The brass gears inside the floor groaned, a grinding subterranean churn that sent tremors straight up through the soles of my boots. Overhead, massive slabs of glass etched in Latin binding spells slid across ceiling tracks, snapping into place with hydraulic hiss and thunderous clangs. The glass cage of Cyrus Kriticos wasn’t just a house; it was a living, clockwork slaughterhouse resetting its perimeter. I slammed against a pane of reinforced glass, chest heaving, the metallic stink of old blood and ozone thick on my tongue. I shoved the clumsy, round-rimmed spectral glasses tighter onto the bridge of my nose. The glass didn't show my reflection. It showed what was behind me. Down the mirrored corridor, the flickering fluorescent strips strobed violently. Through the red-tinted lenses, the air distorted like boiling oil. Emerging from the strobe was The Torso—a pale, severed lump of gristle and twitching meat, dragging its butchered lower abdomen along the polished floor with sickening wet smacks, leaving a broad, glistening smear of black bilge and gore in its wake. Before I could turn, a deafening shriek split the corridor. From the ceiling junction plummeted The Angry Princess. She landed on bare, ruined feet, completely naked, her porcelain skin carved from throat to ankle in self-inflicted vertical gashes that welled with fresh, sluggish crimson. The rusted butcher knife in her hand trembled in rhythm with her spasming head. Black, dead eyes locked onto mine through the glass, her jaw unhinging impossibly wide as an ear-piercing frequency shattered the light tubes overhead, showering us in hot white sparks. I bolted. My boots slid on the blood slick left by the house's previous victims. Left, then hard right—another gear shifted, and a wall of etched glass shot upward from the floorboards, cutting off my escape. I skidded to a halt inches from the pane, my breath fogging the frosted Latin incantations. On the other side of the glass, six inches from my face, stood The Jackal. His rusted metal cage was bolted directly into his pulverized skull, filthy yellow fingernails clawing relentlessly through the headpiece into his own gouged cheeks. He began screaming—a raw, shrieking bark of pure rabies and agony—and smashed his caged face repeatedly against the barrier. Crack. Crack. Crack. Spiderwebs of fractures bloomed across the heavy glass, smeared instantly with yellow pus and fresh arterial spatter from his shattered nose. They're flanking the sector. The house shifted again. A pneumatic valve released, venting a cloud of freezing steam. Out of the vapor stepped the silhouette that made my heart bottom out: The Juggernaut. Seven feet of brute, rotting muscle and corded tendon, riddled with gaping shotgun entry wounds that leaked blackened, congealed tissue. He didn't run; he stalked forward with terrifying, deliberate weight. Trailing behind him on the ground was a massive industrial breaker bar, screeching against the floor, chewing up sparks. Beside him crept The Hammer, flesh pitted with massive railroad spikes hammered flush into his skull and torso, the bloodied sledge swung lazily in his bruised, leather-wrapped fist. The corridor was sealing. The Jackal’s cage finally breached the inner pane, his mangled, gnawing maw snapping through the jagged hole, teeth clicking against empty air inches from my throat. I whipped around toward the central chamber. The air grew arctic, reeking of burned rubber and roasted human hair—the static charge of The First Born Son and The Torso closing the gap from behind. To my left, glass began sliding shut at fifty miles an hour. I dove flat against the deck, sliding belly-first under the descending glass guillotine. The heavy plate slammed into the stone with bone-crushing force a millisecond after my boots cleared, clipping the heel of my shoe. I rolled onto my back in the center of the giant ocular ring, gasping for air. Looking up through the bloody red tint of the glasses, the transparent walls of the central core offered no shelter. On every side of the cage, pressed tight against the glass, they stood shoulder to shoulder—burned, mutilated, chained, and screaming behind silent runes—waiting for the master gear to unlock the glass one last time.
