“Is that…a Blood Blade?” Dressel asked as he eyed the long, squared off blade.
Slowly, he pulled his weapon back and took a breath. Cole walked over to his desk and returned dragging his rolling chair behind him. “First off,” he said while turning the chair around to sit in it with his chest against the back rest, “Let me just tell you that I respect the job you guys do. When it comes to fanatical devotion to a messed-up cause, The Vigilant are truly impressive. And I don’t mean that as an insult, by the way. Everything anymore is pretty messed up.”
“Agreed.”
“So even before I started researching on how to find Full Bloods, I had a sneaking suspicion I’d come back around to you guys. Jonah Lancroft was the main man in that area. He found Henry and took him out single-handed. Once again, that brings me back to The Vigilant. When I had my talk with Reid, I pressed him on how I could go about singling out a Full Blood and finding him. More than that, and this is the really tricky part, I have to get ahead of this Full Blood in time to set something up. They’re a bit too smart to be baited and too quick for any human to catch up to, so…there I was. Stuck.”
“Looks that way.”
Cole used the forked end of his weapon to trace circular designs on the floor in front of him. “It took a lot of work,” He said. “Messy work. But Reid eventually steered me in the right direction. He mentioned someone known to be one of the only trackers good enough to chase down Full Bloods. Reid called the guy Asher, and this Asher guy is supposed to have a line on all of the Full Bloods.” Tapping his nose, he added, “Maybe even has their scent. Normally I would think that’s pretty ridiculous, but that was before I started believing in Chupacabra and nymphs. Not so surprisingly, this guy is a Skinner. What I did think was strange was that he’s not Vigilant. I’m sure you guys tried to recruit him, and since this tracker isn’t with you, that means he said no to the offer he was given. But The Vigilant don’t like taking no for an answer do they?”
Dressel let out a breath that deflated him. “No. They don’t.”
“Well Reid didn’t know specifics, but he knew Asher wound up in a cage that may or may not be similar to the one I busted out of a few years back. That cage was supposedly somewhere in Wyoming. He also knew the general procedures for being contacted to work in one of those places. Normally, that wouldn’t be a lot, but with the internet being tough to access these days it made things a little easier. I figured a way to break into the server, but the access codes are always changing which meant I needed someone to come along with a functioning code. So I set up shop, monitored every freaking log-on and waited for someone to access that coded Vigilant site. Waited for months. Months….in Wyoming. As much as I’d like to crack a joke about that being close to solitary confinement on its own, it’s actually done me a lot of good.”
“You sure about that?” Dressel asked. “You seem pretty tightly wound.”
Cole smirked. “You should’ve seen me before I got here.” Flipping the halberd around to point the forked end at Dressel, Cole tightened his grip until blood seeped from his hands. Seconds later, the split ends stretched out like a pair of probing insect legs. “I don’t give a shit about what happened out in the world. That story’s over. All that’s left for me is to track Esteban down and ram this blade down his throat.”
“Esteban? The Full Blood?”
“That’s the one.”
“You’d have better luck finding God so you could slap him in the face,” Dressel said.
“Trust me. I’ve considered that too. For now, I’ll settle for finding the guy that Reid was talking about.”
“What makes you think Reid wasn’t just telling you something to stop the questioning?”
Cole shook his head. “Just help me get to that prison. Take off your gloves.”
“What?”
“Oh yeah,” Cole said as he leaned forward to tug the biker’s glove from Dressel’s right hand. Once the glove was off, Cole twisted that hand around without much care for the pain he caused. Dressel squirmed, but barely reacted when his wrist was cranked too far in one direction. “You were a Skinner,” Cole said.
“I still am a Skinner. Every Vigilant is a Skinner.”
“Really? Seems to me like you guys are more worried about whipping the human populace into shape and ganging up on your own kind than doing what Skinners are supposed to do.”
“That’s your opinion,” Dressel said.
“Then, as one Skinner to another, I’m appealing to you for help. Good people were killed when that animal decided to try and wipe out all of mankind. Skinners live to stand up to those things, and if we hadn’t been fighting among ourselves, bickering with the Amriany, or worried about covering up werewolf and vampire attacks from the press, we might have been able to do something before things got this far.”
“Now there’s something we can truly agree on.”
“Good,” Cole said. The forked end of his weapon was still idly reaching toward Dressel like a blind pet attracted to the sound of the other man’s voice. “I was hoping I could talk with you, man to man, and ask for your help. Even more, I was hoping you’d throw me a bone and give me what I need to get this job done. Hell, you could even take credit for killing Esteban when I’m through. That would have to gain you some brownie points with The Vigilant.”
Dressel said nothing to that. He merely watched Cole carefully, searching for a sign of weakness.
“Please,” Cole said. “Just help me out here.”
“Or what? You’ll do to me whatever you did to Reid?”
“I knew that was gonna come back to bite me. I’m not really very good at the whole threatening talk kind of thing. Should have kept that one in the holster for later. Was Reid your friend?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean I’ll look past you killing him.”
“Who told you I killed him?”
“Whatever you did, it had to have been pretty bad for you to get any Vigilant to tell you that much.”
“And I’m giving you a chance now because I don’t want to walk down that same road again,” Cole said. “All I’m asking is for you to finish deciphering that email.”
“You could have just let me finish it when I was sitting at that computer. Obviously you were watching what I was doing.”
“Don’t think I’m stupid. Any message would have been safeguarded against someone just looking over the shoulder of whoever was reading the email, especially since internet access is mostly at publicly used computers anyway.”
“Even if I tell you what was in the email, you won’t be able to get into that prison,” Dressel said.
“Let me worry about that.”
“Look, Cole, I truly do understand some of the pain you’re going through, but even if you find that prison, it won’t help you get to a Full Blood. If The Vigilant had any access to any way to track any Full Blood like that, don’t you think we’d already have mounted a few of their heads on pikes for the whole world to see?”
“That does sound like your style.”
“Esteban is more than just a Full Blood anymore, and the Half Breeds have changed half a dozen times since the packs have taken over. Any tracking method Asher might have had is outdated by now. More than likely, it’s been outdated for quite a while.”
“So you can tell me how to get to him? I know I’ve had plenty of practice in waiting, but I just reached my limit.” Angling the weapon toward the base of Dressel’s neck, Cole moved it close enough for both of the probing tines to find a spot to press against the other man’s skin.
Dressel kept his voice steady as he said, “Killing me won’t help you, buddy.”
“Even back when the world was only screwed up in the more familiar, old fashioned way, I hated being called buddy or champ or chief or any of that condescending bullshit.”
“So you’re going to kill your own kind?” Dressel asked calmly. “Just like you accused The Vigilant of doing?”
“No. I believe in tried and true
ways of doing things. Maybe it’s just me getting old, but I follow my gut, and I trust what I know. This,” he said while nudging the weapon a bit harder against Dressel’s neck, “is something I know real well. You’re familiar with the basics in crafting one of these, right?”
“I’ve made my own weapon. I know plenty.”
“Then you know that one of the base components for the resin used on the wood is Nymar blood. That creates the bonding agent. Good Skinners like to take things apart and tinker with them. That’s something I know about from my years at my old job. Over the last few years, I’ve done some tweaking with the Nymar component of the resin. See, Nymar are basically leeches, but they do have some psychic abilities. At the very least, the spore needs to communicate with the host.”
“Old news, man,” Dressel grunted.
“What’s new is the fact that a friend and I were able to isolate the psychic component and concentrate it into the varnish.” Cole moved the weapon less than a quarter of an inch while willing the tines to sharpen and puncture Dressel’s neck. After they were in, Cole’s words began echoing within both his and Dressel’s mind. “You can feel it already, right?” Cole said / thought. “Hurts a little, though.”
Dressel closed his eyes as phantom tendrils slithered through his skull. They felt invasive at best but every so often hit a soft spot which caused his entire body to jerk.
“I can’t read your mind,” Cole said. “But I can nudge you in certain directions. Kind of like how Aquaman controls fish. He can’t really talk to them directly, you know.”
“Stop,” Dressel gasped. “Please.”
“This is what I was trying to avoid when I asked you to cooperate all those times before,” Cole told him in a voice that reflected an equal amount of pain. “Just like Reid, you’re gonna be a lot more cooperative now.”
“You….you’re dead. The Vigilant…..”
“They won’t find out about this because nobody will tell them.”
Forcing his eyes open, Dressel glared directly at Cole and said, “I won’t forget this, and I sure as hell won’t forget you!”
Cole smirked. “When I say the word, champ, you’ll forget your own name.”
CHAPTER TEN
West Virginia
Once he and Sayers parted ways, Rico had circled back around through Charleston to scavenge for supplies and see if he could find any Vigilant members that he knew were lingering in the city. The warehouse may have been empty at the moment, but they wouldn’t leave a place like that unattended. There was a feeding schedule to maintain and a meeting coming up soon.
No matter how much he’d dealt with The Vigilant in the past, Rico didn’t kid himself into thinking he could just wander around a new city and find any of them. His efforts were focused more on getting supplies and finding a phone that still worked. He lucked out with both at a convenience store in the middle of a neighborhood that had clearly been picked apart by Half Breeds. Charred cement, burnt buildings, destroyed cars and a carpet of bullet casings told the tale of a brutal fight that was ultimately lost. Fortunately for Rico or anyone else who came along with an appetite, werewolves preferred fresh meat over anything wrapped in plastic.
He stocked up on a wide range of junk food that may or may not have been safe to eat even when it was fresh. After too many weeks eating from an IRD chow line, he was willing to roll those dice. Opening a bag of Red Hot Cheetos and washing them down with some flat Mountain Dew was enough to temporarily distract him from the destruction he’d climbed through to get there.
Behind the sales counter was a clunky phone connected to an even clunkier answering machine. Phone service was a worldwide priority and took a lot of work to maintain. Even with brave workers willing to venture into the wilds to repair downed lines so there was at least a minimal amount of communication throughout the country, service was a fraction of what it once was. Rico didn’t know the specifics of how any phones worked at all. The sound of a dial tone from the handset was a welcome surprise, and he couldn’t help but feel comforted by placing a call on something that was actually connected to a plug and wires on a post outside. Compared to the little plastic slivers he’d been talking on for so many years, the weight of an honest-to-God phone in his hand brought back memories of simpler days.
The voice that came through that handset, on the other hand, sounded anything but comforted. “Ehhh…helLO?” it grunted after a prolonged sigh.
“What’s wrong, Daniels?” Rico asked. “Sounds like you had to crawl through a sewer to pick up.”
“I had to walk all the way across the room while this damn dinosaur of a phone screeched at me like a rake on a chalkboard. Now I can barely make out what you’re saying through all the damned static!”
There was a slight crackle in the background, but to the ears of someone who could tell the difference between 5.1 and 5.2 Surround Sound, it was the cry of a banshee. Trying not to laugh at the Nymar chemist’s predicament, Rico said, “Well, I appreciate you weathering that hell to answer my call.”
“What do you want? I’m busy.”
“I got a couple of questions for ya. First of all, what have you heard about Skinners experimenting on Nymar?”
“That’s not exactly anything new.”
“It looks new to me.”
“What kind of experiments?” Daniels asked. “Does it have to do with the spore itself? Does it involve the circulatory or digestive systems? Is it involved with the change between human and Nymar?”
“I don’t know any of that.”
Another, more prolonged, sigh drifted through the crackling connection. “Were the subjects alive or dead?”
“Oh, I know that one! They were being kept alive.”
“Were there human prisoners kept nearby for immediate feedings?”
“Yeah,” Rico said in a more somber tone. “Tell me what you know.”
“I’ve heard a few things. I can do some checking on my own and see what I find.”
Now it was Rico’s turn to sigh. “Ok, look. I know you don’t trust me after what happened.”
“That’s right I don’t,” Daniels hissed. “First you’re working one side of the fence and then the other. Now you hop back over again and expect everything to be the way it was?”
“Nothing’s the way it was! You don’t need me to tell you that. I did what I did, and at the time I thought it was the right thing to do. Hell, at the time, it probably was the right thing to do.”
“So…you’re still with the IRD?”
“No. Well…officially, yes, but I’m not traveling with them for a while. We found a place where those experiments were being conducted. Found some prisoners too.”
“Uh-huh. Where was this?”
“Charleston.”
“South Carolina?”
“No,” Rico said. “West Virginia.”
“There’s a Charleston in West Virginia?”
“You’re the one with all the books. Crack open a damn atlas, and check for yerself!”
“Fine, fine! I’m writing this down. Was there a lab nearby?”
“Yeah. Two of them.”
“What was in them?” Daniels asked.
“Beakers, burners, vials, racks of tubes, lab stuff. I’m not a scientist, so don’t fucking sigh at me again!”
“All right.” At his end of the connection, Daniels tapped a pencil against something, muttered to himself, rummaged through some papers and finally said, “I could describe some substances and equipment. Do you think you’d be able to remember if they were there?”
“Probably. How accurate do you need me to be?”
“At least eighty seven percent.”
“Then no,” Rico said. “I probably wouldn’t be able to remember.”
“What are the chances of you getting back to that lab?”
“Better than eighty seven percent.”
When he made his way back to the warehouse, Rico approached it from a different angle than the one taken by Unit 7. He sp
ent an extra half hour winding through yards of run-down houses and cutting through some of the homes themselves. His efforts proved to be worth the extra time the moment he spotted someone sitting in the rusted shell of an old Cadillac. It rested upon one wheel and three cinder blocks at a curb where it had a good view of the football field adjacent to the Vigilant warehouse.
Although the house he’d chosen was mostly gutted, Rico was able to find a few scraps of material that had probably once been curtains from the windows. The inside of the curtains vaguely resembled a dirty blanket, and there was enough to wrap around his shoulders to cover his jacket. Rico fitted the wooden knuckles over his hand and willed the weapon to shift.
Emerging from the house, Rico was quiet without being stealthy. That way, he got fairly close to the car without looking like a threat once he was spotted.
“Keep moving,” said the guy in the car.
In a raspy voice, Rico asked, “Got anything to eat?”
“No. Move along.”
Rico’s steps slowed, but kept him shuffling toward the car. “Look, man. I just need to eat. You know how it is.”
The guy in the car shifted to reach for the seat beside him. When he turned around again, Rico pounded his gauntlet into the guy’s face. Instead of spikes, he’d blunted the edges into a thick shell that knocked the guy out with one shot.
“Aw, shit,” Rico grunted. Instead of a gun or any sort of weapon, a sandwich in a crinkled baggie fell from the unconscious guy’s hand. Rico reached in through the window of the car to turn the guy’s head until he could see the Vigilant brand on the back of his neck. At least he’d knocked out the right guy. “Since you meant to do a good deed,” he said, “I’ll leave you the sandwich. Thanks anyway, though.”
Rico did take the sawed-off shotgun that was resting near the guy’s feet. From there, he circled around the football field to approach the warehouse from the northeast corner. There was one more guard posted in plain sight, which meant there’d be plenty more inside. More than likely, the local Vigilant chapter was just assessing the damage from the IRD raid and taking inventory of what had been left behind. It was dark enough for him to get closer to the warehouse without being seen. The exterior lights were out, but some of the windows on the opposite side of the building were glowing from within.
Forged From Ash - Book #7 of the Skinners Series Page 11