with what that old guy was so interested in.”
Rico pushed away from the table and took his almost empty mug with him. “And I’ll start by introducing myself. If this guy is a Skinner, I wanna know about it. If he ain’t, then I got a real problem with someone sayin’ they are when they ain’t. And if he is, no wait…I’ll be right back.”
“Leave the beer,” Paige said. “You’ve had enough.”
As he crossed the room to the bearded man’s table, Rico couldn’t help but notice Shae making her rounds. Very few words were exchanged before the older man got up, grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her toward the employees’ entrance. Within seconds after that, Rico was close enough to hear the bearded man say, “Sing for me,” to the frightened nymph.
Rico clamped a hand on the old man’s shoulder and squeezed with enough force to crush a beer can. “Ain’t exactly the best time to get yer rocks off, pops.”
Up close, the bearded man had the presence of a washed-out photograph. His skin was rough and leathery and his clothes had the musty smell of the most unpopular section of a library. When he looked at Rico, he seemed more confused than anything else. “You should be helping me. I’m one of you. See?” He swung his other hand up to show a palm that was so scarred, it looked as if it had been stitched together from numerous shreds of torn skin. “These nymphs have a part to play in destroying the filth that have hunted us for too long. Help me.”
“Why don’t you help yourself by letting her go?”
The bearded man lost his patience in an instant. Pulling Shae closer, he picked up the stick that had been propped against his table and snarled, “Do you know who I am? I made every Skinner what they are today!”
“Lemme guess,” Rico chuckled. “You’re Jonah Lancroft?”
“Then you do know. Enough damage has been done by those who would sully our craft. Unhand me and help put these Dryad whores to work before it’s too late.”
Rico blinked and tried to replay the last few sentences in his head to make sure the beer hadn’t hit him harder than he’d thought.
“I have no time to waste,” the old man said as he shook loose of Rico’s grip. “This place will have to be sacrificed along with you. Henry, give the Mongrels what they want.”
Rico pressed the barrel of the .45 against the man’s elbow and said, “Let go before you lose an arm!”
The voice rattling inside Rico’s head was quickly wiped out by the hacking cry of the waitress who’d brought him his beer. She screamed at him through a mouthful of sludge and tried to pull his gun away as if she’d lost all fear of it going off in her face.
The music faded for a second and was replaced by an updated mix of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher.” Right on cue, Kate strode onto the stage wearing a plaid skirt, glasses, and her red hair tied in pigtails. Strictly speaking, the outfit was more of a “hot for student” sort of thing, but none of the patrons seemed to mind. In fact, their cheers were so loud that nobody could hear the slam of tables being upended throughout the club or guards rushing toward the rowdy customers. Cole had been struggling to catch sight of Rico through the milling crowd and wriggling dancers when he heard a voice that was part scream and part gurgle. More shouting followed as people backed away from the instigators of the brawls that had all sprung up at the same time. More and more of the customers and employees showed traces of watery sludge dripping from their eyes or thicker mud flowing from their mouths.
Cole jumped to his feet, lifting Tristan up with him. “Shit! Where did they come from?”
“I think they can come from just about anywhere,” Paige replied as she stood up and drew the baton from her left boot. “Henry’s got to be close.”
“He’s always close.”
At first the fights were treated like any other scuffle in such a deep pool of testosterone. People moved away from those swinging the punches, while others welcomed the chance to dive in and get their hands dirty. That all changed when people looked closer at the groaning faces at the center of the disturbance. Blank faces caked with mud all turned away from Cole and Paige to fix upon the back of the room. Then the people who weren’t infected tried to get away from those who were, sparking more and more fights like little fires crackling around an inferno.
“These dudes are sick!” someone yelled.
When someone else shouted, “It’s that Mud Flu shit!” distemper grew into panic.
Rico didn’t want to kill anyone, but he also wasn’t about to let himself be overrun by the growing mob converging on him. He fired a shot intended to frighten the Mud People away, but all that did was change panic into a riot.
“God damn it,” Paige snarled. “Try to draw some of them over here.”
She and Cole screamed at the Mud People, but they wouldn’t listen. They closed in on Rico, held back mainly by the uninfected customers who fought to get to the front door. He was a capable enough fighter to stay afloat for years in that kind of a fight, so he craned his neck to try and get a look at his partners. Unable to see them, he settled for being heard.
“That old man grabbed Shae!”
Only a couple minutes had passed since the first punch was thrown. That was enough time for the crowd within the club to get ugly, and more than enough time for a pack of Mongrels to make the run from St. Louis. As soon as Cole felt the burn in his scars, he heard the commotion of people being knocked away from the front door to make room for a group of new arrivals to get inside. Cole recognized one shabbily dressed woman immediately and stood with Tristan behind him. “That’s Malia!”
As Mikey led a few other bouncers to greet the Mongrels, more of the shapeshifters forced their way inside.
“We came for them,” Malia said, pointing a long finger at the Skinners.
Mikey stepped between the intruders and the rest of the club, but was met by a sharp punch from Allen’s bony, human-sized fist. Since the Mongrel’s punch did about as much damage as a cat’s batting paw, Mikey grinned and grabbed Allen by the front of his shirt to shove him toward the door. The other bouncers fell in behind him, but were soon facing claws instead of fists.
“Damn it,” Paige snarled as she headed for the door. “Make this quick, Cole. Get them outside before getting too rough.”
But it was too late. The Mongrels knocked the bouncers down like bowling pins. Malia pinned Mikey to the floor and crouched on his chest while slowly shifting into her leopard form. “The Mind Singer was right,” she growled. “They’re all in one place.”
“Yeah,” Cole said as he drew his weapon from its harness. “Tough luck for you.”
Chapter 19
The spear creaked as it shifted into a weapon that was the size and shape of a longbow. The forked end split apart to form a set of sharpened horns. Paige wielded both of her weapons, but only the one in her left hand changed into the bladed version, while the one in her right remained a simple baton.
“You know better than this,” she warned while taking a stand at the front of the club. “Turn back before you make an even bigger mistake.”
Malia’s eyes had fixed upon Paige’s right arm. She pulled in a breath through her nose as if she could smell weakness. Halfway through that breath, her face stretched into a wide snout and all of her muscles gained an extra layer of bulk. The other Mongrels took that as their cue and pressed forward.
“Jesus!” yelped the young guy behind the counter near the front door. His main job was to check IDs or answer the phone, but he also had a panic button hidden near his knee, which he now pressed in a frantic series of taps.
Allen and the other male Mongrel transformed as if they were being crumpled into a ball by invisible hands. They arched their backs as they ran forward, twisting their heads like dogs forced to listen to a wailing car alarm. Their bodies thinned and stretched out, causing their clothes to hang looser on their frames than when they’d been human. By the time he reached Cole, Allen was the wiry alley cat that had been prowling the Central West
