They were now on the wrong side of the Bay Bridge, in that section of the city near the docks that the tourists never went. These were industrial warehouses, real working docks that smelled like trash and tar and rotting sea weed. The area of the city around them was run-down, messy, smelled strange, and everything was covered in bright graffiti. Distant police sirens wailed mournfully under the clear blue California sky, and stray seagulls made thin raucous cries.

  Dusty climbed out of the dumpster with the swift nimbleness of his kind, hopping lightly over the edge with martial artist level skill. He landed on the alley pavement with his tangled white hair in a messy cloud around his face and shoulders. There were bits of trash in it. He pushed the unruly locks away from his pale gold eyes and nodded. “Yup. It was here.” He dusted his hands together, then swatted the bits of junk off his wrinkled clothing.

  “Find any body parts?” Scott asked dryly, hands in pockets as he roamed around kicking cans.

  “Body parts?” Dave barked, standing up straight, “What do you mean, body parts?”

  “He’s joking, Dave,” Charis said without much conviction. She was busily waving what looked like a strange little crystal popsickle stick up and down a wall. In fact it was a Veil amplifier which allowed her to see the traces of passing spiritual beings with her secondary vision. When she’d tried to explain that to David she’d gotten a totally blank look, so she ignored him and kept searching without him.

  “He didn’t sound like he was joking.” Dave was uneasy again. She knew he was only hanging out with them because he had gotten his hopes up that she’d go out with him. She let him keep thinking that. After all… he wasn’t so bad looking now that he was shaved, clean, and had slightly too-tight pants on.

  Miradon sniffed the wall, bringing his long British nose to within centimeters of the bricks in bizarre beast-like fascination. He was always doing animalistic things like that. “Hmm. It went this way, all right,” Miradon said, straightening up and pointing down the narrow alley. “Straight through here, not long ago.”

  “You sure?” Dusty asked with a frown.

  “The local dogs scarpered sharpish—tails between their legs, proper spooked. You can still smell the panic on ’em.” He tapped the side of his nose with one gloved finger. “And underneath that… something a damn sight nastier.”

  Dusty walked over to the spot Miradon had investigated and looked closely at the ground, as if he could see what Miradon was smelling. “Hmm, yah, looks like it.”

  Miradon adjusted his top hat with a theatrical tug, already striding off down the alley. “Come on, lads. Let’s not keep the bugger waiting.”

  “This way, guys!” Dusty followed, dropping his skateboard and rolling after the Professor.

  All the rest jogging along after the two. Charis abandoned her search eagerly, dropping the crystal rod back into a shirt pocket and running along daintily in her high heels to catch up.

  Dave scratched at the back of his neck, sighing deeply. He followed last of all, less than enthusiastic about this adventure so far. First, he wasn’t convinced they were official government Space Force anything, and second they’d been roaming around the worst parts of northern San Francisco for hours and it was hot, hotter than it was supposed to be next to the ocean at this time of year. She could tell he still hadn’t decided yet whether they were crazy or not. She beckoned to him, and Dave hurried to walk alongside Charis. “What kind of invisible thing did you say this thing was, again?”

  “Actually it’s not invisible, that’s the whole problem,” Dusty muttered, eyes on the pavement.

  Miradon answered cheerfully, “Oh, it’s a proper mutant demonised beastie, escaped from Rune. Enshi-crafted job, their take on a South American goat-sucker — otherwise known as a chupacabra. Least that’s what we reckon. When the Enshi first turned up with Rune, they got it into their heads to turn all the invisible nasties round here into proper physical ones, for reasons best known to themselves. Managed it with a few, didn’t they? And this particular chupacabra’s a right big brute — not your common-or-garden sort, of course — but a mazik-inspired, Enshi-enhanced experiment.”

  “You don’t say.” Dave drawled, then pushed Charis away from the others and lowered his voice. “Goat-sucker? Charis, are you sure these people know what they’re doing?”

  Charis calmed him down quickly, “Ah, what he means is that it’s an enraged animal that we need to find and put down before it hurts someone. It’s just like a rabid wolf. Don’t worry, I’ve done this before. A lot of times,” she whispered back confidently.

  “Which is it, an invisible body-snatcher or a goat-sucking enraged animal?”

  She hesitated to answer that. Finally she just grinned brilliantly and grabbed his hand, dragging him along after her briefly before letting him come on his own. It was best not to explain too much at this point.

  San Francisco was having summer today. It did this randomly now and then. One day out of a week would be blazingly hot, then the next day the sky would change its mind and return to a moody cold fog, sulking down drizzle or blowing angry howling wind through the streets.

  Charis tried to enjoy the sun—after all she hadn’t been to earth very often during the last ten years—although the heat just made the streets stink. The smell of rotting garbage and human urine was everywhere, broken glass and discarded needles and condoms littering the gutters. She attempted to look up and around, not down, ignoring whatever it was that she stepped on. At least her pretty shoes couldn’t get messed up due to the elogic bindings she had on them. It was small consolation.

  The group of five came around the corner to discover a small crowd of pedestrians gawking at the entrance of the next alley. Scott and Miradon, in the lead, slowed. “This doesn’t look good, guys,” Scott said. The alley was taped off and a police man was telling people that they all needed to leave and go back to their jobs.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Stay here. I’m going to get a look,” Scott told them, jogging ahead before anyone could protest.

  “Wait here,” Charis told the others, who instantly gathered around her. They all leaned back against the industrial brick building they were next to, as if hanging out in the cruddy part of town was perfectly normal. Miradon took off his top hat and flicked bits of grime from it fastidiously.

  Scott peeked into the alley, then came running back, floor-length red coat and red cravat fluttering. With the eight inch spiky hair and the huge gold hoop in his ear, he looked extremely out of place. But that was just Scott. Charis smiled at him.

  “There is an ambulance and something like a body bag just went inside,” Scott panted. “Yah, it’s definitely been here.”

  She could feel Dave’s sudden discomfort at the mention of a body bag, but he froze before he could protest. He was staring at a point across the street with the look of one who has just seen death itself.

  Charis quickly zeroed in on the same spot, seeing only strangely dark shadows using her Veil sight. The usual little demons were scampering around like rats, but they were all over this part of the city and Dave hadn’t done more than shudder at the sight of them all day. This was something worse. Something scaring him pale.

  He poked Miradon. “Guys…” It took him a moment to get their attention. The rest of the group, except for Charis, were fixated on the police line.

  “Guys…” Dave took a slow step back, until his back hit the building behind them, “I think I found your goat sucker.”

  “What?” Charis asked, at once alert. She stared at the shadows he was interested in, trying to make it out. Something… but it was hidden, even from veil-sight.

  “Huh?” Dusty turned around. “Where?”

  Dave spoke slowly, through clenched teeth. “It’s right there. Looking at us.”

  Dusty shaded his eyes against the sun and stared for a while. “Where. I don’t see anything.”

  “Me neither. It must be shielded, somehow,” Charis muttered. “It’s definitely using some kind of Veil shadow ability. None of us can see it. That’s why it’s evaded capture for so long… they lied to us. It really can go invisible!”

  Dave made a small gesture toward the alley shadows across the street, his voice terrified and choked down to a rough whisper. “Right… there. I think it’s… hungry.”

  “Wait… I think I see a nexus or something, it’s very faint…” Dusty looked at the shadow then suddenly in the invisible world he lit up, the flare of his elogic power burning bright, a rippling white aura of fire faint and flickering around him streaming into the sky. If anyone should be able to see the Veiled beast, it would be Dusty. He was their Revelation man.

  But before Dusty could get a bead on it, Dave lets out a deep breath of relief. “Thank God. It’s gone. Holy shit. That wasn’t a goat sucker, it was a gorilla sucker!”

  “Wait! Did it leave?” Dusty jumped onto his skateboard at once, excited, and skated after it at full speed. The rest were right on his heels.

  “Don’t let it get away!” Charis yelled, calling the charge as she easily took the lead, sprinting far faster than any girl should have been able to in four inch heels, racing away from the police crowd toward the other side of the street.

  “Wait!” Dave made a leap toward the albino kid to stop him, but Dusty was too fast. “Wait! Are you all insane? That thing was six feet tall! On all fours!” He ran after them, bewildered.

  “GET IT!” Scott yelled. “CHARGE!”

  A wild insanity seemed to take them all, born out of years of experience. With one mind (except for poor Dave who just trailed along behind) the group of four strange misfits sprinted across the street and down the alley after the giant mutated goat-sucker, Charis laughing in pure delight. The prick of adrenaline tingled under their skin, making their hearts race light and wild.

  Charis clenched her fists and felt the burning, crackling flash of power building in the core of her being, slowly radiating outward to mingle with the invisible aura of fire that surrounded all four of them now. Their power became a filmy cloud of rippling white fire streaming back from them, four comets with eyes beginning to glow white. But only someone who could see past the Veil could see it.

  Dave was right on her heels, convinced his new friends had a death wish. He couldn’t quite see the aura of white fire that was building around them because his gift was a bit weary after the workout Charis had given it in the plaza, but did see a shimmer in the air ahead of the group.

  “Where is it! Do you see it now?” Dusty called to Dave, aware that the Normal could, for some reason, see into the Veil far better than even his Nythian trained eyes.

  “You can’t go after that thing with nothing but a skateboard! Christ, you’d need a bazooka!”

  Charis sighed with exasperation, realizing that her new buddy Dave wasn’t up to this sort of thing just yet. He still believed that the world ran on the rules he’d been taught from childhood. She had to get his attention off of what he didn’t know and onto what he did know.

  Slowing quickly she grabbed Dave’s arm, dragging him to a stop behind the others. Breathing quickly she demanded, “Look, you were able to see that thing. Concentrate. Think about how it looked. Can you focus so you can see it in your mind?”

  “As if I could ever forget all that drool and teeth and greasy hair!” The mundane fellow looked disgusted.

  “Now, where is it now? Think about it… focus… which direction?” She willed him to help her. Come on, Dave, stop thinking so much and just use the gift. You have it, use it!

  “I’m not leading you to it to become it’s lunch! You’re all insane!”

  “Pleeeeeeease?” She jiggled where she stood, doing a little dance of childish longing.

  He looked at her with horrified disbelief. “No!”

  The others, who were now well ahead, called back, “come on guys, you are holding us up!”

  “Charis, I don’t know how you fell in with these whackos, but you need to get a new job!” His blue eyes flashed with annoyance.

  “Look,” Charis suddenly turned dead serious, dropping the cute games, “if we don’t find this thing it will eat another person, okay? Do you want that? Huh? Do you??”

  “Another person?”

  “What do you think they were putting into the ambulance back there, mister wizard? A dog?”

  “Jesus H. Christ, that’s it, I’m taking you… somewhere else.” He tried to pull her in the opposite direction. “We’ll call animal control, or the Marines or something. You are not chasing that Thing.”

  “We are the only ones who can, Dave!” She yanked her arm out of his grip. Her voice was dead-serious as she stood her ground. He had to believe her. She planted her fists on her hips, the others running on without them. “Nobody normal can handle this thing. Believe me. We were trained for this. We were made for this. If we let it get away now, it could take us days to hunt it down again, and by then it might snack on a few more homeless guys. You just proved that normal people can’t even see this thing most of the time. It can turn invisible at will. Hell, I can’t even see it, and I can see most things! It’s super dangerous! We have to stop it!”

  Dave made exasperated, stressed sounds. “Tell me you have some kind of weapon that can hurt that thing!”

  “Yes! Believe me, four of us can whack this thing like… like… a bug zapper with a fly, okay? Trust me! We’re special agents, Dave. We DO this. This is our job. We find bad guys and bad guy things, and we take them out. Don’t you want to get back at the Things that chased you? Don’t you want to kill Them?” She leveled her gaze at him and waited, pressing on him with her force of will. Come on, Dave. Work with me here. “Then help us.”

  Dave scrubbed his fingers through his hair unhappily. Finally he succumbed, and pointed down the alley they were in the middle of. “That way to the end and it took a left.”

  She squealed in pure excitement, grabbed him up into a full-body hug, and planted a big goopy lip-gloss kiss on his cheek. Then she latched onto his arm to drag him after the others. “LEFT GUYS, LEFT!” She yelled.