The Mastiff with the Brass Warning

I was about to answer Mark when the phone on the reception counter erupted into a shrill ring. The sound seemed to slice straight through the clinic’s stale quiet.

Mark jerked as if someone had fired a shot. His gaze snapped to the phone, then to me, and he began edging toward the entrance.

“You were wrong to bring him here,” he said, fingers clamped around the handle. His voice had gone thin. “You’ve doomed every one of us.”

Then he yanked the door open and ran. The little chimes above it clattered behind him while I stood rooted in place.

The phone kept ringing. I crossed the waiting room, lifted the receiver, and tried to keep my breathing steady. “Doc Evans’s office.”

For a beat, there was nothing but a faint hiss. A voice answered at last, smooth and flat, with no human warmth in it.

“Asset 04 is being tracked. A retrieval unit will reach your location in five minutes.”

The connection cut off. I lowered the receiver slowly, though my pulse was already hammering hard enough to shake my hands.

I looked down the corridor toward the treatment room. The enormous dog was still on the table, his scarred sides rising and falling beneath the IV line.

This wasn’t some stray that needed a home, and Mark wasn’t merely a cruel owner. We’d taken an engineered animal from people who considered him theirs—and they were almost here.

My grip tightened until the receiver creaked. Five minutes. The warning kept repeating in my head, like a clock counting down to something awful.

“Evans!” I yelled, charging back along the hall. My boots skidded on the clean floor as I rounded the doorway. “We have to get him out. Now!”

The vet glanced up from the drip he’d been adjusting. The mastiff’s low, steady breaths made the metal table seem to hum. “Elias, I just got him stable. Moving him could make the venom—”

“The snakebite isn’t the danger anymore.” I seized the stretcher’s edge. “The people after him called. They know where he is, and their team will be here in minutes.”

Evans went still. He was a small-town veterinarian, used to calving season and sick barn cats, not armed crews. His eyes moved from the barcode on the dog’s side to my face.

“There’s a rear way out,” he said, lowering his voice. “It opens onto that old logging track. Your truck’s out front. Stan left the keys inside before he headed to the diner.”

“Grab the IV. I’ll bring the truck around.” I hurried through the side door and into the thick afternoon heat, which hit me like an oven blast.

Gravel spat under my shoes as I ran to my F-150. I turned the key, heard the engine catch, then backed hard and swung around the clinic.

At the rear entrance, Evans had already forced the heavy doors open. He was trying to maneuver the gurney, but the dog’s bulk had it nearly pinned.

I jumped down and took hold of the rubber mat beneath the mastiff. Together, we braced our feet and got ready to lift.

“On three,” I grunted. “One, two—three!” We heaved with everything we had. The animal’s weight was immense, all dense muscle and heavy coat.

We dragged him over the tailgate and let him settle into the bed with a jolt. Evans climbed in after him, raising the IV bag to keep the fluid moving.

“Go, Elias!” he shouted, smacking the truck’s side. I shut the tailgate, scrambled behind the wheel, and pushed the accelerator down.

Dust billowed behind us as we left the clinic and plunged onto the narrow track. Oak and pine branches scraped along the truck with a shriek that set my teeth on edge.

Just before the road curled behind a wall of trees, I checked the mirror. Three black SUVs had swung off the highway and stormed into the clinic lot.

They stopped across the exits instead of using the marked spaces. Armed operatives in dark gear were climbing out before the vehicles had fully settled.

My stomach sank. Mark’s frantic warning came back to me: we had doomed everyone. I kept driving, my foot heavy on the gas as the ruts bucked beneath us.

The logging road had been abandoned for years. I steered from memory through the hills and woods, knowing it ran five miles toward the old county quarry, not far from my place.

“Elias!” Evans called through the sliding rear window. Wind tossed his gray hair as he leaned toward me. “How are they finding him? My scanner picked up no chip.”

His question chilled me. The voice had said they were tracking Asset 04 at the clinic. I reached into my jacket, searching for the brass collar I’d taken off the dog.

My fingers closed around it. The metal felt strangely warm—far warmer than it should have been.