“So you’re hopped up in more ways than one, huh?” Cole mused as he pushed away from Sid and rolled to his feet. “I’d like to hear all about that.”
Sid’s mouth hung open as he swayed from side to side. Rather than watch the Nymar’s eyes, Cole watched his shoulders. That way he didn’t fall for the head fake Sid attempted before rushing him. Holding the spear in front of him like a bar, he pressed it lengthwise against Sid’s chest and diverted the Nymar’s momentum to send him flying into a collection of trash cans. From there, Cole raised the compact weapon and was about to lunge when a pair of strong little hands grabbed him from behind and pulled him down to his knees. A bony arm snaked around his throat and grabbed the forked end of the spear with the other hand. It was Rita. Pressing her mouth against his ear, she hissed, “You’re done in this town, Skinner.”
Cole pulled as hard as he could but was unable to get the spear away from her.
Having leapt to his feet after recovering from his involuntary flight, Sid grinned at the sight of Cole being wrapped up by the spindly girl in pigtails. “Skinners are done everywhere,” he said.
“Actually, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard that sort of thing,” Cole replied.
“The funniest thing is that you brought all of this on yourselves,” Rita said. “You’re the ones who wouldn’t work with us, and now you’re the ones who gave us a way to wipe all of you pricks off the map.”
Cole struggled against the arms holding him, but she wasn’t budging. She even knew just how hard to press against his throat without killing him or knocking him out. The edges of his vision were clouding, but it didn’t look like he’d miss the evisceration that Sid obviously had in mind.
More shots were fired.
Flames were claiming Raza Hill.
In the parking lot, people were shouting.
“Why not stop fighting it?” Rita whispered. Her lips brushed against his ear and her soft bangs tickled Cole’s skin. “Just say the word and I’ll give you a freebie before Sid guts you. There are guys all over town who would love me to pay such special attention to them.”
Sid stood his ground, waiting for the signal to proceed.
When Cole tried to reclaim his spear, Rita pulled it back. “Poor baby. Last time you laid down the law, you were so tough. Now look at you. About to die carrying a broken stick.”
“That’s right. The last time I kicked your ass, the varnish was still fresh on this thing,” Cole mused. Focusing all of his will into a single purpose, he twisted the spear and extended it to its full length until the gleaming spearhead drove directly into Sid’s chest. He then collapsed the other end of the weapon so it could be pulled from Rita’s grasp. After finally pulling out of Rita’s stranglehold, he twisted the spear even more to pry a loud scream from the back of Sid’s bloodstained throat.
During one of their sparring sessions, Paige told him that the inside of a Nymar was a lot like an insect; a fluid mass of simple organs designed to process one food source, all wrapped up in a strong exoskeleton. The core of any Nymar’s being was the spore attached to their heart. Because the weapon was bonded to him at a blood level through the thorns in its handle, Cole could feel the spore inside Sid’s chest rubbing frantically against the spearhead. As Sid dropped to his knees, Cole pulled the weapon out of him and pivoted around to take a swing at Rita. From then on he only needed to rely on his training, experience, and the rush of adrenaline pumping through his system.
After backing away from or ducking under the first series of Cole’s attacks, Rita hopped over him and grabbed onto the overhang of Raza Hill’s roof. Hot tongues of flame had heated that section of the building, forcing her to drop down again and hurry to her fallen comrade. Instead of comforting or helping Sid in any way, she dug under his shirt to remove the 9mm pistol tucked there. Sid might have been overconfident in his unearthly abilities, but Rita wasn’t too proud to fall back on the basics. She fired a quick shot at Cole that hissed several feet wide of its target. Before she could pull the trigger again, he was snapping the forked end of the spear around to slice through a good section of meat along her arm. If not for the black tendrils that spewed from the wound to pull it shut, she might have been forced to drop the gun. Even with the spore’s self-preservation reflex, she wasn’t able to fire accurately before her arm was pinned to the wall between the tines of Cole’s weapon.
“Who sent you?” he demanded. “Steph?”
Unable to use the gun, Rita dropped it and ripped herself from where she’d been trapped, without a thought to all the skin shredded along the way. Her entire forearm was almost peeled to the bone, but she was free.
“You’d better run far away, Skinner,” she said. “Tell that to your skank partner too! Time for Nymar to hunt you again!” With that, she jumped above the spear’s range and ran away as soon as her feet made contact with the ground.
Cole grabbed the 9mm and followed Rita toward the alley. Before he rounded the next corner, a figure in a battered army surplus coat was herded into his view.
“This son of a bitch won’t stay down!” Prophet said while firing another couple rounds at the arsonist.
Rita was nowhere to be found. Rather than take a chance on upsetting the Nymar by just shooting it, Cole tucked the 9mm under his belt, and holding the spear in both hands, rushed the son of a bitch who’d lit the fire that had all but consumed Raza Hill.
From the ground it looked as if the entire roof was on fire. Standing up there amid the flames, however, Ace could see that most of them rose up from broken windows or spots where the arsonist’s mixture had seeped into the structure. It wouldn’t be long before the job was done, however. The roof sagged and buckled under his feet as he gazed down at the Nymar caught between Prophet and Cole. It was time for the boss man to step in and make things right.
As soon as he landed in a spot that gave him a clear view of his targets, Ace pulled a thin, perfectly balanced throwing knife from his custom-made Italian boot. After that, all that remained was for him to pick the spot where he would stick it between Cole’s shoulder blades. Ace cocked his hand back, only to have the knife plucked from it and his wrist twisted at a very uncomfortable angle.
“Lights out, dipshit,” Paige said as she jammed a syringe into one of the thicker tendrils in his arm and pressed the plunger.
The Skinners called the stuff now flowing through Ace’s body an antidote. To him or any Nymar, it was liquid pain that flowed to the vampire spore and dried it up on contact. Ace’s knees shattered into dried bone and flakes of dead skin, and by the time he dropped onto his side, the only thing holding him together was his fancy silk shirt.
Chapter Nine
Cole stood with Paige and Prophet, watching Raza Hill burn from a distance. The police scanner in Prophet’s van wasn’t the best, but it was good enough to pick up the chatter going back and forth between the dozens of units that had been sent to put out other fires throughout the city. Robberies were in progress. Shootings had taken place. A gas station had been put to a torch and threatened to blow up part of a city block. Almost twenty minutes after getting away from the burning ruins of a once mediocre eatery, the wail of an approaching fire truck reached Cole’s ears.
“About damn time,” he said while squinting at a rising column of black smoke.
The three of them sat in the parking lot of a nearby White Castle on Cicero Avenue. It seemed fitting since Cole had been on his way home from that same burger joint months ago when he first spotted Rita and Sid in a part of town the Nymar had been warned to leave alone. Now, that warning seemed almost as silly as an old lady wagging an angry finger at an invading army.
Paige sat on the hood of the Cav, eating fries from a rectangular cardboard box. “They should let it burn,” she said.
“That’s our home! How can you want to see it burn?”
“I don’t
“Yeah. Bigger things like tearing down that Blood Parlor over on Rush Street.”
Prophet sat behind the wheel of his van, tapping the police scanner as if he could somehow coax it into telling
