food. Not surprisingly, the most disgusting of the details hadn’t put a dent into anyone’s appetite.
When the story was over, Ned asked, “And who studied that dead body? The Nymar you work with?”
“That’s right. Daniels does plenty of work for me, so don’t give me any grief for bringing him along.”
“You brought him along?” Rico asked. Glancing nervously at the old man, he lifted his mug to Paige and said, “Ballsy.”
Surprisingly enough, Ned merely shrugged and cut into his open face sandwich. “I don’t object to putting a few of them to work for us. Giving them free rein over an entire city is something else. What did he tell you about this Pestilence?”
“Daniels just said it wasn’t any sort of drug that he knew about,” she replied. “At least, nothing he could pick up on with his first batch of tests, but he’ll keep studying it while he’s here.”
“That still leaves a wide range of toxins from flower petals all the way up to animal venoms.”
“Right,” Paige said. “That’s why he’s still running his tests.”
“And where will we able to find him?” Ned asked.
“I was hoping he could stay with us.”
“No wait,” Rico said as he tapped his mug against Paige’s. “
Again, despite his previous grumpiness, Ned just shrugged and took another bite of his dinner. “If you trust this Nymar, then he can stay with us. At least that way we can keep an eye him. Where is he now?”
“Driving around the city to see if he can find some more Nymar.”
Rico laughed into his beer. “Good luck with that.”
“The Nymar who came to Chicago was from here,” Cole pointed out. “He’s the one who called Pestilence by name and said it was in the nymphs’ blood. Also,” he added as he put the piece of paper he’d taken from Peter Walsh’s body on the table. “He was carrying a free drink voucher from a place called Bunn’s Lounge in Sauget.”
“I know the place. It’s right across the river in Illinois,” Rico said. “Prophet was there last month.”
Ned tapped the ticket and then pushed it toward Cole. “Right. His purple A-frame theory. I think that man is just trying to frequent strip clubs and call it research so we’ll pay him for it. You think this is something we should really check out?”
Cole took another drink of Newcastle and then realized Ned had aimed that question at him. “Oh, well yeah. Peter came a long way to find us and tell us about Pestilence, so it’s probably important. If there’s any more Nymar in the area, we figured Daniels would be able to find them to see what they know.”
“How is he contacting them?” Rico asked as he leaned across the table. “Knowing how the bloodsuckers find each other could be a big help.”
Rather than let Cole field the question, Paige stepped in. “Daniels wouldn’t say and we wouldn’t press him on it. He does a lot for us, but he’s not about to hand over all of his kind like that.”
“Helping Skinners ain’t exactly healthy for Nymar,” Rico pointed out.
“Maybe it’s splitting hairs, but Daniels won’t go that far. He works with me because he knows I only go after the Nymar that overstep their bounds.”
“Here we go again,” Ned grumbled.
“And,” Paige continued as she stared the old man down, “he comes through when we need him, so if he says he can save us some time by helping us get in touch with local Nymar, then I’ll let him.”
Ned patted her rigid right arm and said, “Yes, I can see your Nymar chemist truly does take good care of you.”
“This wasn’t Daniels’s fault. He mixed up the ink, but I’m the one who used it before he said it was ready. Even so, it worked damn well. Have you ever had a Full Blood chew on your arm before?”
For the first time that night Ned backed down with a simple, “Can’t say as I have.”
“Well I did, and the only reason my arm is still attached is because Daniels got that ink to work. It’s not perfect, but he’s still working on it, and if you don’t like it, then you don’t have to use it when it’s ready. And if it makes you feel any better,” she added while patting Ned’s hand as if comforting an invalid, “you can take me to all of the Nymar locations you’ve found since you’ve been assigned to babysit a supposedly empty city.”
The old man pulled his arm away and hunkered over his meal.
“So I guess that leaves you and me to check out Bunn’s,” Cole said to Rico. “The last nymph I met at a strip club was Tristan. She was something else.”
“So we’ve heard,” Rico grunted. “Word got sent out that we’re not supposed to lay a hand on her.”
“Not unless you pay to get into the VIP room,” Ned grumbled. After taking a few more huge bites of his sandwich, he pushed the rest aside. “I suppose I’ll check to see if the police are circling the neighborhood after your little scuffle. I’ll head home from there. You remember where the house is?”
“Yes,” Paige said. “I remember.”
“Come by when you’re ready, and,” Ned added as he slapped some money onto the table, “drinks are on me.”
“Don’t be silly, Ned,” Rico protested. “After all the trouble we stirred up in your quiet little neighborhood, the least I can do is spring for the brew.”
Looking older than he had just a few seconds ago, Ned stood up and left.
Once he was gone, Rico said, “Something’s gotta be done about him. It was fine to have him here when nothing was going on, but with Mongrels and whatever else sniffing around, we need someone who can handle themselves.”
“Ned can handle himself,” Paige said.
“Sure. Would you want him fighting alongside you if this place turned into another KC?”
She didn’t have an answer to that and seemed vaguely ashamed of it.
“And what was that the Mongrels said about him?” Rico continued. “What tricks is he supposed to be pulling?”
“Ned doesn’t do anything more than what any of us would do,” Paige said. “And if he did, he would have told us about it. I’ll trust that before I trust what some Mongrel in an alley says to me.”
“If Ned knew those Mongrels by name, he should know where to find them, right?” Cole asked.
Nodding, Rico fixed his eyes on Paige and said, “Maybe. Even if we did find ’em, we can be safe knowing we got little bits of the Blood Blade to throw at them. Why the hell would you destroy a weapon like that?” he snarled. “We can’t exactly make another one! I still can’t believe you left a Blood Blade with some goddamn Nymar.”
Those words landed like an unexpected punch in the gut. Fortunately, Paige was tough enough to handle a whole lot worse. She leaned across the table and made a point to use her right hand to poke Rico in the chest as she said, “Daniels was right there when KC turned into a bloodbath while you were hiking down some scenic mountain trail. What’ve you got to say to that?”
Rico rolled his eyes as he settled the bill and led the way outside. Even after all three of them were walking back to the Cav, he knew he wasn’t going to be let off that easily. Finally, he sucked it up and told her, “I feel like shit for not bein’ there. I didn’t know you put the call out until after I got back.”
Feeling like he’d missed a step, Cole asked, “You called for help, Paige?”
“Yeah, but now you see why I haven’t gotten you into that habit.” She walked briskly down the street, shoving through a noisy group of frat boys who were dispersed by Cole and Rico before they could get their feathers ruffled.
Jogging to catch up with her, Rico said, “You know you can’t rely on outside help. None of us can. As for the crack about your Nymar buddy, you gotta admit we could have used that Blood Blade.”
“We are using it,” Cole assured him. “Granted, we thought we’d have a bit more of it in one piece, but I’ve got an idea about a way to give all of our weapons a boost instead of having just one knife to pass around.”
The other two stopped and Paige was the first to ask, “What idea?”
“So glad you asked.” Cole rubbed his hands together and lowered his voice so it didn’t carry to any of the small groups walking up and down Euclid Avenue. “You know that list Daniels made for me?”
“Yeah.”
“A lot of it was just different ingredients that could be added to one or two bases to make different things. It’s a lot like making power-ups for
“Oh Christ,” Rico groaned. “You really weren’t kidding about this video game crap.”
“Let him finish,” Paige said. “This stuff usually starts off dumb, but goes somewhere much better.”
Taking the not-too-subtle hint, Cole skipped to the important part of what he’d intended to say. “What I wanted
