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WITH THE GUYS off in Leonard Tallgrass’s pickup to exaory expeditions of our own

First I stopped at a centrally located, low-profile place I knew, the Thunderbird Inn (Tallgrass would approve) to book a rooreed to ot too dark for field explorations

Suited ht for my Wichita place of employment … before I’d been effectively driven out of it by a lecherous vaue personal tornado

Most TV stations are s attached to tall broadcast towers occupying high ground where land is cheap, far fro entry driveway and suburban neighborhood

I reflected that by now theand sifting through a cow-patty-laden field I’d last seen by the glea mutilated cattle corpses

Another lovely Wichitatiht now, my major problem was to park Dolly discreetly The aim was to avoid contact with anchorman Undead Ted Brink this hit-and-run visit

I eased Delilah behind the far side of one of the station’sa quiet news day Videographer "Slo-mo" Eddie Anderson had been happy to hear froo One never knehen neould break out, so I slipped around the building to the back loading dock

I’d have to scale it in s, worn under a th navy shirtdress, the casual opposite ofon-cauy, but the lanky, eruntled ex-ereeted me with a whisper when I’d cla dock and eased into the slightly open end of the steel security curtain "Man, it’s been no fun fest with only the supernaturals running the news desk You look like being gone agrees with you"

"I’d had some bad days before Sheena sent a ‘freak’ tornado to take out ood-bye"

Eddie scratched at his scrawny new mustache "Can’t blame you They stole your paranor them They even rescheduled the interviee had cancelled, with the old lady at Sunset City retireime sent me back to Sunset City with Sheena, but her intervieas pretty boring"

"Really? That old woas Sunset City At least I found her there after I arrived"

"Well, she eted tornado of yours, because the old dame Sheena intervieas na, like all of those artificially preserved Sunset City senior citizen residents Your old Caressa lady looked senior Kinda cool to see these days"

I s what he meant "She still does Was Lili West at the saneneral n Good thing he’s gone too"

"Fred Fogel the station?"

"Guy naone downhill It’s all happy ‘news you can use’ now"

"It’d be a wonder if the station hadn’t declined with Undead Ted and Sheena taking over my beats," I said "Ted is an es, and Sheena is a lousy weather witch without one reporter’s gene in her artificially supplemented body"

"A little coal, Sheena? You had netritten all over you, Delilah Sheena sure had it in for you"

"Was it because I’d agreed to go out with Undead Ted that Friday? Didn’t even happen He acted up and I kicked hi back to Sheena"

"Maybe Whatever bee got in her bonnet, it just sprung up, like a high pressure cell While you were off for the weekend, she was in the general h Monday She tried to get our scoop footage from the cow pasture scene off the air, I know that Then you and I were called back Monday en route to that dunment at Sunset City the GM put you on I think that was her doing too"

"Saddlingus called back?"

"One, or maybe both," Eddie said "It was just unprofessional, that’s what it was And now, Undead Ted, he just trots along on Sheena’s leash like a vamp tranqued on blood thinners"

The conversation rehe’d contracted blood poisoning and couldn’t be saved All fro Undead Ted’s ankle after the lech had tricked er he wanted as an appetizer beforeon one of my major arteries after our dinner out

I’d never heard of a va poisonous to house pets before, like so and the Millenniu unsuspected supernatural variations and species A pang of anxiety about Ric hit when I wondered what losing all your blood to vampires could do

"I don’t knoent on that weekend, Eddie," I told hi that Saturday"

"That feisty white Lhasa? Too bad, Delilah No wonder you were kinda down that Monday You brought hi"

Eddie’s mistake saved me from a total emotional rerun Reporters live to infor My Lhasa’s name was Achilles"

"Oh" As if he cared Cameramen have seen it all and are a nonchalant breed "Like the Greek hero with so with his heel"

"Like the hero with the bu back the memories As a pup, Achilles had always chased my heels, so the name was appropriate I just didn’t expect that the "hero" part would get him killed

Eddie shook his head "I don’t knoas going on that weekend, or since, but it’s been hell around here after you left I’reat videographer"

"But who does traditional ‘news’ any?"

"Investigative work for a television producer, aas Strip clients"

"Cool You’ve landed on your girl-reporter pued up about what’s over and done at the station Besides Sheena being Bitch Witch, it’s a lot ofon for years Hire the minorities, like the Latino brass, and the anchor va to hell since the big flare-up after the Millennium Revelation It’s like, ‘Hey, the aliens have landed,’ but now they’re co up out of our caves and cornfields and They R Us Anyway, you can download your piece on the cow mutilations to your cell off lad simple computerized functions didn’t need hookups now, just proximity It was like zipless sex In a second, his info was my info too

"Hey, Delilah" Eddie chuckled like a TV cartoon ghoul "I added so up on cae vault I YouTube that stuff now and then You wanta come into the studio and say hello?"

"No, thanks This is all I need, Eddie Thanks for the ‘added value content’"

"It’s a howl Sheena accidentally had it hailing in the studio a couple weeks ago Funny, we’ve been having a lot of freakish weather lately, but no indoor hail"

"It’s the Midwest," I said "Freakish weather is our biggest tourist attraction"

"Must be weird living in sunshine year-round in Vegas"

"Yeah, it’s weird living in Vegas, but it’s not all sunshine," I said in vague understate dock?"

Fast Eddie bent to stretch out a lank ar hand on the end of it

"Eddie, the gentlerabbed his hand, although I appreciated his easing htened up to tower abovemorosely "You have no idea"

WITH QUICKSILVER ABSENT and unable to play guard, I’d left Dolly locked with her top up

So when I opened the driver’s door with ine--I sat in the interior shade and played Slo-mo Eddie’s treasure trove of scenes

I watched his recording of my stand-up report on the dark country road by the cattle… as if froood story, told without glitches, but I seeirl

I’d reeled off the bit-role lines Hector Nightwine had given e that ca my performance would either lure my double, Lilith, back to the CSI fold, or establish me as her replacement I hoped it would lure Lilith too I wanted to kno long she’d been doing her twin act in e of the old, WTCH-TV Delilah o My first fill-up stop for Dolly at a reas station had forced uys and burn rubber out of there

Having to dodge booty bounty hunters going after my "CSI-autopsy-star" twin the moment I left Kansas had made me a lot warier and assertive And way less polite Not toa sex life Knowing how the other 99 percent lived sure increased one’s daily savoir faire

Sighing as my sweet innocent self disappeared fro at Undead Ted as he practiced resting his supposedly "supple "live" on ca up his tinted lip gloss, I fast-forwarded past,ain Damn! Would my pale skin always make me a patsy for the unwanted flush? Probably

I made a fierce face at the telltale screen, then slowed it to norainst the station blue-screen was like watching the Christh bleach on those teeth to off Sheena At least, I assuh to off But then,Hood or Hansel and Gretel Or, more apropos to the current location, The Wizard of Oz

While cruising the snips of rown by leaving my once-safe niche at WTCH Eddie had ended my trip down bad-memory lane with Sheena’s later intervieith the Sunset City resident of the new ement’s choice

Sheena was an anorexic blonde with inflated bust and lips Unlike a lot of "weather gals" who’d forged the way for weather witches to take their places, she was"dry" weather statistics fascinating and relevant to the viewers

Weather guys and gals had always been the geeks on the highly photogenic TV news tea-up era The viewers sensed they had a real passion for their high-and low-pressure areas, that naughty acting-out El Niño, the evil confluence of clashing hot and cold fronts thatand thunder were still-living gods that could throw panic into human cardiac systems in the heartland, but we had our über-outlaw, our supernatural sky-dancer, our bane and our bragging point

Here in Kansas, of course, it was that regal couple of pheno of , livestock-sucking, clothes-stripping, tree-hurling, house-splintering, Dorothy-napping, witch-s … tornado