“Why can’t you call him?”
“Because I’m busy figuring out a way to keep you alive. What the hell’s your problem?”
“You tried to kill me!”
“I’d expect you to do the same for me.”
“I’m thinking about it.” Rico tried to pull him back by the shoulder, but Cole shoved the big man away. “After all we’ve been through, I’ve got to lump you in with all the other things out there trying to rip me apart?”
“If it’s between that or letting you turn into a Nymar? You bet your ass.” Shooting a quick glance over to Daniels, she added, “No offense.”
Daniels was a smart guy, which meant he waved off the comment without a word.
Apparently, Rico had a similar idea. “You two go on ahead,” he said. “I’ll call Prophet.”
“I won’t let you turn, Cole,” Paige told him. “Why would you ever think I’d let something like that happen to you?”
“What about what we’re doing right now?” Cole asked. “If I hadn’t stopped you, we never would have gotten this far. You would’ve just killed me, wrapped me up in some plastic bags, and then what? Salvaged me for parts? Dumped me in a hole like you do with the leftovers you can’t use from all those Half Breed carcasses?”
“You’re upset, Cole. I get it. Just calm down and try not to make things worse.”
“Worse?”
“The spore is exerting a lot of energy right now,” Daniels explained. “It’s feeding where it can, and if you get all worked up or excited, it’ll make your heart beat faster and add adrenaline to the mix. Feeding all of that to—”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it,” Cole grunted as he dropped back into his seat.
Accustomed to being cut off in mid-sentence, Daniels shrugged and looked out the window to let the Skinners settle things among themselves.
Apart from Rico’s conversation with Prophet, it wound up being a quiet ride across town.
When they arrived at Pinups, Daniels, Paige, and Rico carried Cole, along with various supplies bundled beneath coats and tucked under arms to keep them out of sight. The security guys at the door wouldn’t stop Skinners if they were carrying tactical nukes under their jackets, but there were still customers to worry about, so they moved as discreetly as possible to a large supply room.
The space was smaller than a bedroom but larger than a closet, and partially filled with boxes of paper towels, plastic cups, and stacks of chairs. Rico grabbed one of the chairs, set it down in the middle of the floor, and dropped Cole onto it. “You all right?” he asked.
Cole winced and grabbed his chest with both hands. “I think you just shook something loose.”
“Does it pinch inside or do you just wanna puke?”
“Feels like I got hit in the lungs with a baseball bat. And now that you mention it, I may actually have to puke.”
“As long as it’s not pinching yet, you’re good.”
Next to come through the door were Daniels, Paige, and two dancers dressed in their work clothes. One wore a miniskirt that could have been made from a few strips of black tape wrapped around her hips, the other clad in the same shade of purple she’d worn almost every other time Cole had seen her. It brought out the glimmer in her eyes and the luscious texture of her lips. It was Tristan, and unlike those other times, she did not seem pleased to see him.
“What’s this I hear about you wanting our blood?” the Dryad asked. “Isn’t it enough that we send you and all the other Skinners back and forth across the country with no questions asked? Do you have any idea how long it takes us to collect the amount of energy we’ve been using for that?”
“Cole’s in trouble,” Paige said. “The rest can wait.”
Tristan looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Are those Nymar tendrils?”
“Yep. Hence the whole trouble and rushing over here thing.”
“What can I do for him?”
“Remember what you said about Dryad blood being the sweetest thing any Nymar’s ever tasted?” Paige asked.
“Yes.”
“Was that true?”
Tristan drifted close enough to Cole for him to smell the intoxicating blend of aromas in her hair. He tended to close his eyes when pulling in a breath like that, almost as if sniffing a pan of hot brownies. The thought of sinking his teeth into Tristan had always been at the front of his mind, but in a sociable context. This time he felt an urge that snapped his eyes open and nearly brought him to his feet with his teeth bared.
“Whoa there, cowboy!” Rico said as he shoved him back down again. “You’re gonna get us thrown out of here.”
The Dryad’s clothes were loose fitting, secured with a dark ribbon wrapped around her waist like the final touch of the greatest Christmas present ever conceived. Even as she hopped away from Cole’s seat, the filmy material somehow managed to cover her breasts and hips. “He’s not fully changed,” she said. “No fangs.”
Paige stepped between Tristan and Cole while saying, “I know. The process is slow, but we can’t stop it. We want to get that spore out of him.”
“Is that even possible?”
Since Cole was still restless, Paige drew her machete and held it flat against his chest, more as a restraint than a cutting tool. “That’s what we came to find out. Daniels thinks he can extract the spore if he can get it away from Cole’s heart. And the best chance of getting it away from his heart is to make it come out on its own. We’re hoping we might be able to get it to poke its ugly little face into the open for the chance to get something every growin’ boy wants.”
“You,” Daniels said as he unrolled one of the kits he kept wrapped in canvas and leather so it was always ready to travel. “She means you. Can we please hurry?”
“Yes,” Tristan said while wrapping her flimsy outfit around her a little tighter. “Have you ever tried anything like this before?”
Daniels removed a scalpel from his kit and scraped his thumb against the blade to test its edge. Rubbing away the blood that swelled up from the little cut he’d made, he replied, “There’s normally not enough time to try anything like this. Under regular circumstances, the spore would have either been too small to notice any external stimulus or too entrenched to detach without killing the host. This is a special case.”
“It’s a case that shouldn’t have happened,” Rico snarled. “Do you feel that?”
Paige shifted her attention to the door leading out to the main room. “Yeah. Either that spore is growing real quickly or there are more Nymar close by. The old-fashioned kind.”
Letting out a quick, impatient breath, Tristan looked to the other Dryad that had accompanied her into the storage room and said, “Get the rest of our sisters back here and send one of the regular girls to see if there are any Nymar in the club.”
“What about him?” the other Dryad asked.
“I’ll do what I can for Cole. If my blood’s not enough to get the job done, yours won’t make any difference.” To Paige, she added, “I’m willing to do my part, but you people better not get used to storming in here and demanding us to sacrifice ourselves this way.”
“Fair enough,” Paige said. “You ready?”
“What do you need me to do?”
Daniels approached her with a hypodermic needle. “I’ll start by collecting a sample and we’ll go from there. If I need more, I’ll let you know.”
Extending an arm and nodding resolutely, Tristan said, “Do it before I change my mind.”
He took the blood quickly and handed it to Paige.
Cole removed his shirt, turned around so his chest was against the back of the chair, and stretched his arms out. After twisting Cole’s shirt into a thick strap, Rico used it to tie his wrists together. He then pulled up another chair so he could face Cole and get a firm grip on his arms. “You ready for this?”
“Does it matter?” Cole asked.
“Suppose not. Get to it.”
“I brought anesthetic,” Daniels said.
&nb
sp; “Is there a chance it may slow down the spore?” Rico asked.
“Perhaps, but I can’t be certain.”
“Then skip it,” Paige said. “He can take the pain.”
Cole looked over to her, unsure whether he should be flattered or angry at the cavalier way she sentenced him to the agony of his torso being sliced open. Since there was already enough fire in his gut without adding any more, he settled on flattery.
In movies this would have been the part where he was given a bullet to bite, a wallet to chew, or maybe a shot of whiskey to throw down. Instead, he got a jolt of cold from the gel Daniels smeared on his ribs followed by a deep cut from a very sharp piece of steel. Cole’s eyes widened, and when he started to move, Rico pulled his arms so his chest was mashed against the chair’s back rest.
“Does that—”
Cutting Daniels off sharply, Paige said, “Shut up and keep going.”
Cole didn’t hear anything specific from then on. Every noise blended together until voices from within the room, music from the oversized sound system, and everything else became a singular entity filling his ears. Pain spread like a fire from his left side, and spread in every direction.
“Give me the syringe,” Daniels said.
Cole heard movement, felt something warm spray against his skin, and then felt the cut in his side widen with a few more slices at either end. There was more warmth, which seeped onto his wound and somehow made it feel cooler. He started to wobble and almost passed out before realizing he hadn’t drawn a full breath since his hands had been bound. Taking too deep a breath proved to be a mistake, however, and strained his incision.
“Shorter huffs, Cole,” Rico said. “Like this.”
Cole’s arms were pulled taut and the big man demonstrated breathing in short, controlled bursts. “What’s next?” he asked through the pain that chewed through him all the way down to his spine. “You’re going to tell me to push until the baby crowns?”
“How about I tell you to do this on yer own? You’d like that better?”
“No.”
“Then bear down!”
Both of them laughed at that, which was the only thing distracting Cole from the sincere wish that he were dead.
“Cut it open wider, Daniels,” Paige said. “It’s trying to close it.”
“No,” Cole wheezed. “It isn’t. I can … feel …”
“It’s moving,” Daniels said.
“Yeah. That’s what I feel. Jesus, I don’t know if I’m gonna make it through this.” When Cole looked over at Paige, he saw her squatting like a baseball catcher and holding her machete sideways so the flat of the blade was under his ribs like a shelf.
She squirted the last of the syringe’s contents onto the side of her machete and waggled it beneath a set of oily black tendrils that oozed out from the incision Daniels was widening. The balding Nymar had his sleeves rolled up and was now using both hands to pry apart the thick sections of fleshy meat between Cole’s ribs. Seeing that, combined with feeling it, Cole’s most recent breath leaked out in a wavering current.
“Come on, Cole, don’t pass out on me.” Rico then leaned over and asked, “Is there a problem if Cole passes out?”
Daniels didn’t look away from the incision even as he reached to his kit for different pieces of equipment. “As long as he stays still, there’s no problem.”
“Okay, then,” Rico said to Cole. “Switching gears. Go ahead and pass out. Just think about a better place.”
When the thing inside him moved, Cole felt as though his vital organs had suddenly gotten a desire to look for a more fulfilling existence in another part of the country. “This is the kind of better place I would imagine,” he snapped. “Thanks to you assholes, the whole strip bar thing is ruined for me now!”
“Can you get ahold of that thing yet?” Tristan asked.
Daniels shook his head and continued working.
Reaching over to the kit, Tristan grabbed a scalpel and placed it against her forearm. “Get ready to do whatever you need to do because you’re not going to get a better shot than this.” With that, she made a diagonal slice across her forearm that opened a long, bloody gash that was shallow enough to avoid slicing a major artery. Pulling in a deep breath, she closed her eyes, turned her head away and held her arm down to Cole’s side.
Almost immediately, the tendrils reached out for her. They caressed her arm and encircled it, leaving a trail of slime that came from its own body as well as Cole’s. As gentle as a lover’s touch, the tendrils slid beneath her skin.
“Whatever you’re going to do,” Tristan said, “do it quickly. It’s feeding on me.”
Cole was awake, but just barely. He’d almost lost the strength necessary to keep his head up and eyes open.
“Pull your arm back,” Paige said. “Can you do that?”
“I … don’t know,” Tristan replied.
Rather than make her answer another question, Paige handed the machete to Daniels and rushed to get behind her. With one hand gripping Tristan’s arm and the other wrapped around the Dryad’s upper body, Paige leaned back to ease her away from Cole.
“There’s a lot of tendril here,” Daniels said squeamishly. “I don’t know how long it may be before—Oh, shit!”
That might have been the first time Cole had heard Daniels swear. In his current state of mind, it struck him as amusing.
“It’s leaving him,” Daniels said.
Rico maintained a steady pressure on Cole’s arms, keeping them taut so there was no slack or space between his chest and the chair. “You’re sure it’s the spore and not just tendrils?”
“I think it’s the spore.”
“You think?”
“I’ve never seen one alive in this condition. It’s … yes … it’s got to be the spore. It’s looking at me.”
When Cole heard that, his mind filled with all the possible faces a creature like that could have. He’d seen spore when they were dead and decaying. He’d seen them getting pulled out of a living Nymar. Not once had he thought about a spore seeing him. Having designed gross little creatures for any number of video games during his normal life in Seattle, he couldn’t stop thinking of what this one might look like. Soon, he was drowning in his own creative juices and slouching forward against the chair.
“It’s feeding off you?” Paige asked.
Tristan nodded fiercely. The color was draining from her face and she struggled to keep the corners of her mouth from trembling as she formed her words. “I can feel it. The tendrils are inside. They’re pulling me open.”
The spore had no teeth but was able to saw into her flesh the way a single piece of paper could break the skin. Tiny slits formed along its surface, opening in what could have been eyes or even mouths filled with a dark, viscous gel.
“Daniels, is it drinking the blood off of my weapon?”
He handled the spore with shaking, fumbling hands. Trying to grab hold of it that way was like trying to serve Jell-O with chopsticks. “Yes,” he said. “It’s absorbing it.”
“Then it’s holding onto it, right?”
“I suppose so.” Then the proper synapses within his head fired. “Yes! Give me something else to use. Something about the same shape as this weapon.”
Rico reached under his jacket and pulled out a hunting knife with a blade that was nearly a foot long. “How about this?”
Daniels took the knife and wiped it across Tristan’s bleeding arm. “That should do.” Before he could prepare any more, tendrils wrapped around the blade of the knife, and slid against the Dryad blood, then quickly pulled away before being cut open. “Okay,” he said. “Ease her back. Just try not to let it get away.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Tristan said through a strained breath. The muscles in her face twitched and the ones in her arm jumped, but she refrained from pulling away. Just to be sure, Paige remained to help keep her arm steady.
Daniels worked with both arms now. As tendrils c
ontinued to reach out of Cole, he wound them around both the machete and the knife. Slowly, the larger mass of the spore extended its body out through the incision in Cole’s side. Daniels looked down at it without really trying to ingest the sight. Its inky black body was pressed into an almost flat shape so it could get to the source of the Dryad blood. Whatever features it had were only dark and light spots corresponding to dents and welts along its surface. When a wet, sucking sound turned into something close to a squeal, Daniels trapped the thing between the two weapons just to shut it up.
“Here it is!” he said. “Help me!”
Taking hold of the machete so the thorns impaled her palm, Paige summoned every bit of willpower she had to raise several barbs of wood along the side of the weapon. When she pulled the machete away from Cole, the barbs snagged the spore like so many fishing hooks.
“Careful!” Daniels said. “If you shred its skin, it’ll only pull back and heal. There’s more than enough blood for it to reform.”
Cole knew his senses might not have been fully alert, but he could feel it when that much of the spore was ripped out of him. He was able to lean forward, allow his back to slump, and to take a full breath without it hurting, all of which had been difficult to do before. When the pain and discomfort eased, he almost wanted it back just so he could experience the rapture of it stopping again.
“Quick,” Daniels said as he fumbled with his kit. “I may not be able to do any more than this.”
Paige pulled until the thickest black mass was out of Cole’s side. Rico stood up and stuck his fingers through the webbing of tendrils extending into Cole’s body and forced the spore out even farther. Once she had it trapped, Paige squeezed the weapons together like she was cracking a lobster’s shell. The spore let out a squeal that tore through Cole’s ears and chest at the same time. It lingered like a squawk of feedback from one of the club’s speakers, making it difficult for him to decide if he was actually hearing it or if the sound was somehow being projected into his mind. With Nymar, it was never safe to assume either one.
As Daniels continued to spool the tendrils out of him, Cole felt queasy. It reminded him of blowing his nose, only to discover that one string of snot went all the way down his sinuses to his throat. It had to be removed, but part of him wished he could just put it back and forget about it.
Vampire Uprising Page 29
