Teeth of Beasts (Skinners) (28 page)

“Once the bloodsuckers start feeding on infected people, there won’t be any more Nymar. And since I’ve observed how crazy the scent of nymph blood drives them, I can make them feed on whoever I choose.”

“And who will that be? Who will be handed over to be torn apart?”

“Every human that dies from the new strain will take at least one Nymar with them into eternity,” Lancroft replied. “There will always be plenty more humans to replenish the species, while Nymar will simply become the myth that everyone already thinks they are.”

Blood poured from Ned’s hands when he gripped the handle of his cane just as they had when he’d first learned to use his weapon. For years it had barely trickled when the scars were punctured, but now the thorns dug through thick, sensitive flesh.

“So you truly want to end our partnership?” Lancroft asked. “After I restored your sight, I would have thought you’d be convinced of how far my research has come. Today’s Skinners have gone astray. The good ones need to be
found and the rest need to be flushed away. I have resources and plenty of time to put them to use, but there is only so much I can do on my own.”

“Pestilence will purify the fallen,” the bartender hissed. “Pestilencewillpurifythefallen.”

“Yes, Henry,” Lancroft said patiently. “But we’re speaking now.” Once the bartender crouched low and backed into the nearest corner, Lancroft whispered, “I’ve been around since the early days when people had their eyes open and noticed things like empty graves, black auras, and shapes prowling the dark. They called me a quack back then, but Skinners maintained their resolve and kept fighting.” Slamming his open hand on the bar, he said, “No town was handed over to the Nymar just to make our battle easier! Not even the smallest village would have been given to a pack of Mongrels! Not
ever
! It wasn’t long ago that you agreed with me.”

Ned’s hands were slick with blood and pain flickered across his twitching face as his cane sluggishly gained a sharpened tip. “I agree something needed to be done after what happened in Kansas City. If those Half Breeds had been allowed to spread, they might have swept through the whole country.”

“That was from one Full Blood.” Holding up a finger to illustrate his point, Lancroft bellowed, “One wild stray. Thanks to us, the only Half Breeds you see on television or anywhere else are dead ones. We have Pestilence to thank for that.”

“But humans are the ones that are infected,” Ned reminded him.

Lancroft took his flask from Henry and tucked it into one of his jacket pockets. From another pocket, he removed a brass, richly engraved cigar case containing fragrant, hand-rolled cheroots. Lancroft selected one, struck a match against the rough side of the antique case, touched the flame to his cheroot and said, “Those that make the sacrifice will be doing it for the good of their species.”

“You’re full of shit.” Throwing a disgusted look at the bartender’s filthy shell, Ned said, “For all the preaching you do about Skinners making deals with monsters, you sure don’t seem to mind running with that one.”

“He’s not my partner. He’s a subject. Besides, you’d be amazed how much we can learn from someone like Henry.”

Back in his corner, the bartender perked up and watched the other two like a dog who’d just caught a whiff of fresh cold cuts.

“Even a fiend like Misonyk,” Lancroft added while puffing the cheroot. “When he was chained and bleeding like the stuck pig he was, he evolved. He forced Henry to evolve. It was really quite a beautiful thing.”

Ned blinked several times. So far it had taken an effort to keep from smiling at the glorious sights flooding in through his tingling eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe you don’t. Maybe I’ll explain it all to you. That depends on how quickly you hand over the ones who don’t uphold their duties as Skinners. The new fellow, Cole, has promise. That woman is an able fighter, but she is too quick to make a deal with the wrong species. Bring them both to me tomorrow. It’s the least you can do considering the gift I gave you.”

The hatred rolling through Ned’s chest wasn’t enough to eclipse the divinely subtle shift of light upon the rounded glasses and colored bottles behind the bar. Not even the pain in his hands or his cane’s stubborn refusal to shift any faster were enough to sully the joy he tried so desperately to hide. Shoving all of that aside, he forced his will into the sluggish weapon. “Put an end to this Pestilence business. We were wrong to think killing people to take out those Half Breeds was nothing but acceptable losses. Can’t you see that?”

Lancroft grabbed his staff as if he had every intention of driving it through the floor. “Don’t you dare preach to me, boy! I’ve killed more unnatural trash than you and everyone you know combined. There are breeds of shapeshifters that are
extinct
because of me.”

“Last chance,” Ned warned. “Pestilence must have an antidote. Give it to me.”

The answer he received was a quick slash from the long, slender blade at the end of Lancroft’s staff. Ned blocked the swing with a quickly upraised cane, stopping the other weapon less than an inch from his face.

Nodding, Lancroft said, “That’s the spirit I was looking for. Skinners are meant to fight. We don’t deal and we don’t give one inch of ground to our enemies.”

Stepping back into a lower stance, Ned raised his cane. The hook-shaped handle hadn’t shifted as much as he would have liked, but it was more than sharp enough to eviscerate the other Skinner. The two weapons rattled against each other in a flurry of blocks and parries that ended with Ned swinging the cane’s pointed lower end at the other man’s face level.

Lancroft ducked and followed through with a sweeping blow that connected with Ned’s ankle. When Ned fell onto his back, Lancroft drove the staff’s blade straight down toward his chest.

Pushing off with one foot, Ned rolled away so the incoming blade dug into the floor. He kicked the weapon out from under Lancroft and then rapped his cane against the nerve running down the side of his leg. Lancroft didn’t fall, but needed a moment to collect himself. Ned took that opportunity to scramble to his feet. Another of his slashing attempts was knocked away, so he thumped the handle of his cane against the hardened muscle of Lancroft’s stomach. By the time Ned brought the cane up toward the other man’s jaw, he’d added a row of short spikes to the curved strip of wood.

Lancroft leaned back and away to avoid the potentially disfiguring blow, which wasn’t enough to keep one of the spikes from dragging through the side of his chin. He reshaped his weapon into a shorter double-bladed version and swung at Ned’s throat. When the cane blocked the upper blade, he bent the staff in the middle like a large stick of rubber so the lower one could slice across Ned’s stomach.

Ned grasped his midsection and backed away, angling his cane to cover his retreat. When he looked toward Henry’s corner, he found the Mind Singer crouched on all fours, watching intently.

“What’s the matter, Ned?” Lancroft asked. “Not feeling the cool rush of serum in your veins? That scratch I gave you isn’t closing up like it should?”

It had been a while since Ned had actually been injured in a fight. Even so, the first cuts he’d been dealt shouldn’t have remained open so long. There was the possibility that he simply hadn’t injected enough serum to maintain the proper level in his body, but he didn’t have time to think it over at length. He willed the end of his cane to flatten into a short sword, which he twirled around his body like a propeller.

Lancroft held his staff in the middle and curved its ends around to form a single oval-shaped blade. The new weapon moved like an extension of his arm, meeting every pass of the whirling cane with a burst of sparks. After deflecting a particularly strong assault, Ned leaned in and lowered his weapon so the cane caught Lancroft on the shoulder.

It was a deep cut. Ned’s eyesight was good enough to see that much. He could also see the flow of blood lessen to a trickle before being stanched completely. Spotting an unprotected spot near Lancroft’s hip, Ned feinted high and then stabbed low. Not only were both attacks defended with ease, but the other man tagged Ned with two quick cuts. One high. One low.

“It’s the Memory Water, Ned. That’s why I had to modify the stuff for myself. The nymphs call it that because it returns your body to an earlier state, when you were healthier or before illness had a chance to seep in. It brings you back to younger days, before you lost your eyesight or injected all of that serum into your blood.”

When Ned lashed out with his cane, Lancroft batted it away and then stepped in to open a deep gash between two of his ribs with a quick horizontal slice. Allowing his hand to slide within the oval, he whipped it around to cut once more through the same wound. Without clothes, skin, or the outer layers of meat in its way, the blade scraped against vertebrae before coming out again.

Ned reacted more to the impact of the hits than the cuts themselves. He stepped back, refusing to lower the cane even though he needed it just to prop him up.

“At least you’re a fighter,” Lancroft said while knocking aside his trembling final stab. “Rico seems like a fighter as well. Maybe he’s the one I need to speak to.”

Blood poured from Ned’s wound, blurring the vision he’d so recently regained. His skin was becoming cold and clammy. As a Skinner, he’d felt pain, but not such weakness. Not since the first Mongrel—

His thought process was cut short along with his ham-string by the next cut from Lancroft’s circular blade. After losing so much blood, he didn’t even feel the impact of his body against the floor. Lancroft stepped over him, placed his foot upon Ned’s chest and spun his weapon in a quick slash that cut Ned’s throat all the way down to the vertebrae.

“Dr. Lancroft, can I eat now?” Henry asked while eyeing Ned’s body. “I’m so hungry. Sohungrysohungry.”

Stooping to pick up Ned’s cane, Lancroft said, “This man died like a Skinner and you won’t even think about desecrating him. Understand me?”

The bartender’s head bobbed up and down while he backed into a corner.

The morning news was filled with reports of more rabid dogs turning up dead all across the Midwest. Cole scanned dozens of other headlines and watched video clips on his laptop while Paige went through a new exercise regimen outside the bathroom in the space formerly occupied by luggage racks and a chair.

“See?” he said as he scrolled through a batch of e-mails, none of which had been sent by Jason or anyone else at Digital Dreamers. “All you needed to get going again was some sweet—”

“Hold on,” Paige snapped. Wielding a baton in each hand, she stood in a horse stance with her feet planted far apart, squatting as if in a saddle. Cole liked to call it the Groin Pull Special and he avoided it whenever possible. Staring straight ahead while flipping a weapon in a series of swift movements, she said, “Come over here and finish that sentence.”

Grateful to hear his phone ring, Cole politely declined the chance to get his newly energized undercarriage batted into his stomach. He picked up the phone, checked the caller ID, and tapped the Answer button using a set of motions that was more deeply engrained than any fighting technique. “What’s up, Ned?”

“Not Ned,” the voice on the other end squeaked. “It’s Daniels.”

“Oh, you’re just calling from Ned’s phone. What’s going on?”

“How quickly can you get here? I’ve got something you’ll want to see.”

The hotel wasn’t the best, but it served free breakfast, and a good one at that. Not only were there bagels and doughnuts, but a small buffet with heated pans of scrambled eggs and sausage patties. Cole and Paige put together a few obscenely large sandwiches, threw lids onto their cups of coffee, and were out the door. They’d dawdled just long enough to avoid getting stuck in traffic and made it to the Central West End in good time. Ned’s section of Kensington Avenue was quiet, and the only thing waiting for them was a little business card wedged between the screen door and frame.

Paige plucked the card out, examined it for two seconds, then flipped it around so Cole could see the gold badge embossed next to the name of the detective who’d left it there. “Cops,” she groaned. “Probably asking about Henry’s visit.”

“You should probably call them,” Cole said. “Or they’ll just keep coming back.”

“Great idea. You do it.”

Before he could protest, the card was stuffed down the front of his shirt and Paige was knocking on the door.

The steps thumping within the house were so loud that both Skinners reflexively reached for their weapons. Even when Daniels pulled open the door in a huff, neither of them were ready to lower their guard. “You’re here!” the Nymar said. “Excellent!”

“Is everything all right?” Paige asked tentatively.

“Of course.”

“Where’s Ned?”

“He stepped out last night and hasn’t come back. He does that a lot.”

When Cole walked into the house, he took a breath and immediately regretted it. Although the musty smell of all those bookshelves and old knickknacks had a certain charm, the scent did not blend well with the pungent mix of burnt
chemicals, decaying carcass, and body odor. “Could you crack a window before I die?” Cole gasped.

Paige already had her hand over her mouth when she added, “Better yet, take a shower. Ned may be cheap, but he’s got running water.”

Daniels placed his hand flat on his head and rubbed his scalp nervously. The tendrils beneath his skin went from looking like a toupee parted down the middle to one that was parted along the right side. “I don’t like showers.”

“Is that some sort of Nymar thing?” Cole asked.

“No,” he replied as he lowered his hand and sniffed his fingers. “It’s an I don’t like to get wet thing. Considering how hard I’ve been working without any help or a
meal
, you two should be more grateful. Instead, you leave me in this house all by myself.”

Working her way around the perimeter of the house to open all the windows she could, Paige sighed, “So what’s the big news?”

Racing to a small table next to an overstuffed sofa in the next room, Daniels took something from a familiar case. He approached Cole wearing the same excited grin that practically jumped off his face. “Give me your arm, big man.”

Seeing the electric tattooing machine in the Nymar’s hand, Cole shook his head fiercely. “Oh no you don’t. I thought you abandoned that tattoo project.”

“I don’t abandon anything. I fix it. Just give me your arm.”

“So I can be the first test subject for this new batch of ink? Hell no!”

Holding up his left arm, Daniels showed Cole a design that looked like a small curved T etched a few inches above the crease of his elbow. He then backed into the kitchen and started running. The Nymar’s first few steps were as heavy and slow as anyone might expect from a guy his size, but the ones after that sent him past Cole, into the next room, through the kitchen and back again with the speed of a Half Breed that had nearly hit its stride. When he came to a stop, Daniels walked forward to hold out his forearm again. All that remained of the T was a wavy upper bar. “You aren’t the first test subject.”

“Holy crap!” Paige said as she rushed forward to grab Daniels’s arm. “You got it to work?”

“It’s not exactly like you imagined, but yes. I broke the shapeshifter enzymes down to their most basic elements and let them flow. While there aren’t as many enhancements as we’d hoped for, there’s heightened speed and a little bit of strength. With the Blood Blade fragments acting as a colloid, the scaled-back mixture does its job while bonding to the fragments instead of directly to any living tissue.”

“So how long does it last?” she asked.

“As long as the ink holds up.” Showing the fragment of a design on his forearm, Daniels explained, “This used to be the symbol for pi. I did a few laps around the room before you arrived, which burned most of it off, and what you saw just now almost drained the rest of it. You won’t be anywhere near the power of a shapeshifter, but it should pump you up pretty good before a fight.”

Paige touched the tattoo fragment tentatively. “I wish you would have told me before you tested this on yourself.”

“You would have just told me not to.”

“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.