The whiskey burned.
Not in the warm, fuzzy way the cheap synth-booze from the Stilts burned. This was different. This was clean fire, sliding down my throat and settling in my chest like a second heartbeat. I hadn't touched alcohol since the bite. Part of me expected my new... biology... to reject it.
Instead, my body purred.
Grimm watched me over the rim of his own glass, those cat-eyes catching the firelight. He didn't blink. I got the feeling he didn't need to.
"Good, isn't it?" He swirled the amber liquid. "Distilled in the Scottish Highlands, back when Scotland was still above water. Pre-Collapse stock. I have exactly twelve bottles left. I save them for special occasions."
"And I'm a special occasion?"
"You're alive." He said it flatly. "That makes you special. The Void-Touched kill ninety-nine percent of their victims. Of the one percent who survive the bite, ninety-nine percent of those go Feral within the first hour. Mindless. Hungry. The kind of thing Cleaners put down with silver-tipped rounds."
He leaned forward, elbows on the bar.
"You survived the bite. You survived the first shift. And you're sitting here, drinking my whiskey, having a conversation. The math on that is... astronomically unlikely."
I set the glass down. My hand was steady. That surprised me. The old Cade—the one with the bum leg and the dead-end future—would have been shaking like a leaf.
"What's a Void-Touched?"
Grimm smiled. It was the smile of a man who'd been waiting a long time for someone to ask the right question.
"Now we're getting somewhere."
He reached under the bar and produced a small device—a holo-projector, sleek and military-grade. He set it between us and tapped the side.
A three-dimensional image flickered to life above the bar. A moon. Our moon. But not the Red Shift version bleeding in the sky outside. This was a tactical overlay, covered in scan data, seismic readings, and something labeled TARTARUS SEAL INTEGRITY: 47%.
"This," Grimm said, "is the truth. Not the Helios Accord propaganda. Not the street preacher bullshit. The truth."
He tapped the moon's surface. The image zoomed in, past the gray dust and craters, down into the mantle. And there, wrapped around the lunar core like a serpent, was a chain. A chain made of something that wasn't metal. It pulsed with a faint golden light. And it was cracking.
"Thirty-seven years ago, the first Red Shift occurred. A seismic event on the lunar surface that released a pulse of exotic radiation. That radiation—we call it Lunacy—washed over Earth. It changed things. Mutated things. Created the first Ragers."
He looked at me.
"But the Ragers aren't the disease. They're the symptom. The Lunacy is coming from that." He pointed at the chain. "We call it Tartarus. A prison built by someone—something—a very long time ago. And inside it? The Lupari Primeval. The First Beast. The thing that taught the galaxy to fear the howl."
The image shifted. The chain's golden light flickered, and for just a moment, something moved behind it. A shape too vast to comprehend. An eye. Or a mouth. Or both.
My gums itched.
"The Void-Touched Ragers are different from regular Ragers," Grimm continued. "Regular Ragers are just animals mutated by ambient Lunacy. They're dangerous, but predictable. The Void-Touched? They've been touched by the Primeval's consciousness. A fraction of a fraction of its will. They're smarter. Stronger. And their bite carries a direct link to the beast in the moon."
He turned off the holo.
"You didn't just get bitten by a monster, Cade. You got chosen. The Primeval is waking up. And it's calling its children home."
Silence filled the bar. The fire crackled. The jazz record spun on.
I picked up my whiskey. Drained it.
"Okay," I said. "Cool story. Scary moon god. Cosmic horror. Got it." I set the glass down harder than I meant to. The bar top cracked under my fingers. A hairline fracture spreading from the impact point.
I stared at my hand. I hadn't felt any strain. Hadn't tried to break anything. It had just... happened.
Grimm glanced at the crack. "Your strength is coming in faster than I expected. That's good. And bad."
"What's the bad part?"
"The faster the strength comes, the faster the Lunacy builds. The hunger you're feeling—the one that wants warm meat and snapping bones—that's the Lunacy talking. Right now, it's a whisper. But it won't stay a whisper forever. Eventually, it becomes a scream. And when you can't hear anything else..." He shrugged. "You go Feral. You become the monster Cleaners put down."
I remembered the voice in my skull. Rip. Kill. Howl.
"How do I stop it?"
"You don't." Grimm reached under the bar again. This time, he produced a small leather-bound book. Old. Hand-stitched. The cover was blank except for a single silver rune that looked like a crescent moon crossed with a wolf's fang.
"You don't stop the beast, Cade. You leash it."
He slid the book across the bar.
"This is the Litany of Control. It's not magic. It's not technology. It's a mental discipline—a pattern of breathing, visualization, and self-conditioning that Stalkers use to maintain the barrier between self and beast. Every Stalker learns their own version eventually. This is a starting point."
I opened the book. The pages were yellowed, filled with handwritten script in faded ink. Diagrams of the human body overlaid with wolf anatomy. Meditative poses. Phrases repeated over and over.
I am the hunter. I am not the prey.
The hunger serves me. I do not serve the hunger.
My claws are tools. My fangs are weapons. My mind is mine.
"Corny," I muttered.
"Effective," Grimm replied. "The Litany works by creating mental anchors. When the Lunacy surges—and it will surge, especially during combat, especially under the Red Shift—you recite the Litany. Not out loud. In your head. You focus on the words until the beast backs down. It's not a cure. It's a leash. And like any leash, it can break if you pull too hard."
I flipped through more pages. There were advanced techniques toward the back. Ways to channel the Lunacy instead of suppressing it. Temporary transformations. Controlled shifts. The handwriting changed—different authors adding their own discoveries.
"How many Stalkers have used this book?"
Grimm's expression flickered. Something passed behind those cat-eyes. Grief, maybe. Or guilt.
"Twenty-three that I know of. Twelve went Feral anyway. Eight were killed by Cleaners or rival Packs. Three... disappeared. Ascended, maybe. Or died in ways that left no body to bury."
"That's a shit survival rate."
"That's the Red Path." He poured himself another whiskey. "Being a Stalker isn't a gift, Cade. It's a terminal diagnosis with a variable expiration date. Some last weeks. Some last decades. The ones who last longest are the ones who accept what they are and learn to use it."
I closed the book. The silver rune on the cover seemed to glow faintly in the firelight.
"Why are you helping me?"
Grimm smiled again. This time, it didn't reach his eyes.
"Because I made a promise a long time ago. To someone with silver eyes, just like yours. I promised I'd help the next one. And the one after that. Until the chain breaks or the beast wakes." He raised his glass. "I keep my promises, Cade Thorne. It's the only thing I have left."
I didn't drink. Not yet.
"What happened to them? The one with silver eyes like mine?"
Grimm's smile faded completely.
"She went to the moon. To face the Primeval. That was twelve years ago." He drained his glass. "She's still up there. Somewhere. Still fighting. And the Red Shift gets stronger every year."
The bar fell silent.
I looked at the leather book in my hands. At the silver rune. At my reflection in the polished wood of the bar—pale face, gaunt cheeks, eyes like molten metal.
I am the hunter. I am not the prey.
It sounded stupid. Like something out of a bad action vid.
But it was the only thing I had.
"When do we start?"
Grimm's smile returned, sharper this time.
"We already have."
The training started that night.
Grimm led me through a door behind the bar I hadn't noticed before—seamless metal, like the entrance above. It opened into a space that couldn't possibly fit beneath the Warrens. A cavernous room with padded floors, reinforced walls, and a ceiling that glowed with artificial moonlight.
"The Nocturne Network," Grimm said, gesturing at the space. "A pocket dimension anchored to reality. Time moves differently here. An hour outside is about six hours inside. Useful for training. Dangerous for the unprepared."
He walked to the center of the room and turned to face me.
"First lesson: The beast is always hungry. You felt it when you woke up. The craving for raw meat. The itch in your gums. That's the Lunacy trying to assert control. Most new Stalkers make the mistake of starving the beast. They think if they ignore the hunger, it'll go away."
He shook his head.
"It doesn't go away. It gets louder. Hungrier. Until one day, it breaks the leash and eats everything in sight—including you."
"So what do I do?"
"You feed it." Grimm held up a hand before I could protest. "Not literally. Not yet. You feed it stimulation. Combat. Adrenaline. The hunt. The beast doesn't just want meat—it wants purpose. A Stalker who locks themselves in a room and meditates all day will go Feral faster than one who fights every night. The Litany isn't about suppression. It's about direction."
He settled into a fighting stance. Loose. Relaxed. His eyes reflected the artificial moonlight.
"Come at me."
I hesitated. "I don't know how to fight. Not like this. Not with... whatever I am now."
"Exactly. The old Cade knew how to scrap. How to swing a pipe. How to run when things got bad. The new Cade has instincts he doesn't understand. Strength he can't control. Speed that'll get him killed if he doesn't learn to use it."
Grimm beckoned.
"So stop thinking. Stop planning. Just move."
I moved.
I didn't decide to. My body just... did. One moment I was standing at the edge of the room. The next, I was crossing the distance in a blur of motion, my fist swinging toward Grimm's face.
He wasn't there.
I stumbled, off-balance, and caught myself on the padded floor. Grimm was behind me, leaning against the wall like he'd never moved at all.
"Fast," he said. "Faster than a Newblood should be. But sloppy. You telegraphed the whole thing. The beast is fast, but it's not smart. That's your job. You're the driver. It's the engine. Right now, the engine is running the car."
I pushed myself up. My heart was pounding. Not from exertion—from excitement. The hunger was awake now, stirring in my chest, and it liked this.
"Again."
Grimm smiled. "Again."
We trained for hours. Or what felt like hours. Time in the Nocturne was strange—elastic, slippery. The artificial moonlight never changed. My body never tired. The hunger never faded.
Grimm pushed me through basic drills. Stances. Strikes. Footwork. But it wasn't martial arts—it was predator training. How to move without sound. How to track by scent. How to feel the vibrations of a heartbeat through the floor.
"Stalkers don't fight like humans," he explained. "Humans fight to disable. To intimidate. Stalkers fight to end. Every movement should serve one purpose: putting your target down as fast as possible. The longer a fight goes, the more Lunacy builds. And the more Lunacy builds, the closer you get to losing control."
He taught me to feel the Lunacy as a separate presence. A second heartbeat. A shadow-self curled around my spine. When I moved, it moved with me. When I struck, it wanted to strike harder. Faster. Deadlier.
The Litany was the anchor.
Between drills, Grimm made me recite the phrases. Not just the words—the feeling behind them. My claws are tools. My fangs are weapons. My mind is mine.
At first, it felt ridiculous. Embarrassing. Like a kid playing pretend.
But then, during a sparring session, I felt it.
Grimm came at me fast—faster than human, a blur of pale skin and silver hair. My body reacted before my brain could catch up. I dodged, pivoted, and my hand came up in a claw strike aimed at his throat.
And the hunger surged.
It wanted me to follow through. To feel cartilage crunch. To taste blood.
My mind is mine.
I pulled the strike. My claws—claws, I had claws now, I hadn't even noticed them extending—stopped an inch from Grimm's neck.
We stood there, frozen. My breath was ragged. My gums ached. My eyes burned.
Grimm looked at the claws hovering near his throat. Then at me.
"Good," he said quietly. "That's the leash. Hold onto it."
I lowered my hand. The claws retracted—a strange, tingling sensation, like cracking your knuckles from the inside.
"How long until I don't have to think about it?"
Grimm stepped back, rolling his shoulders.
"Months. Years. Some Stalkers never stop thinking about it. The ones who do..." He paused. "They're the ones who go Feral. Complacency is death, Cade. The moment you think you've tamed the beast is the moment it eats you."
He walked toward the door.
"That's enough for tonight. Real night, anyway. Outside, it's almost dawn. You need rest. Real rest, in real space. The Nocturne is a tool, not a home. Spend too long here and the line between self and shadow starts to blur."
I followed him back through the metal door, into the Slaughtered Lamb, into the real world.
The fire had burned low. The jazz record had stopped. And through a small window near the ceiling, I saw the first gray light of morning.
The Red Shift was fading. The moon was just a moon again. Pale and distant and silent.
But I could still feel it. A tug in my chest. A whisper in my blood.
Soon.
Grimm handed me a small card. Blank except for an address in the Warrens.
"A safe house. Not mine. A friend's. She'll give you a place to sleep and ask no questions. Tell her Grimm sent you. She'll know what it means."
"Who is she?"
"Her name is Lena Vance. She's a Forger. Builds gear for people like us. She's also the most dangerous person in the Warrens who's never thrown a punch." He smiled thinly. "Don't piss her off."
I took the card. Slipped it into my pocket next to the leather book.
"Grimm."
He looked at me.
"Thank you. For the answers. For the training. For..." I trailed off, not sure how to finish.
"For not letting you die alone in the mud?"
"Yeah. That."
Grimm nodded slowly. His cat-eyes reflected the dying firelight.
"Don't thank me yet, Cade. The hard part hasn't even started."
He turned away, picking up a glass to polish.
"Come back tonight. Same time. We'll work on your shift."
I left the Slaughtered Lamb as the sun rose over the ruins of Chicago. The streets were quiet—the dangerous kind of quiet that came after a Red Shift night, when everyone was too scared or too smart to be outside.
I walked toward the address on the card.
The hunger walked with me.
But so did the Litany.
I am the hunter. I am not the prey.