“A child may live, a man may die.”

- A memory of the Old Ones.

***Carinthia***

***Sely***

I drop the corpse of the human woman. Why? I didn't have to react so violently. I broke her neck for no good reason. But this time it was different. She tried to touch Magnus. Nobody touches what's mine! My instincts just took over. Being in close proximity with humans in a stressful situation is really dangerous.

Even a little twist of the neck is too much for them. Among Old Ones that's regarded as an injury that someone may receive during a good brawl. And Magnus isn't even surprised about about my behaviour. I fucking growled when the bitch tried to get his attention.

I watch the whore as she flees with those stupid high heels of hers. She is so lucky that she isn't running for real. That would surely trigger another overreaction.

Magnus smiles, watching her. “Real life is so much worse than the movies.”

I try to say something, when the doors fly open and armed guards storm the room. There is no time to think. I just react and draw in a deep breath as they level their guns at us. Magnus steps forward and raises a hand, erecting a barrier.

One moment later his shield wavers with blue light as the bullets are deflected away from us. Some even ricochet and hit the guards. I take note of the fact that the barrier is only aimed at fast moving objects, so I release the hellfire. The spell has weaknesses, like limited range and bad penetration. But it's perfect for confined spaces.

And let's be truthful. I only learned Dragon’s Breath to deter meddlesome men. It's a big turn off if the object of desire can breathe fire down your throat.

My flames flood half the room, engulfing the guards who immediately stop shooting. There are about a dozen of them and all are screaming and flailing like mad men. Then there is only the roaring inferno and I cancel the spell. Magnus gestures with his hand and I feel his magic putting out the flames.

Then he studies the carnage. “That's a cool spell. Can you teach it to me?”

I cough up a little smoke. “Of course. If you want to invest five years and a few burned throats?”

He pulls a grimace. “Maybe not. I'll stick to barriers and force magic.” Stepping over a charred corpse, he approaches the door from which the guards entered the room.

I follow. “That reminds me, I've never seen you use a real spell to attack. Why?”

He shrugs. “First, because abundant usage of magic causes radiation which can be tracked. That's how I managed to follow you to the chapel. Second, because I like to pour all my power into my magical defence. I am no fan of pain. I attack with weapons or through physical means. I've rarely seen or heard of a magical duel in which someone managed to overwhelm the other party with offensive magic.

“And it generally costs more energy to attack than to defend. Once one side is unable to defend, all it takes is a little force magic to snap the neck or squirl up the brain. And then I can take my time with decapitation.”

“But you have offensive magic?” I ask. Behind the door we find a long corridor and another wave of attackers.

He sighs and stabs his finger in a slicing motion at them. He never stopped walking. The guards drop to the ground, seemingly untouched. “There. They have no magical defence. It isn't even a competition if I use force magic.”

As we make our way past the bodies I notice a small trickle of blood from their noses. I am a little impressed. Force magic is the most basic spell someone can learn. Many parents choose it as the first spell for their children. But Magnus aimed it precisely at the eight guards, affecting only their brains. That takes control.

We make our way through the facility, dispatching the guards. There is also other personnel, but they are few. I assume that most people fled the building when the alarm went off. That makes it easier for us to find the remaining humans throughout the complex. Tracking them with magic isn’t a problem.

During the entire process a feeling of uneasiness starts growing within me.

We've killed at least forty people as if they are cattle. At least the first few guards tried to fight, but now we are chasing fleeing men and women in office suits. I watch as Magnus pulls out a snivelling woman from under a table where she tried to hide. He grabs her head and batters her against the table's corner, caving in her skull.

It can't keep it back any longer. “Are we really doing the right thing? I've seen nothing that warrants this! There are just a few small laboratories and people who work for a living. And we are slaughtering them like animals!”

“I told you not to come. This job weighs on the conscience. Just try to think of them as mice.” He turns in a circle and tilts his head, listening for other survivors.

I look down at the corpse and wince. “I feel sick. And what about those who fled the facility?”

He sighs. “The Krampus will take care of them. Just keep it together a little longer. We have the whole basement ahead of us. There you will learn why we are doing this. When I started managing my territory, I also couldn't take the smell of blood. So I bought a chicken farm and slaughtered twenty chickens daily. It took a while, but I got used to the smell.”

Now it's official. Of all the guys in the world, I took one with mental issues. I start talking to myself. Sely, your relationship with the other sex was doomed the moment you enchanted yourself with wild magic.

“Basement?” I ask.

“Yeah, I took care of the upper floors first to give you the chance to back out.” He gestures with his finger to follow him and we head back to the central staircase.

The building has three floors with a lot of offices and laboratories. That's why it took us a while to search everything. I avoid a rather large puddle of blood on the stairs. The last thing I need now, is to slip and cover myself in gore. Gods, this place stinks!

The staircase leads us into the basement where we are stopped by a huge blast door. Magnus steps closer and uses his knuckles to test the metal. “They did a good job. I wonder if they were afraid of something getting out, or something getting inside.”

“I don't know who or what you are, but this door will hold for sure until the authorities arrive,” A voice addresses us in English. I search for the source until I notice the speakers above the door.

Magnus doesn't bother with the voice and continues in Akkadian. “Does he still believe that the police are coming? They should be already here in that case.”

I shrug while the voice shrieks, “Which language are you speaking!? You can be sure that the government will hunt you for disturbing this facility!”

Magnus cracks his knuckles and shakes his hands. Then he uses a finger to trace a big square on the blast door. There is no visible effect, but when he places his palm on the metal and pushes, the entire square slides inwards and falls to the floor with a heavy 'thud'. The swish of displaced air signifies that the blast door functioned as some sort of air lock.

“Impossible!”

We ignore the ranting voice and advance through four similar doors. “Did they fear a nuclear attack?” I ask at the fourth door.

“I would rather assume that they are afraid of other companies or governments which are after their secrets.” Magnus breaks the next door and is greeted by a hail of gunfire. He pulls his own pistol and fires twice through the opening. The gunshots cease immediately and he advances.

I lower my head and step through the opening, following him.

On the other side are two more guards, each with a hole in the forehead. Magnus strolls into the middle of the room and scratches his chin with the barrel of his gun, regarding the two scientists with raised eyebrows. “Hi. Did you have a nice day?”

The scientists who were hiding behind the guards look at us in disbelief. One is an old man with grey hair. The other is a woman in her forties, her brown hair is in the process of turning white. It's the old man who collects himself first. “I am William Bachja and that’s Sofie Mahal. We are the head researchers of this facility. What do you want?”

“To extinguish this place and everyone in it. But first you will give us a little tour. My better half here is new to the job, so I've to show her why we are doing this.” Magnus jabs his pistol at the man to spur him on.

The old man steps in front of the female scientist. “You won't get away with this. This place has the status of a consulate. Whichever government you are working for, the U.S. government will hold you responsible.”

Magnus shoots at the floor under Bachja’s feet, causing him to jump. “Maybe I should just shoot you. The stupid white coat makes you look smart, but you are actually just a stupid piece of shit. So give us the tour or I'll shoot where it hurts.”

The woman grabs the man's shoulder with a shaking hand. “They aren't from the government or another company. It's them! The ones who provided the Alpha sample.”

I narrow my eyes. “What are you talking about?”

The Bachja looks at the floor. “All of our research is based on a single piece of tissue. We don't know where it came from. We were only told that it was found at the site of an accident.” He turns around and guides us into a laboratory. In the middle of the room is a single, large tank made of glass. Several pieces of a body are floating inside a green liquid. A hand, feet, organs. They are held in place by wires and tubes.

The woman points at the tank. “The specimen must have been extremely resilient while it was alive. We managed to reanimate some of the cells and they multiplied at an enormous rate. A blood analysis showed that the woman's system was saturated with antibodies. I assume that Alpha was immune to almost every known disease. Her body would have regenerated faster than most bacterial infections can cause damage.

“And her genetic code completely lacks the sequences for ageing,” The old man interrupts. “They are simply not there. She could've been thousands of years old for all we know.”

The woman takes over, pointing at a computer screen with a DNA-spiral. “But the most impressive discovery was her DNA’s structure. Normal, human DNA carries a lot of useless information. That which makes us human, is just a small part of our genetic map. The rest is dormant junk. We carry it inside us, but it's useless. There are many theories on possible reasons, but Alpha's DNA will answer that question. It looks like her DNA was fully active and relevant to her organism! There is no waste as far as I can tell. She looked like a human, but she was so much more. We can only guess at her potential abilities.”

I lean over to Magnus. “Did they get their hands on the corpse of an Old One?”

He sneers. “I am afraid that's the case. One of us did a bad job in cleaning up his mess.”

Bachja squints his eyes and corrects his glasses. “You people are like her. You are the same as Alpha. Two living specimen! I knew that there have to be more of her! All the discoveries we could make.”

Magnus gestures at a door which leads further into the basement. “Why don't you show us the subjects? I assume you keep them close?”

Sofie looks at the door and stutters, “Y- Yo- You have to understand. We needed a living specimen to continue our studies. For the sake of all of humanity. Don't you understand the value of this research? We could cure almost every disease, even old age.”

I level my pistol at her. “Immortality is overvalued. Show us what you did.”

Bachja visibly deflates and leads the way to the door. Behind it is a long corridor with several windows to the left and the right. I take a look through each of them. Behind every window is a white room. It’s a small cell with a human inside. All of them have horrible deformations. Most are only alive because they are hooked to medical equipment. “They did this to their own people?”

“We need a living sample of Alpha. Otherwise our work could have taken centuries! So we devised a retrovirus that attaches Alpha's genetic markers to a human DNA. We practically cloned her without having to go through the cloning process. The virus basically updates human DNA to the Alpha version,” Sofie explains.

I look at the old man and he nods. “I came up with the theory that humans and Alpha had a common ancestor. But for unknown reasons there was a split in the tree of evolution and we took different evolutionary paths. I called the sample ‘Alpha’, because the DNA must have had a large influence on the individual's behaviour. By comparing the DNA to other known species, I assumed that Alpha must have behaved more like an alpha predator, than a human being.

“Actually the whole Alpha DNA is much closer to an ancient, prehistoric form of one of humanity’s ancestors, showing similarities to a lizard. I assume that Alpha was faster, stronger and could've even regenerated her limbs. Assuming that the damage isn’t too massive. But Alpha had a flaw. She wasn't very fertile. So we've two evolutionary lines of humans which split from each other in the distant past. Maybe one was just a random mutation, there is no way to ever know the truth by this point.

“One line of humans evolved to breed quickly, sacrificing strength and ability for numbers. An individual doesn't have to excel in all aspects, if there are a lot of others to make up for the shortcomings. So humans evolved to favour the group. The evolutionary focus would lie on how good you are at working together.

“But Alpha belonged to the other group. A strain of survivalists and strong individuals. They were those who didn't follow the others in their group activities. Humans found strength in numbers and Alphas found strength in individualism. They survived the ancient wilderness on their own.”

I just stare at the man, not comprehending the maniacal gleam in his eyes. “So you just decided to play with the lives of others. Do you want immortality?”

The man turns his attention to Magnus when he realizes that I am not so thrilled by his ideas. “Please! You must understand. We can correct the shortcomings of both sides. We could solve your fertility issues!”

Magnus starts laughing like a mad man. It takes a few seconds until he regains his composure. “So you want to give humans our abilities and immortality, while you keep their breeding habits intact? Wow, that's such a sick idea. Your kind is already fighting overpopulation and it looks like you have not enough restraint to keep your numbers in check. The only thing that saved you so far, is a short lifespan. And you want to take that away?”

Bachja’s head turns red in anger. “We could use population control!”

“Suureee. I think there isn't a single government that even thinks about how to deal with a constant population. All their models aim at having more children than adults. Otherwise the system would crumble.” Magnus gestures with his gun to get moving.

Sofie shakes her head. “But that's just because people aren't immortal. I am sure that the government can create a society in which everyone is able to work.”

Magnus isn't impressed. “Lady, there is a reason why there aren't a lot of our kind. We can't smell each other. Having one child in a hundred years is more than enough for immortals. Lock ten of us inside a too small room and open the door an hour later. I promise that only one walks out. If your virus gets loose and turns all humans into Old Ones, you can kiss your civilisation goodbye.”

“So you really don't die of old age?” The woman asks as we arrive at the last few cells. Neither Magnus, nor I answer.

Meanwhile I had plenty of time to study the grotesque horror-show of mutated people. I've read records of our own experiments with the humans. Maybe twenty mutated horrors to get one elemental or fae. I've counted twenty-five people so far. And a lot of empty cells. I suppose those didn't take the virus so well.

Then my eyes fall on a woman with a swollen belly. She had turned completely furry, and has a deformed face. They bound her to a bed in her cell. “What by the nine hells?”

Sofie gestures at the pregnant creature. “Our virus wasn't very successful, as you've seen. The subjects were either too weak to endure the stress on their system, or the virus didn't replace the DNA correctly. It's sad that the technology isn't perfect. The fact that we only had Alpha's DNA made it also much less likely to succeed with a man. We tried nonetheless.”

Bachja nods. “In the end we assumed that we needed a wider range of candidates. Not just homeless people in bad state of health.”

Magnus shakes his head. “So you really abducted the family. You guys are at least as sick as the fae.” Magnus turns around to study the man inside the cell opposite from the woman’s. The man is at the window and has his snout pressed to the glass. He looks like a half turned were-creature that didn't complete the transformation. “Did you have him hump her before or after you turned them into monsters.”

“They aren't monsters! They are our first real success!” The old man stumbles to a folder which was attached to the wall next to the woman's cell. “The baby inside her is perfect! Our first specimen of the Alpha strain! The change didn't work with the parents, but the virus affected the embryo.”

I step forward and snatch the ultrasonic pictures away from him to take a look. “The extremities look normal.” Then I get to a picture which shows the head and Magnus sees it too.

The female scientist clears her throat. “A minor deformation. Nothing to be worried about.”

Magnus doesn't bother to explain. He kicks open the door to the woman's cell. Upon seeing Magnus, she starts mewling on her bed. He raises his gun and shoots her in the head, then thrice into her belly.

“Nooooo!” The old scientist charges into the cell, just to be grabbed by Magnus. He has Bachja at his throat and lifts him off his feet. There is struggling and twitching as Magnus slowly squeezes the man's windpipe, making sure that Bachja doesn’t die fast. Then there is a very strange noise. Probably the scientist's Adam's apple broke.

Shortly afterwards the silent struggle stops and Magnus drops the body. He leaves the cell and aims his pistol at the were-creature who watched the scene from the other cell. The man is raging and throws himself at the reinforced window. Magnus shoots, ending the husband’s life.

The female scientist studies the corpses with empty eyes. “Why?”

I clench my teeth and drop the pictures of the creature with the elongated ears. “Because that thing inside her was neither us, nor you.”

Magnus aims his gun at the remaining scientist. “Where are their children?”

The woman starts shaking. “The boy didn't make it through the transformation. The girl is in the last cell. She is a failure.”

I shove the woman forward, having seen enough. They even used the children!? “Why is she a failure?”

“I- I- I don't know! We injected her and she got a little faster, stronger and heals quickly. At first we thought she was a complete success. But once the virus was out of her system, we analysed her genetic code. She is a perfect clone, but she still has the ageing gene sequences. And she went feral. There is no reasoning with her.” Sofie gestures at the last window and I look inside.

There is a small girl of maybe seven or eight in the corner of the room. Her ears are normal.

Magnus approaches the door and the scientist warns him. “Careful! She can best a guard if she is riled up. She even got out of the cell once.” I slap the woman on the back of her head. “Do you still think that we are human?”

Magnus kicks in the door and approaches the girl who is sucking on her thumb. He aims and stands there for several moments. Then his pistol fires and the bullet digs into the wall next to the girl's head. That gets the kid going and I feel a sudden surge of magic from her. She jumps up and charges at Magnus, but he kicks her, causing her to fall.

Then he steps on her chest to fixate her on the floor. “That's strange. This one feels like one of us.”

I grab the scientist at her neck and pull her with me into the cell. It's unlikely that she can escape us, but I don't want the bitch to even think about it.

Magnus aims his gun at the girl's head, his eyes flashing red. “It's actually hard to pull the trigger. My instincts are in the way.”

I force the scientist to her knees. “Do you mean they actually succeeded in turning her?”

The scientist shakes her head. “Didn't you listen? The markers for ageing are still there.”

Magnus snorts. “Oh, and how is she supposed to grow into an adult if she can't age? For a scientist you are exceptionally stupid. Those genetic sequences are supposed to be there until she reaches puberty. Then they start breaking off as the cells renew themselves. Sely, try to command her. She is so young that any woman should be able to influence her.”

I purse my lips, but decide that an experiment can't hurt. So I try to put as much force into my voice as possible. “Stay still.” The girl immediately stops struggling and Magnus takes his foot off of her. I try again. “Kneel.” The girl gets to her knees. “Sleep.” She closes her eyes and lies down.

I blink. That was surprising.

Magnus raises his pistol again. I am immediately at his side to slap the gun away. “Are you mad? We can't kill a child of our kind!” I pick the girl up to cuddle her in my arms.

He furrows his forehead. “She isn't one of us, if we take it strictly. Who knows what she is. She causes the right reactions to be seen as one of us, which might be worse than having a new kind of fae.”

“Her genetic code is exactly like Alpha's. If what you say is true, then she comes closer to a clone than anything else,” The scientist mumbles on her hands and knees.

I glare at Magnus and he rolls his eyes. “This is ridiculous. Do I really have to take her in? First you two sisters, and then th-” He bites his inner cheek. “Fiacre takes her. We will watch how she develops. I'll not play replacement daddy.”

The scientist laughs hysterically, having lost it. “You killed her parents and her little sister in her mother's womb. And now you adopt her because she 'feels' right? What's wrong with you people!?”

“Shut up!” Magnus raises the pistol and shoots her in the head. Sofie falls to the ground and lies still. Magnus nods, satisfied. “At least that still works!”

I admit that the situation is a little wicked, but I couldn't live with the knowledge that I stood at the sideline, while a child of our kind was killed. The urge to stop Magnus was so strong. If he felt the same as me, he couldn't have done it anyway.

But will Fiacre really take care of her?