“Dr. Oehler claims similar results have been reported at many other hospitals across the country,” the brunette reporter said once she was back on screen. “According to the Centers for Disease Control, the Mud Flu stemmed from an exotic malaria strain brought to the U.S. from a remote region in Ecuador. Hopefully, this marks the end of an epidemic that has claimed a total of sixty-eight lives since the first reported case less than a month ago.”
“You hear that, Rico?” Cole asked as he flipped through the channels of Ned’s TV using a remote that was heavier than most people’s DVD players. “The CDC figured out the Mud Flu!”
“Great,” Rico grunted from the broken couch nearby. All that remained of the wound Lancroft had given him was a deep cut that had required just under a dozen stitches to close. “We do the legwork, our friend at the hospital puts it to use, and the feds take the credit. How much you wanna bet the insurance companies and doctors found a way to charge for immunizations of a plague that’s been wiped out already?”
“Speaking of medications, how was that Memory Water stuff?”
“Made me remember what it’s like to not have a hole punched through my chest. I only took half of what she gave me, though. Gave the rest to Paige so she could try and fix up her arm. Don’t know if she took it, though.”
“Why don’t you take some of those pain pills we found in Ned’s collection?”
“I can handle the pain just fine.”
“Actually,” Cole said, “I was hoping they’d put you to sleep for a while.”
“If I’m sleeping, I can’t work on your little present.”
The big man lay with one leg dangling off the slope-backed couch, and a pile of throw pillows under his back and neck. Rico’s grin was wide enough to display a full set of blocky teeth, and it made Cole more uncomfortable than all three sets of a Nymar’s fangs. “What present?” he asked hesitantly.
“Don’t you remember that case you threw at Daniels while we were leaving Philly?” Rico asked. When Cole furrowed his brow and started to shake his head, Rico propped himself up. Stress lines formed at the corners of his eyes, but he stubbornly refused to ease back down. “If you don’t remember, then I might as well keep it for myself!”
“I remember, I remember,” Cole said as a way to get Rico to stop straining the bandages wrapped around his torso. “Wait. I really do remember now.”
“You know what was inside?”
“No.”
Shifting within the groove he’d worn into the couch, Rico grunted, “Henry’s inside, that’s what. Pieces of him anyway.”
“Oh, hell. I don’t even know why I grabbed it, I just did.”
“Then I want you pullin’ numbers at the next bingo night, because you grabbed enough leather to make one hell of a nice piece of armor. And not just leather,” Rico added. “Full Blood hide. Do you have any idea how hard that is to come by?”
“Yeah,” Cole said while thinking back to those long strips that had been removed from Henry’s back. “I think I do.”
“Lancroft must’ve been tanning it for himself because there ain’t no way a Skinner in his right mind would part with something like that.”
Crossing the living room to the small desk where Ned’s computer was set up, Cole said, “So much for my present, huh?”
“You forgot,” the big man said with a waggle of his eyebrows. “I ain’t anywhere near my right mind. Plus, you earned it more’n I did. Give me a few weeks, maybe a month, and I’ll stitch that leather into something that’ll protect your worthless ass better than anything I ever made for anyone.”
Ned’s Internet connection was passable, so Cole was online and running various key words and phrases through his favorite search engines in no time. “Looks like Lancroft wasn’t lying about Pestilence killing off Half Breeds. The only report of any sighting in this part of the country is from some Bigfoot blog in Colorado, and the description isn’t anything like a shapeshifter I’ve ever heard about.”
“I was on earlier and saw a few pictures of a big rat thing a few miles away from the KC International Airport.”
“Was it digging?” Cole asked.
“Yeah! Only had three legs too. Weird.”
“That’s Ben. He’s supposed to be there. What about dead Nymar? I’d think those would be easy to spot.”
Rico propped his foot onto the coffee table and scratched at his bandages. “Nope. They may get hungry, but they’re not stupid. One of the bloodsuckers down in New Mexico found a way to sniff out that Pestilence shit and word’s spreading. You ask me, they’ll be our biggest helpers in making sure us humans gets nice an’ healthy in time for supper.”
While Rico talked about the coat he was making, Cole continued to search the Web. Other than a bunch of doctors congratulating themselves about wiping out the Mud Flu, the only other hit was from a fresh batch of pictures from Kansas City and Janesville. He was about to pass over one entry on HomeBrewTV.com when he realized it wasn’t more wild dog footage from KC, but from Alcova, Wyoming. It was a shaky video file filmed by the passenger of a moving car. About five seconds in, the driver hit the brakes and pointed, screaming for the cameraman to look in the opposite direction. When the camera swung that way, three large figures were crossing the highway. They ran on four legs and resembled small bears. Two of the smaller ones looked like Mongrels and bolted out of frame in a blur. The third was a larger creature with coal black fur that either had trouble walking or wanted to make sure the camera had plenty of time to get a good shot. While the people in the car chattered back and forth, the camera zoomed in close enough to the creature’s face for Cole to verify it was missing an eye.
It was definitely a Full Blood. More important, it was the Full Blood that had torn up Kansas City. Cole could almost feel the burning under his scars just by looking at Liam’s image on Ned’s screen. After a few more seconds the ebon werewolf hung its head and took a few slow steps toward the car. Tires screeched. The driver panicked and nearly ran into a tree. The video ended with a screen swearing the footage was real. Several hundred HomeBrewTV viewers posted their opinions on whether the video was real or one of the many fakes doctored by Cole himself. The prevailing opinion on the site was that the Wyoming video was “fake as hell.”
Rico sat up and grabbed his bandaged midsection. “What’s that?”
Not wanting to give him a reason to jump off the couch, Cole e-mailed the video to himself and said, “Just another Mongrel.”
The new home page for Digital Dreamers, Inc. had some flashy animations advertising new projects that Cole hadn’t even heard about yet. The only mention of the game he’d been consulting on was that it was “alive, but indefinitely postponed.”
“Yeah,” he grumbled to himself. “I know how that feels.”
“Did you hear me before?” Rico growled. “What’re your damn measurements?”
“I don’t know,” he said as he closed his browser and pushed his chair away from the desk. “Take your best guess.”
“At least tell me yer coat size.”
Standing up, Cole caught himself looking at every one of the room’s cluttered shelves and dusty surfaces. If he stared long enough, he could find clean spots that had been left behind by the fingers of its former owner.
“Get me a tape measure,” Rico said. “I think Ned kept one in the top drawer of that desk.”
Cole opened the top drawer, found the tape measure amid some old lottery tickets and brought it to Rico.
Holding both arms straight out and to the sides, Cole asked, “Where’s Paige?”
“Dogtown.”
“Is that still in St. Louis?”
After jotting down one set of measurements into his little spiral notebook, Rico grumbled, “Yeah. Just south of Forest Park, right around Clayton Avenue.”
“Can you be more specific than that?”
“Sure I can. First let’s discuss lining and pockets.”
Less than an hour after his session with the ugliest seam-stress in history, Cole parked in front of St. James the Greater Catholic Church. He double-checked the address scribbled on the piece of paper torn from Rico’s notebook as well as the screen of his GPS. Not even the Cav parked nearby with smashed windows, dented doors, missing bumper, and multiple coats of rust was enough to fully convince him he was in the right place.
