orbs peeking out from the mesh of black tendrils seeping out from the outer edges of their sockets. That sight alone was enough to bring her back to that bloody night in Urbana all those years ago.
“What’s the matter?” Hope asked. “You don’t want to rush back and protect him? It seems you’ve been hardened in the years since the last time we met.”
Bringing her machete up so the treated edge caught some of the tunnel’s dim light, Paige said, “You don’t know the half of it.”
Hope cocked her head to one side as the black mesh in her eyes peeled back to show more of their vivid green. “One word from me and he’s dead.”
“You did all this to bring us here. You want to say your piece? Then say it. It won’t be long before the cops find the same passage we did.”
“They’ll find nothing apart from the officers that you killed.”
“What officers?” When the Nymar would only smile, Paige drew her gun and took aim at her. “What officers, Hope? Tell me.”
“I don’t know all of the unnecessary details like names or ranks, but there have been police within our Blood Parlors for some time.”
“Stephanie takes orders from you?”
“It’s not like that. As you Skinners so gleefully point out whenever you feel the need to push us down, the notion of a national, organized Nymar structure is a lie intended to give overactive imaginations something to play with. I and several others have merely suggested a course of action that will change things for the better.”
“You’ve sparked an uprising.”
Even though Hope’s features had an otherworldly factor that surpassed the typical Nymar, the flicker of satisfaction crossing her face was easy to read. “I hadn’t thought of it in quite that way, but I suppose you could call it that.”
Shifting only slightly so her voice would carry behind her, Paige shouted, “Is Cole down yet?”
“No!” Rico grunted. “But he’s still kicking.”
“If the bloodsucker on the ceiling doesn’t let go in three seconds, kill it.”
“You don’t think I been tryin’ that? Every time I get close to touching this bastard, it nearly pops Cole’s head off!”
Paige squared her shoulders so she was facing Hope directly. “Let. Him. Go.”
“Only if you do me a favor. You seem to have grown close to the shapeshifters. I know for a fact that the pack of Mongrels in Kansas City owes you a favor, and there’s been rumors that a Full Blood in St. Louis even helped you on at least one occasion. I want to meet with them.”
“Why?”
“Because one of them may know about a certain prisoner that was liberated from Lancroft’s dungeon. We intended to get him out ourselves, but the measures protecting his cell were too strong. We went back after the entire structure had been weakened but he was already gone.” Pausing as the activity on the street above grew louder, Hope allowed the black mesh of tendrils to close in again until they’d completely covered the green centers of her eyes. “Better make your choice quickly. The police are out in force, and I know at least three different safe passages through these tunnels. What about you?”
“I won’t do a damn thing to help you.”
“That’s a shame. After how you kept so still and quiet the night of that party, I thought you knew how to behave when you’re beaten. Sure I can’t convince you to make the rational choice again?”
Paige raised both weapons. “I don’t have much use for rational things anymore. You’re gonna let him go and then you’ll—”
Hope’s eyes snapped toward the Nymar clinging to the ceiling and she hissed what could have been a code word. When Paige rushed at her, Hope grabbed the machete just beneath the treated metallic edge and stopped it in mid swing. The .45 in Paige’s other hand went off, but not before Hope twisted her hand so the bullet punched into the brick wall behind the Nymar’s shoulder. Now that she controlled both of Paige’s arms, Hope opened her mouth to display all of her fangs except for the curved pair used to administer venom. What would come next was inevitable, and she wanted Paige to feel every second of it.
Cole didn’t know how the Nymar remained attached so firmly to the ceiling. At times he swore he could feel both of its hands scraping against him as Rico tried to pull it down. Even though the big man hadn’t been able to convince the Nymar to let him go, he hadn’t stopped trying to get a grip around the arm that was cinched to Cole’s throat. Suddenly, the Nymar reached out with a loop of fiber that was lowered over his head, to pull it back almost to the snapping point.
“Play time is over,” she hissed in the most human tone she’d used so far. “Time for supper.” With that, she latched onto the side of Cole’s neck and drove in all three sets of fangs right down to the gum line.
“Son of a bitch!” Rico snarled.
The fangs drilled into Cole as the Nymar’s tongue slid against his skin. Quick, excited breaths spilled from her nostrils, and when he tried to turn away, the upper set of feeding fangs shifted painfully against the tendons and fibers within his neck. He reached up to try and grab her anywhere he could but his hands merely slid off the slick, sweaty surface of her skin. This time, however, Rico was the one to slap his arm away.
“Move it or lose it, boy,” he said. Once Cole’s swinging body and flailing limbs shifted, Rico fired his Sig Sauer up into the ceiling as well as at the Nymar clinging to it. “You ain’t leaving me any choice, asshole,” he said between shots. “You’re letting go even if I gotta take my partner out along the way!”
Those words were just another layer of sound beneath the Nymar’s muffled grunts filling Cole’s ears. She pulled the blood from him in powerful gulps that dimmed every one of his senses. Rico’s bullets forced the vampire to shift her weight, and Cole renewed his efforts to pull free. The set of lower fangs were in him as well, those thicker spikes moving within his neck felt like one of his bones being wiggled by an intrusive set of needle-nose pliers.
“Stop! Stop!” was all he could say. It wasn’t much, but at the moment it was the only word in his vocabulary.
Perhaps he was dropping from the ceiling, or perhaps his body had finally seen fit to lapse into unconsciousness. All of his senses became so acute that he could hear Paige struggling at the far end of the hall. He could hear the stomp of fireman’s boots in the Blood Parlor and the wail of sirens in the background. Something moved inside his neck, slid along the tender wound and pushed deeper into him.
“That’s more like it,” Rico growled amid the crunch of knuckles against flesh.
Cole could see every crack in the ceiling and feel every ridge of the boards beneath him. He realized he was lying on the floor and Rico was down there with him, doling out a beating to the Nymar.
“You can kill me if you like,” the Nymar said.
“You’re goddamn right I can,” Rico said as he paused just long enough to remove the broken fang wedged into his fist. “I’ll get to you in a second, Cole. Just stay awake, you hear?”
“There’s something still in me,” Cole said.
“That’s just the pain talkin’.”
“No,” Cole gulped. “I can feel it. There’s something moving.”
“You mean like a little rock you swallowed? Working its way down?”
Cole’s eyes widened and he nodded. The pain from that motion felt as if someone had stuck a hot poker into the open wound on his neck. “That’s it!” he said, pushing through the agony. “What the hell is it?”
“The bitch seeded you. Let me give you a little something to boost your system.” After patting his pockets, he grunted, “I’m out. You got your kit on you?”
“What kit?”
“The one with the Resurrection Vial. There should be a dose of antidote in there too.” Of course he had the kit with him, he realized. It was one of the first things he’d gotten when Paige officially agreed to train him as a Skinner. At the time, his impulse had been to crack a joke about getting a membership card and instructions for some secret handshake, but then memories of Gerald Keeley had sprung to mind. Gerald was the first Skinner he had met, the first person to save his life, and the first man to kill himself in Cole’s presence.
The Resurrection Vial was a last ditch effort for Skinners to tack a few more moments onto their lives. The vial itself was a small glass tube with two sharp points designed to break the skin and deliver its contents into a warm body: enough Nymar spore to infect a person and bring them back from whatever grievous injury had put them down.
