“I doubt you’ll be here long enough for either one of us,” she told them bluntly, but for some reason, it only made Taggart grin.
Much to Chesty and Taggart’s dismay, she had the cameraman ride with her and Nigel follow in their truck. She had to keep them separated if she was going to keep them from running off and trying to film without her. From what she’d been able to observe, Taggart was the practical details person of the team.
Taggart put his back to the passenger door; either to keep an eye on Chesty in the backseat or to make sure Nigel was staying behind them. Both denoted a cautious outlook, which Jane approved of. It would make her job easier if Taggart was used to keeping Nigel in check.
“We’ll see about getting you a place to live tomorrow,” Jane said. “Any house that’s unoccupied is free to anyone who is willing to take care of it. Its July, you won’t have to worry about heating. The station can pull some strings to get you water and power. We watch each other’s backs here.” Hence the entire show this morning. They do a favor for EIA, and somewhere down the road, they could reasonably call in a return favor. “We’re not going to let you screw things up and then drive away next Shutdown. We have to live here.”
“Fine,” Taggart growled as if it cost him to agree. “But it would be helpful to be caught up to speed. ‘It’s complicated’ is bullshit.”
It took her a moment to track back through the morning to find Dmitri’s explanation of the current political situation in Pittsburgh. Okay, admittedly it was fairly sketchy.
“Okay, I’ll catch you up but you’ll have to be patient because it isn’t simple.”
She waited until he nodded in agreement before starting. She wanted to start laying ground rules of asking for cooperation and getting it. “Earth and Elfhome are parallel universes, mirror reflections with minor differences, the main one is that Elfhome has magic. Geographically they’re identical. Recently the elves admitted that they could travel from Elfhome to Earth via a pathway through large cave systems.”
“Yeah, we’ve always suspected something like that. All the legends we have of fae living under the hills.”
“Lying is considered a major crime by elves, but not answering the question is an art form that they carefully cultivate.”
“And apparently it rubs off,” Taggart complained.
Jane ignored him. She’d scripted enough “how-to” bits that she knew that the key to understanding something complex required starting at the important facts that might seem basic but on which all understanding pivoted. “What magic does to the equation is that it superloads the DNA of all the native species. Basically everything on Elfhome could beat the snot out of its Earth cousin. We’re genetically close enough to elves that we can interbreed, but they’re taller, stronger and immortal. Chesty here will live almost twenty times longer than any Earth breed of his size.”
“Do you mind starting with something I don’t know? Like if the viceroy is dead or alive? And why he went missing?”
Jane plowed on with her explanation. “There’s a third parallel universe, with yet another mirror world, named Onihida, and it has magic. Its people are the oni.”
He didn’t startle as much as she expected and his next question explained why. “Whose theory is this?”
She dropped the big bomb. “Twenty-eight days ago, the oni made a very serious attempt at killing the viceroy.”
“Wait!” There was the reaction she was expecting. He stared at her, eyes wide. Pure cameraman, though, that was the only body reaction to his surprise. Thankfully his voice made it worth everything, his normal rich near bass went all squeaky. “You mean they’re here? In Pittsburgh?”
“Yes. Number unknown but possibly in the hundreds, if not thousands. Goal unknown, but obviously hostile to the elves. The elves have reluctantly also admitted that they had a running skirmish with the oni several hundred years ago. It started on Onihida, went across parts of China, and ended in the cave systems that lead to Elfhome. Or used to lead. The oni so scared the shit out of the elves that they blasted the pathways between Elfhome and Earth shut.”
Taggart gazed out the SUV’s windows at the city streets. Mercy Hospital was in one of the better areas of town since it lay protected on two sides by the river. All the windows had glass in them, the sidewalks were clear of weeds, and no wild animals were scurrying for cover. It could be any street in America. “I thought if the EIA was allowing people in, that the trouble had blown over.”
Pittsburgh desperately needed supplies from Earth once a month. There simply were too many people and too little farmland for the city to feed itself, even in the summer months. It would have gridlocked incoming traffic completely if the EIA had tried to turn back everyone not transporting food.
Jane didn’t point out that they’d downloaded all the information to Earth at midnight yesterday. The network had twenty-four hours to realize they were sending their people into a war zone and call them back.
Hal normally was excitable with a quirky sense of humor. On painkillers, he was manic and loopy. Most people thought Hal was funnier with all politically correct safeguard brakes stripped off and the engine running at full. The nuns of Mercy Hospital, however, were not among that number. If anything, “loathing” was probably an accurate word to how they felt about him. Over the years, they had abandoned all “family only” rules for Jane in order to facilitate her taking him away. As far away as possible. They had hinted that his returning to Earth—permanently—would be a good thing for everyone.
Today was no exception.
Mother Superior of the Sisters of Mercy herself was lying in wait for Jane at the foyer.
“You have to keep in mind we only can restock our supplies once a month. Frankly it always stresses our supplies of medications when Mr. Rogers is having a streak of bad luck. With fighting breaking out right and left…”
“Mother Superior, this is Nigel Reid. Nigel, Mother Superior is head of the nuns that oversee this hospital. Anyone attacked by a monster is brought here to be treated.”
Which of course was all that took. TV hosts were kind of like napalm. You threw them at any major infestation and they cleaned out the area of all hostiles.
Nigel lit up as if introduced to Santa Claus. “Oh, how simply wonderful to meet you!”
Taggart caught what she had done and his eyes glittered with his smile. “That was pure evil.”
“Judicious use of resources is always appropriate.”
For reasons that she could never understand, they always put Hal in pediatrics, as far from the nurses’ station as possible. It was possibly because it was usually the least occupied floor, or perhaps it was a statement on what they thought his mental age was.
He was standing on the window ledge, hospital gown flapping open in the back, as he waved her camera around.
“Hal! What the frick are you doing with my camera? Get down! And don’t you dare break my camera!”
“Jane?” Hal glanced over his shoulder. His two black eyes made him look like a startled raccoon. “Jane!” he cried with joy and then realized he was holding evidence of his crime. “Jane!” And that he was currently mooning her. “Jane!” And in trying to hide the evidence while pinning the flaps of the hospital gown together, he started to wobble dangerously on the window ledge. “Jane!”
Cursing, Jane caught the wrist of the hand holding the camera and jerked him toward her. In what was an unfortunately well-practiced move, she pulled him into a fireman’s carry over her shoulder. “I swear, Hal, I’m going to tell them to tie you to the bed if you pull this shit again!”
She delivered him to said bed.