“And I haven’t heard about it for months,” Rico said. “That’s because people like to sweep their garbage where they can’t see it and go about their day like there ain’t nothin’ wrong. Animals ain’t like that. They know when something’s wrong with the natural order, and right now there’s a big vacancy at the top of the food chain. When that happens, all the residents of the lower rungs climb up to fill it. Ain’t that right, Bloodhound?”
Now fully absorbed in her chips, Paige only nodded.
“All the Mongrels are sniffing around across the country, poking their heads out to make sure there’s not a Full Blood around to bite it off,” Rico continued as he ticked his points off on his fingers. “I’ve heard from a bunch of places that Nymar are getting braver too. Even little rodents that are only spotted every now and then when they pick off a dog or slaughter some cattle are overstepping their bounds.”
“I was nearly killed by a Chupacabra,” Cole offered.
Rico pointed at him and said, “I wouldn’t exactly brag about that, but it proves my point.” Then he shifted his focus back to Ned. “One Full Blood can stake out a territory that may cover a third of this country. They’re powerful enough to enforce their claim and fast enough to patrol it. Take even one out of the mix and it throws things off, just like when too many wolves are killed in a patch of forest. All the other animals spread out and make themselves comfortable. In our case, you get Mongrels challenging us in the open. I know you’ve been content to sit back and keep the peace ever since we took St. Louis for ourselves, but we can’t do that anymore. If anything comes sniffing around looking for a new territory to claim, we gotta kick its teeth in.”
“Law of the jungle,” Cole said as he carefully selected the burnt chips from the basket.
“Damn right,” Rico said while leaning back into his seat. “Law of the jungle.”
Ned pulled in a deep breath and let it seep out through his nostrils. He drank some beer, ate some chips, and then looked over at Paige.
“And before you come down too hard on us for stirring up those Mongrels,” she said, “you should know that their problem wasn’t with us. It’s with you.”
“What?”
“Oh yeah!” Cole said. “They told us…what was it?”
Paige seemed only too happy to reply. “The Mongrels told us to tell the old man that they know what he’s doing and that your tricks will only get more humans killed.”
“Tricks?” Ned snapped. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Not me,” Paige said. “Them. That’s the message the Mongrels gave us.”
“And was the leader a tall woman who looked like a panther?”
“I thought she was more of a leopard,” Cole replied, “but yeah. She had some guy with her who changed into something that had been eating out of garbage cans most of its life.”
“The woman’s name is Malia,” Ned said. “And the mangy one is Allen. Those two have stayed mostly out of sight and haven’t been a problem.”
“Until now,” Rico said. “When I showed up, things were about to get pretty damn problematic.”
“Because you provoked them!”
“What could they be talking about?” Paige asked in a softer tone. “Could it have anything to do with something called Pestilence?”
She laid out the details of Peter Walsh’s visit to Rasa Hill and didn’t pause until the waitress came by to refill their drinks. By the time she relayed everything Daniels had said, the waitress was returning with the rest of their food. Not surprisingly, the most disgusting of the details hadn’t put a dent into anyone’s appetite.
When the story was over, Ned asked, “And who studied that dead body? The Nymar you work with?”
“That’s right. Daniels does plenty of work for me, so don’t give me any grief for bringing him along.”
“You brought him along?” Rico asked. Glancing nervously at the old man, he lifted his mug to Paige and said, “Ballsy.”
Surprisingly enough, Ned merely shrugged and cut into his open face sandwich. “I don’t object to putting a few of them to work for us. Giving them free rein over an entire city is something else. What did he tell you about this Pestilence?”
“Daniels just said it wasn’t any sort of drug that he knew about,” she replied. “At least, nothing he could pick up on with his first batch of tests, but he’ll keep studying it while he’s here.”
“That still leaves a wide range of toxins from flower petals all the way up to animal venoms.”
“Right,” Paige said. “That’s why he’s still running his tests.”
“And where will we able to find him?” Ned asked.
“I was hoping he could stay with us.”
“No wait,” Rico said as he tapped his mug against Paige’s. “That was ballsy.”
Again, despite his previous grumpiness, Ned just shrugged and took another bite of his dinner. “If you trust this Nymar, then he can stay with us. At least that way we can keep an eye him. Where is he now?”
“Driving around the city to see if he can find some more Nymar.”
Rico laughed into his beer. “Good luck with that.”
“The Nymar who came to Chicago was from here,” Cole pointed out. “He’s the one who called Pestilence by name and said it was in the nymphs’ blood. Also,” he added as he put the piece of paper he’d taken from Peter Walsh’s body on the table. “He was carrying a free drink voucher from a place called Bunn’s Lounge in Sauget.”
“I know the place. It’s right across the river in Illinois,” Rico said. “Prophet was there last month.”
Ned tapped the ticket and then pushed it toward Cole. “Right. His purple A-frame theory. I think that man is just trying to frequent strip clubs and call it research so we’ll pay him for it. You think this is something we should really check out?”
Cole took another drink of Newcastle and then realized Ned had aimed that question at him. “Oh, well yeah. Peter came a long way to find us and tell us about Pestilence, so it’s probably important. If there’s any more Nymar in the area, we figured Daniels would be able to find them to see what they know.”
“How is he contacting them?” Rico asked as he leaned across the table. “Knowing how the bloodsuckers find each other could be a big help.”
Rather than let Cole field the question, Paige stepped in. “Daniels wouldn’t say and we wouldn’t press him on it. He does a lot for us, but he’s not about to hand over all of his kind like that.”
“Helping Skinners ain’t exactly healthy for Nymar,” Rico pointed out.
“Maybe it’s splitting hairs, but Daniels won’t go that far. He works with me because he knows I only go after the Nymar that overstep their bounds.”
“Here we go again,” Ned grumbled.
“And,” Paige continued as she stared the old man down, “he comes through when we need him, so if he says he can save us some time by helping us get in touch with local Nymar, then I’ll let him.”
Ned patted her rigid right arm and said, “Yes, I can see your Nymar chemist truly does take good care of you.”
“This wasn’t Daniels’s fault. He mixed up the ink, but I’m the one who used it before he said it was ready. Even so, it worked damn well. Have you ever had a Full Blood chew on your arm before?”
For the first time that night Ned backed down with a simple, “Can’t say as I have.”
“Well I did, and the only reason my arm is still attached is because Daniels got that ink to work. It’s not perfect, but he’s still working on it, and if you don’t like it, then you don’t have to use it when it’s ready. And if it makes you feel any better,” she added while patting Ned’s hand as if comforting an invalid, “you can take me to all of the Nymar locations you’ve found since you’ve been assigned to babysit a supposedly empty city.”
The old man pulled his arm away and hunkered over his meal.
“So I guess that leaves you and me to check out Bunn’s,” Cole said to Rico. “Th
e last nymph I met at a strip club was Tristan. She was something else.”
“So we’ve heard,” Rico grunted. “Word got sent out that we’re not supposed to lay a hand on her.”
“Not unless you pay to get into the VIP room,” Ned grumbled. After taking a few more huge bites of his sandwich, he pushed the rest aside. “I suppose I’ll check to see if the police are circling the neighborhood after your little scuffle. I’ll head home from there. You remember where the house is?”
“Yes,” Paige said. “I remember.”
“Come by when you’re ready, and,” Ned added as he slapped some money onto the table, “drinks are on me.”
“Don’t be silly, Ned,” Rico protested. “After all the trouble we stirred up in your quiet little neighborhood, the least I can do is spring for the brew.”
Looking older than he had just a few seconds ago, Ned stood up and left.
Once he was gone, Rico said, “Something’s gotta be done about him. It was fine to have him here when nothing was going on, but with Mongrels and whatever else sniffing around, we need someone who can handle themselves.”
“Ned can handle himself,” Paige said.
“Sure. Would you want him fighting alongside you if this place turned into another KC?”
She didn’t have an answer to that and seemed vaguely ashamed of it.
“And what was that the Mongrels said about him?” Rico continued. “What tricks is he supposed to be pulling?”
“Ned doesn’t do anything more than what any of us would do,” Paige said. “And if he did, he would have told us about it. I’ll trust that before I trust what some Mongrel in an alley says to me.”
“If Ned knew those Mongrels by name, he should know where to find them, right?” Cole asked.
Nodding, Rico fixed his eyes on Paige and said, “Maybe. Even if we did find ’em, we can be safe knowing we got little bits of the Blood Blade to throw at them. Why the hell would you destroy a weapon like that?” he snarled. “We can’t exactly make another one! I still can’t believe you left a Blood Blade with some goddamn Nymar.”
Those words landed like an unexpected punch in the gut. Fortunately, Paige was tough enough to handle a whole lot worse. She leaned across the table and made a point to use her right hand to poke Rico in the chest as she said, “Daniels was right there when KC turned into a bloodbath while you were hiking down some scenic mountain trail. What’ve you got to say to that?”
Rico rolled his eyes as he settled the bill and led the way outside. Even after all three of them were walking back to the Cav, he knew he wasn’t going to be let off that easily. Finally, he sucked it up and told her, “I feel like shit for not bein’ there. I didn’t know you put the call out until after I got back.”
Feeling like he’d missed a step, Cole asked, “You called for help, Paige?”
“Yeah, but now you see why I haven’t gotten you into that habit.” She walked briskly down the street, shoving through a noisy group of frat boys who were dispersed by Cole and Rico before they could get their feathers ruffled.
Jogging to catch up with her, Rico said, “You know you can’t rely on outside help. None of us can. As for the crack about your Nymar buddy, you gotta admit we could have used that Blood Blade.”
“We are using it,” Cole assured him. “Granted, we thought we’d have a bit more of it in one piece, but I’ve got an idea about a way to give all of our weapons a boost instead of having just one knife to pass around.”
The other two stopped and Paige was the first to ask, “What idea?”
“So glad you asked.” Cole rubbed his hands together and lowered his voice so it didn’t carry to any of the small groups walking up and down Euclid Avenue. “You know that list Daniels made for me?”
“Yeah.”
“A lot of it was just different ingredients that could be added to one or two bases to make different things. It’s a lot like making power-ups for Hammer Strike or any other game.”
“Oh Christ,” Rico groaned. “You really weren’t kidding about this video game crap.”
“Let him finish,” Paige said. “This stuff usually starts off dumb, but goes somewhere much better.”
Taking the not-too-subtle hint, Cole skipped to the important part of what he’d intended to say. “What I wanted to do with my next game was to make it so players could make their own power-ups by adding different things to the same base. When was the last time anyone’s added something to the stuff we use to treat our weapons?”
That caught both of the other two off their guard.
Grinning excitedly, Cole said, “Those Blood Blade chips are made to be melted down, so why not just melt them down into the varnish for our weapons?”
“You can’t just add whatever you want into that stuff, boy,” Rico said. “It’s a recipe that’s been honed for years. I may not use them sticks as much as I used to, but plenty of folks live and die by those weapons. Screwing around with that ain’t a very good idea. No offense, Bloodhound, but you don’t exactly need somethin’ else makin’ it harder for you to defend yerself.”
Paige raised an eyebrow and watched Cole expectantly.
Looking more at her than Rico, Cole explained, “We don’t need to mess with the whole recipe. Warriors used to dip their arrows and spears into poison. Why can’t we add a little bit of the Blood Blade to the edges of our weapons? A little extra kick when fighting a werewolf would come in handy, don’t ya think?”
Slowly, Paige’s mouth curled into a barely perceptible smile as she nodded and replied, “Yes. I do think. If we dilute it enough, we could even make it a part of the weapon itself so we’d only need to treat them a few times. That way the technique could be passed around to more Skinners.”
“We may even be able to make our own Blood Blades,” Cole said. “I’m just tossing out ideas, but there’s a lot of places to go with this! With four Skinners and a guy like Daniels in the same place, we should be able to come up with something, right?”
“Come to think of it,” Rico said thoughtfully, “Ned might be a big help with that. He’s got some ingredients that could make all the difference.”
“What kind of ingredients?” Paige asked.
“Nothing we could get arrested for, but there are a few mythological beasts that are missing some vital parts. Speaking of vital body parts,” he added with a lurid grin, “me and the new guy are headed to Sauget.”
“So that means me and the old guy will wait for Daniels to show up.” Nodding toward Cole, she said, “Try to keep your tongue in your mouth this time.”
Shaking his head, Cole grumbled, “I got kicked out of one strip club. Will you ever let me live that down?”
“Not a chance.”
Chapter 9
The hotel was just off of I-55 and Lindbergh Boulevard on a twisted road that wound between a Target, a few chain restaurants, and an electronics store. A mat of dirty cement cut from a broken sidewalk covered the entrance to an underground labyrinth that was guarded by the lanky alley cat Mongrel who’d confronted Cole and Paige earlier that night.
Still wearing his khaki shorts, Allen had replaced his shredded shirt with a new wife beater. The streets around him were a tangled mess and almost always blocked by an endless series of construction sites. One such project had been started the previous year and was abandoned in the last few months. It wasn’t clear whether the job had been delayed or if the site was forgotten by the city, but there was nothing on the small mounds of dirt to draw any interest. Beneath those mounds, however, were tunnels that twisted around the foundations of the nearby stores and even poked into a few basements. Allen paced upon the concrete square and jammed a cell phone against the side of his face as if getting ready to eat it.
“No, I didn’t find the old man,” he snarled into the phone. “Two more Skinners showed up…Yes, that’s on top of the ones that are already here. I think it was those two from Chicago you told me about, the bitch with the dark hair and the guy with the spear…No,
you don’t need to talk to Malia! Just come here to help us clear these bastards out of our city!” After a pause, he slapped his phone shut and stuffed it into the pocket of his shorts.
Malia approached him in a form that was ninety-nine percent human. She could walk through a mall without frightening anyone, but her perfectly smooth dark skin and large milky eyes would certainly attract some interested stares. She was tall enough to stand out in a fashion model kind of way as long as she didn’t smile to display her rounded, needle-sharp teeth. Although she was technically clothed, the oversized button-up shirt hung open so that nothing much was left to the imagination.
“What did Kayla have to say?” she asked.
Allen twitched toward the sound of a siren moving along Lindbergh Boulevard and clenched his long, narrow fists. “Ever since she’s curled up in Kansas City, that tunneling little whore thinks she’s some kind of queen.”
Placing a hand on his shoulder, Malia stroked his neck with nails that slid easily out from the tips of her fingers. “She did a good thing in getting the Skinners to trust her, Allen. Don’t forget that.”
He looked up at her and muttered, “She wanted to talk to you, not me.”
“You’ll call her back and she’ll talk to you,” Malia said. “Kayla needs to be shown she doesn’t get to tell the rest of us how to behave. If she wants to lord it over Mongrels, she’ll find she won’t have many friends outside of the dregs left behind by the Full Bloods. Did you tell her about our little problem?”
“I didn’t get a chance. But,” Allen added with a twisted smile, “she’s got problems of her own. I heard that six more dead Half Breeds were found in KC and St. Joseph. Half killed humans and the rest swept through some of Kayla’s own pack. The cops are calling them animal attacks, like the ones that happened during the riot, but some are just being called violent crimes.”
“You’re sure of this?”
Teeth of Beasts (Skinners) Page 11