TWENTY-NINE

Light faded to darkness and gradually back to light as the Virtu-Tech icon shimmered and dissolved.

Kenna blinked, coming aware of her surroundings as though waking from a deep sleep. It took long minutes for her mind to process what her eyes were seeing, skewed as her view was. Lying more or less on her side, she’d fallen and twisted so that her face pressed hard against the VR capsule’s chilly tiled floor.

Turning, she tried to pull herself up onto all fours but stopped, waiting for the pounding in her head to subside before moving again. The headgear she’d donned before entering the scene was slightly askew. Her temples throbbed as she eased to sit, her right hand instinctively grabbing her left shoulder, rubbing it to ease the knot of pain. This would be one nasty bruise.

She tugged the blinder off, crying out at the unexpected pain. Her fingers reached up to find a sensitive gash on the left near her crown. The dried blood must have adhered her broken skin to the equipment. Ripped anew, bubbling sticky-warm blood leaked down her hand.

Blood smears streaked the tile floor beneath her. Now she understood why it had felt as though she’d pounded her head against a wall. In a way, that’s exactly what she had been doing. Wincing, she sat back on her heels and gingerly began the disconnecting process.

Gritty and drained, Kenna stood, knowing she still had to clean up the place—get it back to normal so that no one would know she’d been here. She swept her surroundings with a weary gaze. She’d never felt this drained before, never so wholly lost track of time before.

All that mattered now was tracing that werewolf back through the matrix until it led her to whoever killed Charlie. Then she’d have all the time in the world to avenge his death.

After Kenna verified that she’d been able to record the pertinent werewolf information, she transferred the data to a memory stick, pocketed it, and then made certain to delete any record of her recent adventure from the system’s hard drive. She waited till verification beeped.

Across the room a digital readout broadcast the time in red numerals—0453. Nearly five in the morning.

She couldn’t put her full weight on her right leg. The same calf that’d been speared by the Hun warriors had been pierced by the werewolf’s claw.

But that didn’t really happen, Kenna told herself.

Still, it sure felt as though it had.

Grabbing paper towels from one of the washrooms, she mopped up the remaining blood from her head wound, bundled the sheets up, and shoved them into her pockets.

Time to go.