The rain tasted of metal.

  Frankie stopped ten feet from the end of the bridge. The wind whipped her wet hair against her face, stinging her cheeks.

  Daria Heather waited.

  The Captain stood at the edge of the broken asphalt, framed by the dark sky and the approaching roar of the jets. She appeared small against the backdrop of the storm. Her white uniform clung to her skin like a second skin.

  Her shoulders were relaxed, her mouth turned down in a slight, disapproving frown.

  “You live,” Daria said.

  The voice bypassed the air, vibrating directly at the base of Frankie’s skull. A familiar, invasive hum.

  Frankie didn’t answer. She unzipped the red leather jacket.

  She shrugged it off. It fell onto the wet pavement with a heavy slap.

  She stood in her black tank-top and jeans, the rain soaking her instantly. The cold didn’t bother her. Her skin was marble, her blood a slow, thick sludge that barely needed to pump.

  “I did,” Frankie said. Her voice rumbled, a low growl audible even over the wind. “Now I’m ending you.”

  Daria tilted her head. Her blue eyes narrowed.

  “You feel… absent,” Daria projected. “The fear. The noise. Where did it go?”

  “Burned away,” Frankie said.

  She stepped forward.

  “Show me,” Frankie commanded. “Show me what you are. Under the meat.”

  Daria smiled.

  It went too wide. The skin at the corners of her mouth tore.

  “Gladly.”

  Daria arched her back.

  A sound like wet canvas ripping echoed across the bridge.

  Her white uniform split down the back. Then her skin.

  A white, skeletal claw burst from her shoulder. Then another. The human disguise sloughed off like a molted husk, sliding down to the asphalt in a pile of pink and white gore.

  What rose from the mess was a nightmare.

  It towered ten feet tall. A skeletal, armored structure made of white chitin and clear muscle. Like jelly. It had wings—jagged membranes that caught the wind. An elongated, eyeless head topped the creature. A mouth full of needle-teeth dominated the head. A glowing blue sensor array sat in the center of its skull.

  It shrieked.

  SKREEEEEEEEE!

  The sound shattered the remaining windows of the toll booths behind them.

  Frankie didn’t flinch.

  She watched the monster unfold. She looked for a weak spot. The wingspan. The reach.

  Target acquired.

  Frankie closed her eyes.

  She reached down into the dark pit inside her. The place where the vampire blood used to sit.

  It wasn’t a pit anymore. It was an ocean.

  She let it rise.

  Her bones snapped.

  Pain didn’t matter.

  Wet pops. Grinding. Structure changing. Density increasing.

  Her skin turned from white to obsidian black. Fur sprouted, thick and coarse, bristling like iron filings. Bones lengthened, skin stretched. Her face pushed out, jaw elongating, teeth sharpening into serrated daggers.

  Her shoulders broadened. Her fingers fused and stretched, leather membranes snapping open between them.From her back, her wings unfurled and spread wide, resembling an open fan.

  She opened her eyes.

  They were red. Burning coals in the gray rain.

  She roared.

  A deep, bass thrum that shook the steel girders under her feet.

  She wasn’t a girl. She wasn’t a vampire.

  She was the Werebat.

  Daria launched.

  She moved with impossible speed, a white blur against the storm. She closed the distance in a single beat of her wings.

  Frankie met her in the air.

  They collided twenty feet above the bridge.

  CRACK.

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  The impact sounded like a thunderclap.

  Claws met chitin. Teeth met armor.

  They grappled, spinning in the air. Daria was stronger, fueled by the cosmic reactor in her chest. She drove Frankie backward, slamming her into the suspension cables.

  Frankie grunted. She dug her claws into the thick steel wire. Sparks showered down, fizzing in the rain.

  Daria slashed.

  Her white talons raked across Frankie’s chest.

  Fur tore. Black blood sprayed.

  Frankie didn’t scream. She snapped her jaws, catching Daria’s wrist. She bit down.

  Crunch.

  Daria shrieked—a high, psychic piercing sound. She blasted Frankie with a wave of telekinetic force.

  She threw Frankie off the cable.

  Frankie fell.

  She tumbled through the air, righting herself with a snap of her wings. She hovered, looking down.

  Below, on the bridge, the silver convertible was a small, shiny beetle.

  Inside, Tasia Moreno held her phone up.

  Frankie saw the lens pointed at her.

  Tasia was filming the sky. Filming the monsters.

  Good.

  Frankie looked up.

  Daria was diving. She came out of the clouds like a missile, wings tucked tight.

  Frankie braced herself.

  She waited.

  Closer.

  Closer.

  At the last second, Frankie rolled.

  She grabbed Daria’s leg as the white alien shot past.

  The speed spun them. Frankie used the force. She swung Daria like a flail.

  She let go.

  Daria smashed into the asphalt of the bridge.

  BOOM.

  The road buckled. Concrete shattered. A crater formed in the middle of the lane, just yards from Tasia’s car.

  Frankie dove.

  She landed on Daria’s chest before the alien could recover.

  She hammered her fists down.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Black fists hitting white armor.

  “Get out,” Frankie roared, her voice a distorted growl. “Of my town.”

  Daria hissed. Her blue sensor pulsed.

  A tentacle of mental energy lashed out.

  SUBMIT.

  It hit Frankie’s mind.

  A wall of sound. Stop.

  It hit Frankie.

  And vanished.

  There was no fear hooking on. No panic to exploit.

  Frankie stopped punching. She tilted her head, looking down at the alien.

  “Is that it?” Frankie asked.

  Daria paused. The blue light on her forehead flickered.

  Why do you not break? Daria projected. I am the Alpha.

  “You’re a radio station,” Frankie said.

  She leaned in.

  “And I’m dead air.”

  Frankie grabbed Daria’s wings. She pulled.

  Daria shrieked. She kicked out, her talons raking Frankie’s stomach.

  She bucked, throwing Frankie off.

  Daria scrambled up. Daria stepped back. She tilted her head.

  She spread her wings. She didn’t attack. She leaped over the side of the bridge.

  She dove toward the water.

  “Running,” Frankie noted.

  She sprinted to the railing. She vaulted over.

  The drop was a hundred feet.

  Frankie fell. The wind roared in her ears. The rain hammered her.

  Below, the tide was out. Mudflats, a dark, slick landscape of sludge and debris, lay exposed under the bridge as the tide receded.

  Daria landed in the mud. She stumbled, her white armor stained with the gray muck.

  Frankie landed a second later.

  She hit the ground in a crouch. Mud sprayed.

  She stood up.

  The bridge blocked out the sky, a steel roof. The pilings stood like cathedral columns in the gloom.

  Daria backed away. She was limping.

  “You are broken,” Daria projected. “Your mind… it is a dead zone.”

  “I told you,” Frankie said, stalking forward. The black sludge of the mudflats squelched familiarly between her claws. “I died.”

  “Death is a transition,” Daria argued, panic seeping into the mental voice. “You should be part of the Colony. You should be mine.”

  “I belong to no one,” Frankie said.

  She lunged.

  Daria tried to fly. She beat her tattered white wings, lifting off the mud.

  Frankie jumped.

  She caught Daria’s ankle. She slammed her back down.

  They rolled in the muck. Black fur and white chitin in a blur.

  Daria used her size. She pinned Frankie, pressing a forearm against Frankie’s throat.

  SLEEP, Daria commanded. CEASE.

  She poured all her psychic power into the command. The surrounding air vibrated. The mud rippled.

  The pressure was heavy. Annoying. It was heavy. Annoying.

  But it didn’t stop her heart. It didn’t cloud her thoughts.

  Frankie reached up. She grabbed Daria’s forearm.

  She squeezed.

  The white chitin cracked.

  Daria shrieked.

  “My turn,” Frankie growled.

  She bucked her hips, throwing the alien off.

  She scrambled on top of Daria. She pinned the white wings to the mud with her knees.

  She grabbed Daria’s head.

  She stared down into the eyeless face. The pulsing blue sensor.

  “You wanted a host,” Frankie said.

  She raised her fist.

  “Here I am.”

  She punched the blue light.

  CRACK.

  Daria convulsed. The light flickered.

  Frankie hit her again.

  CRACK.

  The light shattered.

  Daria went limp.

  The white armor turned gray. The glow faded from her body.

  Frankie sat there, panting.

  She looked at her hands. Blue slime and gray muck covered them.

  “Quiet,” Frankie whispered.

  She stood up.

  She craned her neck toward the bridge.

  Far above, the tiny lights of Tasia’s car were visible through the grate of the road deck.

  And beyond that, the roar of the jets grew louder.

  Payload.

  Frankie studied the broken alien form.

  It wasn’t dissolving. It wasn’t melting like the drones.

  It was just a corpse.

  “Not done,” Frankie said.

  She grabbed Daria’s leg.

  She dragged the massive body toward the water.

  She needed to finish it. She needed to make sure.

  And she needed to be seen.

  Frankie spread her wings. She gripped the carcass.

  She pumped them once. Twice.

  She lifted off, carrying the Queen back to the stage.