Dawn is coming. Bella tries to force the thought from her mind as she soars low over the ground. The occasional beat of her wings keep her aloft as fury and anger simmers through her veins. It bubbles at the base of her skull. A continuous heat that will not be tempered until the utlunta is killed. Or she is.
With an intense focus she watches the ground for anything. Traces of footsteps. Movement. Breathing deeply, she searches for some inhuman reek. Anything that isn't familiar. Her gaping nostrils fill with nothing but the crisp air and her own tired stink.
She said she's not leaving. Utluntas are territorial. Nearly all cryptids are. But that doesn't seem like enough of a reason. Why here? Why the anadas? Why kill a young girl? Befriend a wampus? The questions flit through her mind, beneath the continual refrain to find it. The answers won't matter if they can stop it.
She cranes her neck, her pointed chin touching her collar as she looks beneath and behind her. The rest of the team is at least a hundred yards away. If, when she finds the utlunta, she'll need to delay it for the rest of the team to get there. Two motion flares have been used. She has four more. Hopefully that will be enough.
Descending, the wet grass flashes beneath her shadow as it races over it. She arrives at building D-23, going with a hunch that the utlunta would go there. It's where Heidi, the real Heidi, lays abandoned. Gliding quickly past the structure, Bella looks in each window in search of a shadow, a noise. Three times she circles, encompassing the rectangle building and its attached reactor. Each pass is focused on a different floor, and each pass turns up nothing.
Fuck, Bella thinks. I'm going to find you.
She flies south to D-24. Her heart continues to pound. Her breath accelerates in anxiousness as a nervous finger taps repeatedly against the trigger guard of her rifle. Her tongue rolls against her fangs and her ridged brow furrows. Have to find it. Have to find it.
Curling around the second floor of the building, she hears them. The sound echoes out of the attached reactor, pouring over its high walls like water and flowing into the night. It reverberates metallically but it's unmistakable, the syncopated chirp of dozens of birds. The yunwi.
The sound breaks her heart and motivates, as Clear Water's pallid, lifeless face appears in her mind. With a seething breath she rises, her chin jutting forward in determination. The sound is followed by a low, earthly growl of frustrated anger announcing exactly where the utlunta is.
"What happened to your radio?" Edward asks Emmett, the ARMS system making the chase infinitely easier on his lungs than he expected.
"Exploded," Emmett says, not interested in the conversion. "Clear Water electrocuted me."
"He what?"
"He was stopping the anadas." The succinct response is enough for the moment. The rapid clank of their equipment fills the brief void. "He's dead."
The statement stuns Edward, who continues his steady pace despite the surprise. "Who."
"Clear Water." Emmett's voice is distant, as his eyes remain on Bella ahead of them. "Clear Water's dead."
A need for details surges through him. He says nothing. Clenching his teeth, he counts his steps. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four. He desperately wants to know how, but it will do nothing for him. He has to stay strong. Stay focused. Clear Water would want him to. He can't lose anyone else.
They continue on, the noise of the run the only sound in their ears. Edward can no longer see Bella, lost in the dark and distance. Watching Jacob a few paces ahead, the counting clears his mind. One-two-three-four.
"Hold on," Jacob says, slowing and then stopping as the team follows suit. "You hear that?"
"No," Edward says. "What?"
"Birds," Emmett answers as he looks ahead, his lips curling down. "Yunwi."
Quickly tapping his radio, Edward calls for Alice. "Where's Bella?"
"D-24," Alice says. "At the reactor."
"That's where we found her," Edward says as he meets eyes with Jacob. He thanks Alice and starts running. "Let's go."
The dark cylinder stands stark against the starlit night, a wet void dwarfing the adjacent building. From its open top, a strobe of light funnels out to the heavens, then another, followed by a graveled, pained roar. Edward hears the frantic chirping over the rumble now, followed by the ring of a single gun shot amplified by the tube.
"We're almost there," Edward says over the radio, his grip tightening around the front grip of his rifle.
Reaching the entrance to the building, Emmett throws open door. The metal edge slams against the cinder wall, announcing their arrival with a loud clank. Jacob runs in, and slides shoulder-first into the wall as his boots gain no traction on the wet tile.
"Fuck." Edward asks, witnessing the soldier crash into the hard surface. The ugly gray floor shines with a thin veneer of water. "It flooded the hall."
"Yeah," Jacob groans. His machine gun hangs off his neck while he massages his shoulder with one hand and reaches for his taser with the other. "I noticed."
Emmett grunts, sounding impressed as he follows Edward inside. The gently splash of their footsteps disappear under the shush of the sword being pulled from its sheath. "I don't have a taser."
"Like you need it," Jacob says. Holding onto the grip of his gun with one hand, he holds the taser at the ready with the other.
"Shut up," Edward says. "Get to the reactor."
They move as quickly as the slick surface allows, following the muffled chorus of chirping at the end of the hall. A sudden slam thunders down the narrow corridor, dropping dust from the mildewed tile overhead as the building shakes. The sound causes Edward's heart to plummet.
"Edward?" Jacob looks back with a cautious sigh as he reaches the stairwell at the end of the hall.
Clenching his teeth, the team leader looks at the inky black water that rises above the bottom step of the stairwell. Chunks of concrete poke from the murk as the bent and clawed iron door into the reactor lays tossed against the wall.
"Bella," Edward says, descending the steps. "We're coming in." Reaching the bottom, his boots disappears with a chilly splash that soaks through the leather to the skin. He flicks on the flashlight attached to his rifle as he steps over the threshold. Its hazy white circle meekly bouncing off the constantly shifting surface.
Welcomed by a heart-shaking growl from above, he aims in its direction. Above him, a catwalk circles the reactor with two walks crossing along the center. The light from his weapon dances through the grate, sending dozens of shifting circles along the walls as he scans.
He stops when he sees the massive figure standing at the end of the walk. Marbleized grays and whites and blacks cover its uneven, coarse skin. Two beady black eyes, watching skyward, sit uneven on its featureless face. Thin strings of jet black hair that disappear into the shadows fall unevenly off its head that connects directly to its broad, triangular shoulders. It's shape is a spindly hourglass; over seven foot tall, animalistic and deadly. Around its neck dangles the stone charm worn by Heidi.
Edward doesn't turn at the splash of footsteps that come on both sides of him. With a seething intensity, he slowly curls the tip of his finger around the trigger. He aims for the jaw. He takes a breath, holds.
Before he can squeeze, the deafening blast of Bella's rifle bounces through the chamber. The round strikes the utlunta in the cheek, wrenching its head down and towards the rest of the team. Seeing them, its mouth opens into a black snarl as it leaps over the rail. The concrete floor quakes as it lands, the water exploding violently from her feet.
Its scream comes with the fury of Gaia herself.
"I'm not leaving."