Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5) by Niall Teasdale Page A

watch, and there is no opportunity for a repeat viewing.’
    ‘We could record her and play it back later, which might be entertaining in itself. Uh, for the full effect, you need to see her reading reviews tomorrow morning.’
    Jason raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you propositioning me, Miss Meridian?’
    ‘Damn right I am.’
    ‘The weekend is most definitely looking up.’
    8 th January.
    Despite Fox’s predictions, Marie was looking far more confident at breakfast than she had after M. J. and the Ripper had streamed. From the slight flush around her cheeks and throat, Fox decided that sex might have been a factor in Marie’s relaxed posture. Then again, Fox was feeling pretty relaxed as well, for the same reason. But Marie had also been a lot happier with the finished result as well, and she had a little more experience under her belt. That meant she was only cringing a little as reviews were uncovered and read aloud.
    ‘“From the opening scene, M. J. sets down its stall with not one, not two, but four pairs of breasts on screen at the same time.”’ Fox read the report with a smirk. ‘It goes on to say that for something obviously designed to grab a male audience, the scene was well-handled and that the show is something worth keeping an eye on.’
    ‘I thought it was a clever linking device,’ Jason said. ‘Five Sisters playing poker and chatting. The untimely demise of M. J.’s paramour from the first vid is explained. Her desire to leave the chapter house and go out on her own once more comes up. The situation is advanced in a few minutes in a relaxed way…’
    ‘And then M. J. wins the hand and everyone else strips to the waist,’ Fox continued for him. ‘Genius, if you ask me, though I think what really made it was having your friends from the real chapter house playing the Sisters. It felt real.’
    ‘Well, it was,’ Marie said. ‘We did the same thing every night before bed when I was there. The only difference was the scripted dialogue, and we ad-libbed some of that, and the rigged cards. I had to win and, believe me, I didn’t do that very much in real life.’
    ‘ Streaming Culture calls it a “competent pilot episode,”’ Sam reported, ‘and says it does much to make up for the original vid. “Marie Shaftsbury continues to demonstrate more on-screen presence than the show deserves, though this time she has more competition from the four genuine Sisters of Corruption who are on screen all too briefly.” It looks like you’ve created four new stars.’
    ‘If we get the full season, Adrian wants to go back and do more with them. Naomi tentatively agreed to guest star in an episode and I said they should make as much use of her as they could. They were just thinking of a walk-on. Maybe they’ll listen and do something big with her now.’
    ‘You’re a lot happier about this than you were about the original,’ Fox said.
    ‘Yeah… I’m a lot happier with what we made this time. It wasn’t totally embarrassing watching it with you all. Also, I had really great sex in the shower.’
    ‘Uh-huh… That does kind of set you up for the day.’
    ~~~
    ‘Fox, I figured out what was bugging me about the Minotaur thing.’ Helen’s avatar looked terribly formal, which probably meant her body was lounging in Terri’s solarium.
    ‘Okay, what?’
    ‘Adamshi.’
    Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘The case we met on. Brianne Adamshi… She was a musician, but she was killed by Marshall.’
    ‘Yes, but we looked into a load of emails from disgruntled fans, right? One of them was an obsessive-sounding one Kit flagged as a possible and the ID on it was “Niutou.”’
    Kit had the message Helen was talking about in front of Fox almost immediately. ‘Yeah, I’ve got it here,’ Fox said. ‘What’s the connection?’
    ‘Niutou is, more or less, the Pinyin transliteration for the name of a Chinese mythological character, one of the guardians of the underworld, actually. The translation is “Ox