Cole let out a tired breath. “Curiosity is one thing. The stuff that’s going on here…I may not understand it, but I know when I’m over my head.”
“Taking what’s in the Resurrection Vial wasn’t easy. There was a lot more risk involved for Gerald than if he’d just let himself fade away. He did that for a reason, and only part of it was the job he asked you to do. Considering how much trouble you’ve already gone through, the least I can do is keep you alive until we can figure out what attacked that cabin. If it wasn’t a Full Blood, it still might be able to hunt you down. Wouldn’t you like to do something to keep that thing or others like it from running around and tearing people apart whenever they damn well feel like it?”
“Sure, but…if I’m doing all of that, I want to know everything else you haven’t told me.”
Paige smiled like a poker player who’d gotten someone to go all in when there wasn’t a card in the deck that could save them. “Better yet, why don’t we take a field trip? Bring that knife.”
Chapter 8
Cole knew he should have followed his first instinct and gone home.
He also should have been feeling pain in his battered body, but that wasn’t acting like it was supposed to either. Sitting in the passenger seat of Paige’s used two-door Chevy Cavalier, he poked and prodded his sides and actually hoped to feel a sting. He felt something that shook him more than pain. He felt his fingers pressing against his ribs, and that meant he wasn’t just numbed by whatever Paige had given him. His ribs were better. In fact, they felt stronger than before.
“You said there was a danger of some kind of infection,” he reminded her. “What was that about?”
Paige nodded but kept her eyes on the road. “It’ll all go down a lot easier once you see some things firsthand. Besides, the man I’m taking you to see can explain it a lot better than I can.”
Looking out the window, Cole asked, “All right, then. Where are you taking me?”
“We’re headed to The Levee.”
Cole thought for a moment and asked, “You mean like in that Led Zeppelin song? The Levee that breaks?”
“Sort of.”
“Isn’t that the old Red Light District?”
“That’s the original Levee. This is sort of an homage,” Paige said, while letting the last word roll off her tongue in a way that put a little grin on her face. “It’s a nice little stretch of road just south of the Loop. If you’re looking for some exercise for your lower back now that you’re in better shape, I’m sure we can rent you a partner for the night.”
Cole studied her for a second. Judging by the grin on Paige’s face, her mind was in the same gutter as his. “You’re talking about hookers.”
“Pretty much.”
He let out a sigh and shook his head. Even though the streets outside the car’s windows still looked vaguely familiar, they weren’t nearly as comforting as the ones he’d seen from the cab. “I must be crazy to go along with this.”
“You probably are a little crazy,” Paige agreed. “But you must also be something else to have made it this far. Gerald wouldn’t have sent you to me unless he saw some spark in you.”
“I barely even knew the guy.”
“Exactly! You barely even knew him, but you still made a promise to him and you kept it. Plenty of people do the first part, but not many bother with the rest. Let me ask you something,” Paige said as she turned off of I–290. “What did the rest of those people do when that thing attacked?”
“And that’s another thing! What the hell is a Full Blood?”
“We’ll get to that later. Just answer the question.”
“They screamed,” Cole replied. “They ran. They died. There was a whole lot of the last one going around.”
Paige nodded and ran the tip of her tongue along her upper lip. “And what did you do?”
“Not much. I tried to get some of those people out of there. I tried to help Gerald or find Brad, but I wound up getting my ass knocked against a wall.”
“You tried to fight,” she said emphatically. Pointing a finger at him, she added, “You tried to fight even though you had no clue what you were up against and you had no weapon to use against it. You tried to help those people, and when it was all over, you made a promise to a dying man and went through a whole lot of craziness to see it through. That’s extraordinary, Cole.”
Although he’d been ready to fire back with something else, he didn’t quite know how to respond when she looked at him with genuine admiration. “Uh…thanks?”
“What did Brad and Gerald do when the thing attacked?”
“I don’t even know. All I do know is that they were the only ones to even scratch it. They saved my life.”
“That’s right,” she said while patting the bundle resting on Cole’s knee. “And because you brought this knife back, we’ll be able to make that sacrifice worthwhile.”
No matter how many gruesome images filled Cole’s mind, he couldn’t be diverted from the fact that Paige’s hand was in his lap. Sure, there might have been some steel wrapped in a plastic bag and cotton rags separating her from the rest of him, but he could feel the warmth of her touch all the way through those things. Looking up at her, he raised his eyebrows and smirked.
“Good Lord,” Paige grumbled as she took her hand back. “I thought you were supposed to be traumatized.”
“I am, but I’m not dead.”
Paige shook her hand while weaving between two cars that had the nerve to uphold the speed limit and replied, “I can fix that real quick.”
“So tell me about the Full Blood,” Cole said, as a way to steer the conversation out of the weeds. “Was Gerald after that thing?”
“We don’t know for certain it was a Full Blood yet,” Paige declared. “But they sure as hell weren’t in Canada for that. Full Bloods are smart, though, and somehow this one must have found them before they could prepare for it.”
Cole looked out the window to watch as more of Chicago flew by. He pulled in a deep breath and let it out through his nose.
“You seem to be taking all of this pretty well,” Paige said. “Better than Brad did, anyway.”
“Let me guess. You were all chasing ghosts together or maybe trying to snap a picture of Bigfoot?”
“What?” Paige said as a scowl settled upon her face.
“That phone number,” Cole said. “You know…Stu? MEG Branch 40?”
Paige nodded and her scowl disappeared. “Oh! The MEG guys. We just use those guys for communications and the occasional high-tech thingie.”
“High-tech thingie? You keep talking like that and you’ll ruin that tough exterior you’re trying to maintain.”
Paige glanced over at him with a cute smirk that made her nose crinkle. By now some more of her hair had slipped from where it was tied in the back so it could dangle on either side of her face. In the glow from the cars and streetlights that rushed past the window, a light brown hue could be seen amid the strands of black. “It’s a long story, but the MEG guys investigate hauntings and demons and other crap like that all over the country.”
“Ghosts don’t rank as high as monsters, huh?” Cole chuckled.
Shrugging impassively, Paige continued. “The ectological group crossed our paths a few times after one of the founders nearly got killed by a Half Breed in western Nebraska.”
“A Half Breed?”
“More about that later,” she said while quickly waving away the questions Cole was about to ask. “Anyway, MEG’s already got an international system set up to communicate with all their members and branches. Since they spend most of their time videotaping haunted houses or trying to talk to static, nobody really watches them too closely in any official way.”
“And anyone who might listen in on their networks wouldn’t be too surprised to hear talk about a monster
