Mongrels hit Lancroft’s place. Even if there are fewer of us now, the ones that are still on the right side of the fence can pull together like never before. We can finally open our eyes to all the shit we’ve been missing and start fighting to win for a change.”
“You’d better not tell me I wasn’t fighting to win.”
“I know you’ve still got your eyes on the prize, girl. That’s why I came all the way up north with you even after you refuse to tell me everything I need to know. We’re all in this together. Ain’t that right, Steve?”
The younger man nodded. “That’s right. We’re in this together.”
Paige took some comfort from that, even though she wasn’t exactly sure why. “That’s not the only reason you’re here right now,” she said to Rico. “You’re keeping tabs on me to make sure I don’t step any further out of line.”
“Could be.”
After rounding a bend on the expressway, Paige turned to look at the big man so she could study him when she asked, “And what happens if I do anything else you don’t agree with? Are you going to take me out?”
Rico’s hand lay casually on his hip. It was close to the Sig Sauer holstered under his arm, but he hadn’t made a move to pull the .45 from its resting place. “You’re worked up,” he sighed. “We been through too much for you to believe shit like that.”
“We have been through a lot. The Nymar have risen up from a pain in our asses, skipped over being a thorn in our sides, and become the stake in our collective chest. As ironic as that is, it means we’ve all got to be careful.” Now that she’d turned onto the Don Valley Parkway and was headed north, she paid closer attention to the street signs and cars around her. “I don’t know,” she grumbled. “Is that even irony?”
“I think so.” After scratching his roughly stubbled chin, Rico asked, “Is that irony, Steve?”
“Nope. That’s just a bad play on words.”
“Look, Bloodhound, I get that everything’s been flipped upside down. I was there when it happened. We been on the run for over a month, hiding, laying low, and living day to day. But that don’t cut it no more. It’s time to stop hiding from the shit storm and start dealing with it.”
“Amen to that.”
“And if we’re gonna deal with it, we need to deal the right way.”
Paige cut him short by holding up a hand to show him one of her scarred palms. “And that means me telling you everything I know, including who those guys were that brought me to Denver in that helicopter. Am I right?”
“That’d be a good start.”
“Too bad we’re almost at our exit,” she said with a crooked grin and half a sideways glance. “If you would’ve asked me about this earlier, I might have had some time to get into the whole story.”
“We got time,” Rico growled. “After you take the next exit, we need to get onto Queen Street and head into the Upper Beaches area.” Seeing the way she raised her eyebrows, he added, “I can do research too, you know. What makes you think this Cobb guy is even there?”
“Before he was taken away, Cole told Prophet how to intercept some of the e-mail the Nymar have been using to communicate with each other. Prophet got a few hits, he sent them to some techie guys, MEG helped out a little more, and finally we got our little fingers into the Nymar Web ring. Remember those bloodsuckers you flushed out of Cedar Rapids?”
“Oh yeah. They talked a big game but didn’t have anything to back it up. Ran like a bunch of bitches.”
“Damn right they did,” Paige said. “Ran straight to me. After some colorful questioning techniques, they told me some more about the guy running the Nymar communication network. He’s supposed to be based here in Canada, and even if he’s not in the house where we’re headed, there should be someone in the area to point us in the right direction. Hope wasn’t the only double-seeded Nymar working on that uprising. I’m thinking one of the others will be guarding this place.”
“Could be Cobb38 is double-seeded too,” Steve offered.
“You really think so?” Paige asked. “Leading a bunch of Nymar on the street is one thing. Those double-seeded bloodsuckers are usually too hungry to do anything on a scale like this.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Rico said. “There should be a computer setup or at least the remains of one in a Nymar safe house. Did you pay close enough attention to Cole when he was around to learn some of those geek skills of his?”
Paige pulled in a breath, blinked heavily a few times and nodded once.
“Good,” Rico said. “That’s our exit.” Waiting until she was committed to making the turn, he added, “That means you’ve got some time to explain yourself where Denver is concerned. Before you flip me any more of that shit about only explaining to Cole, you gotta remember that you left me, Prophet, and all them Amriany out there to fend for ourselves too. Me and the Gypsies don’t exactly see eye-to-eye, but they held their own that night.”
“Remember Officer Stanze?”
“The cop from Kansas City? Yeah.”
“Before Liam tried to tear that city down, he found a Half Breed carcass and started asking around about it. He even tried to sell it online. I was the one who bought it, but there were other people who took notice of the auction. Once werewolves of all shapes and sizes started charging down metropolitan streets, those people put some very important pieces together. One of them was in that helicopter.”
“Another cop?”
“Not quite.”
Although that eased Rico’s nerves a bit, it didn’t help much. “What, then? A fed?”
“No. I’m going to Kenilworth Avenue, right?”
“That’s right. Tell me who those guys are.”
“They’re the ones that have been keeping all of this from boiling over into something a hell of a lot worse than it is.”
“All of what?” Rico asked. “You mean the crap that the Nymar pulled? Coming from someone whose home was burnt down by those vampire motherfuckers, it’s hard to believe you’re saying this shit hasn’t already boiled way the hell over.”
“Skinners have been going through hell,” Paige told him, “but we signed up for it.” She drove down a section of Queen Street that was lined on both sides with two-story storefronts ranging from small restaurants and bars to specialty shops and a few little apartment buildings. Traffic was getting worse, but she held her own thanks to a Chicago driving attitude that shifted between persistent and crazy. “It’s not just the casualties we need to worry about anymore,” she continued. “Everything from Misonyk and Henry’s first rampage in Chicago to the vampires running amok a few months ago is out there for the whole damn world to see.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that. The news and God only knows how many websites have been packed full of bullshit about dog attacks and vampires. Most of it’s either dried up on its own or been pushed aside for bigger news.”
“Like the Mud Flu,” Paige said. “And that was one of ours too. Somehow, we were still able to set up shop in Lancroft’s place and try to deal with the Nymar.”
“Great job we did of that.”
“Could have been worse if we had more pressure from the real world. It took the Nymar to bring all of that down on us. Stanze was on to something other than the Half Breed he found. His department and the cops in a few other cities started coming to him for advice on their own wild dog attacks. Pretty soon he was approached by someone else looking for answers. I went to him for help while you, Cole, and Prophet were in Denver. That’s when Stanze introduced me to the guys who found him.”
“All right, then,” Rico grunted. “How’d you wind up in that helicopter?”
“Tell ya what. Why don’t I pull over, order some coffee and doughnuts, and we can talk about it some more?” Kenilworth Avenue was the next intersection she found, so Paige turned left and pulled over. “I know why not. We came here to find out who’s been pushing the goddamn Nymar to wipe us out.” She killed the engine and her headlights, pulled the keys from the ignition, and drew a pistol from the holster clipped to her hip. The Beretta PX4 Storm Compact strayed from Rico’s mandate that all Skinners carry .45s, but the handgun fit nicely in her grip and the 9mm rounds packed a solid punch. When she needed more than one punch, all she had to do was draw the second PX4 from the holster strapped around her shoulder. She pulled out the magazine, checking not only that it was full, but that it contained rounds treated with the antidote used to poison Nymar spore.
“You gotta make this right,” Rico told her. “Not just with me, but with the others too. There’s a hell of a lot
