An hour earlier
“So,” Daniels said as he stepped into the two-story house on Kensington Avenue, “not all Skinners live like squatters?”
Ned’s house was covered in faded siding and a new roof. The lawn surrounding it was due for a mow, but wasn’t long enough to hide the old rainbow-shaped sprinkler connected to a vinyl hose. Inside, it smelled like dusty books and coffee. Some nice hardwood covered the floor, but was partially obscured by a collection of rugs that may very well have been collected from yard sales spanning the last several decades. The only place Daniels could look without seeing a bookshelf was straight up, but he couldn’t do that because of his chronic bouts of mild dizziness. He dragged several cases inside while perusing the shelves set up in the entryway.
“You don’t like my house?” Ned snapped.
Daniels shook his head and bent down to look at a complete series of demonic encyclopedias. “On the contrary! It beats the daylights out of an abandoned restaurant in Chicago.”
By the time Ned turned to look at Paige, she was already waiting for the inevitable. And, like a good piece of clockwork, Ned asked, “You’re still living in that restaurant?”
“Yes, Ned.”
“Don’t you know that Gerald only picked that spot as a place for an emergency? It was supposed to be a weapons store, nothing more than that.”
“I know,” Paige said. “But it’s got so much closet space and my very own industrial fridge. Do you know how many pizza boxes I can fit in there?”
The old man shook his head and shuffled through the living room to a staircase. “You got chemicals to work on?”
“Yes,” Daniels replied. “And a body to dissect. It’s in the car.”
Eager to get away for a moment, Paige chimed in with, “I’ll get it.”
“What are these?” Daniels asked as he pointed toward a set of symbols etched into the door frame. While examining one set of symbols, he found even more that were angular and precisely drawn around the door, with only the occasional break between them. “Is it some sort of language?”
“No,” Ned replied. “Don’t worry about those. And don’t mess with those jars. Just don’t open anything unless I say it’s all right. That goes for everyone!”
But Daniels couldn’t help following the symbols all the way around the door, along the ceiling, and eventually around a window frame.
Standing at the base of the stairs, Ned said, “I’m not working on your schedule, Nymar.”
Responding to the tone in the old man’s voice like a kid who’d just been called by his first, middle, and last name, Daniels hustled to follow Ned upstairs. He was taken to a small bedroom on the second floor that was at the opposite end of the hall from two larger rooms. Even though most of the room was taken up by several minifridges and narrow tables of equipment ranging from paint mixers to heat lamps, there was still a set of bookshelves wedged in on the wall adjacent to the door.
“There’s some plastic tarp in the closet,” Ned explained. “Throw that down before you drag any body in here. You’re not bringing anything toxic in here are you?”
“If there is anything contagious to be found, it’s way too late to worry about infection now,” Daniels said. “Are you equipped to run tests on biological material?”
“I’ve done plenty of work for Barnes-Jewish Hospital, so if there’s anything you need that I don’t have, just let me know and I’ll make some calls.”
“How about access to a portable CT scanner?”
“Do you really need that?”
“No,” Daniels chuckled as he displayed a droopy fang in a wide grin. “I was just pulling your leg.”
“Hilarious,” Ned grumbled.
The front door squeaked open and slammed shut. Those noises were followed by the thump of heavy footsteps and the groan of old stairs. Before long Paige stepped past the old man with the body of Peter Walsh wrapped in plastic draped over both shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
“Where do you want this?” she asked.
“On the plastic,” Ned replied. When nobody moved, he turned toward Daniels and raised both eyebrows expectantly.
Lurching toward the closet, Daniels scanned the shelves until he found a pile of neatly folded tarps. “I’ll lay these out. Also, I could use another sample from you, Paige.”
“I’ve had a long day and I don’t want to get cut up right now. Didn’t you contact those other Nymar?”
“Yes, but they didn’t tell me much. That gives us some time to—”
“Gives me some time to rest,” Paige cut in. “Now if you’ll excuse me, there was a rocking chair downstairs with my name on it.”
After Paige left, Ned asked, “What sample were you talking about?”
“A sample from her arm,” Daniels replied. “I’m trying to put together a treatment.”
“Skin sample?”
“And tissue,” the Nymar said with a wince. “From as deep as you can get.”
The old man nodded and left the room. He headed downstairs, where he found Paige settling into an old rocker situated next to an older couch in front of a surprisingly new television. She acknowledged his entrance with, “Finally got rid of the set with the bunny ears, huh?”
“Had to, with the switch to digital.”
“Oh, right.”
Ned went over to one of the many bookshelves in that room. Not only were there more shelves than in the rest of the house, but they were decorated with knickknacks of all shapes and sizes. Pennywhistles and antique Howdy Doody figurines were scattered among volumes of mythology and folklore texts. An African thumb harp sat on top of a row of white witchcraft cookbooks propped against a chipped cement frog that sat with its crossed legs dangling over the edge of the shelf. Ned reached below the frog’s feet to a stack of flat leather cases arranged in front of some medical texts. After patting the frog on the head, he unzipped the case to fish out a small scalpel.
“Why don’t you tell me how you messed up your arm?”
Paige flinched as if the words had snuck up and smacked her on the back of the head. Since she was too comfortable to escape, she sighed. “The idea was to bond shapeshifter blood to human tissue so we could borrow some of their powers for a little while. The only thing I know that can bond to a shapeshifter other than a person is a Blood Blade. When I got my hands on one, I gave Daniels a piece of it and he came up with a substance that acted as a bonding agent.”
“You mean a colloid.”
“Right. I couldn’t inject the mixture directly into my veins without the chance of being turned, but I thought it could be attached to a buffer and pumped directly into the muscle groups I wanted to enhance.”
“That’s how you came up with the idea of using the mixture as tattoo ink?”
“Pretty much.”
Ned nodded and pulled up a stool made from wicker and tanned leather. “Not bad.”
“That,” Paige said as she held up her wounded arm, “is where you’re wrong. I injected some before Daniels was through testing it so I could toughen up my arm for a fight against a Full Blood. It worked for a while, but didn’t wear off like it was supposed to and turned my arm into a hunk of rock.”
“Mind if I take a look?” When Paige shrugged, Ned reached out to examine her arm. As he poked and prodded her, he lifted his chin as if listening to music or feeling a breeze move past his face. After he was through, he asked, “You’re certain your Nymar friend mixed the ink correctly?”
“We’ve already been through this,” she sighed.
Picking up the scalpel and placing the blade within a centimeter of her forearm, Ned said, “Since you trust him so much, you should give Daniels the sample he asked for. It may sting.”
“Carve it up, carve it off,” Paige muttered. “I don’t care anymore.”
As Ned’s hands moved to feel her arm for a place to make the first incision, Paige studied the ugly chipped frog reflected in his glasses. Placing one finger along the top of the blade, he pressed the edge upon the meatiest portion of her arm and started cutting.
She looked away from what he was doing and repressed the instinct to pull her arm away. The pain wasn’t overwhelming, but it cut through the numbness in her deadened skin just enough to trigger a healthy squirm factor. A few beads of sweat pushed out from her forehead as he sliced a section of her flesh that was smaller than a dime. The skin was so tough that even shaving off that little piece proved to be a lot harder than he’d expected. To make matters worse, his blade got stuck if he stopped moving it for so much as a second. “Something’s bothering you, Paige. Want to talk about it?”
Her face not only regained some color but flushed a bit as she snapped, “What’s bothering me? How about the vampires knocking on my door and exploding? Or what about the werewolves that are being turned into an invading army? That stuff bothers me.”
“I know,” Ned assured her. “But that’s not what I meant. We’ve all seen enough to drive most people way past their limits, and just when we think we can relax or take a breath, something else comes along to try and spill our guts onto the floor. You’ve been living with that sort of thing for a while, though.”
She sighed and looked down at her arm. The knife was still making its way beneath a thin flap of skin, but wasn’t able to slice it completely off. “Every day, I half expect Cole to come to his senses and buy a plane ticket to anywhere but where I am so he doesn’t have to waste his life in a fucking nightmare. It’s too late for me, but…”
Tightening his grip on her arm, Ned angled the blade in a little deeper and worked as if he was sawing through a tree branch.
The squirm factor returned, but Paige handled it. “Cole already accused me of not doing enough to get my arm working again.”
Ned was making progress, but only through a lot of effort. He soon fell into a rhythm where his entire upper body rocked from side to side as he shaved off the coin-sized section of Paige’s arm that was now covered in an ugly bruise. When he removed that little piece of her, her arm barely had a chance to bleed before the serum in her system got to work sealing the wound. “I think you’re doing all right considering the extent of what happened,” he said. “I also think you’re letting your injury get to you. Maybe that’s what Cole’s picking up on.”
“I’ve been trying to get through it. Trying to find a way to fix it.”
“That’s all well and good, but it’s not the point.” Getting up from the stool, he walked over to the medical kit and sifted through it. “I may not be able to see much, but I’ve noticed the way you hold that arm. When you bring it in close, you’re not coddling it or working out a kink. You’re hiding it. I saw that same thing after a buddy of mine came back from the army with a gimp leg. He hated people staring at it more than he hated his physical therapist. And if anyone acted like they felt sorry for him…hoooo boy!”
Once the sample was in a little plastic bag, Ned walked over to the rocker and stopped its motion with a well-placed hand on its back. “I know what it’s like to be injured and I know what it’s like to be pitied. You and I don’t take either very well. If there’s one more thing I can teach you, it’s that you shouldn’t be ashamed of getting hurt. Even if it was your fault, groaning about it won’t do anyone any good.”
Paige stood up and rubbed her arm. The spot where Ned cut her was hurting, but pain was a lot better than numbness. As she massaged the hardened flesh and wiggled her fingers, she realized she could feel her hand on her forearm a little more than she could a few hours ago.
“Take this up to your friend Daniels. If you trust him, then let him work. Otherwise, kindly escort him out of my house.”
“Gotcha. Thanks, old man.”
He nodded and handed her the Baggie.
It was one thing to watch him operate on her as if he was carving a ham, but Paige had a hard time holding the chunk of flesh he’d taken. She tried to imagine it was a piece of lunch meat, which lasted until she was about two steps from the door to the upstairs room where Daniels was setting up shop. Tossing him the sample, she asked, “Where are those Nymar?”
He’d already laid Peter’s body on both layers of plastic and was currently organizing his test tube racks. “They don’t seem very organized,” Daniels told her. “I tried contacting them through the usual channels but they seemed distracted. They’re supposed to call me back any time, though.”
“I think I’ll head out on my own for a while. I need to get out of here.”
“Take my car. Just don’t mess it up.”
“You sure about that?” she asked.
Daniels had already fished his keys from his pocket, and now handed them over. “If it’ll get you away long enough for me to work, then yes, I’m sure.”
Rather than argue with the Nymar, Paige took his keys so she could do some hunting the old fashioned way.
St. Louis was a sprawling tangle of old and new structures, streets that changed names depending on where they led and a constant flow of traffic that never let up no matter how late it was. Driving through it all, Paige either felt exhilarated or aggravated, depending on how slow the other cars were moving.
Every so often a subtle twinge rippled through the scars left behind by her weapons, to let her know there was something lurking nearby. Traces of Nymar could be felt as she got closer to downtown, and shapeshifters of some kind were scattered farther north in University City. None of the traces, however, were strong enough for her to follow to a source. Either the locals knew more Skinners were in town or they were roaming too quickly to be tracked.
Paige had just turned off of Delmar Boulevard onto North Hanley Road when her phone rang. She went through the wriggling dance of getting it out of her pocket while driving, looked at the number displayed on the screen and let out a relieved breath. Making sure no trace of emotion came through in her voice, she hit the button and asked, “What is it Cole?”
“How much cash did you bring with you?”
“Fine, Cole. And how are you?”
“I’m serious. I need you to come down here and bail me out.”
Steering into the first parking lot she could find, Paige wound up in front of a little white building with a sign that read AMERICAN CLEANERS. Now that she wasn’t a moving violation waiting to happen, she asked, “Bail you out? You’d better be kidding.”
“I don’t have a lot of time to explain it to you, but I seriously need to get bailed out!”
“What happened?”
“Rico and I got into some trouble.” Not only had his voice dropped to an insistent hiss, but he must have also cupped his hand over the phone because the background noise became muddled as well. “We made it to that club, but found some people with some familiar black tattoos.”
Knowing he was talking about Nymar, Paige nodded and started thinking through a dozen different angles at once. “How’d you wind up in jail?”
“We got into an accident and…there was a bus…and Rico…” She could tell that Cole was having trouble coming up with an effective way to get his point across without saying anything to make things worse, then he snarled, “Just get me out of here and I’ll explain it in person. If you don’t have enough to bail us both out, that’s fine. This psycho friend of yours could use some alone time.”
“What police station are you at?”
“We were in Sauget, driving away from that club.”
“What station?”
“I don’t know! Is there more than one around here? We got handcuffed, tossed into a car, and driven to a big room with a fucking cage. Did you want me to write down directions?” Another voice from the background barked at Cole and was muffled completely as he covered the phone receiver. After a few seconds of garbled arguing, he said, “I gotta go, but the officer will tell you where we’re at. Just bring some cash out here quick, all right?”
“Umm…I don’t have the money to bail you out.”
“What? What happened to those funds from…all the traveling money and…?” Considering his surroundings, Paige thought, he didn’t want to mention the fact that they had a psychic bounty hunter feeding Skinners the occasional winning bunch of lottery numbers, or a group of investors who tossed money their way to thank the people who got them out of any number of supernatural binds.
She had to give him credit for keeping his mouth shut. “We’ve got bills to pay, Cole. Times are hard.”
“On top of everything else, I’ve got to hear that shit again? Maybe I can hang myself from my shoelaces.” The muffled voice in the background didn’t like that too much.
“Is Rico there?” Paige asked.
“Yes, but they’re only letting one of us make a call.”
“So you’re both all right?”
“Yes,” Cole said in a somewhat calmer tone. “We’re all right. There’s something going on at that club, though. Our tattooed buddies came out of nowhere to grab one of the dancers. I think they were just waiting for a chance to rush the place.”
“Sit tight,” Paige told him. “I don’t have much money, but I should be able to arrange for bail. If anything comes up and you have to call me quickly, just say you’re calling your lawyer, and odds are better you’ll get to use the phone again.”
“Oh. Okay,” Cole said as the muffled voice in the background said a few words of its own. They must have been good because Cole swiftly added, “I have to go. ’Bye.”
The connection was broken and Paige saved the number to her phone. She then sifted through her contacts to make another call. It was answered in one ring.
“Hey, Prophet. It’s Paige Strobel. I need a big favor.”