![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
"Who Let the Pterodactyls Out"
"Who Let the Pterodactyls Out?"
10/17-10/18/2013
I.
Furious, Demrak Jin strode up Eighth Avenue at half past eleven at night, arms swinging stiffly and shoulders hunched up. The Gelydra was a small woman, not more than three inches over five feet in height and thin to the point of looking a bit frail, but within that dense body was strength greater than any full-grown Human male had. If she had been walking any quicker, she would have broken into a run. She had started on Lexington Avenue and 38th Street, stomping across Midtown before turning right at Eighth and heading north. Her head was pointed down as if searching the sidewalk in front of her feet.
It was a brisk October night and the streets had any number of passers-by strolling. In front of a bar and grill on the corner of 51st street, two college-aged men were standing in the open doorway while one smoked a cigarette. They saw the Gelydra approach and the smoker took a step into her path. "Whoa, what are you so mad about, babe..."
He broke off with those words as he received her glare at close range. Demrak Jin was not pretty to most people's taste. She had a wide flat face with a pug nose and cloudy dark blue eyes that were usually sullen but now were fully enraged. Her short white hair stood up stiffly, bristling, and her body language was completely intimidating. She did not trust herself to answer the man but just huffed and kept moving.
Jin was wearing sneakers, jeans and a denim jacket. Strapped across her back was a cloth bundle two feet wide and four feet long. Despite the way it was wrapped to conceal its true nature, one of the men immediately recognized the shape. "Dude... is she carrying a machete?! Let her go, man."
A few blocks further along, Jin caught a glimpse of one of the caspers. The tiny energy beings were difficult to spot even in daylight. They resembled small whirling tornados of vapor, small enough to hold on an open hand. It was their motion that caught her eye. She came to a stop under a streetlamp and discerned at least two of the caspers circling around her just above head height. Timothy had sent them to find her and, whatever they saw, he saw as well.
Still fuming, the Gelydra woman remained where she was. In a minute, Timothy Limbo came running across the street to join her. He wore his usual motorcycle boots, faded jeans, white T-shirt and black leather jacket and also as usual, his mop of yellow hair was in his face.
"Jin! Hey, Jin! Hold on a minute!" he called as he hopped up onto the curb near her.
"I left because I wanted to be left alone," she told him icily.
"GodDAMIT Jin, knock it off!" he yelled, ignoring passers-by pausing to listen. "You're not the only one who's mad right now. Jeremy came to sit on the meeting, so did Dr Wright. They're reserve members and don't usually take part. So are Unicorn and Argent and Megan, and they showed up too because they are concerned with your status. Maybe you think you don't need friends but believe me, you've got a lot to learn about life!"
Jin was taken aback by his belligerence. She had never heard Timothy raise his voice before. "I suppose.. I suppose I should thank them for taking an interest?" she said uncertainly.
"Hell yes, you should thank them. They're busy with their own lives and came to the meeting for your sake. Every single one of them defended you."
"They cannot change what the Teachers have decided. Tel Shai has declined to accept me as a student. The insult is great. My honor is broken."
"Oh, get over yourself," Timothy Limbo told her. "And I say that as a friend. We've saved each others' lives, Jin, we should be past any pretences. Come on, let's keep walking to blow off some steam."
As they started marching briskly north along Eighth Avenue, Demrak Jin vented. "Haley was accepted by Tel Shai, so were you and so was Jocelyn. I know why the Teachers turned me down. I am a Gelydra of Ulgor, we are a warrior Race and those old men and women are afraid I will go berserk someday. That's the truth, isn't it?"
"Yep, that's it," Timothy agreed. "But you were at the meeting. Everyone from Sable to myself spoke up for you when our turn came to give our opinion. And the vote was unanimous. You can not be a full member of the Kenneth Dred Foundation without being accepted at Tel Shai, but you can be an Associate Member."
"Hah! Associate member.. that's like a pity medal given to the loser in a tournament."
"Nah," Timothy said. "The KDF has had a couple Associates over the years. Shiro Mitsuru. Karina. Cheval. That's pretty good company to keep, if you ask me."
Demrak Jin stopped abruptly in mid-step. She turned her narrow blue eyes on her companion. "I just realized. I was turned down because the Teachers thought I have a temper I cannot control. And my reaction was to storm out of the room and slam the door behind me." She seemed to be struggling with a realization. "I proved their point. Maybe I was wrong to do that."
"Feh. You got a short fuse," Timothy snorted. "Who's perfect? The thing is you can still live at headquarters and go on all our cases. You'll be missing out on the tagra tea and Kumundu training but face it... as a Gelydra, you have a two hundred year lifespan anyway and you're already as tough as a cheap steak."
It was rare to see her wrestling with uncertainty. "Maybe I should go back and apologize? Timothy, I don't know how to apologize. In Ulgor, it's seen as submission."
They had reached 59th Street and the edge of Central Park. Seeing this, Timothy Limbo took her arm and said, "It'll be okay but, you know, maybe we should start heading back now."
"Yes." She glanced around as if surprised at how far they had walked. "Thank you for seeking me out, Timothy. Words of friendship come hard for me. We are raised to have the spirit of the shark in our speech."
Over by the retaining wall around the park, a woman screamed. From overhead rang an inhuman shriek. Jin and Timothy swung around in time to see the winged horror drop a man's body into the street before it swooped away into the darkness.
II.
Instantly a crowd assembled around the corpse, forming a ring that did not get too close but which did impede traffic. By chance, an NYPD patrol car was nearby and pulled over with its lightbar flashing. Demrak Jin stepped down off the curb to head toward the scene but paused.
"I do not know if we should try to get through those people and examine the remains?" she asked Timothy. "We would have to identify ourselves to your city guard."
He did not answer. Timothy Limbo was staring up into the sky where the winged creature had appeared. After a moment, he let out a breath and held up a hand to receive one of his caspers. The barely visible swirl of energy hovered over his palm and then vanished like a bubble popping.
"My boys aren't fast enough to keep up with that monster," he told his teammate. "But we got a good look at it. It was like a big lizard with bat wings and a long beak. One of those flying dinosaurs you see in the movies. Pterodactyl? I guess. Dark blue on top and white belly. It was heading north."
"How odd," the Gelydra said. "Aren't they extinct on your surface world?"
"So they say." Timothy unclipped a small electronic device from his belt and spoke into it for a few minutes while Jin waited impatiently with one sneaker tapping the pavement. "Right. Sable says we should head back and make a full report."
"I suppose..."
As Timothy spotted a few cabs cruising by, he managed to snag one and they rode back to 28 East 38t Street. There stood the old stone building that had been the home for Midnight War heroes for almost seventy years. A few windows were lit on the ground floor. Paying the driver, Timothy followed Demrak Jin up the five steps to the massive oak door that bore a simple bronze plate, KENNETH DRED FOUNDATION. Before she touched the door, a buzzer sounded as it unlocked for them.
Even though Sable could clearly see them through the monitors, Timothy and Jin had to wait in the vestibule for a minute as Trom sensors identified them. This was strict policy. Then the inner door unlocked and they stepped into the front hall where light spilled out through the open door of the office to their left.
"Feels like being sent to the principal," muttered Timothy. Seated behind her desk was Lauren Sable Reilly, the captain of the team of Tel Shai knights. She was a woman of average height, straight glossy black hair brushed straight back from a high forehead, wearing a dark pantsuit with a cream-colored silk blouse. "Come in, you two. We are understandably very curious about what happpened up by the park!"
Perched on a straightback wooden chair next to the desk sat Megan Salenger, the Human orphan raised by the Trom to serve as unofficial liaison between the two Races. Her thick shock of black hair was tousled and untidy over an inquisitive foxlike face. "Yes, please! Tell us every detail."
As Timothy went into his report, Demrak Jin visibly relaxed. She felt no tension in the room at her return and realized her outburst had been forgiven. During a pause in the discussion, she asked, "Where did everyone go?"
"Oh, they all have their own affairs to attend to. Unicorn does have a baby girl and Argent has a case underway with his Fist For Hire agency. Jocelyn returned to Tel Shai for training. Jeremy did say it was great to see everyone assembled once again. He recommends we revive our Wednesday practice of Pizza Night for socializing." Sable leaned back in her chair. "Tim, I want you to make a sketch of this creature while the details are still fresh in your mind."
"Well, I'll try," he said. "I think we know what a Pterodactyl looks like."
"This is not a Pterodactyl," the Trom Girl interrupted. "They were a specific species and rather small. It does sound like a member of the Pterosaur family, though."
"Yeah, thanks," Timothy said in a voice that showed he had not been listening. He began laboriously making a stick figure on a notepad that Sable handed him, then redrew it in more detail. Everyone leaned over to watch, which slowed the process.
"You do not show signs of artistic talent," Megan observed.
"Can sure tell you were brought up by the Trom," Timothy grumbled. "You've got the tact of a rock falling on someone's foot."
They all studied the disappointing sketch. "I don't know of any realm where anything like this survives," Sable said at last. "Okali seems most likely. There are several Ice Age species in Okali, the Dire Wolves and Sabretooths and even a few Mammoths. But these Pterodactyls were around millions of years earlier, in the age of dinosaurs..."
"It is not a Pterodactyl," repeated the Trom Girl with just the faintest hint of annoyance in her usually calm and detached voice. "But I cannot recall any of the adjacent realms where a creature like this might be found."
"Quite a challenge," said Sable. "Well, team, I believe we have been offered our next mission. Haley went to bed and we should do the same. But in the morning, we will review what we know and start investigating. Let the NYPD do the preliminary work. Lt Montez should fill us in on who the victim was. We might as well all turn in now and get a fresh start at eight."
As Sable and Megan got to their feet, Demrak Jin cleared her throat. "About my status, captain?"
Sable smiled at the Gelydra and reached over to pat her arm reassuringly. "We voted. You're on the team as long as you choose to be, Jin, with full privileges and duties. It's Tel Shai's loss, if you ask me."
"Thank you, Sable. I will do my best."
"You always have. Okay, everyone, break it up. We're done for the day." She headed out of the office to the front hall, pausing to flick off the light switch by the door. Jin trudged up the stairs by herself, unstrapping her bone-handled knife from across her back as the others took the elevator up to the fourth floor where their private quarters were.
III.
As usual, Megan Salenger was up before everyone else. Usually, the Trom Girl seemed able to function well on five or six hours of sleep out of each twenty-four. After a strenous case, though, she had been known to hibernate for a day or so. She was wearing her dark jumpsuit with all its pouches and pockets, sitting in the recreation room with her laptop open. The TV in the corner was set to a cable news network but with the sound muted. The Trom Girl kept hopping from blog to news service to message board almost as if she was not paying attention to any of them but in fact she was absorbing every word. She also habitually listened to the BBC World Service and the NHK news in Japanese, sometimes both at the same time.
Seeing the door open, Sable entered the rec room. Here was a pool table that seldom saw use, and a handcarved chess set on its own pedestal, as well as wall racks of assorted magazines and newspapers and an elaborate sound system. Mostly, the rec room was valued for its soft comfortable easy chairs and couches piled with cushions. Often the members were bruised and sore after a case, and really enjoyed stretching out on the furniture in this room. More than once, each of them had ended up sleeping here.
Her hair still damp from her shower, Sable came up behind Megan quietly. The team leader was wearing dress shoes, dark slacks and a tan blouse with two breast pockets. She normally dressed more formally than her partners, but this was a habit she had picked up in college when she was an intern at a radio station. In a low voice, she asked, "What's the situation, Megan?"
"The incident is all over the local news, but it is being treated in a dismissive way. Most stations and websites are implying the dead man was thrown from a car and witnesses were confused by the appearance of a large bird flying overhead at the same time." Megan shrugged her shoulders. "We have seen this reaction to Midnight War events so many times."
"Yes, people try to find a mundane explanation," Sable agreed, leaning over the Trom Girl's shoulder to peer at the laptop. The screen showed a news source in Arabic. Just how many languages did Megan know, Sable wondered. "Any other sightings of the mystery creature last night?"
"Yes. Up near 138th Street, a woman was looking up at the moon when she caught a good look. She described it as a Pterodactyl with a ten foot wingspread. It is NOT a Pterodactyl!"
"Easy there," Sable said as she squeezed Megan's shoulders before moving toward the door. "No point in getting annoyed because the general public is not well informed. I'm going to start breakfast. The team should be down in a few minutes."
The Trom Girl closed her laptop and got to her feet. "Inaccurate nomenclature irritates me. I will help you in the kitchen, captain."
As the two of them got the frying pans and coffee maker going, the others came downstairs one at the time. Most days, the team members were expected to be dressed and ready for assignments at 8 AM but in practice, there was always a half hour of eating and chatting first.
Haley Lawson was first, still yawning and scratching behind one ear. At five feet eight, she was the tallest female member and the youngest at twenty years old. Windcatcher had long chestnut hair with bangs that hung down perilously close to gorgeous lime-green eyes in an otherwise pleasant but unremarkable face.
She was wearing her usual worn-out white sneakers, snug jeans and a green polo shirt. "Hey, you guys! Bacon and lots of it, please. So I heard Jin splashing around in her room on my way past. She still sleeps in a bathtub with her head under the water! What's the sitch?"
As they quickly filled her in, the frying pans sizzled with loads of bacon strips and scrambled eggs. Lately, Sable had begun preparing a big pot of oatmeal with raisins each morning, and the others had taken to having a bowl as well. As she gulped a mug of straight black coffee so hot it almost burned her mouth, Haley listened to the update and grinned. "I'm excited about the flying critter report the most. We haven't fought a no-fooling monster in a long time. A killer Pterodactyl sounds like just the ticket."
"It is not a Pterodactyl," mumbled Megan to herself. At that moment, Timothy and Jin entered together. Both had on jeans and sneakers, but he wore a heavy red flannel shirt and she was lost inside a maroon sweatshirt much too large for her. The next few minutes were a jumble of loading plates with food, getting silverware and tumblers for juice or water, and then digging in. The team was all young and active, and they devoured enough food for twice as many people.
"Jeez," said Haley at one point, "Stop when you hit the plate, Tim." The fact that she herself mumbled this through a mouth full of eggs detracted from the snark.
Finally, everyone slowed down. Final sips of coffee and scrapes of oatmeal from the sides of the bowl were the finishing strokes. Everyone brought their dishes and utensils over to the stainless steel sink. Megan began filling it with steaming hot water and dish detergent but Sable called over, "Hey, Meg, it's not your turn at KP duty."
"I don't mind," the Trom Girl said as she pulled on yellow rubber gauntlets.
"Okay with me," Haley sang out cheerfully. "She does a more thorough job than I do any time."
"That is an accurate statement," the Trom Girl replied. "Sable, while everyone is gathered at the table, perhaps now would be a good time for a full recap."
"True. All right, team, this is the situation..." After Sable summarized the recent events, she concluded, "We will begin investigating today. I will meet with Lt Montez and see what the police have found. The victim has not been identified on the news. Jin, you will accompany me. You should become familiar with police headquarters and meet a few of the detectives we work with. Haley, I want you to drive Timothy around the area. While you drive, he can concentrate on what his caspers find out, if anything. Megan, today you were scheduled to do maintenance on the CORBY. You might as well proceed with that unless there are developments."
Placing everything in drying racks beside the sink, Megan Salenger turned the rubber gloves inside out to air them and came over to stand by the table. "Understood, captain."
Sable pushed back her chair and stood up. "I don't think the full field suits are called for at this point, but of course you will all wear the Trom armor under your clothes and bring the usual gear. I recommend skipping the anesthetic dart guns today and carrying high-impact resonance shells instead. If we do find this Ptero---creature, we should take no chances."
Before anyone could comment, the wall phone rang and Sable rushed over to take the call. "Kenneth Dred Foundation. Lieutenant? Hi, we were coming to see you today. What? Where? Tell me more. I see. Yes, two of us will meet you there. Thank you for bringing us in."
As she hung up and turned to face her team, Sable had lost some color from her face. "There has been another incident. The creature was sighted by a dozen people down by the Battery. It snatched a woman from a roof where she was hanging clothing on a line. The victim has not been found and the creature was only seen for a few seconds. No one reacted quickly enough to get a cellphone picture. Let's get on the case, team. At this rate, the city is going to go into full panic mode."
IV.
Sable had taken one of the two KDF cruisers, a two year-old Subaru Legacy that had been fitted with Trom-armor fabric panels and bullet-resistant glass, as well as a few useful gimmicks. With Demrak Jin beside her, she eased into an open space on Mulcahy Street near two police cars which had uniformed officers standing by. This was a rather declining neighborhood within sight of where the World Trade Center buildings had stood. The scene of the woman's abduction was the roof of an ancient red brick apartment building eight stories high, and this was where they found Joseph Montez.
It amused Sable slightly to see the reactions of the cops as she and Jin got out of the Subaru and headed over. She had thrown on a light suit jacket to cover the resonance gun holstered across the small of her back, and she looked both professional and attractive. Sable didn't fuss with her looks but her features with the large dark eyes and full lips were naturally pretty. The officers automatically perked up a bit when they saw her approaching. But then they spotted the sullen expression and aggressive body language of Demrak Jin and they just as quickly tensed up.
Strapped to the Gelydra's back was a large knapsack which had been constructed to conceal the sheathed bone-bladed knife she always carried. She had thrown on her denim jacket with the various tiny gadgets and tools the KDF used, as well. Demrak Jin was not particularly angry at the moment, she just had a face which looked surly even at rest.
The two women went right to where Lt Montez was waiting for them. He had been keeping his weight down recently. Although still heavy, he was not a bad-looking man, with wavy black hair and a solid, reassuring face. "Hey. Sable, Jin, thanks for coming. I'll be honest, I tried to reach Bane first."
"Jeremy said he had a case on hand which would take him out of state," Sable answered.
"Yeah, it's nothing against you guys, I just got used to working with him all these years, you know?" He jerked a thumb up to indicate the top of the building they were standing next to and frowned. "I've already gone over the woman's apartment. Inez Hidalgo, fifty-two, she shared her apartment with a daughter Mary, aged twenty-five, who's at work right now but who should be on her way here. No useful clues so far, but then we really aren't clear what we're looking for."
"Where are the witnesses?" Sable said as she peered up at the roof of the building.
"They've been released. We took their statements and let them go." Montez watched Sable as if he hoped she had an answer that would solve everything and let him go back to his office. "The department has been handing over weird and unexplainable stuff to your Dire Wolf for years now. Midnight War, he calls it. As if the city doesn't have enough problems to deal with, now it seems some lunatic is bringing dinosaurs here. Who would let a Pterodactyl loose, that's what I wanna know?"
Sable just caught herself as she started to correct Montez that the creature was not in fact a Pterodactyl but she bit her tongue. Megan is rubbing off on me, she thought. "I can't explain it right now, lieutenant. We don't know of anywhere a creature like that survives. Maybe some government agency had been cloning them from fossils? I don't know. That seems close to impossible with current technology and yet there it is."
Even as she said those unconsciously ironic words, a shrill wavering cry sounded from the top of the building. They all gave a start and snapped their heads around to get a brief glimpse of a monstrous form on the roof. Standing with its taloned feet gripping the cornice was what seemed at first to be a gigantic bat with a man-sized body. But the dark blue leathery hide, the barbed tail that whipped from side to side and the long beaked head with its bony crest, all revealed that this was some huge reptile that should not have existed for sixty million years. The eyes were a bright red in white orbits, set on the front of the head like a predator's and staring down at the people who were staring back up.
As it gave that shriek, the creature dropped off the roof and swooped down straight at them. Everyone instinctively ducked and crouched low, raising their arms to protect their heads. The wind of its passing so closely ruffled their hair and flapped their clothing. Montez had drawn his service revolver but neither he nor Sable reacted in time to take a shot before the winged horror was gone from sight.
It was Denmrak Jin who stood her ground. She was drawing back her arms from a swing no one had followed. They saw she was gripping the bone-bladed weapon she had crafted herself, and thick dark blood smeared its edge. The Gelydra woman took off at a full run down a side street and Sable automatically followed her.
"You two stay on watch," Montez ordered to the officers as he headed after the two women at a brisk walk that would not even keep them in sight.
Hurtling up a narrow side street that was not much wider than an alley, Demrak Jin skidded to a halt on the corner. No sign of the monster, not even drops of blood on the pavement to follow. Parked nearby was an old Hyundai with some rust by the rear wheels. Just closing the driver's door, an elderly man was starting the engine. Coming up fast behind Jin, Sable rushed over and clamped her hands on the half-open car window.
"Police officers," she said, not exactly accurately but she knew Montez would join them in a moment. "Hold it a second, did you see anything unusual just now?"
The driver seemed terrified. He was a scrawny old man with wispy white hair and a prominent beaky nose. Oddly, he seemed to be wearing only a tan trenchcoat with no shirt under it, as she could see part of a bony bare chest showing. "Don't hurt me!" he yelped. "Leave me alone." With that, the car pulled away and Sable let go of the window to avoid being dragged along the ground.
Standing right behind her, Jin silently watched the car rush away. Sable turned and said, "Either he saw that creature and it spooked him or maybe it was the sight of your blade."
The Gelydra did not seem to have realized that seeing someone rush at them with a naked long knife might be unnerving. "I think Megan might want to analyze the Pterodactyl's blood," she said mildly. "I haven't wiped it off."
"Good thinking," replied Sable. "We could use some clues." As Lt Montez approached, she told Jin to return to their car and to try to keep the blade from touching anything.
"Where did it go?" the big man blurted out. He had holstered his own weapon and was only slightly out of breath.
"No idea. There is definitely something strange going on," Sable said.
"Really! You mean, stranger than a prehistoric monster snatching people up?"
Sable smiled wryly at his exasperation. "Yes, I guess so. I don't see how a creature that size could just get out of sight so quickly. If it's okay with you, I'll stop by police headquarters later to go over the witness statements?"
"Yeah, do that." Montez tucked his shirt back in where it had started to come loose. "I hate this Midnight War crap more and more every year."
As she started walking with them back to where the officers had been left on watch, she said, ""I bet you're thinking Jeremy would have grabbed that beast as it went by and wrestled it to the ground, huh?"
"Your Dire Wolf is quite a character," he admitted. "But I don't want to sound like I don't appreciate what you new guys have done. You've been a huge help on some recent weirdness."
"Thanks, lieutenant. Thanks for calling us in on this." She left him and headed back to her car where Jin was already seated. "We're on the case, hopefully we can clear it up right away."
"Great. Keep in contact," he grumbled as he himself turned away to rejoin the two uniformed cops.
Sliding back behind the wheel, Sable glanced over at Jin. The Gelydra woman was holding her knife carefully to keep it from contact with any surface.
"Back to base?" she asked.
"Yeah," Sable said as she pulled out from the curb and made a turn at the next corner. "I have a few ideas. I hope Megan can analyze that blood and get some clues as well. But do me a favor, Jin, and don't refer to the monster as a Pterodactyl in front of her."
V.
In the front hall of their headquarters, Megan Salenger painstakingly removed all the blood from the knife with a sterile plastic blade and placed it in a small container. "It will take a few minutes to run tests on this," she said. Handing the weapon back to Demrak Jin, she added, "Thank you. You may clean this now."
Examining the knife's edge critically for any sign of damage, the Gelydra went into the bathroom further down the hall and closed the door. Megan put a lid on the container and turned toward the stairs but paused. "From your description, the creature does not match any known fossils. You say the eyes struck you as intelligent?"
"Yes. And not just in the way a big cat's eyes are intelligent. There was something Human about the way the beast looked at us." Sable headed for the office, and said over her shoulder. "I'm going to run the plates on that old man's car. Good luck with that sample."
"I should have the results quickly." The Trom Girl rushed up the staircase with an eagerness she did not try to conceal and Sable smiled at her enthusiasm. If the Trom had tried to mold her into having an emotionless logical mind such as they themselves possessed, they had failed. Megan's romance with Archie was still going steady and solid, and this made Sable happy.
She went into the office and took her seat behind the massive desk. On the wall behind her still hung the hand-painted map of the world as it had been in 1937, the year that Kenneth Dred had purchased this building. Sable took her laptop from its shelf where it sat most of the time and logged in. In a few minutes, she was breaking several laws by entering the license plate and model of the car she had seen the old man drive away in an hour earlier, then pulling up information about him from the Department of Motor Vehicles, NYPD files, city tax records and the Internal Revenue Service.
These illicit inquiries were possible because of the modifications Megan continually made on their computers. The biggest advantage the KDF had in the Midnight War was that only they blended Trom technology with Tel Shai arcane knowledge. No one else combined science and mysticism so seamlessly. The owner of that car was Frederic W Halbrecht, age seventy. The picture on the driver's license matched the old man she had seen. He had moved to New York City after retiring three years earlier from a position at a national insurance company based in Atlanta.
Following a hunch, she searched through police reports and newspaper accounts from Atlanta at that time, and found there was a flurry of missing persons then. Two teenagers, eventually dismissed as likely runaways, a young housewife and a laundromat employee. None of them had ever been found and the cases remained open if cold. The housewife's family still had a reward available for any information that was reveal what had happened to her.
Four missing persons in an area where the old man had lived, and now here in Manhattan where he had relocated, another missing person and a gruesome death. No one had made the connection. There was nothing obvious tying Halbrecht in with the disappearances. It had only been spotting the man at the scene that morning that had led her to this conclusion. If Demrak Jin had not chased after the flying beast so promptly....
The Link on her belt buzzed. Sable gave a start and came back from her thoughts. "Kenneth Dred Foundation," she said into the device which patched into the Verizon network but which could not be traced or overheard. "Yes, lieutenant. You have something for us?"
A few minutes later, she thanked him again and broke the connection. Lauren Sable Reilly leaned forward, elbows on the desk and rested her chin in a cupped hand. There was a lot to digest. As she sat there staring off into space, Megan appeared in the doorway again.
The Trom Girl held a printout sheet in one hand. "We have some interesting results, captain. Sable? Are you all right?"
"Yes. Of course. Let's hear your results first."
"The blood is not reptilian. It is modified Human, type AB with a sixty per cent increased red cell count. There are chemical oddities in the plasma which I have never seen before and which, to be honest, seem like they should have fatal consequences. The creature is not a natural organism." She came forward to place the printout sheet on the desk, then pulled over a chair facing her teammate.
"I'm not really surprised," Sable as she glanced over the report, most of which was beyond her knowledge of chemistry. "Lt Montez just called. The body of Mrs Castillo has been found on the roof of a warehouse half a mile from where she was abducted. The man whose body was dropped by Central Park has been identified as James Mills from Queens. The news has gotten out and cannot be covered up by the authorities or dismissed as common crime. There is already a huge public commotion, the phones at police headquarters and City Hall are ringing nonstop."
"That is an understandable response," the Trom Girl observed.
Sable told her what she had learned about Halbrecht. "So he is the obvious suspect. I could not figure out how anyone could house and transport such a bizarre animal without being detected. Now we know. The most common shape-shifters transform into quasi-wolves and bats but there have been cases of bears and tigers also occuring. In Japan, some women become foxes. In the British Isles, seals... the Selkies. It is all a choice of the subconscious mind choosing a totem it most identifies with."
"That explains why the victims have not been even partially eaten," Megan said. "This is killing from deranged Human motivation, not an animal seeking prey as food."
"Yes. We are hunting a were-Pterodactyl. I know, I know, it's not a Pterodactyl but that's what everyone is calling the thing. I have Halbrecht's address. We will meet Haley and Timothy there and see if we can confront the enemy before anyone else dies."
"Jin is almost certainly in her room," Trom Girl said. "Should I fetch her?"
"Yes. Tell her to be ready for a full combat situation. I am going to change into my field suit myself as soon as I contact Haley and Tim." Standing up behind her desk, Sable took out her Link again. Once those devices had been incredibly advanced, but in recent years smartphones were catching up to the Link's capabilities.
Pausing in the doorway, Megan turned to look back at her captain. "We seem to be making rapid progress on this matter."
"Yes, IF we are on the right track."
V.
They had taken the other KDF cruiser, a black Nissan Elantra, to circle Central Park. While Haley drove up and down the west side of the park, making a turn now and then to come around and repeat the course, Timothy had been sitting in the passenger seat and staring down at his boots. When he had a half dozen of his caspers out at the same time, he was so distracted by what sights were being relayed to him that he couldn't keep up a conversation. The thick yellow hair hung down in his face as he concentrated, lost to the world.
Haley Lawson was wearing white sneakers, bright blue pants and a long sleeved white pullover with blue trim. Folded neatly on the back seat was her ankle-length cloak of heavy blue cotton, with the ancient Melgar gem fastened to its collar. It was the gem's ability to summon air from anywhere in the world that gave her the name Windcatcher and which qualified her for KDF membership. She could mystically siphon anything from tornado winds to the superhearted air over Death Valley to a bubble of fresh air even when underwater.
Only her teammates knew it, but Haley was wearing the genuine jewel on a choker under her shirt. The gem set in the cloak was a lovely but quite mundane blue tourmaline she had substituted. Several times, enemies had forced her to give up the cloak, thinking they now had the talisman ensorcelled by Malberon himself so long ago, only to be blasted off their feet by hurricane winds Haley had summoned. She herself had thought this was excessively clever but Tim had told her it just showed she had a devious mind.
Getting annoyed by the endless circling and repeating of the route up and down Fifth Avenue, Haley spotted a perfect spot opening up as a car pulled out from the curb in front of her. She snagged the space and thankfully turned off the engine to sit back and relax for a moment. As if on cue, her Link buzzed and she took it from a pants pocket. "Hey, captain. Zup?"
Listening for a second, Windcatcher said, "Nope, we got nothing. Tim's friendly ghosts have found zero results. I do notice that people seem to be staying off the streets. They walk fast and keep looking up, not that I blame them. What have you guys got? Uh-huh. Yeah?"
Her voice broke Timothy out of his daze. He blinked and glanced over at her, taking in the situation without interrupting her. One of the little whirlwinds of force slid through the crack of the partly opened car window and hovered expectantly in front of him before blinking out of existence.
Haley said goodbye, clicked the Link off and slid it back into a pocket. "Sable wants us to meet her and Megan over on 12th Street, near FDR Drive. She thinks we're dealing with a shape-changer, crazy old coot named Halbrecht." She started up the car and waited for an opening to pull out. "You know, that makes sense. I could not imagine how anyone can hide a varmint that big and that strange looking. But if he's normally Human and turns into a Pterodactyl..."
"Hah! You know we've been in the Midnight War too long when a shape-shifter sounds like the most reasonable answer."
Heading across town, Windcatcher began singing, "'Who let the Pterodactyls out...?'" then added, ""Woof woof woof!'"
"Have a heart, willya? Now I'm gonna have that damn song stuck in my head all day." Timothy grumbled and scrunched down in his seat. Soon enough, they rendezvoused with their teammates at an ancient brick building five stories high that stood alone at the edge of a field overgrown with dried grass and littered with debris. One SUV was parked in the field beside the house, and the KDF cruiser was sitting alongside it.
Meeting Haley and and Timothy, Sable walked over as they were getting out of the Nissan. Behind her, Megan and Jin followed. The Gelydra had changed into a snug outfit of long-sleeved tunic and pants of a rough dark grey material, with the long knife strapped across her back in its concealing bundle. She looked more alien and dangerous than ever. That Ulgor suit was made from sharkhide. If you rubbed it one way, it felt smooth but if you touched it in the other direction, the small denticles would take skin off. She also had a white ivory cuff covering her left forearm, used to block blows from an opponent.
Seeing that outfit, Haley got somber at once and stopped humming that song. There was nothing funny about Demrak Jin when she was ready to fight. Ulgor had a warlike culture and Jin was a typical ferocious specimen. The little white-haired woman had killed more enemies in the Midnight War than the rest of the team combined.
All five teammates conferred standing right there. "We've examined this area and Albrecht's car has not been here for at least twelve hours," Sable said. "Three other people rent rooms here, but there are plans to demolish this building and put up a CVS on this lot, so none of them have a secure future. The woman we talked to says Halbrecht is retired and spends most evenings sitting on the promenade on the East River Park, watching people walk by."
"That's the Park over there," Haley said helpfully to Demrak Jin, pointing across the busy FDR Drive. "Nice view. Lots of people go there for a run."
"Thank you," the Gelydra answered as she peered in that direction. "I still have much to learn about this area."
Sable pointed at her teammates. "Timothy, Haley, Jin... I want you three to stand by on that promenade and watch for Halbrecht. Here's a baseball cap for you, Jin. He saw the two of us and your hair is recognizable even at a distance."
Seeming very reluctant, the Gelydra tugged the cap down over her head and scowled at the world. "If you say so, captain."
"Megan and I are going to search Halbrecht's room," Sable continued. "Between my enhanced perception and her sensors, we should be able to turn up something useful. I wanted to do this before calling the police in to muddle up any clues they wouldn't recognize."
"Sounds like a plan," Timothy Limbo agreed. "We may be on stakeout a while, though, so I suggest we pick up a few sandwiches or something to take with us."
"Use your own judgement, Tim. If you guys sight the enemy, call Megan and myself immediately. We're tackling a beast that just snatches people up off the street like a hawk grabbing a mouse. As soon as we are done searching here, we will come join you three."
Jin got in the back seat of the Nissan, shifting her weapon to one side for comfort as Haley and Timothy climbed in the front. They left the car near the entrance to the park and walked up until the Williamsburg Bridge was directly overhead. There was a solitary vendors pushing his wagon. The three of them had to be satisfied with hot dogs and soft pretzels, as well as cold bottles of Pepsi. Jin ate her food as it was torture but she could not always have raw fish. They strolled past basketball and tennis courts, alongside bicycle paths and jogging lanes.. and everything was deserted.
"Okay, this ghost town effect is creepy," Haley Lawson said after twenty minutes of oppressive silence. "My mom and Lindsay and me used to come here a lot and it was always crowded. People must be really scared."
"Not that I blame them," Timothy said, tossing his bottle in a refuse bin without breaking stride. "I know the media are trying to downplay these deaths, but still..! Word of mouth alone has to be spreading what happened." He went over to plop down on a bench and the two women stood facing him.
"I suppose I'll send a few of my boys out to prowl the area?" he asked. "They can cover territory a lot faster than we can on foot."
"Whoa, finally a good idea. Go for it, Tim." Haley sat down next to him and watched as four of the tiny swirls of energy formed around Timothy and then took off in different directions. "You know, I realize I keep asking you this," she said after a moment, "But just what the hell ARE those things? Are they little life forms that have attached themselves to you like ducklings?"
"I don't know. Nobody knows." The blond young man smiled contentedly as he picked up the images his caspers were relaying to him. "Even the Teachers at Tel Shai can't figure them out. Megan has a theory that my subconscious is manifesting them somehow... that my brain forms them out of gralic force. But she says there's no way to test that."
"They're kind of cute," Haley admitted. "Like hummingbirds that follow you around."
"Nothing yet." Timothy always had a faraway expression in his eyes when the caspers were about. "Still searching..."
Demrak Jin had gone over to stand by the waist-high metal railing that ran along the promenade. Beyond that was a steep embankment and then the East River. Brooklyn could be seen in the distance.
She gazed out at the water with obvious longing.
"How you doing, Jin?" Haley called over at last. "Feel like going for a swim?"
"Always," the Gelydra answered in a barely audible voice. She turned to face her teammates. "I am so far from home."
"Ah, you always got a home with us," said Timothy, still gazing out into empty air. "If you ever... hey. Here he is. He just came down a trail from up on the hill behind us."
Stepping down carefully, holding a cane with a curved handle but not leaning on it, Frederic Halbrecht got his footing on the promenade and started heading toward them. He was wearing that tan raincoat that reached down to his ankles and slippers. The old man walked steadily in their direction with a good solid stride that had no feebleness in it.
"You know, is he wearing anything under that coat? I don't think so," Haley whispered into Timothy's ear.
"Why don't you ask him for a peek?" he whispered back.
"Shut up." Windcatcher sat up straighter on the bench, one hand going to touch her gem through the material of her pullover. She had inadvertently left the cloak in the car but she could still use her powers as long as she had the Melgar jewel itself on her. Beside her, one of the caspers whirled past and settled down near her protectively, like a pet guarding against a strange animal nearby.
As Halbrecht came within twenty feet of them, he nodded politely at the two young people sitting on the bench beneath a thin beech tree. Timothy smiled back at him, but Haley was openly staring and this seemed to alarm the old man. His eyes narrowed, then he saw Demrak Jim swing around from the railing overlooking the East River.
"You!" he hissed. Halbrecht kicked off his slippers and shrugged out of his raincoat. For only a split-second was his unappealing nudity revealed because in an instant his body transformed.
VI.
The creature's torso was bigger than a normal Human, with a wingspan of twelve feet. Its dark blue hide was like leather, lighter in color across the belly. In his winged form, Halbrecht stood on two stumpy legs which ended in taloned four-toed feet. A thick tail which ended in a flat barb whipped angrily from side to side, and the head had a crest extending backward to balance the long vicious beak.
In that instant, even as startled as she was, Haley Lawson noticed the sharp peglike teeth set in the beak, the way the wings were not floppy thin skin but were reinforced with stiff fibers and that the bright red eyes focused on her like a predator on its prey. She was leaping to her feet, but already Demrak Jin had plunged past her with a warlike snarl.
The Gelydra woman had whipped her bone-bladed knife from its sheath across her back. In two quick steps, she was leaping at the monster. The creature's head struck forward, and a pointed beak harder than bone punched into her chest with murderous force. Jin was flung back off her feet to slide along the promenade, rolling and getting back up with the three-foot blade still in her grip. Even as this was happening, Timothy had jumped up off the bench and drawn his resonance pistol. Before he could fire, one of the wings whipped around to crash against him. He was thrown off his feet and over the bench beside him, dazed for a second by the impact.
The monster screeched, a high wavering cry that echoed up and down the promenade. Somewhere nearby a dog began barking frantically. Then, with two powerful beats of its wings, the creature lifted off and rose up into the air. Haley vaguely remembered reading that prehistoric reptiles like this were thought to be too heavy to actually take off the way birds do, that they likely climbed up cliff sides and dropped off to glide long distances. But this brute proved that theory wrong. It was up out of reach instantly, beating those stiff wings with long strokes and then wheeling around to head out over the river.
Running up too late, brandishing her weapon as if to hurl it, Jin shouted, "He will escape us!"
"Oh, I don't think so," Haley snapped. She did not have the cloak with her but she closed her hand on the Gem of Air, thirty thousand years old and ensorcelled by Malberon himself. The Windcatcher concentrated, visualizing what she wanted and drawing on her full will power. From around her body erupted a blast of freezing air summoned from the Antarctic. Gale force winds more than forty degrees below zero howled up to slam into the monster and twirl it wildly far out over the East River.
From where they stood, the three KDF members could clearly see a white layer of frost form over the hideous beast before it dropped straight down into the water with a splash.
"Hah!" yelled Haley Lawson. "Hurt my friends, will you? I'll mess you UP!"
Even as she spoke, Demrak Jin raced past her to vault lightly over the waist-high railing and dive headlong into the river. The Gelydra vanished cleanly beneath the surface and was not seen again, not even bubbles marking her passage. Left behind, Windcatcher gaped at how quickly Jin had disappeared and then wheeled around to find Timothy Limbo getting to his feet and gingerly rubbing his chest where he had been struck.
"Hurry, send some of your caspers down to find her!" Haley said.
"They have trouble moving through water," he answered, bending to pick up the resonance gun. There was still no one else in sight. "Too much resistance. I can have a couple of them skim the surface but we need to call Sable."
"Oh, yeah, right," Haley said. "Sure." Still gazing out over the river, she got her Link out and contacted her captain to report. As it happened, there had not been anything useful to be found in Halbrecht's dismal apartment and both Sable and Megan were on their way to the park at that moment. Five minutes later, they came running up to join Haley and Timothy.
All four stood by the waist-high railing, eyes moving without pause as they looked for any signs of either the monster or their friend. It was a tense vigil. Then, a small dark figure broke the surface less than ten yards from where they stood. Demrak Jin climbed out onto the embankment, sheathing her blade and glaring back at the murky waters. As she made her way up to the railing, Timothy reached over and offered her a helping hand which she surprisingly accepted.
As soon as it was in open air, the Gelydra's stiff white hair dried somehow, even though water slid down off her sharkhide outfit to drip onto the ground. "I could not find the beast," she growled in her low tones. "I will go back and search. I thought maybe you were all wondering what had happened to me."
"Yeah, we were worried," Haley said.
"Worry about that animal," the Gelydra muttered as she turned back toward the water. "I will slice him as if for a feast." But Sable stopped her with a hand on one shoulder.
"Wait. Stay here," the team leader ordered. "Keep ready to go after him. Tim, get as many caspers out over the water as you can. Megan, start taking readings with your suit's sensors. I'm going to use my own perception."
Long past nightfall, the five of them stood there searching the surface of the East River in their various ways. Finally, just after seven, Sable took a deep shuddering breath and came back to normal levels of vision and hearing. "My eyes are burning. I have to stop."
"Even my ghostly buddies are tired," Timothy sighed. "They're usually only active for a few minutes at a stretch."
"I do not like this. I do not like it at all." Demrak Jin stood with arms folded across her thin chest and tapped one foot on the paving. "He may return when we are off-guard."
Sable called her team together, forming a loose huddle. "For the next few days, we will take turns watching his apartment building to see if he returns there. Megan, you want to take first shift tonight?"
"Certainly," the Trom Girl answered. She walked over to pick up the raincoat and slippers where they had been left when Halbrecht had transformed. Keys and wallet were still in a pocket of the faded garment. "I suspect he will be conspicuous if he has survived."
"A naked seventy-year-old man crawling up out the river?" snorted Haley. "Oh, hell yes. Plus, he has no way to get back to his rooms. I bet he'd be on the evening news if he shows up like that. But to be honest, I think he's dead and still frozen solid at the bottom of the river. That's the last we'll see of the Ptero-- you know."
"Oh, you might as well call him a Pterodactyl," said Megan. "What's the use of fighting it?"
6/20/2016
10/17-10/18/2013
I.
Furious, Demrak Jin strode up Eighth Avenue at half past eleven at night, arms swinging stiffly and shoulders hunched up. The Gelydra was a small woman, not more than three inches over five feet in height and thin to the point of looking a bit frail, but within that dense body was strength greater than any full-grown Human male had. If she had been walking any quicker, she would have broken into a run. She had started on Lexington Avenue and 38th Street, stomping across Midtown before turning right at Eighth and heading north. Her head was pointed down as if searching the sidewalk in front of her feet.
It was a brisk October night and the streets had any number of passers-by strolling. In front of a bar and grill on the corner of 51st street, two college-aged men were standing in the open doorway while one smoked a cigarette. They saw the Gelydra approach and the smoker took a step into her path. "Whoa, what are you so mad about, babe..."
He broke off with those words as he received her glare at close range. Demrak Jin was not pretty to most people's taste. She had a wide flat face with a pug nose and cloudy dark blue eyes that were usually sullen but now were fully enraged. Her short white hair stood up stiffly, bristling, and her body language was completely intimidating. She did not trust herself to answer the man but just huffed and kept moving.
Jin was wearing sneakers, jeans and a denim jacket. Strapped across her back was a cloth bundle two feet wide and four feet long. Despite the way it was wrapped to conceal its true nature, one of the men immediately recognized the shape. "Dude... is she carrying a machete?! Let her go, man."
A few blocks further along, Jin caught a glimpse of one of the caspers. The tiny energy beings were difficult to spot even in daylight. They resembled small whirling tornados of vapor, small enough to hold on an open hand. It was their motion that caught her eye. She came to a stop under a streetlamp and discerned at least two of the caspers circling around her just above head height. Timothy had sent them to find her and, whatever they saw, he saw as well.
Still fuming, the Gelydra woman remained where she was. In a minute, Timothy Limbo came running across the street to join her. He wore his usual motorcycle boots, faded jeans, white T-shirt and black leather jacket and also as usual, his mop of yellow hair was in his face.
"Jin! Hey, Jin! Hold on a minute!" he called as he hopped up onto the curb near her.
"I left because I wanted to be left alone," she told him icily.
"GodDAMIT Jin, knock it off!" he yelled, ignoring passers-by pausing to listen. "You're not the only one who's mad right now. Jeremy came to sit on the meeting, so did Dr Wright. They're reserve members and don't usually take part. So are Unicorn and Argent and Megan, and they showed up too because they are concerned with your status. Maybe you think you don't need friends but believe me, you've got a lot to learn about life!"
Jin was taken aback by his belligerence. She had never heard Timothy raise his voice before. "I suppose.. I suppose I should thank them for taking an interest?" she said uncertainly.
"Hell yes, you should thank them. They're busy with their own lives and came to the meeting for your sake. Every single one of them defended you."
"They cannot change what the Teachers have decided. Tel Shai has declined to accept me as a student. The insult is great. My honor is broken."
"Oh, get over yourself," Timothy Limbo told her. "And I say that as a friend. We've saved each others' lives, Jin, we should be past any pretences. Come on, let's keep walking to blow off some steam."
As they started marching briskly north along Eighth Avenue, Demrak Jin vented. "Haley was accepted by Tel Shai, so were you and so was Jocelyn. I know why the Teachers turned me down. I am a Gelydra of Ulgor, we are a warrior Race and those old men and women are afraid I will go berserk someday. That's the truth, isn't it?"
"Yep, that's it," Timothy agreed. "But you were at the meeting. Everyone from Sable to myself spoke up for you when our turn came to give our opinion. And the vote was unanimous. You can not be a full member of the Kenneth Dred Foundation without being accepted at Tel Shai, but you can be an Associate Member."
"Hah! Associate member.. that's like a pity medal given to the loser in a tournament."
"Nah," Timothy said. "The KDF has had a couple Associates over the years. Shiro Mitsuru. Karina. Cheval. That's pretty good company to keep, if you ask me."
Demrak Jin stopped abruptly in mid-step. She turned her narrow blue eyes on her companion. "I just realized. I was turned down because the Teachers thought I have a temper I cannot control. And my reaction was to storm out of the room and slam the door behind me." She seemed to be struggling with a realization. "I proved their point. Maybe I was wrong to do that."
"Feh. You got a short fuse," Timothy snorted. "Who's perfect? The thing is you can still live at headquarters and go on all our cases. You'll be missing out on the tagra tea and Kumundu training but face it... as a Gelydra, you have a two hundred year lifespan anyway and you're already as tough as a cheap steak."
It was rare to see her wrestling with uncertainty. "Maybe I should go back and apologize? Timothy, I don't know how to apologize. In Ulgor, it's seen as submission."
They had reached 59th Street and the edge of Central Park. Seeing this, Timothy Limbo took her arm and said, "It'll be okay but, you know, maybe we should start heading back now."
"Yes." She glanced around as if surprised at how far they had walked. "Thank you for seeking me out, Timothy. Words of friendship come hard for me. We are raised to have the spirit of the shark in our speech."
Over by the retaining wall around the park, a woman screamed. From overhead rang an inhuman shriek. Jin and Timothy swung around in time to see the winged horror drop a man's body into the street before it swooped away into the darkness.
II.
Instantly a crowd assembled around the corpse, forming a ring that did not get too close but which did impede traffic. By chance, an NYPD patrol car was nearby and pulled over with its lightbar flashing. Demrak Jin stepped down off the curb to head toward the scene but paused.
"I do not know if we should try to get through those people and examine the remains?" she asked Timothy. "We would have to identify ourselves to your city guard."
He did not answer. Timothy Limbo was staring up into the sky where the winged creature had appeared. After a moment, he let out a breath and held up a hand to receive one of his caspers. The barely visible swirl of energy hovered over his palm and then vanished like a bubble popping.
"My boys aren't fast enough to keep up with that monster," he told his teammate. "But we got a good look at it. It was like a big lizard with bat wings and a long beak. One of those flying dinosaurs you see in the movies. Pterodactyl? I guess. Dark blue on top and white belly. It was heading north."
"How odd," the Gelydra said. "Aren't they extinct on your surface world?"
"So they say." Timothy unclipped a small electronic device from his belt and spoke into it for a few minutes while Jin waited impatiently with one sneaker tapping the pavement. "Right. Sable says we should head back and make a full report."
"I suppose..."
As Timothy spotted a few cabs cruising by, he managed to snag one and they rode back to 28 East 38t Street. There stood the old stone building that had been the home for Midnight War heroes for almost seventy years. A few windows were lit on the ground floor. Paying the driver, Timothy followed Demrak Jin up the five steps to the massive oak door that bore a simple bronze plate, KENNETH DRED FOUNDATION. Before she touched the door, a buzzer sounded as it unlocked for them.
Even though Sable could clearly see them through the monitors, Timothy and Jin had to wait in the vestibule for a minute as Trom sensors identified them. This was strict policy. Then the inner door unlocked and they stepped into the front hall where light spilled out through the open door of the office to their left.
"Feels like being sent to the principal," muttered Timothy. Seated behind her desk was Lauren Sable Reilly, the captain of the team of Tel Shai knights. She was a woman of average height, straight glossy black hair brushed straight back from a high forehead, wearing a dark pantsuit with a cream-colored silk blouse. "Come in, you two. We are understandably very curious about what happpened up by the park!"
Perched on a straightback wooden chair next to the desk sat Megan Salenger, the Human orphan raised by the Trom to serve as unofficial liaison between the two Races. Her thick shock of black hair was tousled and untidy over an inquisitive foxlike face. "Yes, please! Tell us every detail."
As Timothy went into his report, Demrak Jin visibly relaxed. She felt no tension in the room at her return and realized her outburst had been forgiven. During a pause in the discussion, she asked, "Where did everyone go?"
"Oh, they all have their own affairs to attend to. Unicorn does have a baby girl and Argent has a case underway with his Fist For Hire agency. Jocelyn returned to Tel Shai for training. Jeremy did say it was great to see everyone assembled once again. He recommends we revive our Wednesday practice of Pizza Night for socializing." Sable leaned back in her chair. "Tim, I want you to make a sketch of this creature while the details are still fresh in your mind."
"Well, I'll try," he said. "I think we know what a Pterodactyl looks like."
"This is not a Pterodactyl," the Trom Girl interrupted. "They were a specific species and rather small. It does sound like a member of the Pterosaur family, though."
"Yeah, thanks," Timothy said in a voice that showed he had not been listening. He began laboriously making a stick figure on a notepad that Sable handed him, then redrew it in more detail. Everyone leaned over to watch, which slowed the process.
"You do not show signs of artistic talent," Megan observed.
"Can sure tell you were brought up by the Trom," Timothy grumbled. "You've got the tact of a rock falling on someone's foot."
They all studied the disappointing sketch. "I don't know of any realm where anything like this survives," Sable said at last. "Okali seems most likely. There are several Ice Age species in Okali, the Dire Wolves and Sabretooths and even a few Mammoths. But these Pterodactyls were around millions of years earlier, in the age of dinosaurs..."
"It is not a Pterodactyl," repeated the Trom Girl with just the faintest hint of annoyance in her usually calm and detached voice. "But I cannot recall any of the adjacent realms where a creature like this might be found."
"Quite a challenge," said Sable. "Well, team, I believe we have been offered our next mission. Haley went to bed and we should do the same. But in the morning, we will review what we know and start investigating. Let the NYPD do the preliminary work. Lt Montez should fill us in on who the victim was. We might as well all turn in now and get a fresh start at eight."
As Sable and Megan got to their feet, Demrak Jin cleared her throat. "About my status, captain?"
Sable smiled at the Gelydra and reached over to pat her arm reassuringly. "We voted. You're on the team as long as you choose to be, Jin, with full privileges and duties. It's Tel Shai's loss, if you ask me."
"Thank you, Sable. I will do my best."
"You always have. Okay, everyone, break it up. We're done for the day." She headed out of the office to the front hall, pausing to flick off the light switch by the door. Jin trudged up the stairs by herself, unstrapping her bone-handled knife from across her back as the others took the elevator up to the fourth floor where their private quarters were.
III.
As usual, Megan Salenger was up before everyone else. Usually, the Trom Girl seemed able to function well on five or six hours of sleep out of each twenty-four. After a strenous case, though, she had been known to hibernate for a day or so. She was wearing her dark jumpsuit with all its pouches and pockets, sitting in the recreation room with her laptop open. The TV in the corner was set to a cable news network but with the sound muted. The Trom Girl kept hopping from blog to news service to message board almost as if she was not paying attention to any of them but in fact she was absorbing every word. She also habitually listened to the BBC World Service and the NHK news in Japanese, sometimes both at the same time.
Seeing the door open, Sable entered the rec room. Here was a pool table that seldom saw use, and a handcarved chess set on its own pedestal, as well as wall racks of assorted magazines and newspapers and an elaborate sound system. Mostly, the rec room was valued for its soft comfortable easy chairs and couches piled with cushions. Often the members were bruised and sore after a case, and really enjoyed stretching out on the furniture in this room. More than once, each of them had ended up sleeping here.
Her hair still damp from her shower, Sable came up behind Megan quietly. The team leader was wearing dress shoes, dark slacks and a tan blouse with two breast pockets. She normally dressed more formally than her partners, but this was a habit she had picked up in college when she was an intern at a radio station. In a low voice, she asked, "What's the situation, Megan?"
"The incident is all over the local news, but it is being treated in a dismissive way. Most stations and websites are implying the dead man was thrown from a car and witnesses were confused by the appearance of a large bird flying overhead at the same time." Megan shrugged her shoulders. "We have seen this reaction to Midnight War events so many times."
"Yes, people try to find a mundane explanation," Sable agreed, leaning over the Trom Girl's shoulder to peer at the laptop. The screen showed a news source in Arabic. Just how many languages did Megan know, Sable wondered. "Any other sightings of the mystery creature last night?"
"Yes. Up near 138th Street, a woman was looking up at the moon when she caught a good look. She described it as a Pterodactyl with a ten foot wingspread. It is NOT a Pterodactyl!"
"Easy there," Sable said as she squeezed Megan's shoulders before moving toward the door. "No point in getting annoyed because the general public is not well informed. I'm going to start breakfast. The team should be down in a few minutes."
The Trom Girl closed her laptop and got to her feet. "Inaccurate nomenclature irritates me. I will help you in the kitchen, captain."
As the two of them got the frying pans and coffee maker going, the others came downstairs one at the time. Most days, the team members were expected to be dressed and ready for assignments at 8 AM but in practice, there was always a half hour of eating and chatting first.
Haley Lawson was first, still yawning and scratching behind one ear. At five feet eight, she was the tallest female member and the youngest at twenty years old. Windcatcher had long chestnut hair with bangs that hung down perilously close to gorgeous lime-green eyes in an otherwise pleasant but unremarkable face.
She was wearing her usual worn-out white sneakers, snug jeans and a green polo shirt. "Hey, you guys! Bacon and lots of it, please. So I heard Jin splashing around in her room on my way past. She still sleeps in a bathtub with her head under the water! What's the sitch?"
As they quickly filled her in, the frying pans sizzled with loads of bacon strips and scrambled eggs. Lately, Sable had begun preparing a big pot of oatmeal with raisins each morning, and the others had taken to having a bowl as well. As she gulped a mug of straight black coffee so hot it almost burned her mouth, Haley listened to the update and grinned. "I'm excited about the flying critter report the most. We haven't fought a no-fooling monster in a long time. A killer Pterodactyl sounds like just the ticket."
"It is not a Pterodactyl," mumbled Megan to herself. At that moment, Timothy and Jin entered together. Both had on jeans and sneakers, but he wore a heavy red flannel shirt and she was lost inside a maroon sweatshirt much too large for her. The next few minutes were a jumble of loading plates with food, getting silverware and tumblers for juice or water, and then digging in. The team was all young and active, and they devoured enough food for twice as many people.
"Jeez," said Haley at one point, "Stop when you hit the plate, Tim." The fact that she herself mumbled this through a mouth full of eggs detracted from the snark.
Finally, everyone slowed down. Final sips of coffee and scrapes of oatmeal from the sides of the bowl were the finishing strokes. Everyone brought their dishes and utensils over to the stainless steel sink. Megan began filling it with steaming hot water and dish detergent but Sable called over, "Hey, Meg, it's not your turn at KP duty."
"I don't mind," the Trom Girl said as she pulled on yellow rubber gauntlets.
"Okay with me," Haley sang out cheerfully. "She does a more thorough job than I do any time."
"That is an accurate statement," the Trom Girl replied. "Sable, while everyone is gathered at the table, perhaps now would be a good time for a full recap."
"True. All right, team, this is the situation..." After Sable summarized the recent events, she concluded, "We will begin investigating today. I will meet with Lt Montez and see what the police have found. The victim has not been identified on the news. Jin, you will accompany me. You should become familiar with police headquarters and meet a few of the detectives we work with. Haley, I want you to drive Timothy around the area. While you drive, he can concentrate on what his caspers find out, if anything. Megan, today you were scheduled to do maintenance on the CORBY. You might as well proceed with that unless there are developments."
Placing everything in drying racks beside the sink, Megan Salenger turned the rubber gloves inside out to air them and came over to stand by the table. "Understood, captain."
Sable pushed back her chair and stood up. "I don't think the full field suits are called for at this point, but of course you will all wear the Trom armor under your clothes and bring the usual gear. I recommend skipping the anesthetic dart guns today and carrying high-impact resonance shells instead. If we do find this Ptero---creature, we should take no chances."
Before anyone could comment, the wall phone rang and Sable rushed over to take the call. "Kenneth Dred Foundation. Lieutenant? Hi, we were coming to see you today. What? Where? Tell me more. I see. Yes, two of us will meet you there. Thank you for bringing us in."
As she hung up and turned to face her team, Sable had lost some color from her face. "There has been another incident. The creature was sighted by a dozen people down by the Battery. It snatched a woman from a roof where she was hanging clothing on a line. The victim has not been found and the creature was only seen for a few seconds. No one reacted quickly enough to get a cellphone picture. Let's get on the case, team. At this rate, the city is going to go into full panic mode."
IV.
Sable had taken one of the two KDF cruisers, a two year-old Subaru Legacy that had been fitted with Trom-armor fabric panels and bullet-resistant glass, as well as a few useful gimmicks. With Demrak Jin beside her, she eased into an open space on Mulcahy Street near two police cars which had uniformed officers standing by. This was a rather declining neighborhood within sight of where the World Trade Center buildings had stood. The scene of the woman's abduction was the roof of an ancient red brick apartment building eight stories high, and this was where they found Joseph Montez.
It amused Sable slightly to see the reactions of the cops as she and Jin got out of the Subaru and headed over. She had thrown on a light suit jacket to cover the resonance gun holstered across the small of her back, and she looked both professional and attractive. Sable didn't fuss with her looks but her features with the large dark eyes and full lips were naturally pretty. The officers automatically perked up a bit when they saw her approaching. But then they spotted the sullen expression and aggressive body language of Demrak Jin and they just as quickly tensed up.
Strapped to the Gelydra's back was a large knapsack which had been constructed to conceal the sheathed bone-bladed knife she always carried. She had thrown on her denim jacket with the various tiny gadgets and tools the KDF used, as well. Demrak Jin was not particularly angry at the moment, she just had a face which looked surly even at rest.
The two women went right to where Lt Montez was waiting for them. He had been keeping his weight down recently. Although still heavy, he was not a bad-looking man, with wavy black hair and a solid, reassuring face. "Hey. Sable, Jin, thanks for coming. I'll be honest, I tried to reach Bane first."
"Jeremy said he had a case on hand which would take him out of state," Sable answered.
"Yeah, it's nothing against you guys, I just got used to working with him all these years, you know?" He jerked a thumb up to indicate the top of the building they were standing next to and frowned. "I've already gone over the woman's apartment. Inez Hidalgo, fifty-two, she shared her apartment with a daughter Mary, aged twenty-five, who's at work right now but who should be on her way here. No useful clues so far, but then we really aren't clear what we're looking for."
"Where are the witnesses?" Sable said as she peered up at the roof of the building.
"They've been released. We took their statements and let them go." Montez watched Sable as if he hoped she had an answer that would solve everything and let him go back to his office. "The department has been handing over weird and unexplainable stuff to your Dire Wolf for years now. Midnight War, he calls it. As if the city doesn't have enough problems to deal with, now it seems some lunatic is bringing dinosaurs here. Who would let a Pterodactyl loose, that's what I wanna know?"
Sable just caught herself as she started to correct Montez that the creature was not in fact a Pterodactyl but she bit her tongue. Megan is rubbing off on me, she thought. "I can't explain it right now, lieutenant. We don't know of anywhere a creature like that survives. Maybe some government agency had been cloning them from fossils? I don't know. That seems close to impossible with current technology and yet there it is."
Even as she said those unconsciously ironic words, a shrill wavering cry sounded from the top of the building. They all gave a start and snapped their heads around to get a brief glimpse of a monstrous form on the roof. Standing with its taloned feet gripping the cornice was what seemed at first to be a gigantic bat with a man-sized body. But the dark blue leathery hide, the barbed tail that whipped from side to side and the long beaked head with its bony crest, all revealed that this was some huge reptile that should not have existed for sixty million years. The eyes were a bright red in white orbits, set on the front of the head like a predator's and staring down at the people who were staring back up.
As it gave that shriek, the creature dropped off the roof and swooped down straight at them. Everyone instinctively ducked and crouched low, raising their arms to protect their heads. The wind of its passing so closely ruffled their hair and flapped their clothing. Montez had drawn his service revolver but neither he nor Sable reacted in time to take a shot before the winged horror was gone from sight.
It was Denmrak Jin who stood her ground. She was drawing back her arms from a swing no one had followed. They saw she was gripping the bone-bladed weapon she had crafted herself, and thick dark blood smeared its edge. The Gelydra woman took off at a full run down a side street and Sable automatically followed her.
"You two stay on watch," Montez ordered to the officers as he headed after the two women at a brisk walk that would not even keep them in sight.
Hurtling up a narrow side street that was not much wider than an alley, Demrak Jin skidded to a halt on the corner. No sign of the monster, not even drops of blood on the pavement to follow. Parked nearby was an old Hyundai with some rust by the rear wheels. Just closing the driver's door, an elderly man was starting the engine. Coming up fast behind Jin, Sable rushed over and clamped her hands on the half-open car window.
"Police officers," she said, not exactly accurately but she knew Montez would join them in a moment. "Hold it a second, did you see anything unusual just now?"
The driver seemed terrified. He was a scrawny old man with wispy white hair and a prominent beaky nose. Oddly, he seemed to be wearing only a tan trenchcoat with no shirt under it, as she could see part of a bony bare chest showing. "Don't hurt me!" he yelped. "Leave me alone." With that, the car pulled away and Sable let go of the window to avoid being dragged along the ground.
Standing right behind her, Jin silently watched the car rush away. Sable turned and said, "Either he saw that creature and it spooked him or maybe it was the sight of your blade."
The Gelydra did not seem to have realized that seeing someone rush at them with a naked long knife might be unnerving. "I think Megan might want to analyze the Pterodactyl's blood," she said mildly. "I haven't wiped it off."
"Good thinking," replied Sable. "We could use some clues." As Lt Montez approached, she told Jin to return to their car and to try to keep the blade from touching anything.
"Where did it go?" the big man blurted out. He had holstered his own weapon and was only slightly out of breath.
"No idea. There is definitely something strange going on," Sable said.
"Really! You mean, stranger than a prehistoric monster snatching people up?"
Sable smiled wryly at his exasperation. "Yes, I guess so. I don't see how a creature that size could just get out of sight so quickly. If it's okay with you, I'll stop by police headquarters later to go over the witness statements?"
"Yeah, do that." Montez tucked his shirt back in where it had started to come loose. "I hate this Midnight War crap more and more every year."
As she started walking with them back to where the officers had been left on watch, she said, ""I bet you're thinking Jeremy would have grabbed that beast as it went by and wrestled it to the ground, huh?"
"Your Dire Wolf is quite a character," he admitted. "But I don't want to sound like I don't appreciate what you new guys have done. You've been a huge help on some recent weirdness."
"Thanks, lieutenant. Thanks for calling us in on this." She left him and headed back to her car where Jin was already seated. "We're on the case, hopefully we can clear it up right away."
"Great. Keep in contact," he grumbled as he himself turned away to rejoin the two uniformed cops.
Sliding back behind the wheel, Sable glanced over at Jin. The Gelydra woman was holding her knife carefully to keep it from contact with any surface.
"Back to base?" she asked.
"Yeah," Sable said as she pulled out from the curb and made a turn at the next corner. "I have a few ideas. I hope Megan can analyze that blood and get some clues as well. But do me a favor, Jin, and don't refer to the monster as a Pterodactyl in front of her."
V.
In the front hall of their headquarters, Megan Salenger painstakingly removed all the blood from the knife with a sterile plastic blade and placed it in a small container. "It will take a few minutes to run tests on this," she said. Handing the weapon back to Demrak Jin, she added, "Thank you. You may clean this now."
Examining the knife's edge critically for any sign of damage, the Gelydra went into the bathroom further down the hall and closed the door. Megan put a lid on the container and turned toward the stairs but paused. "From your description, the creature does not match any known fossils. You say the eyes struck you as intelligent?"
"Yes. And not just in the way a big cat's eyes are intelligent. There was something Human about the way the beast looked at us." Sable headed for the office, and said over her shoulder. "I'm going to run the plates on that old man's car. Good luck with that sample."
"I should have the results quickly." The Trom Girl rushed up the staircase with an eagerness she did not try to conceal and Sable smiled at her enthusiasm. If the Trom had tried to mold her into having an emotionless logical mind such as they themselves possessed, they had failed. Megan's romance with Archie was still going steady and solid, and this made Sable happy.
She went into the office and took her seat behind the massive desk. On the wall behind her still hung the hand-painted map of the world as it had been in 1937, the year that Kenneth Dred had purchased this building. Sable took her laptop from its shelf where it sat most of the time and logged in. In a few minutes, she was breaking several laws by entering the license plate and model of the car she had seen the old man drive away in an hour earlier, then pulling up information about him from the Department of Motor Vehicles, NYPD files, city tax records and the Internal Revenue Service.
These illicit inquiries were possible because of the modifications Megan continually made on their computers. The biggest advantage the KDF had in the Midnight War was that only they blended Trom technology with Tel Shai arcane knowledge. No one else combined science and mysticism so seamlessly. The owner of that car was Frederic W Halbrecht, age seventy. The picture on the driver's license matched the old man she had seen. He had moved to New York City after retiring three years earlier from a position at a national insurance company based in Atlanta.
Following a hunch, she searched through police reports and newspaper accounts from Atlanta at that time, and found there was a flurry of missing persons then. Two teenagers, eventually dismissed as likely runaways, a young housewife and a laundromat employee. None of them had ever been found and the cases remained open if cold. The housewife's family still had a reward available for any information that was reveal what had happened to her.
Four missing persons in an area where the old man had lived, and now here in Manhattan where he had relocated, another missing person and a gruesome death. No one had made the connection. There was nothing obvious tying Halbrecht in with the disappearances. It had only been spotting the man at the scene that morning that had led her to this conclusion. If Demrak Jin had not chased after the flying beast so promptly....
The Link on her belt buzzed. Sable gave a start and came back from her thoughts. "Kenneth Dred Foundation," she said into the device which patched into the Verizon network but which could not be traced or overheard. "Yes, lieutenant. You have something for us?"
A few minutes later, she thanked him again and broke the connection. Lauren Sable Reilly leaned forward, elbows on the desk and rested her chin in a cupped hand. There was a lot to digest. As she sat there staring off into space, Megan appeared in the doorway again.
The Trom Girl held a printout sheet in one hand. "We have some interesting results, captain. Sable? Are you all right?"
"Yes. Of course. Let's hear your results first."
"The blood is not reptilian. It is modified Human, type AB with a sixty per cent increased red cell count. There are chemical oddities in the plasma which I have never seen before and which, to be honest, seem like they should have fatal consequences. The creature is not a natural organism." She came forward to place the printout sheet on the desk, then pulled over a chair facing her teammate.
"I'm not really surprised," Sable as she glanced over the report, most of which was beyond her knowledge of chemistry. "Lt Montez just called. The body of Mrs Castillo has been found on the roof of a warehouse half a mile from where she was abducted. The man whose body was dropped by Central Park has been identified as James Mills from Queens. The news has gotten out and cannot be covered up by the authorities or dismissed as common crime. There is already a huge public commotion, the phones at police headquarters and City Hall are ringing nonstop."
"That is an understandable response," the Trom Girl observed.
Sable told her what she had learned about Halbrecht. "So he is the obvious suspect. I could not figure out how anyone could house and transport such a bizarre animal without being detected. Now we know. The most common shape-shifters transform into quasi-wolves and bats but there have been cases of bears and tigers also occuring. In Japan, some women become foxes. In the British Isles, seals... the Selkies. It is all a choice of the subconscious mind choosing a totem it most identifies with."
"That explains why the victims have not been even partially eaten," Megan said. "This is killing from deranged Human motivation, not an animal seeking prey as food."
"Yes. We are hunting a were-Pterodactyl. I know, I know, it's not a Pterodactyl but that's what everyone is calling the thing. I have Halbrecht's address. We will meet Haley and Timothy there and see if we can confront the enemy before anyone else dies."
"Jin is almost certainly in her room," Trom Girl said. "Should I fetch her?"
"Yes. Tell her to be ready for a full combat situation. I am going to change into my field suit myself as soon as I contact Haley and Tim." Standing up behind her desk, Sable took out her Link again. Once those devices had been incredibly advanced, but in recent years smartphones were catching up to the Link's capabilities.
Pausing in the doorway, Megan turned to look back at her captain. "We seem to be making rapid progress on this matter."
"Yes, IF we are on the right track."
V.
They had taken the other KDF cruiser, a black Nissan Elantra, to circle Central Park. While Haley drove up and down the west side of the park, making a turn now and then to come around and repeat the course, Timothy had been sitting in the passenger seat and staring down at his boots. When he had a half dozen of his caspers out at the same time, he was so distracted by what sights were being relayed to him that he couldn't keep up a conversation. The thick yellow hair hung down in his face as he concentrated, lost to the world.
Haley Lawson was wearing white sneakers, bright blue pants and a long sleeved white pullover with blue trim. Folded neatly on the back seat was her ankle-length cloak of heavy blue cotton, with the ancient Melgar gem fastened to its collar. It was the gem's ability to summon air from anywhere in the world that gave her the name Windcatcher and which qualified her for KDF membership. She could mystically siphon anything from tornado winds to the superhearted air over Death Valley to a bubble of fresh air even when underwater.
Only her teammates knew it, but Haley was wearing the genuine jewel on a choker under her shirt. The gem set in the cloak was a lovely but quite mundane blue tourmaline she had substituted. Several times, enemies had forced her to give up the cloak, thinking they now had the talisman ensorcelled by Malberon himself so long ago, only to be blasted off their feet by hurricane winds Haley had summoned. She herself had thought this was excessively clever but Tim had told her it just showed she had a devious mind.
Getting annoyed by the endless circling and repeating of the route up and down Fifth Avenue, Haley spotted a perfect spot opening up as a car pulled out from the curb in front of her. She snagged the space and thankfully turned off the engine to sit back and relax for a moment. As if on cue, her Link buzzed and she took it from a pants pocket. "Hey, captain. Zup?"
Listening for a second, Windcatcher said, "Nope, we got nothing. Tim's friendly ghosts have found zero results. I do notice that people seem to be staying off the streets. They walk fast and keep looking up, not that I blame them. What have you guys got? Uh-huh. Yeah?"
Her voice broke Timothy out of his daze. He blinked and glanced over at her, taking in the situation without interrupting her. One of the little whirlwinds of force slid through the crack of the partly opened car window and hovered expectantly in front of him before blinking out of existence.
Haley said goodbye, clicked the Link off and slid it back into a pocket. "Sable wants us to meet her and Megan over on 12th Street, near FDR Drive. She thinks we're dealing with a shape-changer, crazy old coot named Halbrecht." She started up the car and waited for an opening to pull out. "You know, that makes sense. I could not imagine how anyone can hide a varmint that big and that strange looking. But if he's normally Human and turns into a Pterodactyl..."
"Hah! You know we've been in the Midnight War too long when a shape-shifter sounds like the most reasonable answer."
Heading across town, Windcatcher began singing, "'Who let the Pterodactyls out...?'" then added, ""Woof woof woof!'"
"Have a heart, willya? Now I'm gonna have that damn song stuck in my head all day." Timothy grumbled and scrunched down in his seat. Soon enough, they rendezvoused with their teammates at an ancient brick building five stories high that stood alone at the edge of a field overgrown with dried grass and littered with debris. One SUV was parked in the field beside the house, and the KDF cruiser was sitting alongside it.
Meeting Haley and and Timothy, Sable walked over as they were getting out of the Nissan. Behind her, Megan and Jin followed. The Gelydra had changed into a snug outfit of long-sleeved tunic and pants of a rough dark grey material, with the long knife strapped across her back in its concealing bundle. She looked more alien and dangerous than ever. That Ulgor suit was made from sharkhide. If you rubbed it one way, it felt smooth but if you touched it in the other direction, the small denticles would take skin off. She also had a white ivory cuff covering her left forearm, used to block blows from an opponent.
Seeing that outfit, Haley got somber at once and stopped humming that song. There was nothing funny about Demrak Jin when she was ready to fight. Ulgor had a warlike culture and Jin was a typical ferocious specimen. The little white-haired woman had killed more enemies in the Midnight War than the rest of the team combined.
All five teammates conferred standing right there. "We've examined this area and Albrecht's car has not been here for at least twelve hours," Sable said. "Three other people rent rooms here, but there are plans to demolish this building and put up a CVS on this lot, so none of them have a secure future. The woman we talked to says Halbrecht is retired and spends most evenings sitting on the promenade on the East River Park, watching people walk by."
"That's the Park over there," Haley said helpfully to Demrak Jin, pointing across the busy FDR Drive. "Nice view. Lots of people go there for a run."
"Thank you," the Gelydra answered as she peered in that direction. "I still have much to learn about this area."
Sable pointed at her teammates. "Timothy, Haley, Jin... I want you three to stand by on that promenade and watch for Halbrecht. Here's a baseball cap for you, Jin. He saw the two of us and your hair is recognizable even at a distance."
Seeming very reluctant, the Gelydra tugged the cap down over her head and scowled at the world. "If you say so, captain."
"Megan and I are going to search Halbrecht's room," Sable continued. "Between my enhanced perception and her sensors, we should be able to turn up something useful. I wanted to do this before calling the police in to muddle up any clues they wouldn't recognize."
"Sounds like a plan," Timothy Limbo agreed. "We may be on stakeout a while, though, so I suggest we pick up a few sandwiches or something to take with us."
"Use your own judgement, Tim. If you guys sight the enemy, call Megan and myself immediately. We're tackling a beast that just snatches people up off the street like a hawk grabbing a mouse. As soon as we are done searching here, we will come join you three."
Jin got in the back seat of the Nissan, shifting her weapon to one side for comfort as Haley and Timothy climbed in the front. They left the car near the entrance to the park and walked up until the Williamsburg Bridge was directly overhead. There was a solitary vendors pushing his wagon. The three of them had to be satisfied with hot dogs and soft pretzels, as well as cold bottles of Pepsi. Jin ate her food as it was torture but she could not always have raw fish. They strolled past basketball and tennis courts, alongside bicycle paths and jogging lanes.. and everything was deserted.
"Okay, this ghost town effect is creepy," Haley Lawson said after twenty minutes of oppressive silence. "My mom and Lindsay and me used to come here a lot and it was always crowded. People must be really scared."
"Not that I blame them," Timothy said, tossing his bottle in a refuse bin without breaking stride. "I know the media are trying to downplay these deaths, but still..! Word of mouth alone has to be spreading what happened." He went over to plop down on a bench and the two women stood facing him.
"I suppose I'll send a few of my boys out to prowl the area?" he asked. "They can cover territory a lot faster than we can on foot."
"Whoa, finally a good idea. Go for it, Tim." Haley sat down next to him and watched as four of the tiny swirls of energy formed around Timothy and then took off in different directions. "You know, I realize I keep asking you this," she said after a moment, "But just what the hell ARE those things? Are they little life forms that have attached themselves to you like ducklings?"
"I don't know. Nobody knows." The blond young man smiled contentedly as he picked up the images his caspers were relaying to him. "Even the Teachers at Tel Shai can't figure them out. Megan has a theory that my subconscious is manifesting them somehow... that my brain forms them out of gralic force. But she says there's no way to test that."
"They're kind of cute," Haley admitted. "Like hummingbirds that follow you around."
"Nothing yet." Timothy always had a faraway expression in his eyes when the caspers were about. "Still searching..."
Demrak Jin had gone over to stand by the waist-high metal railing that ran along the promenade. Beyond that was a steep embankment and then the East River. Brooklyn could be seen in the distance.
She gazed out at the water with obvious longing.
"How you doing, Jin?" Haley called over at last. "Feel like going for a swim?"
"Always," the Gelydra answered in a barely audible voice. She turned to face her teammates. "I am so far from home."
"Ah, you always got a home with us," said Timothy, still gazing out into empty air. "If you ever... hey. Here he is. He just came down a trail from up on the hill behind us."
Stepping down carefully, holding a cane with a curved handle but not leaning on it, Frederic Halbrecht got his footing on the promenade and started heading toward them. He was wearing that tan raincoat that reached down to his ankles and slippers. The old man walked steadily in their direction with a good solid stride that had no feebleness in it.
"You know, is he wearing anything under that coat? I don't think so," Haley whispered into Timothy's ear.
"Why don't you ask him for a peek?" he whispered back.
"Shut up." Windcatcher sat up straighter on the bench, one hand going to touch her gem through the material of her pullover. She had inadvertently left the cloak in the car but she could still use her powers as long as she had the Melgar jewel itself on her. Beside her, one of the caspers whirled past and settled down near her protectively, like a pet guarding against a strange animal nearby.
As Halbrecht came within twenty feet of them, he nodded politely at the two young people sitting on the bench beneath a thin beech tree. Timothy smiled back at him, but Haley was openly staring and this seemed to alarm the old man. His eyes narrowed, then he saw Demrak Jim swing around from the railing overlooking the East River.
"You!" he hissed. Halbrecht kicked off his slippers and shrugged out of his raincoat. For only a split-second was his unappealing nudity revealed because in an instant his body transformed.
VI.
The creature's torso was bigger than a normal Human, with a wingspan of twelve feet. Its dark blue hide was like leather, lighter in color across the belly. In his winged form, Halbrecht stood on two stumpy legs which ended in taloned four-toed feet. A thick tail which ended in a flat barb whipped angrily from side to side, and the head had a crest extending backward to balance the long vicious beak.
In that instant, even as startled as she was, Haley Lawson noticed the sharp peglike teeth set in the beak, the way the wings were not floppy thin skin but were reinforced with stiff fibers and that the bright red eyes focused on her like a predator on its prey. She was leaping to her feet, but already Demrak Jin had plunged past her with a warlike snarl.
The Gelydra woman had whipped her bone-bladed knife from its sheath across her back. In two quick steps, she was leaping at the monster. The creature's head struck forward, and a pointed beak harder than bone punched into her chest with murderous force. Jin was flung back off her feet to slide along the promenade, rolling and getting back up with the three-foot blade still in her grip. Even as this was happening, Timothy had jumped up off the bench and drawn his resonance pistol. Before he could fire, one of the wings whipped around to crash against him. He was thrown off his feet and over the bench beside him, dazed for a second by the impact.
The monster screeched, a high wavering cry that echoed up and down the promenade. Somewhere nearby a dog began barking frantically. Then, with two powerful beats of its wings, the creature lifted off and rose up into the air. Haley vaguely remembered reading that prehistoric reptiles like this were thought to be too heavy to actually take off the way birds do, that they likely climbed up cliff sides and dropped off to glide long distances. But this brute proved that theory wrong. It was up out of reach instantly, beating those stiff wings with long strokes and then wheeling around to head out over the river.
Running up too late, brandishing her weapon as if to hurl it, Jin shouted, "He will escape us!"
"Oh, I don't think so," Haley snapped. She did not have the cloak with her but she closed her hand on the Gem of Air, thirty thousand years old and ensorcelled by Malberon himself. The Windcatcher concentrated, visualizing what she wanted and drawing on her full will power. From around her body erupted a blast of freezing air summoned from the Antarctic. Gale force winds more than forty degrees below zero howled up to slam into the monster and twirl it wildly far out over the East River.
From where they stood, the three KDF members could clearly see a white layer of frost form over the hideous beast before it dropped straight down into the water with a splash.
"Hah!" yelled Haley Lawson. "Hurt my friends, will you? I'll mess you UP!"
Even as she spoke, Demrak Jin raced past her to vault lightly over the waist-high railing and dive headlong into the river. The Gelydra vanished cleanly beneath the surface and was not seen again, not even bubbles marking her passage. Left behind, Windcatcher gaped at how quickly Jin had disappeared and then wheeled around to find Timothy Limbo getting to his feet and gingerly rubbing his chest where he had been struck.
"Hurry, send some of your caspers down to find her!" Haley said.
"They have trouble moving through water," he answered, bending to pick up the resonance gun. There was still no one else in sight. "Too much resistance. I can have a couple of them skim the surface but we need to call Sable."
"Oh, yeah, right," Haley said. "Sure." Still gazing out over the river, she got her Link out and contacted her captain to report. As it happened, there had not been anything useful to be found in Halbrecht's dismal apartment and both Sable and Megan were on their way to the park at that moment. Five minutes later, they came running up to join Haley and Timothy.
All four stood by the waist-high railing, eyes moving without pause as they looked for any signs of either the monster or their friend. It was a tense vigil. Then, a small dark figure broke the surface less than ten yards from where they stood. Demrak Jin climbed out onto the embankment, sheathing her blade and glaring back at the murky waters. As she made her way up to the railing, Timothy reached over and offered her a helping hand which she surprisingly accepted.
As soon as it was in open air, the Gelydra's stiff white hair dried somehow, even though water slid down off her sharkhide outfit to drip onto the ground. "I could not find the beast," she growled in her low tones. "I will go back and search. I thought maybe you were all wondering what had happened to me."
"Yeah, we were worried," Haley said.
"Worry about that animal," the Gelydra muttered as she turned back toward the water. "I will slice him as if for a feast." But Sable stopped her with a hand on one shoulder.
"Wait. Stay here," the team leader ordered. "Keep ready to go after him. Tim, get as many caspers out over the water as you can. Megan, start taking readings with your suit's sensors. I'm going to use my own perception."
Long past nightfall, the five of them stood there searching the surface of the East River in their various ways. Finally, just after seven, Sable took a deep shuddering breath and came back to normal levels of vision and hearing. "My eyes are burning. I have to stop."
"Even my ghostly buddies are tired," Timothy sighed. "They're usually only active for a few minutes at a stretch."
"I do not like this. I do not like it at all." Demrak Jin stood with arms folded across her thin chest and tapped one foot on the paving. "He may return when we are off-guard."
Sable called her team together, forming a loose huddle. "For the next few days, we will take turns watching his apartment building to see if he returns there. Megan, you want to take first shift tonight?"
"Certainly," the Trom Girl answered. She walked over to pick up the raincoat and slippers where they had been left when Halbrecht had transformed. Keys and wallet were still in a pocket of the faded garment. "I suspect he will be conspicuous if he has survived."
"A naked seventy-year-old man crawling up out the river?" snorted Haley. "Oh, hell yes. Plus, he has no way to get back to his rooms. I bet he'd be on the evening news if he shows up like that. But to be honest, I think he's dead and still frozen solid at the bottom of the river. That's the last we'll see of the Ptero-- you know."
"Oh, you might as well call him a Pterodactyl," said Megan. "What's the use of fighting it?"
6/20/2016