This time, however, it was no orderly that came to torture and humiliate him. It was the man from Philadelphia himself. The fool was as tall and brutish as Misonyk had remembered. His graying hair was gathered behind his head in a thick ponytail by a short length of twine. Even the whiskers sprouting from his gaunt face reflected how time was having its way with him. Until he’d actually seen how the years had scratched that face, Misonyk wasn’t aware that he’d been laying on that floor for so very long.
Stomping over to Misonyk as two of the regular orderlies filed into the room, the fool dropped to one knee and grabbed his face in one hand. Misonyk tried to struggle, but the lucky bastard responded by grabbing and twisting the stake in his chest as if working a lever. When Misonyk was almost unconscious from pain, the fool from Philadelphia stuck his fingers into the swollen sack under the left side of Misonyk’s tongue and pulled the delicate Nymar seedlings out from where they naturally collected. The seeds of his species might have gathered in a different spot than they did for humans, but that spot was just as sensitive for a Nymar as it was for any man. Misonyk tried to clamp down on the fool’s hand, but his jaw was already held in place by a rusted metal wedge.
No one, human or Nymar, had ever wounded Misonyk that way. The pain spiked from that protected sac under his tongue, all the way down to the spore attached to his heart. Even through all of that, he was able to hear the fool’s voice.
“I imagine this hurts you,” the fool from Philadelphia said. “But I have also gathered that you quite enjoyed raping the women of the nearby towns until they’d lost too much blood to provide you with a meal.”
That one made Misonyk smile. Such fond memories would sustain him for several more weeks in that room.
“I would imagine their spirits are enjoying this show very much indeed,” the fool said as he pinched the nerves that attached the seedling gland to Misonyk’s jaw. The man then tore the sac loose and held it out far enough for Misonyk to see it before he finally cut the last remaining nerve with a quick swipe of a short dagger. “You’ll roast in hell for the sins you committed against all those good people, but not until I’m through with you. At least you’ll do some bit of good before you rot away.” Looking over to the other men who had filed into the room, he held the sac out until one of them stepped forward holding a glass jar that was half full of a cloudy liquid.
Once the sac was dropped into the liquid, the other man asked, “What should I do with this, Mr. Lancroft?”
The fool from Philadelphia made sure to lock eyes with Misonyk as he replied, “Take it to the lab inside the mansion. And be careful. It’ll take a long time to collect another batch like that. Personally, I’d rather kill this piece of manure rather than keep him alive that long.”
The rest of the men nodded and backed out of the room.
The fool from Philadelphia knelt down so he could look into Misonyk’s eyes. He pushed the lids open and even pulled the Nymar’s lips up so he could get a look at the fangs extending from the gum line as he removed the wedge. Misonyk snapped, but the fool’s hand was pulled back with reflexes that were marginally impressive for a human.
“Lancroft,” Misonyk hissed.
The fool nodded and stood up. As he stepped out of the room, he turned to face the men in the hall. “Keep an eye on the vampire and see what’s bothering Henry. Work up a new schedule so both of them can be observed for any changes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Misonyk reached his decision as one of his keepers was about to lock the door to his cell. Before the men could get too far away, he pushed out a loud breath and used most of his strength to scrape his leg against the floor. Thankfully, that was enough.
“See if he needs to be tied down,” he heard Lancroft say. “I’ve got to look in on a few of the others.”
“Yes, sir.”
One of the remaining orderlies came back to Misonyk and stared down at him from a safe distance. Misonyk could practically taste the fear dripping out of him. Forcing himself to groan and turn his face to one side was enough to draw the curious monkey closer. When the orderly was close enough, Misonyk faced him again and spat venom into his face. After all the time he’d been laying there, he had collected more than enough in his throat to get the job done. Like a good, frightened little animal, the orderly rubbed at his face and eyes to make sure plenty of the cloudy fluid got where it needed to be. Mere seconds after wiping himself off, the monkey responded to the intense glare in Misonyk’s eyes.
Come…closer, Misonyk thought. Each syllable grated against his agonized mind, but proved to be worth the effort as the orderly leaned forward.
Misonyk could have sunk his fangs in then and there, but he resisted. He could have ordered the man to remove the remnants of the spear in his chest and help him up, but Misonyk was too weak to put up the fight that would be necessary to get him outside of Lancroft’s walls. Since it would take a long while to produce more venom, he used the chance he’d been given.
Get those spores. When Misonyk saw the confusion on the monkey’s face, he added, The things in that jar. Take them and give them to the wild man across the hall. You will tell Lancroft the jar was dropped. Do you understand?
The orderly glanced toward the door and nodded.
Come back…every day, Misonyk ordered, putting as much power into his thoughts that his weakened body could manage. Blood you take from me…will be shared with him.
It took all of Misonyk’s strength to project so many words, but he got them out. The monkey left and pulled the door shut behind him. Even after he’d been locked into his room, Misonyk could watch from his new puppet’s eyes as the jar was retrieved and then brought to the room across from his. Henry fought and screamed, but the puppet carried out his task. A few of the monkeys came to help and might have been killed by the wild man, but Misonyk knew that would only leave Henry with some much-needed sustenance. Eventually, the fighting stopped and Henry’s shouts were silenced.
Before long Misonyk’s eyes snapped open and he fought the urge to scream. It wasn’t normally possible for a Provider to pass along more than one seedling at a time, so that added a few more voices to the hellish symphony already filling poor Henry’s thoughts. The connection was made. The spores had been fed to Henry, but now Misonyk found himself in the mind of a madman. It didn’t take long for him to learn that Henry was no man. He was a creature struggling to find his new shape. A creature with a head full of demons preventing him from taking his true form.
Misonyk closed his eyes and tried to block Henry’s screams from his mind. The spore required time to nest.
Time crawled along.
The wild man grew wilder. Although he wasn’t progressing as Misonyk had expected, Henry was indeed able to hear the thoughts that he sent him.
Lancroft and his helpers continued to check in on him to see about harvesting spores to replace the ones that had gone missing, only to find that some parts of Nymar physiology were slower to heal than others.
The link between Henry and Misonyk was strong, thanks to the multitude of spores forced into Henry’s body, but it wasn’t a normal transition from man into Nymar. Instead, the process was slowed by something else. The wildness inside of Henry kept any of the Nymar spores from embracing his heart as they so desperately wanted to do. The spores continued to grow, however, and were consistently fed as Henry got his hands on more and more of Lancroft’s men. Soon, Henry was strong enough to start digging.
Poor Henry. He loved his room, but Misonyk pressed him to find a way out. When the monkeys couldn’t get close enough to touch Henry without losing a piece of themselves, they started firing their weapons into Henry’s beloved room. They even tried to starve him and beat him into submission. It was even rumored that somewhere along the way one of the workers had snapped poor Henry’s neck.
Throughout this time, Misonyk comforted Henry as any good Lord should. When the explosions came and the floors above Misonyk’s cell collapsed, the only thing he or Hen
ry could do was listen.
Years later, as Henry kept screaming and scraping at his walls with torn and bloody fingers, Misonyk urged him on. The wolf inside of Henry kept him alive. It also forced the spores inside of him to squirm in his belly, wriggle between his organs, and occasionally fight one another like eels trapped within a suffocating prison. That struggle turned out to be a blessing, since it kept Henry awake day and night for years on end so he could continue digging.
By the time Misonyk heard the crumbling of shattered stone and the splintering of reinforced wood, the spear in his chest had almost rotted away. Since there was nothing on which to feed, it was all Misonyk could do to keep himself alert and ready to move in the event that Henry finally fulfilled his Lord’s command.
That day came after over one hundred years of imprisonment.
Misonyk could smell Henry’s fetid hide and hear his nonsensical ravings as he’d scraped at the door that had been shut so long ago. As soon as that door gave way, Misonyk wanted to pounce upon the man who’d opened it and drink until he could feel the spore swell once more within him. Instead, all he could do was lay beneath the dust that had formed a filthy cocoon around him and wait to see Henry with his own eyes. When he did, Misonyk almost felt sorry for the poor wretch.
Almost, but not quite.
Henry’s body swelled and shrank, unable to stop as long as the Nymar spore fought the beast inside of him for sole ownership of the man’s soul. Somehow, Henry managed to stand before Misonyk as his head dangled at the end of a broken neck.
“God?” the wretch whispered.
Misonyk turned his head, but just enough to crack the thick layers of filth encrusted upon his neck. You must heal me, Misonyk thought. And then we can walk together.
For a moment Henry simply gawked down at Misonyk. After he moved closer, Henry’s eyes finally settled upon the remains of the spear lodged in Misonyk’s chest. The pain Misonyk felt as the remains of Lancroft’s weapon was pulled free was the best thing the Nymar had felt in all of his years. Pressing his hand against the phantom splinters marking the spot where the spear had resided for all that time, he stood up and smiled at Henry.
The sounds of a changed world drifted from above the ruins of Lancroft. Machines rumbled and humanity bleated their nonsense without so much as a thought as to who might be listening. Misonyk was hungrier than he’d ever thought possible. Stay here until I come back for you.
“Then can I walk?” Henry grunted.
You’ll be able to run.
Chapter 19
Present day
Cole staggered back and bounced off a wall. The back of his head cracked against brick, which made everything around him blur. When he blinked and struggled to regain his balance, he was no longer seeing through Misonyk’s eyes or on Lancroft’s floor. He was outside in the cold night air as the familiar thump of bass echoed behind him.
“What did you do to him?” Paige shouted as she moved to catch Cole before he bounced off anything else.
Misonyk stepped back and was immediately flanked by the two larger Nymar with him. “Nothing yet,” he said.
As Cole steadied himself, Paige stepped in front of him. “And if you try to get your hooks into him again, I’ll kill all of you right here and now.”
Although the men flanking Misonyk were waiting for their orders, Misonyk looked as if he was merely deciding which part of Paige he should rip off first. “You should know better than this, Skinner,” he said. “Defy me any longer and if Henry doesn’t kill you, my sect will complete the task.”
“I’m betting these four assholes and that freak are all the sect you’ve managed to scrape up. If you think that’s enough to keep the cops busy, then just keep making noise until they get here.”
Eyeing Cole furiously, Misonyk wheeled around and headed for the parking lot. While the two bigger Nymar followed him, the one in the bulky overcoat stayed behind. As the pounding rhythm inside Shimmy’s faded from one rap song into another, the remaining Nymar reached beneath his coat and brought out a weapon that looked like a cross between a shotgun and an automatic rifle. The wide black barrel was easy to recognize, but the drum beneath the barrel gave the shotgun more of an edge. Cole might not have known exactly what the shotgun was called, but he made a note to find out and use it in the next game that called for big holes to be punched through things in a loud fashion.
Paige crouched a bit and reached toward the side of her boot where her club was hidden within its pouch and beneath her jeans. “Just leave,” she said. “That is, unless you want this to get real messy real quick.”
Although the gun-toting Nymar didn’t seem impressed by her threat, he backed up a step anyway. Once a car rolled up behind him, he got inside and didn’t shut his door until the car was moving too fast for him to keep his gun aimed at Paige.
“Stay right here, Cole,” she said. “I’ll make sure they’re gone and then I’ve got to have another look around. As soon as I know it’s safe, I’ll bring the car to you.”
Cole allowed himself to slide down against the wall until his butt hit the cold ground. Pressing his hands against his forehead alleviated some of the throbbing in his skull. After rubbing his face and eyelids, the only moisture he felt was from the perspiration that had begun to work through his skin. Apparently, Misonyk had been too surprised by his mental maneuver to spit any more venom at him. A few minutes later Paige stomped from the front of the building to close in on the garbage bins.
“I swear to everything that’s holy,” she growled, “if one more man stares at my chest tonight, I am going to plant my boot in his ass! Would you believe some assholes in the parking lot were too busy watching me to notice which way Misonyk went?” Putting her hands on her hips and looking around as if searching for someone to hit, Paige took a few more breaths and asked, “You all right, Cole?”
“Yeah. I was just—”
“Good,” she said. “Now let’s get out of here.”
“What about Misonyk? Is he…gone?”
Paige hooked a thumb toward the main parking lot and said, “They left, but something else was sniffing around here. It may have been another Mongrel or it may have been something worse. Whatever it is, it’s gone too.”
“And I thought you’d be anxious to follow them.”
“Don’t need to. Prophet’s agreed to help us and should be tailing Misonyk right now. He also gave us some real good leads that point us to a spot west of here, so that’s where we’re going. Now why don’t you tell me what was happening with you. When I heard you got bounced, I came outside and saw you and Misonyk having some sort of special moment.”
Cole followed her back to the parking lot, but couldn’t shake the feeling that someone else was going to jump him at any second. He started telling her about what he’d seen when Misonyk attempted to enter his mind again, but gave up once they reached the car. “Wait a second. What was sniffing around here?”
“It was a shapeshifter. It was too far away for me to tell what kind, but it was a real big one with black fur. It could have been just trying to draw me out far enough to take a run at me, but there’s no time to worry about that. We need to get moving.”
“Could it have been Henry?”
Page shook her head. “I doubt it. No shapeshifters can change their markings that much.”
“He’s a lot more than just some shapeshifter.”
Now that she’d settled in behind the wheel, Paige looked over at him with an intense glare. “What did you find out?” she asked. “Did Misonyk do anything else to you?”
Shaking his head enough to rattle his aching brain, Cole dropped into the passenger seat. “He didn’t get any more of that shit on me, but I still got that asshole rattling around in my head. Or…maybe I was rattling inside of his.”
“All right,” Paige grunted as she threw the car into gear and sped toward the interstate. “Start talking.”
Cole told her what he’d seen from start to finish. When he was done, he adde
d, “I shouldn’t have even left the table back there. This is my fault, Paige. I’m sorry.”
She sighed again, but looked over at him reassuringly. “Don’t be sorry, Cole. There was nothing you could have done. Nymphs have been tempting stronger men than you for a real long time.”
“And what about Misonyk being able to track us?”
“If Misonyk went through the trouble of bringing you to him, his hold on you must have been weakening. But that’s only the start of it,” she added. “There’s rumblings at the top of the food chain that is way over our heads.”
“How far over?” Cole asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
The rest of the ride passed in relative silence.
Misonyk’s presence in his mind was gone.
The shapeshifter with the black fur was nowhere to be found.
Apparently, those at the top of the chain didn’t need to explain themselves to the lower links.
The hotel they stopped at was just off the highway in a place called Big Bend. For some reason, Cole had expected to spend the night in a rat trap with bugs on the walls and rusty water in the pipes. Instead, Paige had pulled up to a place that might even have earned a star or two more than the Afton Inn. And yes, it served free breakfast.
As soon as she unlocked the door to their room, she stepped inside, dropped her bags, and headed for the bathroom. “Walter should be here before long,” she said through the door. “I need to get the stink of all that cigarette smoke off of me.”
Cole pulled his collar up so he could take a whiff of himself. Although the odor of stale smoke permeated his clothes, there was still more than enough of Tristan’s scent to overpower it. He savored the sweet smell and the memories that came with it until the other odors crept back into his nose. “I thought you said Walter wasn’t a Skinner.”
“He’s not,” Paige replied through the bathroom door. “He’s only along this time as a favor.” After that, the bathroom filled with sounds of water running through the shower, mixed with a few contented sighs.
Skinners: Blood Blade Page 23
