The GPS device clipped to her chest emits a long, steady tone letting Bella knows she's arrived. The blast of cold wind as she drops several hundred feet towards the thicket of trees east of Hartsville hurts her eyes. Everything is foggy. Fatigue wears deep into her muscles. It's not just the six hour flight through the dark night. It's the day of deciphering. Preparing. So much after the party. She's so tired.
Her wings tuck around her as she reaches the pines. The needles brush against her skin like quills. She grips an upper branch with her feet and the tree sways. The branch bows under weight, groaning loudly, and she immediately begins climbing down the trunk. Her claws dig in to the bark, her knuckles tense and strained.
She spoke briefly with Edward before she left. Apologized for her disrespect. She should have done it sooner but couldn't. Or didn't want to. It's hard to tell. He appeared to take it in stride, thanking her, saying, 'Don't worry about it.' But she did. Worry. Worry about him. Worry about them. Worry about the team.
About thirty feet above the ground a branch juts out of the tree at an upward angle, just thick enough to comfortably straddle. She relaxes her shoulders and allows her wings to hang as counter-balances as she sits across the rough wood. She swings her supply pack off her hip in to her lap and sighs. All is black around her.
She pulls a canvas pouch from her pack and opens it, lazily allowing her tongue to extend and pierce the liver inside. She closes her eyes and drinks.
Does Edward really understand them? He's kind, empathetic, respectable. Good. So much of what he does is admirable. His concern for them, for her, draws Bella. He wants so much to be perfect. But does he understand? All they have is secrecy. Their non-existence is their survival. Not just for Gamma Team, but all of Lilim Division; what she has devoted decades to.
He's seen combat. He knows war. Kill or be killed. But his initial reaction was to ignore a possible reveal. Worse, a video. In broad daylight. Lilim had to relocate the sasquatch population out of the northwest because of a single video. A video of Jacob transforming would bring media, hunters, conspiracy theorists to Edward's house. Rumors can be ignored. Video can't. Does he not understand how important this is? Can he?
The liver a dried husk, she closes the pouch and slides it back in to her pack. She checks her watch, '03:46' glowing light gray out of the darkness. Three hours to sunrise. Taking the safety rope from her bag is too much effort now. She closes her eyes and dreams of nothing.
The warmth of the sun wakes her as it dives through gaps in the trees. Rubbing her eyes, the tired blur of yellow and green comes in to focus. She tilts her head back and lets the rigid bark press into her scalp through her hair. Her lungs with the thick, earthen scent of pine.
"Great," she says to herself.
The surprise that she slept through her transformation is tempered by the need to get down. She couldn't sleep on the ground as a mandarugo but can't stay in the tree as a human. She hoped the sensation of her metamorphosis would wake her while she still had claws, but now she has to improvise.
She pulls the safety rope from the bag, her lip curling at the fact she didn't tie herself in overnight, and lets one end fall. The sound of whipping wind and shuffling branches accompany the dropping rope, which ends with a fragile shrush as it hits the ground. The other end, she wraps twice around her waist and then around her legs to make a makeshift harness.
Cautiously she pulls her leg over the branch, allowing her legs to dangle side by side. She reaches through them, under the branch, and grabs the rope hanging below her. She holds her breath, tightens her grip in both hands, and shifts forward.
Her forearms explode. The inertia of her own weight rips through her muscles as she drops off the branch, her fingers clenched around the rope. The thick nylon rubs hot against her skin. The layers of her palm strip off. Her thighs tingle as the rope digs tight in to her hips. She falls nearly ten feet before her grip sets in and she stops. She sways back and forth under the branch; her make-shift pulley.
It takes a moment to compose herself. She feels the rope stretch in her hands, around her hips. Her hair, tossed from the violent drop, hides her eyes. She tosses her head back, causing her slowing swing to revive slightly, but it does nothing. She breaths.
With a gentle grunt, she tightens her upper hand's grip, enough to support her whole body. A quick flick of her lower hand and the rope is around the wrist. Slowly she raises the bottom arm, the nylon like steel against her skin, until it's fully extended. She lets go with her top hand, brings it down, flicks and grips. She repeats this movement several times, her legs going numb, her shoulders tightening in protest, until she touches ground.
She quickly undoes the rope around her. Warmth surges back in to her feet as she shifts her weight, forcing her blood to flow. She shakes her hands out before gently tugging down of the rope. Gravity speeds it over and down, making her step aside as the flings to the ground.
The grass itches against her feet, still bare from her transformation. She quickly rolls the rope and tucks in to her pack before pulling out a set of boots and socks. She sits down hard, dead leaves crunching around her, and leans against the tree to slide on her boots.
The area is beautiful in the late morning sun. The constant, welcoming drone of the woods surround her. It's only a few miles from cities and houses, people who know nothing of her and her mission, but now she's alone and filled with the warmth of contentment.
Finally, she checks her watch. It's almost eleven. Unclipping the GPS from her chest, she hums 'Little Brown Jug' to herself as she pulls up her map. Her meeting with her contact is in an hour, so she needs to start moving.
She moves quickly east, cautious to not draw too much attention with noise. Most creatures stay dormant during the day, but the vision was so ambiguous Bella would rather not take risks. She has a knife; the yunwi will not come out if she has a gun. If anything happens, that will hopefully be enough.
After walking about fifteen minutes, she sees a clearing through the trees. Smaller than a football field with a slight slope, she scans its perimeter as she nears. A few yards within the tree line, she kneels to check the map on her GPS.
"That'll work," she says aloud, as she records the coordinates. She walks north, keeping herself concealed, until the clearing ends and she can walk east again under the cover of foliage.
After half an hour she sees it through the trees. The tapered cylinder of the forgotten cooling tower, its faded gray surface almost blending in to the distant clouds behind it. The sun cast a yellow ring around its upper edge from above. Drawing nearer, she can make out the incomplete concrete buildings at its base and the empty lot overrun with brown, decayed weeds.
Her eyes never stray as she watches for any movement. The oleander charm around her neck is cold against her finger tips. She waits.
A quiet snap behind her causes an instinctive slight turn of her head, her eyes staying forward. A twig falling from above catches her hair. A bird chirps nearby. A moment later an acorn hits her shoulder.
"Lilim greets you," Bella says with a smile. She turns and looks up, seeing nothing by branches and leaves.
The bird chirps again and Bella's smile grows wider.
"It's me," she says. "Agent Eliz."
It's then the yunwi appears, sliding down from behind a branch. He hangs momentarily before dropping to the next limb down.
"Greetings, Agent Eliz," he says. His voice is high and lyrical. He's just under two foot tall and perfectly proportioned, wearing pants made from raccoon and squirrel pelts. His shirtless skin, dark and tanned, matches the bark surrounding him.
"It's good to see you, Clear Water." Bella steps forward to better see him. "It's been a while."
"Yes." He reaches over and breaks a twig, playfully tossing it down at her. She raises a hand to shield her eyes from the projectile, which makes the diminutive creature laugh his high, melodic chirps of a bird.
Though older than Bella by decades, Clear Water is still considered a teen among the yunwi tsunsdi. She met him not long after Lilim was formed when a tribe of his kind was harassing a government construction project in the Carolinas. That led to a long-lasting alliance between the organization and the creatures that has proven invaluable to both. Lilim provides protection and the yunwi provide information.
Clear Water falls backwards, catching himself so he hangs beneath the branch, and moves to the trunk, effortlessly gripping into the bark as the tree becomes his playground. He turns his body and climbs down the body of the tree with his head toward the ground. His movement is almost cat-like, his jet-black hair hanging in a braid as long as he is tall as he descends.
Bella nears him when he reaches the ground and sits with her legs cross. The tiny creature steps out of the chest-high grass onto her leg, finding a place to rest on her knee.
"How is your family?" she asks. She can see the lifeless cooling tower in the distance, but is not interested in discussing it yet.
Clear Water narrows his dark eyes, pondering the words. "Well. Mother gave birth to new sister."
"That's wonderful." Bella ignores his awkward phrasing, understanding that he rarely speaks English.
"Yes." He suddenly looks around, rolls off her leg and disappears behind a nearby tree.
"Clear Water?" Bella asks with amused trepidation. She looks around rapidly, her heart accelerating the longer she waits. Anticipation builds and Clear Water chirps from somewhere Bella can't tell.
With a loud snap, a branch startles Bella as it lands beside her. The surprise makes her laugh.
"New Lilim leader," Clear Water says as he appears at Bella's shoulder. He hangs on to the trunk of the tree with one hand, sway gently in the air.
"You know about him?"
The knowing grin on his youthful face provides the answer. "He is strong?"
"Yeah," Bella replies. She bites her lip. "Why do you ask?"
He cocks his chin towards the cooling tower and frowns. "Dark."
The way the care-free Clear Water says the word makes her stomach drop. The tree's bark now seems to tear in to her back and the woods somehow seem quieter. She stands and Clear Water quickly moves up the trunk to stay near her shoulder.
"What makes it dark?"
"Told of bad doctor." Clear Water is serious now, and it chills Bella in the sun. He ponders the words. "Bad doctor. Wampus. Anada."
"Anada?" Bella asks. "Anada'duntaski?"
Clear Water nods.
Cannibals. Or at least something like cannibals. The yunwi have no word for such a creature. The term is a reference to an ancient tribe that roamed the area ages ago, one the yunwi rarely speak of.
The inside of Bella's lip hurts and she realizes it's clenched between her teeth. She turns away from the tower to look at Clear Water, his black eyes specks of hot coal. "Is it only one person?"
A sad shake of the head. "Not one. More."
"How many?"
Another head shake. I doesn't know.
It drains her strength. It's not one creature. Not even one type. She's never heard of multiple creatures banding together on their own. It's not normal.
The sun is still high and won't set for several hours. The Colonel's optimistic suggestion to sneak in to the plant won't happen. It's too different. Her heart pounds in to her mind. Too dangerous. She needs to get back to Lilim.
"Strong leader?" Clear Water asks.
The question immediately brings Bella's thoughts to Edward. She remembers him behind her, willing to let the car drive off. She remembers his impulsive rush in to the Pen. The sound he made when Emmett broke his ribs. The confidence when he leads their training. His decision that defeated the isleman. His pride and his guilt.
"Yes," she says. "He is a strong leader."
"We meet?" The question erases his dour expression with inquisitive eyes.
"Absolutely," Bella says.
They move away from the nuclear plant together, Clear Water bounding from tree to tree while Bella walks. They reminiscence and laugh. The sun moves slowly in the sky, but it doesn't matter. Not now. For a few a hours the upcoming mission has to wait. But though her smile is wide, Bella cannot ignore the tremor in her back and the danger looming just a mile behind her.