ground. When he strained his muscles to the limit, the Skinner felt a surge through his upper body that allowed him to haul the bigger guy up and over his hip. Henry’s back thumped against the concrete floor, where he swelled up to the largest size his human body would allow and lunged at Cole with the ferocity of a true Full Blood.
Cole drove his shoulder into Henry’s gut and then shoved the teenage body down. Not only did the air leave the teen’s lungs, but Henry flew out of him as well. The Mud People closed in around Cole as Henry raked the painted nails of an elderly woman across the Skinner’s face. When Cole twisted around to face the old woman, Henry had vacated her for yet another body.
A large woman with curly hair jumped onto Cole’s back and screamed in his ear. Before he could force her off, he was being punched by three other sets of fists. He shook free just long enough to dodge a punch from a man with a face that had been completely caked in the crust of Pestilence. The orbs flew from him, leaping from one neighbor to another. Within seconds after sending two bodies flying at Cole, Henry used another as a battering ram. Cole ducked behind a workbench, waiting for the sickening crash of the clueless body against his makeshift shelter.
This time, however, Henry stayed put for the collision. “Why don’t you cut me, Skinner?” he snarled. “Cut me open and see what’s inside.”
The orbs flowed out and behind Cole. When he turned around, he found the same boy that had crawled through the window. Although his head was cocked at an angle, it wasn’t dangling from a broken neck. “You don’t want to hurt that kid, Henry,” Cole said.
The boy lunged at Cole so quickly that the wood chisel in his hand was nearly buried into Cole’s stomach. Half a second before the narrow strip of metal sank home, Daniels grabbed the kid’s arm, bared his set of curved snakelike fangs and spat a wad of venom into his eyes.
Henry jerked away from the Nymar and pressed his hands against his face as all of the Mud People screamed. When Henry ran out of breath, he sucked in another one and shrieked into his dirty palms.
For once Cole knew exactly what Henry was going through. Misonyk had been the first one to teach him about Nymar venom. Although intended to be injected through a bite, it could also be collected in the Nymar’s mouth and spat. The first method caused sluggishness, dizziness, or even paralysis in the victim. The second allowed Nymar to blind the recipient. If the poison got into someone’s eyes, it left them very susceptible to suggestion.
“Don’t hurt this boy, Henry,” Daniels said.
When Henry frowned and cocked his head in another direction, all the Mud People followed suit. “I got locked up for hurting kids,” he said through the boy’s mouth only. “I learned my lesson.”
In a sterner voice, Daniels commanded, “Let go of them, Henry. Let all of these people go.”
Henry tried to wipe the venom from his face, but Daniels held onto both of the kid’s hands.
Looming over the kid like a troll from a cautionary fairy tale, Daniels said, “Whatever you’re doing to these people, stop it! Let them go.”
Lancroft forced Paige toward the lab with a flowing series of attacks that made his staff look more like a crooked windmill. Her sickle rapped against the elongated weapon and the machete raked across his stomach. Paige tried to deliver a stronger swing aimed at the bloody gash she’d just opened, but she was held in place by a muddy hand.
One filthy man in a bathrobe held onto her arm, and when she kicked him away, he fell and grasped her ankle. The foul smell of copper and dirt filled her nose as an entire room full of Henry’s playthings screamed and dropped to the floor. Something was happening to them that weakened Henry’s control.
She kicked free of the muddy hands and raised her defenses just in time to prevent Lancroft’s weapon from taking her head off. The impact rattled through her entire body and sent her stumbling through the door to the examination room. Before she could get her bearings, Lancroft knocked her in the jaw with the middle section of his staff. She staggered back, ducked under another powerful swing and found herself in the middle of the starkly lit examination room.
“You’re an interesting case, Paige,” Lancroft said. “With a little study, I should be able to iron out the kinks of your botched experiment and solve your mobility problem.”
She used the blunt end of her sickle to flip one of the metal trays into the air and bat it at Lancroft with the machete. “What mobility problem?” she replied before bringing both weapons down in a double chop.
Lancroft held his staff across his chest to block her assault and shifted it so the blades on each end curled into sharp hooks. With a quick scooping motion, he snagged her leg and ripped through a small section of flesh. The hook went in just far enough to get her blood flowing. The following attacks came in short, chopping blows using the middle section of his weapon or quick slices that scraped across the hardened flesh of Paige’s wounded arm.
She recoiled from the gouging hooks and bounced off the edge of the large silver table into a row of metal cabinets. For every attack she blocked, another drew her blood. The only lull in the fight was when Lancroft knocked one end of his weapon into a recessed latch on the wall.
Something moved behind her, but Paige wasn’t about to turn her back on the old man. Lancroft put all of his weight behind a charge that sent her backpedaling through an opening that had previously been hidden by a tall cabinet. Her foot reached the top of a flight of stairs and the rest of her fell back into empty air.
Chapter 29
The Mud People dropped to their hands and knees, scraping at the ground as if it was their new enemy. Those who tried too hard to talk were quickly reduced to a heaving pile of muscles that strained to vomit up the substance that had seeped into their throats.
“Good boy,” Daniels said.
Henry watched, his eyes wide and mouth agape. The faraway expression and gentle nod made it unclear if his agreement was due to the venom that had been sprayed into his host’s eyes or from some other pleasant diversion drifting through his addled brain.
“Are they all free?” Cole asked.
“Yes,” Henry replied. “Dr. Lancroft don’t need them no more anyhow.”
Cole did a quick survey of the people in the basement. Several of them were climbing to their feet and wiping the gunk from their eyes. Others were nursing wounds where their flesh had been cut or scraped away to reveal the hardened, vaguely wooden texture of the underlying muscle. Once Cole told the most alert of the group how to get out, a slow exodus toward the stairs began.
“Shit,” he said as the workshop emptied. “I don’t hear Paige anymore. They didn’t go past us, so there’s only one other place down here they could be. Bring Henry.”
Daniels held onto the slick little hand and said, “Come with us, Henry.”
The boy nodded and held onto him like a well-behaved youngster crossing the street.
“How long will you be able to hold him?” Cole asked as he led the way through the temple and to the examination room.
Daniels replied in a terse whisper, “I don’t know. I’ve never done this on someone like him.”
“Just try to hang on.”
Walking slowly and staring straight ahead, Daniels obviously wasn’t seeing much more than a few steps in front of him. He stepped over a few cowering Mud People only when his foot bumped into them. At times along the way he pulled in a sharp breath and muttered to himself. When the Nymar’s lips moved, Henry nodded.
The lab was a mess. Dented cabinets, broken shelves, and spilled jars marked the path to a section in the corner that opened to reveal a flight of stairs. Cole had to choke down the instinct to run toward the sounds of activity that drifted up from the subbasement.
Entering the starkly lit room without truly seeing where he was going, Daniels asked, “What do you want— Good God!”
Cole stood next to the table and patted the massive set of ribs held apart by a set of spanners clamped directly onto the bones. “Henry, look at this.”
