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  “You might want to take something for that twitchy finger then, eh?”

  Colin nodded, swallowing hard.

  Bryce moved along to the next trainee: Sarah Lammers, also of Team B and the youngest of our crew.

  “And you, Sarah. What made you think it was a good idea to skip to the loo in the middle of a firefight? Couldn’t you have gone a few minutes beforehand? Were you paying no mind to my words before we took off?”

  “I just realized that I… really needed to go.” The eighteen-year-old’s cheeks rapidly turned a blotchy pink.

  “You should’ve done it in your knickers, then, and changed later. You put your colleagues’ lives in danger.”

  “I-I’m sorry, sir.”

  “This isn’t high school anymore, folks, in case you needed reminding. When you’re out on a field mission, your first priority is each other’s safety. Anything else is secondary. Your action this time might not have had significant consequences, Sarah, but in even a slightly different scenario, it could have had very serious ones.”

  Bryce moved on to the next Team B member.

  “And you, Grayson. What made you think it was a good idea to keep glancing at Louise while you were supposed to be fighting? Do you have a crush on her or something? Didn’t realize the best way to ensure you can keep looking at her is to focus on getting the both of you back to the ground?”

  A mortified silence fell over the room. Louise’s eyes were fixed stiffly on the floor, while Grayson’s looked close to popping out. “I-I wasn’t looking at her, sir,” he stammered. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  A wily smile cracked Bryce’s leathery, suntanned face. He laughed, heartily. “You think I was born yesterday, son? You were ogling her like she were some sorta rice puddin’. Might as well just tell her you fancy her now, so you get it out of your system. Don’t want your poor little heart getting us all killed next time we’re in the air now, do we?”

  Bryce moved on, leaving Grayson looking like he was choking.

  The captain worked his way systematically through the rest of Team B’s members, breaking down in brutal detail transgressions both small and large—he gave the same attention to both—and thoroughly dismantling all of the (few) objections he received. If he appeared to spare most of my Team A colleagues, it was only because his all-seeing eye hadn’t quite extended to the ground where they’d been most of the time. But the closer the captain drew to Zach—and to me—the clammier my hands became around my cocoa. I doubted I’d be exempt.

  Zach held his breath when Bryce finally stopped in front of him.

  “And you, Second-in-Command Sloane.” He paused, furrowing his brow, deftly drawing the tension out. “You were a bit too keen to get that grenade launcher out for my liking. Yes, we had an emergency, but if I weren’t here, I suspect you would have been looking for any excuse to jump on it. That’s not the way of a good soldier. You shouldn’t be driven by personal preference in any way, only by what is objectively best for the situation, and of course your superior’s orders. You’re one of the older folks here, and I expect to see that maturity. I suggest you work on honing your objectivity.”

  He paused again, then spoke in a lower tone, as though it were meant only for Zach’s ears. “And maybe play a bit less with your father’s toys, eh?”

  “Got it, sir,” Zach breathed, visibly flustered, though obviously relieved his reprimand hadn’t been worse.

  Bryce started to move on, and then his head snapped back. “Also, get a damn haircut. I can hardly see your eyes anymore through that brown mane.”

  A titter of laughter broke out amongst the group. I couldn't help but smirk too, knowing how much Zach hated the super-close, cropped shaves the captain advocated. His aversion was likely due to the well-meant, yet categorically awful, home haircuts our parents used to give him when they didn’t have time to take us on a trip to the salon. Which was most of the time.

  “Oh, sir.” Zach clutched his chest, feigning hurt. “That’s a low blow. Gina likes it wavy.”

  Bryce gave him a stony, narrow-eyed look but said nothing. He continued on to Gina… skipping me entirely.

  I frowned, unsure of whether I should believe my luck. Maybe I’m getting off the hook after all?

  Bryce stared down at Gina intensely, his expression inscrutable. The hum of the aircraft was the only noise around us for several long moments, until he sighed softly.

  “Ah, this one. What can I really say? She’s an angel.” A rugged smile tugged up the corners of his lips.

  The room exploded in mock outrage.

  “Come on, sir! I’m sure you could think of something!” Zach protested, leaning around me to poke his girlfriend playfully in the shoulder.

  “Yeah, Captain. That’s just straight-up favoritism!” Roxy complained.

  Bryce whirled on the tall, burly girl from my team sitting behind us, his eyes flashing.

  “What did you just accuse me of, lassie? Favoritism, you say? Aye. Well, I’d favor all of you if you showed the same damn work ethic, situational awareness, and efficiency as this young lady. When the rest of you have developed those qualities, I’ll throw a bloody rave!”

  Gina’s freckled cheeks darkened as she tried to roll her eyes and shrug off the attention, while Bryce’s gaze roved over the seats, daring anyone to protest. When nobody did, his eyes snapped back to… me.

  Crap. I braced myself, tightening my grip around my cup as he returned to stand before me, fearing I had gotten my hopes up too soon.

  But then I realized he didn’t look like he was about to deal out a stripping. If anything, he looked… concerned.

  His gaze held mine for several heartbeats, and then he shook his head slowly.

  “Eh. Lyra gets a free pass, too. I’ll be very honest with you all about something: I didn’t see that bastard returning for more either, not after the battering we gave it. I’ve never encountered a bill as tough as that.”

  Vindicated! I felt like saying the word aloud and giving a little fist pump, but the seriousness of our captain’s expression stopped me.

  “Do you think it was just a one-off?” I asked, eyeing him. “Some genetic fluke?”

  Bryce shrugged. “I sure hope so. Definitely wouldn’t do us any good if they started breeding stronger.”

  He glanced around at us darkly, and I knew what he was implying. The Bureau was stretched to the max for personnel as it was.

  There’d been an increased number of redbill sightings over the past year, around North America particularly, for reasons that were still unclear to the Bureau. It was as if the birds had spiraled into a breeding frenzy. Recruitment agents, my mom among them, were working overtime to keep up with the demand for new officers, and younger, less trained recruits were starting to be allowed into ground missions as a result. Which explained our motley crew.

  Some state and city departments simply didn’t have enough people. Our branch here in Chicago, for example, sometimes had to send out squads as far as Oklahoma to help deal with threats. It was lucky that tonight’s sighting had been local… well, not so lucky for the revelers of Navy Pier Park.

  A secondary, albeit unrelated, factor didn’t help the Bureau’s staff problems. The demand for soldiers, and law enforcement workers in general, had grown slowly but steadily over the past half-decade or so, thanks to a slight but continuous rise in the regular human crime rate. It meant there was a smaller pool of officers the Bureau could recruit to their specialized force, since more soldiers were out dealing with ordinary human problems.

  I just hoped things would smooth out sooner or later, for all of our sakes.

  “Anyway,” Bryce said, casting another strong look around the room. “Don’t any of you take this as an excuse to start whining. Even a bird thrice the size of that one is nothing like the bloodsuckers we used to hunt.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Roxy mumbled from behind. Too loud.

  Bryce spun on her again. “And what was that,
my wee lass? Care to speak a bit louder, so we can all hear your precious thoughts?”

  Roxy gave a soft sigh. “I find that hard to believe,” she replied sullenly. “There’s no way vampires were as strong or dangerous as these freaking monsters.”

  Bryce’s lips formed a hard line. “Mm-hmm. And what, precisely, makes you say that?”

  I turned over my shoulder to glance at Roxy’s half-flustered, half-incredulous expression. She didn’t know how wrong she was.

  “I mean, how could they even compare?” she started. “Vampires didn’t fly, for one thing, so it couldn’t have been half as difficult to catch them. They had small fangs, compared to huge, snapping beaks. They kept way more to themselves, too, from what I’ve heard, and weren’t a big threat to public places. Plus—”

  “And what about their brains?” Bryce interrupted.

  Roxy stuttered. “Their… brains?”

  “Their brains,” Bryce repeated, his eyes widening.

  Roxy’s brow furrowed. “Well, yeah. Vampires were smarter. But still—”

  “Exactly.” Bryce took a step back, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Vampires were cunning devils. They could outsmart a human in almost any situation, and usually the only way to match one was to put many human minds together. Bills are just dumb brutes, and any comparison is frankly offensive.”

  He gave an almost wistful sigh and sank back into his chair, facing us. His eyes grew distant.

  “Honestly, if vampires hadn’t been such a menace, I would’ve been sad to see them go. Watchin’ them was like… pure poetry in motion… put any martial artist to shame. They could distract you by just the sheer skill and speed of their movement, and the way they used your own strength against you, you’d barely realize you were bleeding until it was too late.”

  He tugged at his collar and pulled it down to reveal the beginning of a massive scar on his upper chest.

  “Aye.” He grinned, watching our stunned faces. “This was done with my own weapon. But I’m not going to lie. As risky as the job was, it was more of a thrill hunting a vampire. You never knew what could happen. Would they lure you into a trap? Attack the moment they saw you, or wait a while and lull you into a false sense of security? Or maybe they’d do neither and instead slip away into the night, let you try to trail ‘em some more until you tired out… But they were worth the chase. And when you finally caught one? Oof. The thrill was indescribable.”

  He finished with a crooked smile, and the whole room stared in rapt silence; even Roxy’s brow had softened.

  I’d heard plenty of tales of vampire chases before, but I’d never seen this side of Bryce. He spoke with such awe of the creatures that had snuffed out so many innocent lives, it was almost hard not to wish I’d seen one, too… even if they were the reason my uncle needed a permanent walking aid.

  After all, Zach and I had grown up expecting to track the predators, just like our parents had done in their early careers. But by the time I turned sixteen, vampires had disappeared.

  “It is weird how they died out so quickly,” Zach mumbled, as if he’d followed the same line of thought.

  Bryce leaned back in his seat, nodding slowly. “Aye. It was unexpected for a lot of us. Guess there couldn’t have been as many as we thought there were to begin with, and once all countries started cooperating, we managed to drive them to extinction. Amazing how destructive we humans can be when we put our minds to it.” He chuckled, though it sounded halfhearted.

  “Where do you think they came from, Captain?” I asked. The origin of vampires was more of a mystery than their disappearance, and everyone and their mother had an opinion about it. I’d never heard Bryce’s before, and I was genuinely curious.

  The captain puffed out his cheeks. “I’m not sure what you’re expecting to hear from me, when an entire research department couldn’t come up with anything better than ‘they just existed’. The honest answer is I don’t know. But if you held me at gunpoint, I’d probably say the same—they just always existed. A so-called ‘supernatural’ creature living among us, perhaps since the dawn of time, for one reason or another. Who knew? Bram Stoker was onto somethin’.”

  I nodded, having basically come to the same conclusion. Some folks liked to swerve toward fictional vampire lore and present theories about vampires’ ancestors having once been humans who went on to—somehow—develop unnatural abilities. But the science simply didn’t back that up. Vampires had been caught, dissected, and studied in labs, and there was no proof that they were ever part of our gene pool, or that they could spread their condition to others. They actually showed no genetic commonalities with any earthly creature. Which led to others suggesting they could be a species from another planet. I wasn’t even going to get into that.

  “And what do you think about the redbills’ origin?” Grayson muttered. “Given there’s no record of their existence anywhere up until half a decade ago.”

  We all turned to glance at the blond man. It was the first time either he or Louise had spoken since Bryce’s… exposé on Grayson’s feelings—a fact that the captain’s sardonic smile not-so-subtly acknowledged.

  “Aye,” Bryce replied. “We all thought vampires were an anomaly, the only species of their kind out there, until the redbills came along… right around the time vampires stopped showing up. I’m not going to try to speculate about that one. All I know is they’re somehow made of the same stuff as vampires. Not natural.”

  “Do you believe in reincarnation, sir?” Zach asked.

  My brother’s smile clearly indicated that it was a joke, but Bryce’s expression looked oddly strained.

  “Not sure about that, lad. But karma, maybe? I mean, it is odd, isn’t it, that we get rid of vampires, only to be saddled with this other huge, heaving problem.” He cast Roxy a look. “Not that it’s necessarily of the same caliber. But it’s a problem nonetheless. And it appears to be getting worse.”

  He finished on a quiet note that seemed to infect the room. My brother and I exchanged glances, and the tension in Zach’s jaw reflected what I felt in my gut. Hopefully not too much worse. Or at least, not too quickly. We struggled to keep pace as it was.

  Unlike vampires, redbills could not be concealed from the public. Vampires had been discreet, and they had always attacked in seclusion—one on one. They rarely left witnesses. That had been the government’s major advantage in preventing the mass fear and panic among citizens which would surely have followed a declaration that vampires walked among us.

  With the redbills, the authorities had been able to get away with explaining them as an abnormal breed of stork, a strange fluke of nature—possibly even the result of past nuclear plant accidents—and saying that research was ongoing to determine their origin and the best way to subdue them. But if they bred too much and attracted too much attention, that explanation would become harder and harder to swallow. Our saving grace was that they hadn’t spread to other countries yet—or at least, there’d been no reports.

  We needed to keep it that way.

  “Landing in five.” The pilot’s announcement broke through the quiet.

  I shifted in my seat, wanting a distraction, and glanced out the nearest window as the aircraft tilted. I watched the thousands of lights of downtown Chicago rise to meet us. The evening felt so clear and calm, so comfortingly normal, that if it weren’t for my still-damp hair and sore thigh, it would’ve been hard to believe we’d just been battling monsters.

  This was what we were fighting for, I reminded myself. A world where we could all sleep peacefully at night, where families could vacation without fear, where couples could enjoy their late-night dates and children could play out on the streets. The world as it should be.

  I was among the first to unbuckle when the aircraft touched down on the roof of our base. I stood up slowly, testing out my right leg, and winced slightly. It hurt more than when I’d sat down, probably due to swelling where the beak had caught my suit. I was going to have one ugly bruise. B
ut it could have been a lot worse. Like, no-leg-at-all worse.

  “You okay?” Gina asked from beside me, obviously noticing my grimace.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I can still walk and run. I just need some rest.”

  I moved toward the door, wanting to get ahead of the crowd. I was definitely looking forward to resting. It wasn’t that late, but my little swim had taken more out of me than I’d realized.

  The door drew open, letting in a chilly waft of air, and I was on the verge of leaving when Bryce called, “Hold up, folks.”

  We all turned to see him staring down at his comm screen.

  “We’ve just had another summons,” he announced.

  My breath caught. “Another one?” Our team had never had two calls in a single day.

  “In Chicago?” Sarah asked incredulously.

  “Nope. Washington, D.C. They’re short-staffed because New York State borrowed from them. They’re requesting any recruits available.” Bryce glanced up at us. “Satellites flagged an unnatural frequency at a closed church, and the D.C. chief needs a team to investigate. Suspicion is there’s a bird trying to nest there, because it hasn’t posed a threat yet.”

  “And we have to leave now?” Roxy asked.

  “First thing in the morning,” Bryce replied. “They’re keeping an eye on the building for the moment, but I need you all here by four a.m. sharp. Go to bed as soon as you get home, and you’ll be bright and fine.” His face twitched in a dry smile.

  I glanced at my watch—21:45—before Zach grabbed my arm and pulled me down the stairs after him.

  “No rest for the wicked, eh?” Gina murmured from behind us as she followed.

  No… No, I guess not.

  Chapter Two

  Captain Bryce gave us his usual cold “goodbye” grunt as my teammates and I hopped from the chopper to the air pad. He stayed behind to discuss the next morning’s strategy with the pilots.

  We entered the Bureau through sliding steel doors and were greeted by familiar obsidian-black walls. The tired shuffling of our boots echoed from the vaulted ceilings. After a night like this, the main hallway always seemed never-ending.