At dawn, the high salt flats three miles north of the Red Mesa were bathed in crisp, pale morning sunlight.
The salt flats were a vast, blinding white expanse of hard-packed bitter salt crust, stretching for five miles toward the jagged dark rock foothills of the Badlands. The ground was hard as cured concrete, isolated from the refugee camp, providing the ideal open proving ground for high-energy living breakthrough trials.
Arthur Vance stood in the center of the white plain, wearing his leather razor-sharp apron and thick vulcanized gloves, his Zeiss-Vanguard monocle clicked down over his left eye.
Arranged on a portable folding steel table before him were his specialized beast-doctor compounding tools. An aether-steadying fin reflux flask, a brass micro-centrifuge, and three sealed glass vials containing the refined essence pulled out from the Broodmother’s Primordial Glandular Core.
Beside the table, Grimm sat on his haunches.
The black glass dread-hound was unusually still. His broad chest rose and fell in slow, measured breaths. His amber eyes burned with intense, hungry focus. He sensed the potent living deep ring streaming from the glowing crimson fluid in the glass flask. An ancient energy that called directly to the dormant wolf codons buried within his skeletal marrow.
