I hadn't told Dad or Northmarch how beat up I'd gotten a few days ago, and fact was I wasn't quite a hundred percent yet. Even sitting down I was breathing hard. The air was still and heavy, unpleasantly moist on my face like cold breath. It smelled entirely different from that of the city, without notes of fryer oil or exhaust or crumbling stone. There was only the tang of split stems, the decadence of black loam, the cloying bait-fragrance of the carnivorous vines, and beneath it all the rich, fecund stench of rot.

"How much farther until we see your friend?" my dad murmured to Northmarch. There was something about this place, the rustle of leaves, the faint buzz of insects, the scritching of roots pushing deeper into dirt. Something about the darkness and the close confines and the foreign strangeness of it all that made one feel like a trespasser. Like you had to stay meek and quiet or be caught by...something.

"It will not be long," returned the tribesman just as quietly. Though his voice remained steady, his chest rose and fell with exertion, covered in a grid of thorn scratches. "A few more blaze marks and we will have reached the old park office. Morranne awaits us there." He pulled a small sharpening steel from his harness and ran it down the edge of his knife, one side then the other. "There is a problem, though." He sighted down the blade, tested it with his thumb.

"What?" I said. I wasn't looking at him. My attention was consumed by the wizened corpse of some unidentifiable rodent. A strangler vine was coiled tightly around it, stretching it grotesquely. Tiny, translucent thorns glinted in our flashlight beams, slowly sucking the corpse dry. The idiot scientists whose hubris had made this place and whose neglect had left it to fester on our doorstep deserved death for this shit.

"We are not alone in here," said Northmarch, leaning forward. Hard to tell with the blindfold, but he seemed far more serious inside the forest. "I have seen trail marks not left by us. Recent ones."

"Maybe it's Morranne?" asked Dad. He didn't sound hopeful.

Northmarch shook his head. "They are not so clumsy, and some of the signs have damaged Morranne's blazes. Most likely it is a derelict, maybe derelicts, and they are on our trail."

I set my jaw. "Maybe we should backtrack, take them by surprise. I'm looking over my shoulder enough already in here."

"I don't know," said Sawada, giving me a funny look. "I'd rather avoid a fight if we can help it."

"You feel like walking backwards the rest of the way in, Dad?" I snapped and immediately regretted it. This pit had me riding on edge and he didn't deserve to have it taken out on him.

Saint that he was, he answered bluster with calm. "All I'm saying, my girl, is maybe we try to meet up with Morranne and-"

Crack. The sound of a snapping branch sounded loud as a rifle shot. I shot to my feet, turning, hand already going for my gun when I saw them.

Two men, emaciated, milky-eyed, tangle-bearded, patchy-colored skin gritty with filth, dim headlamps around their necks. One saw the three of us, healthy and well armed, and bolted. Northmarch was after him like a lunging cat, shooting off into the brush with shocking speed.

The other stuck around, mouth pulled back in a rictus as he raised a handgun-

I put a three-round burst of flechettes into his center mass before he could finish the motion, the purple-orange plasma flash illuminating the clearing in strobe-stutter light. He fell back all limp, like the Kings had reached from beyond the veil and yanked his soul right out of him.

I scanned for threats but found only Sawada, his gun just clearing its holster. He did a look-around of his own, then sighed and put the ten-milly back.

"You okay, Dad?"

"Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I'm fine." I was surprised by how not freaked out he sounded. "You?"

"All good."At that moment there was the pop of a gunshot from somewhere nearby. Dad and I waited but heard nothing else. Hopefully it had been Northmarch.

I safed my piece and holstered it, walking over to the body. He was a mess, but that was no surprise. Each flechette shell contained eight of the little darts, and they tended to yaw and tumble upon hitting flesh. It wasn't just his wounds, though. He seemed to have been in here awhile. His clothes were ragged, mold-streaked, rotting off his body. What I'd thought were the lesions of some skin disease were in fact patches of black lichen eating their way into his cheeks and arms. One of his eyes was swollen shut, with tiny grey-green mushrooms forcing their way out of the eyelid. I had to look away, and my eyes fell on his gun.

It was a cheap plastic blackout special, almost disposable. Something was strange about it, though...I picked it up and it was too light even for a piece of shit. I pulled the slide back and checked the chamber. Empty.

"It was unloaded." I let it fall, its impact into the rich humus almost silent.

Dad came up beside me. "No way you could have known, Ellery." He reached up to squeeze my shoulder. "Are...are you going to be alright? With...you know, with..."

With having killed someone, he meant. I didn't deserve this sympathy. "It's D-block, Dad," I said quietly. "These things happen."

He squatted down and closed the dead man's remaining eye. "I wish they didn't, though. I just wish they didn't." There was sadness in his voice, but also a little bitterness, I thought. I'd often wondered about his youth, about the names tattooed on his arms in time-blurred script. He'd never talked much about it, and while I was growing up I'd learned he'd just deflect any questions.

He stood back up and turned to me. "You're sure you're okay?" I nodded. "Just remember...remember that fighting isn't the hardest part. Dealing with what comes after is. Will you remember that for me?" He was earnest, serious.

"Yeah, Dad," I said, so quiet it was almost a whisper. "I can do that."

At that moment Nortmarch slipped back into the clearing, pale and quiet as a ghost. Threads of smoke trailed from the gun around his neck as he cleaned his knife on a rag. After a glance down at the corpse, he sheathed the khukuri and asked, "You are okay, the both of you?"

"Yup."

"We're good, Northmarch. What happened?"

"I caught the other gentleman. He may have been trying to bring others." He shrugged. "Others there surely are, so I left him as a warning."

I didn't know what that entailed, and didn't want to. "Good to go, then? I want to keep moving," I said.

"I am if you are," he replied.

Sawada stretched his back with a groan. "Yeah, let's get going. Lead on, young 'uns."

Northmarch and I resumed the weary rhythym of breaking trail. Even if the saw cut almost effortlessly, it still had weight and holding it up began to make my arm sore. It was eye-achingly dark outside the beams of our lights, only a fraction of the world visible at once, our pupils and retinas struggling with the contrast. Burrs clung, thorns scraped, astringent sap smeared into my mouth. The gaps between trees were narrow, awkwardly angled, and bark would have scraped me raw had it not been for my long sleeves. I saw more of the ring-bushes, flytraps, pitcher plants that drooled sticky fluid like lolling tongues. Once I brushed against a weird shrub with a headdress of gold-tinged fronds. When my sleeve touched them, they curled in whipcrack-fast, pulling a layer of cloth away with the barbed hairs that covered them. Another time Sawada stood still while Northmarch and I worked on a particulary stubborn mat of brambles, and when he tried to take a step he found strangler vines curled about his boots, wrapped so tight I had to carefully cut them away with my knife.

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After fifteen minutes or so, though, we reached a larger clearing. The ground was carpeted in knee-high grass with a faint blue-white glow to it, punctuated by a few gold snappers and ring-stalk bushes. A few long, straight silhouettes broke up the grass; I thought they might be fallen lightpoles. Across the clearing from us was a small building-or what was left of it. Our light beams illuminated it in parts: Here a corner, there a beam, there a section of mural-painted wall. A red-barked tree seemed to have grown from inside it. The branches had pushed it apart, growing around cinderblocks and chunks of wall. It looked like it had been frozen mid-explosion.

Seated on an incongruously intact bench out front of the office was a solitary figure, who stood up and carefully paced over to meet us in the light of a dim red headlamp. Morranne, hopefully.

By Northmarch's reaction, it was. He smiled for the first time since coming here and jogged up to meet them. They exchanged a few words, Northmarch's in a different language and Morranne's too quiet to make out. Then the two of them came back over and Dad and I got our first look at Northmarch's friend.

They were maybe five-foot six, their figure lithe but otherwise indistinct. They wore soft, worn-in boots, with army-style trousers and coat, all colored a dark olive-green. An old web vest buckled across their chest, studded with shotgun shells. Pinned around their neck was a ghillie cloak in deep forest colors, hanging down to mid-thigh. A scarf covered the bottom half of their face and the cloak's hood the top. All I could see of it was their eyes, dark green and slit-pupiled within a swath of camouflage greasepaint. They flicked back and forth between me and Dad, wary or even nervous. The most astonishing part, though, were their ears-they were pointed, poking out of holes in the hood. They were covered in auburn hair-or fur-and reminded me remarkably of a cat's. A shotgun rode on their back, hanging from a sling of braided sisal.

"Morranne, this is Sharkie and her father Mr. Sawada." Northmarch indicated each of us in turn. Their eyes widened a little at my height, and I thought I saw an ear flick a little too. "And this, you two, is Morranne."

Morranne gave us a tentative wave but made no move to shake hands. We returned it, me awkwardly and my dad with honest vigor.

"They are the one who found this ancient church," continued Northmarch. "They checked the trail only yesterday-sa vem pa'yeri?-yes, yesterday, and it remained mostly clear. We will be led straight there. Now for one, I am hungry, so should we stop for a few minutes?"

I needed the rest, and Sawada wasn't going to argue. The two of us plonked down on the bench while Morranne sat on a rock and Northmarch on the ground. Northmarch and I ate jerky, Dad some crackers. Morranne, for their part, unslung their shotgun and wiped it down with an oily rag. I checked out the weapon, intrigued. The thing looked ancient, the bluing on its humpbacked receiver mostly worn down to satiny steel. The magazine was an old-school tube under the barrel, non-detachable, and a leather shell saddle was laced onto one side of the stock. The furniture, though, was in much better shape, made of a glossy material striated dark green and black. It was pretty. Some kind of laminate, maybe? Maybe I could have Northmarch ask.

Our conversation was muted. This softly glowing grove was almost beautiful, but the destroyed building behind us was a constant reminder that we were the invaders here. The knowledge that we would soon have to head deeper in weighed on all three of us. After a minute or two Morranne got up without a word and started patrolling around the edges of the clearing, movements restless but silent. I couldn't help sneaking looks at them. I had no idea how they loped so slick and quiet through the mess of underbrush. Plus there were the ears.

I'd seen plenty of genemods, sure. There used to be a guy at Dag's shop covered in lizardy scales-he'd gotten fired when Dag caught him running the forklift while loc’d out on hush-and then there was the only person I'd met who was taller than me, a real thin, cadaverous junk dealer whose whole family looked the same. Never had I ever encountered one with cat ears, however. It seemed like something from one of my trashy novels-though even thinking that about a real person made me feel gross.

"You are staring again." Northmarch's whisper made me jump a little. Must have been more zoned than I thought. Kings, I needed to work on that.

"Morranne's kind were once in vogue amongst the upper classes," he continued.

"What do you mean, 'vogue?'" Sounded like something you'd say about a hairstyle.

"They were designed as servants, entertainers...courtesans. An entire people, men, women, and children. Breathing, thinking, humans, made to be toys of the elite." His voice was quiet but hard with conviction. "And what does a spoiled child do with its toys when their novelty has worn off?"

I couldn't exactly relate, considering my favorite 'toy' had always been Dad's prize Westling hammer, but I understood where he was going. "The kid breaks it. Throws it away."

"Correct." He looked down, one hand tracing the careful patterns of ritual scar on the back of the other. "Trends go and come quickly among the Administrative class. They have the time and effort to spare on such frivolities. And when Morranne's progenitors were no longer worth bragging about, they were cast aside. Left to starve and die in the dark. Die some did not, though, and a few generations later there are many of them among the tornagena."

"How d'you know all that?" I always felt a little out of whack talking to Northmarch. Something about the disconnect between his intellect and his appearance. Feeling that way said some unflattering things about me, I guess.

He grinned. "Oh, I just asked them. They are still quite bitter about the whole thing."

"I would be too."

"Plenty enough to resent about our situation as it is, my girl," said Dad. He'd been listening quietly the whole time. "Don't let it eat you up too bad."

"It doesn't." I wasn't lying. Of course life sucked. Of course it wasn't fair. Of course Admin were a bunch of lazy, corrupt, raddy fucking assholes. These were just the facts of life in D-block. I could have been born a corporate warrior-heiress, or as some fatassed Allocations Bureau bean-counter, but I hadn't. I'd been born Sharkie Sawada, and that was how things were.

"You guys good to go?" I asked, standing up. "May as well get this over with."

"Yeah, alright. Morranne looks impatient," said Dad. I gave him a hand getting up. "Oof! Like a crane, you are."

"Forklift."

"Forklift is a crane if you use it right."

"Wouldn't that be using it wrong?"

Northmarch gave us a look that managed to mix exasperation and pity, then walked off to meet Morranne. Dad and I grinned at each other and went with him. The pair of tornagena spoke for a moment, Morranne's voice again very quiet.

"Morranne will take point on the way to the temple," said Northmarch. "There a few signals they would like you to understand. A hand palm down for 'halt and find cover,' and a raised fist for halt where you are." Morranne demonstrated each with a hand gloved in thin, soft leather. There were a few more to see, and without further ceremony we were off.

Morranne led our group now, curled around their shotgun. They led us us down a trail that they must have cut getting here, for much of the undergrowth was already gone. In some spots the more voracious shrubs and creepers had already re-encroached, but Morranne produced a wide-bladed bolo machete from a cut-down sheath on their hip and plied it with practiced efficiency. They used their light sparingly, leaving it dim or off, and their ghillie cloak almost made them disappear into the undergrowth. Northmarch and I didn't have much to do except swing at the occasional questing creeper.

We made progress much faster now, quickly getting into stranger territory. There were ferns with leaves edged like knives, multi-tiered mushrooms like ancient pagodas, molds that grew like mesh cages around other plants, slowly rotting them to death. More of these plants glowed, too. They lit up with soft, faint, blues and greens, and on occasion little glowing sparks of the same color would dart across our path.

We went on like this for nearly an hour. Our path meandered, dodging impenetrable knots of tree trunks as well as occasional ridges and pits in the ground. Some burbled with the sound of underground strids flowing to who knew where, while were others were too deep to see their bottoms, with exposed roots leaping madly out of their walls and into the dark. I remembered what Northmarch said yesterday about tunnels opening up and shuddered.

I was brushing a mat of spiderweb out of my face when Morranne held up their hand in a fist. We all froze. There was no sound but my own breath and the rustling of leaves. I stood there awkward, lurching, sweat trickling down my forehead in the close air. What was happening? Why had we stopped? I was about to whisper a question when I saw it.

A flowing shape, a liquid shadow, a dark and silent hulk moved across our path on four graceful legs. It was maybe twenty-five yards away, but even then I could tell it was huge. Positively fucking massive, in fact, taller than me at the shoulders. I'd never seen one before, but anyone from D-block could have told you what it was: an armored lion, a hellcat, panthera nox. A pergato, the dark zone maneater. They lived in dark zones and other abandoned areas, but often left them to hunt. They preyed on smaller cats, domesticated hogs, wild ibex, and occasionally people. Once or twice I'd come upon the shredded remnants of some poor vagrant with a trail of big bloody pawprints leading away and known immediately what happened. It was a scary feeling, a disconcerting feeling. Humans were supposed to be on top.

The four of us stayed absolutely still, praying that the thing would fuck off without deciding to eat us. My chest was tight, every beat of my heart deafening. It was hard to make it out in the darkness, but the thing's gait was as unhurried and nonchalant as any regular cat's. It turned its great blunt head in our direction briefly, eyes flashing purple, then kept on going.

Morranne kept us frozen for a little while longer, then relaxed. "Holy shit," I whispered, heart still pounding. "Holy shit, holy shit." Men with guns were one thing. Dangerous, but familiar. Relatable. The pergato, though, was an atavistic nightmare, something from the distant past when humans huddled around tiny fires in fear of ineffable darkness. It brought up the uncomfortable thought that maybe things weren't so different now.

I really, really, did not like this place.