Cole eased the turf back down. Gritting his teeth and holding his breath, he prayed his stomach wouldn’t growl loud enough to catch the attention of the Half Breeds. Just when he allowed himself to exhale, the phone in his pocket started wailing the hard rock song he’d forgotten he’d downloaded for one of his caller-specific ring tones.
Scooting away and scrambling to his feet, he ripped the phone from his pocket and stabbed the answer button just to shut it up. “What?” he asked in a snarling whisper.
“Damn,” Stu replied. “Let me guess…you’re in Kansas City getting hassled by some cop named Stanze.”
Cole looked around, but didn’t know what he was expecting to find. Other than the teens who had resumed their smoking farther down the path, there were only a few other people sitting with their backs against trees or wandering across the grass. None of them seemed to be spying on him. “How’d you know that?”
“Officer Stanze called the main MEG number and asked about you.”
“Why?”
“Just checking to make sure someone was supposed to be with Paige. Jarvis told him she liked to travel with some doughy reject carrying a stick.”
“Nice,” Cole grunted. He’d put some distance between himself and the den, so he felt more comfortable talking. “Is that it?”
“Just thought you should know he’s got his eye on you. By the way, should I bother downloading that
“What? No. Actually, wait until it gets updated. Before then, it’s just—”
“Just another coat of paint. Gotchya.”
Now that his heart had settled back into its normal spot, Cole sighed, “So who’s that new girl?”
“Which new girl?”
“The one who answered the phone over there the last time I called.”
“Oh, Abby? She’s not new. Normally, she’s in the field, but she broke her ankle on an investigation and has been downgraded to answering phones and sifting through videos and EVPs for a while.”
“Is she cute?”
Stu chuckled and then said, “I guess. See for yourself.” After that he heard some movement on the other end of the line followed by a high-pitched tirade that ended with something heavy cracking against the phone in Stu’s hand. “There’s a file on the way, but don’t ask me to take the picture again.”
Recognizing the voice that had been yelling at Stu, Cole snarled, “Jesus, she’s right there?”
“Uh-huh. Right little spitfire too.” Something rustled as the phone was covered up. The voice that had been screaming before now spoke in an excited chatter.
“What the hell’s going on over there?” Cole grumbled. “Are you guys really that bored?”
“Do you know what EVP tapes are?” Stu asked. “They’re hours upon hours upon
Cole felt a laugh brewing, but held it back because he knew that would only add fuel to the fire. An e-mail arrived to send a quick tone through his earpiece, and when he opened the file, he was treated to a picture cropped at the bottom by something that had to be Stu’s thumb. The rest of the frame was filled with a long table covered with tape recorders and computer monitors. Sitting behind that was a woman who looked to be in her early thirties. It was hard to nail down a more exact age due to the way her light brown hair and glasses covered her face. Her eyes and mouth were wide-open in an expression of shock and anger. One hand was balled into a fist and the other was in the process of throwing a stapler.
She was cute.
“You get that pic yet?” Stu asked.
“Yeah, just now. Looks like you’re catching hell.”
“What do you think of our little Abby?”
Cole smiled and tapped the icon on the phone to save the picture instead of erase it. “I think you should let her answer the phones more often.”
“You wanna talk to her?”
“I want you to let me get back to work. Also, send me any more pics you guys have from the animal sightings in KC.”
“One step ahead of me,” Stu said. “I was just about to ask if you wanted those.”
“Send them to my regular e-mail instead of the phone. Can you get them to me by tonight?”
“I’ll get them to you in an hour.”
“Perfect. Also, try not to post any more of them to the MEG site.”
Stu pulled in a labored breath that sounded unintentionally pornographic over the phone. “Ohhhh…ahhhhh…I don’t know about that. We kind of have an obligation to report whatever we can.”
“Handle this right,” Cole added, “and I’ll see if I can get you an exclusive once we’re through with this Kansas City business.”
“Really? I can’t censor the site, but I can delay posting to it. That good enough?”
“That’ll do.”
“Oh and one more thing. Abby says she loves you.”
That was immediately followed by another shouting match and the impact of something heavier than a stapler cracking against Stu’s head. As fun as it would have been to continue his little tour through grade school with those two, Cole hung up. He was still grinning when he spotted the tall, lanky figure dressed in dirty khaki pants and a suit jacket staring him down from the tables where the stoner kids had been sitting. As casually as he could manage, Cole lifted the flap of earth to get another look down the hole. The Half Breeds had shifted a bit but hadn’t moved.
Considering what he knew about the creatures, he wasn’t surprised they were such sound sleepers. Then he considered finishing off the werewolves without waiting for Paige. Sooner or later he would need to do the dirty work himself. Picking up his weapon, he shifted his hands onto the grip so his palms scraped against the bloodstained thorns. With a quick squeeze, he could sink the thorns in and stab those Half Breeds before they woke up. Whoever those creatures had been before, they would surely thank whoever put them down.
But there was always the chance he might miss.
Even if he killed one, the other would surely wake up. Those things might have looked like a mess, but they could move when they needed to and could take a lot of punishment. Cole was pretty sure he needed to hit them at the base of the neck for a one-hit kill. Or was it the spine? Could he even see the bases of their necks?
“Damn it.”
At that moment, he couldn’t decide if he felt more like a trainee or some helpless little kid who needed to wait for Mommy to show up. He swallowed all of those bitter morsels and lowered the earthen cover back onto the hole. He had to be real sure and real quick if he was going to kill them. Otherwise, some innocent people in that park would be real dead. It was no time to take wild stabs.
Sometimes, Mommy did know best.
“I, uhhhhh, wouldn’t go there if I were you.”
Cole swung around toward that voice and reflexively brought his weapon up to point at whoever had just spoken. Not only had the man in the khaki pants and rumpled suit jacket gotten to within a few feet of him, but he’d done so without making a sound. If he wasn’t already feeling the burn from being so close to the Half Breeds, Cole might have noticed the subtle itch caused by the presence of a single Nymar.
The man was tall, somewhere in his fifties, and had plenty of marks along his neck and arms. If Officer Stanze’s description had been a little dry, it was sure accurate. Cole lowered his spear, even though the Nymar didn’t seem too threatened by it. “Alvin?” he asked.
The Nymar nodded, which seemed to rattle his eyeballs within their sockets. Even after he’d stopped moving his head, he continued to shift his nervous gaze between Cole, the Half Breed den, the sky, the ground, and every point in between. It looked as if the secondhand suit was the only clothing he owned because his sunken chest was exposed under the jacket and bare feet stuck out from the tattered cuffs of his slacks. “Are you a cop?”
