Teeth of Beasts

Chapter 13

Daniels was engrossed in his work, but he stuck his head out of his room long enough to deliver some good news. Whatever feelers he’d put out to the local Nymar came up with a vague location of where they could be found. Paige cleaned up, threw on some fresh clothes, and headed out as quickly as she could. Even so, she wasn’t fast enough to get past Ned. The old man insisted on coming along and wouldn’t be talked out of it. He settled into the passenger seat of Daniels’s SUV with a cracked leather briefcase between his feet and started fiddling with the radio dials.

Their first stop was a fast food place to pick up a sack full of breakfast sandwiches. She handed one over to Ned and unwrapped the other to set it upon her knee. A cup of coffee fit nicely along with a deep-fried hash brown oval on top of her right arm like a baby cradled within her sling. Her right hand was aching and stiff, but it made a fine cup holder. She drove onto Highway 40 and headed for the Poplar Street Bridge.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” he asked.

“East St. Louis. Daniels says the local Nymar are holed up near a community college.” She looked over at him whenever she could, but didn’t see much more than the highway reflected in his sunglasses.

Finally he grumbled, “What’s the matter? Am I cramping your style?”

“No. I was just wondering if you intended on letting me know where you went last night.”

“I was out looking for more Mongrels.”

“You can—”

“Yes,” Ned snapped. “Even though most of you all think I’m just some blind man who can’t do anything more than sit in an empty city and answer phone calls, I can still do my job.”

“So…does that mean your eyesight’s getting better?”

“One eye’s doing pretty good. I can only make out a few blobs or lights in the other.”

Paige drove through downtown. The Gateway Arch made for some nice scenery, but she was in no mood to enjoy it.

Ned removed the glasses and rubbed the reddened, wrinkled skin around eyes that were so cloudy they appeared to be made from solid balls of rusted iron. “I’m disappointed in you, Paige.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you haven’t done any training since you got here.”

She chuckled and reached down to the radio to switch to an alternative rock station. “I do more than enough training to whip your ass, old man.”

“Maybe you should pick up another fighting style. I’ve been telling you that for years, though, and you never listen. Are you still using those sickles?”

“They’re more than just sickles,” she grumbled.

“And what happens if you lose that arm?”

Paige snapped her head around quickly enough to swat her ponytail against the side of her face. Turning to flip her hair into place again, she said, “I’m not going to lose my arm.”

“You think I assumed I’d lose my eyesight when I tested out my little innovation? When it happened, I was just as stubborn as you. The first time a Nymar crept back onto Lindbergh Avenue, the damn thing nearly had me for supper. And it was just some smartass little bastard who thought the coast was clear.”

“You handled him, right?”

“Sure,” Ned grunted. “Shot him half a dozen times and then had to convince four different sets of cops that the little jerk was trying to rob me. The only thing that kept me out of prison was that there was no body to be found and the right people felt sorry for me. I think I’m still on some watch lists, though.”

“Just as long as everything turned out all right.” When the inevitable grumble came, Paige added, “I’ll figure something out. Right now I just want to track down those Nymar that attacked Cole and Rico.”

Ned smiled and lifted his chin proudly. “I’ve got just the thing for that.”

“What is it?”

“For Christ’s sake,” Ned growled. “Nobody reads the journal entries I file.”

Paige slammed her foot on the gas and steered for her exit. “No, Ned. Why don’t you pull them out of your little briefcase and start reading them to me? We’ve got a few days to spare.”

His lips curled again, but into a grin. “That’s the Bloodhound I remember. Take my word for it, Paige. You can’t let your fire get too low because it’s damn hard to stoke again.”

Cocking her head at a warning angle that she knew was pronounced enough for Ned to see, she pulled off of the highway and onto Eighth Street.

“Do you at least remember the Squamatosapiens?” he asked.

“Those were the lizard men that you were chasing when you could still see, right?”

“Yes. They were spotted more and more throughout the Everglades and—”

“Wasn’t the Dover Demon one of those?” Paige cut in.

“Close, but no. Anyway, it turned out the Squamatosapiens were—”

“Could you just call them Lizard Men?” To fill the silence that followed, she added, “It would speed things up.”

“You know what would speed things up? If I could speak without being interrupted.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“So, it turned out that the Lizard Men were hunting Nymar. To this day I still don’t know why. It wasn’t for blood or even the spore. When they caught one, they ate the meat and left the rest behind. Sometimes they only took the teeth and fingernails. Anyway, apart from being fast and agile, the…I can’t say Lizard Men. That’s just stupid.”

“How about Squams?” Paige offered.

“Fine. The Squams were more than just nocturnal. They could see in almost total darkness, but were exceptionally good at tracking Nymar. That led me to believe they had some sort of adaptation that made them suited for the task.”

“Possibly a gland that secreted something onto their eyes?”

Ned snapped his fingers and said, “Exactly!”

Before he could get too worked up, she said, “I just remembered your journal entry.”

He kept talking as if Paige hadn’t opened her mouth. “I only caught one of the Squams, but that was enough to verify my theory. There was an extra gland in their eye sockets and it did excrete a substance that allowed them to see in the dark. It’s a fluid that interacts with the rods and cones in a way that—”

“In a way that can blind a human who tries to use the stuff on themselves,” Paige said.

“I’m not completely blind,” Ned snapped. “And the fluid can be used in human eyes now that I’ve refined it and diluted the compound. It’s not like there’s been much of anything else for me to do in the years since you and Rico embarked on that reign of terror he called a training exercise.”

“First of all,” she said while holding up a finger. The nice one. “Those Nymar had to be put down before they gave all the other ones any ideas. Second,” she added while uncurling another finger. It wasn’t the nice one, but lost its edge since the first one was still up. “That eye stuff isn’t safe to use.”

Ned was quiet until Paige came to a complete stop at a traffic light. They were only a few blocks away from the East St. Louis Community College Center. The blood in his eyes was the color of rusty water, and his pupils were more like corroded black disks that were chipped around the edges.

“Ned, I didn’t mean to—”

“No! You listen to me, missy. I discovered those Squamatosapiens. I tracked them down. I figured out what they ate and how they hunted.” Reaching into one of the many pockets stitched into his cotton fishing vest, Ned removed a plastic eye dropper bottle that still had the Visine label stuck on it. “I took what those things gave us and made it into something we could all use. That’s what Skinners do. You want to see some real horror stories? Read the history about how our modern medical practices came to be. That’s some shit that will give you nightmares, but it was the best way those doctors knew how to test their medicines and surgical practices. The FDA doesn’t fund our research, so we gotta do it the old-fashioned way. I read your journal entries and I couldn’t be prouder about that whole ink idea of yours. It’s rough, but it’ll be great with a little more work. So you hurt yourself when you used it the first time? Well join the goddamn club. You know what makes it all worthwhile?”

“What?” Paige squeaked.

“When someone can take what you created and put it to use.” Ned grabbed her hand and slapped the little plastic bottle into it. “Here. If you don’t have the guts to risk getting hurt again, then you got no place as a Skinner.”

Those last words made Paige realize she’d been slumping behind the wheel. She closed her fist around the bottle and straightened up again. “Where do you think we should start looking?”

Without missing a beat, Ned replied, “How the hell should I know? I’m blind!”

The short drive to a parking spot along Railroad Avenue was a whole lot easier than the drive from the city. Paige and Ned shared a much needed laugh while she parked Daniels’s SUV within sight of a tall billboard and a long, two-story brick building. There wasn’t much to see in the immediate area apart from that building and a whole lot of drab road. The itch in her scars was stronger there than anywhere else along the way, so Paige got out and started walking. Ned fell into step beside her. As much as she wanted to take the old man’s arm and lead him, she knew that would be a real good way to get acquainted with his wooden cane.

At the next intersection, they spotted a taller building that looked like it could either be an old factory or an older hospital. A low fence surrounded a wide, flat lawn, giving the whole area the feel of a prison exercise yard. Traffic flowed along Railroad Avenue that was tame compared to St. Louis and barely a trickle compared to the motorized suicide parades in Chicago. Paige walked along the street for about five seconds before digging into her pocket.

“What now?” Ned asked.

“I’m calling Daniels. Maybe he can narrow it down for us a little more.”

“Wouldn’t he have told you as much before we left?”

“Probably,” she replied, “but we’re not getting anywhere by just wandering.”

Ned tapped his cane against the ground and said, “That’s right. And we don’t make phone calls when there’s hunting to do.”

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Aren’t you?” Too excited to wait for an answer, Ned said, “Put those drops in and we’ll find out all we need to know. Since we’re close enough to feel those bloodsuckers, we should be able to see where they’re congregating or which direction we need to go.”

“This stuff can tell us that much?”

“And more. Don’t be squeamish. Maddy tested some that was watered down and she said it worked like a charm. You remember Maddy, don’t you?”

“The crazy woman from Jersey? Yeah, I remember her.”

“Well she was able to track down a group of the slickest Nymar she’s ever seen thanks to my innovation.”

“It doesn’t take much to slip one past her,” Paige grumbled.

“That’s funny. She didn’t have much good to say about you either.”

Paige stood on the curb, knowing all too well that Ned was using one of the simplest baiting tricks around other than a triple dog dare. What grated on her nerves even more was how well it worked. “Fine,” she said as she opened the bottle.

“You don’t know how much this means to me,” Ned told her. “The fact that you trust me enough to—”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said as she opened the bottle and held it under her nose. The fluid inside didn’t smell bad, but it didn’t smell like rose petals either. It was the color of sea-water, complete with all the wonderful little particles that reminded you just how many animals lived, breathed, and excreted in there. When she swirled the fluid around, a lot of it clung to the side of the bottle and slid right down again.

“What did Maddy say about this stuff?” Paige asked.

“That it allowed her to see scents.”

“You sure she wasn’t sniffing something else?”

Ned clucked his tongue and stepped back as a row of cars sped down the street. “You know she wouldn’t do anything to endanger another Skinner.”

“Yeah, I know.” Steeling herself as best she could, Paige tipped her head back, opened her eyes wide and held the dropper over the left one. In the end she figured that was the one she’d prefer losing. “How much should I use?”

“Just enough for an even coat. The Squamatosapiens’ gland excreted—” Seeing the glare on her face, Ned skipped ahead to, “Two drops in each eye should do it.”

Before she could convince herself to do otherwise, Paige squirted a few drops onto her left eye. She’d never been good at giving herself eye drops, so a good portion of the stuff splattered on her eyelid and brow. Rather than use any more, she blinked and rolled her eye under the lid. When she reflexively tried to rub it in, she felt a strong hand on her forearm.

“Don’t,” Ned warned. “Just let it soak. How does it feel?”

“Warm. No…cold. It’s cold now, but it was warm a second ago.”

“Open your eyes.”

Paige opened her eyes and looked around. Almost immediately, panic set in. “Everything’s blurry. I think my vision is screwed up. The light’s glaring so much.”

“Just give it a second.”

A second didn’t help.

The next few seconds after that, however, allowed the glare around every light source or reflective surface to fade. “It’s still a little fuzzy.”

“That’s because you’re in direct sunlight. What else do you see?”

Feeling like she was going to lose her footing, Paige focused on the ugly factory or hospital in the distance. At least that gave her something to concentrate on other than the slick layer of goo clinging to her eyeball and the tingling chill slowly filling the entire socket. When she looked at the street again, she saw ghostly waves of different colors drifting on currents of wind like cartoon squiggles denoting a particularly stinky mess.

“I think I see what you were talking about,” she said. “But, it’s kind of hard to pin down. It’s coming and going.”

“That’s because you only put the drops in one eye. Do the other one.”

She took a breath, held up the bottle and reminded herself that she already had one foot in this particular pool. How bad could it be to step in and swim? Ignoring the weight of her arm hanging from her shoulder, which reminded her of her last bad swim, she treated her other eye.

The same mix of warm and cold flooded across the middle of her face, where it connected to the chill in her other eye. Staring out at a street that was now filled with a smeared jumble of moving blobs and colorful waves, Paige asked, “Right before you went blind, did it feel like your eyeballs had frozen into little round ice cubes?”

“I’m not completely blind,” Ned told her, “but yes.”

“Great.”

“Blink, but don’t rub it in. The rest will pass.”

It only took a few seconds for him to be proven right. Her vision cleared to the point where she felt like she needed glasses to see beyond a distance of about twenty or thirty yards. The waves of color, on the other hand, remained. When traffic thinned out, the waves became less like smears hanging in the air and more like smoke that held together without the cars breaking it apart. Most of the colors were dull and stagnant, but there was one particular shade of red that caught her attention.

“You say those Squams hunted Nymar?” she asked.

“Sure did.”

“There’s some sort of trace in the air, but it’s not the same color as the rest.” Lifting her head like a dog that had just caught a whiff of something cooking in a nearby kitchen, she added, “This one’s bright red with some…yellow? Yeah, I guess yellow or orange is about right.”

“That’s it.”

“There’s a scent coming off of you, Ned. It’s got some dark blue and black in it.”

“Maddy said those came from the antidote used to kill that Nymar.”

“Yeah? Well I’d have to agree because those colors are also coming from you.”

Ned patted his pockets and removed a few small syringes containing the antidote that meant instant death to any Nymar who got it injected into their bloodstream. “You still see it?” he asked.

“Oh yeah,” she replied as she studied the waves rolling off the thin little cylinders. “But it’s also coming from you. Not the syringes. You.” Twitching toward the sound of an approaching engine, Paige was able to pick out a subtle glow emanating from the car’s windows. She hurried down the sidewalk and soon felt a familiar itch within the scars on her hands. “There’s Nymar in that car,” she said. “I could see them before I could feel them.”

“So the drops really do work,” Ned sighed. “I knew it.”

“They’re weird, but they work. I might have to place an order before I leave.”

“It’ll be a while before I can fill it. That is, unless you’ve spotted any Squamatosapiens recently.”

Resisting the urge to rub her eyes again, Paige tapped Ned’s shoulder as she hurried toward the car. “Which way is the club?”

“A few miles south of here.”

“Some of the traces lead back that way, so I guess that’s the direction they came from.” She pointed past a barely visible cloud of red that only she could see. “If we get moving quickly, I should be able to follow them.”

Ned grabbed her arm with one hand and his cane in the other. “Excellent. Can you drive?”

“I can separate the smells from the stoplights…mostly. How long does this stuff last anyway?”

“Maybe an hour or two. It evaporates fairly quickly, but I’m putting together some wraparound sunglasses to prolong the effect. Conversely, you can let it dissipate so the effect wears off a little sooner.”

He went on about more options for shades, but Paige was too busy rushing to the SUV to listen. Although she was able to see a little better now that she’d adjusted to the constant flow of color drifting around her, it still required some concentration. She simply didn’t realize how many smells were out there until she could see them. Fortunately, the Lizard Men were literally focused on Nymar, so those scents stood out like neon amid a background of forty watt bulbs.

After nearly taking a black hatchback out of its misery while trying to make a U-turn from her parking spot, Paige sped to where she’d first picked up the scent and caught it just as the red waves were dissipating. Driving directly through the scent only disrupted it more, so she kept her eyes glued to the traces in front of her.

“Look out!” Ned screamed.

Getting a warning like that from a man who was nearly blind was not a good sign. Paige swerved around a motorcycle in her lane and tried to watch the road as well as the scents. Her task became a lot easier when she caught up to the Nymar’s vehicle on East Broadway. Her scars reacted to the Nymar presence and her eyes could see their bright red scent billowing out of their vehicle through partially rolled-down windows. They turned onto Sixth Street and headed into a part of town that, depending on whether someone’s glass was half empty or full, could be described as “run-down” or “in development.”

The buildings on either side of her were drab but clean. Parking lots were mostly empty, and there were no angry people baring fangs at her from the sidewalk. So far she didn’t mind the neighborhood one bit. “Have you ever been to this part of town, Ned?”

“I don’t get much past the Central West End anymore.”

Tracking the Nymar through one more turn before they pulled to a stop at a curb, she said, “Well we’re right around Sixth and…Missouri Avenue.”

“Still doesn’t sound familiar.”

Although the Nymar parked in front of a two-story building made from dark red and light brown bricks, none of the three that got out of the car entered the place. Paige stopped along the curb at the intersection, just shy of making the final turn. She sat there, fighting the urge to scoot down in her seat as the Nymar checked their surroundings. Keeping her head pointed forward, she put on the bored expression of someone who was waiting for someone else.

“I can feel them nearby,” Ned said.

“Yeah, they’re just down the street.”

“Do they know we’re here?”

“I’m not sure yet.” When a fourth Nymar stepped out of the car, he joined the others in lining up along the curb. They talked to each other and studied a building across the street covered in white stucco. Red, white, and green striped awnings hung over the two second floor windows, and a larger one shaded a first floor window in a pattern that resembled a giant simplistic face on that side of the building.

The guy who’d come out of the car last was the biggest of the group and had short, bleached blond hair. He stood with his arm draped around a lanky girl with sunken cheeks and Asian features. Although she wrapped an arm around the blond guy’s waist, the gesture seemed more out of habit than anything else. The other two were skin and bones, shifted like little dogs that had to be taken for a walk, and were dressed in clothes from Goodwill’s reject pile. The male half of that couple had the scrawny build of a lifelong junkie, and the girl had skin that even looked pasty on a vampire. Their black markings stood out in the sun’s glow as they turned around to walk toward a different two-story brick building on the same corner where Paige had parked. This structure didn’t have a single window that wasn’t boarded up, and judging by the dirty scorch marks on the walls, the glass had probably melted from the panes in a very impressive fire.

“All right,” Paige said as she plucked the keys from the ignition. “I’m going to introduce myself before they spot us.”

Ned hopped out first, gripping his cane tight enough for the thorns in its handle to dig into his palms. “I’m coming with you.”

Since she knew that arguing with him would be a lost cause, Paige strode across the street and met the Nymar’s glances with open arms and a beaming smile. “What’s the matter with you guys?” she asked. “Can’t you afford a nicer hideout?”

The big guy with the blond hair stood in front of the burnt building, wearing the same work shirt he’d had on the previous night. It hung open, so Paige had to wait for the wind to catch it just right before she could read the stitching on its pocket. “You lost or something?” Jerry asked.

The moment Ned stepped onto the curb beside Paige, the junkie beside Jerry bared his teeth in a hiss that would have been more threatening if he wasn’t missing most of his human teeth along with a few of his fangs. There was enough ferocity on the guy’s darkly tanned face, however, to make up for his oral deficiencies.

Jerry narrowed his eyes and nodded slowly. “I get it. The Skinner from St. Louis finally got some backup.”

“He doesn’t need backup,” Paige said casually. “I’m here to send you Peter Walsh’s regards.”

She’d been hoping the name would elicit a reaction and wasn’t disappointed. The Asian girl with her hand on Jerry’s hip looked up at him awaiting her next command. The pasty chick with stringy hair took a spot next to the Nymar with the missing teeth and set her sights squarely on Ned. “I’ve been waiting for an excuse to bury this tosser,” she said in a British accent that was either from a grungy corner of the realm or had been picked up after watching too many Monty Python movies.

Paige stood on the curb with her back straight and her chin held high. Waiting for a few cars to pass behind her, she said, “Do yourself a favor, Gums. Keep the girlfriend on a leash.”

Curling his lips over his incomplete set of teeth as if the nickname got to him more than an insult to his pasty companion, Gums seemed relieved when he felt Jerry slap him on the shoulder.

“How do you know Peter?” Jerry asked.

“He found me and my partner in Chicago,” Paige said.

“So this one’s spending time in Chicago now?” Jerry asked as he nodded toward Ned.

“No, my partner’s nearby. Can’t have all my cards showing, right?”

Even though “nearby” for her partner meant “locked up in a jail cell,” Paige didn’t feel the need to share that with the Nymar. And since Jerry took a casual glance at the nearby rooftops and windows, he obviously didn’t know any better. “Is Pete with you?”

“No. He’s dead.”

The Asian woman showed Paige half a snarl that was more menacing than Gums’s full show. “Made a bad choice coming here and saying that, Skinner.”

“Easy, Sonya,” Jerry said. Watching Paige carefully, he asked, “Did you kill him?”

She shook her head. “He was mostly dead by the time he got to us. Something was wrong with him, but I guess you might already know that. Some,” she added while looking at the pasty British girl, “may know better than others. See the way her tendrils are pale and can’t stop shaking? That’s how Peter looked right before his spore exploded through his chest.”

“Oh God,” the pasty girl said. “I told you I was sick! It was that kid we—”

“How about we take this inside?” Jerry cut in. He grabbed the pasty girl by the back of the neck and shoved her toward the charred building on the corner. Sonya followed, but Gums stayed behind to snarl some more at Paige and Ned.

“So you already know about Pestilence,” Ned said as he stepped through the door.

The inside of the building was exactly what the outside advertised. Everything from the floor to the ceiling was either scorched or warped from excessive water damage. Thick layers of ash had become engrained into every surface and hung in the air like gritty fog. Between that and the thick cloud of red mist the drops were showing her, Paige had a hard time keeping her eyes open.

It seemed the room had been furnished by whatever the Nymar could steal from poorly supervised garage sales and a few garbage piles. Considering how well the Nymar in and around St. Louis had been set up before she and Rico cleaned them out, Paige found the contrast particularly jarring. She followed a dim trace of red to a figure curled up in a corner under a thick comforter with stuffing hanging out of several rips in the fabric. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s sick,” Jerry said as he leaned against the wall next to a window. “Just like Pete was sick and like all of us are probably sick.”

“Pestilence?”

All of the Nymar glanced around at each other before staring intently at Paige and Ned. Creeping forward, Gums asked, “What do you know about it?”

Even though the Skinners made sure to stay close to the door, they were far from secure within the filthy building. Any place a Nymar called home could be hollowed out to hold everything from secret rooms and escape hatches to feeding chambers that held humans as snacks for later.

“I know about it because it was one of the last words out of Peter’s mouth,” she replied. “And since I made the drive all the way down here, I’d like you to tell me how he got so sick.”

“We were hoping you’d be able to tell us that,” Jerry said.

Ned shifted his gaze from one Nymar to another as if he could see each of them perfectly well. “We think Peter wasn’t the only one to catch this bug.”

“This ain’t just a case of the sniffles, old man. This is poison, and unless someone stops what he started, you’re gonna have a war on your hands.”

Paige swung her left hand down to pluck the club from her boot. By the time she brought it up to Gums’s neck, the sickle blade had formed just beneath the Nymar’s chin. “When did you assholes start working with Mongrels?”

“Wh-What?” Gums stammered.

“Someone else gave me a similar message intended for the old man, and it wasn’t one of you. It was a Mongrel leopard leading a bunch of strays.”

“Malia is her name,” Ned explained. “Surely you know her.”

“Yeah, I know Malia,” Jerry said. “And why wouldn’t she have a beef with the old man?” When he looked at Ned, he chuckled in the most condescending way possible. “But it’s probably not this old man she’s got the problem with. That is, unless he’s doing more than selling pencils these days.”

Using her sickle to slice just far enough into Gums’s neck to draw blood, Paige snarled, “Considering the St. Louis Nymar got their asses kicked so hard that they’re still walking funny, you probably shouldn’t be talking so tough.”

“We’re too tired to fight you,” Jerry said. “Fact is, I’m the one that told Peter to track you down.”

“And why would you do something like that?”

“This Pestilence shit is real Black Plague stuff, but it’s the sort of thing that Skinners might know about.”

“Or something a Skinner would have made,” Gums croaked.

Sitting down on an old lawn chair made from strips of green and white plastic, Jerry said, “Pete wanted to talk to a real Skinner, so I told him about my girl Stephanie running the Blood Parlors in Chicago.”

“You didn’t know where to find me in St. Louis?” Ned asked.

Jerry looked at him as if he’d just found the source of a particularly nasty stench. “Sure I know, but Pete wanted to talk to a real Skinner. Not some blind man phoning in reports to the wrecking crew.”

Even though she was a member of that crew, Paige didn’t know what Jerry was talking about. She rarely spoke to Ned, and Skinners certainly didn’t phone in reports with any real regularity. Still, it didn’t hurt to let paranoid Nymar build the Skinners up into a more threatening force. “Pete didn’t make it more than a few steps through our door before…well, I’m sure you know what happened to him.”

“Yeah,” Jerry grunted. “I also know what’ll happen if you don’t ease up off my boy there.”

With a thought and a subtle relaxing of her grip around the handle, the sickle blade retracted, allowing Gums to move away without slitting his own throat. “We’re not here to start anything with you guys. Just tell us what you can about Pestilence.”

“Oh you started plenty with us back when you and that other fucker started killing my kind like you had a goddamn hunting license. But since Pestilence turned out to be just as bad for humans as it is for us, I suppose it couldn’t hurt to talk for a few minutes.”

Allowing the Nymar to save face with his friends, Paige kept her mouth shut and let Jerry continue at his own pace.

“None of us know exactly how it started,” he explained, “but the first Nymar popped open about a week ago in Philadelphia. Let’s just say word spread pretty quick once a perfectly good spore decided to come out of its shell.”

It seemed Jerry wasn’t going to part with the Nymar communication system any more than Daniels.

“It’s those nymph sluts working the strip bars,” Sonya said.

“They’re infected with Pestilence?”

“Nah, but they’re working with the old man, because wherever he shows up, there’s always a few of those sweet-ass bitches nearby.”

“What old man?” Ned asked.

“He hangs out at Bunn’s,” Jerry said. “From what we heard, he’s been on a road trip making appearances from Philly, all through Texas and back up here. He’s about my height, got a short white beard, carries a big stick. Plenty of Nymar seen a guy that fits the description in plenty of other clubs. Some say he’s been kidnapping our kind for years, injecting them with some kind of weird shit and lettin’ ’em go.”

“And you just assume he’s a Skinner?” Paige snapped. “I know most of the Skinners working in this country and I sure haven’t heard of anyone with a catch and release injection program.”

Jerry nodded. “He’s a Skinner all right. Either that or he just happened to find a magic stick that changes shapes and can sprout blades.”

Paige and Ned glanced at each other just long enough for Ned to shake his head. It seemed no Skinner came to his mind either.

The pasty girl with Gums dabbed her finger into the smudge of blood on her boyfriend’s neck and licked it up before saying, “That old man…he came after me too! He caught me…touched me…even stuck me with needles.”

“See, that doesn’t sound like a Skinner to me,” Paige mused. “Because we’re usually a little more aggressive than that. Especially when we’re dealing with someone who busted into a strip club, kidnapped some dancer, and then tried to kill two of our friends after a car chase.”

All four Nymar froze. Even the pasty girl left the tip of her tongue less than an inch from her snack.

Paige nodded in the same smug fashion that Jerry had a few moments ago. “That’s right. We know about that. So you’ll excuse us if we’re not ready to kick back and just lap up everything you feed us.”

Jerry stood up and let his arms hang from his sides. “Ain’t no problem,” he said as the oily black claws eased out from beneath his fingernails. “We weren’t there to do anything more than get our hands on one of those nymphs.”

“Let me guess,” Paige said sarcastically. “A rescue mission?”

“No. Them girls got a special kind of honey flowin’ through their veins. Does a body real good, you know what I mean? We need anything we can get to help cure our kind, because this Pestilence shit is spreading fast on its own now. Maybe you heard of the Mud Flu?”

“I don’t know what books you’ve been reading, but Pestilence means something a little worse than a flu,” Ned said.

“Pete thought he had a flu,” Jerry told him. Waving toward the Nymar curled up on the floor in the back of the room, he added, “So did Lara. She never fed on anyone outside of our regular neighborhood and sure as hell never saw a nymph. Only thing I know for sure is that the old man has been seen in all the spots where the Mud Flu’s been the worst. And wherever that Mud Flu is, Pestilence gets into our kind to spill our guts onto the sidewalk. That sure seems like the twisted shit that would come out of a Skinner’s mind, but why don’t you just go down to Bunn’s and see for yourself? The old man’s been hanging out there real steady since about a week or so before the flu hit St. Louis.”

“This had better not be bullshit,” Paige warned.

Holding out his hands as if they were supposed to look nonthreatening with claws sticking out of his fingers, Jerry said, “Pete dragged himself all the way to Chicago because it’d take a Skinner to get anywhere near that club anymore. The old man is there, along with a bunch of nymphs. You already came this far, why not check out my story? If I’m wrong, at least your grampa here can see some bare titties.”

“Have you tried approaching this old man yourselves?” Ned asked.

Smiling in a way that showed too many fangs to be friendly, Jerry said, “Them and our kind have a long history. We can’t exactly pay our money and just walk into any of them clubs.”

“Is that why you kidnapped the dancer?” Ned asked.

“That’s our business, blind man, which ain’t none’a yours.”

“Forget about him. What about the Mind Singer?”

“That’s enough, Cass!” Jerry snapped.

Paige stepped toward the pasty girl and spoke in a voice that managed to be both comforting and assertive. “No, let her talk.”

When Jerry moved to intercept Paige, Ned’s cane lifted to bar his way. Despite the Nymar’s attempt to get past the simple wooden barrier, Jerry couldn’t budge it more than an inch. And before he could gather himself to make a better attempt, the end of the wooden stick flowed into a sharpened edge that cut the hand Jerry used to try and push it aside.

“Let the girl speak,” Ned demanded.

Willing the sickle back into a club, Paige dropped it into the holster on her boot. “It’s okay. Just say what you wanted to say.”

Cass’s eyes darted nervously between Paige and Jerry, which only sped her voice into a quick spray of words. “The Mind Singer started talking to us not too long ago, when Misonyk wanted to gather reinforcements.”

“Misonyk’s dead,” Paige assured her.

“And since then the Mind Singer only got louder. He quieted down for a little bit, but now he won’t shut up about how Pestilence will wipe away all of the creatures who haven’t looked into the eye of the Lord.”

Looking to Jerry, Ned asked, “Is that true?”

The bleach-blond Nymar pulled in a deep breath and closed his eyes before letting it out. “You know what’s worse than some religious freak screaming at you? Having a religious freak scream his crap straight into your brain. I don’t even know what religion it is! Just a bunch of crazy talk about the Lord’s eye and words scratched on the walls.”

“All that matters is that Henry believes,” Cass said. “He spoke about Pestilence and how Skinners would be the only ones left standing. He—”

“Wait,” Paige cut in. “Did you say Henry?”

Cass nodded. “He grew into a Full Blood at Lancroft Reformatory and tried to go back there when you and some other man came to get him. He’s dreamt about it for weeks, and when the Mind Singer dreams, we all see it.”

“Yeah,” Jerry grumbled. “Religious crazy talk and crazy dreams. With that to look forward to every damn day, risking our necks to taste some nymph blood ain’t such a bad deal. We’ll either get the high of our lives or killed along the way. Any way you slice it, we get some fucking peace and quiet.”

Even though she was looking at the reason that Cole and Rico were in jail after getting attacked and nearly killed in a car wreck, Paige was more interested in what Cass had to say. “What did Henry tell you about Pestilence?”

“He doesn’t tell us anything,” Cass replied. “He screams in his sleep. He has thoughts and wishes and fears and we all get to hear them.”

“Do you hear it now?” Ned asked. “What’s he saying?”

All of the Nymar closed their eyes until Cass finally shook her head. “I can hear his voice, but it’s far away.”

“It’s background noise,” Jerry said. “Like hearing some dickhead blast their music every day. You don’t really know what every song is. But when it’s loud, it’s enough to drive us freaking insane. Finding the nymphs at that strip bar was a blessing. They’re the only things that got what it takes to make all the other noise quiet down for a while.”

“You know something?” Paige asked. “I may feel for you a little more if you hadn’t smashed a door in, kidnapped a defenseless girl, and then tried to kill anyone who got in your way.”

Jerry stomped forward, but not close enough to Paige to trigger a fight. “You and another Skinner wiped out damn near every Nymar in St. Louis. Me and the other survivors are scraping by here, but just barely. Now, another one of you cooks up Pestilence to wipe us out, along with shapeshifters, while also infecting a couple hundred humans! Could be thousands by now. If a Skinner gets in my way anymore, I figure I’m more than justified in getting him before he gets me.”

Paige tested the waters with, “Does that include us?”

The only response Jerry gave to that was a noncommittal shrug. “You ain’t gotten in my way yet.”

“If we do go over to that club,” Paige warned, “you’ve got to give us some room to maneuver. Stay away from that place.”

Jerry looked around at the others in the squalid room and then shifted his eyes back to Paige. “Normally, I’d agree. But it ain’t often Nymar find that many nymphs in one place.”

“Fine,” Paige snapped. “It’s been nice talking to you, but you’re on your own. Let’s go, Ned.” She pushed the door open and kept every muscle tensed in anticipation of fending off an attack.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, but that turned out to be empty paranoia. Nobody rushed them, jumped at them, or even threw a piece of garbage at the front door. Considering how many empty food containers, cigarette packs, and beer bottles were laying around, that last part was a very pleasant surprise.

All of the Nymar scowled at the door after Paige and Ned left. When it became clear they weren’t coming back, all eyes shifted toward Jerry.

“Yeah, you go on and get the fuck outta our place,” he snarled to the closed door. “It ain’t often so many Skinners are in one place either. And we ain’t the only ones that’ll want to know where they’re headed.”