"Lieutenant?" he questioned.
"Someone's there." She murmured, attention never leaving the point of darkness that her aim had settled upon, and Roy had no doubt that if she were to fire off into that void, she would hit her mark. "Show yourself!" Her voice raised, tone disembarking from the respectful one that she used with Roy and twisted into a cruel demand.
"Don't shoot!"
It was Breda this time, closely followed by Falman. The two entered the ring of light and Riza, once again, lowered her gun. They hurried over to their commanding officer and snapped off a salute in unison.
"Sir, if I may," and Roy could detect a slight tremble in Falman's usually steady baritone as the man spoke, "there's something I think you need to see."
"Right," Roy said, tone still leaving room for nothing but business. "Hawkeye, Havoc, with me. Breda, go cover Fuery. If anything happens, if you see or hear anything at all, fire off a warning shot." Here, he turned. "Falman, lead the way."
The men all nodded and Riza's finger never left the trigger of her gun' and they moved on, going to their assigned work without complaint. They soon left Breda and Fuery behind.
Falman led them down a narrow hallway that abruptly veered, on several occasions, off to one angle, and Roy grew more and more suspicious with every turn. This building was not as typical as it seemed from the outside. What kind of practicality could a hallway with such angles have? To Roy, there seemed no logic in such architecture.
Roy nearly ran into Falman when the man paused and was about to snap at the man to warn him next time, but Falman raised a hand, cupping his ear. "Do you hear that?"
Roy listened, ears straining to catch whatever it was Falman wanted him to hear; and drifting up from the hallway came the faintest of piteous moans. It didn't sound human, and Roy wasn't sure if that was more of a relief or not. He gave the officer a nudge in the back, prodding him to keep going (there was only enough room for them to walk single file) and Falman hastily continued onwards, pace double what it was before the brief pause.
Several hundred yards later, Falman stopped again, turning to the wall on their left and grasping a doorknob that was so grimy, Roy wasn't sure how the men had noticed it in the first place. A chortling shriek that echoed out from beneath the wooden barrier clarified how they'd found the room.
Roy frowned and Falman let the door swing open.
Inside, there was one lamp, flickering and stuttering where it sat on an overturned crate. It was, by no means, a bright light, and it made the contents of the room look that much more gruesome, the carcasses contorting into mangled tortures and bones that shrieked of crucifixion. In actuality, they were nothing more than collapsed heaps, abandoned and rotting, with no reason whatsoever as to why they were dead. None of them bore any marks upon them to indicate murder or abuse.
Roy grunted in disgust and held his nose against the overpowering stench that wafted up from the cadavers. Riza merely wrinkled her nose, not willing to compromise her aim so that she could block off the smell.
"Gross!" Havoc voiced what all four of them were thinking, and he toed one of the forms away. The dead dog rolled over with a flop, glassy eyes glinting in the lamplight.
"There're hundreds of them," Falman spoke gravely, "here in this room and in the one behind it." He pointed to a door at the far end. It stood halfway open and Roy could see the shadowed forms on the floor in that room as well.
"There are all kinds too. Looks like the guy just used whatever critters he could get his hands on. Birds, cats, dogs, mice, squirrels, I think I even saw a goat."
Roy opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, another contused screech crashed down around his ears. When it died out, the note long and strained, Roy stepped over the bodies of the dead animals carefully and made his way into the other room, where the noise had come from.
He had to shove at the door, which was partially blocked by a pot-bellied pig that made a sick scraping sound as it was pushed across the floor by the door. This room was brighter than the last, lamps hanging from the walls at semi-regular intervals, and Roy had no trouble finding the source of the commotion.
Lining the far wall was a row of cages, and within their confines paced ghastly, macabre beasts. Teeth, long and gleaming, eyes too big or too small for the faces, bodies shriveled or disfigured, and Roy wasn't sure why the things were still alive. In fact, a few were not, collapsed in one corner or another of the cage they occupied. Still others simply lay on their sides, in pain, motionless, save for the occasional twitch of a tail or shift of the head.
A few of then still looked in decent shape though, pacing back and forth behind the bars, pained and hungry and agitated. It was one of these was creating all the tumult. It had a long slender snout, tipped by a dark nose that quivered much like a rabbit's does when it senses danger. One ear stood straight up, the other flopping over and it's entire head was surrounded by the ruff of white fur around it's neck. This smoothed into a sleek brown coat, its back dappled by white spots and ending in a bushy tan tail that lashed back and forth. It stood on ungainly, thin legs, the front ones ending with dainty hooves, the back ones, ending in thick long feet. It sat unevenly on the floor, its front end raised much higher than the back. It sort of hopped more than walked, and between its ears, Roy could see the nubs of new antlers.
All four stared at the creature, incredulous at the absurdity of it. It was grotesque, the way to struggled to even move about in its confined space, its front hooves stumbling over the concrete floor. Roy took a few steps closer, leaning forward for a better look. It turned startled eyes on him and bared its teeth.
i Incisors/i Roy noted, and tried to piece together what the creature was comprised of.
Rabbit was easy enough to guess, Roy was sure of that one from the nose and the ears. It also explained the way the back legs were formed. Roy considered the spindly front legs and just growing horns. Roy settled on a deer being responsible for those features. And a young one at that, Roy concluded, taking into account the fur color and the spots on the creature's back.
But what of the teeth? And Roy couldn't place the tail or the ruff of fur. He knew it had to be some type of carnivore, judging from the sharp canines but that was as much as he could deduce.
"What do you think?" He turned to Riza and Havoc, who had both stepped up to join him in his deliberation of the beast. "I'd say rabbit, fawn, and something else…but I can't tell what the other thing is."
Havoc shook his head. "I have no idea. That thing is damn weird." He stared at the being in question a moment longer and then turned away with a shudder. "I don't like it, whatever it is."
Riza had a more analytical approach. She frowned at it a moment, deliberating. "Collie," she ventured at last. It reminded her strongly of the one she'd owned as a teenager. The bushy tail and the ruff around its neck, and the color of said features pointed to this as a logical explanation, and it would also account for the teeth.
The creature shrieked again and butted its head up against the bars of the cage.
"Sick bastard," Roy muttered, turning away from the ghastly monstrosity. He diverted his attention to the rest of the room. Aside from the wall of cages, there was a low table, covered in papers, presumably more research and experiments, along with a few books. On the opposite wall, several dozen crates were stacked in high columns. Disturbing spider web patterns of transmutation circles that Roy had never seen before were drawn on every available surface of both the walls and floors. Triangles and carefully measured angles overlapping, sigils for elements that couldn't be combined without an explosion imbricated together, and Roy concluded, just by looking at the designs, that whoever had drawn them was insane.
Falman moved towards the table, picking up and inspecting one of the books that lay open, pages smudged with grubby fingerprints. It was a book on animal anatomy. He flipped through a few pages, inspecting the diagrams of canine bone structure, notes scribbled in the sidelines. Calcium , one said, gone over several times and underlined. Falman, not being an alchemist and knowing very little in the area of science and the like, had no idea what significance it held and he moved on. A few more books on animal anatomy, several pages of notes dedicated to the subject. Falman paused, fingers tracing the lettering on one particularly abused book. The words were stained and faded, hardly legible, but when the man flipped open the cover, the title page was clearly visibly with bold dark print.
The
Human Composition.
"Sir?" Roy turned, but barely had time to spare the cover a glance, features paling considerably at the possibilities that book implied before another voice interrupted.
"Boss!" It was Havoc's voice, drifting out from behind one of the stacks of boxes. Soon after, there was a startled yelp and a grunt from Havoc. "There's a dog back here." He stated, and it was soon followed by a loud thump. "Shit!"
Roy could only watch in horror as two of the crate stacks began to sway and rock, tilting dangerously before tipping back into a safe position and then doing it again, this time, overbalancing.
"COLONEL!"
Riza grabbed his arm, yanking him out of the way and the two retreated to a safe distance as the crates toppled to the floor, several splitting open. Thousand of little brown bits scattered across the floor, burying several of the bodies that already occupied the space. Breathing hard, Roy bent to pick up a handful of the stuff.
"Dog food?" He tossed the bits back onto the pile.
"Well, he'd have to feed them something." Riza stated, making a vague gesture towards the floor. Poor damned beasts; they wouldn't need food anymore.
Roy moved forward, careful not to slip in the kibble and navigated his way through the splintered bits of wood. "Second Lieutenant." He wasn't pleased with the mishap and his voice was clipped and annoyed. "Havoc!"
"I'm okay," came the reply, and though he sounded a bit shaky, he didn't seem to be harmed. He appeared from behind another stack, arms filled with a wriggling bundle of fur. "It's just a pup."
The little thing squirmed, squealing awfully, clearly terrified of the human contact, and Roy tried to wrap his mind around what could have happened to the unfortunate thing to cause such reaction. It didn't looked harmed though, it was chubby and fluffy, gray and white fur glossy in the light and it looked to be well fed and taken care of, though a bit dirty.
After a few moments in which it flailed and yelped, gnawing at Havoc's arm to be set free, the puppy, realizing that he was not being hurt, calmed down and settled in the soldier's arms.
Havoc gave them a lopsided grin and reached into his pocket with one hand. He extracted a cigarette and put it to his lips, but looked forlorn when he could find no way to light a match one handed. He looked to Roy, helplessly. "Help a guy out?"
Roy regarded his pleasing look with disdain. "Smoke on your own time," he said peevishly. Havoc looked dejectedly between the matches in one hand and the puppy in the other.
"Damnit, you're a pain in my ass already," he told the whelp, jolting it a bit when he shifted his grip on the puppy so he wouldn't drop it. The dog panted noisily at him and gave him a small wag of his tail.