The old mill on River Road was a skeletal ruin against the bruised purple of the twilight sky. Its great waterwheel, long-since shattered, hung like the broken bone of some enormous beast. The river itself, swollen with autumn rain, churned past the crumbling stone foundations with a low, constant roar that swallowed lesser sounds. It was a place of forgotten industry, a perfect spot for a clandestine meeting far from the town's prying eyes.
Alex arrived fifteen minutes early, parking his car a quarter mile down the road and approaching on foot through a stand of alders. The cold, damp air seeped through his jacket. Every rustle in the underbrush made him flinch, his nerves still raw from the forest. He wasn't just wary of being followed; he was afraid of what else might be drawn to the periphery of human habitation on a night like this.
He took up position behind the mossy bulk of a fallen timber, watching the mill's dark doorway. At precisely ten, a slender figure detached itself from the deeper shadows of the structure. Kiera. She was dressed in dark, practical clothing—a wool coat, jeans, boots—and moved with a soundless, fluid grace that was unnervingly reminiscent of her father. She stopped in the open space before the mill, turning slowly, her gaze sweeping the tree line. Even from this distance, he could sense her tension.
Satisfied he wasn't walking into an obvious trap, Alex stepped out of cover. The snap of a twig under his foot was deafening. Kiera spun towards the sound, her body coiling into a defensive posture for a split second before she recognized him and forced herself to relax. The mask of aristocratic composure was gone, replaced by a stark, hunted alertness.
"You came," she said as he approached. Her voice was barely audible over the river.
"You said the pit has eyes."
"It does." She hugged herself, not against the cold, but as if holding something in. "My father's. The town's. And others." She glanced over his shoulder, back towards the road. "Did anyone follow you?"
"I don't think so. Why the secrecy, Kiera? Your father made his position very clear."
A bitter smile touched her lips. "My father's position is a cage, Mr. Reed. Gilded, ancient, and suffocating. He believes in maintaining the balance, no matter the cost. He's lived so long with the rot, he thinks it's part of the foundation." Her green eyes pinned him in the gloom. "You found the archives. What did you see?"
"A contract," Alex said bluntly. "The 1847 Compact. The town pays for protection from what's in the woods. From your family."
She nodded, unsurprised. "And the 'Moon-Touched.' The ones who get infected by accident, or by straying too close to the Stone Circle on the wrong night. They're not part of the bloodline. They're… unstable. Unpredictable. The town's 'Safety Committee' and my family have a protocol for them."
"'Treated,'" Alex quoted the ledger. "What does that mean?"
Her face tightened. "In the old days? A silver bullet. In more recent decades? Institutionalization with a cover story. A tragic mental breakdown. But it's getting harder. The world is smaller. And the Covenant…" She spat the word. "They've changed the calculus. They don't want to contain or kill. They want to own."
"You know about them."
"My father has been… approached. So has the mayor. The Covenant offers a cure. Suppressors. A scientific leash for the Beast. In exchange for research access. For subjects." Her voice dropped to a raw whisper. "For me."
The confession hung between them, laid bare by the river's noise. "Why you?"
"I'm an anomaly," she said, the words laced with self-loathing. "The curse in our blood is a tide, strongest on the full moon. But I… I can feel it always. A second heartbeat. I can think when the moon is high, when others of my blood lose themselves to the rage. I can hold the change at bay, sometimes shape it. My father sees it as hope. The Covenant sees it as the ultimate sample. A controllable hybrid."
Alex understood now. The scar on her wrist. A brand of ownership, or a focus for some ritual? "And what do you see it as?"
"A prison with better lighting," she shot back, but the defiance faltered. "I see Lily Greene. She wasn't just curious. She was kind. She brought salves made from forest plants to my father, trying to ease his 'arthritic pains.' She stumbled onto something she shouldn't have. And now she's gone."
"Is she alive?" Alex asked the question directly, holding her gaze.
Kiera looked away, towards the raging river. "I don't know. The night she disappeared… it wasn't a full moon. But it was a potent night, astronomically. The veil was thin. If she was taken by a Moon-Touched one, they might not have killed her outright. The curse… it craves propagation sometimes. Not just blood."
The implication was horrifying. "You think she's infected?"
"I think she's a bargaining chip," Kiera said, turning back to him, her eyes blazing with sudden fervor. "The Covenant wants living specimens. My father wants to maintain the old ways and keep me safe. The Beast in the woods is just a symptom, Mr. Reed. The disease is this secret, this silence that lets everyone use us, trap us, and sacrifice the Lilys of the world to keep it going."
"Why are you telling me this? I'm an outsider. A journalist. I could expose everything."
"That's exactly why," she said, stepping closer. The scent of her—frost and something wild, like crushed pine needles—cut through the river damp. "You're outside the cage. You're not bound by the Compact or afraid of the Covenant's money. You saw the Beast and didn't go mad. You're looking for Lily. I am too. My father has given up on her. Written her off as a necessary casualty. I won't."
An alliance, forged in mutual need and moral outrage. But Alex had been burned by sources before. "What do you want me to do?"
"The Covenant has a local agent. Someone inside the town's trust. They're the one pressuring my father and the mayor. Find out who. Follow the money, the strange new faces, the sudden 'philanthropic grants.' Your skills." She pulled a small, folded piece of paper from her coat pocket. "This is a list of the remaining active Ward posts from the old map. The iron and salt markers that reinforce the boundary. The Covenant will want to dismantle them. To study them, or to weaken the barrier so the 'strains' become more active, giving them more subjects to scoop up. Check them. See if any have been disturbed."
He took the paper. "And you?"
"I'll monitor the forest. The Stone Circle. If Lily is out there, changed or not, the pull of that place is strong. And I'll try to learn what my father is planning. He's scared. A scared Blackwood is a dangerous thing."
A loud crack echoed from the woods across the river—a branch breaking under no weight he could see. Kiera went rigid, her head tilting, nostrils flaring subtly. It was an unnervingly animal gesture.
"We're done," she whispered urgently. "Go. Different routes. Don't come back here."
"How do I contact you?"
"You don't. I'll find you." She melted back into the shadows of the mill, disappearing so completely it was as if she'd never been there.
Alex didn't wait. He moved quickly, not back to the road, but upstream along the riverbank, using the sound of the water to cover his movement. The paranoia was infectious. He felt watched. By Kiera? By her father's people? By the Covenant? Or by something older, lurking in the Blackwood that stretched away to his right?
He circled back to his car a mile later, cold, damp, and humming with a volatile mix of fear and purpose. He now had a source inside the enemy camp, a list of targets, and a clearer, darker picture of the conflict. It was no longer just man versus monster. It was a three-way war: the old guard clinging to their cursed equilibrium, a ruthless external force seeking to weaponize it, and the collateral damage—people like Lily—caught in the middle.
Back in his cottage, he spread Kiera's list next to the photo of the 1847 map. The Ward posts formed a rough ring around the heart of the forest. One was near the trapper's cabin where he'd taken refuge. Another was close to a hiking trail popular in summer. A third was on Blackwood property itself.
His phone buzzed with a notification—an email from a generic-sounding "Municipal History Inquiry" address. The subject line was blank. The body contained only a link to a private, encrypted photo-sharing server. There was no signature.
He clicked it, his security software humming. A single image loaded.
It was a modern, clinical photograph, taken in what looked like a laboratory. In the center of a steel table lay a twisted, corroded piece of iron rod, fused with crystalline lumps of dirty white salt. It was scarred, as if by tremendous heat or acid. A label next to it read: *"Sample #3 - Ward Marker (Eastern Sector) - Neutralization via Electromagnetic Pulse successful. Residual thaumaturgic field nullified."*
The message was clear. The Covenant wasn't just looking for the Ward posts.
They were already taking them apart.
And they had just informed him, Alex Reed, that they knew he was looking too. The email was a taunt, a display of power. We are here. We are ahead of you.
He stared at the image, the cold from the river settling deep into his bones. The game had just become exponentially more dangerous. He was no longer just an investigator.
He was a player on the board, and his first move had been anticipated.