“For being media stars, you guys are so out of touch,” Stu mused.
“Hold on, I’ll switch you to speaker.” With that, Cole tapped a few buttons and opened the Internet browser on his phone. He scrolled down a little to find the local headlines and saw no fewer than three different stories ranging from LOCALS KILLED BY ROAMING PIT BULLS to FIREFIGHTERS MAKE GRISLY DISCOVERY AT CAMPGROUND.
“Did you see the one about the suspected ritualistic slayings?” Stu asked. “That’s my favorite. What the hell did you stir up over there?”
“It’s been a busy night,” Cole said. When Paige rolled onto her side, he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Isn’t there some sort of damage control for something like this?”
“There’s never been anything like this. At least, not when I’ve been around to see it. A lot of pictures are making the rounds online, but so far there’s just as many people saying they’re fakes as there are who think the world’s coming to an end.”
Cole had just tapped to that section of the article. It took a few seconds to receive the pictures, but there were plenty to be found. Frame upon frame, collected from cell phones to pocket cameras, showed very blurry creatures moving like a swarm across streets and over open fields. For once, he was grateful the Half Breeds could run so fast. “I just washed the stink off and there’s already pictures on the Internet,” he muttered.
“I know. One time I posted a request for strategy on a Sniper Ranger fan site and I got three replies by the time I got back from draining the weasel.”
“I knew you cheated on our death matches.”
“Not cheating. Strategy.”
“Have you posted any of these pics on the MEG site?” Cole asked.
“I’m…uhhh…not in control of everything that goes up on the site,” Stu fumbled.
“What about debunking?”
His laughter sounded almost as hesitant as his reply to the last question. “I suppose we could try to shoot a few holes in this stuff, but that might only draw more attention to it. Maybe we should just leave it alone. Do you know how many pictures of the Loch Ness monster were proven to be genuine? We’ve posted plenty of disembodied voices and footage of genuine spiritual activity. You’d think that would be considered pretty important, huh? Life after death and all that? Other planes of existence. Nah. Most folks just go on with what they know and ol’ Nessie drifts back down to the bottom of the lake.”
Cole had stopped listening. While flipping through the pictures from Kansas City, he picked out a few favorites. “How much longer will you be there?”
“Just another hour. I can barely stay awake as is. Abby will be here soon, though.”
“Does she like debunking?”
“Almost a little too much.”
“Good,” Cole said. “Then she’ll love what I’ll be sending your way.”
Chapter 20
It was a nice house built on a quiet block in Overland Park, which was a pretty nice suburb of Kansas City. The neighborhood slept as the sun crested the horizon and paperboys made their deliveries. When one copy of the Kansas City Star slapped against this particular house, the impact knocked the door open an inch or two. It wasn’t enough for the delivery boy to notice, so he kept going, and the rest of the city went about its morning routine.
A man in a cheap suit walked down the sidewalk with his hands stuffed into his pockets. His eyes slowly absorbed everything around him and his nostrils flared as he got closer to the house with the door that was ajar. Upon reaching the porch, he sniffed the air, shook his head, scooped up the paper, and walked inside.
The entry was very tidy, apart from a shattered coffee mug on the floor of the entry way and streaks of blood smeared on the tile. More blood led up a carpeted staircase to the second floor, where the coppery smell was even worse. A television was on up there, but played the music from a DVD menu that hit the end of its loop and began again. Mr. Burkis tightened his grip on the newspaper he’d brought in from the front step and scowled at the upper end of the staircase. The corner of one nostril twitched and his eyes snapped toward the source of the new scent he’d picked up beneath the odor of not-so-fresh kills. Someone had just opened a fresh can of coffee.
“’Morning, Randolph,” chimed a voice from the kitchen.
Burkis seemed mildly uncomfortable to hear that name, but didn’t refute it. He stepped over a hutch that had been knocked over, crushing some of the fine china that had spilled from it as he walked into a rustic dining room. A mess of splintered chairs and broken glass lay scattered near an upended, solid oak table. A chunk of the kitchen counter had been broken off, leaving the rest of the adjoining room mostly intact. A skinny man dressed in a baggy gray sweat-suit stood in the kitchen. He held a can of coffee in one hand, pulled the top off, and sniffed the plastic circle. A narrow smile slid across his sunken features as he said, “I’ve grown to love coffee since crossin’ the pond. Care for a mug?”
Randolph narrowed his eyes and walked over to where the kitchen table had landed. He righted it with as much effort as someone might use to lift a box of cereal and slapped the newspaper down flat upon it. “What have you done, Liam?”
“Why, whatever do you mean?” the skinny man asked in a thick cockney accent.
Scanning the headlines for all of two seconds, Randolph slammed a finger down on a lower corner of the front page. “This is what I mean!”
Liam took the carafe from the coffee machine and filled it. Squinting as he scooped some grounds into a filter and put it all together in the machine, he asked, “Might you be referrin’ to the gas prices or the construction?”
Randolph didn’t move.
When Liam spoke again, his accent was smoother and more natural than it had been before. “They were bound to notice us sooner or later.”
“Especially since you’ve been running down the streets and howling at the moon like an idiot!”
“That’s fine talk comin’ from you, Randolph. What about the street wars you instigated back in New York?”
“I didn’t start those, and that was long before pictures and video could be spread so easily. For God’s sake, there’s hardly even a record of it! This,” he snarled, while pounding his fist against the newspaper, “is even worse than your incident in Whitechapel.”
Liam got the coffee brewing with the tap of a button and then glanced back at Randolph. “That was also over a hundred years ago. Besides, I’ve never been linked to those gutted whores.”
Cocking his head slightly, Randolph narrowed his eyes to a point where the other man couldn’t bear it.
Finally, Liam snarled, “All right, fine. I may have had a little something to do with the Whitechapel incident, but it wasn’t just me killing a bunch of women for no reason. Those uptight constables had the gall to try and run us out of London! Don’t you remember that?” Dark hair was plastered against his scalp and forehead in a way that would have seemed perfectly natural in the faded portrait of a banker from the eighteenth century. Even his facial structure seemed outdated. His bony shoulders and narrow limbs were built for old suits that hung in museums.
“Times are different now,” Randolph reminded him. “Even if they weren’t, what you’re doing is unacceptable.”
“Perhaps,” Liam said as he raised his eyebrows, “you could have kept things in line if you’d been here. I did invite you, but you’re so hard to find. I only recently learned the new name you’ve taken. Burkis, is it?”
The other nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Almost back to your roots, eh? I like it.”
Randolph snatched up the paper and practically rubbed Liam’s nose in it. “What do you hope to accomplish with this? You’re purposely creating Half Breeds?”