The flight to Ciudad d'Arena is subdued and silent, with the four of us—me and Sean, Darby and Ian—mostly lost in our own thoughts, but at least it's mercifully brief. The jet touches down with a noisy rattling, zipping past the old brick terminal and control tower at the airport before taxiing to a stop at the private hangar that Ian arranged—on the literal and figurative fly— during the half hour drive to the nearest airport to our home as we were leaving Candlewood by car.
As soon as we step off the plane onto the tarmac, the faint cloud of exhaust and other immense city pollution hits me. The scent alone is enough to remind me why I love wild places like Candlewood, but I also detect the faintest hint of the ocean in the icky fumes and the thought of a sandy beach and the deep ocean sets my nerves alight with pins-and-needle excitement.
Towing both our bags of luggage behind him, Sean steers me efficiently by the elbow, following along in Ian and Darby's wake towards the car rental counters. I glance at the people passing us in the terminal, catching a number of furtive glances—if I hadn't mentioned, werewolves are big and in Sean and Ian's case, they're also gorgeous—so I spot a lot of people looking at us who clearly wish to avoid seeming to look at us while they do it anyway.
It takes another half hour before we're vehicularly empowered, and with Sean driving and Ian riding shotgun, make our way out of the busy airport onto State Street where the going is speedier. The cityscape flies by outside the cool interior of the spacious SUV, and soon we're crossing the bridge—or one of them—over the river and passing the stately colonial mansions of the city's earlier days. It's another long, serene drive before we finally turn left onto a monotonous span of highway paralleling the shoreline.
Ciudad d'Arena is much warmer than Candlewood was when we left it, and the sun beats down upon the landscape of golden sand and sedge grass. Periodically, it's broken by a stunted tree or shrub or the crumbling ruins of a boardwalk or dock, but it rapidly becomes more desolate the further we go towards the Desert packhouse and its surrounding community.
"There might actually be something enjoyable for you during this trip," Darby says softly, noticing the longing way I stare at the spume-capped blue waves and the low line of a sandbar offshore.
As we draw near the water, the road narrows, then veers inland. I sigh wistfully. We cross a couple minor bridges over tidal creeks that I can see twist and wind a fair distance inland, and a chill runs down my spine. Isolated as this place is, it would be an easy target if I'm correct about what we're dealing with here.
The occasional crumbling foundation or old farmhouse fences are visible amid the desolation, along with the decomposing remains of downed trees—all tells that this was once a heavily populated and perhaps even fertile countryside.
"Were these areas once settled?" My voice seems loud and abrasive compared to the smooth hum of the SUV's engine.
"Some time ago," Sean answers. "The old-timers remember this place as farmland, but this close to the shore and getting windblown sand and saltwater off the sea, I can't imagine how it was ever bountiful. The biggest deterrent to continued settlement was some kind of blight right as a lot of migrant workers were arriving in the area. Among that population—living and working close together with inadequate sanitation and hygiene— it spread like wildfire, killing people off in droves. The ones that survived abandoned the place and nature took it back."
The hair rises on the back of my neck.
"An epidemic?" Darby asks. "How many died?"
"No one knows. With so many dying so fast, the dead were buried in unmarked mass graves. Afterwards, the survivors fled as expeditiously as they could and didn't return," Sean advises.
"It looks to me like overcutting of the woodlands that provided a barrier between these low-lying areas and the sea is the reason it died back," I suggest. "And are you certain that people were killed in the epidemic?"
The SUV begins to slow as Sean's eyes find mine in the rearview mirror and Ian swivels in the front seat to look at me.
"What are you suggesting?"
"I guess that depends on the timeline, Ian," I reply, my confidence failing. "When was this place fertile farmland? When was the woodland overcut? When was the epidemic? Or it could be nothing but an incorrect hunch."
"But you don't think it is." His deep blue eyes bore into mine.
I glance out the window again. "This close to the water, and with as many tidal creeks as there are working themselves inland, I think it's entirely possible that what was labeled an epidemic might have hidden a mass kidnapping."
"Shit," he mutters, his eyes flicking to his mate's then back to me. "You said these Rényú live extended lifetimes."
"Yes. Like Weres, their lifespan is more accurately measured in centuries, rather than years."
"How rapidly do they reproduce?"
"I don't know that it's a matter of speed. They don't take a mate and their mate carries a child the way mammalian species do. They release either sperm or eggs directly into the ocean water. Any fertilized eggs eventually sink to the bottom and they begin to grow into adults," I explain. "I don't know how long it takes to reach maturity. I also don't know if the same holds true for the Rényú zázhǒng."
"Sean, do you have any idea when that epidemic was?"
The narrow road we're on begins to climb steeply and the scent of the sea thins. Sean's knuckles have gone white on the steering wheel. "My dad said it was when he was a boy. That could be anytime in the last hundred twenty-five years, but I would assume closer to the early part of last century."
"Plenty of time for even a human to reach maturity." Ian straightens himself in the passenger seat. "Shit."