a stray bullet.
"Code," Spiderweb repeated, barrel digging into Leo's cheekbone.
Mom's birthday? Dad's lab access PIN? Leo's lips moved soundlessly. The numbers blurred. He'd forgotten how to breathe.
A wet cough echoed from the alley door.
All three thugs froze.
In the doorway stood a silhouette so hunched it seemed folded by life itself. Rain dripped from the figure's moth-eaten overcoat, pooling around boots held together by duct tape and what looked like… Were those piano wires?
"Wrong night, grandpa," Spiderweb sneered, but his gun hand twitched.
The old man shuffled forward. Leo caught the reek first – not the expected stench of rot, but the earthy musk of wet moss and something metallic, like coins left in blood. Then he saw the scars.
Worms of raised flesh crisscrossed the man's face, glowing faintly under the fluorescents. Not random cuts. Runes. Leo's throat tightened. He'd seen similar markings in his father's confiscated journals, pages filled with sketches of "genetic aberrations" and "Nordic purification rituals."
"Leave," the vagrant rasped. Not a plea. A command that vibrated in Leo's molars.
Spiderweb laughed – a brittle, pitchy sound. The gun swung toward the old man.
Leo moved without thinking.
Cold bit his forearm as he tackled the vagrant. The gunshot's echo left his ears ringing. Warmth seeped through his sleeve. When he looked down, the blood wasn't his.
The old man clutched Leo's wrist, blackened nails digging into flesh. "Seventy-seven steps east," he wheezed, pressing something cold and wooden into Leo's palm. "When the moon drowns in its own light…"
Tires screeched outside.
Leo stumbled into the alley, the old man's weight dragging at his shoulder. Rain needled his face. Somewhere behind them, Spiderweb screamed – not in anger, but raw terror.
The abandoned textile mill loomed ahead, its broken windows like rotted teeth. Leo counted steps in time with his hammering heart: 53… 54… The thing in his hand pulsed. A bracelet, its black wood carved with symbols that squirmed under his touch.
At step 76, headlights speared the rain.
The taxi hit him at 43mph.
Leo's last thought as his skull cracked pavement: Should've bought Mom those flowers.
Then the world folded.
Bones snapped back together with wet clicks. Muscle reknit like time-lapse vines. When Leo gasped awake, the moon hung swollen and red above – its light revealing the taxi driver's frozen scream, the glittering shards of his shattered windshield suspended mid-air.
The vagrant stood over him, rune scars now blazing silver. "Welcome," he whispered as time lurched forward, "to the Hunt."
Blood dripped from Leo's healed arm onto the bracelet. The runes drank it hungrily.
Somewhere in the city, a wolf howled.