“Maybe it’d help your arm,” Cole offered.
She started climbing again. “Already tried and it burned like hell. I think it’s got something to do with the charmed metal of the Blood Blade mixing directly with the Nymar juice in the serum. That stuff isn’t just some magic
It made him warm in all the good places to hear her throw around some geek talk while also climbing stairs in her tight sweatpants directly in front of him. “Health pack, huh? If I got you into some more
She glanced over her shoulder and cocked her hip in a way that made it obvious she knew she was being watched. “And if you stopped talking about video games so much, you might gain a few hot points yourself.”
Cole knew better than to chase after that line of conversation. While some parts of him were more than willing to see it through, the other ninety-five percent was just too damn tired. He climbed up the stairs and then heard something that made him rethink those statistics.
“Come with me, Cole,” Paige said as she headed to her bedroom. “I need you for something.”
Letting his spear drop from his hand, he maneuvered through the spotless kitchen and to the rooms in the back of the old restaurant. Paige’s had once been the manager’s office, but had plenty of space since the wall between the original office and adjoining storage area had been knocked down. As she walked past a few mismatched dressers and a full-sized bed on a cheap wooden frame, she peeled off her sweatpants and tossed them onto a pile of clothes that had been festering there since before they left for KC. She wore her tight runner’s shorts under the sweats, which hugged her backside quite nicely.
Following her to a small desk at the back corner of the room, Cole deduced that the computer set up there was probably good enough to play a few games, but not at the proper graphical resolution needed to get the full effect. When Paige sat down at the desk, he groaned, “Seriously? Do you really need to strip just to get help with your computer?”
“Who says I need help with a computer?” she asked.
“So…you want to…?”
“No. I need your e-mail password. MEG forwarded some stuff, but sent it to you.”
“So you’re just trying to torture me?”
She crinkled her nose and shrugged. “Maybe just a little.”
“It’s not funny.”
“Yes it is. You should see the look on your face.”
Cole let out a sigh and walked over to see what was on the monitor.
“Oh come on,” Paige said. “My sweats smell like I stole them from a wino. They’re gross and sticking to me.”
Since he was trying not to look at her, Paige leaned closer so he could see the puppy dog eyes she was flashing him. Unlike the ones that had gotten him bruised up in practice a while back, these were genuine. “Sorry. After seeing you in your carrot patch boxers, I thought we could relax a little more around each other.”
“Relax, yes. Torture, no.” He tapped in another password and went to the most recent arrivals to his in box. “Here it is. It’s from Branch 18. They say thanks for the thermal. What’s that mean?”
“That fancy camera they were using was on layaway, so I paid it off for them. After all they did for us, I figure they earned it.”
Cole scrolled down. “Here’s one from Branch 40. It’s a bunch of links to…ohhhh…yeah. Have you seen these?”
Staring at the e-mail, Paige glanced down a long line of links to other websites, most of which steered them back to HomeBrewTV.com. Although the site’s bread and butter were videos of teens slamming each other in the groin or trying to sing, there were also plenty of clips from real television shows posted under various categories. All of the links in Stu’s e-mail fell under the same category: Kansas City Riots.
“Isn’t this the same site with the series about what can fit into a blender and the webcam journal from that whiny little college girl?” Paige asked.
“Just watch.”
The first video Cole opened was of a blond woman standing about forty yards away from the police car that Liam had smashed. Judging by the washed-out quality of the sunlight, it looked as if the report had been filmed not long after dawn. “Local authorities are still cleaning up the mess from Wednesday’s riot,” she said. “Although believed to have started during the most recent attack by a pack of rottweilers suspected of being set loose from an illegal fighting ring, the incidents quickly elevated to alarming proportions. Nearly all of Kansas City’s police responded to calls ranging from wild animal sightings to random assaults.”
The scene cut to another location, and had been recorded at another time, because the dazed old woman in a housedress was cast in the warmer light of early evening. “I don’t know what the police say they was, but they weren’t any dawgs. I had plenty of dawgs and I ain’t never seen dawgs like these.”
“What did they look like?” the blond reporter asked from off-camera.
“They was big and scary and…
The scene cut to a newsroom, where an older woman with graying hair sat beside a guy who looked like he’d been sucked out of an ad for cologne. The blonde from the previous scene was on a smaller screen behind cologne guy, and she said, “Many other witnesses claim to have seen what they describe as wolves running through the downtown area. While several cameras posted throughout the city were able to catch glimpses of large animals, this station was able to catch the following footage.”
Her image was replaced on the screen by a two-second clip of three animals racing across the frame so quickly that they weren’t much more than shaggy blurs. When the clip was slowed down and looped, the animals became even blurrier. The blonde reappeared just long enough to say, “Back to you, Madelyn and Jeremy.”
“Weren’t there wolves sighted in Chicago a few months ago?” the older woman asked.
Cologne guy nodded just like the prompter told him to and said, “Chicago police did report being attacked by a large animal at the scene of a domestic disturbance in Schaumburg, but refused to elaborate.” The monitor behind him flickered to show people of all shapes and shades running down the streets in a panic while throwing heavy things at each other or into nearby windows. “As for the riots, Kansas City authorities have issued a statement saying they were sparked by an unfortunate chain of events that led to nearly disastrous results. Since Wednesday, no more wolves, rottweilers,
The next link in the e-mail was to another news video. The channel identification was different from the first, and the reporter was a rugged man who stood in a train yard with several fire trucks behind him. “Responding to a call that was placed toward the end of tonight’s riots,” he said, “the fire department found a grisly sight here at the Pyat Train Yards.” The reporter turned to reveal a blackened pile in the distance that had a thick plume of black smoke rolling off it. The camera then panned to show a slender man in his late forties dressed in full firefighter gear. A label at the bottom of the screen identified him as Lieutenant Bradley Speck.
“Tell us, Lieutenant Speck, what happened here?”
“Near as we can tell, someone killed a bunch of the dogs or whatever that were running loose and burnt them here.”
“So these are the dogs that were attacking people?”
“I don’t know about that,” Lieutenant Speck replied, “but they were a bunch of animals with some big teeth. They were burnt up pretty bad, so it’s hard to tell what breed they were.”
“There have been witnesses saying these were wolves or possibly something else. What can you say about that?”
“I just put out the fires. After a night like this, we’re lucky there weren’t more to put out. That’s all I’ve got to say.”
A third link was to a report from one of the national news stations. It was a short piece about the riots, which focused mostly on how many were killed and injured. Cole was about to skip right over it when he spotted a familiar face. He rewound the video and played it from there.
“I’m standing here with Kansas City local Alvin Monroe,” stated a stern but vaguely attractive woman wearing a sharp blue suit. Next to her was the skinny Nymar who’d approached Cole in North Terrace Park.
Alvin gazed into the camera as if staring into an alien probe, and then smiled just wide enough to show the chipped tips of his lower fangs. When he waved to his viewing public, his tattered sleeve fell down to show the thick
