The bridge was only a short walk from the parking Rissa found; at least, it was short by New York City standards at only three blocks. Denise was muttering about how far it was. Serenity could only shake his head. He’d walked farther than that on a daily basis from his apartment to the subway to get to work; three blocks was nothing.

When they reached the Congress bridge, there was sidewalk on both sides. It was clearly built to have people walk across the bridge; that was a good sign, and very helpful. There were already people gathered on the sidewalk, sitting or standing and looking down at the water.

There weren’t any bats visible.

There were constant high-pitched chittering noises. It took Serenity a moment to realize he was hearing the bats. They were there; they simply weren’t coming out yet. He looked at Jacob in confusion; Serenity had also seen the articles Jacob mentioned when he looked up the bats, so he knew that they were supposed to be missing.

“Weren’t the bats supposed to be missing?” Denise put Serenity’s thoughts into words. “I’m pretty sure I’m hearing them.”

The sun wasn’t really down yet; maybe they simply weren’t leaving the bridge yet. There certainly wasn’t the stream of bats the videos showed.

An hour and a half later, the sun was well down, but the bats still hadn’t emerged. They could all still hear the chittering when they were close enough to the bridge, but they hadn’t seen any sign of bats. Most of the other bat-watchers had left, disappointed, but there were still a few hanging out, hoping to see something.

The group had headed down the trail to look at the bridge from underneath, hoping they’d see something, but there wasn’t anything. There weren’t even any individual bats moving as far as they could tell - though Serenity wasn’t certain why they’d be chittering if they weren’t moving. Wasn’t that how they knew what was around them?

It didn’t seem likely that there was a dungeon at the bridge; despite wandering all over the area, not only had they not found the dungeon, they hadn’t even found a ley line. Still, there was clearly something going on; the bats were behaving strangely.

“We know the bats are here. They’re just not traveling out to get food. But we’ve been all over and there’s nothing. If they were going anywhere outside the bridge, we’d see them. So whatever’s going on has to be under the bridge.” Rissa turned to Serenity. “Think you can get under there?”

The bats weren’t really the reason they’d come to downtown Austin; they were here to help resolve the curse on Jacob. Unless they could figure out something, there was no reason to be here.

Serenity shook his head. “What’s the point? We’re here to get Jacob to see something strange, so we can get at the curse.”

He was pretty sure he could climb up there in any form except human; his claws would dig in and Void Sovereign … well, it couldn’t exactly ignore gravity, but he was pretty sure it could cling to a rough wall. Down might be better than up.

There was no point unless it would help Jacob.

Half an hour later, Serenity realized his mana was getting low. He’d expected to walk through a ley line near the bridge, but he’d also expected to be done by now. It shouldn’t have been an issue. “We should head out. I can’t keep the shield up around Jacob for too much longer.”

Overnight was going to be an issue; while he could refill his mana at a ley line, it’d be tough to get the shield to stay up all night. Six or seven hours was probably the limit; it’d been more than five hours now, and he was pretty sure he could hold it until they were back at Jacob’s apartment an hour away.

“Right. We should-” Rissa stopped. For a moment, Serenity thought she’d frozen like Jacob, then she turned to Denise. “It was more frequent, wasn’t it?”

When Denise nodded, looking puzzled, Rissa shook her head and turned to Serenity. “Drop the shield. I think I know what triggered this.”

Serenity could follow the logic; she thought the freezing and the telepathy were linked. It made sense, though it didn’t explain when Jacob froze in the car on the way to the bats. “Jacob. Were you looking out the window of the car? Did you see something?”

“Right before you turned into stars you mean? I think I was asleep; I got into the car, then I was looking at you.” Right that moment, Jacob wasn’t looking at Serenity. He was staring intently at his shoes.

Serenity didn’t believe for a moment that Jacob had been sleeping. Unfortunately, there was no way to know what he saw. “We should head back to the car first,” he said, turning to Rissa. “Just in case.”

As they turned away, there was a shout from behind them. “Bats! I see bats!”

They turned back to look. It wasn’t the ribbon in the sky the videos showed; instead, it was individual bats and small groups. They were coming out of the bridge, visible only where they passed in front of a light source or the last remaining haze from sunset.

Serenity frowned. It didn’t seem right. He didn’t know much about bats, but any behavior change this close to when the invasions started was worth investigating. Serenity hadn’t seen any mana or essence when he checked the bridge, but he could see the bats now.

There was a very faint residue of mana on all of the bats; a few glowed more brightly, as if there was an active spell on them. “They’ve been affected by something.”

As far as Serenity could remember, Austin didn’t fall to an invasion; instead, central Texas was slowly abandoned as the wildlife became too dangerous. It eventually spread to a large area including northern Mexico and much of Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico. He’d been elsewhere and didn’t remember any details, but he thought that was why they’d chosen to avoid the area later. Could this be the beginning of that? Why here?

They needed to look into the bats.

Serenity glanced over at Jacob. He was watching the bats, but he was still breathing. Good.

A tracking spell would shorten how long he could keep the shield up, but if they were going to drop the shield on Jacob when they got to the car anyway, he could afford it. Better to try now than lose the chance; they’d have to come back if he couldn’t track a bat.

Serenity built the simple spell and sent it at one of the brighter-glowing bats.

The spell was repulsed.

Most people wouldn’t notice a tracking spell yet; having a bat not only notice it but reject it surprised Serenity. He’d have to try a different bat.

The next three brightly-glowing bats all resisted the spell.

In frustration, Serenity targeted one of the duller bats, and it took hold immediately. “We have a problem. Some of the bats seem to be magical, and they’re resistant to spells. The ones that aren’t magical have some trace magic on them. I’ve got a tracking spell going, but it means I’m going to run out of mana even faster.”

Rissa took a moment to take that in before responding. “Jacob first. We can come back for bats tomorrow if we have to.”

That seemed like a reasonable priority, especially since Jacob was her brother. “Agreed.”

Serenity found himself wishing they’d gotten a minivan instead of an SUV. An SUV had seemed more than big enough for two, but there simply wasn’t room for four people in the back. Denise and Rissa ended up watching from the front again; Serenity wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle the spell while also being a sword, so it was safer to try his ax.

Serenity pulled the ax off his Quick Belt, then shifted back to human form with the ax carefully set to the side. There was no specific reason to be in human form instead of chimera, but Serenity didn’t want to risk injuring Jacob with his claws. “Are you ready?”

“Go for it.” Jacob closed his eyes and forced himself to open them again. He looked obviously nervous, and if Serenity could tell that it really was obvious.

“This shouldn’t be bad. Just listen to Rissa, she’ll teach you how to start making your own shield. Then you won’t have to depend on mine.” They hadn’t discussed that, but Serenity thought it would reassure Jacob and it really did seem like a good idea. He needed to know how. They’d figure out a way to get the curse off of him one way or another.

There was an awkward pause before Rissa spoke up. “Yeah. Um, there are several ways to start so don’t be afraid if the first one doesn’t work for you. I could guide you the first time if you want, but I bet you want to try on your own first?”

Jacob swallowed. “No, no. I’ll take a guide. I don’t know what’s going on here. I thought it was all fake even though it’s obviously not.”

“All right. You’ll feel me touch your mind as soon as Serenity takes down his shield. Just relax; I’ve got you.” Rissa’s voice was calm and soothing.

Jacob nodded jerkily.

Serenity looked at Rissa; when she nodded to him, he released the shield.

Jacob almost immediately froze.

Splendid. They hadn’t needed to do any of this; they could have simply had Rissa reach out to Jacob back in his apartment.

Of course, if they’d done that, they wouldn’t have found out about the bats. Coming into Austin was probably for the best, even though it wasn’t necessary for their primary mission.

Serenity examined the curse on Jacob with Essence Sight. It was the mummy wrappings again; apparently that was the form it took whenever it froze him.

Serenity started the same way he had the previous times, with a coating of Essence on his hands. He decided to pull away individual strands instead of yanking on the entire curse; that was what he’s done the second time, and it had given him small pieces he might be able to cut.

As he pulled the first strand away from Jacob, it reacted by trying to wrap around his arm, above where he’d coated himself in essence. It felt blazingly hot, but Serenity followed his plan, grabbed his ax, and chopped at the strand between him and Jacob. It parted easily, leaving a blistering but cooling piece of Essence.

The ax worked. That was good news. The bad news was that the curse was learning.

Serenity took a good look at his still-tender flesh. The curse had burned a ring on his forearm all the way to the bone. The next time he did this, he was definitely going to be in his chimera form; even with his pain resistance and many of the nerves damaged, it hurt badly.

As he watched, black shadows seemed to fill the injury, sparking painfully as they met curse remnants. This was the first time he’d seen Amorphous Healing in action, and it seemed quite different from his previous healing. It no longer felt like normal healing, itchy and somewhat painful; instead, it felt like his new shapeshifting.

Jacob and Rissa were right. The sparks did sort of look like stars.