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Chapter One

"Authorities assert," I said clearly into the microphone I held, "that medical examinations will reveal this as just the scene of another rural juvenile prank, nothing rapher wrapped the take NoYou never knehen you were really on or off camera A savvy TV reporter learned to freeze like a depart a stand-up

Of course I hadn’t believed a word I said

If you don’t cooperate with the police in the early stages of a crime story, they’ll cold-cock you later, just when everything is getting juicy They’ll cold-cock you anyway, just for the fun of it

Speaking of juicy, the three corpses were bone soup inside their intact skins No way does any weapon known to hu the incident like a frat-boy prank for the public So this was just a semi-crime scene

That scene was a Kansas cornfield andarch-deep in clods of dirt or shit, depending

" Del," the lieutenant said as soon as the day-bright caed back into a rural darkness where no crickets chirped

Crickets always chirped in the spring country night, which was yet another sign that this was one eerie crime scene

As the cameraman drove off in the station van to film another story, Lieutenant Werner, short, dark, and rotund, escorted me over the clods to the unpaved road, where a sleek black car stood shrouded in gravel dust We had a working history, so I accepted his part gallant, part controllingOut of state license plate Way ent Edwards wants to talk to you"

Agent Edwards Not the county agricultural agent, not state police Fed Hello, Fox Mulder, maybe? Just when you need a hero

" Miss Street," the hts froent Edwards was an East Coast yuppie, no hair below the tops of his ears or the back of his stiff white shirt collar Cornfields were as alien to him as crop circles, but I knew a lot about both

"You cover the ’paranormal crime’ beat around here, I understand" Edwards put a sneer inside his quotation marks

"I don’t think you do understand," I answered "What bureau are you with?"

"Office of Rural Security We handle uncooperative far that involves national safety So all suspect incidents are a federal case Media rights bow to national security nowadays We deive it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t tip me off early in return"

He nodded Not a real "yes" As if I hadn’t noticed

" Miss Street, you know this coht was that Agent Edwards was a stupid tight-ass, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be one of the still-closeted supernaturals He broadcast an air of "other" Maybe it was just East Coast ego toward heartland hicks, not the arrogance the supers often felt toward us ain, he could just be the usual officious bureaucratic prick

What I thought about the corpses would get me a strait jacket in the state hospital, but I tested hient Edwards"

"Interestingly put, Miss Street Why? How?"

"We’ve had a lot of crop circle activity lately"

"Rubes with rider laers Pranks" I ether The "rubes" comment killed it I lived here Worked here Maybe had been born here Suck grass, Fed

I sat in my car while everyone else peeled away into the darkness, riding a pair of blazing headlights Werner and his partner were last He leaned on my open car door Between the ’56 Cadillac’s width and the wide door, we nearly blocked the two-lane road Dolly and me That was the car’s name Dolly She was built like a fortress I often needed one

"You don’t want to hang around out here, Del Could still be dangerous"

"Just gotta record a few notes while they’re fresh" I held up my lipstick-size machine "I’ll be okay It’s all over out here, whatever it was"

"The Agri bastard is probably right"

"Aren’t they always?"

Werner laughed He was just looking out forin a smaller city A buzz caous drive-shaft hump

Werner nodded at it "You’re wired into us if you need anything"

"I’ht, Leo"

I watched his taillights fade into the absolute country night

I’m not a particularly brave woman, but I am determined

Once ain, I left the car, toting a heavy-duty flashlight Dolly’s trunk could hold everything, including the kitchen sink

The flashlight spotlighted the corpses’ e carcasses pulverized to broken bones floating in precious bodily fluids inside intact cowhides Those intact hides were most unusual for livestock attacks; they usually involved cryptic round s What Edwards had described as " into a scene of punk prankery," I saw as local livestock blundering into a mysterious crop circle creation incident

I’d also spotted soh soil Maybe the spooked ani

My flashlight hit the highs and lows of the alien footprints Not " for olves, but what else pulled down adult cows except were-packs, or even natural wolves; of which very feere left?

I squatted tohooves

Dinner-plate size Clawed Ale

Okay Cow tails are scrawny and just long enough to say horseflies and nota long, S-shaped swath Coith lizard tails? Not even a rare were-cow could leave marks like that

I stood The cows had been attracted to the activity at the crop circle Lights Action No cahtered theht to fil eyes of the authorities present Even the local cops had a stake in not stirring up the populace with alien invasion or supernatural slaughter stories

In less than half an hour, I was back inthe audiotaped second version of the stand-up I’d sneaked in under the noses of the local cops and the Fed

"Authorities are perplexed by a crime scene where local cows apparently have been cooked inside their hides by forces beyond conventional firearms or other weapons Found dead yesterday in a field outside of Wichita, Kansas "

Found dead

Found live was the story of my life so far: I’d been found alive, from birth, but just barely

Found dead always made a much better story hook

Chapter Two

After work the next day, the latest report on italized and under wraps for a debut on the evening news at ten, I crashed at hoht How does a weird-pheno national network forensic cri up microscopic forensic details on TV with the rest of the country, ham-o!

It all happened so fast The caot writhed like a stripper from the dark cave of a deadly pale but delicately shaped nostril With a tiny blue topaz stud

The ca nostril at all In fact, it’s a dead ringer for er Literally

I can feel htmare:atnetwork TV on a Thursday evening, like eighty million other people in America

The object of the camera’s affection is a body on the hot TV franchise show, CSI Las Vegas V, Crime Scene Instincts, what I nicknaations Media ishtmares for network exposure? While my stomach starts to churn, the camera retracts farther

Holy homicide! The turned-up nose is mine! And the chin, the neck, the collarbones, the discreet but obvious cleavage, thebackside

Even the toenails are painted lerooht I’m alive but I’m alone, in all senses of the word

Me with a body double? A doppelganger A replica A clone?

My heart was pounding as if I’d actually undergone a recent brush with scalpel and saw and had lived to tell about it I’d never "felt" the presence of abirth twin, like you were supposed to I’d never sensed an absent "half" Yet the detail that really unnerved me was the tiny blue topaz nose stud on the televised body Hardly a genetic similarity

Separated tere supposed to be so alike that they often held the same jobs,distance Without one knowing about the other That slint on the corpse’s nose ht eerily echo soer’s features But the exact same impudent touch of nose jewelry?

No Can’t be I’m an orphan so abandoned that I was named after the intersection whereon ene pool?

I haven’t taped the damn show, so I can’t rerunon TV, but I’ve never acted, never aimed at a career as a corpse, and I’ve never been to Las Vegas

My white Lhasa apso, Achilles, sensing agitation, cath hair shiht of the television I absently stroked his long silky ears