Page 25 of Mud

“C’mon, let’s go sit down” I said, nodding at the nearest empty chairs close to the end of the room. “Thanks, Fernand.”

“No problem, Rosabel.”

“You believe that guy?” Erid said when we sat down, and she eyed every person sitting around us like they were insects. Nothing personal—just the way she was. She looked at me like I was an insect, too, that first week I joined their team. She talked like she hated everything that was ever created, but she was a sweetheart when it counted. A sweetheart with a very filthy mouth.

“Why would he lie?” I muttered, as the others slowly started to throw looks at Erid, too. She didn’t care—if anything, she thrived when people hated her. Her personality was very…colorful, even though she was Whitefire. She could kill you fifty different ways with her little daggers, too.

“Because people are liars?” she offered with a shrug.

“He’s not lying,” said a guy from across the table—Ryan Chase who used to work in Finance, then somehow made his way into the Law Enforcement Division and became an agent. Unheard of, Michael told us, but he was still pretty good at kicking ass.

We all were, I guess. It’s the reason why we were part of the nineteen agent crews of the Maryland IDD.

“Jessica said they have the highest number of catfairies ever recorded near Back River. A team won’t cut it—they’re sending in all of us,” said Abigail from three seats down. I knew her too, had exchanged ahihere and there, just like with most of them. Jessica was her team leader, a ruthless Redfire my grandmother adored. The teams were very clearly separated—each leader got four to five agents, depending on how much work was entrusted to them or how long they were with the IDD. We stayed out of each other’s business, very rarely shared information on cases, and we almostnevercooperated like this.

“All of us for some fucking catfairies? Since when did the IDD become such little bitches?” Erid wondered—genuinely.

“Erid,” I said, though I was wasting breath.

“No, I’m serious. Just let me go on my own and I’ll take care of them. Give me a day and a lot of daggers. I’ll bring back all their heads.” Again—she absolutely meant it.

“You realize we’re all capable of killing catfairies, right?” said Ryan, raising his chin so he could look down at Erid. “And they know it, too.” He nodded his head behind to the wall made of windows that showed the offices (which were basically cubicles, only more spacious ones)of our division. “So, there’s a reason why theybroughtallof us here like this.”

“And awful timing, too!” said Abigail. “The Iris Roe is in three days. We should be out there making sure the numbers stay down.”

We all knew which numbers she referred to—deathnumbers.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” said another agent—Celia was her name, a Blackfire, and she was the second youngest agent of the IDD after me. “Those numbers will keep on climbing this year, like they do every year. Last time they had a death rate ofsixtypercent.” She let that sink in for a moment. “That’s right—sixty percent of over two-hundred players died in the game, and that’s not including teams or staff or audience.”

Shivers ran down my back. Holy shit, that wasinsane.

“I don’t understand why they don’t shut down that game,” Fernand said, shaking his head. “Or why anybody would want to be a part of it.”

I really didn’t get that, either. Who would be so stupid as to choose death of their own free will by engaging in a deadly trap they called agame?

“Hmm. Maybe because they’re not a bunch of sissies, and they want to get rich or die trying?” Erid shrugged again.

“Then maybe you should join them—you know, since you’renot asissy,” Ryan told her through gritted teeth, and I was going to slam my foot onto Erid’s to stop her from replying, but the door to the meeting room opened, and thank Iris it did.

Erid had started smiling the way she did when she was a couple of minutes away from throwing her daggers, andRyan wasnotgoing to stand by and let her hurt him, and we really didn’t need a fight to break out right now.

Luckily, Michael came into the room first, followed by Jessica Patterson, Eric Haines, and Lauren Stephan—the team leaders. None of them looked to be in a particularly good mood, and Michael’s smile was still just as nervous as it had been earlier.

They came around the table to the front of the room, and they confirmed exactly what the others told us. A group of almost fifty catfairies, grown more than usual because they’d lived and fed regularly for weeks before anybody realized they were there, had infested a rather big portion of a forest right off Back River just outside Baltimore, and we needed to take them down asap.

They’d already sent drones, and two ward teams had locked in the place tightly so at least the catfairies wouldn’t be able to run away for the rest of the day. But a team of agents was also sent in early in the morning, and the IDD had lost contact with them ten minutes in.

“This is what we have,” Lauren Stephan said, as she turned the remote to the projector hanging on the ceiling. The picture appeared on the white wall at her back. “Ralf confirmed entrance in the woods at seven-oh-eight this morning. Ten minutes later, we lost all communication with him and his team.”

Goose bumps covered my arms when I took in the image that was showing on the wall. The colors were bright and vivid enough—the projector was magically enhanced—that I recognized the boot, the helmet, and?—

“Is that an arm?” said someone from the other teams—I didn’t care to look who.

“Damn right, it is,” said Erid with a whistle. “Thesecatfairies mean business.” And she sounded thrilled about it, too.

“This is very out of character,” I said before I could help myself, but the sight of a cut off arm bleeding all over the grass at the edge of the river took my mind off what I usually did when in meetings.

That—and now I was pretty sure there was a foot inside that boot near the tree, and potentially a head in that helmet we barely saw from the grass.

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