“No. Well…I can do that when I get cleaned up.” Looking at the money, she asked, “Are you sure you can spare this much?”
“Yes. Take it. You want us to drop you off here or—”
“Here’s fine,” Jen said. Holding the money in both hands as if cupping a head of lettuce, she said, “That truck stop would be good. Aren’t there usually showers there?”
Cole nodded. “Yep. And great food. Some of the best ham steaks I’ve ever tasted came from truck stops.”
Jen smiled warily and stuffed the money into her pocket. She didn’t say another word until they were braking in front of a store that appeared to be stocked with everything from country music CDs to pecan logs. Even then she seemed too tired to pull herself out of the car. Once she heard the sounds of hydraulic brakes, talking, and other signs of normal humanity, she perked up a little. “Thanks again,” she said.
Paige waved. “’Bye. Take care of yourself.”
“If you…” Cole kept the rest of his offer to himself, since Jen was all too anxious to get out of the car. He watched her go until she disappeared within the sprawling mecca of gasoline, beef jerky, and ridiculously strong coffee. Once the door had rattled shut behind the woman with the curly hair, he looked over to Paige and asked, “Do we need any gas?”
“Yeah,” she replied as she backed away from the entrance and drove past the pumps, “but we’ll wait until the next place.”
“I don’t think she’ll say anything to anyone else. About us, I mean.”
“Me neither.”
“Should we even be worried about that?” he asked. “I mean, don’t we swear anyone to secrecy?”
“It wouldn’t matter if we did. Most people just want to forget whatever they saw so they can get back to what they were doing before.” Paige sighed. “The ones who latch onto this sort of thing don’t usually have a lot of credibility anyway.”
Cole rolled down his window and let his arm dangle in the cold breeze. With Paige’s window already open, a stiff wind blew through the car. Even though he could feel his fingers starting to tingle before the car even got up to speed on the highway, he let them dangle. The cold washed through him and made it difficult to focus on anything else.
It was nice.
“Should I call MEG now?” he asked.
Paige looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. She studied his face for just long enough to get Cole thinking there might have been something hanging from his nose. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“What?”
“You heard me. That was a lot to take in, even for me.”
“Are you surprised I’m not back there eating a ham steak with Jen?” he asked.
Without hesitation Paige replied, “No, but still…it was a lot to take in. Are you all right?”
Slowly, Cole nodded. “It’s just one more batch of strangeness heaped onto all the rest.”
“It does seem to get heaped onto some of us more than others, huh?”
He shrugged. It was a lot easier than trying to figure out why things turned out the way they did.
“Call MEG later,” Paige told him. “Our phones are all registered to fake names and addresses anyway. They can send you a new SIM card registered to another fake name and that usually does the trick. If it doesn’t, there are plenty more phones out there. Just remember to think ahead whenever you—”
“When I use official Skinner phone lines to contact the authorities. Got it.”
“I’ve got to admit, Cole. You impressed me today.”
“Thanks. Now when do I get my own set of stakes?” He snapped his fingers and said, “You’re not supposed to stake a Nymar through the heart! You’re aiming for the spore attached to the heart, right?”
“Now, you learn, young one. But a stake won’t kill it unless you hit that spore just right. The thing squirms around in there, so it’s mostly luck if anyone gets a lethal hit. You stake a vampire and it may be able to live for a long time while the spore heals. A big hit will take a while to heal, but it can be done. Sometimes, if a Nymar gets hit too close to the spore too many times, the spore can pull some bone aside to hide behind. Don’t forget that thing is alive inside of them. It’s got a mind of its own.”
“That reminds me,” Cole said. “I shot Misonyk in the chest and it looked like there was solid bone protecting his heart.”
“Yeah,” she sighed as the day’s events caught up to her in a single rush. “And that means we’ll need to get real close and be real fast to take him out. It’ll probably take an injection directly in the neck. How are your eyes, by the way? Getting any strange urges?”
“I wouldn’t mind biting you in a few choice spots, but that’s nothing new.” The moment that came out of Cole’s mouth, he flinched. “Sorry, maybe I am possessed.”
Paige did her best to keep from laughing.
“So,” he said in a desperate attempt to change the subject, “there’s no turning a Nymar back into a human. Doesn’t the antidote cure them?”
“It reacts with the black stuff that contaminates their blood,” Paige replied in words still strained by the laughter that flowed just beneath them. “Kind of like another virus that spreads inside and—”
“More technical jargon,” Cole moaned. “I love it. So the antidote cures them.”
“Once it gets into those black tendrils beneath their skin, it cures them just like cyanide cures depression.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t worry about leaving a body either. When a Nymar dies, the thing inside them sucks up all the blood and water to try and stay alive. Whatever is left will crumble in a day or two on its own. Inject them anywhere other than the black tendrils and you’ll either knock them out or give them a wound it’ll take weeks to heal.”
Suddenly, Cole felt as if the rest of the world was slipping away from him and he was standing on the edge of it all, just watching it go. Unfortunately, looking out the window or closing his eyes only made the dizziness worse.
Picking up on the change that had come over him, Paige asked, “Are you all right, Cole? You’re pale and sweaty.”
“I’m fine. I guess all of this is just catching up to me.”
She kept her eye on him as much as she could without driving off the road. Even when she had to make a few jerky corrections to stay in her lane, she acted as if watching him was more important than plowing into oncoming traffic. “Are you sure about that? How are your eyes?”
“They feel fine. Maybe a little—”
They feel fine.
The voice was so subtle in the back of Cole’s mind that he could have easily mistaken it for his own. He began to nod and say the words he’d thought of, but suddenly realized he hadn’t thought of them. He shook his head and pressed his palms to his eyes until red splotches danced in the darkness behind the lids. “Maybe I’m not fine. I think Misonyk got to me.”
No. It was nothing.
The voice drifted through Cole’s mind like a gnat skittering into his ear, and was already gone before he had a chance to swat at the thing responsible for it.
“Yeah,” he said. “He got to me. Maybe you should give me some more of that antidote.”
Paige looked over at him once more and then pulled the wheel toward the right shoulder of the interstate. The tires screeched, skidded on the loose dirt on the shoulder, then the car came to a stop without a major incident. She got a few honks from some of the people who’d been directly behind her but ignored them.
“If you just tell me where the stuff is, I can inject myself,” Cole said. “No need for all of this.”
“What do you hear?”
“It wants me to tell you I’m fine.”
“Do me a favor, Cole. Imagine telling me you’re fine. Focus on it really hard.”
He let out a deep breath and then thought about saying those words. He imagined saying them to Paige and then shook his head. “I can’t focus.”
Still studying him, Paige said, “Think about what you’d s
ay as if you were singing a song in your head. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah. Actually I do.” At first he started to sing those words. He stopped himself and then used that same inner voice to repeat them.
“When you imagine saying them to me, it doesn’t matter if it’s one hundred percent accurate,” she said. “Just make sure the basics are in there and imagine it in a way that’ll make it really vivid. It doesn’t matter what you focus on, but it’s got to be something you can truly hold onto. Think about it like you’d picture one of those games you design. Once you’re locked in, let the words go through your mind.”
Although he started off taking Paige’s advice, the imagery wasn’t sticking. It came and went like scrambled porn on a channel he hadn’t paid for. The more he tried to zero in on it, the fuzzier it got. Then, perhaps drawing inspiration from the comparison he’d just made, he imagined Paige sitting there beside him in her sweats and halter top. He added a bit of water to her hair and beads of moisture running along those sexy freckles that were scattered over her chest and the image became clearer. Once he lost her clothes altogether and added more water running down her body, he was in business.
“I’m all right, baby,” he said in his inner voice to the Paige that was naked and smiling back at him.
“Is it working?” the real Paige asked.
When he heard her voice, Cole realized it was working a bit too well. He shifted in his seat, thanked the god of denim that his jeans were loosely cut, then nodded. “I think so.”
It’s all right, he thought. I’m just fine, baby.
Very good.
Paige smiled in his mind, and when Cole focused on the real world, he found her smiling there as well. She nodded and placed her hands back on the wheel so she could pull onto the road and bring the car back up to speed.
“Misonyk is powerful,” Paige said. “I’ve never heard of a Nymar getting this kind of range with any sort of mind control before.”
“Aw, hell.”
“Don’t worry and don’t think too hard about it,” Paige said quickly. “It’s tricky, but we can work with it. For the most part, a Nymar that’s linked to someone can make out more of what that person is seeing than what they’re thinking. He got to your eyes, remember?”
“Yeah,” Cole said as he began squirming for a very different reason.
“He can read your thoughts, but only the ones you’re broadcasting. You know, the ones you’re really concentrating on? The kind of stuff a really good poker player might be able to read on your face if they looked at you hard enough.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t give you any more antidote for a while, since you’ve already had some not too long ago. We don’t want too much of that in your system. In the meantime, if Misonyk is tracking us through you, you can steer him away for a while.”
“How do I do that?” Cole asked.
“First of all, don’t look out the window anymore. Look down or at me or just close your eyes. I’m going to tell you directions that we want Misonyk to hear, and I want you to take in everything I say. Think about it really hard and try to put those thoughts out there.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
Paige shrugged and smiled at him. “At best, it’ll keep your brain busy enough that Misonyk won’t get anything but static from you. At the very least, you should keep him away long enough for us to conduct our business with Prophet.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yeah…well…sort of.” She cut herself short and reached over to rub Cole’s knee. “Just trust me, okay?”
Cole nodded and focused on the touch of her hand upon his knee. It helped feed his reserves when he imagined her hand drifting a bit higher up along his thigh. “Okay.”
“We’ll be heading north on 94 all the way up through Milwaukee,” she said as if telling him a story that she thought was enthralling. “Around Milwaukee, things get sort of crazy, but we’ll catch I–43 toward Fox Point. From there…”
While listening to her go on about interstates, turnoffs, and rest stops, Cole imagined that map in his head and the creeping red line that came along with it. Oddly enough, that red line calmed his nerves just as it had when he’d been flying over Canada. Paige’s voice was soothing and she went into more than enough detail to add some texture to his mental map. His focus remained on that map thanks to the naked version of Paige he imagined pointing to it while bending at the waist or arching her back like a naughty meteorologist.
He wouldn’t be able to watch the evening news the same way again, but at least he was finally able to relax.
Chapter 16
By late afternoon Cole and Paige were driving on a gray stretch of highway, beneath a gray sky surrounded by drab grasslands. Every now and then they would cross a grayish blue river and then it was back to more greenish gray. At least, that’s what Cole caught from the reflected light that came through the window.
Once Paige ran out of steam in her storytelling, she trusted Cole to occupy himself and not give Misonyk anything worth looking at. He’d never been more thankful to have Tetris on his cell phone. Since he couldn’t get a signal, his expensive device was reduced to making him swear out loud for a long block instead of a crooked one. He swore even louder when he accidentally looked up to give his eyes a rest and found himself staring at a sign announcing the river they were about to cross. It was some sixteen syllable Native American name that he couldn’t pronounce, but he figured Misonyk might have seen it too.
“What’s the matter?” Paige asked.
“I looked out the window. Sorry.”
“It’s all right. We’re not supposed to meet Prophet for a while, so I’ve been tooling around in a big circle. You want to get something to eat?”
Rubbing his eyes, Cole grumbled, “I want a double burger with fries. If they don’t have that, I’ll have a chicken sandwich. But not grilled chicken. I want skin on there. If they have something spicy, I’ll—”
He was cut off by the quick jab of a needle in his neck. “Damn!” he grunted. “Did it have to be in the same spot as last time?”
“Stop whining. Do you feel any better?”
After a few seconds Cole touched his eyes and then blinked. “Actually, yeah. There’s no more itching or burning.”
“You should be a spokesman for this stuff,” Paige replied. “Side effects may include drowsiness, nausea, and diarrhea.”
“Please tell me you’re joking,” he begged.
“More or less. It’s been a while since your last dose, so you should be fine. Still hungry?”
They stopped at a fast food burger joint off of I–43. It was one of those places that had overpriced food to pay for the enclosed playground attached to it. At first Cole was just happy to be able to look around freely again. After he’d gotten something in his stomach, he and Paige sat outside to watch the sun set. Despite the romantic possibilities, they simply killed time before driving the rest of the way to wherever they were going to meet up with Prophet.
“So you don’t think Misonyk can read my mind anymore?” Cole asked.
“Like there was much to read anyway,” Paige shot back.
“I’m serious.”
She took a few more fries from the cardboard container in her hand and stuffed them in her mouth. “I doubt he could read your whole mind,” she said amid a spray of chewed potato. “But it’s nothing permanent.”
“How do you know?”
“Because if it was, the other Skinners who went through the same thing would all be dead. He might be able to sneak in there again, but he’ll have to be real close to do it. If he’s close, then it’s too late to do much about it anyway. We’re hoping to find Misonyk eventually, so even if he does pick up on us, it’s not so bad as long as we get to hear what Prophet has to say.”
Sitting perched on the edge of a curved plastic bench overlooking a string of gas stations and the ramp leading onto the interstate, Cole asked, “Does that ever bother
you?”
“What?”
“Living like you’re always one step away from a fight.”
She shook her head and tipped the container back to empty the last, crunchy bits of fries into her mouth. “Nah.” Tossing the container into a nearby trash can with a wide smile painted on it, she checked her watch and said, “Time to go.”
“Should I keep thinking happy thoughts?” Cole asked.
She stood up and dusted the crumbs off the front of her shirt. “You shouldn’t have much trouble with that, considering where we’re headed.”
It was dark when they pulled to a stop again just under an hour later. They’d driven a few miles off the interstate and stopped at a spot without much more than a single building and a whole lot of garish neon to illuminate it.
Paige got out of the car. “Leave any weapons here,” she advised. “There’ll be metal detectors.”
Cole could hear the thump of a nearby sound system rumbling through the window, but couldn’t see any occupied cars nearby. There were plenty of vehicles in the open lot, but not a driver to be found. He got out and spotted Paige walking toward the entrance of a purple A-frame building. The blinking pink neon sign over the entrance matched the bigger sign elevated on a post and facing the interstate. Both signs flashed, Shimmy’s Gentlemen’s Club in curved lettering. Cole craned his neck and looked up at the larger sign towering over the A-frame. Now that he was closer, he could see the outlines of women hanging from the tail of the Y. At the moment, those outlines merely sputtered with the crackle of failing neon.
He ran to catch up to Paige, but she’d stopped before pulling open the club’s front door. When he got to her, he asked, “Shimmy’s? Is it amateur night or do you just like—”
Paige brought her finger up to point at his face so quickly that she almost created a breeze. “Don’t finish that sentence. Prophet picked this place, not me. Do you have any of that money I gave you at the hotel?”
“No,” Cole lied.
“Great. Just great.”
Skinners: Blood Blade Page 20