Chapter 24: The Devils Vinyl Part 8

The sun has fully risen. Chas pulls up in a rental car and parks. He exits, carrying a backpack, and walks to John and Zed, who are standing amoung onlookers. The crime scene has reached a dozen bodies and a morgue wagon has arrived.

Most of the audience looked away in disgust and horror.

"The disk did that?" Ray asked. A nod was his answer.

"Thanks for joining us. Did you bring what I asked?" John takes the backpack from Chas.

"Headphones, MP3 player, clean shirt, and" he pauses before pulling out the last object, "orange juice.". He sees the incredulous look John throws at him before explaining, "You need to get your blood sugar back up."
John takes the bottle of orange juice and chugs it. Zed stares mournfully at a medic kneeling over an unzipped body bag, checking a victim. They catch a glimpse of a woman's face. Her mouth is open in a wordless scream, blood spilled from her ears.

"Please tell me the scene changes soon." Renee asked. She knew that her John and Chas faced these things regularly, but she never knew exactly how brutal it was.

"That's twelve I've counted so far. I want to know what happened in there." Zed marches away to the cluster of police and EMTs.

"She wants what she wants when she wants it, that girl." John says. They watch Zed move to an ambulance, with a teenage boy alone in the back. No EMT in sight. Zed starts talking to him.

"You're very welcome by the way. If I wasn't there, you never would've figured out where to go."

"I did like you asked and called in a few favors. A PI friend ran Zed's prints. Whoever she is, she's not in any law enforcement database."

Crickets chirped as Zed turned to John and Chas. "You what?" she spoke calmly and quietly. In all honesty, it was kind of scary.

"In our defense, you were a completely new element added to the mix." John defended his and his friends actions.
Zed didn't take any action, instead turning back to simmer quietly. Unknown to her two companions, she was planning payback.

"I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad one."

"Both, I'd say." Rip said. Good that she'd never had a run in, bad that she could've done something and never been caught.

"Least she's making herself useful." Zed turns and waves John and Chas to join her.
John and Chas join Zed. The teenage boy looks up, scared and traumatized.

"No one should have to see something like that. Especially someone as young as him." Sara said as she remembered her experiences with the League.

"He was inside when it all happened. His name is Freddy. He works as a busboy." Zed explains.

"I don't need his whole bloody resume." John says before turning to the boy, "How'd you walk away from this?". The boy looks at John blankly, then at Zed. John, still expecting an answer, continues, "Sorry. Is it the accent?"

"That was rude." Jax frowned.

"I never said I wasn't."

"No, the arrogance." Zed snaps. She kneels by the boy and begins to sign. The boy is deaf.

Anne-Marie rolled her eyes at John. Typical.

Chas turns to John and speaks softly, "Like I said. Useful."

"You're welcome."

Signing back and forth, Zed translates, "He says two men came into the club and went to the DJ booth. Next thing he knew, everyone went crazy."

John frowned, "It's what I feared. That acetate carries its own hypnotic power. They'll want to play it for as big an audience as they can find."

As John talked, Zed grabs Chas's arm in panic.

"What's the matter?"

"Do you see it?" Zed points inside the ambulance. From Zed's veiw, we're looking at the ambulance in which the teen sits. Behind him crouches a white tiger. It glares at Zed and snarls, low and menacing, poised to pounce.

"Woah! How'd that get there?" Jax exclaimed.

"You'll see."

"See what, luv?"

Zed looks again and the tiger is gone, "It was a tiger. I just saw a white tiger."

Chas looked over to where we couldn't see. "No kidding. So did I."

"Where?" John turns around. Chas waves them to follow him. Zed silently mouths a thank you to the deaf boy, then catches up to John and Chas. Chas rounds a corner and points at a poster papered on the building: "TIGER RADIO, WIXA FM 97.5, Scott University". A white tiger adorns the poster. "Scott University. The Tigers."

Zed becomes visibly excited, "That's where they're going to broadcast the disc. Come on, follow me." Zed turns for the car. John and Chas, not used to following orders from an outsider, look at each other unsure.

"I think we should do what she says." Chas suggested.

John looked at him, "Yeah but we don't have to jump when she says it." They both stand there for another forced beat. "Okay that's long enough. Let's go."

Que the laughs as the mood lightened a bit.

They get into Zed's car. The radio, tuned to 97.5, Alt Rock plays. Zed steers through Chicago streets. John buttons on a fresh shirt from the backpack.

"Almost there." Zed tells him.

Abruptly, the music stops mid song. Traylor's voice comes over the radio, "Hi. We, uh... we're sorry for the interruption, people. We gonna hit you with a new flow."

Zed turns grimly to John, "That's the man who stole the acetate."

Creed's voice speaks next, "This is an oldie but..." He suddenly shouts, "Stay away from that door!" gunshots sound. "Aw hell, just listen up, Chicago." The unsettling opening of Willie Cole's last song starts to play on air.

Zed pushes her car harder.

"Oh no..." the tension returned to the group. Everyone held their breath.

End Chapter:

QOTC:

NR: That's to big of a flavor.