Cole’s eyebrows perked up when he spotted a row of car dealers lining the busy street. “Do I get to pick out the new Skinnermobile?”
“Not if you’re gonna call it that.”
“Okay. We’ll call it whatever you want.”
“Still no.”
“But you said you were going to make me feel better.” He turned to her and grinned luridly. “Unless you had something a little nastier in mind?”
“No,” Paige said as she crossed Tesson Ferry Road. “But your tongue will still be plenty happy.”
Chapter 17
Eat Rite was a diner.
It wasn’t a restaurant or a bar. It was a diner and didn’t try to be anything but. There were less than a dozen tables in the narrow storefront space located between a pawnshop and a paintball supply store. Cole and Paige sat on stools bolted to the floor along a counter that ran from the front of the place all the way to the storage rooms in back. His spear looked harmless enough, if a bit out of place, propped against the counter like a piece of shoddy sporting equipment near Cole’s feet. Behind the counter were pyramids of mini cereal boxes, stacks of plastic cups, pastries in a clear case, and a display for locally made oatmeal cookies next to a coffee machine and a milk dispenser.
When she sat down, Paige refused a menu and ordered, “Two coffees. Two slingers, scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast on the side.”
The waitress was a cute girl with nice legs and dark hair cut in a bob. Scribbling the order onto a long pad of green and white paper, she asked, “You want onions on those?”
“Of course.”
The coffee was some of the best Cole had tasted in recent memory.
A short cook wearing the standard-issue uniform of greasy white T-shirt under greasier white apron put their order together while Paige told Cole about her introduction to Ned’s neighbors. When the cook was through, he handed the plates to the waitress so he could disappear through the back door with his pack of cigarettes. The concoction that was placed in front of them was composed of eggs, sausage, chili, cheese, and onions served on a bed of hash browns.
“This looks like a heart attack waiting to happen,” Cole mused.
“Say that now,” Paige replied. “Thank me later.”
Cole didn’t know where to start. After taking his first few bites, he didn’t know if he’d be able to stop. “Thank you,” he said through a mouthful of artery-clogging goodness. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
Paige smiled and shook hot sauce onto the glorious mess occupying her plate. “You weren’t inside for long, but I thought you’d be hungry for some real food.” She scooped some potatoes and chili onto her fork, jabbed a hunk of egg, stuffed the whole thing into her mouth and asked, “So what happened in there? I heard there was some commotion.”
Telling her about his encounter with Henry and even describing the slime oozing from those glassy-eyed inmates wasn’t enough to put a dent in Cole’s appetite. He finished his story while smearing grape jelly onto his toast. “After the mess was cleaned up and the paramedics left, things were quiet. The cops took it easy on us since Rico and I helped bring those nut jobs down, but it still wasn’t easy getting out of there. Whoever that Velasco guy is, he pulled a lot of strings.”
“So you’re sure it was Henry?” she asked.
Using the side of his fork to cut up his last sausage patty, Cole replied, “He talked like Henry and knew all the stuff Henry would know. He was sure bat-shit crazy as Henry.”
“Henry’s a Full Blood,” Paige reminded him. “He’s also the only one who’s found a way to get around our early warning system. Maybe he’s not so crazy.”
Cole looked down at the scars on his left hand. “I didn’t feel a twitch from any of those Mud Flu people either, but they seemed to be controlled by him.”
“The medics called it the Mud Flu?”
“Yep.”
“How bad were they?”
“Apart from the bumps and bruises they got during the fight, those muddy prisoners were fine after Henry was gone. The paramedics said he snapped his neck during a seizure because of the flu, but he snapped it himself. I heard his voice in my head, so maybe he can throw the rest of himself into people’s minds now. The whole neck snapping thing may be Henry’s way of getting comfortable in a new body. There’s no bouncing back from that once he leaves, though.” Tapping his fork against his chin, Cole added, “I think I also saw him try to change. He kind of puffed up like he thought he could shift into…” There was only one other customer in the place, reading a newspaper at one of the back tables, and neither he nor the waitress were interested in what the Skinners were talking about. Even so, Cole lowered his voice and grunted, “You know.”
The waitress loitered at the other end of the counter, washing silverware in a long sink. After circling to refill coffee cups, she started in on the rest of her side work.
“When I spoke to the Nymar, they called Henry the Mind Singer,” Paige said. “Maybe this jumping around from one person to another is what separates him from any other telepath.”
Cole didn’t notice the waitress straightening the cereal boxes nearby when he asked, “Did they know the one whose body they showed on the news?”
“Ew, that was gross,” the waitress said. “I think it was some sort of prank, though. Like those fake werewolf pictures from Kansas City.”
Cole showed Paige a chili-stained grin at the mention of his handiwork.
Placing two packets of Wet-Naps on the counter, the waitress said, “Be sure to wipe your hands when you’re done. Can’t be too careful with this Mud Flu going around.” She shuddered and washed hers vigorously in the same sink where she’d just cleaned the dishes. “Can I get you two anything else?”
“No, we’re fine,” Paige said.
“Then I’ll run to the back for a smoke. Just holler if you need me.”
Cole tore once again into the pile of meat, cheese, and potatoes on his plate. “So, you missed me, huh?”
Stopping her hand a few inches from her mouth, Paige allowed her eggs to slide off and plop onto a mound of chili. “I was stuck with Ned. That sort of trauma will make you say things.”
“Well, you made it up to me with this.”
“Play your cards right and I may even spring for a lap dance later tonight. We’re headed back to Sauget to meet your stripper buddy, Tristan.”
“The nymph from Wisconsin? She really gets around.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she told him. “I called Prophet to see if he’d seen her recently and he had. Only an hour before I did. In Albany, New York.”
Cole chewed his next bite thoughtfully. “That’s a hell of a long way to go. Even if a plane could make the trip that fast, that barely leaves enough time to get to an airport.”
“She’s not taking a plane. Those nymphs have something else going on. Either they’ve got some way of getting from one spot to another in a hurry, or there’s more than one Tristan.”
“More than one Tristan?” Cole’s mind drifted to a happy place filled with blue skies, cool breezes, and multiple copies of a woman who seemed built to stimulate the male psyche.
“You’re such a pig,” Paige muttered.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Just because I—” Cole dropped his fork as if it had come to life and bitten him. Something reacted with his scars that felt like a hot poker scraping against the bones of his hand, causing both him and Paige to look at the front door. “Pay the check and let’s get out of here,” he said. “If a Full Blood tracked us here, I don’t want it leveling this place. The food is too damn good.”
She slapped some money onto the counter as Cole picked up his spear. The waitress hurried from the back room as soon as they left their seats, spotted the cash and then separated her generous tip from the price of slingers and coffee. “Come back again!” she implored.
The diner may not have been crowded, but that d
idn’t hold true for Lindbergh Boulevard. Being one of the main streets that cut through the entire city meant it was almost always filled with a steady flow of traffic. The dinner rush had slacked off several hours ago, and it was a bit too early for the late night snack crowd, which made Eat Rite a quiet spot next to the speeding, honking sampling of the St. Louis population.
Cole’s hands were burning when he slid his fingers between the thorns on his spear’s handle. “It’s close,” he said.
Paige effortlessly plucked the baton from her left boot and then flexed her right hand a few times before drawing that weapon from its holster. “I’m hoping it’s Burkis.”
“You want to see Mr. Burkis again?”
“No, but if this isn’t him, there’s another Full Blood in the area. That’s something we don’t need.”
The first time Cole had seen Mr. Burkis, he’d watched the werewolf shred a cabin filled with hunters, hikers, and two Skinners. The next time, Burkis had tracked him to Daniels’s apartment in the Chicago suburbs and proceeded to tear that building apart before escaping with a chunk of the Blood Blade embedded in his face. As reassuring as it was to know a Full Blood could be hurt, Cole was fairly certain the whole face stabbing thing wouldn’t act in his favor.
A low voice rumbled from the storefronts to his left. “You can lower your weapons. If I meant to feast on your innards, I wouldn’t do so after you’ve gorged on so much greasy food.”
A solitary figure rounded the corner of the short, run-down strip mall where Eat Rite was located. The last time Cole had seen him, Burkis was wearing a cheap suit that had ripped like wet tissue paper during his transformation from man to beast. Now, the tall, broad-shouldered werewolf wore baggy sweatpants and a plain white tank top. His human form was muscular, but not in a way that reeked of locker rooms and gym memberships. Cold, gray-blue eyes peered at the Skinners through a loose mane of dark brown hair. Somehow, those eyes were more brilliant in the shadows than when he stepped into the meager light thrown off by the storefronts.
“Not dressing up for this meeting, huh?” Cole said. Brushing his hand along his cheek, he added, “Suit not match the new face?”
A subtle twitch shifted beneath the scar that ran down the right side of Burkis’s face from the bottom of his eye to just above his chin. It wasn’t the only scar he bore, but looked more tender than the rest. “I wear my mistakes just like everyone else,” he said. “And since you no longer have the blade that did this, I wouldn’t be so quick to taunt.”
When Cole moved toward the Full Blood, Paige stopped him with an outstretched hand. “All right, Burkis. You found us. Now what?”
“I want to know where the Mind Singer is. You know of whom I speak.” Shifting crystalline eyes toward Cole, he added, “You have heard his voice.”
“You mean Henry?” Cole asked.
Burkis’s nod was nothing more than one slow dip of his chin.
“He paid me a visit when I was in jail along with a bunch of those slimy nut jobs that fight for him. If you want to know where he is, maybe you should try a psycho ward with real thick walls.”
Burkis remained silent. Before his pause became awkward, someone stepped out of the pawnshop, climbed into their car and left. Now that the parking lot was all but empty, he said, “Henry’s touched in the head. I don’t know if that’s a cause or effect of his gift.”
“Henry was infected by Nymar spore and controlled by one of their kind named Misonyk,” Paige explained. “That’s how he got his gift. The spores are out of him, but he must have been able to hang on to Misonyk’s ability somehow.”
Burkis was a large man and he moved like an even larger animal; heavy and powerful. “It doesn’t matter how he got his gift. All that matters is how he uses it. Of late, he only speaks of Pestilence. What do you know about that?”
“It’s something that’s causing Nymar to explode like party poppers,” she said. “When it shows up in humans, it makes them hack up some sort of muddy slop, and I think it paves the way for Henry to control them.”
As Burkis studied him and Paige, Cole wasn’t sure if the Full Blood was thinking about what they’d been talking about or if he was wondering how many bites it would take to get to the humans’ juicy center. “You know more than you say.”
“Sure we do,” Paige replied.
“Then tell me about Jonah Lancroft.”
“I can tell you he’s a very popular guy around here, but he’s also long dead.”
“Pestilence is his creation,” Burkis said. “As is the Mind Singer. Both of which are more far-reaching than you know.”
“How can you be so sure of that?”
“Because if you knew the true scope of this matter, you would not be stuffing your faces with food as the rest of your country festers under Lancroft’s plague. Mud Flu is only the most recent name given to something that has been festering in humans for decades, and within the fangs of the leeches for only slightly longer. Do you even know how this plague affects the Mongrels that you embrace as friends?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” Paige snapped.
“Follow me and I’ll show you. That is,” Burkis added as his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, “if you’re able.”
With that, the Full Blood strode through the parking lot toward Lindbergh Boulevard. He crouched down as if to tie his shoe and then leapt completely over all six lanes of traffic. His arms stretched out and his legs tucked in close to his chest as the transformation rippled throughout the werewolf’s entire body. Compared to the form Burkis had taken in Canada or Chicago, this one was leaner and more than seven feet in length. Most of its muscle was packed into the creature’s legs, which were strong enough to launch him onto the roof of a squat little dump of a bar across the street from an Olive Garden.
“Shit,” Paige growled as she raced to the Cav and fumbled for her keys.
Cole followed her while looking around to see how many people had spotted the Full Blood’s inhuman leap. A few cars swerved on Lindbergh and several people pointed toward the bar, aiming their camera phones and clicking frantically. As he dropped into the passenger seat, Cole thought about how he could smooth over this little incident once it made its first appearance on the Internet. After a car screeched to a stop so its driver could hang out the window for a better look, he decided it was already too late for smoothing.
Paige pointed the Cav toward Lindbergh and flipped her blinker on. Burkis crouched upon the roof of the bar, grabbing the edge with both hands and craning his neck to watch the street. Facing the northwest, he pushed off with thick legs that bent backward to accommodate a four-legged gait.
“Aw screw it,” she snarled before hitting the gas pedal and driving through a gap barely large enough to fit a car half the Cav’s size. Other drivers honked at her, but only a precious few swerved to clear a path. Most of the vehicles seemed ready to plow straight into her just to prove they had the right of way.
“Crazy bastards!” Cole yelled. Turning to Paige he added, “All of you!”
“Just buckle up and keep your eyes on Burkis.”
Although Paige was driving without any regard for traffic laws or human life, she wasn’t doing much to stand out from the rest of the pack vying for lane space. Even the cars that ambled along at a leisurely pace sped up when they were about to be passed. Once she managed to get by them, they slowed as if grudgingly admitting to a loss. Looking for a werewolf amid all of that was a welcome distraction.
They’d just crossed Baptist Church Road when Cole’s scars alerted him to the Full Blood’s proximity. Straining to see through the stark contrast of lights and shadow on both sides of the street, he caught occasional glimpses of the creature bounding from a rooftop or disappearing behind a billboard. Just when he’d lost sight of the beast, they drove past a large theater illuminated by several sets of colored lights. A glowing white sign close to the street spelled out movie names and times in short black letters. A familiar shape perched upon that sign, dressed
in the tattered remnants of a white shirt and dark sweatpants.
“There he is!” Cole said.
Burkis’s leaner upright form was better suited for scaling surfaces or balancing on narrow ledges. His limbs were extended past the point where he could pass for some lunatic who’d climbed up onto the marquee, and if there still was any doubt as to what he was, his coat of long, dark brown fur was an even bigger giveaway. When the Cavalier closed in on him, Burkis sniffed the air and jumped off the sign as if he’d been launched by a catapult.
“He’s leading us down the street,” Cole said while reaching under his seat to grab the little black case containing his GPS. After switching it on, he waited for it to receive a signal from the satellites.
“What the hell are you doing?” Paige asked. “You think you can look up ‘werewolf’ under Points of Interest?”
“I was just gonna pull up the map and see where this street goes.”
“I know where it goes,” she barked. “I used to live here, remember?”
“Then maybe I can see if there’s any traffic or construction up ahead. Does your inborn city-sense get minute-to-minute updates?”
“You can see traffic updates on that thing?”
Cole nodded and rubbed the top of the GPS without smearing the touch screen. “Romana’s got the deluxe package. Ah. See? Looks like there’s some construction a little further up.”
“There’s always construction,” she snapped. “What about traffic?”
“On the right.”
“How bad is it? Should I detour?”
“No!” Cole said as he pointed at his side window as though there was still glass in the frame. “On the right. There he is!”
Paige leaned over the top of the steering wheel and spotted Burkis leaping down from atop a gas station sign to land in the parking lot and shift into his barrel-chested, four-legged form. His ribs were hidden beneath a thick layer of fur and his chest nearly scraped against the cement as he darted across the busy street. Whether out of reflex or as a warning, Burkis snapped at a few cars that honked at him while driving by. To those drivers’ credit, they seemed just as annoyed to let him get ahead of them as they’d been when anyone else tried to pass.
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