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.
St. James was beautiful in the same way that most churches were beautiful. Stained glass caught the sunlight and scattered it throughout a large room filled with rows of pews and well-cared-for statuary. There wasn’t a mass being performed, so most of the seats were empty. A small line formed near a confessional, and a priest in his late fifties or early sixties acknowledged Cole’s arrival with a curt nod. He returned the nod and spotted Paige sitting just right of center of the sixth pew from the front. As he scooted over to her, he couldn’t decide if she was praying, studying one of the leaflets stuck in the hymnal rack in front of her, or sleeping.
A few silent moments passed before he smirked uncomfortably and said, “I never know what to do in Catholic churches. There’s all the books and shelves and these folding padded things down there. I guess those are for kneeling.”
Her eyes were fixed upon the front of the chapel, assessing the notched altar and the stoic, vaguely distracted faces on the statues around it.
“Speaking of kneeling,” Cole fumbled, “I have no clue when to drop down, when to stand up, when to cross myself. Do I eat the bread? Should I pretend I’m singing if I don’t know the words or just stand there? When I go by that big water bowl, do I touch it, flick it, make a wish?”
“How did you know I was here?” she asked.
“Rico told me.”
“How did he know I was here?”
“Was it supposed to be a secret?”
Reaching out to run her finger along the closest hymnal, she replied, “I guess not. Shouldn’t you be at Jack in the Box or something? I think Eat Rite is open twenty-four hours.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Paige looked up at the saints and martyrs frozen in everything from plaster to colored glass. “Good thing I came here. If you’re not craving greasy food, the world must be about to end.”
Closing his eyes and flattening both hands on the uncomfortable bench, Cole savored the cool touch of the old wood upon his scars. “I had to get out of Ned’s house. I know Rico’s still not feeling very good, but he’s acting as if we just checked into that place like another hotel room. I see all of Ned’s stuff, right where he left it, and think I’m still not allowed to look in those jars. I step over his shoes when I walk past the couch. His clothes are still on the hooks by the door, and I just can’t get over the fact that I had to identify his body. Is there even going to be a funeral?”
“No. He was already cremated.” Paige didn’t have to look at Cole to know what he was thinking. The breath he let out was slow, tense, and loud enough to echo within the quiet calm of the church. “Skinner funerals aren’t a good idea,” she explained. “Having too many of us together in one spot away from a defensible location is too juicy a target for some Nymar gang looking to prove themselves or someone like Liam or Burkis, who might decide to wipe our slate clean.”
“Did you see that video from Wyoming?”
She nodded.
“So you think that’s really Liam?”
“Full Bloods don’t live so long just because they can. They fight for it tooth and nail.”
Too tired to pursue that subject, Cole shifted to the previous one. “Wouldn’t you like to say goodbye to Ned? Maybe have a send-off or something?”