Detective Morris did not like federal buildings.
He did not like their polished floors.
He did not like their locked elevators.
He did not like the way everyone inside them wore shoes that had never stepped in anything human.
Most of all, he did not like being summoned.
Police officers are requested.
Witnesses are asked.
Suspects are invited downtown.
Detectives are not summoned.
Not unless something has gone badly wrong.
Morris stood inside a conference room somewhere in West Los Angeles and looked at the people waiting for him.
There were eight of them.
Possibly nine.
One man seemed to be present only as a suit.
No expression.
No visible blood supply.
Vale stood beside Morris, holding a paper cup of coffee he had not tasted.
Vale was young enough to believe coffee in federal buildings might be drinkable.
Morris knew better.
“Gentlemen,” said a woman at the head of the table. “Thank you for coming.”
Morris sat.
“We had very little choice.”
Vale gave him a small warning look.
Morris ignored it.
He had been ignoring small warning looks since his second marriage.
The woman was in her forties, precise, calm, and dressed in the kind of dark suit people wear when they know something terrible and are waiting for everyone else to catch up.
“I’m Dr. Ellen Marsh,” she said. “Federal Emergency Management Analysis Division.”
“FEMA has an analysis division?” Morris asked.
“Several.”
“That explains why emergencies take so long.”
No one laughed.
Vale cleared his throat.
“Detectives Morris and Vale,” he said. “LAPD Homicide.”
“We know who you are,” Dr. Marsh said.
“Then we’re already ahead of most meetings,” Morris said.
Again, no one laughed.
Federal people, Morris decided, were where laughter went to be questioned.
Dr. Marsh touched a remote.
A screen lit up at the end of the room.
The first image showed a house.
Jed’s house.
The bedroom wall had been blown outward into the yard.
Wood, plaster, insulation, and broken glass lay scattered across the grass.
Morris had seen the photograph before.
He had stood in the room.
He had smelled the blood.
He had looked at Carl Jensen’s body and decided several things at once.
First, Carl Jensen was dead.
Second, Dr. Jed Arlen was lying.
Third, whatever had killed Jensen had not been another man.
That last thought had been inconvenient, so Morris had placed it in a mental drawer marked:
Think About Later, Preferably Never.
Apparently later had arrived.
Dr. Marsh clicked again.
The next image was from a security camera outside the county jail.
Smoke drifted across the yard.
Inmates in orange uniforms milled under floodlights.
Firefighters moved through the frame.
Then the lights went out.
The image switched to infrared.
Most bodies became pale smudges.
One figure ran into a narrow alley.
Another followed.
Morris leaned forward.
“That’s Arlen.”
“Yes,” Dr. Marsh said.
“And Jensen’s cousin.”
“Yes.”
“We know this part.”
“No,” she said. “You don’t.”
The video continued.
Jed reached the fence.
The cousin closed in.
Then something entered from above.
Fast.
Too fast.
The image blurred.
The cousin fell backward.
Jed vanished upward.
Not sideways.
Not through the fence.
Upward.
Morris stared at the screen.
Vale stopped pretending not to.
Dr. Marsh rewound the image.
Played it again.
Jed ran.
The cousin advanced.
A shape descended.
Jed disappeared into the dark.
Morris said nothing.
Which, for Morris, was a medical event.
“Do you have a better angle?” Vale asked.
Dr. Marsh clicked.
A second camera.
Grainy.
Higher.
From the corner of the maintenance building.
The image shook in smoke and darkness.
But this time they saw wings.
Not clearly.
Not enough.
But enough to ruin the day.
Large wings.
Transparent.
Amber in the infrared distortion.
Something impossible had dropped from the sky, taken Dr. Jed Arlen, and risen into the night.
“What am I looking at?” Morris asked.
Dr. Marsh did not answer immediately.
That was not good.
People answer quickly when the answer is comforting.
“We were hoping you could help us with that,” she said.
“I’m homicide,” Morris said. “Not pest control.”
A man at the far end of the table finally spoke.
“Detective, this object has been tracked intermittently over Los Angeles for nine days.”
“Object?” Morris said.
“We don’t know what else to call it.”
“Try suspect. Makes paperwork easier.”
The man did not smile.
“It has appeared on military radar, weather radar, satellite thermal imaging, and three civilian phones.”
“Phones?” Vale asked.
Dr. Marsh clicked again.
A shaky phone video appeared.
Someone was filming the Hollywood Hills at night.
A voice in the background said, “Bro, what is that?”
Another voice said, “It’s probably Elon.”
Then a blur crossed the moon.
The room remained silent.
Morris rubbed his face.
“I hate phones.”
“So do we,” Dr. Marsh said.
“No, you hate them because they leak national secrets. I hate them because they prove people are idiots in high definition.”
Vale glanced at the screen.
“How big is it?”
“Estimated height,” said the man, “between five feet eight inches and seven feet.”
“That’s not an object,” Vale said.
“No,” Dr. Marsh said. “It is not.”
Morris looked at her.
“You think Arlen was telling the truth.”
“We think Dr. Arlen saw something.”
“He said a giant queen bee came through his bedroom wall.”
For the first time, Dr. Marsh looked uncomfortable.
Only slightly.
But enough.
“Yes,” she said.
Morris leaned back.
“I’m going to need better coffee.”
Another man entered the room carrying a folder.
He whispered to Dr. Marsh.
She read the top page.
Her expression changed.
Again, only slightly.
Federal expressions were rationed.
“What?” Morris asked.
She looked at him.
“We have a new sighting.”
“Where?”
“Griffith Park. Possibly moving west.”
Vale stood.
“Dr. Arlen?”
“Unknown.”
Morris was already at the door.
“Detective,” Dr. Marsh said. “This is no longer only a homicide investigation.”
“Lady,” Morris said, “it stopped being a homicide investigation when the murder suspect grew wings.”
He opened the door.
Then paused.
“One question.”
“Yes?”
“If we find this thing, what exactly are we supposed to do?”
No one answered.
That was the first honest moment of the meeting.
Morris nodded.
“That’s what I thought.”
Outside, the Los Angeles morning had become bright, warm, and offensively normal.
Cars moved through traffic.
People carried lattes.
Dogs pulled owners along sidewalks.
The world continued behaving as though it understood itself.
Morris and Vale crossed the parking lot in silence.
At their unmarked car, Vale finally spoke.
“You believe him now?”
Morris opened the driver’s door.
“No.”
Vale waited.
Morris got in.
“But I’m starting to believe I should have.”
They pulled into traffic.
Above them, far beyond the ordinary noise of the city, something moved where no helicopter should have been.
Morris did not look up.
Not yet.
Some truths are easier to approach from the side.
Especially when they have wings.