Teeth of Beasts

Chapter 15

The rest of the day went by in a rush. Paige used her phone’s Internet connection to put together a list of other strip clubs in the area so she and Ned could take a quick tour. There wasn’t a purple A-frame in the bunch. They also didn’t get the slightest itch from their scars. They hit Jack in the Box for lunch, and although she had a hankering for fried tacos, Paige ordered a burger and curly fries instead. Indulging in that particular brand of spicy delight without Cole just seemed like the culinary equivalent of adultery.

Upon arriving back at Ned’s place, she went upstairs to check on Daniels. The Nymar looked up from his burner and hot plate to give her a quick wave as he announced, “I think I’ve made a breakthrough!”

“It’s already been a long day. Don’t make me guess.”

The Nymar used a pair of tongs to pick up a metal bowl from atop the hot plate and swirled its contents around. “I’ve come up with a brilliant switch in ideologies where your ink is concerned. Instead of trying to inhibit the natural tendencies of the reaction between the Blood Blade chips, colloid intermediaries, and the receiver’s own plasma, I think the shapeshifter enzymes should be allowed to run their course.”

“But that defeats the whole purpose,” Paige said. “That ink is supposed to give someone part of a shapeshifter’s power without turning them into a shapeshifter. That’s why it’s put under the skin instead of in the blood.”

“The ink will work,” Daniels said as he continued to mix, “but just not like you thought it would. Instead of trying to concentrate it so heavily, a diluted mixture will be used as more of a general enhancement. You should see increased durability, greater speed, and thanks to the Blood Blade, the receiver’s blood won’t be permanently tainted. Your delivery system into the muscle tissue will dole out the effects over a longer amount of time.”

“What about a cure for my arm?”

“That’s not so good. Nothing has proven effective on that newest sample. Whatever was done to the metal in the Blood Blade wasn’t made to be reversible.” He took one of the metallic chips from a Baggie on the counter. “Watering down the ink in the way I suggested will keep what happened to you from happening to anyone else, but it’s too late for my holdout plan to even be worth trying.”

“And your holdout plan was?”

Without a twitch, Daniels replied, “To physically excise all of the tissue that’s currently tainted by the first batch of ink.”

“You mean cut off my arm?”

“No! Only about sixty-five percent of it. By the way, do you have any of that first batch of ink left?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll want that back to dispose of it.”

Looking at the metal chips on the counter, she asked, “What about his idea to mix these into the varnish for our weapons?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Daniels replied. “The first batch of varnish is in the paint mixer right now. The wood may not be as pliable after the process, but your weapons would be imbued with a good portion of the Blood Blade’s potency. It’s a classic gaming trade-off,” the Nymar added with a snorting laugh. “Power versus speed. Cole would’ve liked that one. Will he be back soon?”

“He should be released by tonight. Did you already give up on studying Peter Walsh?”

Daniels’s eyes widened, but quickly shrank down to their normal size. “There was something else I wanted to say about the Blood Blade…but it…escapes me right now.”

“Focus, Daniels,” Paige said as she snapped her fingers a few inches from the Nymar’s sweaty face.

“Oh, right. The uh…Walsh remains. His spore was definitely contaminated by some sort of natural chemical. Possibly something from an exotic species of flower or even snake venom. Whatever it was, it wasn’t pharmaceutical and it’s not in any records that I’ve been able to locate. Before you ask, I do have other sources looking into it.”

“Could it infect humans?”

After thinking it over for less than half a minute, Daniels said, “Not this particular strain, but it could easily mutate into something more virulent. The outer layers of flaky tissue on the tentacles contains a very high concentration of what could very conceivably be a catalyst for…” Seeing Paige’s eyes glaze over, he sputtered and eventually came up with, “There was a reaction when combined with the substance taken from Peter’s mouth. You know, that muddy stuff?”

Paige nodded.

“Typically, I like to mix and match when I have so many different unknown elements to work with. There are occasionally explosions to deal with, but there are other times that prove rather telling.” Daniels quickly shifted his attention to the rack of test tubes he’d set up near the table that bore Peter Walsh’s body wrapped in several layers of plastic. The fluid inside those tubes ranged from partially cloudy to blacker than black. “For example, when this muddy substance is combined with the substance found inside Peter’s mouth, its base elements match the toxin’s core structure. But when the muddy substance mixes with the Nymar’s blood and is eventually introduced to the spore, it forms something that’s highly toxic to all Nymar.”

“Is it safe for you to be so close to it?”

Daniels looked at the test tubes and waved them off. “Oh sure. It needs to be ingested to do me any harm. The really interesting part was when I tested the ashen substance on the tentacles themselves. It seems to be an ideal carrier for spreading Pestilence among humans.”

Hopping back a step, Paige slapped a hand over her mouth. “Jesus! Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“Because you’ve been breathing this stuff since you first came into contact with this man. Besides, I tested that sample of your arm and there are no toxins whatsoever. I tested Ned as well and he’s just as healthy. It seems the healing serum in your system is the best possible immunization you could ask for, which is fortunate since the Mud Flu is a less aggressive strain of Pestilence that has adapted itself quite well to human physiology.”

“Will our healing serum work as a cure for everyone as well as it works for us?”

“Doubtful, since Skinners literally have the serum running through their bloodstream. Peter had some of the Mud Flu substance on his face, which would be peculiar, since it’s different than the substance that killed him. Did he come into contact with someone infected with the Mud Flu?”

“One of the guys in the strip club we just came from had that stuff on his face, and Peter fed on him.”

“Then we may have found out how Pestilence is being spread!” Daniels declared excitedly. “It’s a binary compound! Nymar suffering from their own ailment are producing their portion of Pestilence or may even be acquiring some sort of catalyst from somewhere else.”

“Those Nymar we found in East St. Louis said another Skinner has been kidnapping Nymar and experimenting on them,” Paige offered.

“Were they exposed to chemicals or possibly injected with something?”

“Yes! They were injected with something.”

“Then that could be the start of the whole process, but it would take a whole lot of injections to spread the substance as far and wide as the Mud Flu. On the other hand, that does sound like something a Skinner would do.”

Paige didn’t like hearing that sentiment again after hearing it from Jerry, but she couldn’t really dispute it. Settling for nudging the conversation back on track, she asked, “How does Pestilence become Mud Flu? Or is it the other way around?”

“My guess would be that the Nymar were infected first. This other substance on Peter’s face, which I had already guessed was the by-product of Mud Flu, has an extreme reaction when it comes into contact with Nymar blood that’s been exposed to even the smallest amount of the original toxin.”

Pressing her fingers to her temple, Paige let out an exasperated groan as if her head truly was about to explode.

Daniels took the hint and boiled his explanation down even further. “Somehow, the base elements for Pestilence were injected into Nymar, where they fermented and developed into another kind of toxin. That’s where the abductions and forced injections on Nymar from your mystery Skinner come in. Given enough time for mutation, when those infected Nymar feed on humans, it’s possible for the toxin to mutate again into what we see as the Mud Flu.”

“And you’ve figured all this out with test tubes?” Paige asked.

“Your friend Ned has some remarkable equipment in here,” Daniels gasped. “I don’t know how he acquired a Mark 7 centrifugal—”

“Okay,” she cut in. “You’ve got more than test tubes. Go on.”

“Right, so it starts in Nymar, moves to humans, where it develops into Mud Flu. Although I don’t have the hard evidence to back this up completely, my theory is that when a Nymar feeds on someone infected with Mud Flu, it creates some sort of…”

“Feedback?” she offered.

He nodded excitedly. “Yes, feedback! Because this toxin is prone to such drastic mutations, I’m sticking to my initial guess that it’s based on something that’s naturally occurring. Synthetics are rarely so eloquent in their life cycles.”

“Wait. That first theory was a guess?”

“Of course,” Daniels said with a couple of twitching blinks. “Essentially that’s what most theories are. Educated guesses. The scientific process can’t start with concrete answers, otherwise there’s no need for the process. That is, unless you’re starting from an answer and working your way back. Then you could—”

“Paige!” Ned called from the first floor.

Grateful for anything to hit the chemist’s pause button, she wiped her hands together like a blackjack dealer passing her table over to the next shift. “I think I’ve got a good grasp on what you’re saying, so let’s quit while we’re ahead. Will you be able to figure the rest out on your own?”

But Daniels was already engrossed in his next problem. He frantically dug through his equipment before disappearing into the large supply closet. Leaving him to his work, Paige went downstairs to find Ned looking out a window.

“Can you answer a question for me?” he asked.

“As long as it doesn’t involve theoretical chemistry.”

“Who are all those people staring at my house?”

She went to the window, which looked out onto Kensington Avenue. It was a pleasant neighborhood that was usually quiet because the neighbors kept to themselves. But now Paige spotted three of them standing on the sidewalk in front of the house, staring at it. The more she looked, the more people she found on both sides of the street. None of them spoke or even moved. They’d simply dropped whatever they were doing so they could stare.

Catching herself before she repeated Ned’s last question, Paige asked, “How long have they been standing there?”

“A couple minutes now. I noticed one when I came out of the bathroom. I think it’s Joey from across the street. Then the others showed up.”

“What about those two old ladies down by that red house?”

“Yep, I see ’em,” Ned said. “They’re new. Maybe they like you.”

“What do you mean?”

As Ned did his best to focus on the scene outside his window, the rattle from the air conditioner clanked like two pots banging together. “Before, they all just stared at the house,” he told her. “Now, they’re staring right at you. Aren’t they?”

Paige stepped away from the glass, walked past the front door, and pulled aside the curtains covering the window on that side of the entrance. Apart from the blocky symbols stenciled into the frame, she revealed two thick panes separating her from nine people who stood outside with their arms hanging loosely at their sides. It only took a second or two before they all caught sight of her, shifted their gaze toward her and cocked their heads to one side.

“What…the…hell?” she whispered.

For the next few seconds the neighbors didn’t do anything but stare at Paige’s window, and she didn’t know what to do but stare back.

The silence was broken by her ringing phone, snapping Paige from the bizarre connection between her and so many strangers. She dug the chirping piece of equipment from her pocket and glanced down at the screen to see the name S. Velasco printed on the illuminated surface. Looking up from there, she found herself less than four inches away from the blank, sunken face of a middle-aged woman with wet mud flowing from her mouth. Having climbed into the bushes growing around Ned’s house, the woman leaned forward and rested her forehead against the outer window.

Steam formed on the glass in front of the woman’s dirty mouth when she said, “You cut me, Skinner. But I…found you.”

As Paige backed away from the window, Ned approached her carrying an older model .45.

“You cut me, Skinner,” the muddy woman repeated. “But there’s more of me now than you.” Slapping her hands against the side of the house, she shoved her face close enough to knock her teeth against the glass as she shrieked, “Moreofmethanyou! Moreofmethanyoumoreofmethanyou!”

Paige looked through the peephole to find a young man standing on the porch. He was still watching the window where she’d been, but slowly turned toward her. Features warped by the curving glass were further obscured by streams of mud dripping from his eyes and nose to mingle with the sludge from his mouth. Taking one lunging step forward, the man scraped his fingers against the door like an animal trying to escape a fire.

“They can’t get in here,” Ned told her confidently. “The runes won’t allow it.”

More words came out of Ned’s mouth, but Paige couldn’t hear them. Every sound seemed to be garbled, as if she’d been dunked into a vat of water.

I smell you, Paige, Henry whispered into her mind. Lickyoufromtheinside.

Suddenly, she had trouble keeping her head up.

Something filled the spaces in her chest cavity surrounding her heart. As Henry’s presence drew closer, a flood of cold swept through her body to wash him away. The healing serum in her system left her a little drained, but not enough to keep Paige from raising her weapons. By the time she collected herself, the face on the other side of the window was gone. The woman had staggered back to join the other neighbors staring at the house. As she watched, Paige noticed a heavyset man walking his little black and white dog farther down the sidewalk. Although the man nervously took in the sight of the people standing in and along Kensington Avenue, his thirteen pound canine snarled without an ounce of fear. The dog walker turned crisply around and pulled his bodyguard along with him.

“They’re starting to disperse,” Ned announced.

Paige looked at each of the people in turn, all of them filthy from their chins down to their necks. A kid in his early teens locked eyes with her and snapped his neck to one side. What had started as some kind of fit quickly turned into something much worse as the kid violently twisted his head as far as it would go. Paige pulled the door open and bolted outside just in time to hear the loud crunch as the kid’s spine gave way.

The sight of the teen standing there with his head dangling from atop its severed spine was enough to freeze Paige in her tracks. His eyes still blinked and his mouth still moved as he spoke into her brain and ears at the same time.

“I can go anywhere I want now,” he said. “Dr. Lancroft showed me how.”

Without realizing it, Paige angled her head in the same direction as the kid’s. “Henry? Is that really you?”

Although he could talk, the teen couldn’t nod. He didn’t need to. “The fire ain’t in you, like it is in a lot of folks.”

“What fire?”

“Pestilence.”

“Are you doing this to all these people?” she asked.

It was in ’em already.

“Let them go,” Paige said as Ned’s feet shuffled across the porch behind her. “Henry, let them go or you’ll never sit in your room again. Remember your corner at Lancroft Re—”

“Shut yer mouth, bitch! I got somethin’ to stick inityoufilthywhore!”

But Paige wasn’t about to be frightened by words, whether they were in her brain or in her ears. When the kid took a step toward her, her right hand reflexively drew the club from that boot and willed it to take the only form she could manage. Although still crude in appearance, the machete’s edge was more than sharp enough to get the job done. “You don’t like hearing about the reformatory?”

Henry’s wild, twitching eyes snapped within the boy’s sockets as the rest of the muddy neighbors swayed in the stagnant humidity of a calm St. Louis night.

“Or is it Lancroft?” Ned asked. Henry’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open a little more. “Looks that way. You don’t like hearing the proper name of that reformatory. Did you ever meet Lancroft?”

“He will heap disasters upon you,” the boy said. His mind, however, spewed the words, Pestilence and the teeth of beasts. Pestilenceandtheteethofbeasts!

“You know your scripture,” Ned replied.

“Then he should also know his history,” Paige snapped. “I gutted you once, Henry, but you were too stupid to let it end there. No other Full Bloods are here to help you this time. Is that why the big bad Mind Singer has to crawl around in other people’s heads now? You’re too afraid to face me alone?”

“I ain’t alone no more,” Henry croaked through the teen’s ravaged windpipe. “I can be anywhere I want.” Anyone I want.

“Then come and get me,” Paige said. “Wherever that ugly Full Blood body of yours is, climb back into it and rip me to shreds.”

The teen’s face became tranquil, and one by one the muddy neighbors started to drop. “It don’t got to be so bad,” he said. “These folks ain’t got to hurt no more. They just been put out to clean up the leeches and wolves and such.”

Ned raced to the old woman who’d been clawing at his window and caught her before she hit the ground. She coughed up more of the mud but didn’t have any trouble breathing. Within seconds she and most of the other neighbors were wiping their mouths and looking around in growing confusion.

“See? Doc Lancroft is a good man,” Henry said. “He sent Pestilence to devour the wretches and kill them bloodsucking leeches.”

“Lancroft is dead,” Ned said while tending to the old woman.

Paige wanted to help the others who’d awakened from their muddy sleepwalk, but they were getting up on their own. “Jonah Lancroft made Pestilence? Was that when you were in the reformatory?”

Henry backed onto the curb as a police cruiser rounded the corner from Academy Avenue onto Kensington. Someone must have seen the strange assault on Ned’s house or gotten spooked by the swaying crowd because the cruiser hit its flashing lights as it drew closer.

“Lancroft is dead,” Paige insisted. “He was a Skinner like us. Whatever he did, it’s over now. Whatever you’re doing to these people, stop it.”

“I am the teeth of beasts,” Henry declared, “with the poison of serpents in the dust.”

And when the police cruiser rolled up to Ned’s house, the teen fell backward into the street. His eyes clouded over in the short time it took him to fall, and when his body thumped against the car, his head twisted around as the rest of him rolled across the hood like the limp, abandoned vessel it was. Standing there gripping her poorly formed machete in an aching fist, watching that kid hit the street in a heap of tangled limbs, Paige had never felt more useless.

Ned tossed his gun into the bushes in front of his house, took Paige’s weapon from her and threw it in next while the cop was examining the teen with the broken neck lying near his front tire. In the minutes another police cruiser showed up and was quickly followed by an ambulance.

Statements were taken, questions were asked, hours passed, but the only real incident to be reported was the boy who’d been pronounced dead after throwing himself in front of a moving police car. Even though the rest of the neighbors seemed fine, the paramedics had no trouble spotting the grime on their faces. Talk of delirium stemming from the Mud Flu circulated as a possible explanation for the night’s events. All of the neighbors were taken to the hospital, and Ned and Paige were encouraged to do the same.

“Can’t be too careful,” one of the paramedics told her.

“Yeah,” Paige said. “Thanks for the advice.” Her eyes remained locked on the first cop, who was still talking to a fellow officer, giving an impassioned statement while gesturing at the mangled front end of his car.

Knowing Paige well enough to read her mind without any supernatural tricks, Ned wrapped an arm around her and led her back to the house. “You can’t tell them what happened,” he whispered.

“But he didn’t kill anyone. He’ll have to live with thinking he broke that kid’s neck.”

“Then we’ll have to make sure this gets balanced out in the end. It’s what we do, Paige. Little lies need to be told and smaller sufferings need to be felt to keep the bigger ones from causing more damage.”

“That doesn’t sound right.”

“Tough,” Ned snapped. “It’s been a long day and that’s the best I could come up with. Answer your phone.”

“What?”

“Your phone’s ringing. Answer it.”

After digging the phone from her pocket, she jammed her finger against the glowing green button. “What is it?”

Stanley Velasco’s voice dripped with self-satisfaction as he said, “Come and get ’em.”