Darklight 2: Darkthirst

by Forrest, Bella

  “Approaching supernatural presences,” he murmured.

  “Are they friendly?” I asked. We might be pushing it if we had to deal with another monster.

  “We’ll find out,” he said grimly. “They’re almost on top of us.” He slowed to a stop in a small clearing in the midst of the forest.

  I jumped off his back, craning my neck as a familiar beating of wings sounded above. “Dorian,” I breathed excitedly.

  Two redbills soared above us for a moment, backlit by the sun, then spiraled down to land nearby. The birds gave friendly croaks as they landed. I gasped at the sight of Sike and Louise riding one of the bills. Relief flooded me, and I rushed forward, ecstatic to see both of them alive and well.

  Sike slid from his redbill, hit the ground in a graceful movement, and gave us a wide smile. Louise stayed on the redbill, grinning at us despite the exhaustion and scrapes from the last few days marking her face.

  “You don’t know how glad I am to see you guys,” Sike said, throwing his arms around both me and Dorian.

  I clung to his skinny frame. “Oh, I think we do, Sike.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The trees and streams and wilderness fell away beneath us as the two redbills—now carrying Dorian and me in addition to Sike and Louise—soared through the sky in the rich light of approaching dusk.

  I steadied myself behind Sike, slightly disappointed that I hadn’t been able to sit with Dorian. I felt more comfortable grabbing him openly for support. But we decided on the ground that it would allow us to swap stories most efficiently, and each bill needed a vampire. We all desperately needed news about what had happened to the other party.

  “Brace yourself,” Sike advised me. “This particular redbill can be a bit lively.”

  As if to prove his statement, Sike’s redbill jerked to the side, making the fries I’d eaten earlier swirl dangerously in my gut.

  Louise and Dorian spoke on their redbill ahead of us, but the sound was lost to the wind. No doubt he would leave out the more intimate parts. Dorian didn’t strike me as a “kiss and tell” kind of guy.

  The redbill bucked a little again, and I gripped the bird more firmly with my knees. Once we leveled out, I moved my mouth closer to Sike’s ear to be heard over the rushing wind.

  “What happened after the monster charged away with Dorian and me?” I asked, remembering the helicopter going down before the monster took us off into the mountains.

  Sike shook his head as if events boggled his mind too much to summarize. “I… had no idea what was happening when we arrived at the battle. I’m used to that stuff in the Immortal Plane but on Earth? I mean, I’d only ever heard stories about that kind of monster. Seeing a shrieking decay in the Mortal Plane? It’s unheard of.”

  A Shrieking Decay? I shuddered. Just hearing the name brought back the feeling of gut-churning terror as it poured acid down upon the Bureau soldiers.

  Sike continued. “The fact that you managed to get it away from everyone and kill it was probably what saved us all. Apart from Grayson, we didn’t lose anyone on our side. A few people were wounded. Bryce got an acid burn on most of his left forearm, but his coat took the worst of it. Since he managed to get it off quickly, it should heal over time. Colin has a concussion, Roxy dislocated three of her fingers, and Bravi lost a few back teeth when her redbill crashed, but they’ll grow back in no time.”

  My mind stuttered over all the incoming information, pausing to replay the painful moment of watching Grayson crumple to the ground. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, reminding myself we would grieve after all this was over. There was a crucial piece of the story missing, the one I cared about most of all. “Zach? Gina? The… shrieking decay hit the chopper, and they went down. Are they okay?”

  The redbill divebombed unexpectedly, letting out several chirps that sounded almost amused as we clung to its back. Sike said something I couldn’t understand, but his tone suggested he was cursing.

  “They’re safe,” Sike assured me once we were flying steadily again. “Badly bruised and with a few burns, but they’re mainly fretting over you back at the new hideout. Don’t worry about the damage too much. Hart took care of them with some of the supplies we brought back from the Immortal Plane. He’s been taking pretty good care of everyone, actually.”

  Even as my chest flooded with relief at the news of my brother and Gina, I couldn’t stop the flash of surprise upon hearing Hart was engaging and being helpful.

  “Did the Bureau attempt to take them into custody?” I asked, starting to build a picture of how the battle had unfolded after Dorian and I had been whisked away.

  “Not at all. Considering the number of soldiers they’d already lost, the Bureau left in a serious hurry as soon as they realized vampire backup had arrived.” His shoulders rolled with satisfaction.

  I snorted. The fact that the Bureau had brought an acid-spewing monster to the fight but decided to high-tail it out of there once vampire backup arrived said a lot about how afraid the higher-ups still were of vampires. The fact that they were willing to take a wild risk with such a volatile creature was a sinister reminder that they would go to great lengths to gain the upper hand. The Bureau planned extreme strategies—I knew that from personal experience and the wild tales that spread through the ranks from other teams. Their mistake had been bringing that monster. The Bureau had lost Finley and a dozen or more soldiers to their own weapon. It was blood pointlessly spilled on the Bureau’s careless gambling.

  “They didn’t even take the time to gather their dead,” Sike said, somber. “Although, after the shrieking decay was finished with them, there weren’t really many bodies to gather. More just … parts left over from the acid attack.”

  I grimaced. It was not a pleasant image. Unprompted, I recalled how Alan had told me about burying an empty coffin for one of his teammates, and the pain of the family denied the closure of a body. Did he care that he had, directly or indirectly, caused that same situation for many more families?

  Sike glanced at the other redbill with a small smile, breaking my ponderous silence. “I was impressed,” he said. “All of you humans took care of the hard part of the battle before we even got there.”

  “You really should know by now that we humans can be remarkably resilient,” I remarked, noting his admiring eye on Louise. Suddenly, a heavy feeling of apprehension came over me. I had forgotten to ask something important.

  “Grayson,” I said, the word weighted with dread. “What happened to his body?”

  Sike didn’t immediately answer, and I held my breath. My lungs seemed to freeze.

  “Sorry, Lyra,” Sike said softly. “The Bureau took his body before we could stop them.”

  They left their own soldiers but took Grayson? It felt utterly wrong. I ground my teeth, overwhelmed by rage and grief. The Bureau would have the conclusive evidence of what happened to Grayson. They would control the narrative of his death. Would they try to claim that we had killed him? That the vampires had turned on him?

  Grayson had been desperate enough to beg Finley for an escape, even after the Bureau had tortured him without cause. The memory of his makeup melting away under the hot lights of the interrogation room came to mind. The livid bruises. Could I have jumped into the fray and saved him? Or would I have just guaranteed my own death as well as his? Finley had fired without provocation or warning. She would likely have had no qualms about taking me down.

  “Are you okay?” Sike whispered, unwilling to press too hard. He could read my silence.

  I swallowed a lump in my throat, not able to answer. Unnecessarily devastating. That was the way to describe this fiasco with the Bureau, the vampires, and the Immortal Plane. How many more lives would we lose to this senseless struggle? What if I lost Zach next? Roxy? Bryce? I shook my head, trying to dispel the unpleasant thoughts. I wouldn’t let the terrible reality of Grayson’s death happen again.

  “I saw it happen,” I said, the words falling off my tongue like bul
lets. “Roxy, Colin, and me. We watched Finley shoot him, saw him fall to the ground. I remember crying out, drawing fire when the Bureau soldiers thought we were vampires, then realizing we had to move on to survive.” I paused. “I’ve never seen someone die before. I’ve been on missions where people got badly hurt, but never… I just… it happened so fast. I haven’t really thought about it till now.”

  “I know what it’s like to see something like that,” Sike muttered. “I don’t wish it on anyone, human or vampire.”

  In silence, I held my sorrow for a moment. If I held onto it, I could honor Grayson’s memory. “I wonder if they’ll even release his body to his family,” I said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to cover this up or spin it into some anti-vampire propaganda.”

  Sike shrugged. “Louise and I discussed it, actually. She said his mother and little sister lived somewhere up north, near Seattle. I imagine they will want to know what happened to him. Maybe they’ll just say he was killed in the line of duty and let it disappear quietly. It’s not like Finley is around to face the consequences of her actions.” A note of scorching anger crept into his voice as he whispered, “Not for what she did to Grayson or for what she did to Louise.”

  He really cares about her. It gave me a strange sense of hope amid the rest of our dire reality. Still, I couldn’t help but notice a minute ripple of pain across her face and how she massaged just over her heart for a moment. Grayson’s accusation that both Louise and I were “vampire-lovers” suddenly took on a whole new meaning…

  “The Bureau would never admit they killed him,” I agreed glumly. “Just like they won’t admit things are only going to get worse.”

  Sike turned to glance at me over his shoulder. Wariness brewed in his lean face. “What do you mean?”

  “I caught a news report when Dorian and I stopped in a town. The media is reporting increased rates of supernatural attacks along with fires and gas leaks,” I revealed. “They’re pinning the fires, gas leaks, and attacks on the redbills, but that’s ridiculous.”

  Sike hummed in thought. “What do you make of it?”

  “It’s not redbills, that’s for sure,” I replied bitterly. “The scouting parties said they saw more creatures coming through the tear when they went to observe. It was only a matter of time before those creatures spread into a civilian area and started taking people out. Who knows how many could come through the tear? And the Bureau has proven they’re not very capable of taking down creatures from the Immortal Plane.”

  Sike’s redbill chirped and swung to the left. I grabbed onto his back to hold steady. Those fries might make a reappearance during our discussion if we kept flying like this.

  “You learn quickly that the Immortal Plane isn’t to be messed with,” Sike reflected, settling himself back into the center of the bill’s back. “And yet the Bureau can’t seem to stop themselves.”

  The Bureau must surely have some idea how destructive things could get if they continued to meddle. And why would they even want such destructive forces at their fingertips, especially when Alan claimed the human world wanted nothing to do with the Immortal Plane? Yet the Bureau had captured the shrieking decay at some point—most likely some time ago if they’d had half a chance to create a system to try using it in battle. Maybe redbills hadn’t been the only creatures coming through the tear over the last five years. Who knew what else the Bureau had hidden away?

  “Sike, how do you think the shrieking decay escaped the Immortal Plane?” I asked. “It obviously flew through, but you said you’ve only heard stories about them. I take it they’re not very common?”

  Sike scratched his head thoughtfully. “A monster like that came from somewhere deep in the plane, not like the rebills, who just happen upon the tear as they’re moving through the Immortal Plane. With the size of it, I’m also pretty sure it would have ripped the tear wider to get out.” He clicked at the redbill, and we drifted down a little lower. “Also, without some heavy-duty research on that particular beast’s anatomy, it seems odd the Bureau would have that riding thing on its back. What did you call it again?”

  “A saddle, but it had controls. It was specifically designed for that monster, I’m sure,” I said definitively. “The gears were complicated, and it broke fairly quickly. Seems to me they either rushed the design or hadn’t used it in combat before.”

  Our redbill chirped when we hit a small pocket of air. My stomach lurched as the redbill adjusted itself. Sike patted the bird reassuringly.

  “But why blame the redbills?” he asked, confused. “Why not blame vampires?”

  “Most civilians have no idea about vampires,” I reminded him. “The Bureau always operated under the assumption that if the world knew about vampires, citizens would panic and descend into mob-driven paranoia.”

  “Right.” Sike blew out a deep breath. “It’s wild to think most humans don’t even know my species exists.”

  I shrugged. “Even being in the Bureau, we weren’t taught much about you guys beyond that you’re evil and apparently extinct. I kind of wish I’d questioned some of what I was told, but… I think we all rode high on the confidence that vampires weren’t our problem any longer.”

  “Do you think most humans would just support the Bureau if they knew the truth?” Sike asked. “Or would they be more like your group of humans and want to work with us? It might be useful for humans to know that vampires could help them fight the creatures starting to come through from the Immortal Plane.”

  Sike’s curiosity made him a nice new voice to strategize and theorize with. After two days filled with charged romantic tension, I found it refreshing to come out of the echo chamber of my discussions with Dorian.

  “For that to happen, the Bureau would have to be honest about everything. They would have to stop covering up the existence of all supernatural creatures,” I replied. “And I can tell you right now there is no hope of that happening because of who is currently in charge of the organization. Secrecy about the supernatural is rule number one in the Bureau handbook. Always has been.” It was impossible to imagine the Bureau doing that. I would sooner command a flock of redbills. But why did the Bureau keep all this secret? If they served human citizens and wanted to protect lives, it would make more sense to alert the public. We could do more active recruitment for the Bureau to counter the supernatural threats. We could work with vampires to potentially fix the tear. Actually, I wasn’t sure repairing the tear was possible, but someone tore it open to begin with. Shouldn’t we be able to stop it?

  “Why don’t we do it?” Sike asked, sending the redbill closer to Dorian and Louise’s bill, the two birds flying parallel for a few beats. “Is there a way to tell the public ourselves?”

  I looked down and away to where the rocks and trees blurred together beneath wisps of cloud. “It might be risky to do it as dissenting soldiers until we have solid evidence against the Bureau for the public to see,” I said. “It would be too easy for the Bureau to discredit us as a group of former employees trying to get revenge.”

  “With all the monsters coming to Earth, they might not be able to keep the supernatural secret for much longer,” Sike pointed out with a touch of amusement. “And I guarantee you they’ll need help from vampires to control those monsters.”

  “As I see it, the Bureau has been making decisions I would never have expected of them,” I said. “There must be something we’re not seeing, something we don’t know about that’s driving their decisions. I don’t know what their ultimate goal is, but they seem hell-bent on continuing on their path of unexpected choices, and I’m not hopeful that’ll change any time soon.”

  “They’re obviously desperate to keep track of everything and everyone,” Sike noted. “Louise taught me a lot about human technology during the last few days. She said Bryce and Zach are paranoid about using their comms right now. They’re afraid the CIA set up the attack and is still listening in.”

  “The CIA?” I echoed, frowning. Perhaps thei
r reluctance to help us had been driven by more than just bureaucratic red tape.

  He sighed. “We found trackers hidden in the clothing of the people who came back from the CIA meeting,” he said solemnly. “And they found one of the Bureau’s beacons in Grayson’s gear bag. It seems he activated it as soon as they returned.”

  Oh, Grayson. Part of me wasn’t surprised, but I let out a frustrated grunt. It had been foolish to let Team Negotiate wade into CIA territory, especially with a team member who was actively voicing doubts about our endeavors. Disappointment and grief filled me as I remembered Zach’s hope after the meeting. He must be devastated.

  “Just when things were looking up,” I muttered bitterly. Why did life continue to throw betrayal after betrayal at us? It felt like there was no end to the twists and turns of our struggle with the Bureau.

  I looked over at Dorian. Their redbill was nearly parallel to us, but he was listening intently to Louise. What did he think about what had happened? Maybe he would have an idea for our next step forward. I was fresh out. “It’s tough to believe in humanity right now,” I said, almost to myself.

  The landscape beneath us was changing slowly. Gone were the mountains. Red dusty desert took over the land. “Where are we headed?” I asked.

  A gust of wind blew over us, bringing a wave of heat with it. At least the chill from the mountains wouldn’t be an issue. I studied the land, confusion morphing into disbelief. It was almost as if… “Are we going back to the Canyonlands? The Bureau already knows about the caves there.”

  “We have another base,” Sike assured me as the redbill began to drop slightly. “I can’t say it’s nicer than the last one, but it’ll work in the short term.”

  “I don’t understand. Why choose the Canyonlands again, with the Bureau right there?” I asked. It’s a madman’s choice.

  “Bryce figured with the Bureau’s tracking technology, we’re limited as to locations to hide in. We all agreed on it,” he informed me. “Our reasoning was two-fold. One, the Bureau wouldn’t expect to see us right under their noses, especially when we’re so close to the first hideout. Two, and Louise brought up this idea, the rift itself and all the supernatural activity going on around it will mask the vampires and the redbills from the Bureau’s tracking technology.” He ended his explanation with a puff of pride as he straightened his back.