“Again.”

I thrust my glaive forward, and Angelina caught it in one of her two-pronged daggers, deflecting it harmlessly to the side. “Your stinger is venomous. Your goal is merely to hit. Don’t aim for vitals. Just aim to break the skin. Again.”

I pulled back and swung again. She deflected it again with ease.

“You’re not listening. Stop aiming for the body. Aim for the hands or feet. Like this.” She lunged forward, swinging her dagger at the smooth edge of my stinger. I easily blocked it, but she slid the blade down the handle towards my wrist, spinning it at the last second so that only the flat tapped my skin.

“Outside the blade?” I said, swinging my blade in a wide arc towards her dagger. The instant they made contact, I tipped downward.

She caught the blade with her other dagger, just before it could hit her hand, then pushed the tip away. “Yes. Better.” She wiped the sweat off her forehead.

“Is there a reason we don’t practice in our Imagos?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Angelina. “You need to train your human body a whole lot more than your Imago. You won’t always be able to transform into your Imago, so it’s important to be able to work without it. That’s enough for today,” she said. “I’ve got stuff to do.

I went back to my room and fell back onto my bed. These past few weeks, I’d scarcely been given the time to think. From the mountains of schoolwork that Nep insisted I completed to the shopping to replace my lost possessions, it was just nonstop movement. After a few moments of luxurious silence, I sat up at my desk and started on the stack of papers Nep had left behind. She was some sort of genius who clearly didn’t understand just how hard this stuff was. Math, physics, programming, statistics, economics, chemistry, biology... so much biology. Still, it was so I didn’t ‘fall behind’ as she put it. For some reason, I doubted that my former classmates were covering the same material.

“Get up,” Vespa’s voice interrupted my contemplation. “An Echo is nearby.”

“More pigeons?” I asked.

“No. Something else.”

***

Nep was out at the lab today. Sarah was at her placement. Angelina had just left to do... whatever it was she did during the day. But Heidi peeked out from her office, stretching and yawning before following me downstairs.

Vespa led the way through the busy streets. It was around noon; people were busy going for lunch, hurrying to meetings. Completely unaware of the Echo among them. Then again, the pigeons never seemed to do anything to anyone besides us, simply existing in the spaces between the people who didn’t concern them. And likewise, nobody noticed us. We were ghosts hunting ghosts.

And this ghost looked like dog.

Heidi noticed it first, gently tapping my shoulder to show me where it was. It walked between the feet of the crowds, not caring at all about the people all around. Just like the pigeons.

“What now?” I asked.

“Follow it,” said Heidi. “We can’t transform here on the streets.”

It made its winding path down the streets, towards the sea. The crowds thinned. “It’s not a dog, is it?” I asked Vespa.

“It’s not.”

It was black, of course, about a metre long, like a dog with a rat-like tail. Smoky particles dissolved in its wake. Its eyes glowed faintly dark red. When it moved, its skin cracked, revealing flaming red stripes where the rocky surface split open.

We followed it to Stanley Park, down quiet trails through the towering forest. As if sensing the absence of others, it looked behind for a second, staring at us before rushing off into the undergrowth.

“After it,” said Heidi. She transformed quickly, showing no discomfort if it caused her any. As for myself, I still grit my teeth when the membrane closed over my body and the acid ate away at my skin. It stung like crazy, though I felt I was getting used to the dull aching pain that was all you experienced before your body reformed.

In my Imago, it was easier to see it. The stuttering particles it left behind, a trail of paradoxes. It was a walking mistake. It was wrong, there was no better way to describe it. The ferns and moss and trees all were right. We ran off the trail, clambering up over the rocks. Gaining on it.

We cornered it in a clearing. It simply stopped to face us. Weapons drawn and levelled towards it, it decided to curl up and take a nap. It looked so cute and friendly. I hesitated. Heidi had no such reservations, flinging her hammer at its skull. At the last moment, it got up and moved out of the way, starting forward and growling, not like an animal, but like an earthquake, a deep, primal rumble from a creature without vocal chords. It opened its mouth to bark. Opened its mouth way, way too wide, folding back as if to unwrap the inside of its skull. Three heads peeked out of its still-widening mouth, snapping and snarling, teeth foaming with sickly red fluid.

It lunged.

I caught the first attack with my blade, but unlike the pigeons, this Echo was hard. Teeth clamped down on the tip and pulling me towards it, while the other heads extended to snap at my arms.

Heidi beat them back with her hammer and pulled me back. She kicked it hard, several times, smashing it repeatedly with her hammer. When it fell to the floor, she stepped on its neck. Her Imago’s heavy armoured boots made the Echo’s skin crack and crumble underneath, the glowing red fluid leaking out. Knowing its defeat, the heads retracted back into the mouth, its face reforming and making a pleading expression.

Heidi didn’t care. She crushed its head with her other foot, grinding her boot into its gravelly skin.

“Wait!” I said. “Does it have to die?” I asked. “It wasn’t hurting anyone except for us. We cornered it, and—”

Distracted, she loosened her grip for a second. It slipped out and ran impossibly fast, vanishing into the forest with its trail disappearing far behind. She cursed. “Yes. They can control themselves for a bit, but quickly they will start to attack, especially when left to their own devices. It should have died. You let it get away, Quinn. Don’t let it fool you like that again. Whatever. It’ll show itself again soon.”

A rustle. Were it not for that, I wouldn’t have noticed the silhouette of a woman disappearing into the woods.