Relegated to being chaperoned around in a cramped white van with tinted windows, Umbra found herself, rather bafflingly, missing her carriage. It was ridiculous.
She had once considered the carriage a necessary inconvenience, drawn by four patient draft horses, and built to accommodate her… altered proportions. After her curse, standard transport had become somewhat impractical. So she had overseen the design personally. She had done her best to introduce the concept of suspension to Ganymede’s craftsmen. They had not understood springs as she remembered them, but they had managed a crude system using layered treated wood and specially treated leaf supports that bent and absorbed shock along rough roads.
It had not been perfect, but it had been leagues more comfortable than this.
Now she sat hunched on the floor of the van, knees pulled awkwardly toward her chest, a position if her plate armour would have made impossible if its quality was any lower. She had to duck her head slightly so her horns did not scrape against the metal ceiling every time the vehicle hit a bump. The smell of fabric seats and faint petrol fumes filled the enclosed space.
“To prevent panic,” they had told her. Umbra had suppressed a snort.
She was quite certain there would be far more fascination than panic. Fear, perhaps, but humans had always been curious creatures. They would stare, they would film, and they would whisper. But panic? Unlikely. Well maybe a little panic. As a treat.
Still, she complied. There was no sense antagonising her temporary allies.
To keep herself occupied, and to avoid dwelling too much on the indignity of her current posture, she scrolled through her phone. Using it had been an ordeal at first. It had been years since she’d handled technology this advanced. Ten years might not have seemed long in the grand scheme of history, but considering the medieval level of technology of Ganymede, she’d long since stopped missing having the world at her fingertips..
And then there were her claws. The touchscreen did not respond properly to the hardened tips. She had quickly discovered that she needed to use her knuckles instead. It made typing a slow, clumsy process. Each word required careful tapping, and autocorrect was no kinder to her now than it had been before.
At least the device still had credit.
She idly considered acquiring a solar charger before she returned to Ganymede. A renewable energy source could be revolutionary there, even in small ways. Perhaps she could download schematics, guides, instructions for basic devices. Water purification systems, improved farming techniques, simple mechanical innovations, things that she could implement with the level of technology over there.
It felt strange, though. When she had been human, she had been something of a technophile. She had loved new devices, new updates, new software. She had followed tech news obsessively.
Now? She did not truly miss it. She had books in Ganymede, ones bound in leather and inked by hand. She had theatre performances in candlelit halls. She had festivals and feasts and long evenings on the balcony of their estate.
And, of course, she had her wife.
If Farah were here, there would be no doubt the Witch of the Void would already be located. Farah’s divine senses, her intuition, her sheer brilliance with magic… Umbra felt the absence like a missing limb. But Farah was not here, so Umbra would make do with what she had. Which, if she were being fair, was more than she had expected.
The people she was currently associating with were not complete fools, at least. Some fools, perhaps, but not enough to get in her way.
She opened social media, something she did not miss in the slightest. Hundreds of messages waited for her. Friends, former colleagues, people she had gamed with, chatted with, shared in-jokes with. Their messages ranged from confusion to concern at her disappearance. She had been a very active person in her communities before everything went down.
Though, she would not answer them. It was not that she did not care. She did, once, when those connections had meant everything.
But ten years was a lifetime. She had bled beside soldiers, ruled a county, and married an angel. Her bonds had been reforged in fire and war.
Perhaps, when she found a way back to Ganymede, she would make a public announcement in her old server. A farewell. A final goodbye. That would be enough.
She searched for a recent monster and quickly found images and videos of herself circulating online. Some clips had already gone viral internationally and the comment sections were full of arguments.
Many claimed it was a hoax or use of advanced prosthetics and stilts. Some claimed it was AI while others claimed CGI.
Umbra huffed softly. The arguments debunking the footage were, at best, flimsy. She looked far too real. No rendering engine quite captured the way light caught on her skin or the subtle flex of muscle beneath it.
She winced slightly when she found the video of the bus incident.
The front of the bus had crumpled dramatically. She watched herself absorb the impact, thrown back unconscious but unbroken. The driver’s compartment had taken damage, but from what she could see, the structural frame had held.
They had not told her much about the driver’s condition. Hopefully, they were fine.
The van began to slow, tires crunching against gravel. Umbra slipped the phone into her handbag and braced herself.
The rear doors opened from the outside.
She performed an awkward shuffle to extricate herself, unfolding her long limbs carefully before stepping out into open air. The relief of standing at her full height was immediate.
They had arrived at a nature park she did not recognise. Trees stretched overhead, their leaves whispering in the breeze. The air smelled clean with damp earth, grass, and distant water.
It felt good to be out of the city.
Her hearing, in this form, was far sharper than it had ever been as a human. Urban environments were a constant assault of noise. Engines, voices, machinery… It likely contributed to her shorter temper lately.
Usually, she was far calmer.
“Mrs. Steelblight, we’ve arrived at the place you recommended,” Sally said, stepping around the van. She had, apparently, been reassigned as Umbra’s personal driver.
“Very good.”
Umbra reached into the back of the van and retrieved one of the rune-carved bones she had prepared earlier. Her arm extended easily into the vehicle, some perks of this monstrous form.
“Assuming the other teams follow instructions,” she added, “the spell should come online soon.”
Sally glanced at the bone uneasily. “So… where do we hide it? Do we just bury it anywhere?”
“We could,” Umbra replied, scanning the area. “But it is best if we choose a place with symbolic significance. Somewhere animals gather, perhaps. That strengthens the effect.”
“Why?”
Umbra paused, then shrugged. “I do not know. They simply are stronger in such places.”
Sally gave her a look that mixed scepticism and mild concern. “If you don’t know why, how do you know what’s significant?”
Umbra tilted her head slightly. “How do computers work?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Umbra began walking, following a faint tug in her senses, feeling a subtle pressure, like warmth beneath the soil. Sally hurried to keep up.
“Could you build a computer from raw materials?” Umbra asked.
“No,” Sally admitted slowly.
“Yet you know how to operate one.”
Realisation dawned across the officer’s face.
“It is the same here,” Umbra continued. “I understand the operation of the spell and I know what conditions strengthen it, but I do not know the underlying mechanisms. Farah would. It was more her field.”
She paused near a clearing where birds flitted between branches and small animals had worn faint trails into the grass.
“This will do.”
She glanced at Sally.
“I doubt the other teams will have as keen a sense for suitable locations. But speed is more important than perfect efficiency right now.”
She crouched low and pressed her clawed hands into the soil. The earth here was softer than she expected, damp from recent rain, and it gave way easily under the strength of her fingers. Her claws sliced through the ground rather than scooping it, cutting clean furrows as she dragged them back toward herself. Wet soil smeared along the curved length of her talons while she raked the dirt aside in heavy, deliberate pulls. Eventually, she had carved out a hole wide and deep enough to house the femur she carried.
“Do you want a shovel?” Sally asked hesitantly.
Umbra paused mid-motion and slowly turned her head to look at her. One delicate brow arched.
“That would have been a good offer before I dirtied my hands,” she said dryly.
Sally flushed faintly. “Right. Sorry.”
Umbra huffed, not unkindly, and returned her attention to the task. She lowered the carved femur carefully into the hole, positioning it with a small adjustment so the etched runes along its length aligned properly with the direction she felt was correct. There was a faint sensation in the air, like pressure before a storm, though she suspected only she could feel it.
“That should do,” she murmured.
She pushed the soil back in, patting it down firmly. The disturbed patch of earth looked obvious to her eye, but that could not be helped. The magic would do the rest.
Rising to her full height, she brushed excess dirt from her hands and reached to her waist. The handheld radio they had provided her sat clipped over the leather belt that secured the lower plates of her armour. It looked comically small against her frame.
With a sharp click, she activated it. “I have buried the bone. What is the progress on your end? Over.”
There was a crackle of static before a voice replied.
“Buried. Over.”
Another followed, slightly breathless. “Burying… and done. Over.”
Umbra nodded to herself. Teams had been dispatched in pairs across the greater Wellington area, each carrying one of the thirteen prepared bones. They were to bury them in a rough circle, evenly spaced, creating a perimeter large enough to contain the spell’s influence. It was not elegant, but it was effective.
A few teams had yet to report in, though for now, all Umbra could do was wait.
She stood still, arms loosely folded, gaze drifting across the trees. After a moment, she noticed Sally glancing at her. Then quickly looking away. Then glancing again.
Umbra sighed. “Ask your questions.”
Sally startled slightly. “Oh, no, I’m okay.”
“Last chance,” Umbra said flatly. “I am not fond of this dance where you pretend not to stare and I pretend not to notice.”
Sally hesitated, then exhaled. “Were you really human before?”
“Yes,” Umbra replied without hesitation. “Relatively unremarkable, too.”
“What’s it like?”
“You will need to be more specific,” Umbra said. “Being non-human? Or being in another world?”
“Uh. Both, I guess.”
Umbra hummed thoughtfully, tilting her head slightly as she considered. She did like her body now, even if that had not always been the case. The curse had not merely reshaped her flesh, it had fused with her spirit, altered something fundamental about her existence. There would be no reverting it, so she had learned to live with it, and even appreciate it.
“There was panic at first,” she admitted. “Waking up nearly three metres tall with horns and claws and a second heartbeat was… memorable.”
Sally’s eyes widened slightly.
“I had always liked cryptids as a human,” Umbra continued. “Folklore. Monsters. Creatures in the dark. I suppose that made the transition easier.” She chuckled fondly. “It wouldn’t be my first transition of the flesh. It felt less like becoming something impossible and more like stepping into one of the stories I used to read.”
She flexed one hand idly, claws catching the light.
“There are… inconveniences. I attract attention. Many stare and my hearing is much sharper now, so I hear the little whispers people think I do not. That being said, it would have happened regardless, once I was granted a title, but the horns certainly accelerated the process.”
“I can imagine,” Sally muttered.
“There are advantages as well,” Umbra added, her tone faintly amused. “The strength has been useful in the good fight and I am far more durable than I was as a human.” Her face slit open into a grin that made the officer flinch. “The extra height is useful in negotiations.”
Sally let out a nervous laugh.
“As for another world…” Umbra’s expression softened slightly. “It is both familiar and entirely alien. Their technology lags far behind. Closer to what you might call fourteenth-century Europe. Steel, simple machinery, early printing techniques. But there are similarities too. Cultural echoes. Shared myths.”
She folded her arms again, gaze distant.
“I can only assume previous heroes left influences behind. Or perhaps the two worlds are not as separate as we believe.”
“And adjusting?” Sally asked.
“It was difficult,” Umbra admitted. “I grew up with the internet. With instant communication. With refrigeration and electric light. To wake up in a world lit by torches and heated by fireplaces was… jarring.”
She gave a small shrug.
“But humans are adaptable. I found other forms of entertainment. Books, theatre, debate… There is something grounding about a world that moves slower.”
She glanced sideways at Sally.
“Why? Sick of being human?”
“O–oh, no!” Sally said quickly. “I was just curious.”
“Mhm,” Umbra replied, unconvinced but unwilling to press further.
The radio crackled again in her hand.
Another team checking in. Soon, the circle would be complete and she would be that much closer to putting down the Witch for good.
“We are done here. Let us return to the—”
Umbra never finished the sentence.
Something in the air shifted.
It was not a sound, but more of a wrongness. The faintest distortion at the edge of her sharpened senses. Every muscle in her body tensed on instinct, honed by years on battlefields where hesitation meant death.
She moved before she consciously understood why.
With a snarl, she lunged forward and seized Officer Sally by the front of her vest, hurling her several metres back across the grass. The woman let out a startled scream as she hit the ground hard and rolled. A fraction of a second later, a blur of darkness tore through the space where Sally had been standing and claws sliced empty air.
Umbra twisted, boots grinding into the soil as she pivoted to face the attacker. The creature skidded as it recovered from its missed pounce, claws gouging trenches into the earth. It turned its head toward her slowly and Umbra’s stomach dropped. There was no mistaking it, this was one of hers.
A wolf-like humanoid, tall but hunched, its body a grotesque fusion of fur and scaled patches that gleamed dully beneath the daylight. Bone protruded in jagged growths from its shoulders and spine, as though its skeleton had grown impatient and tried to escape its flesh. Its limbs were too long, with joints that were uncannily wrong, giving it an unnerving predatory silhouette. Its mouth was far too wide for any natural wolf, stretching nearly ear to ear when it opened. Inside were rows of human-like teeth, flat and square and reminiscent of the wrongness of those pictures of horses with dog mouths that she saw long ago..
Umbra’s lips peeled back from her fangs.
“Get back to the van. Now!” she roared, her voice shaking the trees.
She did not check to see if Sally obeyed; she could not afford to.
The creature lunged again and Umbra met it head-on. She exploded forward with supernatural speed, closing the distance in less than a heartbeat. She slammed into the smaller monster shoulder-first, the impact echoing like a car crash. The force of it lifted the creature clean off its feet and sent it hurtling sideways through the clearing.
It let out a hideous, warbling yelp as it struck the ground and rolled, and Umbra did not hesitate.
She knew better than anyone: once an enemy lost its footing, you did not allow it to recover. She was on it in an instant.
Before it could scramble upright, she brought her heavy boot down onto its chest with crushing force. There was a wet, splintering crack as its ribcage collapsed inward. Black ichor burst from its mouth in a choking spray, staining the grass beneath it.
The monster shrieked and clawed at her desperately, talons screeching uselessly against the plates of her armour. It found no purchase, no weakness in her blessed suit..
Umbra raised her foot again and brought it down on its skull.
The impact drove its head into the soil with a sickening crunch. The creature spasmed once, then went limp, its skull completely splattered around her..
Umbra stood over the corpse, chest rising and falling slowly, and for a brief moment, she stared.
Then her gaze snapped upward, scanning the treeline.
Her ears strained, listening for every rustle of leaves, every distant birdcall, every shift of wind was catalogued and analysed. Her senses reached outward, searching for that same wrongness in the air, but she could not feel nor hear anything else wrong.
No immediate movement, no second ambush. Her creatures didn’t usually travel alone. Perhaps these were just scouts, or perhaps assailants. It was hard to tell yet.
She reached for the radio at her waist, claws flexing slightly before she pressed the transmit button.
“All teams, check in,” she growled.
There was a pause, then confused voices began filtering through the static.
“Team seven, all clear.”
“Three, nothing here.”
“Five, we’re good.”
The responses came in unevenly and Umbra counted them. Neither two nor eight responded.
“Teams two and eight,” she said, her voice colder now. “Respond.”
Only static answered her.
“Temen!” she cursed under her breath, the old Ganymedean oath slipping out before she could stop it.
Umbra spun sharply, her heavy boots tearing at the grass as she turned. For one terrible second she feared she would see blood, instead, she saw Sally on the ground several metres away, half-propped against the side of the van. The officer was cradling her shoulder tightly with her hand pressed against her chest, her face pale and twisted with pain. Her eyes were wide, terrified, even.
Umbra strode toward her at once. “How badly are you hurt?”
Sally scrambled backward on instinct, boots scraping against gravel. She bit down on whatever sound threatened to escape her throat, but tears welled anyway, spilling over and streaking down her cheeks.
Umbra slowed.
It took her a moment to understand.
Sally was not looking past her, not searching the trees for another monster; she was staring at Umbra as if she was afraid of her.
The realisation struck harder than the fight had.
Umbra could sympathise. She knew what she must look like in that moment, her armour splattered with black ichor, her horns framing her silhouette, claws still flexed from violence. A towering, inhuman thing that had just crushed a creature’s skull without hesitation.
Still, it stung, but there was no time to soothe feelings. She closed the distance quickly before Sally could retreat any further and in one smooth motion she grabbed the woman by the front of her tactical vest with one hand, steadying her then placed the other carefully against her injured shoulder.
“P-please don’t kill me!” Sally choked out, her entire body trembling now. “Please—”
Umbra exhaled sharply through her nose.
“Had I wished to kill you,” she said, her voice low but keeping the tone controlled, “I would not have bothered saving you.”
She focused instead.
Mana stirred within her, that familiar warmth coiling through her chest and down her arm. She was no master healer. She could not weave intricate palindromic constructs like Farah or the temple magi, but she knew enough to knit minor damage, to reduce swelling, and to encourage flesh to remember its proper shape. She let the energy seep into Sally’s shoulder and the woman gasped as warmth spread through the joint.
“If I had not thrown you,” Umbra continued evenly, “your neck would be broken. Possibly your arm torn from its socket. I did what was necessary.”
Sally’s breathing was still ragged and her hands shook violently where they clutched at Umbra’s armour. Umbra withdrew her hand after a few seconds, feeling the resistance lessen beneath her palm.
“How is your shoulder?” she asked.
Sally blinked rapidly, as if surfacing from underwater. Slowly with caution, she shifted her arm. Her expression changed from fear to confusion to disbelief.
“It… it doesn’t hurt as much,” she murmured.
“I will take that as an improvement,” Umbra replied. “I believe it was fractured. I have likely reduced it to a strain.”
Sally flexed her fingers experimentally. The pain was still there, but it was dulled and manageable.
Umbra released her vest and straightened to her full height.
“I apologise for throwing you,” she said stiffly. “I panicked. A little.”
That was as close to an admission of fault as she was likely to give.
“I would advise against doing anything strenuous with that arm. Have it examined properly by a medical professional as soon as possible.”
She extended one clawed hand downward in offer.
“Come. I do not believe we were the only group attacked. We need to move.”
For a moment, Sally hesitated, staring at the massive, pallid hand in front of her.
Then, swallowing hard, she reached up and took it.