My lips were chapped from the sun. The skin I would have considered perfect a few months ago began to sting. As it turned out, even unsung skin could go dry from long exposure to the heat.

  I wiped a trail of sweat from my forehead and took a swig from my water bottle. The last few drops of it brushed against my lips like divine ichor.

  Just as soon as the pleasure arrived, it washed down my throat. And I was still far from satisfied. I looked to my sides. Our band of soldiers and escortees had grown ragged during the days walk. None but officer Nyla looked to be in great condition. Worst of all was of course the old and the weak.

  With professor Gerrard being both, he didn’t have a great time. His assistant, Stewie, supported him with a shoulder. Their water ran out long ago, I’d have let them take some of mine if Nyla hadn’t stopped me. Said it was more important us soldiers were fit to take on threats.

  We’d left the city a few hours ago. The sun still hung high in the sky. Since fighting them off a day ago, we hadn’t stumbled upon any signs of fangs, but Nyla urged both me and Quinn to stay on the lookout for them.

  They wouldn’t be hard to spot if they dared approach here. The city may have been a maze of razed buildings and monsters, but outside it things became wholly different. Sand and gravel. A road that stretched far into the horizon. Sparse trees decorated the roadside. There were no hills, no lush vegetation. Nothing obscured our sight as we walked along the road. Nor did anything shield us from the heat.

  The civilians had held out longer than expected, but were showing signs of fatigue already. Yet night was still far off. Nyla spared her group a glance and sighed. “Quinn,” she ordered. “Where are we?”

  Quinn hurried over and unfurled the map. She’d given up on using the GPS shortly after leaving the mall. Their voices grew hushed as they pointed and discussed the map.

  “Still no bars,” Daryl complained to the other soldiers defending our rear. He reached his phone high above his head and squinted his eyes to make out the screen. The thing looked comically small in his grip. Like a toy would in the hands of a gorilla.

  Stewie muttered something under his breath to my side. I raised an eyebrow at him and he hid his face from mine. “What?” I pushed.

  “Nothing.” His voice came grating and rough.

  Gerrard groaned and eased himself off Stewie’s shoulder. He slumped down into the sand and burrowed his hands through the warm layers to find the cold below.

  “They won’t get a connection,” he murmured and nodded to the sky. “The veil has unfurled over the area like an umbrella. All signals transmitted via antennas will fail. They aren’t meant to withstand magic, so they cannot. The same goes for the GPS. Satellite signals cannot make their way to us. Not yet.”

  “Not yet?”

  “Finding a solution is the reason we were sent here,” he explained and shoved his hands deeper with a satisfied smile. “If all communication in the world suddenly stopped, the consequences would be catastrophic. The world economy would crash. A lot of very powerful people want to avoid that.”

  Quinn folded the map shut and Nyla turned to the group. “Right,” she announced with a clap. “We’ve got a little further to go until our stop for the night, an hour or so depending on our pace. There will be water waiting for us there. Daryl, take stock of the remaining water and distribute it evenly among those who need it most. The rest of you, get back on your feet. We leave in two.”

  I helped the professor up to his feet. The two of them got another mouthful of water from Daryl as he passed.

  Daryl continued on his way. I let the two of them catch their breaths before asking, “So this—it’s all for money?” I creased my brow into a frown.

  Gerrard burst out laughing. “Money? Hardly. I do this for the good of my children, and their children. I couldn't give a rats ass about the economy.”

  He looked me up and down, recognizing the confusion in my eyes.

  “Without communication, the world would devolve into chaos, no place would be safe. I may not be long for this world, but they have their whole lives ahead of them.” He rummaged through a pocket for his wallet, opened it and fished out a faded photograph.

  He was younger then, his crown full of brown hair. He was huddled together with two children. Under one arm he held a boy holding a book under his arm and flashing a toothy smile. Under the other, a girl with cuts and bruises covering her knees.

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  She cried in the photo, yet the was something charming about it still. Like it was a window into the frantic life of his family.

  “Your kids?” I asked.

  “Yeah, aren’t they cute? They grew up so quick. Both of them have kids of their own now.” He pointed at the girl. “Mariah’s actually employed by COBA too. I don’t know how she manages the workload, really. She’s got three little ones of her own.”

  A fatherly smile spread across his face, his fatigue seemed to dissipate. It was clear for all to see that they were his world.

  “She would have been the one to go if Gerrard didn’t take it upon himself,” Stewie muttered. His tone sharp like a blade.

  Gerrard patted his shoulder to ease his mind and smiled. “And there’s no place I’d rather be. I’d rather die making a difference, than live for no reason.”

  I snorted and proudly proclaimed, “You’re not going to die. Not as long as we’re here.”

  “I appreciate the confidence, son. But you have not seen what’s made its way into the world. We have.”

  “And you’ve not seen what I have.”

  He shook his head in dejection. “That I have not.”

  The mood turned somber, and stayed so for the rest of the walk. Quinn gestured to the sky up ahead and called something to Nyla.

  I followed their looks and had to shield my eyes from the sun with my hand. Up high, birds circled us. No more than ten, but it was hard to say for sure with the moisture of the sand and the heat playing tricks with me. Afterimages fluttered in their wake.

  “Scourge?” I whispered to the professor.

  He smirked. “I thought you were the expert?”

  “Smartass.”

  I tuned in to see if the threads moved weirdly. “Shit,” I muttered. They were too far, the threads disconnected from the weave surrounding us.

  The other civilians saw them too. Hushed voices speculated, and rippled from one end of the group to the other. The soldiers anxiously let then hands wander to their weapons in anticipation. Yet the birds stayed far out of range for even me. Watching. Waiting.

  We saw the contour of our mark paint the horizon an hour later. A military camp with watchtowers raised in each corner of the star formation and deep moats dug in front of the erected sandbag walls.

  The group sighed a breath of relief at the sight of it. Birds still flocked above us, but their weighty presence lightened at the thought of water and backup.

  We approached, a weary crowd of sun kissed soldiers and civilians. All but I and Nyla had chapped lips and weak voices. I separated myself from the professor and his assistant, jogging to catch up with Nyla and Quinn in the front.

  They nodded at me as I came up shoulder to shoulder with them.

  “Something’s wrong,” Nyla whispered. “They should have sent out vehicles to intercept by now.”

  “And scattered the fucking birds,” Quinn added with a dissatisfied grunt. She wore a large stain of white on her shoulder.

  “Still can’t see ’em?”

  “Nah, fucking sand over there’s blowing like there’s a storm. Can’t see shit.” Quinn squinted her eyes and gave up with a shrug and a shake of her head.

  “Shit,” Nyla spat and clenched her fingers. “Shit!” she repeated.

  “Can just be a sand storm, can’t it?” I asked with a shrug.

  The two of them looked at me as if I just made a bad joke.

  “Nah,” Quinn finally broke the silence. “Too convenient for that to be the case. We need to send a squad to stake it out, but can’t spare too many. Birds might attack then.” She pointed to the sky.

  “Scourge?” I asked.

  Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Yah. Thought you’d be the first to notice.”

  I shook my head. “Turns out my blessing isn’t very effective at spotting flyers.”

  “Didn’t get ’em in the caves I take it?”

  I nodded. And she took it in stride and gave me a hard clap on the arm. “Well, don’t take it too hard. No one can be good at everything.” She flashed her teeth in a wide grin and brushed a brushed a hand through her short spiked hair.

  I chuckled. “Suppose not.”

  “Focus,” Nyla snapped.

  “Sorry, Cap,” Quinn said robotically and regained her composure. She nodded at me. “We could send Starboy here. Strong enough to get out alive. Probably.”

  I rolled my eyes. Her confidence in me was flattering.

  Nyla eyed me. “You up for it? I’ll let you take two soldiers of your choosing.”

  I groaned. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

  “Of course you do.” Nyla snorted. “You’re not my soldier, and I won’t force you to do a thing. Contract forbids me.”

  “But this is the most efficient way of going about it,” Quinn added with a cough. “Birds look quick. Probably too quick for you to manage protecting the worms.”

  “Which means I can’t pick Nyla to go with me.”

  “Obviously.”

  “What about Quinn?”

  “Need her to tell me if you croak,” Nyla muttered, eyes glued to the circling birds. She tapped her ear. “She’s got good hearing.”

  Quinn puffed out her chest proudly at the comment.

  “What are you, a dog?” I asked the tomboyish woman.

  She scowled. “The fuck?”

  “Good nose, good ears. I’m guessing you’ve got good eyes too?”

  She stared me down.

  Nyla sighed. “You really need to stop watching people like that.”

  “Like what.”

  “Like you’re looking for ways to kill them.”

  “Whatever,” I grunted. “I’ll take Daryl and that shit grinned girl,” I said and pointed. She was a short and thin woman, the opposite of Daryl. She was always by his side, never letting him stray out of her sight. I figured they were a couple, or she wanted them to be. Her blessing was still a mystery to me, but if the opposites attract deal was true then she’d be a magic slinger of some kind.

  Of course I didn’t put any confidence in the assumption. It was baseless. She was the only one in the group I hadn’t yet seen show even a hint of her blessing. And if she always stayed close to Daryl, then she was one I wanted to guard myself against.

  Maybe I really did look for ways to beat people.

  “Sure that’s a good idea?” Quinn asked with a cocked eyebrow. “Dude hates your fucking guts.”

  “So I wasn’t imagining things,” I joked. It was clear as day for all to see. Yet the joke didn’t crack their serious facade. I sighed. “He’s sturdy. Good at sending into unknown dangers,” I explained with a shrug. “Don’t want to take people that I think might die.”

  Nyla mulled over my reasoning. “Okay,” she grunted. She turned and waved the two over. “Daryl, Julia.”

  The two sent worried glances my way while Nyla explained our objective.

  On paper, it was all really simple.

  Get in, find out what the hell is going on, get out.

  In practice, I feared things would turn out much, much harder. Like they always did.

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