Teeth of Beasts (Skinners)

by Marcus Pelegrimas

  Lancroft chuckled and sipped from his pint glass. “True enough, my friend. Back home, all I meet are Skinners who would rather go into business with creatures that don’t have a place on God’s green earth.”

  “Where did you say you were from? Philadelphia?”

  “That’s right. Did you know some Nymar back East want to become Skinners? They speak with forked tongues while dressing like whores or dandies. Where the hell did these youngsters get the impression devils like that could be trusted?”

  Nodding as if he’d just heard his own thoughts put into words, Ned raised his drink and knocked it against Lancroft’s glass. “Traditionalist, huh? That’s nice to hear. Makes me feel like I ain’t the only one anyway.

  “The monsters fear us because they don’t fully understand us. It’s an old strategy, but a very, very good one. We can’t pick and choose which prey to hunt either. That decision has already been made for us by the natural order. Working with Nymar, trusting outside groups like those crackpot ghost chasers, those are the sorts of things that will undo us.”

  “Welcome to the modern world.”

  “Keep it,” Lancroft sighed. “I’ve had my fill.”

  Surrounded by the comforting dimness of the bar and the warbly prerecorded voices of pinball machines, Ned savored the slow burn of the vodka easing through his system. “You’d best pull up your stakes and burn whatever’s left of Pestilence,” he said. “Otherwise, those youngsters of mine will burn you along with it.”

  Lancroft placed both hands on the bar. “If we’re parting ways, let’s do it amicably. One more drink to celebrate a fine, albeit short, partnership.”

  Taking his cue, the bartender waddled over to collect their glasses. He filled them and set them in front of the only two customers in the place.

  “After all that’s happened,” Ned said, “another snort wouldn’t be such a bad idea.” He took his glass, doffed it like a cap, and knocked it back in one swig. The liquid inside tasted clean and cool. It had the burn of vodka, but a salty sweetness that didn’t belong. “This ain’t the usual brand.”

  The bartender took a step back, cocked his head to one side and silently wiped at a dark trickle that ran from the corner of his mouth. In his hand was Lancroft’s flask.

  “What the hell is this?” Ned snarled while throwing the glass away and reaching for his cane.

  “A gift from the fairer sex,” Lancroft mused. “Memory Water.”

  “I told you I didn’t want it!” Shifting an angry glare to the bartender, he asked, “What the hell did you do, Tom? Did you spike my drink? Did you?”

  The bartender pressed his lips together as if suppressing a laugh. The trickle of dark fluid along his chin turned into a gush when he opened his mouth and violently snapped his head to one side.

  “Get out of him!” Ned roared. When he tried to rush around the bar, Lancroft’s staff blocked his path like a cement post.

  “Henry’s learned to do so much with his gift. But only recently has he grasped the notion of subtlety.”

  Something twitched in Ned’s eye that was different than the usual pain. He blinked and resisted the urge to touch his face so he could keep both hands ready to attack or defend. The longer he stood there, the more the bar around him shifted into focus.

  “Tastes good, doesn’t it?” Lancroft asked. “Makes you feel as strong as you did when you could still be out there fighting the darkness. Back when something as idealistic as that actually seemed possible.”

  “What’s happened to me?” Even as he asked that, Ned looked around at the bar he thought he knew like the back of his hand. Instead of dimming the harsh glare of the outside world, his sunglasses now impeded him. Ripping them off allowed him to discover shapes in the shadows, coasters on the tables, writing on the beer taps, colorful cushions on the chairs. “Is this a healing serum?”

  “Not as such. It’s essence wrung from the nymphs. Since you helped me find so many of the elusive little whores, it’s only fair you taste their nectar.”

  Ned gripped his cane and looked away from the bartender. It was too late for him now.

  “There used to be a time when Skinners opposed all creatures that fell outside the natural order and put whatever gifts they had to proper use,” Lancroft said. “Now, they are making deals with Nymar and handing over entire cities to Mongrels! I have restored your vision, just as I can restore the ones who don’t bounce back from the Mud Flu.”

  “The plan was to take out the Half Breeds. That’s done. It’s over!”

  Shaking his head solemnly, Lancroft said, “Are you still blind? The Book of Luke told us there would be pestilence, fearful sights and great signs from heaven. We’ve seen more than our share of fearful sights. We’ve seen Pestilence. Now we see the great sign. My toxin has evolved into something greater than we could have hoped. It kills Nymar and other shapeshifters alike, and all we need to do is stand back to let it run its course.”

  “Stop quoting scripture like it means anything to you,” Ned snarled. “You just want an excuse from on high to do what you please. Those Half Breeds were mad dogs, and poisoning them was a good way to put ’em down. Not all Nymar are killers!”

  “Once the bloodsuckers start feeding on infected people, there won’t be any more Nymar. And since I’ve observed how crazy the scent of nymph blood drives them, I can make them feed on whoever I choose.”

  “And who will that be? Who will be handed over to be torn apart?”

  “Every human that dies from the new strain will take at least one Nymar with them into eternity,” Lancroft replied. “There will always be plenty more humans to replenish the species, while Nymar will simply become the myth that everyone already thinks they are.”

  Blood poured from Ned’s hands when he gripped the handle of his cane just as they had when he’d first learned to use his weapon. For years it had barely trickled when the scars were punctured, but now the thorns dug through thick, sensitive flesh.

  “So you truly want to end our partnership?” Lancroft asked. “After I restored your sight, I would have thought you’d be convinced of how far my research has come. Today’s Skinners have gone astray. The good ones need to be found and the rest need to be flushed away. I have resources and plenty of time to put them to use, but there is only so much I can do on my own.”

  “Pestilence will purify the fallen,” the bartender hissed. “Pestilencewillpurifythefallen.”

  “Yes, Henry,” Lancroft said patiently. “But we’re speaking now.” Once the bartender crouched low and backed into the nearest corner, Lancroft whispered, “I’ve been around since the early days when people had their eyes open and noticed things like empty graves, black auras, and shapes prowling the dark. They called me a quack back then, but Skinners maintained their resolve and kept fighting.” Slamming his open hand on the bar, he said, “No town was handed over to the Nymar just to make our battle easier! Not even the smallest village would have been given to a pack of Mongrels! Not ever! It wasn’t long ago that you agreed with me.”

  Ned’s hands were slick with blood and pain flickered across his twitching face as his cane sluggishly gained a sharpened tip. “I agree something needed to be done after what happened in Kansas City. If those Half Breeds had been allowed to spread, they might have swept through the whole country.”

  “That was from one Full Blood.” Holding up a finger to illustrate his point, Lancroft bellowed, “One wild stray. Thanks to us, the only Half Breeds you see on television or anywhere else are dead ones. We have Pestilence to thank for that.”

  “But humans are the ones that are infected,” Ned reminded him.

  Lancroft took his flask from Henry and tucked it into one of his jacket pockets. From another pocket, he removed a brass, richly engraved cigar case containing fragrant, hand-rolled cheroots. Lancroft selected one, struck a match against the rough side of the antique case, touched the flame to his cheroot and said, “Those that make the sacrifice will be doing it for the good of their
species.”

  “You’re full of shit.” Throwing a disgusted look at the bartender’s filthy shell, Ned said, “For all the preaching you do about Skinners making deals with monsters, you sure don’t seem to mind running with that one.”

  “He’s not my partner. He’s a subject. Besides, you’d be amazed how much we can learn from someone like Henry.”

  Back in his corner, the bartender perked up and watched the other two like a dog who’d just caught a whiff of fresh cold cuts.

  “Even a fiend like Misonyk,” Lancroft added while puffing the cheroot. “When he was chained and bleeding like the stuck pig he was, he evolved. He forced Henry to evolve. It was really quite a beautiful thing.”

  Ned blinked several times. So far it had taken an effort to keep from smiling at the glorious sights flooding in through his tingling eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe you don’t. Maybe I’ll explain it all to you. That depends on how quickly you hand over the ones who don’t uphold their duties as Skinners. The new fellow, Cole, has promise. That woman is an able fighter, but she is too quick to make a deal with the wrong species. Bring them both to me tomorrow. It’s the least you can do considering the gift I gave you.”

  The hatred rolling through Ned’s chest wasn’t enough to eclipse the divinely subtle shift of light upon the rounded glasses and colored bottles behind the bar. Not even the pain in his hands or his cane’s stubborn refusal to shift any faster were enough to sully the joy he tried so desperately to hide. Shoving all of that aside, he forced his will into the sluggish weapon. “Put an end to this Pestilence business. We were wrong to think killing people to take out those Half Breeds was nothing but acceptable losses. Can’t you see that?”

  Lancroft grabbed his staff as if he had every intention of driving it through the floor. “Don’t you dare preach to me, boy! I’ve killed more unnatural trash than you and everyone you know combined. There are breeds of shapeshifters that are extinct because of me.”

  “Last chance,” Ned warned. “Pestilence must have an antidote. Give it to me.”

  The answer he received was a quick slash from the long, slender blade at the end of Lancroft’s staff. Ned blocked the swing with a quickly upraised cane, stopping the other weapon less than an inch from his face.

  Nodding, Lancroft said, “That’s the spirit I was looking for. Skinners are meant to fight. We don’t deal and we don’t give one inch of ground to our enemies.”

  Stepping back into a lower stance, Ned raised his cane. The hook-shaped handle hadn’t shifted as much as he would have liked, but it was more than sharp enough to eviscerate the other Skinner. The two weapons rattled against each other in a flurry of blocks and parries that ended with Ned swinging the cane’s pointed lower end at the other man’s face level.

  Lancroft ducked and followed through with a sweeping blow that connected with Ned’s ankle. When Ned fell onto his back, Lancroft drove the staff’s blade straight down toward his chest.

  Pushing off with one foot, Ned rolled away so the incoming blade dug into the floor. He kicked the weapon out from under Lancroft and then rapped his cane against the nerve running down the side of his leg. Lancroft didn’t fall, but needed a moment to collect himself. Ned took that opportunity to scramble to his feet. Another of his slashing attempts was knocked away, so he thumped the handle of his cane against the hardened muscle of Lancroft’s stomach. By the time Ned brought the cane up toward the other man’s jaw, he’d added a row of short spikes to the curved strip of wood.

  Lancroft leaned back and away to avoid the potentially disfiguring blow, which wasn’t enough to keep one of the spikes from dragging through the side of his chin. He reshaped his weapon into a shorter double-bladed version and swung at Ned’s throat. When the cane blocked the upper blade, he bent the staff in the middle like a large stick of rubber so the lower one could slice across Ned’s stomach.

  Ned grasped his midsection and backed away, angling his cane to cover his retreat. When he looked toward Henry’s corner, he found the Mind Singer crouched on all fours, watching intently.

  “What’s the matter, Ned?” Lancroft asked. “Not feeling the cool rush of serum in your veins? That scratch I gave you isn’t closing up like it should?”

  It had been a while since Ned had actually been injured in a fight. Even so, the first cuts he’d been dealt shouldn’t have remained open so long. There was the possibility that he simply hadn’t injected enough serum to maintain the proper level in his body, but he didn’t have time to think it over at length. He willed the end of his cane to flatten into a short sword, which he twirled around his body like a propeller.

  Lancroft held his staff in the middle and curved its ends around to form a single oval-shaped blade. The new weapon moved like an extension of his arm, meeting every pass of the whirling cane with a burst of sparks. After deflecting a particularly strong assault, Ned leaned in and lowered his weapon so the cane caught Lancroft on the shoulder.

  It was a deep cut. Ned’s eyesight was good enough to see that much. He could also see the flow of blood lessen to a trickle before being stanched completely. Spotting an unprotected spot near Lancroft’s hip, Ned feinted high and then stabbed low. Not only were both attacks defended with ease, but the other man tagged Ned with two quick cuts. One high. One low.

  “It’s the Memory Water, Ned. That’s why I had to modify the stuff for myself. The nymphs call it that because it returns your body to an earlier state, when you were healthier or before illness had a chance to seep in. It brings you back to younger days, before you lost your eyesight or injected all of that serum into your blood.”

  When Ned lashed out with his cane, Lancroft batted it away and then stepped in to open a deep gash between two of his ribs with a quick horizontal slice. Allowing his hand to slide within the oval, he whipped it around to cut once more through the same wound. Without clothes, skin, or the outer layers of meat in its way, the blade scraped against vertebrae before coming out again.

  Ned reacted more to the impact of the hits than the cuts themselves. He stepped back, refusing to lower the cane even though he needed it just to prop him up.

  “At least you’re a fighter,” Lancroft said while knocking aside his trembling final stab. “Rico seems like a fighter as well. Maybe he’s the one I need to speak to.”

  Blood poured from Ned’s wound, blurring the vision he’d so recently regained. His skin was becoming cold and clammy. As a Skinner, he’d felt pain, but not such weakness. Not since the first Mongrel—

  His thought process was cut short along with his ham-string by the next cut from Lancroft’s circular blade. After losing so much blood, he didn’t even feel the impact of his body against the floor. Lancroft stepped over him, placed his foot upon Ned’s chest and spun his weapon in a quick slash that cut Ned’s throat all the way down to the vertebrae.

  “Dr. Lancroft, can I eat now?” Henry asked while eyeing Ned’s body. “I’m so hungry. Sohungrysohungry.”

  Stooping to pick up Ned’s cane, Lancroft said, “This man died like a Skinner and you won’t even think about desecrating him. Understand me?”

  The bartender’s head bobbed up and down while he backed into a corner.

  Chapter 22

  The morning news was filled with reports of more rabid dogs turning up dead all across the Midwest. Cole scanned dozens of other headlines and watched video clips on his laptop while Paige went through a new exercise regimen outside the bathroom in the space formerly occupied by luggage racks and a chair.

  “See?” he said as he scrolled through a batch of e-mails, none of which had been sent by Jason or anyone else at Digital Dreamers. “All you needed to get going again was some sweet—”

  “Hold on,” Paige snapped. Wielding a baton in each hand, she stood in a horse stance with her feet planted far apart, squatting as if in a saddle. Cole liked to call it the Groin Pull Special and he avoided it whenever possible. Staring straight ahead while flipping
a weapon in a series of swift movements, she said, “Come over here and finish that sentence.”

  Grateful to hear his phone ring, Cole politely declined the chance to get his newly energized undercarriage batted into his stomach. He picked up the phone, checked the caller ID, and tapped the Answer button using a set of motions that was more deeply engrained than any fighting technique. “What’s up, Ned?”

  “Not Ned,” the voice on the other end squeaked. “It’s Daniels.”

  “Oh, you’re just calling from Ned’s phone. What’s going on?”

  “How quickly can you get here? I’ve got something you’ll want to see.”

  The hotel wasn’t the best, but it served free breakfast, and a good one at that. Not only were there bagels and doughnuts, but a small buffet with heated pans of scrambled eggs and sausage patties. Cole and Paige put together a few obscenely large sandwiches, threw lids onto their cups of coffee, and were out the door. They’d dawdled just long enough to avoid getting stuck in traffic and made it to the Central West End in good time. Ned’s section of Kensington Avenue was quiet, and the only thing waiting for them was a little business card wedged between the screen door and frame.

  Paige plucked the card out, examined it for two seconds, then flipped it around so Cole could see the gold badge embossed next to the name of the detective who’d left it there. “Cops,” she groaned. “Probably asking about Henry’s visit.”

  “You should probably call them,” Cole said. “Or they’ll just keep coming back.”

  “Great idea. You do it.”

  Before he could protest, the card was stuffed down the front of his shirt and Paige was knocking on the door.

  The steps thumping within the house were so loud that both Skinners reflexively reached for their weapons. Even when Daniels pulled open the door in a huff, neither of them were ready to lower their guard. “You’re here!” the Nymar said. “Excellent!”

  “Is everything all right?” Paige asked tentatively.