A muscular arm reached down to try and grab Cole through the driver’s side window. Leaning in the opposite direction, Cole twisted the steering wheel back and forth to shake Henry loose. After a few attempts, Henry dropped down from the roof, hitting the pavement in an awkward heap.
The moment he found Henry in his rearview mirror, Cole watched him pull himself up and leap into the air. The twisted figure landed in front of the Cavalier with a heavy thump and then jumped farther down the road.
“He’s headed south again,” Cole said.
“Good. What about the Half Breeds?”
Cole looked around, but could only see a few scattered streetlights and a whole lot of inky blackness on either side of the road. “They’re gone. Should I go check on that cop?”
“If they were close enough to hurt him, we would’ve seen them by now. Just keep following Henry.”
“He’s getting too far ahead!”
“Then just go to Janesville,” Paige replied. “Looks like whatever is about to happen will be happening there. After all the grief I gave Walter about the massacre, I’ll never hear the end of it if he’s right.”
Checking his rearview mirror as he stomped on the gas pedal, Cole asked, “You think there’s gonna be a massacre?”
“Hopefully we’ll be able to prevent it,” she said. “Now that I got my hands on this little beauty here, we should stand a pretty good chance against Henry, Misonyk, and however many local Nymar he managed to scrounge up. After what he pulled at that diner, there’s just as good a chance that those locals will be out to kill Misonyk too. If it’s true that the lie’s been shot down like your Mongrel girlfriend said, Misonyk and all the other Nymar must be getting ready for a fight.”
“So what’s the big lie?” Cole asked as he fixed his attention to the road and enjoyed the rush of fresh, cold air against his face. “Professional wrestling is really fake?”
“You know how the Nymar talk about their covens or clans or sects?” Paige asked. “They claim to rule Chicago and just about every other city worth ruling. They’re supposed to patrol the streets and know about everything that happens while they live forever and rule from their skyscrapers.”
“Yeah,” Cole replied. “None of those guys can say two words without throwing that crap at you.”
“That’s the thing. It’s crap. Every last word of it. The Nymar can barely hold together loose associations with each other. They might be able to manage a gang here and there, but that’s about it. As far as holding a city…that’s just a joke.”
Cole waited a few seconds, glanced out the windows to see if they were being followed, then looked into the rearview mirror again. “That’s it? That’s the big lie?”
Paige chuckled as she took a folded bundle of black plastic from her bag. “That’s all they need to keep anyone who finds out about them quiet. Some poor fool who got bitten starts to panic but shuts up if he thinks he’s got to worry about some bunch of undead crime lords. Most humans are too frightened to go against one Nymar, but the thought of a whole society of them carries a lot of weight even with some very influential people.”
“But from what I’ve seen, there
“Sure, but they’re not organized,” Paige replied. “There are a whole lot of drug addicts too, but they’re not about to get together and rule a city from the shadows. What it all comes down to is that Nymar are junkies. They’re dangerous and more powerful than some poor schmuck who’s hooked on crack, but they’re still junkies. A few of them are craftier than the rest and some of them kill rather than just feed. Those are the ones we’re after. I would’ve told you sooner, but I had to wait until I knew you were coming along for the whole ride.”
Laughing as he passed a green mileage sign, he said, “That ride’s almost over. Only about five more miles until we hit Janesville.”
“You’ve got to realize how important it is that you don’t talk about this where anyone else can hear,” Paige said as if she was alone in a quiet room with Cole instead of talking from the back of a speeding car with a dead werewolf across her lap. “The Nymar’s supposed infestation of the cities is what keeps the Full Bloods from making a move of their own.”
“I’ve seen one of those things,” Cole shot back. “You can’t tell me they’re afraid of Nymar.”
“Maybe not afraid, but a whole swarm of Nymar can bring a Full Blood down if they do it just right. It’s not pretty, but Nymar and werewolves are both supernatural and they can most definitely spill each other’s blood,” Paige said as she pulled a few of the Half Breed’s teeth. “The Full Bloods stay in the woods because it’s easier than trying to invade a city held by both humans and Nymar. Full Bloods may be damn near bullet-, fire-, and everything-else-proof, but Skinners and the Nymar are their only real threats. We figured out the Nymar’s bluff some time ago, but if the Full Bloods bothered to do the same thing, they might just decide to take a run at the more populated parts of the world.”
“I don’t know,” Cole said. “Sounds like a stretch to me.”
“All right. What do you think would happen if all of America’s enemies found out we’d made up three of the four branches of our military?”
Wincing, he muttered, “Point taken.”
“The Nymar also think their bullshit has been keeping Skinners in line. For years they’ve thought that the only reason we haven’t stormed in to clean them out is because we’re afraid of going against the big, dark overlords.” Paige spoke those last words with no small amount of sarcasm. “As long as they think they’ve got us snowed, they won’t look hard enough at us to know they outnumber us by at least twenty to one.”
“Same lie, different liars, huh?” Cole asked.
“It’s not a great system, but it’s been holding things together for a long time. If the Full Bloods and other shapeshifters aren’t buying it anymore, it may just explain why they’re getting so restless. Mongrels usually stick to their own packs, but now are prowling into your hotel room. Half Breeds don’t obey any rules, but Full Bloods sure never bothered sneaking as far into civilization as the one I saw outside of Shimmy’s.”
“You’re sure that was a Full Blood?”
“Yeah.”
“And what are we going to do about Henry? You plan on gagging him with all that fur you collected?”
Paige let out a breath and began stuffing the werewolf fur into a casing that resembled two plastic trays held together by nylon straps. Considering the weight on her lap at the moment, the simple movements weren’t easy. “I’ve got some ideas about him. Did you see any black markings on him anywhere?”
Even though it was difficult to focus, Cole had seen Henry enough times to have his face imprinted on his nightmares for a good long while. “Actually, no. Henry’s pretty messed up, but not like the Nymar.”
“And if there are a bunch of spores in him like you saw in that vision you snagged from Misonyk, then that would explain why Henry feeds off of other Nymar the way he does. If his own spores aren’t attached to his heart, they can’t feed on his blood. They must be leeching off of him for whatever food they can get.”
“And so,” Cole added as he swerved around a slow moving SUV with Iowa plates, “he’s got to eat healthy Nymar spores that are filled with all the stuff they’d get if he fed the way Nymar are supposed to?”
“Exactly! Kind of like when you crave peas even though you hate peas and it turns out your body just needs whatever is in peas. Does that make sense?”
“It actually does,” he replied. “And that scares me. Also, I’d really like some peas. But I don’t know if you should take what I saw in that vision too seriously. For all I know, I could’ve been seeing whatever crap Misonyk was thinking at the time.”
“Henry’s a mix of Nymar and shapeshifter, all right. I was close enough that I could feel it.” Paige had pulled apart the plastic plates and placed the Half Breed fur between them. Now that she was fastening the plates together, the whole thing looked like some sort of vest.
“Is that what I think it is?” Cole asked.
She grinned and nodded. Holding up the harness to show him, she said, “Standard level two body armor on either side, with a bit of goodness on the inside. Together, it’ll stop a few bullets, uncharmed blades, and even withstand a hell of a lot of punishment from claws and teeth of the supernatural variety. There’s a better way to put one of these together, but we don’t have time. This should hold up well enough to get me through the night. Since Henry is probably on his way to Misonyk, and Misonyk is probably trying to take over this area, it’s a safe bet that I’ll be wading into a whole lot of trouble.”
“I thought you said Nymar couldn’t take anyplace over,” Cole pointed out.
Paige shrugged and pulled the black plastic vest over her head. The two sets of black plates on front and back
