Chapter 19 : The Geier's Darkness
The Mellifer burner phone buzzed at two in the morning. I was awake anyway—sleep had become a luxury measured in stolen hours rather than restful nights.
Organ harvesting operation. Underground facility near Morrison Bridge. Dr. Levine (Geier) leads. Multiple victims. Intel confidence: HIGH.
[MELLIFER NETWORK: INTELLIGENCE RECEIVED]
[SPECIES: GEIER (VULTURE WESEN)]
[THREAT LEVEL: D-RANK (INDIVIDUAL) / C-RANK (GROUP)]
[BEHAVIORAL PROFILE: SCAVENGERS - HARVEST ORGANS FOR BLACK MARKET]
I read the attached file three times. The details were clinical, precise—the Mellifers gathered information without emotional investment. Homeless victims. Kidnapped from shelters, parks, underpasses. Processed in an underground facility for organs that sold to wealthy Wesen clients.
My first instinct was extermination. Find the facility. Kill everyone involved. Burn it down.
My second thought was more pragmatic.
I called Angelina.
"It's three in the morning, Cross."
"I have a target. Multiple hostiles, civilians to extract, underground facility. Interested?"
A pause. When she spoke again, the sleepiness had vanished. "How many hostiles?"
"Unknown. At least five based on the operation's scope."
"Give me the address. I'll meet you there in an hour."
The facility entrance was a maintenance door behind an abandoned restaurant. Rusted padlock, graffiti-covered walls, the kind of urban decay that made people look away. Perfect cover for something worse.
Angelina materialized from the shadows, dressed in black, her red hair tied back for combat. Her woge flickered at the edges—eager, hungry.
"Plan?"
"You go loud. Draw their attention to the main entrance. I come through the service tunnels and extract the victims."
"I'm the distraction."
"You're the terrifying monster who makes them focus on the wrong threat." I checked my weapons—sword, crossbow, the vial of Siegbarste poison I still hadn't used. "Give me five minutes to get in position, then start breaking things."
She grinned with too many teeth. "I love my job."
The service tunnels were older than the facility—Victorian-era construction, brick and mortar that had survived a century of Portland's growth. I moved through darkness lit only by my phone's dim screen, the enhanced senses I'd extracted from Karl parsing every sound, every scent.
Blood. Antiseptic. Fear-sweat.
The tunnel opened into a basement that had been converted into something out of a horror film. Surgical tables lined the walls, each one equipped with restraints, drainage channels, equipment for harvesting organs while the victim was still alive. Half the tables were occupied.
[VICTIM COUNT: 7 (ALIVE)]
[VICTIM COUNT: 3 (DECEASED)]
[HOSTILE COUNT: 4 (DETECTED)]
Seven people. Still alive. Some conscious, some sedated, all trapped in a nightmare they didn't understand.
A crash echoed from somewhere above—Angelina, beginning her distraction. Shouts. Running footsteps. The Geiers were moving toward the threat, leaving their harvest unguarded.
I worked fast.
The restraints were medical-grade, designed to hold struggling patients. But medical-grade wasn't combat-grade. My sword cut through leather straps, through padded cuffs, through whatever kept these people bound to their tables.
"Who—what—" A woman tried to sit up, confusion and terror warring on her face.
"Exit's that way." I pointed toward the service tunnel. "Run. Don't stop. Don't look back."
Some of them could move. Others couldn't—too weak, too damaged, too far gone. I prioritized mobility, sending five victims toward escape, then turned my attention to the two who remained.
A young man, maybe twenty, whose abdomen was bandaged over a fresh incision. A teenage girl whose eyes tracked me with the glassy stare of heavy sedation.
I couldn't carry both and fight.
[TACTICAL ASSESSMENT: HOSTILE PRESENCE INCOMING]
[RECOMMENDATION: PRIORITIZE MOBILE TARGETS]
The System's cold calculation offered efficiency. Leave the immobile victims. Maximize extraction success.
"No."
I holstered my sword and lifted the young man over my shoulder. He groaned, barely conscious. The girl I dragged by her arm, stumbling, half-carrying her toward the service tunnel.
A Geier appeared at the basement entrance.
The woge was as ugly as the Bestiary described. Vulture features—bald head, hooked beak, eyes too small for the skull that held them. Carrion-eater made flesh.
"The merchandise!" The Geier lunged toward us, claws extended.
I dropped my passengers and drew. The crossbow bolt caught him in the shoulder, spinning him sideways. Not a kill shot—the angle was wrong—but enough to slow his advance.
"Run," I told the victims. "Service tunnel. Go."
The girl found her feet somehow. The young man managed a crawl. They moved toward escape while I faced the wounded Geier.
He pulled the bolt from his shoulder, blood spattering across the surgical tiles. "You have no idea who you're dealing with. Dr. Levine has connections. Powerful connections."
"Dr. Levine has a problem." I loaded another bolt. "His operation is burning, his guards are fighting a Blutbad, and I'm standing between him and the exit."
The Geier charged.
My second shot took him through the eye. He dropped without a sound.
[KILL REGISTERED: GEIER]
[XP GAINED: +25]
[ABILITY EXTRACTION: AVAILABLE - DECLINE? Y/N]
I declined. The Bestiary entry on Geiers listed their abilities as enhanced scent-tracking for carrion and accelerated digestion. Neither seemed worth the extraction process.
The basement was clear. I followed the trail of escaped victims, catching up to them in the service tunnel. The young man had collapsed; the girl was trying to drag him.
"Keep moving. There's more of them."
We made it to the maintenance door. Portland's night air tasted like freedom after the charnel-house stench of the basement. I could hear Angelina's fight continuing somewhere inside—crashes, screams, the wet sounds of Blutbad violence.
"Stay here." I settled the victims against the restaurant's back wall. "Someone will come for you."
I went back in.
The facility's upper level was a warzone. Angelina stood in the center of what had been a monitoring station, surrounded by three Geier corpses. Blood covered her arms to the elbows. Her smile was serene.
"Found the doctor."
She pointed toward a door marked SURGICAL THEATER.
Inside, Dr. Levine cowered behind an operating table, his woge flickering uncontrollably. Vulture features emerged and retreated, emerged and retreated—terror overriding his ability to maintain human disguise.
"Please." His voice cracked. "I'll do anything. I have money. Connections. I can be useful."
[ASSESSMENT: DR. LEVINE (GEIER)]
[SKILLS: SURGICAL EXPERTISE - WESEN ANATOMY SPECIALIST]
[THREAT LEVEL: F-RANK (COMBAT)]
[UTILITY: HIGH (MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE)]
I considered.
The System's calculation aligned with something darker in my own thoughts. A surgeon who understood Wesen physiology—who knew how their bodies worked, where to cut, how to heal—was exactly the kind of resource I needed. Rosalee provided herbal remedies and emergency care, but she wasn't equipped for serious trauma surgery.
"You lost your medical license," I said. "Why?"
"Malpractice. A patient died on my table." Dr. Levine's eyes darted toward the door, toward Angelina blocking escape. "It was an accident. The board didn't see it that way."
"So you started harvesting homeless people for the black market."
"I had debts. Dangerous people. I didn't have a choice."
"Everyone has choices." I stepped closer. "Here's yours. Serve me. Use your skills for healing instead of harvesting. Join my organization as a medic, and I'll protect you from whatever debts drove you to this."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I leave you here with her." I gestured toward Angelina, who cracked her knuckles with theatrical menace. "She's been wanting a proper fight all night."
Dr. Levine's woge collapsed entirely. Human fear, raw and desperate, stripped him of the predator's facade.
"I'll serve. I'll do whatever you want."
[PACK MEMBER ACQUIRED: SCALPEL (GEIER)]
[BOND TYPE: DOMINANCE]
[LOYALTY: LOW (FEAR-BASED)]
[UTILITY: MEDICAL SPECIALIST]
"Good." I pulled him to his feet. "Your new name is Scalpel. You'll operate out of a location I'll provide. You'll treat anyone I send you, Wesen or human, without questions. And if I ever find out you've returned to harvesting—"
"You won't. I swear. I swear on anything you want."
I believed him. Not because he was trustworthy, but because his survival instinct was strong enough to override everything else.
"Angelina. Torch the facility. Make sure nothing useful remains."
She grinned. "My pleasure."
Rosalee's Shop — Two Hours Later
Rosalee's expression cycled through shock, anger, and disgust as I explained who would be using her back room.
"You're bringing a Geier. A harvester. Into my brother's shop."
"Former harvester. Current Pack medic." I set down a box of surgical supplies—salvaged from the facility before Angelina burned it. "He knows Wesen anatomy better than anyone in the state. Would you rather he's healing us or out there harvesting more victims?"
"I'd rather he was dead."
"Then kill him." I gestured toward the back room where Scalpel was setting up equipment, hands still trembling from the night's events. "But first consider: Angelina's training sessions leave injuries. Monroe's combat instruction does too. The Reapers are coming in sixteen days, and when they do, we'll need someone who can put us back together."
Rosalee's jaw tightened. Her woge flickered—fox features surfacing briefly, then retreating.
"If he hurts anyone. If he goes back to his old ways. I will end him myself."
"That's acceptable."
She stalked into the shop's main room, leaving me alone with the consequences of my decisions. Scalpel was a monster. No question. But monsters could be useful.
The System approved of the acquisition. The part of me that still remembered being human felt sick.
Sixteen days remained. I pushed the moral discomfort aside and started planning the next move.
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