The saurus had battered Nigel the day before. It hadn’t done serious damage, but under his clothes, he sported massive bruises and shallow claw marks. The pain was starting to show as they set up to film the roe. The EIA crews were still carefully searching the rubble, looking for the viceroy’s bride. It was a weird kind of torture, wanting them to find something, afraid that they would find the wrong thing.
“This is a nursery of monsters,” Nigel started with his indignant anger carefully controlled. “River shark. Jumpfish. These are large dangerous predators—known man-eaters—in a city fronted on all sides by water. Thirty percent of Pittsburgh lives within a thousand feet of a river. Pittsburghers have spent years trying to reduce the population of river sharks and jumpfish. As we saw the other day, the number of these predators in this area is staggering. The only logical explanation for there to be so many river sharks and jumpfish is that the oni have been restocking them from this hatchery.”
He gestured toward the other pools. “The water fairies here have obviously been genetically engineered into something larger, more aggressive, and perhaps more poisonous. In this pool, there are several hundred eggs, just like this one.” Nigel hefted up the egg held in Hal’s grab stick. “Consider that a salmon can reach to nearly five feet in length and its roe is smaller a pea. Imagine the size of the creature that hatches out of this egg. Such a monster killed and ate an unknown number of oni before laying these eggs. The oni planned to unleash thousands of these massive predators onto an unsuspecting city, unprepared for the onslaught. It represents bio-terrorism at a horrific level.”
In the end, she convinced the men to set the roe on fire using the gasoline in the PB&G spare gas can.
If only all her problems were as easy to solve.
Brandy showed up in a Pittsburgh police squad car as they were stowing their gear. Brandy slammed her door and came storming across the parking lot like the goddess of justice.
Jane figured that she’d better beat Brandy to the punch. “Why did you call Alton and tell him to sit on me? You know how my little brothers are. I had to deal with all five of them last night. They wanted to know why you wanted me sat on. You know if I’d told them, they would have gotten their guns and come here! Do you know what kind of mess that would have been?”
“You didn’t do this?” Brandy pointed toward the flaming egg pool.
“I have a temper but I don’t tear people in half and eat them.” Jane shoved the reflector into the production truck. “The oni were using Sandcastle to breed things like river sharks, and releasing them into the Mon. We think one of their monsters turned on them. Director Maynard called us in as consultants.”
“Oh.” Brandy deflated at the news. And then deflated a little more. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry about what?”
“Your sister! Boo! You thought she might be here.”
Yes, Jane, you should be more upset. Anger was easier than pretending to be disappointed. “No! She’s not here!” Jane remembered then that the EIA was still searching the rubble for clues to Tinker’s location. “They’re checking to see if any survivors are trapped inside the buildings. Any news about Tinker?”
“Nothing good. The viceroy’s ‘blade brother’ disappeared last night.”
“His what?”
Brandy spread her hands to indicate ignorance. “It means adopted brother or foster brother or something like that. The kid is the youngest elf in Pittsburgh; from what I can tell they consider him not much older than your baby brother Guy. He’d been at the hospice; they were testing him to see if he’d been drugged or had a spell cast on him or something. That part really isn’t clear; something about seeing things that weren’t real. What’s clear is he was forcibly taken.”
Jane cursed. Losing Boo had torn her heart out. If Guy had vanished too, it would have killed her. She couldn’t even imagine what Windwolf was going through. The damnable thing is that the humans were reporting on the viceroy’s movements. The oni could easily be moving Tinker from camp to camp, staying one step ahead of the elves.
Jane breathed in deep as she realized that Boo might know where all those camps might be.
Unfortunately Brandy noticed. “What?”
Jane stared at Brandy, fighting to keep dismay off her face. What the hell do I tell her? Jane caught sight of Taggart pretending not to be listening into the conversation. A lie spilled out, seeded in the truth. “My mom has this crazy idea,” she turned slightly and dropped to a whisper. “She thinks that I’m interested in Taggart. So she wants to do a big family dinner tonight and I’d forgotten until just this moment. It’s a ‘welcome to Pittsburgh’ dinner that is really a thinly disguised ‘welcome to the family’ thing.”
The family dinner wasn’t a lie. Her family was going to be gathering at Hyeholde, trying to make up for lost time and sharing the responsibility of protecting Boo and Joey. Jane had to go back to her place to get the cannon. If her brothers found out about the river monster, they’d want to help. The last thing Jane wanted was to have to ride herd on Hal and her brothers at the same time. Since her family would be at Hyeholde when they returned, they were going to have to wait until full dark to unpack the cannon.
Brandy glanced toward Taggart. “Oh, girl, if you don’t want to tap that, let me know.”
Jane opened her mouth and didn’t know what to say except, “Hey!”
“So your mother’s idea isn’t so crazy after all?” Brandy laughed and headed back to her car. “Call me! Let me know how things work out!”
One of PB&G’s early shows dealt with a steel spinner nest at a farm in the South Hills. The appreciative farmer gave Jane two dozen newly hatched banty chicks. Jane had been caught off guard by the gift and simply stuck them in the back of the production truck while she dealt with Brian Scroggins, the fire marshall. (It takes a flamethrower to safely clean out a nest of the giant spiders. Brian eventually agreed with Jane that the farmer should have warned PB&G that he used the remote shed to store wood pallets, used engine oil, and nearly a hundred half-empty cans of spray paint. The damn aerosol cans went off like bottle rockets for an hour.)
By the time she remembered the chicks, they’d imprinted on Chesty. The big elfhound was doing the best he could, but clearly the golf-ball-sized chicks threw him into confusion as they attempted to tuck themselves under their “mother.”
Cuddling wasn’t something her family did. Most acquaintances knew that the Kryskills weren’t the touchy-feely types and kept out of striking range. Joey was as determined as the chicks to tuck himself up against his new family. Every time Joey hopped up onto the lap of one of her brothers, they went wide-eyed with surprise. They understood that Boo would see them brushing Joey off as rejecting her. They knew too that Joey desperately wanted the comfort of knowing he was loved and protected as their “little brother.” It helped that he was a sweet little boy. So her brothers soldiered on despite being clueless how to “mother” the little boy. It would be comical if it weren’t so sad. Alton was doing the best, but then he’d ended up with the chicks too.
Yesterday had been a very impromptu meal of spaghetti heavily supplemented with vegetables raided out of her garden. Today her family came prepared to cook, because that was what Kryskills did to celebrate.
Jane’s mother made her famous fried chicken (but only after Boo and Joey gave her puzzled looks and asked “Chicken is yummy, why wouldn’t we eat it?”). Geoffrey grilled corn on the cob while mixing up jalapeno butter. Marc made baby red potato salad with blue cheese and bacon. Guy tossed a salad of mixed greens and fresh-picked tomatoes with strawberry vinaigrette dressing. Duff made sauerkraut, sharp cheddar cheese and potato pierogies with caramelized onions. Alton used the blueberries that Boo and Joey helped pick for berry-and-cream-cheese turnovers dusted with confectioners’ sugar. In the spirit of “we’re all one big family,” the kids braided friendship bands with leather cord and red silk twine and tied them to everyone’s left wrist.