Blood Blade

Chapter 7

Cole was no stranger to flying. In the first few weeks after he was hired by Digital Dreamers, he’d been forced to fly more than a southbound duck as he made the move from Modesto and got everything squared away. And once his job began, he was saddled with the chauffeur hat dozens of times to pick up visiting executives when they arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International. He’d even been to O’Hare a few times.

Now, landing at O’Hare in a sorry excuse for a prop plane was like ambling along the Los Angeles freeways in an old pickup that couldn’t do more than forty miles per hour. By the time the landing gear bounced on the tarmac, he was longing for the sweet touch of the customs officers who’d sifted through the plane and other things at a smaller airport in Montana.

While he’d been probed in Montana almost as much as the plane itself, his luggage was logged and the bloody knife stashed in a compartment above the landing gear. The officer performing the inspection went through the motions, but wasn’t about to hold the plane up any longer than it took for the proper forms to be filled out. Cole thought he saw some scars on the officer’s palms that vaguely reminded him of Gerald’s, but before he could decide if that was important or not, the plane was on its way to its next refueling spot. He was more than happy to distance himself from what had happened up there.

The old plane had taken its sweet time getting to Chicago, which made it easier for him to focus on more immediate things, like sleeping, being sick, or praying. Landing at O’Hare took place in much the same way: rough, yet successful. Even though he winced at the sound of all those bigger jets in the vicinity, Andy touched down and taxied to his spot without a hitch. After they rolled up to one of the smaller terminals, the engines were cut and Andy pushed open the door.

“This is where we part ways, Squid,” he said, using the affectionate nickname he’d given to Cole after watching him squirm during some of the rougher landings along the way.

Cole staggered down the bent metal steps leading from the plane. Almost as soon as he’d stepped onto terra firma, he was catching Gerald’s luggage as it was tossed from the cargo hatch.

Hunching down beside the musty compartment, Andy asked, “You got anything else?”

“Yeah,” Cole replied as he hefted Gerald’s bag over his shoulder, “but it’s all back in Canada.”

“I don’t think you’ll want to go back to that cabin anytime soon. I heard some Mounties found the whole bloody mess.”

“What day is it?” Cole asked.

Andy looked at his watch. “Thursday. Looks like I made good time getting here.”

“Good time? I could’ve driven here quicker.”

“So I had some stops to make. It ain’t like you had to pay for your damn ticket. Besides, we had to kill some time before our boy at the Montana customs office was on duty. At least you won’t have to visit customs here. They got real fat fingers and know just where to stick ’em.”

Cole didn’t want to argue, and he sure didn’t want to take this conversation any further. Instead, he wanted to find a nice, overpriced airport lounge where he could buy an obscenely expensive drink and let nature take its course. Then again, the thought of those fat fingers was a difficult one to shake, and there were plenty of other places to drop too much on a drink.

“You’ll want to go through there as quick as you can,” Andy said, pointing to a small building at the perimeter of the commercial terminals. “Anyone asks any questions about yer bags, just show ’em the ticket you got in Great Falls. Don’t linger, though. Wouldn’t be wise to push yer luck. Think you can find yer way from here, Squid?”

“Yeah. There might be a sign or two pointing to the front doors.”

The pilot waved at Cole as if sending back an order of undercooked chicken. “It’s been a real…well…it’s been real.”

Walking through the smaller building with almost as many knots in his stomach as he’d had when running away from the rampaging animal back in Canada, Cole nodded at a pair of disinterested customs officers while showing them the slip he’d gotten in Montana. After navigating the crowded metallic mess of walkways, magazine shops, and overpriced fast food booths, he stepped outside of O’Hare’s main terminal. Now he just needed to make his way to the rows of cabs, buses, shuttles, and other vehicles lined up outside the place.

Gazing longingly at the vehicles, Cole reached into his pocket for his phone. It had a strong enough signal, but none of the phone numbers he needed. He flipped the phone shut and replaced it with the satellite device he’d taken from Gerald. After pushing a few buttons and waiting through a few ring tones, he finally heard some familiar words.

“Hello. This is MEG Branch 40. What can I do for you?”

“My name is Cole and—”

“Hey Cole,” the operator replied. “This is Stu again.”

“Don’t they ever give you a day off?” Cole asked.

“Hell no. Ahh. I see you’re in Chi Town. You need to hook up with Paige?”

“Just meeting her would do fine.”

Stu chuckled and clacked through a few more keystrokes. “Actually, I was about to call you. She wanted to know as soon as you landed. I’ll patch you through.”

Before Cole could say another word to Stu, another voice came along to replace his.

“That you, Cole?” Paige asked.

“Yeah. I’m at O’Hare.”

“Great. Here’s the address to meet me. Grab a cab and tell them to step on it. I’ll pay for whatever you can’t cover.”

“All right.”

Paige rattled off an address and Cole repeated it back to her. She then asked, “You feeling all right?”

“I think so,” he replied with a grateful breath. “That plane ride was brutal. Maybe we could get something to eat.”

“Sounds good.”

“You like pizza?” After a few quiet seconds passed, Cole asked, “Would you rather have burgers? Hello?”

The line was dead. Even though the silence of empty air was unmistakable, Cole held the phone down so he could get a good look at the screen. “She hung up on me,” he muttered. Rather than try to convince himself the state-of-the-art satellite connection had failed, he put the phone in his pocket and looked for a ride.

The cab at the front of the line was driven by a bald man in his early fifties chomping on a pen cap. “Help ya with that bag?” he grunted as he jumped from the sputtering car.

“As if your tip depended on it,” Cole replied.

The cabbie took that comment as it was intended and started laughing. “What’s in there? A bomb?”

Cole chuckled. “No. Just some—”

“It goes in the trunk.”

The cabbie squinted at the security tags stuck to the bag and shut the trunk tightly.

He lightened up a bit once he was back behind the wheel with his backside pressed securely against his beaded seat cover. “Where you headed?” he asked.

Cole leaned forward and grunted as some of the pain from his ribs and back seeped through his body. After reciting the address he’d been given, he added, “There’s a big tip in store if you get me there real qui—”

The cab lurched forward and squealed away from the front of the line with enough force to push Cole into the trunk. The springs beneath him felt poised to snap through a thin layer of upholstery that felt more like wadded newspapers. Horns blared from his left and the whistle of the cop directing the cabs sounded to his right. Braking and slamming on the gas a few more times amid a flurry of obscenities, the cabbie finally made it to smoother waters.

Glancing into the rearview mirror, he asked, “That address is in Cicero, ain’t it?”

“Sure,” Cole replied, even though he had no clue.

“Your lucky day, my friend. I grew up not too far from there.”

It did Cole plenty of good just to get some concrete under his feet and see some familiar buildings around him. He might not have been able to rattle off business names and addresses, but the city had a feel to it that was just…Chicago. Every time he visited the place, he’d sworn to come back when he had more time to look around. During one of the Digital Dreamers gaming tournaments that were held in Aurora, he’d gone to Chicago and had a hot dog that made him want to pack his things and move there. Right now, the simple fact that Chicago wasn’t Canada was more than enough to give the city a few stars in his personal rating.

Cole leaned back and pulled in a lungful of air that was saturated with too much freshener and a hint of burnt exhaust from the heater. Chicago rolled past his window in an endless stream of lights, dirty buildings, and illuminated billboards. The sun had been setting when his plane was landing, so it was completely dark by now. A commercial for an upcoming festival by Lake Michigan sounded through the cab’s speakers, and the cabbie kept right on chatting throughout the entire duration of the ride.

“You live here or you just visiting?” the cabbie asked as he tapped the brakes.

“Visiting.”

“Well, you should have a great time while you’re in town.” With that, he brought the cab to a stop and pressed a button on his meter. “You want help with that luggage?”

“We’re here already?”

“I told ya I’d get you here fast, didn’t I?”

“I guess I was just enjoying the ride.” Cole got out as the cabbie walked around to the trunk. Although he didn’t know what to expect, he hadn’t been expecting to be taken to a restaurant that was already closed up for the night. “You sure this is the right place?”

Abruptly, the cabbie lost his smirk and rushed over to his side. “That’s the address you gave me!” He closed his eyes, moved his lips as he grumbled to himself, and finally let out a breath. “This is the place,” he said defensively.

Cole looked at what was painted on the white walls near a set of thick, wooden front doors. There had once been a name written over the door, but all that was left was enough lettering to spell out RASA HILL. Even though the numbers beside the door matched the ones in his head, he dug in his pocket for his phone anyway. “Stay here,” he said to the cabbie. “Let me just double-check something.”

He flipped open the satellite phone and started to dial MEG’s number. Before he could finish, the screech of rusted hinges caught his ear. He turned toward that sound and saw the front door of the restaurant being opened by a short brunette.

“No need to waste your minutes,” she said while holding the heavy door open. Her faded jeans, black shirt, and old tennis shoes were obviously more comfortable than fashionable, but didn’t take away from the her trim, athletic figure. The hair pulled behind her head had a tussled look about it even though most of it was corralled by a couple of elastic ties. Despite the downward curve of her lips, her face retained an undeniable attractiveness. Her nose was slightly crooked, as if it had been broken once or twice in the past, but even that didn’t take anything away from her. She looked at him and the cabbie with an air of authority that rolled off her like smoke.

“You must be Cole,” she said.

He nodded a bit too much in a weak attempt to mask the fact that he’d been staring at her. The cabbie, on the other hand, made no such attempt.

“I’m Cole, all right.” Looking to the cabbie, he added, “This must be the right place after all.”

“It sure the hell is,” the cab driver said. “I was just about to ask if I could stay myself.”

“That won’t be necessary,” the brunette said as she stepped forward to hand the cabbie some money. Despite the fact that she was several inches shorter than the older man, she dismissed him as if he was a schoolboy. “Here you go.”

“Thanks a lot, ma’am. I’ll unload this bag and carry it inside for ya.”

“I think we can manage just fine.”

“I lugged this stuff all over the airport. Another few feet won’t hurt,” Cole said as he grabbed his duffel bag from the open trunk and sucked in a pained breath. “Actually, it may hurt just a little.”

The brunette gave him a quick smile, took the duffel in one hand and walked into the restaurant. Cole looked toward the cabbie just in time to see the driver’s door close and the cab drive away.

The brunette waited at the door for him and held it open so Cole could walk inside. “I’m Paige Strobel, by the way. But I guess you already figured that out by now.”

“Hello, Paige. I’m the guy with bruised ribs who dragged his ass across the continent to pay you a visit as a courtesy to your friends.”

Without moving from her spot by the door, Paige added, “And I’m the woman with the dead friends who arranged to have you brought all the way out here.”

“Ouch. Guess I had that coming. Sorry about the attitude. It’s been a long trip.”

“Don’t feel too bad,” she said as she shut and locked the door once he was inside. “I know you’ve been through a lot. I’ve been just settling in here, so there’s a lot on my plate too. Make yourself comfortable, and you’ll just have to excuse the mess.”

The place was a restaurant, but looked as if it had been condemned for a year or more. Some of the tables were in place and most of the lights worked, but there was a layer of dust on just about everything. When he looked a little closer at the floor, Cole could see a path through the dust that led from the front door to the kitchen.

Seeing Paige was about to disappear through the kitchen door, he realized he was being brushed aside just like the cabbie had been a minute ago. More than that, he felt like an idiot for going through so much bullshit to make such a tedious trip in the first place. He rushed to catch up to her, but before he could, the door was slammed almost directly into his face. “Hey!” he shouted as he pushed it open the door and stomped into the next room. “I’ve come a long way and I think I deserve some explanations! Who the hell are you?”

Paige stood with her back to him in a large, clean kitchen. She was behind a counter, so he could only see her from the waist up. When she turned around, she looked at him with sharp eyes that weren’t exactly cold, but were a long way from warm. In her hand was a small syringe. “Were you hurt in the attack?” she asked.

The concern in her voice was genuine, which shifted Cole’s focus away from his anger. He reflexively reached for his ribs and took a shallow breath, but only got a slight pinch in return. “It could have been worse. I was wearing a lot of layers when I got knocked around. Brad and Gerald drew that thing away from me before it could…” That night at the cabin screamed back into his thoughts, and he did his best to shove those memories back into the spot they’d been hiding.

“So you’re feeling all right?”

“Yeah. More or less. I mean, I might have broken something, but it’s better now.”

Paige nodded and raised an eyebrow to put the icing upon a cute, sympathetic frown. “Or maybe you weren’t hurt as badly as it seemed at the time.”

“No. I was hurt. I was slammed up against a freakin’ wall!”

Keeping her eyes locked upon him, Paige walked around the counter. Until that moment, Cole could say that he’d rarely ever seen a woman saunter. There was no mistaking it this time, however. Whether she meant to do it or not, Paige’s walk was most definitely a saunter. Considering the slow shifting of her hips and the grip her eyes had upon him, he discovered he liked sauntering very much.

Once she got within arm’s reach of him, she snapped out one hand to flick her fingers against his ribs.

“What the hell?” he said as he was abruptly pulled from his happy place.

“If your ribs were broken, you’d be in tears right now. Or close to it, anyway. Seems like you’re just bruised up. If you’re still hurting, though,” she added while holding up the syringe, “I can help.”

“You can help, huh? Oh no. I’m not letting you give me any drugs.”

Paige held out the syringe to show that it was only slightly bigger than the pencils handed out at miniature golf courses. “If you must know, it’s a vitamin serum,” she explained. “It’ll make it a whole lot easier to breathe and it might even give you a bit more energy after all the traveling you’ve done.”

“You sound like you’re talking from experience.”

“I am. Are you going to let me give you this or not? I promise you’ll feel better.” When she saw the uncertainty in his eyes, she added, “It’s the least I can do for everything you’ve done so far.”

Cole placed his hands on the cool metallic surface of the countertop and let his head hang down. “If I can have some ice water, that would be just fine.”

The moment those words were out of his mouth, Paige leaned forward and slapped her hand down on top of his. She moved so quickly that he couldn’t even think about reacting before she dropped her other hand and stuck the needle into his arm.

“Fuck!” he said reflexively.

She pushed down on the little plunger and then removed the syringe. “Don’t be such a baby. It’s already over.”

“I’m not being a baby.”

“Yes you are. These are the same needles I use to give insulin to my diabetic cat, and you’re pitching a bigger fit than he ever did.”

Cole stared her dead in the eyes and lowered his voice to an intense growl. “What did you put in me?”

Rather than reply, she placed the needle on the counter, showed him her empty hands, then jabbed him in the ribs.

Cole tensed and let out the first half of a pained scream. The second half didn’t come out because no pain followed the punch. Looking down at himself, he patted his chest and tentatively pressed down on what had so recently been the sore spots. “What in the hell?” he asked while patting his torso harder and harder. “What the hell?”

“You swear a lot, you know that?”

“Yeah? Well here’s some more for ya. What the fuck is going on here?”

Paige looked at him with the slightest trace of sympathy in her eyes. “Would you like something other than water to drink?” she asked through her laughter.

“I could use a beer.”

“How about some whiskey?”

“Even better.”

Walking farther into the kitchen, she made her way to a large cabinet. It wasn’t the saunter she’d used before, but her body naturally moved well enough to hold Cole’s attention. She reached inside the cabinet and came out with a bottle in one hand and two shot glasses in the other. After setting the bottle down on the middle of the counter next to the empty syringe, she placed one glass in front of her and the other in front of him.

“If you’d like to sit down at one of the tables in the next room, we can talk like civilized people,” she said.

“I just hope you don’t spike my drink or force me to fly to another part of the country in some milk crate of an airplane.”

“Or,” Paige added in a cool, level tone, “you could always leave.”

“Just walk out of here and try to buy a cheap ticket to Seattle with whatever’s left in my wallet, huh? I don’t even have my own luggage. I’ve been wearing your friend’s clothes since I bolted from that cabin.” Suddenly he winced, and added, “I’m sorry. I just meant that…”

“I know what you’re saying,” Paige said with a sigh. “I could arrange for another plane ticket.”

Cole nodded while she filled his glass with whiskey. As much as he wanted to down the liquor, he waited for her to sip from her own glass first. Only then did he allow himself to drink. He wasn’t normally a whiskey sort of guy, but the stuff did a hell of a good job loosening the knot that had been tied in his chest.

“You’re dying to ask questions. Where do you want to start?” Paige asked.

“What did you inject me with?”

“Vitamins…mostly. Also,” she added, “it was an immunization. After getting into a fight with the thing in that cabin, there was a chance of you…catching something.”

Cole’s eyes widened and he straightened up. “Like a disease?”

“Sort of.”

“How will I know if I have it or not?”

“Since you haven’t keeled over yet, I’d say you should be fine. Apparently, that thing didn’t tear you up too badly or draw too much blood.”

“I could’ve told you that much,” he grumbled.

Paige shrugged and topped off their drinks. “Better safe than sorry. Do you have another question?”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Paige Strobel, just like I told you before. Gerald and I worked together for a while. In fact, he was supposed to be the one moving into this place instead of me.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

Paige kept her eyes down. She reached for the whiskey, but didn’t pick it up. “That’s a little harder to explain.”

“What about Brad? Was he in the same line of work?”

She nodded. “All three of us work for the same cause.”

“Oh Lord,” Cole moaned, “Is this a religious thing? I was going to guess a drug ring, with all the syringes and smuggling contacts, but…I honestly don’t know which would be worse at this point.”

“It’s not either of those. Why don’t I approach this another way?” Paige placed her hands flat on the counter, straightened her arms and then shook her head as if silently agreeing to an unpopular decision. Finally, she asked, “Why did you come here?”

The scowl on Cole’s face dissolved the moment he heard that question. He let out a breath and then looked up to watch Paige’s face as he said, “Gerald’s dead. So is Brad. Gerald wanted me to come here and tell you about what happened personally, before you got the news from…well…I guess you may have already talked to the cops since it took so damn long for me to get here.”

After a brief pause, Paige said, “Go on.”

He recounted what had brought him to Canada, and Paige listened to every word. When he got to the part of his story involving that night at the cabin, he reflexively picked up his shot glass.

“I don’t know what it was,” he said. “At first I thought it was a bear, then I thought it was a wolf. But it wasn’t any of those things. It was huge. I’ve never even heard of anything like it. One guy shot it, but that didn’t do anything. Gerald and Brad tried to kill it. They lasted longer than most anyone, but I guess that thing finally got to them too.”

“You guess?”

“I was knocked around pretty good,” he sighed. “I woke up the next morning. There was blood everywhere. Brad was dead, but Gerald was outside. He was hurt really bad.”

He paused to see if he needed to give her a moment before continuing. Paige was listening intently, so he went on.

“Gerald told me to call you. He said that I should come to see you in person to tell you what happened. He also told me to tell you that Brad was killed fighting a Full Blood. Does that mean anything to you?”

Paige kept staring straight at him, then finally looked away and nodded.

“He gave me a card and I called the number using his phone. You must know the rest.”

“How was he in the end?” she asked.

Cole felt as if his words were anchored down so heavily that it took extra effort to pull them up. “I don’t think he was in much pain. It was so cold—”

“That’s not what I mean,” she snapped. “Did he seem strange? Did he look strange?”

“Strange?”

Paige scraped at the base of her throat and said, “Black marks here. Maybe they looked like ink?”

“Yes,” Cole replied as the image was suddenly brought into sharp focus. “Yes, he did have marks like that!”

“Was he holding anything that looked like this?” With a quick flourish of her hand, Paige removed a small vial from her pocket. It was the size of a stick of lip balm, but was actually one glass tube inside another. The inner capsule was filled with dark liquid and there was a layer of cloudy water separating it from the outer tube. Two small bumps extended from one side that tapered down to a pair of small, clear pins connecting the outside of the vial to the inner capsule.

“He had something in his hand, but it was broken,” Cole said without taking his eyes from the peculiar object resting in Paige’s grasp. Just then, he noticed the scarring on her palm. It wasn’t quite as bad as what had been on Gerald’s hands, but was very similar. “I guess it could have been something like that. Some of the broken glass stuck in his hand did look like those two things on the side of that tube.”

“And he got better,” Paige said more to herself than to him.

“Yeah. He did.”

“What happened after that?”

“Gerald died before I left. I don’t know for sure, but it looked like he injected himself with something.” This time, Cole didn’t need to watch closely to see a reaction.

“Thank God,” she said while letting out a breath and lowering her head.

“I mentioned he was dead, right?” Cole asked. “He looked better, but he was dead by the time I left.”

“I know.” Looking up, Paige showed him a relieved if somewhat tired smile. “At least he’ll stay that way. This,” she said, showing him the glass tube in her hand, “is called a Resurrection Vial. It’s used to give someone a bit more time if they think that…well…if things get bad. The only problem is that the stuff in this vial may cause some pretty bad side effects. Once someone’s done what they needed to do with their extra time, they inject themselves with the antidote and nature takes its course.”

“You mean they kill themselves?”

Paige shook her head. Although she seemed a bit frustrated, there was plenty of relief to dull the edge that had been in her voice before. “If they’re using the vial, they’re already going to die. If they don’t use the antidote, they’ll be turned into something else that will kill them off and turn them into something else.”

Cole stayed still for a moment as he tried to think about what he should do next. Although he’d come to Chicago to put what had happened in Canada to rest, the whole thing just kept growing into something more. Talking to Paige hadn’t helped. In fact, meeting her had only presented even more information that he couldn’t sort out. Instead of trying to make sense of anything else, he decided to stay confused. “All right,” he said. “That’s it. I’m leaving. Thanks for the plane tickets and whatever you shot me up with, but I’ll just find my own way home.”

Paige got to her feet and moved around the counter to stand between him and the front door. “Don’t leave, Cole. Please.”

“I’ve seen more than enough to keep me up at night, and I did what I promised to do for Gerald. I’ll leave your bloody knife here and then I’m through. So long. Have a nice life.”

“A Full Blood can track a scent for thousands of miles,” she said abruptly. “And you wouldn’t have agreed to come this far if you weren’t just a little curious about what attacked you.”

Cole let out a tired breath. “Curiosity is one thing. The stuff that’s going on here…I may not understand it, but I know when I’m over my head.”

“Taking what’s in the Resurrection Vial wasn’t easy. There was a lot more risk involved for Gerald than if he’d just let himself fade away. He did that for a reason, and only part of it was the job he asked you to do. Considering how much trouble you’ve already gone through, the least I can do is keep you alive until we can figure out what attacked that cabin. If it wasn’t a Full Blood, it still might be able to hunt you down. Wouldn’t you like to do something to keep that thing or others like it from running around and tearing people apart whenever they damn well feel like it?”

“Sure, but…if I’m doing all of that, I want to know everything else you haven’t told me.”

Paige smiled like a poker player who’d gotten someone to go all in when there wasn’t a card in the deck that could save them. “Better yet, why don’t we take a field trip? Bring that knife.”