Laura was scanning the news on canadaeast.com.  Abby was using her speed and a piece of string to amuse Liz.

"Abby, what do you make of this?"

"Make of what, those glowing boxes give me a headache.  What's the matter with an actual physical paper.  The kind to can touch and don't go away with the power gets shut off."

"You're just bitter.  Anyway, a bunch of bodies walked out of the city morgue."

"Were they the ones doing the walking or are you using a turn of phrase to mean they were stolen."

"No, actually walking out.  According to this report, an old lady dressed in a kimono walked in, waved her arms, then all the corpses walked out."

"Old lady with kimono... you better start researching Japanese ghost stories. Any other strange reports."

"Someone broke in and stole all the cats from the SPCA, even the sick cats."

"No dogs, just cats?"

"Just cats."

"I've heard of this.  Any reports of a cat with two tails?"

Laura scaned the headlines of the maritime newspapers and news services, but nothing about a cat with two tails.  She decided to go further and cross checked two-tailed cats and japanese ghost stories.

"You think it is a kameneko?"

"Can't fool you and your clockwork library.  I ran into one about 50 years ago.  Usually they come out when cats are being abused.  That would make the SPCA a likely target."

"How does this connect to walking bodies?"

"The kameneko had power to animate the dead.  But she'll need supplies to feed the cats.  There are no fish markets here."

"What about Pets Unlimited?  They'd have cat food and a few cats they could liberate."

"The most likely time they would strike is at dusk.  Daylight is hard on corpses."

"What do we need to stop the corpses?"  The very idea of walking corpses made Laura queasy.

"A swift stroke to seperate their head from the rest of the body does it.  Domething about it disrupting the signal from brain to body."

Laura shivered.  "How long did it take you to get used to it?"

"Used to what?"

"Know how to kill things.  Running into weird scarey shit all the time."

"Usually it's only a few times a year.  Fredericton has just had a large dose, which is what makes it so unusual."

"You eveaded my question, how long did it take."

"I'm still [freaked out] about the whole thing, I just got better at faking it until the crisis was over."

"Then what do you do?"

"Warm bath and camomille tea."

"What do you do the rest of the time?"

"Research, practice, get to know some of the other Conspirators.  You never know who you might end up working with."

"What do we do until dusk?"

"How about a make over?" Abby gave Laura an evil smile.

"You or Me ???"  Laura shot back.

 

They got to the store well before dusk to be there and ready for when the corpses do show up.  Laura invested in more