She nodded. “It was Hope.”
Rico shifted in the front seat after slapping the car into Park. “Enough story time, kids. We’ve got work to do.”
Although he couldn’t see the Blood Parlor from where Rico had parked, Cole knew it wasn’t far away. “What’s the plan?”
“We go in,” Paige said as she swapped out the ammunition in her pistol with a load that consisted strictly of rounds treated with the Nymar antidote, “and burn them down.”
“Just the three of us?” Cole asked. “I get it that we can’t let what happened to Raza Hill slide, but going in for payback now could get us killed. There’s more going on than just—”
“This ain’t got a damn thing to do with payback,” Rico said in a roar that filled the interior of the car and rattled the deepest bones in Cole’s body. “It’s not vengeance and it ain’t keeping the peace. This is strictly gangland shit.”
When Cole looked over to Paige for some level reasoning, he got a response that was spoken in a cold, emotionless tone. “We always try to keep things from going this way, but when they do, they need to be dealt with. If too many dangerous people step too far over the line, they need to get their feet stomped as quickly as possible.”
“Haven’t you heard a word anyone’s been saying?” Cole snapped. “MEG’s been calling, there’s crap all over the news. What we’ve seen ourselves is more than enough to tell us this situation is already way out of our control. Trying to lay down the law now is like tossing a bottle of water onto a fucking forest fire!”
“We won’t be the only ones making a move like this,” Rico assured him. “I’ve been talking to some of the others and they’re all tracking down any Nymar that may have a clue about what’s going on.”
“Are we coordinating with any other groups for this?” Cole asked.
Paige tucked a .45 into the holster under her arm and double-checked the weapons wedged into the modified holsters on her boots. “Nope.”
“They think they got us on the run,” Rico said. “That gives us an advantage.”
Cole nervously checked his own weapons while grunting, “They
“Right. They’ve probably written us off and are getting ready to roll on whatever they got planned next. We hit them hard. Make them pay for burning us and then start peeling the skin off of some bloodsucker that might know where the next batch of shit is going down. Lather, rinse, repeat, and we’ll work our way to the top of this chain.”
Stuffing some extra magazines into his coat pockets, Cole muttered, “What if we get killed before making it to the second floor of that Blood Parlor?”
“Then our work is done,” she said calmly. “At least we won’t have to worry about this crap anymore. You wanted to go after these guys when Raza Hill was burning, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Cole replied.
“Now we’re doing it. If we wait any longer, they’ll implant spores in more than enough humans to make up for the Nymar that have been killed already. And those won’t be the kinky, voluntary seedings they normally use. These will be young, healthy people snatched off the streets or out of their cars so they can be dragged away and violated without being able to do a goddamn thing about it. That’s why I wanted you to read those journals, Cole. So far you’ve seen the Nymar under control, and even then, they still manage to come off as sexy assholes with fangs who are into the kinky stuff.
“You know what they are? They’re rapists. They control someone, tear them open and stick themselves in while someone else is forced to take it.” Something glistened at the corner of Paige’s eye, but was swallowed up as she narrowed her vision until she was glaring out at him and the rest of the world through slits. “When that spore gets inside someone that wants it, it makes them into something different than what they were. It makes them hungry and vile. When it wraps around the heart of someone who doesn’t want it, it keeps raping them from the inside out until their soul has no choice but to give in and just let it happen.”
She practically kicked her door open and joined Rico on the sidewalk. They were parked near an eight-story building on a corner where the structures were geared more toward business than pleasure. Straight lines, striated levels of color, and simple planters holding little bits of greenery were the norm. To the north, neon light spilled onto the sidewalks and loud music blended with voices that struggled to be heard over it. The hour was late, but not nearly late enough for the streets to be empty. There was a chill in the air that Cole could barely even feel on the parts of him that weren’t wrapped up in the new coat. His thoughts had been divided across too many fronts, but Paige had done a good job of narrowing them to a few cognitive avenues that were less friendly than the grittiest of Chicago’s alleyways.
Since the dancer who’d loaned them the car didn’t seem worried about getting it back, Rico didn’t spend much time getting it situated before joining them on the sidewalk. He tucked away a sawed-off shotgun in a harness that hung under the opposite arm from his trusty Sig Sauer and draped his leather jacket over the rig. The end of the shotgun barrel hung down below the laced side of the jacket, so he let that arm hang down to cover it. “Shit,” he growled as his cell phone chirped from another pocket. He grabbed it as though he meant to crush it in his callused paw of a hand, but flipped it open instead. “It’s Prophet.”
Paige strode up Rush Street, glaring at nearby pedestrians with a set of eyes that were sharper than any weapon at her disposal. Anyone who happened to look at the Skinners quickly looked away. “We’re not going in there to bargain with anyone or make threats, Cole.”
“Yeah, I kinda figured.”
“Every Nymar in that place will come at us. Steph must know we weren’t killed in that fire, so she’ll want to finish the job.”
“There were cameras around the perimeter of the Blood Parlor last time we were here,” Cole pointed out. “They may have seen us already.”
“Then let’s get in there.”
“All righty,” Rico said as he snapped his phone shut and pocketed it. “Prophet’s still with the Amriany. He says they’re following Bobby to San Antonio.”
“You think the Amriany are working with Bobby and Paul and those others?”
“Either that,” Rico said, “or those Gypsies are tracking them just like we are.”
Paige bent slightly at the waist and plucked the metaledged baton from its holster. “When we’re done here, if we don’t find any other leads, we’ll catch up with Prophet.”
“You mean
“Yeah. Whatever.”
There was no way Cole was going to talk her down and no good reason to try. Stephanie’s Blood Parlor was less than half a block away, located above a bar that made halfhearted attempts to cater to at least half a dozen consumer groups. Even from a distance he could make out the glow of televisions broadcasting basketball games, beer signs both foreign and domestic, video games, and the pulsing strobe lights of a tricked-out jukebox. The building’s architecture had a medieval feel, with a large pointed roof and elevated rounded corners done up to look like miniature castle towers pointing toward a starry Chicago sky. In front, faded bricks loomed over a striped awning as suited to concentrating the glow of the first floor’s neon as to shielding the second floor from prying eyes.
As the Skinners drew closer, people streamed out of the building. They moved in an orderly fashion at first, conversing with each other, lifting phones to their ears and hailing cabs. Cole was glad to see the customers leave, until one of them stepped away from the neon and tendrils widened on his face until they became thicker than tiger stripes.
“They’re here!” he warned.
Paige broke into a run while tightening her right hand around the grip of her weapon. Ever since that arm had been injured, the best form she could manage was a sloppily crafted machete. The curved section of the wooden baton creaked as it flowed outward and flattened until it was the same width as the sharpened strip that had been treated with the new varnish. By the time she closed the gap between herself and the front door of the bar, the machete’s metallic edge sliced through the air and hacked no fewer than five inches down through the shoulder of the first Nymar to present himself as a target. If not for his quick sidestep, she would have cleaved through the top of his head down to his eyebrows.
