AIR Series Box Set

by Amanda Booloodian

  "Could it be that her body gave out?" I asked.

  "No signs," Nord said.

  "Did anyone see anything out of place?" I asked.

  "Only Am. Something not right. Still not right. Something came here." He was silent for a moment. I was about to ask my next question when he spoke again. "You are not right."

  I could feel the heat creep into my face. "I'm going to do what I can to help, though. Tell me, what came here?"

  "No one knows," Nord said.

  "Did anyone see anything?" I asked.

  Nord shook his head.

  I studied the area again, and when I looked back down, Nord was gone. Logan would know what to do. He'd been at this much longer than I had, which was what made him a good mentor. Rider was even greener than I was, and I was out of my depth.

  "Is there anything else you can tell us?" I asked Taylor.

  "Not until I get the test results back," Taylor said.

  "Did you see anything in the area when you arrived?"

  "Nothing." Sable joined our conversation. "While Taylor examined Am, I looked around. Nothing looked disturbed. The only footprints were our own."

  "Rider, can you check around a bit, see if you can pick up anything that is out of place?" I asked.

  Rider frowned. "We are out of place. They are out of place."

  I rolled my shoulders. "Agreed. See if you can sniff anything else out. Maybe one of your new friends can help you find your way around."

  Rider looked around at the tiny figures at his feet. He bent over at the waist until he was nose to nose with a gnome. "What is your name?"

  "She no English," piped up another figure. "My name is Indi. I show you."

  Then they were off. Rider didn't seem to have any trouble following. He looked more comfortable with putting his feet down.

  I stood and examined the ground around Am. We'd already trampled anything that might be a clue, but I had to look.

  Taylor slowly rose to his feet next to me. "What did Nord mean by you're not natural?"

  I raised an eyebrow at him and ignored the question. "Did anyone else give you additional information?"

  "Actually, you got more out of him than we did," Sable said.

  Taylor was eying me again. I tried not to glare in return. It wasn't professional to glare at a pseudo colleague, but staring at me wasn't professional either.

  I turned my back to him and continued to survey the area. Rider looped back into view, and I was relieved. Taylor's eyes were becoming a physical weight.

  "Did you find anything?" I asked.

  "I did not. The area feels unsettling, but there are no traces of anything but forest," Rider said.

  "Hmm. I'm going to take a look around as well." I caught Rider's eye, and he nodded. More than anyone else, I trusted Rider to have my back. "Why don't you have Sable and Taylor tell you what they know?"

  Rider spoke to Sable and Taylor while I stepped away.

  Taking my time, I closed my eyes and peeled back reality until the vivid Path was on display. Rider felt like something was off, so I didn't hold back.

  Opening my eyes left me in shock. Thousands of trails covered the grounds. Bright yellow strands crisscrossed every inch of the clearing. They even climbed trees and led to holes I hadn't noticed with my normal sight. Turning on the spot, I followed the shimmering yellow tapestry.

  When I looked towards Rider and the others, I could see them clearly. Rider was throwing off waves of inquisitive energy, warm blue wrapped around Sable and it hid traces of purple and black throughout, but Taylor was something altogether different. Earlier, my focus was on the guns, and I had assumed he was human, which was stupid. My partners were an elf and a werewolf. Gran even kept a fairy in our backyard. Then, when I meet someone new, while standing yards from a gnome hole, I assumed they were human.

  I was as gullible as ever.

  Chapter 2

  When I turned my focus back to work, I tried not to berate myself for making such a rookie mistake. Looking into Doctor Taylor could wait until I was back in the office. He wasn't human, but he also wasn't a threat now. The browns and blues with sparks of orange that flowed around him told me he was anxious, but no threat.

  Moving my focus to the gnomes, I looked down at the body of Am. Everything left a mark on the Path: people, animals, objects we used, and plants. The dead left a reminder of themselves on the Path. Where they die usually held an imprint that was long lasting, as if the person was unwilling to go.

  Am had no imprint. No part of her pressed against the Path in memory. Am looked so small, surrounded in bright yellows and radiant shimmers. A small pocket of air around her was void of all Paths. Nothing rippled or glided over the area. The unnaturalness of the empty space made my skin crawl.

  Leading away from Am, and away from the gnome hole, there was a larger empty spot in the Path. Eyeing the space closely, I reached out to it, but when I neared the emptiness, gooseflesh broke out on my arms.

  Hollow. The Path had been hollowed out.

  The idea of forcing myself to touch the blank spot made me shudder, so I dropped my hand.

  The Path was everywhere. The air was full of glimmers that represented the currents of the Path. It was a constantly flowing moving force. Except here.

  My eyes rested on Am again, and my stomach twisted. She was sitting in that deadened space. The thought chilled me.

  "Nord," I called. A race of yellow color stopped at my feet. Tiny twists of pale blue wrapped themselves around his yellow core. "It's important that you move Am's… It's important that you move her." I almost said Am's body, but I didn't think that would be well received.

  He hesitated and puffs of blue-green issued from him.

  "Not far," I said. "We can do it if you'd rather."

  "It will be done," Nord said formally. Moments later, three gnomes raced up and then stopped next to Nord. In a slowness that I didn't think gnomes could possess, they reverently picked up Am and moved her on top of a nearby rock.

  Once she was moved, the Path flowed over her. A sigh of relief escaped, and I rubbed the gooseflesh from an arm. At my feet, the bubble of emptiness stayed stubbornly in place.

  Glancing up, I saw that Taylor was watching me intently, despite the fact that Rider was trying to keep his attention.

  Ah, well, it couldn't be helped. I put Taylor out of my mind. I put my hand against a nearby tree for support and tried to move upstream against the Path. A few minutes of the past ghosted by, but it wasn't enough. I needed to dive back much further.

  The powerful flow surged and tried to roll me back to the present. It wasn't long before I sagged against the tree, while reading the area ate away at my strength. Determination took me further, but I could tell it was wasted energy. A person could only do so much, and I had pushed myself to that limit. I let the current sweep me back to the present, and once solidly in the present, catching my breath took a few moments.

  Rider had Sable distracted, but Taylor's attention was on me, watching as though he were trying to analyze the situation.

  Anything that could leave those blighted holes in the fabric of the Path wasn't natural, and that was one certainty. Inspecting the emptiness again, I could see that the Path had gained a little ground, making the void smaller. I dropped the Path and hoped that the damage wasn't permanent.

  "Rider." I'm not sure what he heard in my voice, but he was next to me faster than I expected. "We have a new case. Take statements from the gnomes. Get Taylor and Sable to help."

  He looked me over before setting to work.

  "Nord," I called out. The gnome arrived, and Taylor came up beside me. I crouched down, getting closer to gnome level. "We are going to look into Am's death. If it was unnatural, we'll find out."

  "Something came," Nord said, repeating his earlier statement.

  "We're going to look into this," I said, "and the doctor might be able to find some clues."

  Nord knew what I was asking, and he looked sad. "You will search
and find. Am stays here."

  Taylor squatted down to talk with Nord. "I'm far too big to be able to see over Am here. You've been to our office before. I could take her there and be back tomorrow."

  Shuffling his feet, Nord looked at the ground.

  "We know it is important for Am to connect with the ground. Could we take a part of the earth with us?" I asked.

  Taylor looked momentarily taken aback by the suggestion, but with a glance at Nord, he knew that this was the opening he needed. "I would ensure that she never lost contact with the ground."

  "You will wait here." There was some distress in the voice before he disappeared.

  "What do you think of this death?" Taylor asked.

  "There's definitely something odd going on here. If you'll excuse me for a minute, I need to call the office." I stepped away without waiting for a response.

  Hank, our handler and voice at the office, answered the phone. After relaying the information, I asked him a few procedural questions involving MyTH. Not only did Sable and Taylor have clearance, but they also had more training than I did, not that that's saying much.

  No wonder Taylor had been watching me so closely. I'd probably screwed something up along the way.

  Once I was sure Hank had our location and status logged, he transferred me to Dr. Yelton. The doctor assured me that Taylor's samples would be sufficient, but he would go to Taylor's lab to oversee the autopsy.

  When the statements were wrapped up, Nord appeared. Eight gnomes carrying a large piece of tree bark followed behind him. Am lay on top of the dirt that covered the bark.

  "You will have her back tomorrow," Nord said.

  Taylor looked reverent. "You have my word."

  The gnomes sat down their burden, and then each one patted the bark reverently. After that, they disappeared.

  Nord was the last to go. "Tomorrow, before the sun goes from the sky."

  Taylor agreed, and Nord was gone. With extreme carefulness, Taylor lifted the bark, and we left the gnome hole.

  Gnomes don't have the best hearing, so we didn't have to walk long before we figured it was safe enough to talk without being overheard.

  "We'd like to be involved in this case," Sable said.

  "You are involved," I said. "Taylor has Am and the samples, Dr. Yelton, the AIR doctor, will meet you all at Taylor's lab to work with you."

  "The investigation part happened on MyTH property. Our benefactor will want to know what happened,” Sable said.

  MyTH was a private organization that helped acclimate the Lost when they entered this dimension. They helped the Lost find jobs, heard complaints, and helped the interdimensional community in a way that a government facility couldn't keep up with.

  "We're all on the same side," I said. "Since the city is closer to this location than the Farm, it's likely we'll work together." AIR and MyTH had worked together for some issues, especially in the city. With the gnomes being on MyTH property, I doubted they would be too far out of the loop on this case.

  That didn't mean they'd have a front row seat in the case. They were civilians after all.

  Sable looked relieved. Taylor was bleeding anxiety, which ratcheted up a notch when I agreed to bring them into things. Even with the Path closed, I could feel his emotions pressing into me. I kept a close eye on him and noticed that Rider was already doing the same.

  "Would you like to join us at the office?" Taylor asked. His anxiety hadn't died out, but he didn't let it slip into his voice.

  "We need to get back to the Farm. Here's my card." I took one from my back pocket. It was a little bent, but it almost passed as professional. "Let us know if you all hear anything."

  Rider and I walked back to the truck. Well, we called it a truck, but it was more like a SWAT vehicle. It had two rows of seats up front to hold a team, and the back was comfortable and strong enough to transfer the Lost. Relocation was the biggest part of our job. Fairies, gnomes, trolls, centaurs, and countless others are all real. Either Portals opened to other dimensions naturally, or someone would open one on purpose, and the Lost would find their way into our dimension. Most of the mythological legends around the world came from people spotting someone from another dimension. Sometimes, the Lost wanted to stay in our world, and at other times, there was no way to get them home. If they stayed, we located them where they were likely to go unnoticed. With the human population on the rise, it was getting harder and harder to find out of the way places for the Lost to live, but so far, we managed.

  When we reached the truck, I sighed. After spending so much time in the Path, I felt bleary eyed, but I still slid into the driver's seat. I had let Rider drive once, and I never wanted to repeat the experience. He was fine in a car, but get him into a larger vehicle, and he swerved through traffic appearing to expect other cars to jump out of the way.

  He had far more fun than someone should have while driving.

  "What did you think of Sable and Taylor?" I asked, as I drove us towards the interstate.

  "They are interesting."

  "Do you know what Taylor is?" I asked.

  "You mean, he is not human?" Rider asked.

  Chapter 3

  "When are you going to learn to use contractions?" I asked. "No, he's not human."

  "His smell was a little off, but I thought he was human," Rider replied. "He was a bit twitchy, though."

  "Twitchy?"

  "Yeah, like he had a bug under his tail."

  The mental image gave me a good laugh.

  Rider beamed. "It is good to hear you laugh. It has been a while."

  My laughter died away as Rider's words sank in and sobered my mood.

  "Sorry." Rider's whole face fell. "He took a part of you with him. I know that is difficult for you."

  The ‘him’ was one of our partners; a Walker named Vincent Pironis. To save lives, he dragged a monster into the world between dimensions. This was part of a Walker's everyday skill set, so it shouldn't have taken more than a few days to return. That was more than five months ago.

  "It's okay. He'll be back." I repeated the sentiment often, but I was beginning to accept the idea that things went wrong or that he came back, but he didn't make contact. "Let's go over the day."

  Rider grabbed the laptop. "Are we going to the Farm?"

  "Yeah, we need to get together with Hank, but it's pretty late in the day. If we finish the reports while we drive, it'll save time."

  Knowing how painfully slow Rider was at typing, I almost wished he were behind the wheel. This made sense, since he came from another dimension, which meant he didn't have much experience with a computer, and he was translating from his own language as he went. He recounted the report aloud as he worked so that I could make suggestions and add details of my own.

  The typing continued as we reached the outer gates of the Farm. I waved my ID over the scanner. The Mid-West office of AIR composed of more than one thousand acres of rolling hills, trees, and fields, with government buildings and housing clustered together in lumps. We housed and trained the Lost that were making our dimension their home, getting them ready to live among people.

  The next gate held an empty guard post, but every time someone approached, surveillance cameras would narrow in on the car. Fences ran off in either direction, disappearing into the trees. They surrounded the Farm and had security cameras and motion detectors, along with razor wire. Nothing could come in or go out without being detected.

  At the guard post, I leaned out and let my eye be scanned. The surveillance cameras picked up my identification decal on the car, and off we went. The road snaked around trees before we turned into the parking lot of the main office, far out of sight from the road.

  In the building, we went through more scanners and used our identification cards a few times to get to the command room. Technically, I had an office, but my mentor and usual partner, Logan, liked to be in the center of everything, so we rarely used the space.

  Hank reigned in his usual spot next to a ba
nk of large monitors on one side of the room. Logan leaned on the edge of Hank's desk, and as Rider and I approached, Logan tipped an imaginary hat in our direction.

  "How was the tux fitting?" I asked.

  Logan grinned. "I thought the woman doing the tailoring was going to cry. Gerald moved so much that he was repeatedly stabbed by needles. How were the gnomes?"

  I glanced at Hank and raised an eyebrow, surprised that he didn't fill Logan in.

  Hank cleared his throat. "We hadn't gotten as far as the case yet."

  "It's a case now, is it?" Logan asked.

  Worn out from a day of Reading the Path, I pulled up a chair and told Logan and Hank about Am.

  Logan's face fell. "Sorry to hear that. Not natural?"

  "We're not sure yet. It happened on MyTH property," I said.

  "I've worked with a few people from MyTH through the years. Sable has a good head on her shoulders,” Logan said. "Another gal, though, her name was Angel, was a hellcat. Not literally, I'm pretty sure she was human. Maybe human plus, like you, but human all the same."

  "It always struck me as odd that we work with an outside agency," I said.

  "Most government agencies contract out at some point," Hank said. "It's cheaper to hire civilians."

  "The main benefactor of MyTH used to be an AIR agent," Logan said. "He set up the whole thing."

  "It's like an advocacy group for the Lost, right?" I asked.

  "For the most part," Logan said, "but they also train much like we do, to help out in emergencies. Have you ever seen a domestic abuse situation with the minotaurs?"

  I leaned back in my chair and blinked tired eyes against the harsh florescent lights. "It's good to know more about them since we'll probably be working with some of them on this case. Dr. Yelton is at MyTH working with Dr. Taylor now. They only have a day to find out all they can."

  "No clues at the scene?" Logan asked.

  "There were a few things that weren't quite right, but nothing that I could put my finger on." My eyes flicked to Hank. AIR wasn't exactly in-the-know about the extent of my powers now. My partners thought that was best kept under wraps. Thankfully, Hank's eyes were on his computer screen.