“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.”
Chapter 14
Strip bars always looked a lot different in the light of day. At night they exuded a comforting glow that was easy on the eyes, while the thrumming beat of music soothed the ears. They even had a smell all their own, which was an effective mixture of body spray, beer, and hormones. Under the rays of the sun, however, things took a drastic turn. The neon wasn’t lit. The music wasn’t playing, and the strongest smell was car exhaust from the nearby street.
Bunn’s Lounge reminded Paige of a few other places she’d seen. One was a club in Wisconsin called Shimmy’s, which employed a nymph who was real good at separating customers from their money. She knew better than to assume all those customers were men, however. One taste of Tristan’s supernatural talents had almost been enough to get Paige to fold a few dollars in half and slip them beneath a lacy garter.
“Damn,” she said as she shaded her eyes and looked at the building in front of her. “That is one big, purple A-frame.”
“Is that all you see?” Ned asked.
She squinted and blinked to stir up the solution that clung to her eyeballs. “I can see Nymar scent around one side of the building, which is where Cole said that redhead was taken from. There’s also something like…a light green? It’s tough to nail it down, but I haven’t seen it until now. Other than that it’s just a whole lot of purple.”
She’d parked within spitting distance of the front door, due to the fact that there was only one other car in the lot. It was a newer model Hyundai from the “I have kids but I’m still cool” line. As she walked toward the red mist, Ned followed behind her. Around the corner, several garbage cans, crates, and trash bags were piled against the building. The mist took her away from the structure and through some thorny bushes.
“The Nymar were right here,” she said from the other side of the shrubs. “Looks like they waited around here for a good long while.”
“How can you tell? Is the trail a different color? Is there a different intensity?”
Picking her way back through the bushes, she said, “Nope. There’s a ton of cigarette butts, pop cans, and beer bottles piled up back there.”
When the side door creaked open, Ned tightened his grip on the top of his cane and turned toward the building. Only the sharpest eyes would have caught the subtle shift as the cane’s lowest end sharpened to a point.
“What’s goin’ on out here?” asked a muscular, olive-skinned man wearing a T-shirt that was so tight it may have been colored onto him with Magic Marker. His short black hair wasn’t slicked back, but was combed and styled into perfect shape.
“Do you work here?” Paige asked.
Although the guard in the T-shirt wore a standard, menacing snarl, he softened up a bit when he saw her. “Yeah,” he said. “What are you doing back there?”
“I heard there was some trouble last night. Is there anyone I can talk to about that?”
The guard’s brow furrowed. “You a cop?”
“No.”
“Reporter?” he asked with a hint of curiosity.
“We’re the ones who know what kind of dancers you’ve got inside,” she said. “And we’re also the only ones who might be able to help you with the problem you’ve been having with fanged, tattooed freaks harassing your girls.”
Paige wasn’t dressed in anything too revealing, but her navy blue shirt and jeans hugged her figure just enough to possibly give her some leverage with a man. While the guard was definitely a man, he worked around naked women often enough to have no trouble keeping his line of sight above her neck. While that would normally have been a refreshing change, Paige couldn’t help but wonder if she was losing her touch.
“What do you know about those freaks?” he asked.
Ned cleared his throat and said, “We know one of your girls was dragged away from here. I trust she made it back safely?”
“Yeah,” the guard said. “Kate’s all right.”
“That’s because of two friends of ours. One had a leather jacket, and they’re both in jail after helping send Kate home.”
“She did mention something about those two lending a hand. Come on in and I’ll see if Christov wants to talk to you.”
The guard stepped aside and held the door open for both Ned and Paige while making sure they could see the gun holstered under his arm. The door led directly into a short hallway cluttered with a few crooked bar stools, a couple broken tables, and stacks of other things that must have been taken from the main room. After two sharp turns, the hall ran the length of the entire building. There were a few doors on the left and one to the immediate right next to a large window that looked out to where the real action took place. As the guard took them to the end of the hall, one of the doors on the left opened up.
Even before the blonde stepped into view, Ned perked up. His head snapped toward her as if his sight had miraculously returned. Paige almost hoped that was the case because no man would have wanted to miss seeing her glide out of the frilly dressing room. The best way Paige could describe her was a pinup model carved out of living candy, appealing to every sensory nerve wired into a human body.
Patting the guard on the cheek, the blonde said, “Hi, Mikey.”
Even while giving her half a smirk, Mikey somehow managed to keep his eyes from wandering along the blonde’s impressive body, which was barely covered by a half shirt and low-ride Capri jeans. “Hello, Shae.”
Shae’s breasts moved just right and hung just low enough to be real.
There were no visible roots to be found within hair that dangled past her shoulders in a flowing wave. Either that hair was a naturally occurring miracle or it was cared for at a salon that cost more per visit than Paige had ever spent on a car.
She was tall without the benefit of heels.
Her smile was not only genuine, but also gorgeous without a hint of makeup.
What Paige noticed most of all, however, was the cool green waves that flowed from Shae’s skin like a naturally occurring veil.
“These two know the men that helped Kate last night,” Mikey said.
When Shae looked at Paige again, she did so as if she’d just found an old friend that had been presumed dead. “What are those
guys’ names?” she asked.
For some reason, giving Rico’s nickname seemed like a snub to Shae, so she replied, “Terrance. And Cole.”
Extending a hand to Paige, she grasped it and held on earnestly. “Those two were so brave. If there’s anything they need, just let us know. And if anyone here refuses you, tell them to answer to me. That goes for both of you.”
Paige smiled, pleasantly surprised to find someone like Shae who ranked so low on the Bitch Meter.
Reaching into a purse tucked under her left arm, Shae pulled out a little case that was a miniature version of the purse. It opened like a compact and held two different styles of business cards. “Here,” she said as she handed one to Paige. “This is my personal phone number, and I’ll always answer it when I’m away from here. I’ll be around for a while, though.” Her pale blue eyes dropped and then flicked back up again. Leaning in closer, she added, “I love those boots. They’d really come in handy fending off the drunks that waddle through this place.”
Not only had Shae managed to ease right onto Paige’s good side, but she’d also noticed the batons that were hidden well enough to get through most security checks.
And then she was gone. She walked through the door beside the large window and headed straight across the main room to see to her own business. Mikey continued down the hall and motioned for the Skinners to follow him.
The house lights were on, which allowed Paige to see straight through the tinted glass and into the main room. Without those lights, the window would most likely be a one-way mirror reflecting three large stages, brass poles, and several tables and chairs scattered throughout the central part of the club. While she expected the floors to be covered in spilled beer and God only knew what else, everything out there appeared spotless. A few dancers in street clothes clustered on the main stage, talking among themselves and pulling on a shiny brass pole to test how well it was anchored to the floor and ceiling. While all of the dancers were pretty, only one was in Shae’s league, and she also gave off the cool green scent. The only other source of the scent was a redhead sitting at the bar in the opposite corner of the room adjacent to the main entrance. Shae walked over to rub the redhead’s back and point toward the glass.
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