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 trainees 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.
