I steeled myself with the knowledge that, several hundred yards away in a clearing, our carrier plane and pilot sat locked up with plenty of supplies. Since it was just outside the radius of the Leftovers, Bryce had agreed that it was safe to leave them there for the moment. Thankfully, the weirdness left behind hadn’t expanded beyond its current borders after the meld’s end. As far as we knew, there was nobody in this area but us and any misplaced immortal creatures in these strange parts. I had seen the occasional Mortal Plane squirrel here and there, but they avoided the edge of this place like the plague. It was like they could sense how wrong this area was.
Sike, our last team member, sucked in a breath as he yanked his foot away from something. He was in a spot of lush grass that swept against his pant leg, a bright, unnatural green against the slate gray of our new uniforms.
"Something fast just ran over my foot," he muttered with a quick grimace. "It wasn't the vines. I heard squeaking." I trusted Sike’s vampire senses. He and Dorian both had superior hearing to humans—well, that and just about every other sense. I frowned, straining to pick up the noise, and then it came all at once, with a wave of rustling grass.
A swarm of dark, scurrying blue forms rippled the grass next to Sike. He jerked out of the way with a curse as the creatures, slightly larger than rats with spikes like rogue, mutant hedgehogs, darted past him, every so often bounding several feet into the air, at a height that should've been impossible for rodents.
We barely had time to react as the swarm went squeaking off into the forest. I shot a curious look at Dorian. He looked baffled.
"Our woodland pests don't do that," he explained. “At least, not near Vanim.” His handsome face turned to study the surrounding area of the Bureau office, his glacial eyes keenly calculating. "They appear to be fleeing something." Fleeing away from where we need to go, how comforting.
They disappeared into the forest and their fleeing steps echoed bizarrely back to us, almost like we were in a cave instead of near trees.
I took a step forward to join Bryce near the entrance of the largest building, taking care not to let the trailing vines touch my hair. Somewhere, I hoped, my parents were surviving in this area. I had felt their souls when I’d briefly died during the fixing of the meld, and they’d still been living; I had to believe they were still out here.
Dorian's brows furrowed with concern and stayed that way. He was listening along with Sike, while Cam watched them, seeming to note their every move. When he caught my look, he turned away, going a bit pink. It was Cam's first official mission with vampires, so he was naturally curious.
Bryce cleared his throat irritably. "Cam. Scanner?" The young man stiffened at Bryce's tone, which dripped with the unspoken question, why aren't you already announcing this? It had been a long time since I’d heard that particular gruffness, but I remembered it. Bryce was always hard on newcomers when he was training my old teammates and me for the Bureau. Now, our client was the US government, and Bryce wouldn’t go easy on Cam just because they were family. If anything, I suspected Bryce might be even worse to his nephew.
"I'm getting some signatures that suggest living creatures. They're certainly organic, but..."—his eyes roved across the black hand-held device that he gripped—"it's like it can't lock onto some of the signatures. The Bureau reports claimed that the human technology they brought along was only partially functional."
Bryce snorted. "Don't read me back reports I've already read. Sike, can you confirm Cam's assessment?" Sike trotted over, his gangly limbs putting him just a few millimeters under Cam's tall, still-filling-out frame. He peered over at the screen. Our devices were based on Bureau technology, but they'd been tweaked by Reshi, the Coalition’s genius maker inventor. Although Sike wasn't very skilled with human machines yet, he had a natural affinity for technology, and Reshi's supernatural touch on the scanner allowed him to work on the machine easily enough.
"He's right," Sike confirmed. His eyes flickered to Dorian. "The physics here don't make sense."
"Is it the sound and plants bothering you?" I asked. I reflected on the vegetation, wild and overgrown but viciously beautiful in its own way, that had swallowed up most of the surrounding area. Old Bureau photos had showed a few weathered brick cabins from the old ghost town, but they were long gone after the meld.
Sike nodded. "I don't think our technology is flawed. It's working as it should, since Reshi gave it an independent source of dark energy; the problem is likely that we haven't attuned it to deal with an area like this." He gestured to the area all around us. The Leftovers were strange, unique places. Good men and women had gone in for rescue and scouting attempts in this area and then fled. But Callanish can do it.
A bizarre caw echoing from inside of the building stopped our conversation. We quieted, listening to the faint echo of what sounded like a bird's call.
"It’s not a redbill," Dorian said. "And I don’t sense any auras or dark energy nearby."
"Good enough for me, if the scanners and vampires say we’re good," Bryce said cheerfully. He gave us all a determined smirk. "Ladies first, to sweep the building?"
I pushed past him with a tiny chuckle, glad that Bryce didn’t feel the need to haze me any longer. We’d been through enough together.
We needed to be
