Hammer Strike figurines and I’ll see about a discount on whatever you like.” Back to Paige. “You were supposed to come over so I could take another sample from you. Did something come up?”
Fresh from a quick shower and change of clothes, she kicked the putrid bundle encased in plastic tarp and told him, “You’re looking at it.”
Daniels was a squat fellow with an ample gut that didn’t quite hang over his belt. What little hair he had on his head was in a short ring that went from the back of one ear and around to the other. While most Nymar markings were in the spots with the highest blood circulation like the neck or wrists, Daniels’s tendrils were mostly clustered on his scalp like a supernatural toupee. Stopping several tables away from the bundle, he set down the metal case he’d brought with him and grinned, displaying some fangs that drooped lazily down from his gums. “I put together that list you wanted, Cole.”
Cole was freshly scrubbed as well, but brightened up even more when he heard that. “Great. Where is it?”
“Got it right here,” Daniels replied while digging into his shirt pocket.
“What list?” Paige asked.
Daniels glanced up at her and then closed his sausage fingers around the piece of paper he’d taken from his shirt pocket. “Nothing.”
“It’s just a list of some other concoctions he’s made along with some ingredients,” Cole explained.
“Nothing that could really cause any trouble if it got out,” Daniels assured her. “Just some things to give him some ideas for the game he’s working on. Like power-ups that are different than your typical fare.”
Cole winced, knowing that assurances like those were worse than whatever else Daniels had been afraid of saying.
“Game?” Paige growled. “What game?”
“I need something to stay afloat if I’m ever going to get any sort of job back at Digital Dreamers,” Cole told her. “Also I thought making a game with some dog-type monsters could deflect some of the heat from the whole Kansas City thing. You know, like that special MEG’s going to air about the werewolf sightings.”
“How is any of that going to help with that?” she asked.
Daniels shrugged and said, “Makes sense to me. If you want to discredit something like that, don’t cover it up and give ammunition to the conspiracy buffs. Trot it right out for everyone to see. Remember that alien autopsy show that was on like ten years ago? They showed a grainy, supposedly classified video on TV and had one of the actors from
“So that was real?” Paige asked.
“I don’t know,” Daniels replied. “But if it was, that was the perfect way to make it look fake. You already doctored some of that legitimate Kansas City footage so it looked like a hoax and released it, right?”
Cole nodded proudly. “Yes, and it was brilliant.”
“Well, combine that with some cable special hosted by MEG, and your average person will be more willing to believe they’re just watching another show, as opposed to anything truly world-changing. Did you hear about those Mongrels that were spotted in Crown Center? The pictures of them skulking under some cars were written off as fakes before they could cause any commotion. People are more ready to accept this Mud Flu as a genuine concern than werewolves.”
“You’re not putting Mongrels in any game, Cole,” Paige said. “That just draws attention to them while they’re trying to lay low. If they get backed into a corner, they could get violent, and then we’ll have to go back there and wipe them out. That would go against the promise I made to leave them be.”
“Those Mongrels are freaky little things, if you ask me.” Daniels shuddered. “Not as bad as Half Breeds, but nobody’s seen any of them since KC. I mean
As Cole slipped the list into his pocket, Paige said, “Will you just take a look at this mess on the floor?”
Daniels had been doing a good job of distracting himself so far, but he got twitchy as he approached the bulky, misshapen corpse beneath the plastic sheet. As he became increasingly nervous, the Nymar loosened his already baggy shirt by tugging on his collar. His eyes bugged a little, which gave him something of a Rodney Dangerfield quality.
Once he got past the initial reaction to seeing what was left of Peter Walsh, however, Daniels circled the body and took notes in a progressively more frenetic pace. The only time he stopped was to run out to his car and retrieve a case that reminded Cole of a kit used by forensic investigators on TV. The contents of the Nymar’s baggage were a collection of test tubes, racks for the tubes, and slips of different kinds of paper to put into the tubes. Once it was all set up, Daniels pulled on some plastic gloves and got to work. He snipped pieces from different tentacles and took samples of sludge from various spots on Peter’s face, wrists, and neck. It didn’t take long for Cole to realize why that portion of the investigation was always sped up in a montage for those forensics shows.
A few exceedingly boring hours later Daniels announced, “I’ve only done a quick once-over, but I can already tell you this man’s spore was poisoned.”
“Just his spore?” Paige asked.
“That’s right. I can run some more tests—at least the tests I’m equipped for—but his human tissue seems fairly healthy.”
Cole let out a single laugh and said, “Except for the tissue that was ripped open like a bag of Jiffy Pop.”
“Yes,” Daniels muttered. “Obviously. But what’s most interesting is this.” Taking a pen from his shirt pocket, he used it to poke one of the thickest tentacles that had emerged from Peter Walsh’s chest. “Were these always so brittle?”
“No. They were more like muscle before. Now they just look shriveled.”
“Could that be because they’re outside instead of in?” Paige asked.
Nodding, Daniels said, “Partially. I’ve done extensive research on myself, and I can tell you that when any part of a spore is taken from its resting place, it maintains a certain…”
“Squishiness?” Paige offered.
“I was going to say viscosity, but yes. How long ago did this man die?”
“A few minutes before I called you,” she replied.
“If a Nymar has been feeding well enough for its spore to be this large, it would take considerably longer to dry out. But it’s impossible for him to have had these tentacles in his chest cavity anyway. As you can see, most of his organs are more or less intact. See the stretch marks on the inner tissue? They’re relatively fresh. These thicker protrusions were made this way fairly quickly, maybe even occurring spontaneously as a reaction to some sort of imbalance or foreign substance. Again, this is all based on initial observations, but I can tell you this is as much a Nymar as a Half Breed is a human being. The base materials are there, but they’ve been warped beyond recognition.”
“What warped it?” Paige asked.
“Whatever is tainting this spore, it’s not a standard narcotic or any prescription medication,” Daniels explained as he pointed to a short rack of test tubes. Each tube had just enough of the sludge to fill the bottom with a different strip of material soaking in it. “Granted, there are a lot of other tests I can run with enough time, but my preliminary findings are that this toxin is natural.”
Grateful to look at test tubes instead of the corpse, Cole asked, “What do you mean natural?”
“It’s not shapeshifter or Nymar in origin, but it could very well be something from one of the lesser known races.”
“What about nymphs?” Paige said.
“That’s a possibility,” Daniels replied with a nod.
“I thought you said natural,” Cole reminded them.
“Yes,” Daniels stated. “Shapeshifters, nymphs, even Nymar occur naturally. They’re the products of some unusual evolution, but they’re certainly not man-made.”
Just when Cole thought he’d redefined his world enough, another little corner of it got swept clean of his preconceptions. “Before he died, Peter said something about the nymphs having diseased blood,” he said.
Tapping his pen against one of his drooping fangs, Daniels said, “I’ve read texts written by other Nymar that theorize about a connection between them and nymphs that goes back several hundred years.”
“What connection?” Cole asked.
After some uncomfortable squirming, Daniels finally spat out the words he so rarely forced from his mouth. “I…don’t know much more than that.”
