A muffled, “Come on,” was the only warning Kris got before Thal picked her up and dropped her in the hole. She made a raspy bark as she fell, and Rooney made no attempt to catch her. When she caught a glimpse of the ground rushing up at her and the man standing, smirking, to the side, she was able to twist so she took most of the force of the fall on her padded hip and bottom, rolling as she did so. Still, she was certain her leg and side would be purple soon, and when she struggled to her feet, she found that the hip she had landed on protested violently against bearing any weight.

As soon as she was out of the way, Thal landed behind her with a thump, his bent knees and outstretched hands allowing him to recover easily. He glared at Rooney, but didn’t comment, just picked up Kris’ dangling leash and reattached it to his belt.

Once they were all back together, the three looked around. Long, white lights lined the narrow hallway, blazing more brightly than anything Kris had ever seen before except the sun itself. The walls, ceiling, and floor were a perfectly smooth, light gray, but she didn’t see any paint strokes on the surface. It was as though they had grown in place, already perfectly square and straight.

Beneath Kris’ feet, a pale green dot glowed. When she limped to the right so she could see better, it moved with her. Thal grinned triumphantly at Rooney. “Biorhythm,” he said.

A muscle jumped in Rooney’s jaw, but he looked away and said, “Lab,” to the empty air. Both men waited expectantly, but nothing happened.

Thal pulled on Kris’ rope, yanking on her aching wrist. Her weak hip nearly made her stumble, but she caught herself by placing her free hand against the wall. A new green glow appeared there. With dawning comprehension, she realized that whatever magic was controlling this place, it recognized her. Liked her, and didn’t even recognize the two men.

Thal yanked again, and said, “Lab,” impatiently.

Kris swallowed hard, opened her mouth, and said, “Help.”

Thal and Rooney both lunged for her, but it was too late. The glowing circle opened and swallowed her up.

▼▼▼

She splashed into cool, fresh water a moment later. Her injured hip cramped as she tried to kick back up from the bottom of the pool or pond in which she’d landed, and she floated, desperately holding her breath as she tried to figure out which way was up. As she hung there, suspended in dark water, she felt something warm and furry slide against her. The part of her trained by Lara knew she should hit it, try to push away the unknown creature,but some other, deeper part insisted that this thing was friend.

Sure enough, a cold nose pushed playfully against her arm. It was the bruised one, and she winced away. Instantly, two… flippers? hands? Grasped her, and tugged her toward what she sensed was ‘up’.

Her head broke the surface, and she drew in a deep breath. Beside her, someone else did the same, and when she glanced over, she saw two inquisitive black eyes staring back at her. Slowly, she reached out, stroking a finger down the boy’s softly furred cheek. His whiskers twitched, and he sneezed, and they both laughed.

“Pin?” A cranky voice sounded from somewhere nearby, and the boy turned his head, blinking. He made a short, sharp barking sound, and an exasperated sigh answered. “Use your words, boy. Who is it?”

A voice that rasped just like Kris’, though it was pitched deeper, came from the boy - Pin’s - mouth, and sharp teeth flashed. “Sis-ter,” he said.

A white-haired head popped up over the rim of what Kris was slowly realizing was an open-topped water tank nearly as large as the house she shared with her mother. Rheumy brown eyes blinked at her, and the man frowned. “Nonsense. That’s a perfectly normal human gi…”

The voice trailed off as the man took in the two nearly identical faces looking back at him. While the boy’s was covered in short, thick fur, and Kris’ was bare, they had the same eyes, nose, and bowed mouth. Even the arch of their brows and the way their brown hair fell was the same, though Kris’ was caught up in a long braid, while Pin’s was short.

“Great Darwin’s ghost,” the man muttered, and hands appeared, clutching the side of the pool. “And who else could she possibly be?” He pulled a contraption made of two circles of glass held in place by wire off his head, and settled them in place on his nose, hooking the free ends of the wire behind his ears. “Though, she doesn’t look quite as predicted. We’ll have to examine her. Come, come,” he scurried away, head dropping out of sight as Pin pulled Kris toward the side of the tank.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Pin tugged at Kris, smiling widely enough to show the pointed tips of his teeth, something that Kris’ parents had trained out of her as soon as she was old enough to understand. Something tickled in her mind, and she blinked, shaking the itch away as she allowed herself to be dragged to the edge. There, she wrapped her fingers on the rim much as the old man had, and peered over.

She had no idea what she was looking at. Several tables made out of precious, perfectly smooth metal were laid out in a tidy row. On them sat delicate glass and metal devices that looked like bottles in strange shapes, connected by tubes supported by slender metal poles. Most of these things sat, silent and unused, but a few of the nearest contained liquids, some of which sat quietly, while others bubbled, though no heat source was visible.

The man was standing at one of the tables, though this one held a glowing rectangle, resting against a slim support made of some substance with which she wasn’t familiar. He tapped at another rectangle with his fingers, squinting into the light cast by the first rectangle. No one else was visible, though it was clear that the area had been designed to be used by many people.

“What is this?” Kris asked, struggling to lift herself enough to swing her good leg out of the tank. Usually, her deceptively powerful muscles would make this a simple task, but with her injuries, she had to lean her torso far out over the edge, nearly toppling onto the small platform on the other side.

Pin steadied her, and she noticed that his fingers still had fine webbing between them. It was thin enough that his fingers could move easily, but it would make swimming so much easier. When he noticed the direction of her gaze, the boy grinned, and lifted her own hand, setting his palm against hers. A faint look of puzzlement crossed his face, then turned into horror as he gently traced the pale, silvery lines down each side of her fingers.

::How?::

She jerked back, looking around for the source of the voice, which seemed to have come from nowhere and inside her own head at the same time. She caught Pin’s look of inquiry, and held up her hand. “You… ask?”

He nodded, and she shivered involuntarily. Speaking mind-to-mind was one of the many magics that could bring the user an instant death sentence. “My father. He cut,” she wiggled her fingers, “so I wouldn’t be different.”

The man below looked up sharply. “Father?” He snorted. “Your ‘father’ has been dead for hundreds of years, along with your female genetic donor. Come on down now, girl, we have much to discuss.”

Carefully, Pin helped Kris climb out of the tank and balance unsteadily on the slick platform. There were eight stairs to the ground, and while Pin supported her, Kris made her way down them slowly.

The strange man pushed his glass and wire contraption off his face, and examined Kris, muttering quietly, though whether he was speaking to one of them or himself was unclear. “Hmmph. Slightly under one hundred forty centimeters, perhaps a bit over thirty-eight kilograms. Clearly malnourished.” He lifted Kris’ good arm, poking at the thin layer of fat over her ribs. “Adipose tissue present, but insufficient for, well, anything.”

Stepping back, he crossed to the glowing rectangle. She could now see that both rectangles had letters neatly printed on them, but to her amazement, as his fingers moved over the little squares embedded in the lower one, the letters displayed on the top actually changed. She gasped, covering her mouth out of long habit as she did so, but the man’s sharp eyes didn’t miss it.

“Dentition shares features of order Carnivora. Syndactyly has been surgically removed. Badly.” He glanced at Kris. “Toes still webbed, dare I hope?” She nodded, and he nodded in satisfaction and went back to tapping.

Seeing that he was unlikely to explain anything, any time soon, Kris turned to Pin. “What is this place?” she asked, already feeling her throat begin to ache.

Pin looked around, as if surprised she had to ask. ::Laboratory,:: he sent. ::Place where scientists perform experiments.::

“Perform? Like a traveling carnival, or preacher?” She thought she must have misunderstood. There was nothing about this place that shouted entertainment, like the capering clowns or bellowing preachers who rarely came to her small town.

Shaking his head, Pin pointed to the bubbling glassware and then to several floor to ceiling columns that were scattered around the room. ::They use lab equipment. I help Dr. Rosenthal sometimes.:: His eyes lit up, and he waved to her in a summoning gesture. ::Here, I’ll show you!::

He glanced at the man, Dr. Rosenthal, who was now glaring at his magical rectangle, and the two teenagers sidled toward the nearest column. Pin laid his hand flat on the matte gray covering, and a bar of yellow light appeared, scanning it from fingertip to the bottom of his palm. When it was done, the light shifted to green, and Pin said, “Display.”

Slowly, the gray shifted from opaque to translucent, and a soft red light glowed from above into the liquid within. Floating there, as still as if she were dead, was a girl who looked enough like Kris to be her twin, though brown fur covered her face, like Pin’s.

::Experiment,:: Pin thought, proudly.

Kris stumbled back, horror filling her. What was this place? Were the tales true? Were these witches? Or, what had Rooney said? Demons? Perhaps Dr. Rosenthal was the witch, and she, Pin, and the floating girl were all demons, sent to destroy the world.

Pin stepped toward her, hands outstretched, but Kris just staggered and spun away from him. She twisted badly, and something in her hip popped, and then she was falling. She was caught in wiry arms, and Dr. Rosenthal snapped something she couldn’t understand at Pin, who looked upset and ashamed, and then there was a sharp prick of pain in the side of her neck and darkness came and swallowed her into the deep, deep waters of unconsciousness.