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O’Hara and Troy step into the room. “Is this where the party’s at?”
“Hell, yes!” Trent leaves us to stride over to them and pound Troy on the shoulder. “Good to see you back in action. How’s the leg? Any pain when it rains?”
A few minutes later, Johannsson and Webb step into the room, and over the next thirty minutes, the rest of the former Woo Woo Squad joins us.
It’s a tight fit for the planning room, with most people left standing, but we make it work.
Meredith’s voice breaks through the chatter. “If everyone is here now, we can get this show on the road.”
Quiet falls as all eyes turn to the large monitor at the front of the room.
Meredith’s fingers dance across her keyboard, and an aerial map of Clearhelm appears on the screen. “I’ve been tracking the earthquakes as they increase in frequency. The epicenter is here, in the forest where you found the original bone pit.”
Circles appear on the map, overlapping each other and covering the thickest part of the forest.
“That’s near the founder’s house,” Troy says. “Is that a monster attractor or something?”
“Berdherst’s family has been feeding this thing.” Disgust twists Flint’s face. “We only know this because we got tangled up in the whole mess last year when we took on a case for his now ex-wife.”
“He’s known about this thing since then?” O’Hara shakes his head. “That’s fucked up.”
“He’s known about it since before Clearhelm was founded. He planned to feed his daughter to it for charisma and luck.” Flint’s hands curl into fists. “Monsters tend to attract each other, which explains why the Hive Queen used his old family estate as a place to meet with her drones.”
“Think if we kill this thing, we’ll stop attracting all these beasties?” O’Hara asks with a look of disappointment.
“We can hope.” Sharpe’s hazel eyes fix on Meredith. “Can you tell how much time we have?”
Meredith taps at her keyboard, and a new image appears, showing a graph rapidly rising from left to right. “The earthquakes have been increasing in strength, so I’d guess it will rise soon.”
“Can you narrow the field down any further?” Sharpe asks. “We already figured the next one was in those woods.”
Meredith shakes her head. “Unfortunately, that’s as close as I can get you. There’s too much movement to tighten the search radius.”
O’Hara rubs his chin. “If we go in with the same tactic as before, we could accidentally set the whole forest on fire.”
Sharpe’s jaw clenches. “If that’s what needs to happen, then we do it.”
A shiver of anticipation goes through me, and the firebird inside lifts its head in interest. “We can help contain the fire once the Bone Man is dead.”
Marc and Darius give me sharp looks, and I stare back at them with raised brows. If I have to consume a forest fire, so be it. I can deal with having to relearn technology for the second time in a year.
An icon pops up on the TV screen, and Meredith moves her mouse toward it. “Looks like there’s an emergency alert.”
She clicks on it, and a news channel opens on the TV screen.
A familiar-looking news anchor with platinum blond hair and gray eyes stares back at us, a microphone in hand. “We are standing outside of the Bone Yard, whose citizens were forced to flee for their lives just yesterday afternoon when a monster rose from its streets.”
She turns toward a podium that has been erected in front of the archway, where dozens of other news media people swarm around it. “Mayor Berdherst has summoned us for a special announcement. Will he address the heroics of our city’s Joint Task Force of Paranormal Investigators, who risked their lives earlier to defeat this newest monster? Or the earthquakes that still rock our city? Let us find out.”
The camera zooms in as Mayor Berdherst steps onto the podium. While he wears his usual pristine suit and tie, sweat glistens on his brow, and strain tightens his features.
He taps the mic to draw everyone’s attention. “Thank you all for joining me here today. First off, I would like to thank Clearhelm’s Police Department for its tireless service in making sure our streets are safe and our citizens protected.”
“What the hell?” O’Hara mutters.
Angry murmurs rise around the room.
While he doesn’t come right out and claim Bailey’s people fought the monster in the Bone Yard, the placement of the emergency meeting heavily implies it.
