Teeth of Beasts

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.

“Of course.”

“Where’s Ned?”

“He stepped out last night and hasn’t come back. He does that a lot.”

When Cole walked into the house, he took a breath and immediately regretted it. Although the musty smell of all those bookshelves and old knickknacks had a certain charm, the scent did not blend well with the pungent mix of burnt chemicals, decaying carcass, and body odor. “Could you crack a window before I die?” Cole gasped.

Paige already had her hand over her mouth when she added, “Better yet, take a shower. Ned may be cheap, but he’s got running water.”

Daniels placed his hand flat on his head and rubbed his scalp nervously. The tendrils beneath his skin went from looking like a toupee parted down the middle to one that was parted along the right side. “I don’t like showers.”

“Is that some sort of Nymar thing?” Cole asked.

“No,” he replied as he lowered his hand and sniffed his fingers. “It’s an I don’t like to get wet thing. Considering how hard I’ve been working without any help or a meal, you two should be more grateful. Instead, you leave me in this house all by myself.”

Working her way around the perimeter of the house to open all the windows she could, Paige sighed, “So what’s the big news?”

Racing to a small table next to an overstuffed sofa in the next room, Daniels took something from a familiar case. He approached Cole wearing the same excited grin that practically jumped off his face. “Give me your arm, big man.”

Seeing the electric tattooing machine in the Nymar’s hand, Cole shook his head fiercely. “Oh no you don’t. I thought you abandoned that tattoo project.”

“I don’t abandon anything. I fix it. Just give me your arm.”

“So I can be the first test subject for this new batch of ink? Hell no!”

Holding up his left arm, Daniels showed Cole a design that looked like a small curved T etched a few inches above the crease of his elbow. He then backed into the kitchen and started running. The Nymar’s first few steps were as heavy and slow as anyone might expect from a guy his size, but the ones after that sent him past Cole, into the next room, through the kitchen and back again with the speed of a Half Breed that had nearly hit its stride. When he came to a stop, Daniels walked forward to hold out his forearm again. All that remained of the T was a wavy upper bar. “You aren’t the first test subject.”

“Holy crap!” Paige said as she rushed forward to grab Daniels’s arm. “You got it to work?”

“It’s not exactly like you imagined, but yes. I broke the shapeshifter enzymes down to their most basic elements and let them flow. While there aren’t as many enhancements as we’d hoped for, there’s heightened speed and a little bit of strength. With the Blood Blade fragments acting as a colloid, the scaled-back mixture does its job while bonding to the fragments instead of directly to any living tissue.”

“So how long does it last?” she asked.

“As long as the ink holds up.” Showing the fragment of a design on his forearm, Daniels explained, “This used to be the symbol for pi. I did a few laps around the room before you arrived, which burned most of it off, and what you saw just now almost drained the rest of it. You won’t be anywhere near the power of a shapeshifter, but it should pump you up pretty good before a fight.”

Paige touched the tattoo fragment tentatively. “I wish you would have told me before you tested this on yourself.”

“You would have just told me not to.”

“Damn right I would.”

Shaking out of the tender moment, Daniels said, “Most of the hard work was done while I was in Kansas City with you two. I took a lot of notes, but there are some pivotal ingredients among Ned’s supplies. Hopefully he won’t mind me taking some of those.”

“So when can we use this stuff?” she asked.

Daniels walked back to the staircase and said, “I made a bunch of small test doses of varying consistencies. Now that I know which one works, I can mix the rest to the proper level and type up a recipe card for your files.”

“What about that other thing?” Cole asked.

“You mean the improved varnish for your weapons?” Daniels asked. He ran into the kitchen with just enough of his tattoo left to send him skidding across the linoleum. Despite the near fall, he was beaming proudly when he returned to the dining room to set a glass casserole dish on a square table amid some cereal boxes and a few square metal pans. “Without worrying about living material being damaged or one type of organism infecting another, it was a simple matter of figuring out what would form the best cohesion between the blade fragments and the varnish you use. It turns out that—” Abruptly, Daniels recoiled as if he’d been jabbed in the temple with a knitting needle. He staggered to one side, pressed a hand to his head, and would have fallen over if Cole hadn’t rushed to catch him.

“You all right?” he asked.

When Daniels looked around at them, he seemed more embarrassed than dizzy. “It’s been a while since I fed.”

“Maybe we can bring you something,” Paige offered.

“Or someone?” the Nymar asked. “There’s always pizza delivery.” Too excited to be sidetracked, he pulled himself together and went to the table.

Sensing Cole’s empathy with the fellow science geek, Paige looked over to him and explained, “Nymar can go for almost two weeks without feeding. Especially if they’re on a diet as steady and consistent as someone who lives with a girl who doesn’t mind letting someone nibble on them. By the way, have you had time to call Sally?”

The only way for Daniels to look any guiltier was if his hand was actually trapped within a cookie jar. “Yes.”

“And do you honestly need to have one of us take you by the hand and make sure you’re feeding in an unobtrusive spot so you won’t—”

“No! I’m just a little hungry, okay?”

Paige smiled victoriously and let it drop.

Cole approached the table to get a closer look at the experiment in progress. The large aluminum pan was the kind used for paint, and it currently had a thin layer of a silver-tinted watery substance at the bottom. Instead of a roller, a broken baseball bat lay half in the stuff. “I’m guessing this is either the new Blood Blade varnish or a secret weapon for the Cardinals.”

“The former,” Daniels replied. “There’s still some wrinkles to iron out, but it’s ready for you to use.”

“You sure?” Paige asked as she extended her aching right arm. “I’m a little weary when it comes to wrinkles.”

“If you recall, I never said that first batch of ink was ready to use.”

“Fair enough.”

Despite its watery appearance, the stuff had the consistency of gelatin. Cole dipped the end of his spear into it and nearly dribbled some onto the table. Judging by the metallic spatters already on the table and wall, Daniels hadn’t been so cautious. “Ned’s going to kill you when he sees this mess.”

“Wait until you see the basement,” Daniels groaned. “That’s where I test-fired the silver bullets.”

Paige’s laugh was a quick snort.

“Silver bullets?” Cole asked. Then he looked down at the pan and lit up like the proverbial holiday greenery. “That’s perfect! Dip some rounds into this stuff and—”

“And,” Daniels cut in, “you get a mess on the walls as the coating flies off at approximately 1,065 feet per second.”

“But—”

Silencing Cole with a quickly raised hand, the Nymar said, “It won’t stick to lead. I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire, so I’ll work on that one some other time.”

“What about Pestilence?” Paige asked calmly. “Please tell me you haven’t forgotten about that.”

“No, I haven’t forgotten. After everything you told me regarding the Mud People at that club,” Daniels reported in a voice that quickly built to his previous levels of excitement, “I would say my previous deductions were correct. Since I have the infection, but not the actual flu, I was able to isolate the abnormality in my blood. See, Nymar blood is a very simple solution compared to human plasma.” Seeing the impatience building on Paige’s face, he skipped to the next section of his presentation. “I’m mostly certain that the bacteria infecting me and, I assume, most Nymar, originated from a fungus native to what is now called Ecuador.”

“Now called Ecuador?” Cole said. “So it’s in Ecuador.”

“Not anymore,” Daniels replied. “It’s supposed to be extinct. Wiped out by modern contaminants, deforestation, or just died out the way some plants or animals die out. One of Ned’s friends from the hospital helped me isolate it, and there was an obscure record of it on one of my normal research—”

“So this fungus causes Mud Flu,” Paige cut in.

“Yes, but not as we now know it. There are archived accounts from explorers who’d made contact with descendants of the Mayans who reported seeing members of their party display symptoms like the Mud Flu. I figure that fungus was mixed with another ingredient to produce the Mud Flu as we see it today. This muddy residue is toxic to shapeshifters and can potentially cause a most unpleasant death for Nymar, as demonstrated by our late friend Peter Walsh. Things got really interesting when I tested the substance from one of those neighbors who tried to break in a little while ago.”

“When did you get a sample from them?” Paige asked.

The guilty look on Daniels’s face returned. “I snuck out when the paramedics were here. There was so much confusion that nobody noticed.”

“Go on,” she said.

“The mud on those people had something else in it,” Daniels said. “It’s something I think may even be produced within the human body by glands similar to the ones that produce endorphins or other hormones, but it would take some extraordinary activity in the brain to produce it.”

“What about the psychic projection of a crazy Full Blood?” Cole asked.

Looking to be genuinely impressed by the deduction, Daniels said, “Yes! The most dangerous form of the Mud Flu is therefore a three part compound with the fungal base, the mud from those who were infected, and the unique hormones resulting from the presence of the entity known as Mind Singer.” After saying that, he let out a breath and sat down in one of the chairs next to the square table. He looked as spent as Cole felt after his night with Paige, and almost as happy.

“Did you come up with a cure?” she asked.

The happiness on Daniels’s face dropped away. “I came up with all of that and you want more? Do you know how little I’m working with here? Do you know how much research I did to connect all of this data with such limited laboratory resources?”

“Ned’s got more equipment scattered in this house than some small forensics departments,” she said. “And I know you well enough to be pretty sure you’ve been through every inch of this place whether Ned knew about it or not. Plus,” she added with a confident nod, “you’re a smart guy. That’s why I work with you.”

Letting out a ragged breath, Daniels said, “I’ll work on it but can’t guarantee anything.”

“Great, now where the hell is Ned?”

“He never tells me where he goes,” Daniels said. “Always in and out with that guy. It’s his house, so what was I going to do about it?”

Paige dropped to one knee and pulled open a cabinet that was a facade for a small refrigerator locked with a digital mechanism. “Stubborn old man’s probably on patrol,” she said while tapping a number onto the fridge’s keypad. “Look on the wall near the phone, Cole. That’s where he’d leave a note.”

Cole made his way across the room to a small alcove that was just big enough to hold one shelf. A phone rested on top of an answering machine that belonged on display with the other antiques. It was a touch-tone made to look like a rotary dial, and no lights were blinking on the machine. When he returned to the kitchen, Paige was taking a plastic eye-drop bottle from the fridge. “Nada,” he reported.

“Then I’m calling him,” she said while flipping her phone open. The longer it rang, the more she shook her head. Too anxious to bother with voice mail, she asked, “Where’s that card?”

“The one from the cops?” Cole asked. “I’ve got it.”

She extended her hand to him and said, “Hand it over. Maybe one of these dumb shits is forcing Ned to answer a bunch of stupid questions.”

“Umm, maybe I should call the number,” Cole said.

“Then call it! I’ll give our weapons a dip in this stuff. Didn’t you hear anyone knocking when they left the card, Daniels?”

“Sure. On top of everything else you want me to do, I should answer the door and take messages.”

Cole was more than happy to hand over his spear just to give Paige something else to do. She piled her weapons on top of his and grabbed a rag to dip into the silvery mixture in the paint pan.

The name on the card was Detective Tracey Shin, and she picked up her phone after one ring.

“Hi, my name’s Cole Warnecki. I found one of your cards on my door, so I figured I should call.”

Detective Shin spoke in an even, professional tone, sounded somewhere in her late thirties or early forties, and was curt without being rude. “What was the name again?” she asked while flipping through papers on her end of the line.

“Cole Warnecki. I’m a friend of Ned Post’s. It was his house where I found your card.”

The rummaging stopped. “Oh. When was the last time you saw Mr. Post?”

“A day or two ago. Why?”

“What’s your relation to him?”

“I’m a friend,” Cole’s stomach clenched and a cold sweat threatened to break from his forehead. Paige sat at the table, silently prompting him for details.

“Does Mr. Post have any immediate family?” Detective Shin asked.

“Not that I know of. What’s wrong?”

After clearing her throat, Shin said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Warnecki, but Mr. Post is dead.”

“Wh-What happened to him?”

“I’d like to talk to you about that in person if I could. Can you come down to the station?”

“Tell me what happened first,” Cole insisted.

The detective’s voice shifted subtly, which made it seem more like she was an actual person instead of a voice behind a badge. “Mr. Post’s remains were found at a bar in U City along with the bar’s owner. It’s looking like there was a robbery.”

“So he’s…dead?”

Hearing that, Paige jumped up from her chair fast enough to hit the table and splash some of the silver water onto the floor.

“I’d really like you to come and talk to me before I give any more details over the phone. Mr. Post was already in our system due to some minor weapons charges, so we’ve made an identification, but we’d like you to verify it. There are also some reports that need to be filed, and if there are any immediate family members—”

“Where was he found?” Paige asked.

Covering the phone’s speaker, Cole whispered, “Some bar in U City?”

She nodded and left the kitchen.

“How soon can you get here, Mr. Warnecki?” Detective Shin asked.

“I’ll leave right now. Where’s the station?”

She gave him the address and expressed her condolences, but Cole didn’t accept them with more than a few grunts as he scribbled the important information on the closest pad he could find. He hung up, nodded at Daniels’s stunned face and went after Paige. He expected to walk into a meltdown, but only found her standing in the living room with her arms crossed and her eyes fixed upon one of the house’s many shelves.

“I’ll go to the cops and see what they know,” Cole offered. “Maybe it’s not even him.”

“Find out as much as you can, and if you run into any trouble, call me. If they won’t let you call me, call Stanley Velasco. You have his number?”

“Yeah. It’s in my phone.”

“If Rico calls, don’t tell him anything. Don’t even answer the phone. Let me tell him.” She wrapped her fingers around the eyedropper bottle as if she would never let it go. “Ned used to go to a bar in U City called the Keyhole Tavern. I know where it is. Rico and I will check it out.”

Now that he’d stood with her for a few moments, Cole could tell she wasn’t just staring at the bookshelf. Paige was looking down at the cement frog that sat on the edge with its legs crossed and hanging over the side. It was one of the most putrid pieces of random decoration Cole had ever seen, but seemed perfectly at home among all the dusty books, obscure manuals, and specimen jars. He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her closer. “Maybe you should stay here. There’s probably not much to see.”

“We’ll check it out.”

“The cops said there was a robbery, Paige. It could be that Ned was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

She turned on him and snapped, “Ned wouldn’t have been killed in a robbery. It’s just not possible. He could probably take a bullet or get stabbed and not die with all the serum in him.”

“The serum didn’t help his eye.”

“That’s different, Cole. God damn it, just trust me! The Nymar Rico and I cleaned out of this city could never have killed Ned. Not on their best day, so there’s no fucking way some robber got that lucky. The only Nymar Ned and I saw in Sauget were either killed or too sick to do much of anything. Malia’s pack is too scattered to worry about him. That leaves Henry and Lancroft. This could be payback for chasing him out of that club or just something to distract us from coming after him again. I don’t give a shit what happened, this can’t go unanswered.”