“Right. Does this new crop of legal trouble have something to do with the rabid dogs and riots in KC?” Stanley asked.
“What makes you think I was even in Kansas City?”
“Because weirdness tends to stick to the same people.”
Stanley definitely had a point there.
His voice reflected a sloppy grin as he told her, “Look, I’m no blackmailer. I don’t want to hang anything over yer head, but you folks can’t make ends meet by just relying on Prophet’s lottery picks.”
“He told you about the lottery picks too?” she asked.
“Actually he gave some to me here and there to pay off advances on his salary.”
One of the more practical uses for a man who claimed to dream visions of the future was to ask him for lottery numbers. When they panned out, the winnings were divided among Skinners across the country. For the other seventy to eighty percent of the time, the tickets might be worth enough to pay for a few meals or a tank of gas. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it had its advantages. One of those was supposed to be a quiet way to pull in some untraceable funds.
Quiet.
That was the key word.
“Do you know where Walter is?” she asked.
Stanley didn’t have to be psychic to pick up on the tension in her voice. “Before you start planning any funerals, let me assure you he didn’t spell out anything vital for me. What little I pieced together about you or those tattooed freaks I did on my own, and I want the credit for it. If you want to blame anyone for spilling the beans about any overly weird shit going on, blame the little pricks who tried to scare away some of my bondsmen by draining one of them close to death.”
“Where did this happen?”
“In Helena about six months ago.”
She didn’t say as much, but Paige recognized that sort of reckless behavior from Rocky Mountain Nymar. There was a theory floating around that the high altitude or thinner air made them skittish and hungrier than normal. Skittish, hungry Nymar were not pleasant to be around and they didn’t care about making messes.
“I’ve got some major interests throughout Montana all the way down to Colorado,” Stanley continued, “and I can’t let them go just because some punks with long teeth spit on my men. Word of that gets around and I might as well invite all my clients to become fugitives.”
“So what do you want from me?”
“The only time I ever saw these tattooed jackasses get nervous was when they crossed paths with Walter. I kept an eye on him and it turned out he was meeting up with you and some old guy.”
That would have been Gerald Keeley. Almost everything Paige knew about cracking skulls and killing monsters had been taught to her by Rico. Anything on the subtler end of the spectrum, such as tracking or using her head as something other than a battering ram, she’d picked up from Gerald. Thanks to a surprise attack from a Full Blood, Gerald and a promising kid named Brad were both dead. On a brighter note, Gerald’s last act had been to send Cole her way.
The way Stanley’s voice strained, Paige had an easy time picturing him leaning back and swinging his feet up onto a desk as he said, “I figure the next time you’re in the area, maybe you can talk some sense into these pricks.”
“We’re not enforcers,” Paige fibbed.
“Would it make a difference if I told you some of my guys found these assholes feeding in public?”
Even though Skinners didn’t hunt down and destroy every vampire out there, they drew the line at public feedings. Every Nymar should have known that, but not every guy who worked at a bail bonds office would be privy to that information. The sigh Paige let out slowly shifted into something close to a growl.
“All right,” Stanley admitted. “Maybe Walter told me a little more about you Skinners than what I originally said. But that was only after I found out a good chunk on my own.”
“We’re still not hired muscle.”
“I wouldn’t imagine putting you in that category! All I’m saying is that you folks must be in need of some legitimate income. Now that I know what to look for, I’ve realized several of my clients may be strange for reasons other than the normal ones. In fact, a whole crew that’s wanted for vice-related shit is marked up with those same tats. They’re harder than hell for my guys to track, and if I could get some specialized assistance in that regard, I’d be more than happy to pay my normal bounty hunter fee.”
Paige let her finger drift along the edge of her phone, lingering close to the button that would put an end to the whole conversation. The only thing that stopped her was the fact that Nymar did tend to be attracted to the seedier side of life. Some were upstanding citizens who dealt with their problem. Others were kinky, but law-aiding. Then there were the ones who wore their infection with pride. They not only wallowed in certain perversions that hooked up biters with bitees, but created new ones with a considerably less happy ending.
Being in a business where he got hung up on a lot, Stanley no doubt could feel it coming and quickly interjected, “I’ll raise my fee for this case. After all, specialists shouldn’t get paid the same as the rank and file, right?”
“Get Cole and Rico out of that jail cell and we’ll talk.”
“How about I go one better? I’m only a two hour drive away. I could go down there and spring them personally in exchange for a guaranteed business meeting within the next week.”
“Done.”
Paige swore she could hear Stanley smiling through the phone.
“You won’t regret this,” he said.
“I’d better not,” she told him. “Otherwise, the Nymar may get a few phone calls telling them just how much you want to see them gone. And when they come a’knocking, you’ll be on your own to answer the door.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting you, Paige. Seems like we think along the same lines. You have a nice voice too. Why don’t we take our meeting over a nice din—”
She cut him short by finally allowing her finger to hit the magic button. Too bad every interaction wasn’t as easy to end.
Chapter 13
Daniels was engrossed in his work, but he stuck his head out of his room long enough to deliver some good news. Whatever feelers he’d put out to the local Nymar came up with a vague location of where they could be found. Paige cleaned up, threw on some fresh clothes, and headed out as quickly as she could. Even so, she wasn’t fast enough to get past Ned. The old man insisted on coming along and wouldn’t be talked out of it. He settled into the passenger seat of Daniels’s SUV with a cracked leather briefcase between his feet and started fiddling with the radio dials.
Their first stop was a fast food place to pick up a sack full of breakfast sandwiches. She handed one over to Ned and unwrapped the other to set it upon her knee. A cup of coffee fit nicely along with a deep-fried hash brown oval on top of her right arm like a baby cradled within her sling. Her right hand was aching and stiff, but it made a fine cup holder. She drove onto Highway 40 and headed for the Poplar Street Bridge.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” he asked.
“East St. Louis. Daniels says the local Nymar are holed up near a community college.” She looked over at him whenever she could, but didn’t see much more than the highway reflected in his sunglasses.
Finally he grumbled, “What’s the matter? Am I cramping your style?”
“No. I was just wondering if you intended on letting me know where you went last night.”
“I was out looking for more Mongrels.”
“You can—”
“Yes,” Ned snapped. “Even though most of you all think I’m just some blind man who can’t do anything more than sit in an empty city and answer phone calls, I can still do my job.”
“So…does that mean your eyesight’s getting better?”
“One eye’s doing pretty good. I can only make out a few blobs or lights in the other.”
Paige drove through downtown. The Gateway Arch made for some nice scenery, bu
t she was in no mood to enjoy it.
Ned removed the glasses and rubbed the reddened, wrinkled skin around eyes that were so cloudy they appeared to be made from solid balls of rusted iron. “I’m disappointed in you, Paige.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you haven’t done any training since you got here.”
She chuckled and reached down to the radio to switch to an alternative rock station. “I do more than enough training to whip your ass, old man.”
“Maybe you should pick up another fighting style. I’ve been telling you that for years, though, and you never listen. Are you still using those sickles?”
“They’re more than just sickles,” she grumbled.
“And what happens if you lose that arm?”
Paige snapped her head around quickly enough to swat her ponytail against the side of her face. Turning to flip her hair into place again, she said, “I’m not going to lose my arm.”
“You think I assumed I’d lose my eyesight when I tested out my little innovation? When it happened, I was just as stubborn as you. The first time a Nymar crept back onto Lindbergh Avenue, the damn thing nearly had me for supper. And it was just some smartass little bastard who thought the coast was clear.”
“You handled him, right?”
“Sure,” Ned grunted. “Shot him half a dozen times and then had to convince four different sets of cops that the little jerk was trying to rob me. The only thing that kept me out of prison was that there was no body to be found and the right people felt sorry for me. I think I’m still on some watch lists, though.”
“Just as long as everything turned out all right.” When the inevitable grumble came, Paige added, “I’ll figure something out. Right now I just want to track down those Nymar that attacked Cole and Rico.”
Ned smiled and lifted his chin proudly. “I’ve got just the thing for that.”
“What is it?”
“For Christ’s sake,” Ned growled. “Nobody reads the journal entries I file.”
Paige slammed her foot on the gas and steered for her exit. “No, Ned. Why don’t you pull them out of your little briefcase and start reading them to me? We’ve got a few days to spare.”
His lips curled again, but into a grin. “That’s the Bloodhound I remember. Take my word for it, Paige. You can’t let your fire get too low because it’s damn hard to stoke again.”
Cocking her head at a warning angle that she knew was pronounced enough for Ned to see, she pulled off of the highway and onto Eighth Street.
“Do you at least remember the Squamatosapiens?” he asked.
“Those were the lizard men that you were chasing when you could still see, right?”
“Yes. They were spotted more and more throughout the Everglades and—”
“Wasn’t the Dover Demon one of those?” Paige cut in.
“Close, but no. Anyway, it turned out the Squamatosapiens were—”
“Could you just call them Lizard Men?” To fill the silence that followed, she added, “It would speed things up.”
“You know what would speed things up? If I could speak without being interrupted.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
“So, it turned out that the Lizard Men were hunting Nymar. To this day I still don’t know why. It wasn’t for blood or even the spore. When they caught one, they ate the meat and left the rest behind. Sometimes they only took the teeth and fingernails. Anyway, apart from being fast and agile, the…I can’t say Lizard Men. That’s just stupid.”
“How about Squams?” Paige offered.
“Fine. The Squams were more than just nocturnal. They could see in almost total darkness, but were exceptionally good at tracking Nymar. That led me to believe they had some sort of adaptation that made them suited for the task.”
“Possibly a gland that secreted something onto their eyes?”
Ned snapped his fingers and said, “Exactly!”
Before he could get too worked up, she said, “I just remembered your journal entry.”
He kept talking as if Paige hadn’t opened her mouth. “I only caught one of the Squams, but that was enough to verify my theory. There was an extra gland in their eye sockets and it did excrete a substance that allowed them to see in the dark. It’s a fluid that interacts with the rods and cones in a way that—”
“In a way that can blind a human who tries to use the stuff on themselves,” Paige said.
“I’m not completely blind,” Ned snapped. “And the fluid can be used in human eyes now that I’ve refined it and diluted the compound. It’s not like there’s been much of anything else for me to do in the years since you and Rico embarked on that reign of terror he called a training exercise.”
“First of all,” she said while holding up a finger. The nice one. “Those Nymar had to be put down before they gave all the other ones any ideas. Second,” she added while uncurling another finger. It wasn’t the nice one, but lost its edge since the first one was still up. “That eye stuff isn’t safe to use.”
Ned was quiet until Paige came to a complete stop at a traffic light. They were only a few blocks away from the East St. Louis Community College Center. The blood in his eyes was the color of rusty water, and his pupils were more like corroded black disks that were chipped around the edges.
“Ned, I didn’t mean to—”
“No! You listen to me, missy. I discovered those Squamatosapiens. I tracked them down. I figured out what they ate and how they hunted.” Reaching into one of the many pockets stitched into his cotton fishing vest, Ned removed a plastic eye dropper bottle that still had the Visine label stuck on it. “I took what those things gave us and made it into something we could all use. That’s what Skinners do. You want to see some real horror stories? Read the history about how our modern medical practices came to be. That’s some shit that will give you nightmares, but it was the best way those doctors knew how to test their medicines and surgical practices. The FDA doesn’t fund our research, so we gotta do it the old-fashioned way. I read your journal entries and I couldn’t be prouder about that whole ink idea of yours. It’s rough, but it’ll be great with a little more work. So you hurt yourself when you used it the first time? Well join the goddamn club. You know what makes it all worthwhile?”
“What?” Paige squeaked.
“When someone can take what you created and put it to use.” Ned grabbed her hand and slapped the little plastic bottle into it. “Here. If you don’t have the guts to risk getting hurt again, then you got no place as a Skinner.”
Those last words made Paige realize she’d been slumping behind the wheel. She closed her fist around the bottle and straightened up again. “Where do you think we should start looking?”
Without missing a beat, Ned replied, “How the hell should I know? I’m blind!”
The short drive to a parking spot along Railroad Avenue was a whole lot easier than the drive from the city. Paige and Ned shared a much needed laugh while she parked Daniels’s SUV within sight of a tall billboard and a long, two-story brick building. There wasn’t much to see in the immediate area apart from that building and a whole lot of drab road. The itch in her scars was stronger there than anywhere else along the way, so Paige got out and started walking. Ned fell into step beside her. As much as she wanted to take the old man’s arm and lead him, she knew that would be a real good way to get acquainted with his wooden cane.
At the next intersection, they spotted a taller building that looked like it could either be an old factory or an older hospital. A low fence surrounded a wide, flat lawn, giving the whole area the feel of a prison exercise yard. Traffic flowed along Railroad Avenue that was tame compared to St. Louis and barely a trickle compared to the motorized suicide parades in Chicago. Paige walked along the street for about five seconds before digging into her pocket.
“What now?” Ned asked.
“I’m calling Daniels. Maybe he can narrow it down for us a little more.”
“Wouldn’t he have told you
as much before we left?”
“Probably,” she replied, “but we’re not getting anywhere by just wandering.”
Ned tapped his cane against the ground and said, “That’s right. And we don’t make phone calls when there’s hunting to do.”
“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Aren’t you?” Too excited to wait for an answer, Ned said, “Put those drops in and we’ll find out all we need to know. Since we’re close enough to feel those bloodsuckers, we should be able to see where they’re congregating or which direction we need to go.”
“This stuff can tell us that much?”
“And more. Don’t be squeamish. Maddy tested some that was watered down and she said it worked like a charm. You remember Maddy, don’t you?”
“The crazy woman from Jersey? Yeah, I remember her.”
“Well she was able to track down a group of the slickest Nymar she’s ever seen thanks to my innovation.”
“It doesn’t take much to slip one past her,” Paige grumbled.
“That’s funny. She didn’t have much good to say about you either.”
Paige stood on the curb, knowing all too well that Ned was using one of the simplest baiting tricks around other than a triple dog dare. What grated on her nerves even more was how well it worked. “Fine,” she said as she opened the bottle.
“You don’t know how much this means to me,” Ned told her. “The fact that you trust me enough to—”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said as she opened the bottle and held it under her nose. The fluid inside didn’t smell bad, but it didn’t smell like rose petals either. It was the color of sea-water, complete with all the wonderful little particles that reminded you just how many animals lived, breathed, and excreted in there. When she swirled the fluid around, a lot of it clung to the side of the bottle and slid right down again.
“What did Maddy say about this stuff?” Paige asked.
“That it allowed her to see scents.”
“You sure she wasn’t sniffing something else?”
Ned clucked his tongue and stepped back as a row of cars sped down the street. “You know she wouldn’t do anything to endanger another Skinner.”
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