Teeth of Beasts s-3

by Marcus Pelegrimas

“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.”

  Chapter 23

  Rico tore up Hanley Road as if he was trying to break the sound barrier. “It was only a matter of time before those gutless fucking Nymar came for payback after getting their asses chased from this town.” He parked with one front tire on the curb and jumped out with his Sig Sauer in hand.

  “Put that away!” Paige said.

  Bits of glass and cigarette butts stuck to the concrete, announcing the Skinners’ steps with a muffled crunch. The humid Missouri air hung around the bar, making the Keyhole seem even more isolated from the world of the living.

  Rico’s eyes were fixed upon the front of the bar and he made it all the way to the entrance without noticing the place was closed. “Or it could be those motherfucking Mud People,” he snarled while holstering the .45 so he could pull at the door. “They found him once and they must have found him again. It’s not like Ned tried to shake up his routine or anything. He must come here three times a week. I told him not to be so goddamn predictable, but did he listen? Fucking cops probably wrote this place off without even bothering to look for anything.”

  Paige tipped her head back and put a drop into each eye from the bottle she’d taken from Ned’s. “Before you get too worked up, let’s see what we can find in here.”

  There wasn’t much to see from the parking lot. Most of the windows were covered by shades yellowed from age and overexposure to daylight, but a few were uncovered. Looking in at the bar through one of them, Rico didn’t see anything but shabby furniture and old arcade cabinets.

  “Ned was here,” she said as she studied the waves of Skinner scent drifting within the bar. “From what I can see, there were no Nymar.”

  “Can you be sure about that?”

  “No.”

  “Then keep lookin’.”

  After letting the drops soak in, Paige picked up even more of the Skinner scent within the place. “I think
there may have been another Skinner in there with him.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  She looked at the scent left behind by herself and Rico and compared it to the traces inside. “Because Ned doesn’t move around enough to lay down that much scent. Even if he did laps inside of that place, his scent would have had to dissipate by now, right?”

  “You’re the one with the funky vision,” Rico grumbled.

  Compared to the fresher scents they had left, the trails drifting inside the bar were like wisps of stubborn cigar smoke. The longer she stared through the window, the more wisps she picked up. “Looks like it’s concentrated at the bar. There’s so much. My gut’s telling me there’s too much in there to have been left by just one of us. Did anyone else come here?”

  “Any other Skinners? Not that I know of.” Rico’s expression took on a cold, steely edge. “Hasta be Lancroft. That old fuck got to Ned.”

  Paige’s phone rang. When she answered, Cole immediately told her, “It’s him.”

  “You saw the body?”

  “I saw a picture of it. I met with Detective Shin. She had a picture on her laptop, and yeah,” he repeated with a sigh, “it’s Ned all right.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Nope,” Cole replied in a forced conversational tone.

  “What do the cops know about how he was killed?”

  “The bar was robbed. They found the owner with a broken neck and Ned’s throat was cut. There wasn’t much by way of security at that place, so they’re going with the robbery.”

  “Then meet us at The Emerald. You remember the address?”

  “I got it.”

  “Good. Any problems, give me a call.” She snapped the phone shut and turned on her heels so she could walk up the sidewalk to Rico. The big man got some amused looks from passersby, thanks to his deathly stare and patchwork leather jacket, but he wasn’t concerned with any of that. He clenched a cigarette between his teeth and expelled smoke as if trying to spit it into the world’s face.

  “You wanna hear something stupid?” he asked.

  “I’ve spent enough time with Cole to make me immune to stupid.”