bonus 2 (1 of 3)

It had been a terrible month for Reyna Kayree.

She was home, sitting at her desk in a niche right next to the window. It was the middle of the night. Streetlamps barely illuminated the road below, while in the sky the red planet Mars flickered faintly, outshined by the stars. Reyna sat in the dark as well, the only source of light being the cold blue glow of her laptop.

She was stuck writing reports and reading files for the biggest case of her career. Last year, when it finally kicked off, she had been certain it would become a huge success. Instead, it turned into a mess, testing her patience with every passing day. Reyna leaned back in her chair – an ergonomic work chair adjusted to her posture – but then abruptly stood up, feeling sleep creeping in the moment she closed her tired eyes. She took off her round glasses and rubbed her face. Should she go to the kitchen and make another cup of coffee? How many had she already had today? Five, six? It was well past midnight. Normal people were already deep in sleep, curled up in bed with their loved ones.

Well, Reyna had a bed, but no one waiting for her in it. No loved ones, no sweet dreams. She only had her job – and she wasn’t sure for how much longer she could keep it either. Sometimes she seriously thought about giving up on everything and quitting. She lived in constant stress, fighting with her superiors, her subordinates, and her opponents in this case. She saw no reward at the end of it. What was even the point of all this? She gained nothing, except her hair slowly starting to turn gray.

She went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. It didn’t wash away the fatigue, but it brought a bit of freshness into her tangled thoughts. Reyna massaged her forehead as she walked back to her desk.

How did it end up like this? When she got her hands on the Dismantler and all those devoured undead connected to the Order of Mercy, she thought it would be a game changer. She had proof that the reanimation project existed, and that the Order had been working on it behind the government’s back, luring real people in and erasing all records of their existence. It sounded like something impossible to deny.

Well, she was wrong. Even with something like that exposed, it all came down to who was willing to put in more resources. To Reyna’s disappointment, the Order of Mercy seemed ready to spend everything they had to protect their project.

And she had made mistakes along the way too, right from the beginning. When she arrived at the site where the Dismantler fought the Order’s people, she hadn’t known he was already dead. Gone for good. That giant man, the one who escaped from the Order, was supposed to be undead, but even the undead could be disposed of, as she found out later. That was the first sobering blow she received.

Reyna put her glasses back on. Through the window she saw a police car race down the street, sirens wailing. It reminded her of Natalie Lance. Sometimes, when Reyna was in an especially bad mood, she would blame the detective for all her misfortunes. It was Natalie whom Reyna found in the back alley where the Dismantler clashed with the Order. And she let her go.

At the time, she assumed the detective had been part of the police group assigned to hand over the body of another unidentified undead to the Order. She thought Natalie Lance didn’t know much beyond the handover, but that turned out to be far from the truth.

She had met with Natalie Lance several times, trying to get as much out of her as possible. Once Reyna realized the Dismantler would never wake up again, she pressured the detective to tell her why he was dead. That was when she learned that the Cursed Blade of Avalon could neutralize the undead. The very same blade that had been stolen from Lady Anneta’s Foundation during the charity event at Mausolo Museum. According to Natalie, it possessed supernatural power, and anyone stabbed with it had their soul separated from the body and sealed inside the blade.

It sounded like a drug-addled delirium, but Reyna accepted it. That was the point of DEAD – Department for Evaluate, Analyse and Disclose – to investigate matters that seemed ridiculous on the surface. Besides, Reyna focused more on the practical side of that revelation than on the mythical one.

The blade could kill an undead.

That piece of information also revealed another interesting detail. Reyna suspected Natalie Lance had been in contact with the young man who escaped from the detectives at the hospital. He had been at the museum when the blade was stolen. Perhaps he had also been in the back alley, hiding in the truck Natalie drove away in. The detective never admitted it, but Reyna was almost certain.

Who was that young man, and what was he doing now? Was he the same John Doe who had appeared in the city, flying above the streets and firing his arms forward like grappling hooks? Someone had done something similar during the charity event, saving a female server from breaking her neck. Reyna hadn’t seen it herself, but the fact that the young man had been present spoke louder than any testimony.

How much did Natalie Lance really know? Reyna tried talking to Natalie’s partner, Chad Haytham, but either he truly had no idea, or he was loyal enough to keep quiet. Either way, the conversation led nowhere.

On her laptop, Reyna turned on the video recording from the hospital. On the screen appeared the corridor, a guard standing in front of a closed door. At the time, behind that door, Reyna and the detectives had been questioning the young man who had been found miraculously alive after fleeing from the morgue.

At first, the footage showed nothing unusual. Then, without warning, the guard collapsed. The door opened slowly, and the young man rushed out into the corridor, disappearing around the corner. The camera didn’t show what had happened inside the room, but Reyna knew that she and both detectives had been lying there unconscious, knocked out by some kind of sleeping agent, just like the guard.

She let out a quiet sigh. Every time she watched the recording, the same thought crept in. That the young man must have opened the door himself. Everyone who saw the video thought the same. Even now, Reyna caught herself wanting to believe it.

But she already knew the truth.

She set her glasses on the desk and took another pair from the drawer. At first glance they looked ordinary, but a closer look revealed the difference. The lenses contained built-in transparent microcircuits that emitted a specific electromagnetic field, allowing the eyes to register things that normally remained invisible. The temples of the glasses also housed miniature sound emitters, though Reyna had not yet tested what kind of frequencies they could pick up. The important part was that the lenses worked.

She restarted the recording from the beginning.

This time, wearing these specific glasses, the scene unfolded differently. Just before the guard collapsed, an unfamiliar woman in a black dress appeared in the corridor, her hair so dark it shimmered with a faint violet sheen. The guard looked straight past her, as if she wasn’t there. The woman raised her arm, and a thin cloud of pink gas poured from her palm. It wrapped around the guard, dropping him instantly, then drifted through the door into the room where Reyna, the detectives, and the young man had been.

When Reyna had been inside the room, the gas had been invisible. She had only noticed a faint floral scent. By the time its sweetness turned sickening, it was already too late.

In the recording, the woman in black opened the door and walked away down the corridor. A moment later the young man, unaffected by the gas, ran out into the hallway and escaped, just as he always did in the footage.

Reyna stopped the recording and removed the glasses. They were only a prototype, and the strain on her eyes was immediate. She had worn them for just a few minutes, yet a dull pressure was already building behind her temples. The research department promised the next version would be ready in a few days, one that could be worn much longer without side effects.

It would be interesting to try them out not only on video, but on the real thing as well. That mysterious woman in the recording raised too many questions. Who was she? Was she a member of the Order of Mercy? Had the Order developed something that allowed people to turn invisible? That, combined with the reanimation project, made Reyna uneasy about what exactly the Order was planning to do with it.

If only she could force the Order of Mercy into a corner. Sadly, at the pace the case was moving, the ending was already in sight. Just not the one she had hoped for.

No matter the evidence, no matter the implications, it looked like the Order of Mercy was going to get away with everything. Reyna had taken the case to court with the support of Lady Anetta’s Foundation, but with every private hearing she attended, the situation only grew worse. Somehow, the Order’s side always knew what she was going to present to the judge, what arguments she would use, what direction she intended to steer the narrative.

Every damn time. The unnamed informant she had inside the Order also went silent after the Dismantler incident, probably exposed. It was too perfect. So perfect that Reyna had begun to suspect someone from her own team was feeding information to the Order.

Still feeling the strain in her eyes, Reyna stepped out onto the balcony for some fresh air. The night was warm, though even if it hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have noticed. She was still wearing her work clothes, having forgotten to change into a nightgown, or at least into something more comfortable for being at home. She also needed a shower. And sleep was out of the question. At this point, going to bed would only make it harder to wake up later.

She forced her thoughts back to the possibility of a spy. There were four people who answered directly to her. Nadir, Laura, Donavan, and Amber.

If she had to choose, Nadir would be the most likely candidate. He was always complaining about work, always talking about climbing the career ladder. He disrespected Reyna and dragged down everyone else’s motivation. He would be an easy target for someone willing to offer him exactly what he wanted in exchange for inside information. The man lacked both discipline and any real sense of loyalty. That didn’t mean the others couldn’t betray the Foundation, but Reyna would be genuinely surprised if one of them did.

Still, she had to be thorough. Laura was still involved with Nadir, even though they both believed they were keeping it a secret. If Nadir was the mole, Laura might have been influenced by him as well. She was the only one who attended every hearing together with Reyna, which gave reason for doubt. On the other hand, Laura was the one constantly proposing ideas and tactics on how to corner the Order. Some of them were actually good, and Reyna had to admit she hadn’t thought of them herself. Why would Laura go out of her way to come up with those if her real goal was to pass information to the Order and sabotage the case? She could simply do nothing, and that alone would be enough to bring Reyna down.

I should give her some false information and see if the Order takes the bait, Reyna thought as she left the balcony and stepped back inside the apartment.

Next was Donavan. He had been in Reyna’s team the longest and was the most loyal of the group. If only his competence matched that loyalty. Unfortunately, out of all of them, his performance was the weakest. Donavan was clumsy and forgetful. Reyna doubted he could manage being a mole even if he tried. He would sooner leak information by accident without even realizing it. She could easily imagine that happening.

Finally, there was Amber, the youngest and the most recent addition to the team. She had been working in DEAD for over a year now. She started as an intern, and after the internship ended, she chose to stay for some reason. To gather intel, perhaps? Amber was promising, and she did everything that was expected of her. However, recently she had started coming to work late, and it had become impossible to reach her outside working hours. Still, since she continued to complete her assignments without any problems, Reyna didn’t press her too much. In fact, it was Amber who first noticed the irregularities in the hospital camera feed. The development of the vision glasses had started partly thanks to her.

Was it possible Amber already knew about the tech? Reyna was certain the Order of Mercy possessed something similar. She had seen their people use it before. Irie Brazner, a young pale woman from the Order, had worn glasses very similar to the ones Reyna had now. Before that, Reyna had never seen Irie with glasses. Her eyesight seemed perfectly fine.

Speaking of Irie, Reyna never found out what had happened to the girl. After they crossed paths in the back alley where the Dismantler appeared, it was as if Irie had vanished, and nobody seemed to know where she went.

Which was a shame, because as someone who had been present when the Dismantler was killed, she could have provided valuable details if put under oath. The undead members of the Order who had been slaughtered by the Dismantler and then regenerated were useless as witnesses. There was something wrong with them. They seemed alive and well, but their condition was no different from that of people in a coma.

Those who had kept their brains intact after encountering the Dismantler had some kind of control devices connected to them, but the devices self-destructed as soon as Lady Anetta’s Foundation tried to analyze them. The leading theory was that the devices were needed to control the subjects, but there was no way to confirm it.

Still, by studying those undead, the Foundation learned that they could exist without nutrition, they didn’t get sick, and their bodies would heal even after exposure to radiation, heat, cold, and anything else the Foundation’s scientists could come up with. Nobody could explain how or why it worked, but the results spoke for themselves.

Reyna sat down on the sofa in the living room and let out an irritated growl. Every night she found herself thinking about the same things over and over again. What was the point if nothing new came out of it? She was just running in circles, falling deeper into an endless rabbit hole.

Deeper and deeper and deeper…

When her phone rang, it took her a moment to realize she had fallen asleep. The sofa was so soft and comfortable that she hadn’t been able to resist it. Disoriented, Reyna looked around for the sound. The ringing stopped, only to start again a second later. After wandering around the apartment in a half-dreaming state, she finally found the phone on her desk. She brought the screen close to her face – she had forgotten to put her glasses back on – and saw Natalie Lance’s name on the display.

That was unusual. Why would the detective call her this late at night? Why would she feel the need to call Reyna at all?

“I wasn’t expecting your call, Detective Lance,” Reyna cleared her throat as she answered. “It’s a little too late for phone calls. Or maybe a little too early, don’t you think?”

“There’s no time for that, Kayree,” Natalie Lance said, going straight to the point as always. It was something Reyna liked about her, though she would never admit it. “It’s urgent. I don’t know who else to call at this hour who would actually listen and do what I ask.”

“Which is?”

“We need to evacuate the city.”

Reyna blinked, trying to process the words. Evacuate the city? What kind of nonsense was that? The real Natalie Lance would never call her with a request like that.

It’s a dream. I’m still asleep, Reyna thought tiredly. There was no time for this. She still had too much work to do. Another hearing was waiting for her in the morning.

“Are you still there, Kayree?”

“Yeah, I’m listening,” Reyna replied. Dream or not, she was curious how Natalie was going to explain this sudden demand.

“I understand this might sound crazy,” Natalie said. That was putting it mildly. “But I have a source, and it told me that in the near future, three days at most, there’s going to be a major catastrophe. Something that will take a lot of lives. If we want to prevent that, we need to convince the authorities and the public to declare an emergency and start evacuation procedures.”

“Okay, Natalie, hold on, hold on,” Reyna said, rubbing her forehead. She was completely lost. Enough time had passed for her to realize she wasn’t dreaming, which made this even harder to understand. Was Natalie drunk? She didn’t sound like it. Then what was all this about evacuation? “Why exactly do you think I would help you?”

“Because you care.”

Reyna pursed her lips and widened her eyes slightly. What Natalie really lacked was tact.

“You’re from Lady Anetta’s Foundation,” Natalie continued, unaware of the impression she was making. “Your organization has influence. If you tell the authorities the threat is real, they’ll believe you. And you can make it happen much faster than I ever could.”

“Perhaps that’s true, but you’re forgetting one thing. You still need to explain everything to me first. Why am I even listening to you? Why shouldn’t I just hang up?”

Natalie fell silent on the other end.

“You have to give me something, Detective Lance,” Reyna pressed, folding her free arm under her chest.

She was losing patience. She was already considering ending the call when Natalie finally spoke again.

“Do you remember our first meeting?” Natalie asked. “At the hospital?”

Reyna grew cautious.

“Yes. What about it?”

“You mentioned the possibility of an invisible third party. Someone who might have been responsible for the sleeping gas that knocked us out,” Natalie paused. “What if I told you I know more about that?”

Now that was getting interesting.

“Go on.”

“There are things I kept from you,” Natalie said. Reyna suppressed a scoff. As if she didn’t know that. “Things you wouldn’t believe unless you saw them yourself. I’m talking about the supernatural. Spirits. Grim reapers. Does that sound crazy?”

Reyna closed her eyes slowly. This was the Cursed Blade of Avalon level mysticism all over again.

“What do you think?” she said dryly. “Of course it does.”

“Good. Because it is. But it’s also real. You could say I’m connected to someone… to a being that guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife. She’s usually invisible to people, but when their time of death gets close, they start seeing her. Lately, too many people have started seeing her. According to her, that means a disaster is coming.”

“Her?” Reyna’s voice betrayed her for a moment. Was that a coincidence? She thought of the woman in black from the hospital footage.

“Yes.”

“And how is it that you see her, Detective? Are you saying you’re about to die?”

“I’m not, thankfully,” Natalie hesitated. “I don’t see her myself, and I don’t speak to her directly. But I’m friends with someone who does.”

“And who would that be? Perhaps that young man with one arm who escaped from us?”

Reyna bit her lip while waiting for the answer. Souls of the dead. Grim reapers. The afterlife. Normally she would have dismissed it outright, but this was exactly the kind of thing DEAD existed for. And maybe, just maybe, this would fill in the missing pieces of her case.

“Yes. Though he managed to recover his left arm…”

Reyna clenched her fist in a sharp, triumphant motion. Finally, some progress!

If evacuating the city was the price, so be it. Natalie Lance had started talking, and now there was no way Reyna would let the conversation end without getting everything out of her. She straightened up, forcing herself fully awake. If she was in the stronger position now, she had to use it, make her demands clear, and make sure the detective agreed to them.

At the same time, her mind was already working ahead, calculating which strings she would need to pull to make an evacuation like that actually possible.

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