Page 7

The mission was off to a nightmare start. Dorian discovered a bloody lump of meat in the woods and was certain it was Charles, our poor pilot. We weren’t sure what exactly had killed him, but it seemed clear that we couldn’t split up again, no matter what.

Bryce shook his head mournfully, but there was nothing we could do. Fortunately, he had pilot training and would be able to fly us out when we needed to leave. He called in on a patchy connection to the Bureau office to report Charles’s death while we continued with our mission. The fluctuations for our technology seemed to be getting worse. With death casting a shadow over our mission, I was so numb that I had to focus on moving forward at all costs.

To add to our trouble, we couldn”t find the trail from the previous night, but we had to adapt. That was all we could do. Bryce informed me that consulting involved wearing several hats at once, and this investigation was certainly giving us plenty of opportunity for that.

Cam and Sike sat huddled together over the laptop. It was password protected, as all Bureau laptops were, and we’d tried a few different standard passwords just in case the laptop’s owner had changed it to something generic. I was expecting them to fail, since Black Rock was far more secretive than the standard Bureau fare. If the laptop belonged to a researcher, he’d probably stuck with secure passwords. Cam and Sike hadn’t had any luck with their efforts so far. It was frustrating. They would”ve been able to manually override it with the proper tools, but Bryce and I hadn”t thought to bring computer hacking equipment on the mission.

”He took great care to keep this computer clean, even in this mess,” Cam said as he stared at the password screen. ”He was disconnected from the internet, though, since there aren’t any nearby hotspots, so there’s no cloud data to look at even if we had access to the Bureau’s storage.” Cam looked incredibly serious, perched on the edge of a crate as he worked furiously. Bryce cast his nephew an appreciative glance that Cam couldn”t see, lest Bryce’s tough-love approach go up in smoke.

”Well, he”s alone in a forest with monsters,” Sike pointed out with a half grin. ”I mean, wouldn”t you go kind of crazy?”

”Not crazy enough to keep using my computer every day. I bet he was doing research,” Cam pointed out.

”He’s been here for months, from the looks of his trash pile. Whoever was left behind, a researcher perhaps, from what we saw yesterday—” I cut off, hesitating to add my morbid speculation that he was already dead. Whoever this person was, he’d had a weapon, but either the beast was too fierce or he was unskilled with fighting monsters, which led to all that blood yesterday. ”He knew what he had to do to survive. And he kept doing his work or research, that’s for sure.” I wanted to shout into the forest after him, but that would do nothing but scare the wildlife. Or worse, enrage the monsters enough to fight.

Frustrated by the turn of events, I turned to look at the trees as Sike and Cam worked at the computer.

“Don”t worry, Cam, we”ll get it,” Sike said hopefully. ”Don”t you think we should try going through the survivor’s effects to look for clues, or maybe try something funny? Is there a password that all humans like?”

”Yes,” Bryce piped up. ”It”s password.”

”I already tried that,” Sike admitted. ”Louise told me about that trick. She said only old people used it.”

“Hey, now!” Bryce said, laughing.

We called in to the highest Bureau person we could get. He informed us that we could continue to try different passwords, since the computers at the Black Rock office weren’t programmed to perform a hard drive wipe after too many failed passwords. Unfortunately, the number of password attempts was limited to three tries every few hours. He couldn’t help us any further unless we brought it in to Bureau techs, which we didn’t have time for.

Cam watched Bryce and Sike’s exchange, his stony expression growing more unreadable by the second. He was like a sixty-year-old librarian trapped in a man”s body. Well, if anyone could get him to open up, it was Sike, who was currently elbowing Cam. It was sweet of Sike to mention Louise. I wondered how she was doing at her new workplace. We hadn’t heard from her since she’d left the Bureau, but Sike had originally learned about computers from her.

”Have you tried pizza?” Sike asked. ”I heard humans love pizza.”

My momentary disappointment was derailed by their hilarious exchange. Cam shook his head ruefully. It made me miss Gina, who was actually a pizza fiend. She had taken time off from work on bereavement but had toyed with the idea of joining Callanish later on. I was secretly glad she didn’t come with us after the way this mission started.

”We”ll have to try again in three hours. That was our third try and it”s locked us out. We can try again later.” Cam closed the laptop with a frown, but he immediately stood up. ”Are we going to investigate the forest?”

He was eager. I liked eagerness.

”We are,” I said, and glanced at Bryce, since we needed to make decisions together. ”Shall we head outside?” I was itching to get started on our search.

”Aye,” Bryce agreed. We put our things away to head back to the office. I knew exactly where I wanted to go, inspired by Sike”s suggestions.

”Let’s look through the survivor’s personal effects again,” I said. ”Sike might be on the money. If we can find something that he kept with him, then we might be able to figure out his password.”

Bryce twisted his lips as we came up to the building. The sound of the swaying trees accompanied us everywhere, like they wanted to remind us that they were watching in their own way. More vines had grown on the walls overnight, ones I hadn”t noticed in my hurry to check out the area where the trail had been. It looked as if the forest was trying to completely consume the remains of the building.

”The walls look worse today,” Bryce noted, and then slipped something out of his pocket. It was the knife I’d found.

”There”s a problem with the condition of this knife,” he muttered as we headed back to the intact barracks room where our mystery man had once set up camp. It was empty, of course. ”Lyra, whoever owned this knife took great care of it, and it strikes me as odd that this rust looks so new. It’s covered in rust, but the metal around it is gleaming and polished. The rust itself is all made up of small specks, they haven’t had time to grow. A knife usually wouldn’t rust before the shine dulled, even if it was exposed to the elements.”

I listened to him as we moved into the room, scanning to make sure nothing nefarious was lying in wait for us. ”Could it be a side effect of the meld?” I suggested as we reached the barracks room.

”Maybe,” Dorian said. ”Things are different here. It”s like time is staying the same, but the plants are moving far faster than they should.” His handsome glacial eyes darted up to the ceiling, and I followed his gaze. A branch had lodged itself in the ceiling of the barracks room. It had caused a ceiling tile to fall, creating a white pile of crumbling debris that wasn”t there the day before. A sunbeam passed through the hole, illuminating the area so we no longer needed any extra lanterns to see in the darker corners of the barricaded areas.

”The forest is eating this place,” Bryce grumbled as he rooted around the room. We all went to work, picking over the items to see if there was anything of note. My fingers danced across the wall near the bedroll, which was tattered and faded, as if it hadn’t been used for years. I found a strange bulge coming out of the wood of the wall. With my fingernail, I scraped at it, and my nail caught the razor-thin edge of a panel.

”There”s something here,” I told them, and tugged on the tile. It came out easily enough, clearly having been used frequently. Inside was a broken compass and a note.

Don”t forget who you are, Joseph.

Reading it chilled me to my bones. It seemed our theory was right that Joey was the person we were tracking. Bryce groaned.

”Was it a reminder to himself?” he wondered. ”Perhaps he was going mad out here. If the trees grow like this and move, it could drive anyone to insanity.”

I held the note and then handed it over to the others, letting them pass it around. Sike held it up to the light. I grabbed the broken compass and ran my thumb over the shattered glass in the front. Why would he hold on to a cryptic note and a busted compass?

My breath caught as I turned the compass and the needle spun wildly.

”Something”s wrong with this thing, and it”s more than the glass,” I muttered, and tested it. No matter where I turned, the compass rotated every which way, as if it couldn”t get a lock on anything.

Cam peered at it with me. ”Perhaps the Leftovers are letting off disruptive magnetic waves. It might explain why our technology is only working periodically.”

Whoever this Joseph was, he kept these things because he’d thought they were important.

”Let”s take them with us.”

We found nothing else inside the room that we hadn”t spotted yesterday. As we passed through the building, I reevaluated the crumbling walls. There was far too much damage to be explained by a few months’ exposure to the elements. Things were deteriorating here. How was this possible? Maybe Bryce was right. Just like the knife and the walls, things were aging far faster than they were supposed to. The knife was probably pristine two days ago. I noticed a bit of rust on the compass. Yet, the wood in the building was holding up rather well. Some materials are aging faster than others. Maybe we can get some information about it from Sike”s measurements.

Cam approached the closed door and stopped abruptly. I slammed into him, having been focused on the compass.

”Something”s out there,” he whispered. ”Did you hear that? I think… it”s the creature.”

I had fought my fair share of monsters, and yet, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I hadn”t heard anything except the sway of the trees. I strained to listen as Dorian pushed gently past us to get to the front. Sike fired up the scanner.

If I listened closely, I could hear the tree branches scraping together despite the lack of a breeze. Except now, I wasn”t sure it was the trees. It sounded like nails softly scraping on a chalkboard. It was so light that I barely registered it until Cam pointed it out. My skin pricked with dread. We had been hearing the creature subtly the entire time, but we hadn”t known what we were listening to.

A wall buckled, and I jerked away from it, surprised by the sudden decay. This building was falling apart. Dorian shot me an urgent look and gently pried the door open to peer outside. The sound grew louder. I could hear it clearly now.

Dorian let out an exasperated breath and threw the door the rest of the way open. Instead of a fierce monster, an injured blue rodent with spiky fur huddled before the doorframe. It was limping badly, its injuries identifying it as the one we’d seen yesterday. Its ears, wide and large with plenty of fur, twitched, making the same sound as the trees.

”It”s hurt, but alive,” Cam muttered, impressed. The twitching ears were so loud, up close. ”I think that might be another distress signal for it.” He crouched down closer to the creature.

Bryce pressed his lips together in thought. Although he looked fierce, he had a soft spot for animals. He had learned to befriend redbills before anyone else during our first months with the vampires. ”We can take it back with us. The government provided Bureau-issue tanks for us to use if we wanted to collect specimens.”

Cam nodded numbly, but his gaze hardened. The word “specimen” was unpleasant, but it was all we could do for the creature. At least at the Bureau, someone would be able to set its broken leg. Cam moved forward to grab it, but the beast scampered back. Finally, after two tries with Sike, Cam managed to get the rodent into his arms. Once against his chest, the thing appeared to relax. I could now see where its blood had clotted. I lifted an impressed eyebrow. The healing on this creature was incredible. It should have died in the forest last night, but it hadn”t.

We returned to the carrier plane, where Cam and Sike worked on a cozier habitat for the rodent. I hid my smile from them. Their efforts were sweet, and the strange rodents were growing on me… even if this one had managed to scare the crap out of me earlier. Bryce and I might both be softies at heart.

”Let”s do dinner,” Bryce announced. Dorian helped him prepare it, despite not being able to eat it. Bryce shook his head wildly from side to side, his gray hair flying. ”The Bureau office feels like it”s becoming a slice of Swiss cheese, with as many holes as it has.”

Cam fed a tiny bit of bread to the creature, who gobbled it up greedily.

”We should be careful with our food,” Bryce rumbled, referring to the tracks around our plane. ”The creatures might get light-fingered once they realize what we have. I hope your new friend doesn”t tell his pals in the forest.”

Cam grimaced. ”He has a bad cut on his throat. I think that”s why he can”t scream, and why he was doing that thing with his ears.”

I winced, eating my rations as fast as I could. The sound was unsettling to remember, more so because the entire forest embodied such odd, eerie acoustics. Thankfully, we were okay right now. Dorian”s theory about the creatures and fauna being more active at night was proving right, as the day passed peacefully besides the scare from our rodent friend.

A buzz shook me from my thoughts. It came from Bryce”s comm, the newest design from Reshi. Bryce brushed his mouth free of crumbs and grinned from ear to ear. Based on that smile alone, I knew exactly who it was.

”Hello there, fierceness,” Bryce greeted on the comm. Cam turned to openly gawk at his uncle. ”How are the disturbing horrors of the Immortal Plane treating you?”

I snickered and rolled my eyes. Bryce had become bolder in his flirtation with Arlonne recently. Reshi had managed to improve our comms enough for inter-plane communication, although they still went in and out like old cell phones at times. Arlonne was in the Immortal Plane, working with more Coalition allies to find a nearby gate in order for her team to join us in the Leftovers. We particularly wanted to find a gate in the Leftovers, in case we needed to make a quick getaway and to study the Leftovers’ effects on the gates. Bryce let out a very high chuckle at one point.

I”m not sure Cam will ever recover from this… At least he seems amused.

”Got it,” Bryce said after a few minutes and pointed at me, then to his own ear.

I pressed my own comm into my ear, and Arlonne’s voice rang out clearly. The connection was good, for now.

”Lyra, I want you to hear this too,” Arlonne said. She was never one for greetings. ”We”ve been getting strange readings in the area lately. And… we found something. We came across the glowing swamp that your father talked about, but it”s hard to travel through. We”ve sensed no human presences and no gates, although we do feel major barrier fluctuations here. There’s no sign that anyone has been here.” She paused for a beat. ”I”m sorry not to have better news.”

”It”s okay,” I told her. Even though it hurt to hear, I was glad they’d found the swamp. It meant there was a connection between what my dad said and what we were investigating. I had to keep my hopes low, but my trust in myself and my team high. ”Thank you for your hard work.”

”We”ll keep working hard,” Arlonne promised, a fierce loyalty and power ringing in her tone. I smiled.

”That means a lot.”

I left her to finish the call with Bryce. Dorian leaned over, saying nothing, merely squeezing my knee. I needed the gesture. It had been a long twenty-four hours. I was exhausted, and it was only day two. I took out the compass and the note from the researcher”s secret cubby.

”See you later, lovely.” Bryce ended his flirty call. Thank goodness I got to leave the call before all that.

Cam blinked. ”You were talking to… a vampire?”

Bryce raised one eyebrow, as if to challenge his nephew. ”You got a problem?”

”Not at all,” Cam said smoothly, and his calm face transformed into a teasing grin. ”I can”t wait to tell Mom.”

Dorian smirked. ”Vampire and human relationships are all the rage.”

I shook my head at the exchange, laughing helplessly.

”It”s none of your business,” Bryce said bluntly to Cam. ”Keep yourself to that spiky little squirrel thing and you”ll do yourself a favor. My relationships are my own, and they”re wonderfully private. I”d like to keep them that way.” What exactly was private about a flirty phone call in front of everyone?

Everyone else shared a quiet smile, the kind that bound people together. I was thankful for the brief levity. It was a nice change of pace from our journey into the rotting building.

”Oh!” Sike shot up from his bedroll, where he”d been reclining with the scanner. ”The huge signature from last night is back.”

A cloud of hot breath fanned in front of the plane and onto the glass. My stomach clenched as our humor shattered, replaced by panic. Outside, something groaned in a ghostly manner.

Sike”s voice dropped to a whisper. ”It”s here.”