Shoreline near Kangeq Inlet – Dawn
The sea was still bleeding.
Faint tendrils of red and black swirled in the water where Cain had come ashore the night before. The carcass of the shark still lay where he'd dragged it, its mouth open in silent defiance, belly sliced wide. A warning. A monument. A message no one needed translated.
Janice stood beside it now.
She was cold, rifle slung across her back, her coat drawn tight. Her eyes stayed fixed on the horizon where the warship approached—slowly, like something taming itself to not startle her.
She should have been afraid.
But she wasn't.
She just waited.
The Falcon's spotlight fell across the rocks, sweeping once before dimming. The ship eased in, guided by a hand far more precise than its builders had ever intended. The bow tilted slightly toward the cove, like a beast kneeling at the feet of something it finally respected.
Cain stood at the helm.
Alone.
Steam coiled from the vents.
No other silhouettes moved on the deck.
It was his now.
All of it.
The ship dropped anchor just off the shallows, and within moments, Cain descended a rope ladder onto the beach. His coat was dark with blood that wasn't his. His face was calm. Focused.
Janice walked to meet him.
She looked him up and down, then at the ship.
"You killed them all."
He nodded.
"You're safe."
Her voice was quiet.
"And now you have a warship."
He said nothing.
But his eyes burned with certainty.
Then, without a word, he walked past her.
Cain returned to the cave.
One by one, he carried everything out:
The canoe, hoisted with ease and lashed to the crane lift
The shark's body, dragged up a winch line onto the ship's loading bay
The supplies—blankets, food stores, weapons, the fire kettle
The Light Stone, wrapped in Janice's pouch, held carefully in his hand
When he returned for the last item, Janice stood waiting with her satchel.
He extended a hand.
She took it.
And he pulled her aboard.
The ship smelled like blood and steam.
Janice winced as they crossed the middeck—bodies still sprawled where they'd fallen. Some had been dragged into corners. Others hadn't moved since they hit the ground.
The bridge was worse.
She said nothing.
But she pulled a scarf over her mouth.
Cain walked ahead of her, methodically stripping the British flags from the helm, the signal masts, and the officer's cabin.
He brought them to the bow.
Built a pyre in a brazier from the wreckage of the radio console.
And burned them.
Red. White. Blue.
Turned to gray and black.
He watched them curl, then fall.
Ash scattered on the sea breeze.
Janice emerged from the lower deck an hour later, sleeves rolled up, boots soaked in bloody water. Her hair was tied back, and her arms were streaked with cleaning chemicals and gun oil.
"I've cleared the sleeping quarters. The infirmary too."
Cain looked at her, eyes unreadable.
"I'll do the bridge next," she said softly. "But it'll take time."
"No," he replied. "You've done enough."
She wiped her hands on a cloth and walked to him.
"Where are we going now?"
Cain opened the map she had memorized.
Unrolled it on the bridge's steel surface.
His finger touched a name written in Gothic letters.
Danmarkshavn.
"East. Then south," he said.
She smiled faintly.
"We'll get there faster now."
Cain nodded once.
Then turned to the helm.
He gestured to her.
"Come stand with me."
Janice stepped forward.
Her fingers brushed the wheel.
She looked at him.
"It's our ship now."
He didn't smile.
But he didn't correct her.
The Falcon pulled anchor as the sun broke over the ice.
The engine roared low and steady.
The canoe swayed gently on its side rig. The shark's carcass hung from a net off the stern—like a trophy.
Janice stood at the wheel.
Cain at her side.
And together, they sailed toward Germany.
Not running.
Not hiding.
Just moving.
---
The HMS Falcon cut eastward through the Arctic Sea, its prow slicing dark water like a scalpel through old scars.
Steam curled from the exhaust stacks like breath from a tired god.Salt whipped off the hull in cold bursts.The sea hissed where it broke against steel.
The engines hummed deep below—the kind of hum that never truly stopped, only deepened, like a pulse in metal.Steam hissed through copper veins.Valves clattered in rhythm.The hull vibrated ever so slightly—just enough to feel it in the soles of your feet.
Cain moved between helm and boiler like a machine made of bone and fire.
Up the stairs.Down the ladder.Tend the firebox—coal, adjust, breathe.Up again.Steer by starlight.Back down.Repeat.
He did not pause.
He did not speak.
Not to her. Not to himself.
Just motion.
Purpose.
Steel.
Janice stood by the bridge window.
The ocean stretched black and glittering beneath the gray sky. The coast had long since disappeared behind them, swallowed by mist and memory.
She watched the waves crash in their slow rhythm, each one like the breath of a god exhaling a secret.
The wind tugged gently at her hair.
Her coat hung open.
Her arms crossed against the cold—but it wasn't the wind that chilled her.
It was what she had read.
What she kept reading.
Down in the captain's quarters, she sat at the old desk again. The logbook lay open in the candlelight, its pages slightly curled with moisture.
She'd read the orders before.
That had been a wound.
But these were something else.
The notes. The assessments.
Her name again.
Janice Colling.
Written not as a person.
But as a tool.
An observation.
"Medical personnel file, attached to expedition registry.""Low threat profile.""Emotionally vulnerable. Potential leverage.""Maintain distance. Observe effect on Subject V.""Speculation: emotional connection may be mutual. Utilize accordingly."
Her eyes blurred.
She blinked hard.
Turned the page.
The ink changed slightly—darker, shakier.
A transcript.
"Subject V is not to be approached unless under controlled conditions."
"The woman—Colling—is key. She grounds him."
"Our intention is to observe her death, if necessary, to confirm reactive behavior."
Another note, written quickly in the margin:
"Better yet: fake it."
Janice covered her mouth with one hand.
Not to scream.
But to keep herself from breaking.
They hadn't just seen her as bait.
They had written out her execution as a possibility.
Not with malice.
Not with cruelty.
Just… strategy.
Cold. Distant. Calculated.
She sat there, numb.
The engine thrummed below.
She could hear Cain above—walking the bridge. The wheel turning.
And for the first time in days, she didn't feel warm.
She felt hollow.
Like someone who had died and just hadn't noticed yet. But still, she kept reading.
"We believe the boy was not born, but summoned."
"The stone circle may be a gateway—or a prison."
"Subject J (Colling) appears to ground him. Her removal may trigger instability."
A pause in the record.
The next words weren't typed.
They were written—by hand. Messier. Slanted. The ink smudged, as if the officer hesitated before pressing the pen to the page.
"We don't know what he is.""But we cannot allow him to reach the continent."
Janice stared at the page.
Her thumb trembled slightly where it rested against the corner. The paper was soft with age, but the meaning behind it had edge—sharp as the blades Cain carried.
She read the sentence again.
"Her removal may trigger instability."
Not loss.
Not grief.
Just instability.
Like she was a wire in a machine.
A lever.
A fuse.
She closed the logbook.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
And let her fingers rest against its leather surface, as if holding a casket shut.
Outside, the ship creaked softly. The boiler hissed below. The faint metallic heartbeat of the engine echoed through the deck like distant drums.
She rose.
Her knees were stiff. Her breath uneven.
But her heart—steady.
She crossed the narrow corridor and stepped back onto the bridge.
Cain had returned.
He stood at the wheel, eyes on the sea.
Bare-chested again, sweat glistening across his pale skin. His back rose and fell with slow, controlled breaths. His hair, still damp from the boiler room, clung to his temples. Steam curled faintly from his shoulders.
He held the wheel like it anchored him.
Like he was afraid the world might drift away if he let go.
He didn't look at her.
Not yet.
Janice stepped beside him.
Not behind.
Not in the shadow of his strength.
Beside.
She looked at the horizon for a moment.
Then at the boy steering the ship like he'd done it a thousand times, even though he'd learned it only days ago.
Even though he was never meant to exist.
She opened her mouth.
And the words came softly.
"They were going to use me to kill you."
Cain didn't look at her.
But he didn't flinch.
"I know."
There was no anger in his voice.
Just certainty.
Janice's breath hitched.
"And now they'll come for us both."
Cain finally looked at her.
His eyes weren't sharp.
They weren't wild with rage or glazed with vengeance.
They were quiet.
And that made them worse.
It meant the decision had already been made.
It meant he would kill as many men as it took.
Not because he wanted to.
But because they had touched something that belonged to him.
"Then we don't stop," he said.
Janice felt her throat tighten.
But she didn't cry.
She nodded.
Then, gently, she reached forward.
Her hand hovered over his—then settled softly on his fingers, tightening around them on the wheel.
"Then don't let go," she whispered.
Cain's eyes dropped to her hand.
He said nothing.
But he didn't pull away.
---
The Admiralty War Room – London.
The War Room was dark with smoke.
Cigar smoke. Coal dust. Ink.
The windows had been shuttered against the spring rain. The room pulsed low with tension, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
A long oak table stretched down the center, its lacquered surface nearly buried beneath maps, telegraphs, and intelligence packets bound in red twine.
Red pins dotted northern Greenland, Canada's arctic shelf, and Meighen Island. One sat firmly on the former Kangeq research outpost—now marked in faded ink: Lost.
Another pin drifted eastward, untagged.
Unclaimed.
Unconfirmed.
Admiral Heath stood at the head of the table, coat open, jaw clenched tight. His eyes had the hollow look of a man who had read too many reports with too few answers.
A junior officer set a new file down before him—wireless intercepts from the past 48 hours.
Another update from Falcon. And now: nothing.
The Secretary of Naval Intelligence leaned in over the table. His fingers rested lightly on a folder marked "V-Subject".
"We believe the island's warmth was an anomaly. Something residual. The circle's dead now. The moss is rotting. The crucified bodies remain—no new ones. The place is finished."
He tapped a map of Meighen.
"But the boy is not."
Brigadier Roth, eyes sunken from lack of sleep, grunted.
"Still calling it a boy."
He crossed his arms.
"Last we saw, he sank a destroyer and dragged a shark out of the sea with his bare hands. He's no child."
The aide beside him nodded.
"And he's still out there."
"Running," someone muttered.
The room fell silent.
Then the Secretary spoke again:
"No. Not running. Moving."
Admiral Heath flipped open the Falcon's last known trajectory.
"We haven't had contact since the cutter vanished. If the ship was taken—if he has it now—then we're no longer chasing an incident. We're chasing a vessel."
A younger officer—a naval analyst—shifted in his seat.
"But toward where? The island is dead. The girl's presumed dead. He didn't stay. He didn't try to control the site."
He looked around.
"So what does he want?"
Silence again.
Then another voice, from the Intelligence corner of the room—low, even:
"What if he's not trying to go back?"
They turned.
"What if he's trying to come here?"
The words hung heavy in the room.
The British Isles.
Roth slammed his fist against the map.
"No."
"If he comes ashore here and starts carving up the docks, how do we explain that to the public? What do we call him? A ghost? A demon? A—what?"
The Intelligence Secretary replied:
"We don't call him anything. We bury him."
Another aide stepped forward with a dispatch.
"Russian naval activity increasing off eastern Greenland. They're watching. And we've now confirmed two German survey ships near the northeast ice shelf."
That drew grim expressions.
"They've seen our movements. They're guessing something happened."
"They don't know what."
"And they won't," Heath said flatly.
He tapped the table.
"Everything from the Meighen site is to be classified. Witnesses are reassigned. Files sealed. We'll call it ice instability and a hostile native uprising."
One of the younger officers hesitated.
"Should we deploy more ships? Form a northern blockade?"
Several heads shook.
The Secretary's voice was cold:
"If we flood the sea with guns, we look guilty. If we put half the Home Fleet off the coast of Aberdeen, Parliament will start asking why."
He stood slowly.
"We don't provoke. We prepare. Silent protocol."
He looked to Admiral Heath.
"Tighten all sea lane patrols around the Isles. From Portsmouth to the Hebrides. I want destroyers coasting every twelve hours. No civilian traffic goes uninspected."
He turned to the Intelligence desk.
"Anything with a prow—watch it."
The conversation ended with that.
No one said "demon."No one said "miracle."They didn't believe in magic.
Only problems.
And problems could be erased.