examined each in turn while Paige continued to send some grief through the digital connection to Rush Street.
“Your Blood Parlors are only open because we allow them to stay that way,” she reminded her. “If Cole and I have to come down there again…Oh you heard I was hurt, did you? Why don’t I just drive on down there and show you how badly I’m hurt? You want to bank on me being too wounded to pull a trigger?” Paige smiled again. If her other arm wasn’t in a sling, she would have put it to work patting herself on the back. “All right, then. I’m listening.”
Cole took the wallet from her and sifted through it. Peter Walsh didn’t have any objections to the intrusion and he didn’t have anything interesting in his wallet. Although, Cole did find it somewhat interesting that a vampire needed a driver’s license, auto insurance, and memberships to several different retail discount clubs.
“Don’t worry,” Paige said definitively, “I will. ’Bye.” She ended the call and stuck her phone back into her pocket. “Steph says this guy just showed up earlier tonight and asked about where he could find the Skinners.”
“Do you believe her?”
“No, because there are Skinners in St. Louis. At least there were the last time I checked.” A twitch showed on Paige’s face, which betrayed the slightest bit of concern. “Maybe I should check again. Steph kept to her story well enough, and with her Blood Parlors doing such good business, she’s got no reason to make a move against us.”
“And if she did, she would just send a bunch of goth kids with guns,” Cole offered. “That’s more her style. Maybe Peter didn’t want to talk to the Skinners in St. Louis. Maybe he only wanted to see us. He did ask for us by name.”
“Steph gave him our names along with our address. She said the guy seemed desperate and he looked sick, so she wanted to make sure he got here quick enough to make a mess. Her words.”
And Cole knew that was just the sort of thing Stephanie would say. He was familiar enough with the Nymar madam to know that driving to Rush Street just to kick in her door would be more trouble than it was worth. If the Chicago Nymar wanted to clean out Rasa Hill, they would have sent a much clearer message.
Paige walked over to Peter’s body and started prodding the various tendrils that had emerged from his wrist and mouth. “Steph was right. He did seem desperate and he certainly was sick. These tendrils are almost solid. They should be squishier. More like a jellyfish.” She was in trainer mode. Her voice took on a calmer quality when she was showing Cole the ropes.
“Do they normally get that big?” he asked.
Shifting her attention to the tentacles hanging out of Peter’s chest, she took hold of one and waggled it as if shaking a dog’s paw. “Yeah, but they don’t become so solid. They need to move around inside a body, not fill it up completely. The spore like to curl up and stay warm, not…this.”
“So what happened?”
Paige stood up and shrugged her shoulders. “Hell if I know. Maybe that’s what he wanted to tell us. I honestly don’t think Steph knows anything either, but we could go talk to her to be sure.”
“He’s from St. Louis,” Cole pointed out. “You said there are Skinners there?”
“Ned Post. He’s been there ever since Rico and I left. To be honest, Ned’s mostly a night watchman but maybe he—”
Suddenly, the Nymar braced himself with both hands against the floor, propped himself up and got to his feet. “It’s in
“What’s in your blood?” Cole asked.
Although Peter tried to breathe, the air merely leaked out through his chest.
When the Nymar looked down at his own mutilated torso, Cole took hold of his chin and forced him to look up again. “Look at me, Peter. A part of what? Who are you talking about?”
Peter drew some resolve from whatever was keeping him going and said, “The nymphs. They’re part of the infection that’s in me. It’ll kill all of us!”
“All of you?” Paige asked. “All Nymar?”
Peter shook his head and looked in every direction but where she was standing. Unable to pinpoint where her voice was coming from, he settled for addressing the air around him. “Pestilence. It’ll kill all of us. All of us. Just like the Good Book says. JustliketheGoodBooksays. Justlike…” He arched his back and grabbed the floor as the tendrils from his wrists fluttered and dissolved into a dark fluid much like the stuff around his mouth. The tentacles coming from his chest finally collapsed to lay like flattened tubes against his body.
Sensing that things were only going to get worse from there, Cole held onto Peter’s face so his hands could act as a set of blinders. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.
“Pestilence!”
“You mean a disease?” Paige asked. “A disease in your blood?”
Peter nodded as best he could. “Just like…the Good Book says.” The tentacles sprouting from his chest had turned into something else. They were no longer leathery, but dry and shriveled, as if the wooden slats of the floor had attempted to reach up and claim the Nymar’s remains.
“What,” Cole gasped as he set Peter down and stepped away, “the
Paige stared down at the mess, watching as the tentacles became even more brittle. She bent down to take a closer look at Peter’s face and dipped her finger into the sludge pasted to his mouth.
Cole grabbed her wrist and snapped, “He just said he was sick! Why would you touch that stuff? Awww,
“If he’s sick and this stuff carries it, we’re way past washing our hands now.”
She was right about that. The gunk was spattered all over the front of their clothes, arms, and several spots of exposed skin. Calmly pulling out of Cole’s grip, Paige studied her hand and rubbed her fingers together. “There’s some kind of film in this stuff. I think it’s the membrane that held the tendrils together.”
“Hey,” Cole said as he examined the dark substance that clung to his shirt. “Do you think this has anything to do with the Mud Flu?”
“This crap does look kind of muddy, but I doubt any Nymar disease could affect humans. The organs we use to process food and circulate blood are just padding and duct-work to them. Still, we should check it out just to be safe. He was pretty intent on getting here and talking to us, so we might as well see it through. You get something under that body to stop it leaking on the floor and I’ll call Daniels. Maybe he can make sense of this.”
“And what was all that talk about nymphs? Did he mean the same one Prophet found at that strip bar?”
Paige bared her teeth in a little snarl. “I knew I shouldn’t have given that tramp a pass. If she’s spreading some kind of new disease, then I’ll clip her little fairy wings and wring Prophet’s neck for sticking up for her.”
Grabbing Peter’s wallet, Cole went through all the slips of paper and receipts one more time. “What was the name of that place in Wisconsin where we met Tristan?”
“Shimmy’s. Did you find something from there?”
“No,” he said as he removed a bright red ticket from the wallet and handed it to Paige. “But we may have another delightful field trip in store for us.”
The ticket was a voucher for a free drink that could only be redeemed at Bunn’s Lounge in Sauget, Illinois.
Chapter 6
Daniels walked through the front door dressed in a brown and red checked bowling shirt and baggy pants. “I’m not at your beck and call, you know. I’ve got a lot going on. I just got things back together with my girlfriend, the Chicago Nymar have finally worked out a deal to quiet things down, and I finally got my online collectibles acquisition business up and running!”
“What deal with the Nymar?” Paige asked.
Cole chimed in with, “What kind of collectibles?”
Daniels pointed to Paige and replied, “Aphrodisiacs for Steph’s Blood Parlor, which aren’t much more than sugar water.” To Cole, he said, “Action figures from any series you can name. Get me a prototype for one of the new
