Vampire Uprising

Chapter Twenty-Six

Rico had his drink, and didn’t have it alone. Paige sat with him in another back room at Pinups, a utility room where the strobe lights couldn’t obscure their vision, the stages were out of sight, and the music wasn’t loud enough to rattle the ice in their glasses. Daniels paced near a wall of pipes and gauges that fed into the building’s water and gas supply. The scent of grease overpowered the fragrances of the girls in the nearby dressing rooms, making the club feel like it was in another part of town.

“They’re still here, aren’t they?”

Ignoring the question, Rico sipped from his scotch and let it trickle down his throat with a strained breath.

Swirling her vodka on the rocks before downing the rest of it, Paige said, “Yeah. They’re still here.”

“What are they doing?” Daniels asked. “How did they know we were even here?”

“Just relax,” Rico snapped. “Tristan’s checking on it right now. In fact,” he added as someone rapped lightly on the door, “that’s probably her now.”

The door was pushed open and Tristan stepped inside, conveniently accompanied by Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.” The practiced smile on her face was quickly dropped when she said, “There’s two Nymar in the club. I don’t know if they know you’re here or not, but they don’t want to leave.”

“Have you tried kicking them out?” Paige asked. “Maybe say one of them touched you or something? That worked well enough to get him tossed on his ass.” She hooked a thumb toward Cole, who sat on the floor in the corner, nestled among a tangle of old pipes wrapped in insulation and duct tape. His head hung down and his arms were perched upon his bended knees, making him look more like a robot that had been unplugged and shoved there for easy storage.

“They’re not approaching any of the girls,” Tristan said. “I doubt they even know there are Dryads here. The perfumes usually mask our scent well enough to hold up until one of them actually sees us. They’re ordering drinks, keeping to themselves and not moving. One of the regular girls tried to see what they wanted, but she was sent packing.”

Rico grunted. “Then they know we’re here. Probably followed us, or maybe they have someone working at the club.”

“If they had someone planted here, we’d know about it,” Tristan assured them. “They would have already come for me or any other Dryad, just like the Nymar that hunted our sisters in St. Louis. I can get you out of here, but it’ll have to be quick. This will also have to be the last time you use our bridges for a while. With everything that’s happened tonight, we can’t afford to have you seen here.”

“It’ll blow over,” Paige said.

“Blow over?” Tristan’s eyelashes fluttered nervously, which was still appealing on a face as beautiful as hers. “Haven’t you seen the news? How could you think that would just blow over?”

“We know people were killed,” Rico said. “We’ll find a way to make that right. I’m waiting for a call that should help us get ahead of the next ones that are being set up.”

Tristan placed her hand on the door behind her. She leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper like a conspiracy nut who’d gotten a glimpse of an unmarked van with a satellite dish parked outside. “Those people that were killed weren’t just people. They weren’t Nymar either.”

“I know that,” Paige said.

“They were cops.”

The silence that filled the room was thick enough to block out the music, screaming customers, and the rattle of pipes all around them.

Cole’s head snapped up, which made him want to drop it right back down again. The incision in his side was closed, but there was still plenty of pain to remind him it had been there. His strength was returning at a steady pace, which allowed him to croak, “How do you know they were cops?”

“It’s all over the news,” Tristan told him. “They’re saying three police officers were killed when you stormed into a bar on Rush Street and murdered everyone inside before setting it on fire! Is that true?”

The Skinners looked back and forth at each other, as if trying to draw enough strength from one another to deny the claim. Unfortunately, their silence did nothing to help their cause.

Paige’s phone rang, causing everyone to jump. She answered it, headed for the door and left the utility room so she could stand in the access hall for some privacy. Ironically, her voice echoed more there than in the room she’d left.

“You killed those people, didn’t you?” Tristan asked.

Rico stood up and crossed his arms imposingly. “We kill a lot of people, darlin’. Every one of them Nymar used to be a person. Every Half Breed runnin’ around out there used to be a person.”

“I’m not asking about them and you damn well know it. Dryads have been worshipped for centuries. The only thing we worship is life. That’s why we tried to steer clear of you hunters for so long. Skinners, Amriany, even the outlaws from both sides are all killers. I thought I could trust Paige, Cole, and anyone they would vouch for. This changes everything.”

“I know,” Rico sighed. “We got set up. The bitch who did it mentioned cops being planted there, but that could have been a line of bullshit meant to shake us up. We don’t even know what the fuck any cops were doing in a Blood Parlor. If they were on a Nymar payroll, then that makes them just as bad as the bloodsuckers.”

“They weren’t,” Daniels said from where he sat on an upside down bucket. Holding Cole’s phone in both hands, he shook his head while tapping the touch screen with frenetic thumbs. “I’ve just checked through the first few stories to pop up on a search, and they all say the same thing: undercover police officers slain in the line of duty.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“And that’s not all. I tried looking up other recent reports of dead undercover officers and got stories from Philadelphia, Toronto, New Orleans, and plenty of other cities big and small. It’s so widespread, there’s been speculation of terrorist involvement.”

“Holy shit,” Rico grunted as he pressed his hands against his forehead and ran them all the way to the top of his scalp. “Holy mother-lovin’ shit. That means the Feds will get involved. Was there anything else about those other attacks?”

After a bit of backtracking, Daniels found a report from one of the national news agencies and skimmed down to the body of the story. “Looks like there were fires in a few massage parlors, some shoot-outs at private nightclubs, botched raids at some escort agencies …”

“All the sort of shit Nymar have their fingers into. Give that phone to Cole. Let him see what else he can find.”

Cole was conscious, but not happy about it. A thick layer of sweat glistened on his pasty face. Each exhalation caused his shoulders to sag and his chest to deflate. Every move he made brought another stabbing pain. Although his insides seemed to be working well enough, they had all been pushed around by a parasitic slug. That just wasn’t easy to bounce back from.

“You want to take a look, Cole?” Daniels asked.

Still weak, but grateful for something to take his mind off what had happened inside his chest, Cole nodded and accepted the phone from Daniels. Tapping the screen and sifting through the familiar Web pages was a comfortable bit of normalcy no matter how bad the results on those pages might have been.

“Kansas City was hit again,” Paige said as she stormed in from the hall.

Tristan stepped aside but watched the Skinners with the closest thing to an angry glare as her perfectly sculpted features could manage.

“More cops killed?” Rico asked grudgingly.

“Cops, civilians, construction workers, firefighters, you name it. Twenty-nine in all.”

“Jesus Christ. Tell me those bloodsuckers didn’t lure any of us there to do that.”

“I don’t think the Nymar had anything to do with this. If they did, we’re completely screwed.”

“What are you talking about?”

When Cole looked up at her, Paige seemed almost as drained as he felt.

She held her phone out and said, “That was MEG who just called. After Liam’s siege on Kansas City, all the little paranormal watchdog groups and damn near anyone else has been scouring that place. Kayla’s Mongrel pack have been staying underground, but—”

“Just spill it, Paige,” Cole said. “We don’t have a lot of time here.”

“A pack of Full Bloods tore through KC.”

“Apack?” Rico asked. “As in, more than one?”

“That’s what MEG said.”

“Sure it wasn’t just one and some Half Breeds again?”

“There are pictures,” Paige replied. “Lots of pictures. They’re spreading.”

Cole sighed. “Where were they headed when they left?” When no answer was forthcoming, he asked, “They’re still there?”

She shook her head. “One of them got away. Looks like it was Liam. He was missing an eye. There were two others. MEG put together the reports and sent them all to me, but I got the play-by-play. Kayla’s pack herded them away from the city, led the Full Bloods out past the airport, tripped them up and tore them apart. The cops are sifting through it now.”

“Cops? As in the KC cops?” Cole asked as he suddenly found enough energy to get to his feet. “What about Officer Stanze?”

“I talked to him. It was only for a second, but he told me it’s over and the emergency crews are cleaning up. After Liam’s first siege, Stanze’s been getting preferred treatment on all the freaky cases. He saw the bodies. Here,” Paige said as she held her phone out so Cole and Rico could see the screen. “See for yourself.”

Rico took the phone first, examined the screen and scowled. After holding it up close enough for the illumination to reflect off the rough features of his face, he raised his eyebrows and nodded approvingly. “I’ll be damned.” Tossing the phone to Cole, he added, “The Mongrels have been giving the Full Bloods hell for centuries, and supposedly took down one or two here and there, but this is the first time I actually seen it with my own eyes.”

The picture on the screen was tough for Cole to make out at first. After letting his tired eyes adjust to the seemingly random carnage, he eventually pieced together the carcass lying on a dirty street or sidewalk. Its skin and musculature were obviously not that of a Half Breed. The teeth were much larger and had even ripped through the thing’s face in much the same way as Mr. Burkis’s fangs shredded his when he was in full upright form. A man stood close enough to the body to provide a sense of scale. While Half Breeds were generally as large as when they’d been human, this creature was even bigger. It could have simply been a larger human, but he didn’t think so. He’d killed enough Half Breeds to recognize them when they were sleeping, running, in the shadows, or in pieces. Whatever was in the picture was no Half Breed.

“So, what?” he asked while tossing the phone back to Paige.

“So,” she replied, “this means there’s one less Full Blood in the world. As far as we know, there may only be half a dozen of them on the planet at any given time. Losing one of them will throw the others into a tizzy as they readjust.”

“They’ll probably start a war with the Mongrels,” Rico said, as if mentioning the possibility of getting free tickets to the Super Bowl. “Kayla’s pack took one Full Blood down, so they’ll have the taste of blood on their tongues. They may already be out hunting them down as we speak. Either way, we won’t need to worry about those shaggy sons of bitches for a while. Considering how busy the Nymar are keepin’ us, that’s a goddamn blessing. We may even be able to get some pointers from Kayla in dropping the big boys.”

Paige looked at her phone again as though seeing the picture for the first time. “You don’t know how huge this is, Cole. This may even be Mr. Burkis we’re looking at. The coloring on the coat is right. There haven’t been any other Full Bloods spotted in these parts that I know of other than him and Liam. Kayla may have just cleared out an entire territory.”

“And what if it isn’t Burkis?”

“Then Rico’s still right. The shapeshifter community will be in ten kinds of upheaval, and we can scratch them off the list for a while. We don’t get to scratch many things off our list, Cole. You should learn to enjoy it when it happens.”

“So what’s next on the list?”

“That Nymar from the tunnels said Hope and the rest of them were headed out to Denver, Boston, Miami, and … somewhere else.”

“San Antonio,” Rico said.

“That’s right.” Cole’s thumbs flew over his phone’s screen as he tapped through several different Web pages. “And as far as I can tell, none of those cities have been hit in this crime wave.”

“So that could mean Hope was heading out there to get the ball rolling.” For the first time in what seemed like a decade, Paige grinned. “Sounds like a good prospect for ‘Next on the List.’” Slipping into the kung fu master voice she’d used for a good portion of their weapons training, she added, “I see the pupil is finally worthy of his teacher.”

Cole barely looked at her before dryly replying, “Yeah. Sure.” When he arrived at the right note in his phone’s planner, he sat up a little straighter and turned it around in case anyone else wanted to examine the screen. “Prophet’s boss, Stan Velasco, already knows about these Denver Nymar and will pay us to bring them in. Not only does he have information we don’t already have, but his men aren’t Skinners, so they probably flew under their radar.”

“Screw that,” the big man snarled. “Last thing I wanna do is bring a Nymar in. It was too much fun gouging that striped bitch’s eye out. After tonight, I’m comin’ around to Lancroft’s thinking. Only good bloodsucker is a dead one. No offense, Daniels.”

The balding Nymar tossed an offhanded wave at the Skinners and said, “I’ve learned to stop taking offense to what you guys say a long time ago. Keeps my nose from being permanently out of joint.”

“But some Skinner somewhere would have put a red flag on Hope by now if they knew she was gathering this sort of a following, right?” Cole asked hopefully.

Unfortunately, Rico could only grunt, “Not necessarily.”

“Do we at least know something about the Denver Nymar?” Cole asked.

“I’ve done a little checking since Prophet’s been talking them up and found out they’re into a lot of different things,” Paige told him, “but nothing worth the trip to put them all down. They are organized enough to be ready for an attack.”

“How can you be sure about that?”

“Because there used to be a Skinner who worked in the Rockies,” Rico said. “Went missing some time ago—and before you ask, yeah, that is pretty common. Also before you ask, yeah, it mighta been the Denver Nymar who did it.”

Cole tapped his phone some more as he said, “So they’ve been busy and have still managed to keep from being taken out by Skinners. Sounds to me like they’re more organized than you think.”

“What do you mean by that?” Paige asked.

“Well, we’ve got MEG. What’s keeping the Nymar from using some sort of hub for their communications?”

“They’re all over the Internet,” she reminded him.

“But those are just the sites we know about. If anyone’s going to put a system like that to use, it’s going to be someone with plenty of reason to want to stay hidden.” Jabbing a thick finger at Cole, Rico said, “I like the way this boy thinks.”

“And not only that,” Cole continued, “Denver was mentioned as a stopping point for Hope, and she obviously hasn’t set off whatever’s about to pop there. If it’s anything like what’s already happened, there’s bound to be more innocent humans there to take a fall. Possibly more cops. And if we’re right about any of what they’re doing, the Nymar are going to want to make this public.”

“Or,” Paige said, “it’s a trap.”

“They fucked us good,” Rico sighed. “Got us to stop looking for markings, jammed the place with bloodsuckers so we couldn’t tell who was who, even got us riled up enough to go in guns blazing. Not that that’s tough to do, right, Bloodhound?”

“Yeah, you got me there,” she snapped. “What was it you got arrested for again?”

Dancing around that particular land mine, Rico said, “We fell into a trap, so Denver’s probably a trap that just ain’t been sprung yet.”

“We deal with plenty of traps,” Cole said. “We set them up. We set them off. We stumble into them like idiots. What’s one more if it could mean saving some cops’ lives?”

“Those cops could be crooked,” Paige said.

“Does that mean we should let them be executed?”

Visibly shaken by the sharp, accusatory tone in Cole’s voice, Paige blinked and said, “Of course it doesn’t. I’m just saying they may be ready to kill us the moment we walk in the door. Who knows what the Nymar told them?”

“I can tell you there’s a reason those four places were saved for last,” Cole said.

Rico studied him with a critical eye. The other was pinched shut in a grimace of pain as he reached under his jacket to examine a wound he’d picked up somewhere during the night. “How do you know that?”

“Because otherwise the thing Hope was setting up would have happened by now. It would have been lumped in with all the smaller incidents instead of being saved for the next act, whatever that may be. I know what you’re thinking, and yes, this is coming from the part of my brain that plots video games. It still makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Although he obviously hated to admit as much, Rico nodded.

“We might be able to defuse some of this, though,” Cole continued. “Paige happens to be friends with a cop in Kansas City. Maybe even real good friends.”

“Not that good, Cole,” she replied sternly. “I told you that already. Besides, Stanze’s just a city police officer. And in case you need me to remind you, it’s the wrong city.”

“Stanze’s a smart guy. Plus, he’s got to be in someone’s sights since he’s the one other departments have been going to regarding all the wild dog attacks, right?”

Although Paige’s nod started off like Rico’s, it was soon accented by a crooked little smile. “Right.”

“You’re the one who’s so close to Stanze, so why don’t you have a chat with him and see what he can tell us. At the very least, he might know how to get a message to any undercover cops in those four cities to let them know what they might be in for.”

“What do you want her to do?” Rico asked. “Have her cop buddy type up a memo in regards to Skinners and any Skinnerlike activities?”

“He could figure out something and get it to the right people. If anyone’s got a shot,” Cole added, “Stanze would do better than one of us.”

“He’s right,” Paige said. “I’ll try to get to him right away. In fact, it might be better if I saw him in person. Tristan, can you get me to KC?”

The Dryad closed her eyes and swayed ever so slightly in perfect harmony with what had seemed like so much random background noise. Before long she stood up and said, “We should be able to send all of you out of here, but only once, whether it’s together or separate. After that you’ll have to take your chances with the temples wherever you may wind up.”

Sifting through the contact list on her phone, Paige said, “Might as well get me out to KC now. Catching up to Stanze shouldn’t be too tough, whether he’s on the clock or off.”

Tristan opened the door to show a stunningly beautiful brown-haired dancer wearing a tight pinstripe suit from the Naughty Secretary collection. “Elle, make sure Paige gets to Kansas City as soon as possible. What about the rest of you?”

“I’m not going anywhere except by car,” Daniels said as he hopped to his feet. “If you want me to examine these spore remains, then I’ll need to do it at my apartment.”

“Fine,” Paige said. “Go ahead.”

“You might not want to go out there,” Elle warned. “Those Nymar are trying to get to the back rooms. I think they know you guys are here.”

“Lead them here,” Cole said. “Make sure nobody follows and give us some privacy.”

“You sure you’re up for that?” Paige asked.

“We want to see why they’re here, right? Rico and I should be able to take two Nymar.”

“Actually,” Elle said, “there’s three of them now.”

“Three. Fine. Whatever. Just go on to KC and get the ball rolling.”

Either Paige didn’t know what to make of the sharpness to Cole’s voice or didn’t want to get into it at that point, because she agreed to the proposition despite whatever else was bothering her. Even though Elle didn’t follow her, she couldn’t leave the utility room fast enough.

“Is everything all right with you?” Tristan asked Cole when Paige had left.

“I’m fine,” he assured her quickly. “Just …” After taking a moment to soften his demeanor with a deep breath and a strained, vaguely confident smile, he said, “Could you just get the Nymar back here before they call for reinforcements?”

Daniels was happy to leave the utility room with his kit and plastic Baggies full of samples taken from the spore removed from Cole’s chest. Since he was still of the male persuasion, he was even happier to be escorted by Tristan to the back exit of the club as she sent a human dancer to fetch the club’s vampire guests.

Now that he was alone with Cole, Rico slammed the door shut and wheeled around to face him. “Whatever’s going on between you and Paige has gotta be set to the damn side. You hear me, boy?”

“You know I don’t like being called that.”

“Yeah? And I don’t like having to rely on a partner that’s got his head somewhere other than where it needs to be. So you two got some bump ‘n’ grind time in. That’s abundantly clear. Now you’re worried about her goin’ off and letting some cop crawl down the front of her pants?”

“That’s not what—”

“The hell it isn’t,” Rico snarled in a voice quiet enough to remain inside the room, but powerful enough to shake Cole down to the soles of his feet. “You gotta straighten that shit out one way or another. Paige ain’t the kind to get too close to just anyone, and she sure as hell ain’t the slut you’re thinking she is.”

Cole jumped up so quickly that it reminded him how weak his system still was. Even so, he kept his back straight and his chin up when he stood toe-to-toe with the bigger man. “Nobody calls her that. Not you. Not a Full Blood. Not even God himself. You hear me?”

Scowling as he took stock of Cole all over again, Rico said, “Yeah. Then you think she’s got something for this cop?”

“He can have her. Maybe she’ll try to get him killed for a change.”

“She’s keeping you alive, asshole. But if you got infected by a Half Breed, she’d put you down even quicker than when it looked like you were gonna turn into a bloodsucker. Just because she did you in the nice way, don’t think that puts you above the rules of the game.”

“There’s more to it than that.”

“Really? Is there? You wanna share? You wanna curl up with some hot cocoa and tell me all about your fucking feelings? Tough. You hear them voices? That’d be those Nymar headed back this way. How about we take care of business here and then continue the therapy later?”

From the instant he found himself alone with Rico in that room, Cole had known the conversation would head this way. The only problem was, his mouth didn’t come equipped with one of those huge, red, plastic-encased Abort buttons that were next to every guided missile panel in James Bond movies. Damn, his mouth needed one of those buttons sometimes.