“Yeah, I know.” Steeling herself as best she could, Paige tipped her head back, opened her eyes wide and held the dropper over the left one. In the end she figured that was the one she’d prefer losing. “How much should I use?”
“Just enough for an even coat. The Squamatosapiens’ gland excreted—” Seeing the glare on her face, Ned skipped ahead to, “Two drops in each eye should do it.”
Before she could convince herself to do otherwise, Paige squirted a few drops onto her left eye. She’d never been good at giving herself eye drops, so a good portion of the stuff splattered on her eyelid and brow. Rather than use any more, she blinked and rolled her eye under the lid. When she reflexively tried to rub it in, she felt a strong hand on her forearm.
“Don’t,” Ned warned. “Just let it soak. How does it feel?”
“Warm. No…cold. It’s cold now, but it was warm a second ago.”
“Open your eyes.”
Paige opened her eyes and looked around. Almost immediately, panic set in. “Everything’s blurry. I think my vision is screwed up. The light’s glaring so much.”
“Just give it a second.”
A second didn’t help.
The next few seconds after that, however, allowed the glare around every light source or reflective surface to fade. “It’s still a little fuzzy.”
“That’s because you’re in direct sunlight. What else do you see?”
Feeling like she was going to lose her footing, Paige focused on the ugly factory or hospital in the distance. At least that gave her something to concentrate on other than the slick layer of goo clinging to her eyeball and the tingling chill slowly filling the entire socket. When she looked at the street again, she saw ghostly waves of different colors drifting on currents of wind like cartoon squiggles denoting a particularly stinky mess.
“I think I see what you were talking about,” she said. “But, it’s kind of hard to pin down. It’s coming and going.”
“That’s because you only put the drops in one eye. Do the other one.”
She took a breath, held up the bottle and reminded herself that she already had one foot in this particular pool. How bad could it be to step in and swim? Ignoring the weight of her arm hanging from her shoulder, which reminded her of her last bad swim, she treated her other eye.
The same mix of warm and cold flooded across the middle of her face, where it connected to the chill in her other eye. Staring out at a street that was now filled with a smeared jumble of moving blobs and colorful waves, Paige asked, “Right before you went blind, did it feel like your eyeballs had frozen into little round ice cubes?”
“I’m not completely blind,” Ned told her, “but yes.”
“Great.”
“Blink, but don’t rub it in. The rest will pass.”
It only took a few seconds for him to be proven right. Her vision cleared to the point where she felt like she needed glasses to see beyond a distance of about twenty or thirty yards. The waves of color, on the other hand, remained. When traffic thinned out, the waves became less like smears hanging in the air and more like smoke that held together without the cars breaking it apart. Most of the colors were dull and stagnant, but there was one particular shade of red that caught her attention.
“You say those Squams hunted Nymar?” she asked.
“Sure did.”
“There’s some sort of trace in the air, but it’s not the same color as the rest.” Lifting her head like a dog that had just caught a whiff of something cooking in a nearby kitchen, she added, “This one’s bright red with some…yellow? Yeah, I guess yellow or orange is about right.”
“That’s it.”
“There’s a scent coming off of you, Ned. It’s got some dark blue and black in it.”
“Maddy said those came from the antidote used to kill that Nymar.”
“Yeah? Well I’d have to agree because those colors are also coming from you.”
Ned patted his pockets and removed a few small syringes containing the antidote that meant instant death to any Nymar who got it injected into their bloodstream. “You still see it?” he asked.
“Oh yeah,” she replied as she studied the waves rolling off the thin little cylinders. “But it’s also coming from you. Not the syringes. You.” Twitching toward the sound of an approaching engine, Paige was able to pick out a subtle glow emanating from the car’s windows. She hurried down the sidewalk and soon felt a familiar itch within the scars on her hands. “There’s Nymar in that car,” she said. “I could see them before I could feel them.”
“So the drops really do work,” Ned sighed. “I knew it.”
“They’re weird, but they work. I might have to place an order before I leave.”
“It’ll be a while before I can fill it. That is, unless you’ve spotted any Squamatosapiens recently.”
Resisting the urge to rub her eyes again, Paige tapped Ned’s shoulder as she hurried toward the car. “Which way is the club?”
“A few miles south of here.”
“Some of the traces lead back that way, so I guess that’s the direction they came from.” She pointed past a barely visible cloud of red that only she could see. “If we get moving quickly, I should be able to follow them.”
Ned grabbed her arm with one hand and his cane in the other. “Excellent. Can you drive?”
“I can separate the smells from the stoplights…mostly. How long does this stuff last anyway?”
“Maybe an hour or two. It evaporates fairly quickly, but I’m putting together some wraparound sunglasses to prolong the effect. Conversely, you can let it dissipate so the effect wears off a little sooner.”
He went on about more options for shades, but Paige was too busy rushing to the SUV to listen. Although she was able to see a little better now that she’d adjusted to the constant flow of color drifting around her, it still required some concentration. She simply didn’t realize how many smells were out there until she could see them. Fortunately, the Lizard Men were literally focused on Nymar, so those scents stood out like neon amid a background of forty watt bulbs.
After nearly taking a black hatchback out of its misery while trying to make a U-turn from her parking spot, Paige sped to where she’d first picked up the scent and caught it just as the red waves were dissipating. Driving directly through the scent only disrupted it more, so she kept her eyes glued to the traces in front of her.
“Look out!” Ned screamed.
Getting a warning like that from a man who was nearly blind was not a good sign. Paige swerved around a motorcycle in her lane and tried to watch the road as well as the scents. Her task became a lot easier when she caught up to the Nymar’s vehicle on East Broadway. Her scars reacted to the Nymar presence and her eyes could see their bright red scent billowing out of their vehicle through partially rolled-down windows. They turned onto Sixth Street and headed into a part of town that, depending on whether someone’s glass was half empty or full, could be described as “run-down” or “in development.”
The buildings on either side of her were drab but clean. Parking lots were mostly empty, and there were no angry people baring fangs at her from the sidewalk. So far she didn’t mind the neighborhood one bit. “Have you ever been to this part of town, Ned?”
“I don’t get much past the Central West End anymore.”
Tracking the Nymar through one more turn before they pulled to a stop at a curb, she said, “Well we’re right around Sixth and…Missouri Avenue.”
“Still doesn’t sound familiar.”
Although the Nymar parked in front of a two-story building made from dark red and light brown bricks, none of the three that got out of the car entered the place. Paige stopped along the curb at the intersection, just shy of making the final turn. She sat there, fighting the urge to scoot down in her seat as the Nymar checked their surroundings. Keeping her head pointed forward, she put on the bored expression of someone who was waiting for someone else.
“I can feel them
nearby,” Ned said.
“Yeah, they’re just down the street.”
“Do they know we’re here?”
“I’m not sure yet.” When a fourth Nymar stepped out of the car, he joined the others in lining up along the curb. They talked to each other and studied a building across the street covered in white stucco. Red, white, and green striped awnings hung over the two second floor windows, and a larger one shaded a first floor window in a pattern that resembled a giant simplistic face on that side of the building.
The guy who’d come out of the car last was the biggest of the group and had short, bleached blond hair. He stood with his arm draped around a lanky girl with sunken cheeks and Asian features. Although she wrapped an arm around the blond guy’s waist, the gesture seemed more out of habit than anything else. The other two were skin and bones, shifted like little dogs that had to be taken for a walk, and were dressed in clothes from Goodwill’s reject pile. The male half of that couple had the scrawny build of a lifelong junkie, and the girl had skin that even looked pasty on a vampire. Their black markings stood out in the sun’s glow as they turned around to walk toward a different two-story brick building on the same corner where Paige had parked. This structure didn’t have a single window that wasn’t boarded up, and judging by the dirty scorch marks on the walls, the glass had probably melted from the panes in a very impressive fire.
“All right,” Paige said as she plucked the keys from the ignition. “I’m going to introduce myself before they spot us.”
Ned hopped out first, gripping his cane tight enough for the thorns in its handle to dig into his palms. “I’m coming with you.”
Since she knew that arguing with him would be a lost cause, Paige strode across the street and met the Nymar’s glances with open arms and a beaming smile. “What’s the matter with you guys?” she asked. “Can’t you afford a nicer hideout?”
The big guy with the blond hair stood in front of the burnt building, wearing the same work shirt he’d had on the previous night. It hung open, so Paige had to wait for the wind to catch it just right before she could read the stitching on its pocket. “You lost or something?” Jerry asked.
The moment Ned stepped onto the curb beside Paige, the junkie beside Jerry bared his teeth in a hiss that would have been more threatening if he wasn’t missing most of his human teeth along with a few of his fangs. There was enough ferocity on the guy’s darkly tanned face, however, to make up for his oral deficiencies.
Jerry narrowed his eyes and nodded slowly. “I get it. The Skinner from St. Louis finally got some backup.”
“He doesn’t need backup,” Paige said casually. “I’m here to send you Peter Walsh’s regards.”
She’d been hoping the name would elicit a reaction and wasn’t disappointed. The Asian girl with her hand on Jerry’s hip looked up at him awaiting her next command. The pasty chick with stringy hair took a spot next to the Nymar with the missing teeth and set her sights squarely on Ned. “I’ve been waiting for an excuse to bury this tosser,” she said in a British accent that was either from a grungy corner of the realm or had been picked up after watching too many Monty Python movies.
Paige stood on the curb with her back straight and her chin held high. Waiting for a few cars to pass behind her, she said, “Do yourself a favor, Gums. Keep the girlfriend on a leash.”
Curling his lips over his incomplete set of teeth as if the nickname got to him more than an insult to his pasty companion, Gums seemed relieved when he felt Jerry slap him on the shoulder.
“How do you know Peter?” Jerry asked.
“He found me and my partner in Chicago,” Paige said.
“So this one’s spending time in Chicago now?” Jerry asked as he nodded toward Ned.
“No, my partner’s nearby. Can’t have all my cards showing, right?”
Even though “nearby” for her partner meant “locked up in a jail cell,” Paige didn’t feel the need to share that with the Nymar. And since Jerry took a casual glance at the nearby rooftops and windows, he obviously didn’t know any better. “Is Pete with you?”
“No. He’s dead.”
The Asian woman showed Paige half a snarl that was more menacing than Gums’s full show. “Made a bad choice coming here and saying that, Skinner.”
“Easy, Sonya,” Jerry said. Watching Paige carefully, he asked, “Did you kill him?”
She shook her head. “He was mostly dead by the time he got to us. Something was wrong with him, but I guess you might already know that. Some,” she added while looking at the pasty British girl, “may know better than others. See the way her tendrils are pale and can’t stop shaking? That’s how Peter looked right before his spore exploded through his chest.”
“Oh God,” the pasty girl said. “I told you I was sick! It was that kid we—”
“How about we take this inside?” Jerry cut in. He grabbed the pasty girl by the back of the neck and shoved her toward the charred building on the corner. Sonya followed, but Gums stayed behind to snarl some more at Paige and Ned.
“So you already know about Pestilence,” Ned said as he stepped through the door.
The inside of the building was exactly what the outside advertised. Everything from the floor to the ceiling was either scorched or warped from excessive water damage. Thick layers of ash had become engrained into every surface and hung in the air like gritty fog. Between that and the thick cloud of red mist the drops were showing her, Paige had a hard time keeping her eyes open.
It seemed the room had been furnished by whatever the Nymar could steal from poorly supervised garage sales and a few garbage piles. Considering how well the Nymar in and around St. Louis had been set up before she and Rico cleaned them out, Paige found the contrast particularly jarring. She followed a dim trace of red to a figure curled up in a corner under a thick comforter with stuffing hanging out of several rips in the fabric. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s sick,” Jerry said as he leaned against the wall next to a window. “Just like Pete was sick and like all of us are probably sick.”
“Pestilence?”
All of the Nymar glanced around at each other before staring intently at Paige and Ned. Creeping forward, Gums asked, “What do you know about it?”
Even though the Skinners made sure to stay close to the door, they were far from secure within the filthy building. Any place a Nymar called home could be hollowed out to hold everything from secret rooms and escape hatches to feeding chambers that held humans as snacks for later.
“I know about it because it was one of the last words out of Peter’s mouth,” she replied. “And since I made the drive all the way down here, I’d like you to tell me how he got so sick.”
“We were hoping you’d be able to tell us that,” Jerry said.
Ned shifted his gaze from one Nymar to another as if he could see each of them perfectly well. “We think Peter wasn’t the only one to catch this bug.”
“This ain’t just a case of the sniffles, old man. This is poison, and unless someone stops what he started, you’re gonna have a war on your hands.”
Paige swung her left hand down to pluck the club from her boot. By the time she brought it up to Gums’s neck, the sickle blade had formed just beneath the Nymar’s chin. “When did you assholes start working with Mongrels?”
“Wh-What?” Gums stammered.
“Someone else gave me a similar message intended for the old man, and it wasn’t one of you. It was a Mongrel leopard leading a bunch of strays.”
“Malia is her name,” Ned explained. “Surely you know her.”
“Yeah, I know Malia,” Jerry said. “And why wouldn’t she have a beef with the old man?” When he looked at Ned, he chuckled in the most condescending way possible. “But it’s probably not this old man she’s got the problem with. That is, unless he’s doing more than selling pencils these days.”
Using her sickle to slice just far enough into Gums’s neck to draw blood, Paige snarled, “Consi
dering the St. Louis Nymar got their asses kicked so hard that they’re still walking funny, you probably shouldn’t be talking so tough.”
“We’re too tired to fight you,” Jerry said. “Fact is, I’m the one that told Peter to track you down.”
“And why would you do something like that?”
“This Pestilence shit is real Black Plague stuff, but it’s the sort of thing that Skinners might know about.”
“Or something a Skinner would have made,” Gums croaked.
Sitting down on an old lawn chair made from strips of green and white plastic, Jerry said, “Pete wanted to talk to a real Skinner, so I told him about my girl Stephanie running the Blood Parlors in Chicago.”
“You didn’t know where to find me in St. Louis?” Ned asked.
Jerry looked at him as if he’d just found the source of a particularly nasty stench. “Sure I know, but Pete wanted to talk to a real Skinner. Not some blind man phoning in reports to the wrecking crew.”
Even though she was a member of that crew, Paige didn’t know what Jerry was talking about. She rarely spoke to Ned, and Skinners certainly didn’t phone in reports with any real regularity. Still, it didn’t hurt to let paranoid Nymar build the Skinners up into a more threatening force. “Pete didn’t make it more than a few steps through our door before…well, I’m sure you know what happened to him.”
“Yeah,” Jerry grunted. “I also know what’ll happen if you don’t ease up off my boy there.”
With a thought and a subtle relaxing of her grip around the handle, the sickle blade retracted, allowing Gums to move away without slitting his own throat. “We’re not here to start anything with you guys. Just tell us what you can about Pestilence.”
“Oh you started plenty with us back when you and that other fucker started killing my kind like you had a goddamn hunting license. But since Pestilence turned out to be just as bad for humans as it is for us, I suppose it couldn’t hurt to talk for a few minutes.”
Allowing the Nymar to save face with his friends, Paige kept her mouth shut and let Jerry continue at his own pace.
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