on them,” Paige offered.
“Were they exposed to chemicals or possibly injected with something?”
“Yes! They were injected with something.”
“Then that could be the start of the whole process, but it would take a whole lot of injections to spread the substance as far and wide as the Mud Flu. On the other hand, that does sound like something a Skinner would do.”
Paige didn’t like hearing that sentiment again after hearing it from Jerry, but she couldn’t really dispute it. Settling for nudging the conversation back on track, she asked, “How does Pestilence become Mud Flu? Or is it the other way around?”
“My guess would be that the Nymar were infected first. This other substance on Peter’s face, which I had already guessed was the by-product of Mud Flu, has an extreme reaction when it comes into contact with Nymar blood that’s been exposed to even the smallest amount of the original toxin.”
Pressing her fingers to her temple, Paige let out an exasperated groan as if her head truly was about to explode.
Daniels took the hint and boiled his explanation down even further. “Somehow, the base elements for Pestilence were injected into Nymar, where they fermented and developed into another kind of toxin. That’s where the abductions and forced injections on Nymar from your mystery Skinner come in. Given enough time for mutation, when those infected Nymar feed on humans, it’s possible for the toxin to mutate again into what we see as the Mud Flu.”
“And you’ve figured all this out with test tubes?” Paige asked.
“Your friend Ned has some remarkable equipment in here,” Daniels gasped. “I don’t know how he acquired a Mark 7 centrifugal—”
“Okay,” she cut in. “You’ve got more than test tubes. Go on.”
“Right, so it starts in Nymar, moves to humans, where it develops into Mud Flu. Although I don’t have the hard evidence to back this up completely, my theory is that when a Nymar feeds on someone infected with Mud Flu, it creates some sort of…”
“Feedback?” she offered.
He nodded excitedly. “Yes, feedback! Because this toxin is prone to such drastic mutations, I’m sticking to my initial guess that it’s based on something that’s naturally occurring. Synthetics are rarely so eloquent in their life cycles.”
“Wait. That first theory was a guess?”
“Of course,” Daniels said with a couple of twitching blinks. “Essentially that’s what most theories are. Educated guesses. The scientific process can’t start with concrete answers, otherwise there’s no need for the process. That is, unless you’re starting from an answer and working your way back. Then you could—”
“Paige!” Ned called from the first floor.
Grateful for anything to hit the chemist’s pause button, she wiped her hands together like a blackjack dealer passing her table over to the next shift. “I think I’ve got a good grasp on what you’re saying, so let’s quit while we’re ahead. Will you be able to figure the rest out on your own?”
But Daniels was already engrossed in his next problem. He frantically dug through his equipment before disappearing into the large supply closet. Leaving him to his work, Paige went downstairs to find Ned looking out a window.
“Can you answer a question for me?” he asked.
“As long as it doesn’t involve theoretical chemistry.”
“Who are all those people staring at my house?”
She went to the window, which looked out onto Kensington Avenue. It was a pleasant neighborhood that was usually quiet because the neighbors kept to themselves. But now Paige spotted three of them standing on the sidewalk in front of the house, staring at it. The more she looked, the more people she found on both sides of the street. None of them spoke or even moved. They’d simply dropped whatever they were doing so they could stare.
Catching herself before she repeated Ned’s last question, Paige asked, “How long have they been standing there?”
“A couple minutes now. I noticed one when I came out of the bathroom. I think it’s Joey from across the street. Then the others showed up.”
“What about those two old ladies down by that red house?”
“Yep, I see ’em,” Ned said. “They’re new. Maybe they like you.”
“What do you mean?”
As Ned did his best to focus on the scene outside his window, the rattle from the air conditioner clanked like two pots banging together. “Before, they all just stared at the house,” he told her. “Now, they’re staring right at you. Aren’t they?”
Paige stepped away from the glass, walked past the front door, and pulled aside the curtains covering the window on that side of the entrance. Apart from the blocky symbols stenciled into the frame, she revealed two thick panes separating her from nine people who stood outside with their arms hanging loosely at their sides. It only took a second or two before they all caught sight of her, shifted their gaze toward her and cocked their heads to one side.
“What…the…hell?” she whispered.
For the next few seconds the neighbors didn’t do anything but stare at Paige’s window, and she didn’t know what to do but stare back.
The silence was broken by her ringing phone, snapping Paige from the bizarre connection between her and so many strangers. She dug the chirping piece of equipment from her pocket and glanced down at the screen to see the name S. Velasco printed on the illuminated surface. Looking up from there, she found herself less than four inches away from the blank, sunken face of a middle-aged woman with wet mud flowing from her mouth. Having climbed into the bushes growing around Ned’s house, the woman leaned forward and rested her forehead against the outer window.
Steam formed on the glass in front of the woman’s dirty mouth when she said, “You cut me, Skinner. But I… found you.”
As Paige backed away from the window, Ned approached her carrying an older model .45.
“You cut me, Skinner,” the muddy woman repeated. “But there’s more of me now than you.” Slapping her hands against the side of the house, she shoved her face close enough to knock her teeth against the glass as she shrieked, “Moreofmethanyou! Moreofmethanyoumoreofmethanyou!”
Paige looked through the peephole to find a young man standing on the porch. He was still watching the window where she’d been, but slowly turned toward her. Features warped by the curving glass were further obscured by streams of mud dripping from his eyes and nose to mingle with the sludge from his mouth. Taking one lunging step forward, the man scraped his fingers against the door like an animal trying to escape a fire.
“They can’t get in here,” Ned told her confidently. “The runes won’t allow it.”
More words came out of Ned’s mouth, but Paige couldn’t hear them. Every sound seemed to be garbled, as if she’d been dunked into a vat of water.
Suddenly, she had trouble keeping her head up.
Something filled the spaces in her chest cavity surrounding her heart. As Henry’s presence drew closer, a flood of cold swept through her body to wash him away. The healing serum in her system left her a little drained, but not enough to keep Paige from raising her weapons. By the time she collected herself, the face on the other side of the window was gone. The woman had staggered back to join the other neighbors staring at the house. As she watched, Paige noticed a heavyset man walking his little black and white dog farther down the sidewalk. Although the man nervously took in the sight of the people standing in and along Kensington Avenue, his thirteen pound canine snarled without an ounce of fear. The dog walker turned crisply around and pulled his bodyguard along with him.
“They’re starting to disperse,” Ned announced.
Paige looked at each of the people in turn, all of them filthy from their chins down to their necks. A kid in his