Before she knew it, Paige had another escort on her way to the front door. Kate was dressed in green shorts and a matching top that made her red hair look ridiculously attractive. She started to wave at the Skinners, but backed off when she saw the quick shake of Tristan’s head.
“You’ve got to give us something,” Paige insisted. “How are we supposed to prepare if we don’t know what we’re up against?”
Arriving at a decision by the time she arrived at the main entrance, Tristan said, “The Mind Singer may be able to read anyone’s thoughts if they’re not properly guarded. If I say anything more, you could be at risk of allowing a trap to be set.”
“Didn’t you see what happened to the Nymar who attacked one of your girls in the back room?” Paige asked. “This place isn’t as safe as you think it is.”
Tristan had only been leading the two of them by entwining her arms in theirs as if the trio was simply walking down the Yellow Brick Road. When she let them go, the Skinners still didn’t drift too far from her side. Reluctantly, she nodded.
“You may be infected with the same thing that’s been killing Nymar,” Paige explained. “The one who attacked Shae was infected and now he’s dead. Other people are dead too, and this mud crap is showing up all over the country.”
“My kind cannot be sick,” Tristan said. “It’s just impossible.”
“Then they’re the lucky ones. There’s a whole lot of people out there who don’t have it so good.”
“This infection has been around for a long time, but never amounted to anything until recently.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Smiling as if she was gently breaking bad news to a child, Tristan said, “Humans are always infected with something. There are plagues, poisons, diseases, and any number of things that come from any number of places. For every one that’s fatal, there are hundreds that you don’t even know about. This particular affliction first struck your kind in other parts of the world a very long time ago. Now, something has caused it to blossom into something worse. Some call it the Mud Flu, while one man has named it Pestilence.”
“Now I really want to meet this old bastard,” Paige snarled.
“Come back tonight and you will.” With that, Tristan turned her gorgeous back to them and headed for the bar.
Paige looked over there but couldn’t see anyone else apart from the tender. The guy tossed them a friendly wave and continued unpacking a box of bottles and placing them upon the shelf behind him. Since the club seemed to have dried up for the time being, she and Ned walked out. Both of them climbed into the SUV, but Paige made a call before driving away.
“Hey,” Prophet said once the connection had been made. “I just talked to Stanley, and your boys should be out by tonight. It’s taking a little extra pull thanks to the big guy’s record, but—”
“That’s not why I’m calling. Have you still been chasing down those nymphs working at purple A-frames?”
“Yeah.”
“You remember that brunette we saw in Wisconsin?”
“Tristan,” Prophet said wistfully. “Her and that buffet put Shimmy’s on the map for me. She’s working at the place I’m staking out right now. At least she was the last time I was there.”
“When was that?” Paige asked.
“About an hour ago. Usually the places that never close are on the nasty side, but this one bucks that trend.”
Paige turned the key in the ignition, wishing she had Cole’s GPS to tell her how to get to wherever the bounty hunter was located. “Where are you?”
“About fifteen minutes north of Albany.”
“Albany…Missouri?”
“There’s an Albany, Missouri? I’m in Albany, New York. You heard of that one?”
Paige’s hand dropped away from the steering wheel. “How long ago did you say Tristan was there?”
“About an hour, give or take ten minutes. Why?”
“And you’re sure it was her?”
“I wish I lived in a world that was filled with women who could be mistaken for her. Trust me. It was Tristan.” Just to be thorough, Prophet described what Tristan had been wearing. If the Tristan in Bunn’s was a twin of the one in Albany, both women had also coordinated their wardrobe.
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.”
Teeth of Beasts s-3 Page 20
