Page 44 of Aberrant Monsters
“Why not?”
“Eldritch monsters leave a residue on this side, and we believe people from this side have a residue in the eldritch world.”
Uncle Fred had explained how the system worked. Before the Order cloaked the rifts, anyone could have seen and passed through one. The cloaking left the rifts visible only to rift walkers and witches, but only rift walkers could see the eldritch and their residue and track them. Now Quentin was telling me that we also left a residue for the creatures on the other side to track.
I was intrigued. “How did you discover this?”
“Years of data,” Quentin said. “Rift walkers being stalked on the other side was the biggest bit of data. Anyhow, it is possible to go in one rift and come out of another. Stefan used the rifts like his personal travel system. He spent too much time there and attracted the wrong attention.”
But my gut told me there was more to the rule.
“You’re not worried about the monsters, are you? You’re worried about the potentialcivilizationusing the residue as a map to entries into our world.”
He gave me a look that said he was impressed with my deduction skills. “Yes. So far, we haven’t had any contact, and that could be because they don’t want anything to do with us, or it could be because they’re unaware of us.”
And the Order didn’t want to take any risks. “The Order wants to map the area without being discovered. They want the upper hand.”
“Until they can determine whether there is intelligent life and if it’s benevolent.”
“You think any civilization that has monsters like the ones we know about could be benevolent?”
He looked away, reaching out to fiddle with a notebook on the desk. “I wouldn’t like to say.” He picked up a taser. “This is a customized taser with a fifty-foot range. It only targets eldritch creatures.” He set it down and picked up a small baton. “This is a net release. It can expel an electrified net over one hundred feet to bag a target, but you need to aim and make sure the coast is clear. This will bag anything, and it will hold it.” He held out the baton. “There’s a safety catch on the side. You flip it before pressing the release. See?”
I took the baton and examined it gingerly.
“This is your only way of bagging an eldritch.”
“So I bag it and carry it back through the rift?”
“Yes, if it’s one of the following breeds.” He handed me the notebook that was more of a guide filled with colorful inked images of different monsters’ names and characteristics. “These are all the breeds and sub-breeds we’ve identified over the years,” he said. “Anything not in this book gets called in.”
“Then what?”
“The crypto investigation team will come pick it up. They’re rift walkers too, older and no longer on hunt duty. They catalogue the creatures.”
Made sense, since no one else could see them for what they really were. “What did we do before rift walkers?” I set the baton down. “I mean, how did we even know about the rifts and that a threat was coming through?”
“We didn’t,” Quentin said. “Hence the New Bloods.”
“What?”
“The infection came from bites and attacks on the human population, which then spread as a virus. Some humans were changed in the first year; they were able to see the eldritch. These were our first rift walkers. The Order took action and recruited them.”
“And the New Bloods came after.”
“Yes, a generation later. Babies were born with mutated genes that manifested later in life. They’ve been around for much longer than the general populace realizes, it’s just that…the mutations are getting more obvious now.”
There was so much I still had to learn. Except I wasn’t going to be learning more. This was a temporary gig for me.
I sniffed and set the notebook down. “Is that it? Follow the residue, find the monster, bag it, and call it in or release it back into the rift?”
“Yes.”
“And we have thirteen to find before the Order will help me with my problem.”
“Correct.”
“Okay. What are the coordinates to the first breach?”
