“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 on to 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 even 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 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 be 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. But 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 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.