CHAPTER 8
We found a pay phone at an old gas station on Franklin and called in to HQ to give them an update on our status. Lizz answered on the first ring.
“MHI, this is Lizz.”
“It’s me,” I stated. “Fifteen zombies bagged. Got samples for them all. Good PUFF, no injuries on our end. We had a different problem come up, though. Can you get Alex?”
“Sure, hang on,” Lizz said. Her voice became muffled over the line. “Alex! It’s Chloe!”
He must have been sitting nearby because it was less than thirty seconds before she passed the receiver over to him. “What’s going on, Chloe?”
“Pay attention because this is going to be a lot to take in, so I only want to say it once.” I was about to really put the Shackleford family mantra of flexible minds to the test on this one. “The zombies were a side effect of some kind of ritualistic sacrifice made within the broadcasting station. Afterward, the avatar of Tezcatlipoca appeared to me and said it was the work of the thing we were trying to figure out earlier.”
“Tezcatlipoca . . . the Aztec war god?”
“Among other things. But anyway, I’m pretty sure whoever told our werewolf to become a recruiter and now these zombies are from the same source. Think black binder, not red binder—or maybe red binder, but something really top-tier bad. We need to figure out what this ritual was supposed to do.” I tried to describe the symbols I’d seen etched upon the victim’s skin from memory, but it was really hard to describe something so vile. I’d taken pictures but would need an opportunity to get the film developed. I was grateful the symbols hadn’t hurt my brain just trying to look at them, like things from the Old Ones did. Once I finished describing the scene, Alex was silent for a moment.
“If Tezcatlipoca—like, the actual big guy himself—was there, wouldn’t that suggest the sacrifices were for him?”
“Nope. Not his style. Their hearts hadn’t been plucked out.”
“How do you know there’s not—”
“Because he’s my father, okay?”
“Uh . . . That’s . . . ” Alex trailed off, but to his credit, he was exactly the kind of person the Shacklefords had in mind when they’d come up with their mantra. “Alrighty, then.”
“Keep that to yourself. Well, I guess you can tell Liz and Rhino, but nobody outside the team. The guys and Melanie just found out.”
“How’d that go over?”
It had been an extremely awkward car ride. You couldn’t have cut the tension with a chain saw, it was just too thick. “We’ll talk more about that later. Focus on the sacrifice for now, because I’ve got a bad feeling this thing is just getting warmed up.”
“Okay, there were three victims?”
“Yeah. Justin thought there might be some sort of fairy-tale angle to that.”
“And to think he calls me a dork. Someone always has a meaning behind their ritual. You and I perform rituals every day.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do,” he argued. “You wake up, brush your hair and teeth, get dressed, get coffee—black, no cream . . . ”
“I see your point,” I grudgingly allowed. For a second, I’d gotten defensive because I thought the whole ritual thing was meant to insinuate something about my father. “What does this have to do with the sacrifices?”
“Routines are powered by belief. Whoever used the three men believed three was the right number, that it was very important to them. Since it made zombies, clearly there was some real power to it. I’ll dig into what I’ve got and call Alabama to see if they’ve got any ideas, but if Justin’s gut is right, our monster’s probably European.”
“Why there?” I asked.
“That’s where all the best fairy tales involving the number three originate. I’ll see what I can do. Anything else?”
Considering the bomb I’d just dropped on him, it was impressive he’d ask. “That’s it for now.”
“You’re in Hollywood, right?”
“Yeah, at a gas station near Echo Park,” I said, looking at the pumps, which all had red rags hanging from the handles. The oil crisis was getting worse and fuel was running short at a lot of stations. “No gas here, though.”
“You’re not too far from USC’s campus. The girl who got bitten by the Lake Arrowhead werewolf went to school there. You can see if the MCB’s been there yet. Or, since the full moon’s passed, see if any other students are missing. Might be some dead college kids out there we need to find. Or even another baby werewolf to track down and kill. Remember, her name is Nicole Varney. I put in a call to student services already. They confirmed she’s still a student there but won’t give a dorm room number over the phone. Are you presentable?”
I looked down at my gore-soaked shirt. Most of the zombie blood and ichor had ended up on my vest and gloves, but enough had managed to slide through the gaps to make my shirt resemble a Jackson Pollock piece. Before getting covered in gore, it had been one of the few short-sleeve buttoned shirts I could find that wasn’t made from that nasty synthetic polyester stuff. I probably could have sold it now for a few grand if I could convince the buyer I was a famous painter. “I have some clean clothes in the trunk.”
“It’d probably go smoother if two girls who look like they’re in college ask around for her,” Alex suggested. “You know, concerned friends who were in her English lit class with Professor . . . Clark?”
“How do you know what class she has?”
“I snagged a course catalogue from all the local colleges when we first got here,” he explained. “Did you know that in major cities, a huge percentage of monster attacks happen on campuses? Crazy, right? Anyway, Professor Paul Clark teaches English Literature at USC. Lit 101, 102, 201, and 202. It makes sense that she would be in one of his classes at some point, since you need a minimum of twenty-four English credits to earn an undergraduate degree.”
The man was too smart for his own good. “Good work, Alex. Thanks.”
“I’ll keep digging,” he said. “Good luck.”
I hung up the pay phone. The gas station had a bathroom we could change clothes in. Hurrying back to the car, I told the others what the plan was.
It seemed that Melanie had accepted the news the best, but then again, she’d not seen Tezcatlipoca for herself. The other two were still kind of shaken. It was one thing to hear about the avatar of an ancient being, it was something entirely different to be in its presence, and both Kimpton and Justin were still looking a little shell-shocked. A creature like that didn’t look like much, but you could just tell by the vibe they gave off that mortals were puny and insignificant to them. I’d dealt with those things before so I was used to it.
At least they didn’t seem mad at me. Or, too mad at least. Kimpton was kind of guarded anyway, but he’d slowly been warming up to me while we’d been working together. Only he’d barely said a word since my explanation, so whatever closeness we’d built was probably gone forever. Justin still seemed baffled and incredulous, like I was trying to sell him a bridge or something.
“You guys okay?”
“I don’t know. Are we?” Justin asked. So much for the bridge.
“Come on, Justin. I’m the same person as before. Give me a break.”
“That seems like the sorta thing you’d tell your team.”
“Like anyone else goes around bragging about stuff from their past they’re not proud of? You ever tell the others why you had to enlist or go to prison?”
“I was young and dumb and stuck up a liquor store,” Justin snapped. “There. But that ain’t the same. I didn’t ever know my pop, but I’m damn sure he never ate anybody’s heart.”
“Always with the human sacrifice.” I didn’t have time for this nonsense, and we could sort it out later. Grabbing our spare bags from the trunk, Melanie and I went into the bathroom for a quick wash and change. It was tiny and designed for only one person at a time, but we made do with the space we had. There was zombie gore all over our pants, and though we’d ditched the vests already, our undershirts had some residue on a few of the exposed parts. Those went into a trash bag as well. I wasn’t a fan of flared pants and waist-high belts, but it was all I had packed.
“Stupid,” I muttered and quickly buttoned up my blouse.
Melanie was already dressed and putting on makeup. “Let’s go see some college boys!” she said excitedly. Somehow the extra clothing she’d packed seemed designed to get as much attention as possible from the opposite sex. It only took her a tiny bit of effort to look perfect. Even her hair looked good. Mine looked like I’d been wearing a ski mask and sweating while chopping up zombies.
“That’s just not fair.”
“Please,” she said, dabbing her lips with red lipstick as she looked into the mirror. “Aren’t you an Aztec princess or something? Jealousy is very unbecoming.”
“So you’re okay with all that about me being only half human?”
Melanie puckered her lips. “Eh. I’ll be honest, I don’t even know who that guy is supposed to be or why he’s a big deal. History wasn’t my best subject. Do you have any . . . magic powers?”
“Kind of. There’s downsides too.” Except I really didn’t want to get into a discussion of the nagualii ways in a gas station bathroom. “Big advantages that’ll help the team are that I’m a lot stronger than I should be for my size, and my body is much more resilient than normal, which means I age slower too.”
“So that’s why you had so many experiences to talk about in training. Kimpton just thought you were exaggerating and making stuff up.”
“Yeah . . . I’m sure this revelation will make him feel so much better around me.”
“How old are you, anyways?”
“I could be your grandmother.”
“Seriously?” Melanie scoffed. “Then you extra shouldn’t get bitchy about me getting to be prettier than you for a few years.” She checked her hair again. “Let me enjoy this.”
I told very few people my secret, and even fewer took it this nonchalantly. “So you’re really okay with who I am?”
“Sure. You run the team, I get the boys.”
“What?”
“You never noticed? Wow.” She rummaged around inside her giant purse, looking for something in particular, before pulling out a large eyeshadow kit. She handed it to me. “Add some blue eyeshadow.”
I rarely, if ever, wore makeup. Not because I felt I was too naturally attractive or anything, but because I enjoyed sleeping in. Applying makeup meant getting up early. I’d rather spend that time being languid, or if I absolutely had to wake up early, drinking coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.
“College girls are all wearing blue eyeshadow and red lipstick now, and we want to fit in,” Melanie explained. “Also bright red rouge on the cheeks, but not with your complexion.”
“What do you mean, my complexion?”
“You look too Mexican.”
“No shit.” My mother had been from Oaxaca. I suspected I inherited her looks, but it wasn’t as though I could remember her, though, since she’d died during childbirth. “Of course I don’t look like Marilyn Monroe.”
“It’s a good thing too,” Melanie said as she inspected her hair one last time in the mirror, then blew herself a kiss. “One dumb blonde on the team is more than enough.”
She was far from dumb but I knew her well enough now to know she was simply fishing for a compliment. There was absolutely no way I was going to give her the pleasure. I left her hanging for a few moments, pretending I didn’t hear the comment until she grumbled under her breath about how I was the worst teammate ever.
“Well, there’s always Alex,” I added insult to injury. “He’s blond.”
She huffed a little before cracking a small smile. “We’ve worked together long enough I feel like I know you. We’re chill, Chloe. Don’t worry about the boys. They’ll come around. Let’s go find a werewolf.”
If there was a contest to see which Hunter was more nonchalant about something that most people would think insane, I wasn’t sure if the winner would be Alex Wigan or Melanie Simmons. It might be a tie.
* * *
It took a while before we managed to find a parking space. Even on a Friday afternoon, parking on campus was a nightmare. I tried to imagine what it was like on a Monday morning and shuddered. Saturday night demolition derby at a car show had more grace than college kids trying to find a parking space right before class.
Most kids couldn’t afford a car while living on a campus but this was USC and, more importantly, Los Angeles, where it seemed like every kid who attended a fancy university somehow had the financial means. Plus, nobody walked in LA. Unlike cities back east, Los Angeles was a sprawling mess. Their bus system was rudimentary, they didn’t have a subway like New York, and their streets made no sense as they bounced from city to city.
Except Foothill. God bless that street.
“What do you want us to do?” Kimpton asked, looking around. He sounded even grumpier than before, if that was possible. “This isn’t the best neighborhood, you know.”
He was right. Despite USC being one of the largest and most exclusive private colleges in California, it was smack-dab in the middle of what could loosely be called the ghetto. The neighborhood wasn’t completely gone yet, but there were parts that even I would be leery to walk through in the middle of the night. I’d seen safer neighborhoods in various slums throughout Egypt.
“Make sure no one steals my car,” Melanie said as she got out.
Justin leaned out, frowning. “Girl, who’d wanna to steal your crappy station wagon?” he called after us.
In spite of the neighborhood around it, USC had a rather nice campus. There were trees everywhere and actual green spaces, and there was an energy here that I hadn’t felt anywhere else in Los Angeles to date. It was simple youthful exuberance all tied into hopes and dreams of what the future might hold. The sensation was a stark contrast to the rest of our day. Zombies might be the company’s bread and butter when it came to paying the bills, but they were still nasty.
The Bovard Admin Building was one of the most notable places on campus, mainly because it was one of those weird structures that only happened in the middle of Southern California. A massive three-story brick edifice, it had an imposing entryway and looked like a mash-up of Spanish mission and Eurotrash. It was probably the oldest building on campus and, judging by the state of the paint someone had slapped on sometime in the last decade, was in the most need of repair. The architecture was interesting, but the place clearly needed some work. That was sad. Considering what they charged their students, I was a bit surprised the sidewalks weren’t paved with gold.
Melanie led the way inside, and unerringly guided us to the proper room we needed to go to without getting lost or turned around once. She’d been asking about my supernatural gifts earlier, but she had the sense of direction of a homing pigeon. In some past life she must have been an elf tracker, though there was no way I would ever say that to her face.
Luck struck twice in the span of five minutes. Instead of an old, crotchety secretary I’d been expecting to try and lie my butt off to in order to get the information we needed, there was a young man manning the admin desk. Melanie, smelling blood in the water the same way a shark does, moved in for the kill.
“I’m soooo embarrassed,” she cooed and leaned way over the desk, her low-cut blouse giving the boy more than an eyeful. If she’d done that around a cop she would have been arrested for indecent exposure. And frisked. “My best friend in the whole wide world hasn’t been to class in ages, you dig? She got a new dorm room and didn’t even tell me where it was at! Can you help me track her down?”
“Please?” I added, leaning over as well, because sometimes Melanie brings out the nagualii’s competitive nature.
His eyes flickered between the two of us, but it was painfully clear Melanie was the center of his entire universe at the moment. I let her have the victory. I’m classy like that. “Uh, well, I’m not supposed to . . . ” His voice trailed off as Melanie reached out and, with one perfectly pressed-on red nail, ran her fingertip across his forearm.
She gasped as she wrapped fingers around his thumb. “Oh, my . . . Do you work out?”
The girl was a force of nature. He stood no chance. It really wasn’t fair.
“I can . . . yeah . . . uh . . . what’s her, ah, name?” The guy was practically choking on his tongue now. If she kept that up he was going to pass out, or worse.
“Nicole,” Melanie answered. “Nicole Varney.”
“Ah, okay, let me see.” He began flipping through the pages. After a few moments of distracted searching—Melanie was smiling and twirling her hair, and she was so good at flirting I was beginning to wonder if it really was just an act—the poor guy finally found the entry. “Varney, Nicole. Von KleinSmid Memorial Hall, Room 257. Once you’re out the front door here, go north. There’s a plaque in front. Can’t miss it.”
“Thank you, sweetie.” I swear the woman was part succubus or something. “Oh, and can you not tell anybody that we’re on our way over? We want to surprise our friend.”
The boy stammered a goodbye but we were already halfway out the door. As soon as we were out of the admin building Melanie’s persona shifted. One second she was a college student hitting on an admin clerk. The next? The flirtatious blonde was gone and the hard-core Monster Hunter had returned. It was eerie.
“What’re you carrying?” she asked me.
“My Browning Hi-Power and three magazines,” I replied as we walked along one of the narrow paths toward the large cluster of buildings that had to be the dorms.
“Any silver bullets?”
“Duh,” I replied. I’d gotten one box of ammo silver plated. It was expensive, but effective on werewolves. Not as effective as Rhino’s silver buckshot, though. It sure would be nice if Ray could get a reliable company-wide supply going for silver bullets, because it was a pain paying for them out of your own pocket.
Melanie got a concerned look on her face. “What if she’s eaten her roommate or something?”
“Someone would have heard the screams, right?” Though I’d never been in a college dorm before. If the walls were made out of cinder block or something similar, it could potentially muffle most loud noises.
“Or smelled the mess,” Melanie added after thinking about it. “It’s been a few days since the full moon and it’s been warm.”
This area of campus seemed newer than the rest and was a beehive of activity, even though it was Friday afternoon. Several buildings were under construction, and there were crews of workers making noise. There was also an abundance of young and hot students walking around, which explained why Melanie was only getting cursory looks and not the full-on tongue wagging she was used to. I knew she was used to being the center of attention. When it didn’t happen, like now, it clearly bothered her.
Call me old-fashioned, but everyone’s shorts—boys and girls both—were far too short.
We found the dorm and went directly to our suspected werewolf’s room on the second floor. By unspoken agreement we avoided the elevator. It wasn’t like we were expecting a werewolf to change inside one or anything like that, but the city had suffered enough rolling brownouts the past few weeks that neither of us felt like getting stuck in a metal box.
As we walked up the stairs, Melanie asked, “If she’s home, how do we want to do this?”
“We’ll play it by ear. If she’s bloodthirsty and insane, we’ll probably have to shoot her and work it out with the cops afterward. If she’s rational, I want to ask her if she knows anything about this monster recruiter.”
“What if we can’t tell if she’s infected or not?”
“Then that’s Agent Beesley’s problem, and we’ll call her to handle it.”
“I really hate this. Killing monsters is one thing, but this is just some poor girl. It hardly seems fair.”
“It’s not,” I agreed. “But the better we do our job the less people like Nicole get hurt.”
We found Room 257 easily enough. There was a chalkboard mounted on the door to write messages and whatnot, and someone—probably a guy—had drawn a stick figure with giant breasts, with “Nicki’s Knockers” written below. Because some boys, it seemed, never left high school, no matter how much money their parents paid to get them out of the house.
After two knocks, the door opened to reveal a mousy-haired girl in a bathrobe and thick bifocal glasses. She squinted at us suspiciously, which meant she couldn’t be a werewolf, since the lycanthropic curse would have corrected her vision. Plus, when a new werewolf changes back to human they usually look like they’ve lost too much weight too quickly, and this girl seemed comfortably plump.
“Yes?”
“Is Nicole around?” I asked.
“She said she needed to get away from campus and left a week ago. Said she’d be back yesterday but I’ve not seen her. Got excuses from her professors and everything. Is something wrong?”
Your roommate was bitten by a werewolf and might have eaten somebody, but I didn’t say that. “We just haven’t seen her around and were wondering if she was okay.” I snuck a glance inside the dorm room, and it looked precisely how I’d imagined a college dorm room to be, except this particular one was neater than expected. Everything was tidy and organized. It was much cleaner than our HQ.
The girl seemed a little troubled. “What do you mean, ‘okay’?”
“Well, last time I saw her she seemed a little . . . off,” I lied, wondering how she would respond.
We got lucky and the roommate opened the door all the way and motioned for us to come inside. Once in, she shut the door and sat down on the edge of her bed and began to spill everything.
“Nicole met some guy at a party, then they went hiking up at Lake Arrowhead a month ago.” She kept nervously tugging at the edge of her robe while talking. “When she came back, she was different. I don’t know how to explain it. There was an edge to her, like she wasn’t the cool, easygoing girl I met last semester. Like she’s messed up, you know? She just wanted to go party and stuff after she got back. I think she might be on dope, but that’s not like her.”
“You two been roommates long?” Melanie asked as she picked up a framed picture sitting on the desk. It was of her and a girl I assumed was Nicole in a photobooth setup.
“Just this year. Our freshman year, we both had roommates who were a little wilder than we were okay with, so when we put in our preferences this year they put us together. We clicked, you know? Everyone always called us N-squared. Nicole and Natalie. We were going to get an apartment next year and stay roommates until we graduated.”
“That’s a good picture of the two of you.” Nicole was an extremely pretty girl, which was probably why the werewolf had picked her.
“It was at a sorority party at Christmas,” Natalie said. “We hadn’t really thought about joining, but everyone knew the Sig Delts throw amazing parties, so we went. It was okay, I guess. That’s where she met that guy. I think his name was Corwin.”
As far as we knew, the werewolf up at Lake Arrowhead had been a weirdo kook living in the mountains. If he was trying to form a pack, prowling across college campuses looking for prospects was a good way to do it. Irrational young adults, uncontrollable urges already, then throw in a rebellious streak, and you’ve got a very fertile ground for that sort of thing.
It also made me wonder whatever happened to poor Corwin. Probably one of those missing hikers they never found. Something to talk to Deputy Black about. I handed her my card. It was a simple business card with MHI on one side and my name and our office number on the other.
“What’s MHI?” she asked.
“That’s where I work. I don’t have a phone in my apartment. If I’m not in class, I’m at work. Easier just to reach me there. My coworkers take messages and my boss is fine with me getting personal calls there. When she comes back, can you call me?”
“Does she go anywhere else for fun?” Melanie asked.
“She’s been going to clubs lately,” Natalie said in a low voice. “A lot of them. On weekends she hasn’t even been coming back here until late Sunday night. She’s changed.”
You have no idea, I didn’t say.
“With her getting weird, did any . . . cops ever come by? Men in suits? Or maybe a lady detective?”
“No, nothing like that. Do you think Nicole is in trouble with the law?”
I was just suspicious why the MCB, with all its resources, hadn’t sent somebody by to follow up on a potentially deadly threat. Unless they’d picked Nicole up somewhere else and that was why she’d never come home. “Probably not. Thanks, Natalie.”
“Want me to tell her you were here, when she comes back?” the young girl asked.
“Don’t worry about it. She’s got my number. You just give me a call. If she wants to ring me, she knows where I’m at.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Hey, it’s probably just a phase,” Melanie tried to comfort the other woman. “She’ll come around.”
“Thanks.”
“Let’s go, Mel,” I said exited the dorm room. Before we walked away, though, I looked at the chalkboard for a moment. It was juvenile and made me angry. A newly created werewolf might see that, get angry, and go on an absolute tear through the dorm, killing dozens of unsuspecting innocents. There was no reason to add fuel to the fire. “Mind if we erase your chalkboard? Stupid boys . . . ”
“It’s the girls, actually,” Natalie said in a morose voice. “They’re jealous of Nicole so they pick on her.”
“Jealous?” Melanie asked, intrigued.
“She’s really smart,” the girl clarified for us. “And she’s supercute but doesn’t act like it. So they pick on her because she’s really quiet and never stands up for herself. Bitches . . . ”
I wiped the chalk off the board with my hand. The poor girl had been picked by the werewolf to be his second, to help him guide his eventual pack. She’d had no say in the matter. He was lucky he was already dead because I really wanted to hurt something.
Predators always go after the meek, whether it’s monsters preying on humans or mean girls picking on the nice ones. It’s been that way since the dawn of humanity. It sucked, but it was a part of life.
It was almost certain Nicole had been bitten judging by what the sheriff’s report had said, and from what Natalie was saying about the personality changes and odd behavior, she’d probably been infected, so things were going to end poorly for her. At least she had the smarts to get away from the college during the full moon, so she had that going for her. Unfortunately, new werewolves had little if any control over their ability to change. Even if she understood what was happening to her, and was trying to control it, any little thing could trigger her rage, and then people would die.
Outside, the sun was beginning to set and the construction workers were packing it in for the day. The campus was quieter, but there were still students walking around on the paths. The trees cast shadows in unusual parts of the campus and the tall buildings blocked the sun. The quaint, hope-inspiring campus I’d marveled at earlier now deemed a little more sinister, darker. I shivered in spite of the warm air.
“I thought having something to show around to identify her might be handy.” Melanie reached into her giant purse and pulled out the photo of Nicole and Natalie that she had stolen. “Do we need to call the MCB about this, Chloe?”
“We should, yeah,” I confirmed. Saying it out loud made me feel like crap, though. A sweet, innocent young girl had her future taken away because of some asshole with a god complex. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. “That’s assuming they haven’t already found Nicole and made her disappear.”
We found the nearest pay phone, I dropped in a quarter, and dialed Agent Beesley’s direct line. Luckily she was still in the office.
“Beesley.”
“It’s Chloe Mendoza, from MHI.”
“Oh hell. I spent my whole day screaming at entitled movie morons. You should have heard the weeping when I confiscated all their film. I can’t believe you let them record you, dumbass.”
Agent Beesley was as surly on the phone as she was in person. “I can’t stop regular people from doing anything, Agent—that’s your job. But that’s not why I’m calling. You said you’d appreciate a personal heads-up next time, so that’s what I’m doing.”
“What now, Mendoza?”
“I already called this one into the MCB, about how the Lake Arrowhead werewolf might have infected someone else, but we’ve looked into it, and I’d move her from suspected to probable.”
Beesley was quiet for a moment as she shuffled papers. “I don’t have anything about that.”
“I did what I was supposed to and reported it to your office. Tell your guys to get their shit together. Her location is unknown, and it sounds like she might be on the prowl. I was just calling to make sure you hadn’t already liquidated her.”
“Liquidated?” Beesley sounded aghast. “The MCB aren’t the monsters, Mendoza.”
“Sorry, take care of, disappeared, whack, whatever you call it.” If only Beesley realized what my last job had entailed, she’d understand I wasn’t trying to be offensive. My responsibilities had been to deal with the supernatural, but that had only been part of the Kidon’s mission. Sometimes governments just quietly make problematic people go away. I didn’t have to like it, but it was what it was. “I just need to make sure MCB hadn’t already handled the issue before we wasted our time searching for her.”
“We’re not that bad at paperwork. I can assure you that nobody in this office has liquidated any werewolves recently. I’ll look into it.”
“Alright. Thanks.” It was odd that the MCB would drop the ball like that, but it wasn’t my problem. I hung up the phone and turned back to Melanie. “It sounds like Nicole is still out there.”
“This sucks,” Melanie said.
“Hey, you should be happy.”
“Why should I be happy?”
“You get to go club-hopping on the company’s dime.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you hear what Natalie said back there? Nicole’s changed. She’s club-hopping, going to discos, partying. She’s probably got a newfound feeling of power and invincibility, ultimate freedom out there in a sweaty meat market. If she’s going to lose control before the full moon, it’ll probably be in that kind of environment.” And then I recalled the vision given to me by the Court Herald and the slowly turning disco ball. “Shit.”
“What?”
“I’m used to my family lying to me. Them telling the truth scares me. This is all connected, and I don’t like it.”