Teeth of Beasts (Skinners)

by Marcus Pelegrimas

  “It’s the marrow,” Lancroft snarled. Having reshaped his staff into the oval-shaped weapon he’d used to cut Ned down, he switched his entire stance and fighting style to accommodate the new weapon. “Half Breeds carry their sickness in their saliva, but it needs to make contact with bone marrow for it to take root. Just knowing one simple bit of information like that should make Half Breeds less of a problem. Just as knowing that Pestilence is an exotic virus and not the fabled creeping death of Incan and Mayan mythology.”

  Panting after the relentless attack, Paige said, “I’ll be sure to put that tidbit in my journal and credit it to the fucking asshole who killed Ned Post.” She went on the offensive using both of her weapons like a pair of scissors. Her sickle was blocked before cutting Lancroft’s throat, but the machete came in to shave large portions of flesh from both of his arms. Even with his advanced healing, a healthy dose of pain flashed across his face.

  When Henry saw Lancroft recoil, the boy anxiously bared crooked teeth that were covered in a slick coat of the substance kicked up from the back of his throat.

  Desperate to keep the Mud People from charging, Cole decided to give Henry something more pertinent to listen to. “Is this the same offer you gave to Misonyk when you let him infect Henry?”

  For the first time since the conversation started, Lancroft appeared shaken. He glanced at Henry, but the strain of the fight made it tougher for him to put on a convincing poker face. “Misonyk was more demon than Nymar. It’s because of him that I needed to dispose of my cherished reformatory. I poured my heart and soul into every stone of that institution. There is no way you could possibly know how much good I did there.”

  Moving so Lancroft was forced to edge away from her and Cole, Paige imagined Rico’s line of fire and inched the old man toward it. She kept him talking in the hopes that he might forget Rico was even there. “I’ve been to the reformatory,” she said. “It’s a pit. A den for Half Breeds.”

  Strangely enough, Lancroft smiled. With Paige standing between him and Henry, he was forced to move away from the door while defending against her incoming blades. Their weapons clacked together in a quick rattle of impacts, each one coming faster than its predecessor. “It was necessary to destroy the entire facility. Such a horrible loss. To be honest, I thought I’d lost the drive to continue my work. And then Henry found me.”

  The little boy rubbed the door frame and leaned toward the temple, but stopped before crossing the threshold.

  Curling his fingers around to brush the scars on his palms, Lancroft glared at Paige and asked, “Where is the Nymar you brought with you?”

  Henry’s young face twisted around before Daniels separated from the pack of Mud People behind him. When the Nymar grabbed the boy by the shoulders to yank him into the workshop, both Skinners took that as a cue to lunge at Lancroft. Cole almost got close enough to hit the old man before he spotted the bladed oval lashing in a tight arc aimed at his hamstrings. Pure instinct brought his spear down to smack aside the blade that would have crippled him.

  “Bring him in here, Daniels!” Paige shouted as she tore after Lancroft.

  The Nymar could be seen through the doorway, struggling with the much smaller boy. Even though Daniels outweighed his opponent by a hefty margin, the kid was lean, agile, and powered by something more than the Pestilence running through his veins. “Now you’ve done it!” the boy screamed in a pitch of the same frequency as an iron glove on a chalk-board. When he shrieked again, his voice ripped through the basement and through all of the minds within it.

  I’m not supposed to be here! AND NEITHER ARE YOU!

  Daniels and Henry both fell into the temple as Cole raced after Lancroft. The older man may have slipped past him, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid getting tackled by Paige. When Lancroft was slammed face-first into the wall beside the door, Cole intended on nailing him there with his spear. The sharpened point caught Lancroft in the ribs and tore through the protective jacket to reveal metal plates attached by a series of latches spaced every eight to ten inches vertically along his back. Lancroft quickly twisted around so the spearhead skidded off his back and into the wall. As Paige tried to hit him again, he sent her into the same wall.

  Cole swept low, but only scraped Lancroft’s ankle before the old man hopped up to avoid the follow-through from the spear’s forked end. When Lancroft’s foot came down again, it pinned the spear to the floor so his other foot could slam down on Cole’s hand. With Cole pinned, Paige kicked straight over his head to pound her heel against Lancroft’s hip. Not only did the kick move him away from Cole, but it set him up for a quick attack from both her weapons. The sickle ripped diagonally along Lancroft’s chest, while the machete came down toward the base of his neck. He blocked the machete and willed his weapon to close around it so he could ease it safely away as his wound was healed.

  “Slower with your right arm, I see,” Lancroft said. “That’s what happens when you muck about with things you don’t understand.”

  Her right arm was also stronger, and she reclaimed her machete with a quick tug before slashing again and again at Lancroft’s face and chest. “Get to Henry!” she said to Cole. “You know what to do!”

  The old man defended against the blows and backed toward the examination room. Unable to do more than get in Paige’s way, Cole hurried to the workshop to help Daniels.

  Henry struggled with the Nymar, but the boy was too small to break free. When Daniels locked him up in a bear hug, Henry exploded from his shell in a burst of energy that smeared through the stagnant air of the basement and was absorbed by one of the closest Mud People. After taking residence in the body of a large man dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, Henry jumped at Daniels and then abandoned ship so the lumpy body hit Daniels like a couple hundred pounds of dead weight. As soon as the Nymar hit the floor, a blond woman raced over to him and opened her mouth to let more of the mud drip from her mouth onto his face.

  The instant Cole arrived, he was assaulted by the Mud People. A short woman wearing butterfly pajamas tried to sink her teeth into his face. He shoved her back and took a few more steps into the workshop before filthy hands grabbed at him and his weapon from all directions. All Cole could do was shift the weapon into its blunted longbow form and push forward. When the Mud People all tried to push him back at once, Cole shifted his balance and twisted his entire body around in a tight circle that sent several of them to the floor.

  Mud People stumbled down the stairs into the basement and flopped in through the windows. Although Henry seemed to be spreading himself thin by controlling so many of them, they were effective as a wave of solid bodies and grasping fingers. Two Mud People hung from Cole’s back, so he slammed backward against a wall and shook them off. A few older neighbors were easily pushed aside, but a pair of teenage boys had enough strength to pose a threat. One of them cocked his head to the side and loped at Cole in a distinctive way. As soon as the teen pushed off with both feet into a wild jump, Henry ditched that body in favor of another teen dressed in a wife beater and cutoff sweatpants. The human projectile knocked Cole against a bench less than a second before Henry was attacking him in his new body, using flailing arms and snapping teeth.

  Daniels wrestled with several Mud People himself, baring his fangs to compliment the savage, hungry look on his face.

  “Hey!” Cole shouted. “Don’t bite any of them!”

  The warning sank in, but not before Daniels was swallowed up by another wave of Mud People. He clamped his mouth shut and rolled onto his belly so he could cover his head with both hands.

  Even before the supernatural intervention, the teen in the beater may have been able to wrestle Cole to the ground. When he strained his muscles to the limit, the Skinner felt a surge through his upper body that allowed him to haul the bigger guy up and over his hip. Henry’s back thumped against the concrete floor, where he swelled up to the largest size his human body would allow and lunged at Cole with the ferocity of a true Full Blood. />
  Cole drove his shoulder into Henry’s gut and then shoved the teenage body down. Not only did the air leave the teen’s lungs, but Henry flew out of him as well. The Mud People closed in around Cole as Henry raked the painted nails of an elderly woman across the Skinner’s face. When Cole twisted around to face the old woman, Henry had vacated her for yet another body.

  A large woman with curly hair jumped onto Cole’s back and screamed in his ear. Before he could force her off, he was being punched by three other sets of fists. He shook free just long enough to dodge a punch from a man with a face that had been completely caked in the crust of Pestilence. The orbs flew from him, leaping from one neighbor to another. Within seconds after sending two bodies flying at Cole, Henry used another as a battering ram. Cole ducked behind a workbench, waiting for the sickening crash of the clueless body against his makeshift shelter.

  This time, however, Henry stayed put for the collision. “Why don’t you cut me, Skinner?” he snarled. “Cut me open and see what’s inside.”

  The orbs flowed out and behind Cole. When he turned around, he found the same boy that had crawled through the window. Although his head was cocked at an angle, it wasn’t dangling from a broken neck. “You don’t want to hurt that kid, Henry,” Cole said.

  The boy lunged at Cole so quickly that the wood chisel in his hand was nearly buried into Cole’s stomach. Half a second before the narrow strip of metal sank home, Daniels grabbed the kid’s arm, bared his set of curved snakelike fangs and spat a wad of venom into his eyes.

  Henry jerked away from the Nymar and pressed his hands against his face as all of the Mud People screamed. When Henry ran out of breath, he sucked in another one and shrieked into his dirty palms.

  Ican’tsee!Whathaveyoudonetome?Can’tseecan’tseecan’t see! Stop it! I know you’re in my head! Knowyou’reinmyhead! StopitstopitstopitSTOPIT!

  For once Cole knew exactly what Henry was going through. Misonyk had been the first one to teach him about Nymar venom. Although intended to be injected through a bite, it could also be collected in the Nymar’s mouth and spat. The first method caused sluggishness, dizziness, or even paralysis in the victim. The second allowed Nymar to blind the recipient. If the poison got into someone’s eyes, it left them very susceptible to suggestion.

  “Don’t hurt this boy, Henry,” Daniels said.

  When Henry frowned and cocked his head in another direction, all the Mud People followed suit. “I got locked up for hurting kids,” he said through the boy’s mouth only. “I learned my lesson.”

  In a sterner voice, Daniels commanded, “Let go of them, Henry. Let all of these people go.”

  Henry tried to wipe the venom from his face, but Daniels held onto both of the kid’s hands.

  Looming over the kid like a troll from a cautionary fairy tale, Daniels said, “Whatever you’re doing to these people, stop it! Let them go.”

  Lancroft forced Paige toward the lab with a flowing series of attacks that made his staff look more like a crooked windmill. Her sickle rapped against the elongated weapon and the machete raked across his stomach. Paige tried to deliver a stronger swing aimed at the bloody gash she’d just opened, but she was held in place by a muddy hand.

  One filthy man in a bathrobe held onto her arm, and when she kicked him away, he fell and grasped her ankle. The foul smell of copper and dirt filled her nose as an entire room full of Henry’s playthings screamed and dropped to the floor. Something was happening to them that weakened Henry’s control.

  She kicked free of the muddy hands and raised her defenses just in time to prevent Lancroft’s weapon from taking her head off. The impact rattled through her entire body and sent her stumbling through the door to the examination room. Before she could get her bearings, Lancroft knocked her in the jaw with the middle section of his staff. She staggered back, ducked under another powerful swing and found herself in the middle of the starkly lit examination room.

  “You’re an interesting case, Paige,” Lancroft said. “With a little study, I should be able to iron out the kinks of your botched experiment and solve your mobility problem.”

  She used the blunt end of her sickle to flip one of the metal trays into the air and bat it at Lancroft with the machete. “What mobility problem?” she replied before bringing both weapons down in a double chop.

  Lancroft held his staff across his chest to block her assault and shifted it so the blades on each end curled into sharp hooks. With a quick scooping motion, he snagged her leg and ripped through a small section of flesh. The hook went in just far enough to get her blood flowing. The following attacks came in short, chopping blows using the middle section of his weapon or quick slices that scraped across the hardened flesh of Paige’s wounded arm.

  She recoiled from the gouging hooks and bounced off the edge of the large silver table into a row of metal cabinets. For every attack she blocked, another drew her blood. The only lull in the fight was when Lancroft knocked one end of his weapon into a recessed latch on the wall.

  Something moved behind her, but Paige wasn’t about to turn her back on the old man. Lancroft put all of his weight behind a charge that sent her backpedaling through an opening that had previously been hidden by a tall cabinet. Her foot reached the top of a flight of stairs and the rest of her fell back into empty air.

  Chapter 29

  The Mud People dropped to their hands and knees, scraping at the ground as if it was their new enemy. Those who tried too hard to talk were quickly reduced to a heaving pile of muscles that strained to vomit up the substance that had seeped into their throats.

  “Good boy,” Daniels said.

  Henry watched, his eyes wide and mouth agape. The faraway expression and gentle nod made it unclear if his agreement was due to the venom that had been sprayed into his host’s eyes or from some other pleasant diversion drifting through his addled brain.

  “Are they all free?” Cole asked.

  “Yes,” Henry replied. “Dr. Lancroft don’t need them no more anyhow.”

  Cole did a quick survey of the people in the basement. Several of them were climbing to their feet and wiping the gunk from their eyes. Others were nursing wounds where their flesh had been cut or scraped away to reveal the hardened, vaguely wooden texture of the underlying muscle. Once Cole told the most alert of the group how to get out, a slow exodus toward the stairs began.

  “Shit,” he said as the workshop emptied. “I don’t hear Paige anymore. They didn’t go past us, so there’s only one other place down here they could be. Bring Henry.”

  Daniels held onto the slick little hand and said, “Come with us, Henry.”

  The boy nodded and held onto him like a well-behaved youngster crossing the street.

  “How long will you be able to hold him?” Cole asked as he led the way through the temple and to the examination room.

  Daniels replied in a terse whisper, “I don’t know. I’ve never done this on someone like him.”

  “Just try to hang on.”

  Walking slowly and staring straight ahead, Daniels obviously wasn’t seeing much more than a few steps in front of him. He stepped over a few cowering Mud People only when his foot bumped into them. At times along the way he pulled in a sharp breath and muttered to himself. When the Nymar’s lips moved, Henry nodded.

  The lab was a mess. Dented cabinets, broken shelves, and spilled jars marked the path to a section in the corner that opened to reveal a flight of stairs. Cole had to choke down the instinct to run toward the sounds of activity that drifted up from the subbasement.

  Entering the starkly lit room without truly seeing where he was going, Daniels asked, “What do you want—Good God!”

  Cole stood next to the table and patted the massive set of ribs held apart by a set of spanners clamped directly onto the bones. “Henry, look at this.”

  The boy squirmed and shook his head. “I’m not supposed to be here. Notsupposed to be here. Notsupposedtobe here.”

  “You need to see this.”<
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  “Henry,” Daniels snapped. “Look.”

  Henry looked. The features on his little face twisted nervously before moisture glistened at the corners of his eyes. Mud-stained tears trickled down his face, cutting a path through the caked-on grime.

  Meeting the boy’s fearful stare, Cole said, “This is your body, Henry. Whatever Lancroft told you, I’m sure he didn’t tell you about this.”

  “You’re lying,” Henry said. “Dr. Lancroft wants to help me. He saved me from gettin’ hung.”

  Cole shook his head. “Look for yourself. Look what he’s done to you.”

  Daniels moved around behind the boy and nudged him toward the table. “Go on. Do what he says.” When the boy resisted, the Nymar shook his head. “I don’t know if I’ve still got him.”

  The boy’s eyes, murkier than the bottom of a lake, flicked open to take in every detail with a hatred that was too vast to reside in such a small body. “Dr. Lancroft will kill you for coming in here,” he swore.

  If he don’t, I will. IwillIwillIwillIwill.

  “Lancroft was always hiding things from you,” Cole said in a voice that had to be pushed through the oppressive weight in the air. “He’s the one who locked you up and made you sit in that corner.”

  The anger that had filled every inch of the boy’s frame shifted into melancholy. “I liked my corner.”

  “I know you did, but he trapped you in that room.”

  “I deserved to be there.”

  Before Cole could respond to that, images flickered through his mind: men in tattered clothes screamed as they were cut down by a Full Blood’s claws. Women cowered in root cellars, wrapping their arms around crying children, praying to be pulled apart first so their young ones might have a chance to get away.

  Instead of looking at the table, Henry studied the etchings on the walls. His mouth hung open in the same expression the boy might wear at a museum filled with towering displays of dinosaur bones and flying machines. “These are like the scripture written in my old room. They’re the words of the Lord.”