Teeth of Beasts (Skinners)

by Marcus Pelegrimas

  “Wait,” Daniels cut in. “Where are you going?”

  “We need to go to St. Louis. That’s where this guy came from.”

  “But your arm won’t get any better on its own,” Daniels protested. “And the longer I go without treating it, the less likely it will be that it can be treated!”

  “Forget about it. My arm, my problem.”

  Although Paige tried to leave the room, Daniels reminded her that he wasn’t quite human when he actually managed to get in front of her and say, “Whether you administered that mixture prematurely or not, I was still the one who made it, and I intend on fixing it.”

  “I’m fine,” Paige said as she lifted her arm from its sling and strained to flex her fingers. “See?”

  Daniels was not impressed. “I’m coming with you,” he insisted.

  Paige looked at him and shook her head. “Not this time. There’s someone in St. Louis who might be able to give us some insight as to what’s going on.”

  “Is this contact a Nymar?”

  “No.”

  “Then they’re not as qualified to examine this specimen.” Before she could rebut that statement, Daniels added, “If this contact has enough space for me to work in a protected environment, I could move my investigation along much faster.”

  She narrowed her eyes and stood toe-to-toe with the dumpy Nymar. “Wouldn’t the lab in your apartments be a good enough place to work? Or here? You can have the run of this place while we’re away. And what about that collectibles thing you started?”

  “Actually,” Daniels groaned, “my girlfriend’s got a whole shopping trip planned to refurnish my second floor apartment. There’s colors to look at, patterns to choose, then she’ll want me to move furniture. It’s a whole, involved process. If I was to come along with you, I wouldn’t have anything else to do other than work.”

  “How is Sally?” Cole asked.

  Brightening at the mention of her name, Daniels replied, “Great. After those animals tore through the building the last time you were there, she’s decided to move in with me.”

  “Hey! Congrats.”

  “How long will it take for you to finish with Peter?” Paige asked.

  “Another day should be sufficient. There’s plenty of tests to run, but that would be enough time for me to check out a few—”

  “You’ve got until tomorrow,” she cut in. “Then Cole and I head out to St. Louis with or without you. Also, you’re driving your own car and paying for your own gas.”

  Daniels obviously wasn’t happy about that, but nodded tersely rather than concede. “Fine.”

  “And you,” she said to Cole as she followed him toward the kitchen. “If the wrong stuff from that list shows up in one of your games, you’ll see how much I can do with this gimpy arm of mine.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Nice to have you back, by the way. When you stop feeling sorry for yourself, you become the Paige I’ve always known.”

  “You haven’t really known me that long,” she pointed out.

  Cole let go of the heavy door they’d installed. “Hey!” she scolded as she caught it.

  Reaching out to push the door back, Cole noticed that she’d been quick and strong enough to hold it open using her right arm. “Sometimes a wounded little bird just needs to be pushed out of the nest,” he mused.

  Paige strode ahead and grumbled, “I got yer bird right here.”

  Chapter 7

  St. Louis, Missouri

  The next day

  Coming from Seattle, Cole had needed some time to adjust to the heat of a Chicago summer. He hadn’t been away from Washington for very long, so he was still getting used to it. Coming from Chicago, however, the heat in St. Louis was something special. They’d left Rasa Hill after a breakfast consisting of three different kinds of meat, eggs, and cheese sandwiched between bagels or English muffins. Once they got onto the open road, they were able to drive at their leisure. Too bad it felt as if the Cavalier’s tires were melting to the pavement.

  “Why couldn’t we have taken the rental car?” Cole asked. “At least that had air-conditioning.”

  “Stop whining. If Daniels is going to drain our spare cash to buy books, we can’t afford to rent a car. Hang your head out the window. That helped in KC.”

  “KC was seasonably warm. This feels like a damn blast furnace.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Paige said as she tuned the radio to an alternative rock station and cranked the volume just high enough to discourage more conversation.

  It was early evening when they skirted downtown St. Louis and caught their first glimpse of the Gateway Arch. Having trailed behind them this far, Daniels blinked the headlights of his SUV to let them know he was splitting off to try and make contact with some of the local Nymar. Cole watched the scenery go by as the tall, shining buildings in that area gave way to crumbling apartments and warehouses that looked as if they’d all been scorched by the same fire. Within a fair amount of time, the architecture shifted once again to that of St. Louis University.

  Paige sat in the driver’s seat as always. Despite the fact that she steered from the sling, she knew the area well enough to be an asset behind the wheel. Her navigation came in very handy since, no matter how much Cole itched to use his new GPS, there was so much construction that the little box would have probably started smoking after chugging through too many recalculations.

  Letting his eyes wander along the scenery, he asked, “You used to live here, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Isn’t this where you did your training?”

  “That’s right,” she replied.

  “What’s his name? Rico. You worked with him here, didn’t you?”

  “Sure did.”

  Cole drew a deep breath and hung his arm out the window. When they were flying down Highway 40 at seventy miles an hour, the breeze actually felt pretty good. “Rrrrrico,” he said, making sure to roll the R off his tongue. “I’m picturing some baby-face little pretty boy with a bandanna and no shirt under a leather jacket.”

  “Are you? Well, whatever floats your boat.”

  “You know. Because of that song from the eighties. Rrrrrrrico.”

  Paige nodded. “Be sure to mention that when you meet him. He loves that joke.”

  “Is he still here?”

  She looked over at him while gunning her engine to get around a Mustang lingering in the right lane. “Ned Post is the resident Skinner around here, but he isn’t exactly up to that sort of thing anymore. Rico came by to lend him a hand.”

  “Sure would have been nice for him to lend us a hand in KC.”

  “Rico was stomping through the Rockies after some domestic Yetis. Once he gets wrapped up in a hunt like that, he doesn’t resurface until it’s done.”

  Paige exited at Kingshighway Boulevard and drove past a large park. Normally, Cole would have enjoyed the greenery, but he’d become all too familiar with the kinds of things that live in wooded areas, whether they were in a city or not. He and Paige both kept their eyes pointed forward.

  “This town seems pretty quiet,” he said.

  “Then you must be deaf.”

  As if to prove her point, tires squealed at the intersection in front of them and four people started screaming at the white pickup that had stuck its front end out where it didn’t belong. Two of those screamers weren’t even remotely involved in the averted accident.

  Cole made loose fists to rub his fingertips against his palms. “No, I mean quiet in the…wait,” he said as a fiery pain touched his hands. His scars’ reaction to shapeshifters felt like a match being dragged across his skin. “I guess this place isn’t as quiet as I thought.”

  “Rico told me he cleared out all the Half Breeds.”

  “When did you talk to him?”

  “While you were helping Daniels load that body into his backseat.”

  As they continued down Kingshighway, the pain grew stronger. It wasn’t the deep tissue burn caused by a Full Blood, and
it wasn’t the prickly sensation set off by a Half Breed. When Paige turned onto McPherson Avenue, Cole put a name to the pain. “Mongrels,” he said. “And they must be close.”

  Paige gunned the Cav’s engine so she could skid into a parking spot against the curb a split second ahead of the black four-door that had been waiting for it with its blinker ticking. “Damn,” she said. “I am one hell of a good teacher.”

  The black car held its ground, and when Cole got out, a man with a meticulously trimmed goatee stuck his head through the driver’s side window and screamed, “That’s my spot, asshole!”

  Cole took his harness from the backseat but tried to keep it out of sight. Even though the spear was collapsed down to about half the size of a baseball bat, he didn’t quite succeed in keeping it under wraps.

  “Oh, you wanna go?” the man with the goatee blustered as he kicked his door open.

  Paige exited the Cav, walked up to the four-door, ripped the sling from her shoulder and dropped her right arm down onto the hood of the loudmouth’s car like a hammer. “Find another spot, dickless!”

  The other guy froze half in and half out of his car. Grumbling to himself, he eased all the way in and drove off. Only when he was a safe distance away did he shout back at her.

  Paige nodded at the people walking along the sidewalk and then to Cole. “I needed that.” She rubbed her forearm and tossed her sling into the Cav before leading the way toward Euclid Avenue.

  The sun hadn’t set too long ago, and there were plenty of people walking on either side of the street. Cars drifted up and down paths of cracked concrete, passing buildings that were mostly two or three stories tall and made from similar dark red brick. Other structures were lighter in color, but all of them had a flair that made the entire area look as if it had been pieced together with care instead of churned out by a massive corporate construction project. Plants hung down from windows of homes and stores alike. Bright awnings extended over the sidewalks and painted iron trellises framed several windows. Even the people ambling from building to building seemed well maintained. Most of them looked like college students or aiming for that age bracket in the way they dressed. The couple standing between a pair of trees guarded by a little fence near the intersection of McPherson and Euclid would have blended in perfectly if they hadn’t been caught staring directly at Paige and Cole.

  He returned the stare and started walking toward them. “I think I spotted them, Paige.”

  The man wore khaki shorts and a baseball cap. He eased one slender, hairy leg back, while his female companion in a jeans skirt bent her knees slightly. Their movements didn’t stick out too much amid all the activity around them, but when Cole saw the subtle way they lowered their heads and raised their shoulders, something in his gut told him they were about to pounce.

  Paige stooped down to take the baton from her boot holster. “Try to get them across the street to that little garage.”

  The structure looked like a small cottage with one large door, and was positioned directly across from the fenced-in trees. It was at the mouth of a narrow side street that wasn’t half as busy as Euclid Avenue. “Got it,” he said as he drove the thorns from his weapon’s handle into his scarred palms.

  The instant blood welled up from his hands, both of the people he’d spotted picked up on it. Their nostrils flared as they crouched down and prepared to strike.

  Cole and Paige ran at them, scattering a group of four pedestrians along the way.

  Apparently, Paige wasn’t the only one who’d scoped out the little garage, because the Mongrels darted across Euclid and disappeared down that very side street. The movement wasn’t spectacular enough to draw more than a few excited voices from the onlookers, but it got the Mongrels out of plain sight. Cole and Paige followed them as the groups of pedestrians went back to their own little worlds.

  Having lost sight of the couple, Cole continued down the narrow lane that led past the garage. Paige was directly beside him. Keeping her back against the brick wall of the building directly across from the garage, she looked at Cole and nodded down the side street. The Mongrels were close, which meant they were probably lurking somewhere within the shadows between the buildings.

  There was a Dumpster to Cole’s left and smaller, one-car garages farther down on the right. He was just about to step forward when something moved within the shadowy space between the Dumpster and a tall wooden fence. By the time he realized the shadow was actually a constricted mass of black fur, the Mongrel had already exploded from its corner.

  Mongrels had abilities that varied as much as their appearance. Some were sleek and beautiful, while others were freakish. This one had short, mangy fur that was thicker in the spots that would need more protection. Coarse patches over its back thinned out along the sides of its squat head and the middle of its bony legs. Having squeezed behind the Dumpster so quickly, its main ability seemed to include twisting itself into more shapes than a balloon animal. Curved claws dug into the pavement as it opened its mouth to display a set of thin pointed teeth with a barely audible hiss.

  Cole brought his spear up, angled it diagonally across his body and pushed it forward to stop the Mongrel in mid-jump. The creature’s chest thumped against the middle of the weapon, but its arms stretched out enough to scrape one side of Cole’s head with slender claws. His back was against the brick garage so nothing could get behind him. After shoving the Mongrel back, it slunk in a tight circle and then reared up on its hind legs directly in front of him. Scraping the forked end against cement, Cole snagged one of the Mongrel’s feet and swept its legs out from under it.

  The Mongrel huffed as its ribs hit the ground, and then flopped to get all four of its legs beneath it. As it wriggled, the tattered remains of khaki shorts could be seen around its waist. Cole checked on his partner, hoping the second shapeshifter wasn’t more than she could handle.

  Paige let out a breath that bordered on a snarl as she backhanded the other Mongrel, using her hardened right arm. The impact wasn’t as loud as when she’d dented the loudmouth’s car, but it spun the shapeshifter around and sent a spray of bloody saliva through the air. Despite the complications that had arisen, that kind of strength was why she’d thought up the ink and tattooed herself in the first place. The idea was to inject supernatural qualities into a human in such small doses that they would only affect a part of them for a short amount of time. One out of two wasn’t bad.

  If Cole’s opponent was a man-sized were–alley cat, Paige’s was closer to a were-leopard. The female’s head was wider, giving her room for thicker teeth. Dark gray fur clung to her like paint that was still wet after having been freshly spattered onto her skin. The only noise she made was a low growl as she dropped down to all fours and tensed for another lunge.

  Fixing her eyes upon the Mongrel, Paige slashed with the weapon in her left hand, which had shifted from a thick baton to a single, curved sickle blade attached to a thin handle. When the Mongrel popped onto its hind legs to clear a path for the weapon, it was caught with a follow-up blow from the one in Paige’s right hand. Compared to the sickle, the other weapon was awkward and poorly shaped. The same mixture that had forced Paige’s arm into a sling also marred her ability to change the weapon’s shape. The best she could manage was a crude machete. It didn’t look like much, but it could get the job done. Sparks flew from the machete’s edge as it scraped against the ground where the Mongrel had just been.

  Ducking just quickly enough to keep from getting impaled by the sickle, the leopard growled, “Sssskinner.”

  Hearing that word caused the first Mongrel to snarl hungrily. It had been pacing in front of Cole for the last few seconds, but now raced at him with its belly less than an inch above the ground.

  Cole hopped into the middle of the narrow side street with his spear in both hands and the largest point angled downward. He jabbed at the smaller Mongrel defensively but didn’t make contact. The were-cat stepped on the spear to push it down and clear the way
for it to swipe at Cole with its other front paw.

  Claws sliced through the air so close to his face that Cole could feel them brush against his nose. The thorns in his weapon’s handle dragged through his flesh, but he maintained his grip so he could will the spear to grow a set of barbs that popped out from its middle section to puncture the pads on the Mongrel’s paw.

  Twisting away from him, the oversized alley cat let out a high-pitched yelp and limped away. It lifted its nose toward the second floor windows of a building farther down the side street, where several lithe shapes crawled along the ledge and stretched into four-legged forms anywhere from five to six feet in length.

  Cole and Paige put their backs to a wall as the first two Mongrels regrouped. While the alley cat scraped at the concrete and twitched its eyes between the two Skinners, the leopard shifted back into the woman Cole had spotted from the street when they’d first arrived. Her body was lean, muscular, and on display, since all but a pair of skimpy boxer briefs had been shredded during her initial transformation.

  Standing tall and unmindful of her partial nudity, the Mongrel said, “The old man hasn’t killed enough of us on his own, so he called in more of you?”

  Cole checked the street to find a few people trying to get a look at the small gathering. They were either being held back somehow or had already lost interest since the fighting had abated.

  “What are you talking about?” Paige demanded as she twirled her left-handed weapon. “You’re the ones who jumped us!”

  “We don’t need more Skinners here! And we won’t allow more of our kind to be poisoned. Tell the old man we know what he’s doing and that his tricks will only get more humans killed.”

  “What tricks? Who the hell are you anyway?”

  Squinting in a way that made her eyes seem like clear, flawless glass orbs, the Mongrel replied, “You have not met the old man yet. His stench is near, but it’s not on you.”

  The alley cat looked up at the female Mongrel and shifted back into a mostly human form. His tattered shorts were now wrapped around a sinewy frame, and he didn’t even bother lifting himself up from all fours as he said, “They’re Skinners! We kill them and any others that come onto our—”