“Before I left, Misonyk was spreading a lot of wild ideas. But he wasn’t much more than another crazy Nymar until he had Henry enforcing his word as if it was law. Henry may like feeding on Nymar, but he can easily become a threat to my kind. I’ve been holding onto the Blood Blade so it could be used against a threat like that. If not for Brad, I would have kept it even though it’s a Skinner weapon. I should have just kept it.”
She broke into her reserves of strength to keep the tears from eyes that subtly became feline before shifting back again. “If the rest of my kind found out I played a part in trying to harm a shapeshifter, I’d be considered a traitor and…I don’t even want to think about how they’ll make an example of me. I have a niece that lives up in Canada, and it was as far away as I could get from here. Brad was the only Skinner willing to trust me and come such a long way at the request of a Mongrel. I don’t know how that Full Blood knew we were there or if it just happened to catch our scent, but no Skinner will ever trust me again.”
“Gerald and Brad were the only two Skinners there,” Cole said. “At least, I think they were.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jackie said solemnly. “The others will know. Everyone always finds out everything. I’m so sick of it all.”
“Where did Henry come from?”
“Someplace called Lancroft. It’s up in Wisconsin, but I don’t know any more than that.”
Cole shook his head as the sensation of drowning once again swirled through his head. “Maybe you should tell this to Paige. She’ll know more about—”
“No,” Jackie cut in. She leaned against him so her breasts touched the front of his body. “The only reason I came all the way back here is to honor my deal with Brad. He…let’s just say I owe him a favor, and telling all I know about Henry and Misonyk was going to be my way of paying him back. After what happened to him and Gerald, I know he would’ve wanted someone else to hear this. I don’t know if you’re a Skinner or not, but I do know you can pass this along so it can do some good.”
“All right, then. What do you know about Misonyk?” Cole asked.
“He’s crazy and powerful, but that happens to a lot of the older Nymar. He talks about slaughtering humans to drink their souls and nailing Skinners to the floors of dark rooms. He’s insane. That’s why most Nymar don’t pay any attention to him. At least, they didn’t before Henry came along.
“Henry is one of them,” she continued, “but he’s also one of us. I’ve never seen one just like him, but his scent is close to a Full Blood’s. When Henry was just a rumor among the Nymar, Brad was the one who wanted to take action. The old man was content to let anything go as long as it only killed Nymar, but I knew there was more to it than that. I could hear it.”
“You could hear it?”
Jackie nodded and tapped the side of her head just above her ear. “It was a whisper at first. I thought I was hearing things or maybe…maybe going crazy. But it wasn’t just me that heard. Every Mongrel I know heard it. Maybe every shapeshifter in the state could hear it.”
“What did they hear?”
“Crazy thoughts at first,” Jackie explained, as if just the memory was enough to make her uncomfortable. “Words that were strung together without a space or a breath in between them. Conversations with God. Most of it didn’t make any sense. When I got close enough to Henry to pick up his true scent, I knew those whispers were his thoughts. He screamed them from his mind. Stuck in there amid all the babble and all Misonyk’s teachings was something else. It was one of the few coherent things in all those thoughts, and it was a gift that could only be given to us by that twisted piece of filth.”
Not knowing whether she was talking about Henry or Misonyk, Cole tried to push her through whatever had caused her eyes to wander and her voice to trail off. “I’m listening.”
Her head flinched so she could look straight at him again. The ends of her hair tickled his skin. “After spending so much time around the Nymar, Henry discovered the lie that we’ve all been told, and he shouted it into the minds of every shapeshifter for hundreds of miles in every direction. By now all of them may know.”
“What lie?”
Her eyes narrowed as if she was looking at him in a new way. “My kind should thank Henry for what he’s told us. We should all just pray that no Full Bloods were around to hear it.” Turning away from him, Jackie headed for the window. “There’s a lot of Nymar in Henry’s scent, so maybe that part of him will overpower the rest.”
Feeling his urgency growing now that Jackie had already made it to the window, Cole snapped, “What lie? You want to tell me these things, then start making sense!”
“I’ve told you plenty. Bring this to one of your partners and they’ll know what it means. Even if Misonyk was using some sort of mental link to control Henry, those thoughts are being screamed out to the rest of us. We know what Henry’s capable of. Sooner or later he’ll break free. When that happens…” She pulled the window open with a hand that had already begun to grow claws. “All I wanted to do was let the Skinners know what they’re up against. You’re the ones who do the fighting, so use the weapon I gave you. I have to go. Henry will be able to smell me long before I can smell him, and that wouldn’t be good for either of us.”
Jackie turned her back to him and lifted one leg through the open window. Cole started to follow her and said, “Maybe you should tell Paige about this. I may not remember all of it.”
“You’d better remember,” Jackie replied. “’Cause I’m done. I owed Brad a big favor, but I’ve done more than enough to see it through. Best of luck to you, Cole. Maybe I’ll look in on you again.” Lowering her line of sight below his waist, she added, “You’ve definitely got some promise.”
Cole adjusted the sheet in his hand to cover himself up. Before he could say or do anything else, Jackie had shifted into her black and gray animal form. Her body simply flowed from one shape to another as if she had smoke for flesh and water for bones. With one effortless leap, she jumped out the window and was gone.
He didn’t bother looking outside to see where she went. He started losing sight of Jackie the moment her fur had fully sprouted. He lunged for one of his phones and dialed the number for Rasa Hill. Paige picked up on the third ring, and he explained what had happened as she yawned on the other end. When he was done, Cole expected something drastic from Paige. What he got were a few simple words.
“Get some sleep,” she told him.
“Isn’t this important?”
“Yes, but we both need a few hours sleep. Besides, I’m waiting to hear from a couple different sources and we’re not going anywhere until I do. Just come back here early in the morning.”
“What about my wound?”
“It’s just a scratch?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Sleep it off.”
“These things are tracking me, Paige,” Cole snarled. “Gerald was right. At least one of ’em’s got my scent, and I don’t like it.”
“Yeah, that’s never fun,” Paige yawned.
“I won’t be able to shake them, will I?”
After a bit of a pause she told him, “There’s a few options, but nothing’s guaranteed.”
“What’s this lie Jackie mentioned? Is that something you know about?”
“All Nymar lie,” she replied simply. “We can sift through it all later. Stop talking so much and get some rest.”
Cole ran his fingers along the scratches on his shoulder and felt his stomach clench. A while ago getting back to a normal life seemed possible. He could always settle back in and try to forget about the weirdness he’d seen. Now, the weirdness hadn’t just beaten him up a few times, but had followed him across national borders and shared a fairly intimate moment with him. There was no easy way to forget about that.
“I want in, Paige,” he said. “Since this shit is just going to follow me around, I might as well do something more than wait for it to find me. It’s either become a Skinner or spend
the next bunch of years looking over my shoulder waiting for the next thing to track me down.”
Paige’s voice was still tired, but it was also soft and comforting. “You really need to sleep on it, Cole. We’ll talk about it more tomorrow. Are you all right where you’re at?”
“Sure,” he replied as he looked over at the window that was still hanging from its broken bracket. “I think I can kiss my deposit good-bye, though. Do you think they’ll come after me again?”
“Sounds to me like she could’ve killed you already if she wanted. You’re welcome to stay here, you know.”
Cole looked around at the shredded mattress and messy room. “I’ll think of something. See you in the morning, Paige.”
Since Jackie had tracked him all the way from Canada, going to another hotel didn’t seem like it would do much good. He also didn’t want to head back to Rasa Hill. After all the shapely female bodies he’d seen that night, he needed some quiet time.
Chapter 12
The sun was making its first appearance for the day when Cole left the hotel. Rather than try to get comfortable on a bed that had been ripped apart, he’d wrapped himself in the comforter and fallen asleep in a chair. After a quick and very cold shower, he climbed down a set of stairs so he didn’t have to walk past the front desk on his way outside. He simply didn’t want his free breakfast enough to take the chance of being forced to make up a reason for all the noise that had come from his room the night before. After circling the building, he walked down the street and found a cab parked in front of a little drive-through coffee place.
Cole bought a large Colombian blend and a bagel, hopped into the cab and gave the address for Rasa Hill. When the cab pulled up to the abandoned restaurant, he spotted another car parked just outside the front door. The early morning sun was obscured by a thick patch of clouds, making it difficult for him to see much of the car’s details. Ditching the rest of his bagel and swigging the remaining coffee, he bolted from the cab and rushed toward the restaurant.
The cabbie was quick to grab a chipped baseball bat from under his seat and take off after him. He ran a few paces before letting out a hacking cough that had been fermenting in his lungs since he’d first started smoking nonfiltered cigarettes and shouted, “Get yer ass back here! You owe me money, goddammit!”
Cole approached the front of the restaurant, pulled on the front door and found it locked. Without so much as glancing back at the angry cabbie, he circled around to the side of the building.
“Hey!” the cabbie yelled. “I’ll kick yer ass!”
The cabbie ran as fast as his legs would carry him, keeping his bat cocked near his head and ready to swing as he approached the restaurant. When he cleared the front, he could see Cole around the next corner farther along the building. Then, from the shadows surrounding a stack of empty crates, a pale redhead stepped up and placed her hand around the cabbie’s throat.
The redhead wasn’t much shorter than the cabbie, but she looked to be at least fifty pounds lighter. Her arms and legs were covered in black nylon. Whatever curves were present on her skinny figure were accentuated by a dark purple miniskirt and matching tube top. Darkly painted lips curled into a smile as she tightened her grip upon the cabbie’s throat and absorbed a blow from the bat without so much as a flinch.
“What’s the matter, cutie?” the redhead asked as she smiled to reveal one set of short, thin fangs that curled down to brush against the side of her tongue. “You’d get a lot more action if you didn’t swing your little bat around like that.”
As Cole rushed around the building, he looked for anything he could use as a weapon. The first thing he grabbed was a stick. He replaced that with a rock a few seconds later. By the time he got within sight of the restaurant’s back door, he threw the rock away and replaced it with a piece of lumber from a broken pallet. There was a bunch of trash cans next to the back door, but he didn’t take one of those. He did grab something else that seemed useful and then pulled at the door before he had enough time to think better of it.
The door opened into a dark and quiet storeroom. He stomped in to try and draw as much attention as he could. “Paige!” he shouted. “Are you in here?”
There was a rustling to his left. When he turned, he tightened both hands around the makeshift weapons he’d collected and prepared to put them to use. A man stepped through the door that led to the kitchen and took a moment to look him up and down. He was around Cole’s height, had a similar build, and a rusty hue to his skin. Stringy black hair was combed over to one side, but the other side of his head was buzzed almost down to the scalp.
The man took one step forward, squinted into the darkness and parted his lips to show one set were extended canines and the others, growing beside them, were thinner and curved.
“Where’s Paige?” Cole snarled as he planted his feet and squared his shoulders.
“She’s here,” the man replied in a smooth, casual voice.
“I want to see her. If you’ve hurt her—”
“Take it easy, slick.”
“Fuck easy!” Cole snapped. “Anything that’s happened to her, I’ll make sure it happens to you twice as bad.”
Taking another few steps forward, the man said, “I don’t know who you are, but you got your signals crossed.”
“I’ll decide that once I see Paige.”
The man had both hands open and out to his sides. Lifting his chin a bit, he looked over Cole’s shoulder and asked, “How did this guy get past you, Steph?”
Cole grinned and shook his head. Before he could say anything about not being tricked to look away, he felt the gentle touch of fingernails against his shoulder.
“I had to take care of the cab driver,” replied the redhead in the nylon body stocking and tube top.
The sound of that voice and the brush of those nails caused Cole to twist around and take a swing with the piece of lumber he was carrying. There was some power behind it, but his arm was batted away with just as much effort as the redhead had used to tickle his shoulder. Steph kept walking and then flicked her fingernails against Cole’s chin. Winking, she licked the edge of the slender fangs she had on display. Her skin was the color of fresh milk, giving a sharp contrast to the black lines running along her neck and making her hair look just a bit brighter than freshly spilled blood.
“Where’s Paige?” Cole demanded. “You can bring out all the helpers you want, but if she’s dead, you’ll all get piled up in the same corner!”
Steph stood in front of Cole with her hip cocked in one direction and her head cocked in the other. Running her hand up between her breasts, she kept it going until she could slide her tongue out between her fangs and lick her fingertips. “If that short broad with the dark hair told me you were coming, I would’ve worn a little less.” Her eyes slowly moved down until she got a look at what Cole was holding. Then her smile widened and she started laughing in a way that was anything but seductive. “I knew you Skinners were low-tech, but come on!”
This time Cole couldn’t help but follow the vampire’s gaze. He was holding his lumber in one hand like a sword, and a trash can lid in the other like a shield. All he needed to finish his outfit was a hat made out of folded newspaper.
When Steph laughed at him even harder, Cole swung his left arm out to catch her with a backhanded blow. The trash can lid banged against her torso, forcing her to take a couple stumbling steps to the side. He moved around and built up some momentum so he could push her toward the back door and into the breaking dawn.
Steph was still laughing, but she was also trying to sink her nails into Cole’s arm. Just as she was about to reach around his bargain bin shield, she was knocked through the doorway with enough force to separate a man’s shoulder. Wincing while still moving backward, she didn’t truly look angry until her shoes scraped against the ground and one of her heels snapped off beneath her weight.
Lowering his shoulder, Cole gave one more push so the vampire was completely clear of the
building. He could feel the warmth of daylight in the air, but the sun wasn’t quite high enough to clear the top of the building across the street. Raising his shield once more, he charged at Steph again. When he hit her, it was like pounding against a brick wall. Even so, he swung his piece of lumber and connected with her upraised arm. He followed up by driving the end of the lumber into Steph’s belly and pushing her beyond the shadow cast by the restaurant.
She hobbled upon one broken heel and spun away from him. When she whipped back around to face him, her face was illuminated by the rising sun.
“How do you like that, bitch?” Cole asked victoriously.
Steph stood there with her snarl in place. She looked up and squinted into the dull glow of the dawn, then looking back at Cole, straightened and lowered her chin to display a well-practiced pout. “Oh help me,” she droned. “I am burning.”
Cole’s brow furrowed as he looked up to double-check that the sun was shining on her. It was a long cry from high noon, but that bright ball in the sky was pretty distinctive.
Now, Steph was laughing so hard she could barely form a sentence. Lifting one arm to place it dramatically along her forehead, she tossed her head back and let out a sob that could have been plucked from any daytime soap opera. “I am burning! Oh, curse you pure rays of the sun. You have cast me out and now I will surely perish in a storm of ash.”
Letting out a sigh, Cole grumbled, “I get it. You can cut the act.”
“You have slain me, valiant knight,” she wailed. “Your shield and magic helmet were too much for me.”
“I get it!” Cole shouted.
Since Steph was having too much fun carrying on and not burning in the sunlight, he went back inside, to find her companion waiting for him. This time, however, the man was not alone.
Skinners: Blood Blade Page 15
