Taggart put a hand to her shoulder to steady her. She realized that he was telling Maynard that he was a war correspondent and used to dead bodies laid out in a row, but that Jane had never experienced it before.
“I’m afraid it’s going to become a common sight before this comes to an end,” Maynard said.
“They have horns.” Hal seemed unaffected by the dead. Considering his degrees, he probably had experience dissecting human bodies. “If elves were the basis of our fae legends, I wonder if the oni are our demons.”
“The Japanese use the word ‘oni’ to denote ‘ogre’ or ‘demon,’ depending on the translation,” Nigel said.
Pittsburgh’s coroner, Tim Covington, and his staff noticed the camera on Taggart’s shoulder first, blazoned with PB&G’s logo. All activity ground to a halt as they were starstruck by Hal’s presence. There was a moment of boyish silliness as Hal clowned with the men and women wearing rubber gloves and face masks. Jane was happy that it took all attention off her and gave her a chance to recover her balance.
After five minutes, though, she flicked her hand across her throat and Hal used his superpowers to gracefully turn the humans back to work with “I should let you get back to wrapping this all up.”
“My own experts will deal with the gunshot victims.” Maynard indicated the coroner’s staff who were putting the oni that Jane had killed into body bags. “This is why I called you in.” He crossed to a second line of bodies—or, more correctly, random body parts. He pointed down at the upper torso of a male. The body was torn in two, exposing the bottom of the ribcage. The lungs and heart had gone with lower half—most likely down the gullet of the river monster.
“Something went through this area last night. Judging by the bite marks, it’s huge.” Maynard walked forward, pointing to other half-eaten bodies. “And hungry, or maybe travels in a pack. And there’s this.” He stooped to indicate a feathery-looking vinelike pattern marking the chests, arms and legs of the various dead. “Covington says that this is indicative of lightning strikes. Only it didn’t storm last night and there’s no power lines down in the area.”
Jane was counting the dead. Boo had told them that there were fourteen oni guarding over her and Joey. Jane had shot three. If the river monster had killed the rest, then there were no witnesses to their rescue mission. The bits and pieces gathered together, though, seemed too few. Had they escaped or were they eaten whole?
“The elves can throw lightning,” Hal said. “Are you sure that one of them wasn’t the cause of these burns?”
“Only Windwolf can do that and he was with me last night.” Maynard pointed toward the river. “There are tracks of something large.”
“We had asked viewers to phone in sightings of monsters so we could film them.” Jane worked on their alibi as Hal and Nigel examined the tracks. “We were in the South Hills yesterday filming a saurus that Grandma Gertie e-mailed in. It nearly ate Nigel. One of our tips was a sighting of a large river monster. We thought we spotted it from the Fort Pitt Bridge the day after Startup, but when we searched for it the next morning, we couldn’t find any trace of it.”
Maynard gave her a hard look. “You didn’t think to mention this to anyone?”
“Actually we asked both your river patrols and the police to keep an eye out for it.”
He consulted his tablet again and sighed. “Forgiveness. I see that you did. What did you see?”
“Not much,” Jane lied and prayed that the man never saw their footage. “When we saw this thing, we didn’t realize it could leave the river. That’s why we went after the saurus; a dinosaur in the suburbs seemed more dangerous than something confined to the water. This is a game changer; we need to find this thing and stop it.”
And Jane meant every word of it. Because of the jumpfish, no one strayed too close to the riverbank. Downriver of Sandcastle, though, there were thousands of people living just outside of jumpfish range of the water. It was one thing to have this thing rampaging through an abandoned water park in one of the emptiest neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. It was quite another if it came ashore on the North Side or downtown.
With the Pittsburgh Police spread thin and the EIA busy trying to find the kidnapped princess while cleaning house of oni moles, there was no one else able to deal with such a large, dangerous monster.
“We’ll take care of this,” Jane said.
“You sure?” Maynard asked.
“We’ve been solving problems like this for years.” Hal could truthfully claim it, too. “We can handle this.”
Maynard raised his hand to his ear and listened to some report over an earpiece. His eyes narrowed and he glanced toward the parking lot. A lone hoverbike was coming at breakneck speed.
Jane didn’t realize she’d growled with anger until Taggart asked quietly, “Who is that?”
“Wicked Witch of the West on her broom stick,” Hal said.
Jane backhanded Hal with her free hand. “Chloe Polanski.” Maynard knew PB&G’s reputation, but he’d called Dmitri for Hal’s help. He’d only recognized the men who appeared in front of the camera, not Jane who normally stayed behind it. Nor had she introduced herself—she rarely did. Thus he probably didn’t know her father had been a sniper. The three perfect headshots meant nothing to him. Chloe, though, had covered Boo’s kidnapping and gotten to know Jane’s family well. If she saw the bodies…
Jane had to be sure that Chloe was too preoccupied to notice until the oni were safely body-bagged. “Do you mind if we film a public announcement warning people to stay away from the river and to report anything unusual they see?” Jane shifted so that her back was to the dead oni.
Maynard nodded after moment of thought. “Yes, that would probably be a good course of action.”
Jane waved Taggart to aim the camera at Maynard and lifted the reflector. “Hal…”
“Raccoon boy.” Hal pointed at his face.
There wasn’t time for makeup. “Nigel. Highlight the basics: unknown beast wreaks havoc at Sandcastle, multiple dead, size of beast estimated to be quite large, able to move both in the water and out. People are to stay away from the river and report any sightings. Go!”
Nigel hit his mark beside Maynard, squared off with the Director, set his face on “serious” and the moment that Taggart indicated he was rolling, launched into commentary. “This is Nigel Reid, coming to you from Sandcastle Waterpark for NBC. I’m here with Director Maynard of the EIA.”
Nigel glossed quickly over the oni, suggesting only that those dead were killed by the monster. Taggart gave Jane a questioning glance but any discussion would be picked up by the camera’s microphone. Silence was ingrained into the cameraman.
Jane watched out the corner of her eye as Chloe dismounted her hoverbike. Take the bait. Take the bait.
“Director, obviously this is a massive creature.” Nigel managed to guide the director even farther from the coroner’s van by indicating the tracks leading down to the river. “The footprints are nearly two feet wide. We can see the wide, smooth drag mark that is classic for crocodile. This creature appears to be long and low to the ground.”
Maynard took out his tablet and started to take notes. “What else can you tell me about this creature?”
Everything.
Nigel continued on as if they hadn’t actually seen the monster in question. “The largest known crocodile is the saltwater crocodile which can reach up to twenty-two feet and weighs up to four thousand, four hundred pounds. They are aggressive hunters and are considered very dangerous to humans in areas where they are found. The creature that attacked Sandcastle is easily twice the size of the largest known crocodile.”