Daniels walked through the front door dressed in a brown and red checked bowling shirt and baggy pants. “I’m not at your beck and call, you know. I’ve got a lot going on. I just got things back together with my girlfriend, the Chicago Nymar have finally worked out a deal to quiet things down, and I finally got my online collectibles acquisition business up and running!”
“What deal with the Nymar?” Paige asked.
Cole chimed in with, “What kind of collectibles?”
Daniels pointed to Paige and replied, “Aphrodisiacs for Steph’s Blood Parlor, which aren’t much more than sugar water.” To Cole, he said, “Action figures from any series you can name. Get me a prototype for one of the new Hammer Strike figurines and I’ll see about a discount on whatever you like.” Back to Paige. “You were supposed to come over so I could take another sample from you. Did something come up?”
Fresh from a quick shower and change of clothes, she kicked the putrid bundle encased in plastic tarp and told him, “You’re looking at it.”
Daniels was a squat fellow with an ample gut that didn’t quite hang over his belt. What little hair he had on his head was in a short ring that went from the back of one ear and around to the other. While most Nymar markings were in the spots with the highest blood circulation like the neck or wrists, Daniels’s tendrils were mostly clustered on his scalp like a supernatural toupee. Stopping several tables away from the bundle, he set down the metal case he’d brought with him and grinned, displaying some fangs that drooped lazily down from his gums. “I put together that list you wanted, Cole.”
Cole was freshly scrubbed as well, but brightened up even more when he heard that. “Great. Where is it?”
“Got it right here,” Daniels replied while digging into his shirt pocket.
“What list?” Paige asked.
Daniels glanced up at her and then closed his sausage fingers around the piece of paper he’d taken from his shirt pocket. “Nothing.”
“It’s just a list of some other concoctions he’s made along with some ingredients,” Cole explained.
“Nothing that could really cause any trouble if it got out,” Daniels assured her. “Just some things to give him some ideas for the game he’s working on. Like power-ups that are different than your typical fare.”
Cole winced, knowing that assurances like those were worse than whatever else Daniels had been afraid of saying.
“Game?” Paige growled. “What game?”
“I need something to stay afloat if I’m ever going to get any sort of job back at Digital Dreamers,” Cole told her. “Also I thought making a game with some dog-type monsters could deflect some of the heat from the whole Kansas City thing. You know, like that special MEG’s going to air about the werewolf sightings.”
“How is any of that going to help with that?” she asked.
Daniels shrugged and said, “Makes sense to me. If you want to discredit something like that, don’t cover it up and give ammunition to the conspiracy buffs. Trot it right out for everyone to see. Remember that alien autopsy show that was on like ten years ago? They showed a grainy, supposedly classified video on TV and had one of the actors from Star Trek host it.”
“So that was real?” Paige asked.
“I don’t know,” Daniels replied. “But if it was, that was the perfect way to make it look fake. You already doctored some of that legitimate Kansas City footage so it looked like a hoax and released it, right?”
Cole nodded proudly. “Yes, and it was brilliant.”
“Well, combine that with some cable special hosted by MEG, and your average person will be more willing to believe they’re just watching another show, as opposed to anything truly world-changing. Did you hear about those Mongrels that were spotted in Crown Center? The pictures of them skulking under some cars were written off as fakes before they could cause any commotion. People are more ready to accept this Mud Flu as a genuine concern than werewolves.”
“You’re not putting Mongrels in any game, Cole,” Paige said. “That just draws attention to them while they’re trying to lay low. If they get backed into a corner, they could get violent, and then we’ll have to go back there and wipe them out. That would go against the promise I made to leave them be.”
“Those Mongrels are freaky little things, if you ask me.” Daniels shuddered. “Not as bad as Half Breeds, but nobody’s seen any of them since KC. I mean nobody.”
As Cole slipped the list into his pocket, Paige said, “Will you just take a look at this mess on the floor?”
Daniels had been doing a good job of distracting himself so far, but he got twitchy as he approached the bulky, misshapen corpse beneath the plastic sheet. As he became increasingly nervous, the Nymar loosened his already baggy shirt by tugging on his collar. His eyes bugged a little, which gave him something of a Rodney Dangerfield quality.
Once he got past the initial reaction to seeing what was left of Peter Walsh, however, Daniels circled the body and took notes in a progressively more frenetic pace. The only time he stopped was to run out to his car and retrieve a case that reminded Cole of a kit used by forensic investigators on TV. The contents of the Nymar’s baggage were a collection of test tubes, racks for the tubes, and slips of different kinds of paper to put into the tubes. Once it was all set up, Daniels pulled on some plastic gloves and got to work. He snipped pieces from different tentacles and took samples of sludge from various spots on Peter’s face, wrists, and neck. It didn’t take long for Cole to realize why that portion of the investigation was always sped up in a montage for those forensics shows.
A few exceedingly boring hours later Daniels announced, “I’ve only done a quick once-over, but I can already tell you this man’s spore was poisoned.”
“Just his spore?” Paige asked.
“That’s right. I can run some more tests—at least the tests I’m equipped for—but his human tissue seems fairly healthy.”
Cole let out a single laugh and said, “Except for the tissue that was ripped open like a bag of Jiffy Pop.”
“Yes,” Daniels muttered. “Obviously. But what’s most interesting is this.” Taking a pen from his shirt pocket, he used it to poke one of the thickest tentacles that had emerged from Peter Walsh’s chest. “Were these always so brittle?”
“No. They were more like muscle before. Now they just look shriveled.”
“Could that be because they’re outside instead of in?” Paige asked.
Nodding, Daniels said, “Partially. I’ve done extensive research on myself, and I can tell you that when any part of a spore is taken from its resting place, it maintains a certain…”
“Squishiness?” Paige offered.
“I was going to say viscosity, but yes. How long ago did this man die?”
“A few minutes before I called you,” she replied.
“If a Nymar has been feeding well enough for its spore to be this large, it would take considerably longer to dry out. But it’s impossible for him to have had these tentacles in his chest cavity anyway. As you can see, most of his organs are more or less intact. See the stretch marks on the inner tissue? They’re relatively fresh. These thicker protrusions were made this way fairly quickly, maybe even occurring spontaneously as a reaction to some sort of imbalance or foreign substance. Again, this is all based on initial observations, but I can tell you this is as much a Nymar as a Half Breed is a human being. The base materials are there, but they’ve been warped beyond recognition.”
“What warped it?” Paige asked.
“Whatever is tainting this spore, it’s not a standard narcotic or any prescription medication,” Daniels explained as he pointed to a short rack of test tubes. Each tube had just enough of the sludge to fill the bottom with a different strip of material soaking in it. “Granted, there are a lot of other tests I can run with enough time, but my preliminary findings are that this toxin is natural.”
Grateful to look at test tubes instead of the corpse, Cole asked, “What do you mean natural?”
“It’s not shapeshifter or Nymar in origin, but it could very well be something from one of the lesser known races.”
“What about nymphs?” Paige said.
“That’s a possibility,” Daniels replied with a nod.
“I thought you said natural,” Cole reminded them.
“Yes,” Daniels stated. “Shapeshifters, nymphs, even Nymar occur naturally. They’re the products of some unusual evolution, but they’re certainly not man-made.”
Just when Cole thought he’d redefined his world enough, another little corner of it got swept clean of his preconceptions. “Before he died, Peter said something about the nymphs having diseased blood,” he said.
Tapping his pen against one of his drooping fangs, Daniels said, “I’ve read texts written by other Nymar that theorize about a connection between them and nymphs that goes back several hundred years.”
“What connection?” Cole asked.
After some uncomfortable squirming, Daniels finally spat out the words he so rarely forced from his mouth. “I…don’t know much more than that.”
“Can you look into it?” Paige asked.
“Definitely,” the chemist said as he dove straight back into his comfort zone. “I’ve had my eye on some old books I found online, but haven’t had the money to buy them. It would sure be nice if I had a little help with that.”
“We’ll float you a loan,” Paige said. Before Daniels could grouse about it, she added, “And if your information actually helps us, you can consider them a gift.”
“There are a few other books that might be of some use…” Seeing the scowl taking shape on Paige’s face, Daniels added, “…but they can wait.”
“Have you ever heard of Pestilence?” Cole asked.
Daniels blinked as if the subject change had been sudden enough to rattle his eyeballs. Then he let his lids drop and recited, “‘They shall be wasted with hunger, devoured by pestilence and bitter destruction; I will also send against them the teeth of beasts, with the poison of serpents in the dust.’” Opening his eyes and taking in the perplexed expressions worn by both Skinners, he said, “Deuteronomy 32:24. I’m certain pestilence is mentioned a few other times in the Bible, but that was the first one to come to mind. That’s also supposed to be one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
“No, it’s something else Peter said while he was talking about the nymphs and diseased blood. You don’t think we’re all sick now too, do you?”
Looking at his gloved hand, Daniels said, “Nymar don’t catch airborne or contact viruses. If this is infectious, I would have had to ingest it somehow, and,” he added with a snorting laugh, “I didn’t exactly drink any of this stuff.”
“Great. So it may just be us.”
“Let me keep doing my tests before you get all riled up.”
“Here’s how it’s gonna go,” Paige announced. “Get to work on seeing what made this Nymar stop ticking. Pestilence is the name for whatever did this to him, so drop whatever else you’re working on and figure out what that is. We’ll do the same.”
“But,” Daniels protested, “the other project I’m working on is the cure for your arm.”
“And how’s that coming along?”
“I think I may have something…but I’ll need some more tissue samples to be sure.”
“Forget it,” she said. “Pestilence is more important, so just focus on that for now. You’ve got my cell number. If I don’t hear from you at least twice a day, I’ll call, and if you don’t answer—”
“Wait,” Daniels cut in. “Where are you going?”
“We need to go to St. Louis. That’s where this guy came from.”
“But your arm won’t get any better on its own,” Daniels protested. “And the longer I go without treating it, the less likely it will be that it can be treated!”
“Forget about it. My arm, my problem.”
Although Paige tried to leave the room, Daniels reminded her that he wasn’t quite human when he actually managed to get in front of her and say, “Whether you administered that mixture prematurely or not, I was still the one who made it, and I intend on fixing it.”
“I’m fine,” Paige said as she lifted her arm from its sling and strained to flex her fingers. “See?”
Daniels was not impressed. “I’m coming with you,” he insisted.
Paige looked at him and shook her head. “Not this time. There’s someone in St. Louis who might be able to give us some insight as to what’s going on.”
“Is this contact a Nymar?”
“No.”
“Then they’re not as qualified to examine this specimen.” Before she could rebut that statement, Daniels added, “If this contact has enough space for me to work in a protected environment, I could move my investigation along much faster.”
She narrowed her eyes and stood toe-to-toe with the dumpy Nymar. “Wouldn’t the lab in your apartments be a good enough place to work? Or here? You can have the run of this place while we’re away. And what about that collectibles thing you started?”
“Actually,” Daniels groaned, “my girlfriend’s got a whole shopping trip planned to refurnish my second floor apartment. There’s colors to look at, patterns to choose, then she’ll want me to move furniture. It’s a whole, involved process. If I was to come along with you, I wouldn’t have anything else to do other than work.”
“How is Sally?” Cole asked.
Brightening at the mention of her name, Daniels replied, “Great. After those animals tore through the building the last time you were there, she’s decided to move in with me.”
“Hey! Congrats.”
“How long will it take for you to finish with Peter?” Paige asked.
“Another day should be sufficient. There’s plenty of tests to run, but that would be enough time for me to check out a few—”
“You’ve got until tomorrow,” she cut in. “Then Cole and I head out to St. Louis with or without you. Also, you’re driving your own car and paying for your own gas.”
Daniels obviously wasn’t happy about that, but nodded tersely rather than concede. “Fine.”
“And you,” she said to Cole as she followed him toward the kitchen. “If the wrong stuff from that list shows up in one of your games, you’ll see how much I can do with this gimpy arm of mine.”
“Yes, ma’am. Nice to have you back, by the way. When you stop feeling sorry for yourself, you become the Paige I’ve always known.”
“You haven’t really known me that long,” she pointed out.
Cole let go of the heavy door they’d installed. “Hey!” she scolded as she caught it.
Reaching out to push the door back, Cole noticed that she’d been quick and strong enough to hold it open using her right arm. “Sometimes a wounded little bird just needs to be pushed out of the nest,” he mused.
Paige strode ahead and grumbled, “I got yer bird right here.”