“If Rita rides along with someone named Sid and another guy with hair from the Reagan era, then yeah. She was in Cicero.”
Ace shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Aw, Steph. That’s not good.”
Tugging at the sides of her dress to fit it back into place, Stephanie growled, “Give it a rest.”
“Did you make him the offer?” Ace asked.
“Yes. He refused.”
“Astin?” Ace asked.
“Customer’s gone,” Astin said. “Gave him twenty percent off his next visit and sent him on his way. Bar’s clear too.”
“Good,” Ace said as he reached under his suit coat to remove a pearl-handled .38 from where it had been holstered. “The rest of our guests are regulars. They don’t mind a little noise, so that means we can get back to the good stuff.”
Not all of the Nymar drew guns, but they were all baring fangs. The bouncer had the pinched face and tight lips of someone who was about to spit. Since some Nymar were known to deliver their venom that way, Cole went for him first. Anticipating that move, the bouncer grabbed his arm and nearly pulled it from its socket when Cole used his weapon to push him into a wall. As the air was forced from his lungs, venom sprayed from the tips of the bouncer’s thin, snakelike fangs. Being all too familiar with the paralyzing effects of Nymar venom, Cole brought his spear straight up so the middle of the weapon caught the bouncer squarely on the chin. Nothing fancy, but it was enough to dim the guy’s lights and send the poisonous spray over his head. The blow also drove the thorns in the handle deeper into Cole’s palms, sending pain through his system like a hundred espressos mainlined into his arteries.
He turned toward Ace, knowing the skinny prick had a gun. Ace was still holding the .38, but appeared to be distracted by something else. Before Cole could make another move, that .38 was pointed directly at him.
There were things Paige had taught him to do in that situation, moves he’d practiced and tips he’d been given, but they all just coagulated into a cold lump and dropped to the bottom of his stomach. No amount of training would allow him to just shrug off being at the wrong end of a gun.
The first thing he thought to do was stab Ace with his spear. His reflexes were enhanced by just enough panic and adrenaline for him to step aside and drive his weapon forward as the pistol went off. A round hissed past his temple as his weapon made contact with its target. If the pointed end of the spear had been facing forward, it might have impaled the Nymar’s hand in a very impressive way. As it was, Ace’s wrist was wedged within the forked end of Cole’s spear.
Slowly, Ace’s lips formed a grin. “Nice try, Skinner.”
Cole had wanted to strike with the single sharpened end.
The sharpened end of his spear was the one he’d meant to use.
Not the forked end!
The sharpened end!
Single. Sharpened. End.
The spear in his hand twitched. He thought to pull it away before someone took it from him, but couldn’t move it back. When he pulled a bit harder, Ace staggered forward. That’s when Cole noticed that the forked end of his weapon had snapped shut like a pair of wooden scissors. It wasn’t what he’d had in mind, but he was now looking at a single sharpened end that had enclosed around the Nymar’s gun.
For the first time since he’d strutted down the hallway, Ace looked worried. His hand was stuck within the makeshift clamp and getting squeezed hard enough for his gun to be angled toward the spitting bouncer. When Ace tried to adjust the angle of the gun, his hand was twisted painfully against the joint.
Cole twisted the spear a little more, turning Ace’s arm the wrong way and bringing the skinny Nymar to his tiptoes. “Drop the gun,” he demanded.
“I…can’t!”
“Then take your finger away from the trigger.”
It took some doing, but Ace got his finger outside of the trigger guard. “What about her?”
“If Stephanie makes one wrong move, I’ll—”
“Not her,” Ace snapped as he nodded toward the rear staircase. “Her!”
Careful not to take his eyes away from Ace for too long, Cole glanced down the hall. At first he only noticed Stephanie, a few of the Nymar bodyguards, and one or two of the girls who must have worked at the place. Something about one of those girls seemed familiar, so he glanced again. The familiar girl had her black hair tied into pigtails so it brushed against shoulders that were bare thanks to the black corset she wore. “Paige! Where the hell have you been?”
Paige stood between Stephanie and the bodyguard in the black suit. She had a sickle in each hand, holding the weapons up to press the curved blades against both Nymars’ throats. Although Stephanie looked ready to pounce, her bodyguard cringed at the touch of Paige’s sharpened blade and allowed the barrel of his small submachine gun to droop toward the floor. “You seemed to be doing pretty good until these chickenshits pulled out their guns.” Pulling the sickles in a bit tighter, she added, “This is about to get really messy, Ace. Sure you want to stain this tacky new carpet?”
Even though she was at the business end of a very sharp blade, Stephanie pointed out, “They’re not gonna kill us. If they were, they’d already be spraying that antidote shit all over the place.”
Cole realized then that he didn’t have any of the Nymar antidote. One of the first Skinner innovations he’d ever seen was a serum that directly counteracted the infection that changed a human into a Nymar. When injected directly into Nymar tendrils, the stuff might as well have been acid. It was the most effective weapon the Skinners had against Nymar, and he hadn’t been given any when sent into a building full of them. Paige was definitely going to hear about that.
“I’ve got some antidote on me,” Paige pointed out.
A tight scowl came across Cole’s face. Insult…meet injury.
Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Such a bad bluff. Kind of pathetic, really.”
“You’re so cute, Steph,” Paige said. Just then the sound of creaking wood drifted through the air and Stephanie’s eyes widened. Without moving her hands, Paige willed the sickle blades of both weapons to extend and wrap around the throats of both Nymar. “You’ll be perfect once I make one little adjustment.”
“She’s right!” Ace quickly said. “I mean, your boy here said he just wanted to deliver a message.”
“Hey!” Cole said in his own defense.
Ace couldn’t have been quicker to correct himself. “Cole. His name’s Cole. Sorry about that, man. It’s just that he said he wanted to deliver a message. Stay away from Cicero. We got it. We’ll stay out of Cicero. Okay?”
“You’ve said that before,” Paige pointed out.
“I know, but we just had to test the waters, you know? Let Steph go and we can call it a night.”
But Paige was having too much fun to let it drop now. Cole could tell that much by the mischievous glint in her eyes as the sickle around Stephanie’s neck cinched in a bit tighter. “I don’t know. I mean, we did come here to take a look around and have a little chat, but then you went and tried to hurt my partner. You threatened our lives and we can’t let that pass. I mean, that just wouldn’t look right.”
In an instant Ace’s concerned expression shifted to impatience. “Wouldn’t look right? You wanna come into our place, kick around our people, threaten to cut our heads off, and you wanna talk about what looks right? How about this? Get outta here while you can. You wanna do some damage to us? You won’t live long enough to—”
“Someone’s after Daniels,” Stephanie blurted.
Ace’s eyes narrowed into angry slits and his upper lip curled into a snarl. “Bitch, you’d better shut your mouth and let me handle this!”
Stephanie met Ace’s glare and then some. “You’re the one who wanted to send Sid and that other asshole along with Rita! I told you my girl could scout just fine on her own, but you had to send those two shit stains along with her! They’re the ones that brought the Skinners here!”
Cocking his head
to one side, Ace raised his eyebrows and patted the air with his free hand. All the anger and impatience that had been on his face suddenly evaporated as he said, “We don’t know that. Even if it was their fault—”
Cutting Ace short by twisting his spear, Cole growled, “Let her talk.”
“Yeah,” Paige said. “Who’s after Daniels?”
“Some guy from New York. He’s been asking about him and it got back to us.”
“What’s he want?”
“I don’t know,” Stephanie whined.
“I think you do.”
“Maybe, but it’s really hard to think with whatever the hell that is wrapped around my neck!”
Paige let out a controlled breath, which allowed her to ease the sickle blade away from Steph’s neck just enough to let her turn her head.
“All he said was that he wanted to find Daniels,” Stephanie said
“So you talked to this guy yourself?” Cole asked.
“Maybe,” she squeaked.
“Say everything there is to say about him so we can get the hell out of here,” Paige announced. “How’s that for a plan?”
“The guy is from New York,” Ace replied. “At least, that’s all we’ve heard. If you want a home address, you’re out of luck. He asked about Daniels, but we weren’t gonna give him up without meeting the guy face-to-face.”
“What about a name?”
Staring at Cole, Ace replied, “Burkis. That’s the only name he gave. Mr. Burkis. He came to town asking about one of us, so of course we heard about it.”
“Daniels doesn’t work for you,” Paige quickly pointed out.
“He’s Nymar,” Ace told her. “We own this town. Someone pokes around about one of us and we all know.”
Cole didn’t have to try too hard, but Paige did a pretty good job of keeping a straight face through that particular line of garbage. Despite the appearances they liked to put on for anyone who looked in their direction, the Nymar were more of a loose association than a real organization. They had numbers and some assets throughout some major cities, but so did the National Association of Hot Dog Vendors.
Raising his eyebrows, Ace added, “He also asked about you.”
“What’s this Burkis guy want with us?” Cole asked.
“Just you,” Stephanie replied as she locked her eyes on Cole as though he was once again on the menu. “He said you had some knife before Daniels got it.”
“Knife?”
“Maybe just part of a knife. He only mentioned a blade.”
Paige looked at Cole for a fraction of a second, which was enough to let him know they were both thinking the same thing. Once the moment passed, Paige moved her sickles away from the Nymar throats. “If we need anything more, we know where to find you.”
“What about me?” Ace asked.
“Let him go, Cole.”
Suddenly, Cole felt like he was in one of those dreams where he was supposed to deliver a speech in front of his Spanish class but could only remember one word of Spanish. He stared down at the spear in his hands the same way he would have stared down at all those blank note cards. After a bit of mental screaming, the end of the weapon creaked and snapped apart to form the forked end he’d carved there in the first place.
Ace pulled his hand away so quickly that he dropped his gun. Either that or his fingers were too numb to hold the pistol any longer.
“Any chance of you giving me this Burkis guy’s number?” Paige asked.
Rubbing his wrist, Ace stood against the wall like he was exactly where he wanted to be. “Any chance of you telling us what knife he’s asking about?”
“I don’t need knives,” Paige told him. “Just ask Miss Crushed Velvet and Anguish over there.”
“Hey!” Stephanie yapped.
Before the fight was started all over again, Ace steered things back on course. “So we’re done here?”
“Sure,” Paige said while looking around as if daring one of the Nymar to make a move. “Unless one of you still has an itchy trigger finger.”
Finally, Stephanie announced, “We’ve got more customers coming in a few hours and we need to cover the mess you made in here.”
“Just throw around some more red roses or bat statues,” Paige quipped. “Nothing says ‘eternal torment’ like bat statues.”
Chapter 8
“That was great!” Paige said while steering the Cav onto Ontario Street. “If you were saving that for a surprise, it sure worked because it was a hell of a surprise!”
“You mean the surprise where I almost got beaten to death or the surprise where I almost got shot?” Cole asked.
“The second one. Since when could you get your spear to do that?”
Cole knew the truth, but didn’t want to tarnish something that had gone over so well. “Oh, I’ve been working on that for a while.”
“Well, good job. I was worried you wouldn’t be able to hold off until I got there.”
“Yeah, speaking of that, where the hell were you? And why do you smell like antifreeze?”
Paige brought her arm up to her nose and took a few quick sniffs. As she did, the lights from the street played off her skin with a glistening effect. “The grease from that sweatshirt doesn’t dry too well. It kept me hidden for a bit longer than I thought it would, and I didn’t want to waste an opportunity to do some sneaking around in there.”
“You mean you didn’t know how long it would last?”
“I tested it a few times back home, but not the way I did tonight. It seems to really stick to loose cotton like sweatshirts and-pants. Once it starts to evaporate, it really goes fast.”
Suddenly, something about the odor struck a nerve. “Wait a minute,” he grumbled as he sniffed some more. “I’ve smelled that before. Back at Raza Hill.”
“I told you I tested it.”
“In my room!” Cole snapped his fingers and added, “In my room three or four nights ago. I was on my computer and I smelled it. I looked around but didn’t see anything.”
“There you go,” Paige quickly told him. “The stuff really works well.”
“You were in my room? You were spying on me!”
“Testing, Cole. Testing.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing,” she said while raising her eyebrows. “Nothing at all.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
Paige laughed and patted his arm. “The only time I went in there, you were hunched over a picture of some warehouse with guns on the floor and flags posted at either side.”
“That’s one of the new Hammer Strike maps,” he breathed with a sigh of relief. “Don’t mention anything about that to anyone, by the way. It’s under wraps.”
“Yeah, Cole. With everything we do, I’m more anxious to leak your game levels to the Internet.”
“So what did you find out while I was so expertly distracting everyone?”
“That side entrance led to a back room in the bar. There wasn’t much in there, other than a secret door that opened to some back stairs leading up to the parlor. On the other hand, the monitors in the security room were interesting. Their customers are either into some nasty stuff or Ace sprung for the deluxe S and M channels. He walked right past me without noticing a thing, though. He might have smelled me, but he didn’t see squat. It was great.”
“Did you happen to see me and Stephanie on a monitor?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry. There was a lot more action going on in the room next to yours. Anyway, I got the addresses of other Blood Parlors opening up around town along with a list of new employees. Since Sid’s name was on the list, the others are probably Nymar or potential converts. I jotted down some names and phone numbers, so we’ll be able to keep real busy for a while.” Paige veered to the right, cutting off a blue Lincoln in her haste to get to the ramp onto I-94. “Speaking of getting busy, you should hope you didn’t pick up anything while that skank was grinding on you.”
“Sounds to me like you’re jealous.”
“I warned her against going to Cicero,” Cole said in a desperate attempt to change the subject, “but I don’t know how seriously she took me.”
“Did you do anything I might have missed from the security room?”
“No.”
“Then she took you seriously. Trust me, women who strut and flaunt like that are used to guys dropping to their knees and doing whatever it takes just to get on their good side. If you’d caved to that, she wouldn’t have listened to another word from then on. You’d be just another one of her toys. If she had some fake boobs and a sex tape, she’d be in some good celebrity company.”
“You should leave the pigtails in when you bare your claws like that. It’s hotter.” For once, he’d been the one to fluster her. Before she could fire back at him, he added, “Sorry about the fight, by the way. It seemed like she was getting ready to spring something on me, so I thought I’d make a play of my own. I figured you’d be waiting for something like that.”
“I was waiting for something more along the lines of yelling or you getting slammed off a few walls, but you handled yourself really well. I hung back until things got bad because you needed practice other than sparring. And what you did with your weapon was…well, that was impressive.”
“It was an accident,” Cole grumbled.
“I don’t care. It was just what we needed. The whole reason Skinners haven’t been killed off by now is because the Nymar and all those other things out there see us as the freaks. You threw them a curveball with that little trick. Everyone back there will be talking about it for weeks!”
“I don’t know if I’m excited about being the topic of Nymar conversation, but there it is. What’s next? We’re obviously not headed home.”
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