Blood Blade

Chapter 15

The survivor was a woman with rounded features and wire-framed glasses. Her reddened face was streaked with tears, and her black, curly hair hung like a curtain over her eyes. Her arms were tightly folded on top of the table and her head lay sideways upon them as if she was either playing dead or being punished for talking during story time.

“There’s a medical kit under the passenger’s seat in my car,” Paige said as she crouched down beside the woman’s table. “Go get it.”

As Cole headed for the front door, he watched Paige gently examine the woman’s neck and wrists. He ran for the car, waiting for police to skid to a stop in front of the place or news helicopters to gather overhead. But there was none of that. It seemed everyone was perfectly content to drive by and listen to their radios. Finding what he was after, he rushed back while trying to decide if he was grateful for or disgusted by the absence of his fellow man.

Paige’s medical kit was something that might have confused an army field medic. Opening like a tackle box, the kit contained everything from mundane bandages to syringes filled with stuff that he didn’t even want to think about. After cleaning off the short-haired woman’s minor scrapes, Paige bandaged them up.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

The woman had yet to speak after she’d sat up and allowed herself to be cleaned off. In fact, it seemed that she had yet to blink. After hearing Paige’s question, she twitched and replied, “Jennifer.”

“What happened, Jennifer? Or should I call you Jen?”

Without meeting Paige’s eyes, Jen nodded and said, “There was only four or five of us in here. We were eating lunch when they came.”

“Who came?”

“The ones with the…the ones with the black…” Unable to finish her sentence, Jen reached up to brush her fingertips along her neck.

“With the markings on their skin?”

She nodded again. “I guess they were tattoos. They came in and they spread out and started looking us over. That’s when I thought they were going to hurt us.”

As Jen spoke, Paige removed one of the syringes containing the Nymar antidote from her kit and discreetly cleaned the needle with an alcohol wipe. “Then what did they do?”

“They had…they all had…they had long teeth. Fangs.” Letting her head fall forward, Jen gave in to a sobbing fit that shook her shoulders and drained the color from her face. Fortunately, Paige had already stuck her with the needle and removed it.

“Some tried to fight them,” Jen went on. “I think they even fought each other. One of them bit my arm,” she added as she held out the arm that Paige had already cleaned and bandaged. “He was…I think he drank…”

“All right,” Paige said. “What about the big one?”

Suddenly, Jen’s eyes widened and she turned to look directly at Paige for the first time. “He came after most of us were dead! The ones with the tattoos were all talking after they were through with us. One of them said he was here, but I didn’t know who they were talking about and I heard fighting in the kitchen.” The more Jen talked, the more tears streamed down her face. Her voice streamed out of her in much the same way. “The ones with the tattoos started fighting each other. There were a few with guns and some more ran outside. There was screaming and…and ripping sounds. It was worse than what I heard in here. It was…” Her words devolved into an indecipherable series of gasps and sobs.

Rather than ask her to go on, Paige patted Jen on the shoulder and asked, “Can you stand up?”

“I don’t know.”

“Try for me, okay?”

With Paige’s help, she was able to get up.

“Don’t look around, Jen,” Paige said. “We’re going to get you outside. There’s a fire in the kitchen, so you need to get moving. Just look at the front door and nothing else.”

Although Jen was weak, she got moving once the F-word had been used. Fires had a good track record of motivating any animal, whether they were hurt or not, and Jen was no exception.

Cole watched through the window as Paige led her outside. Jen was about Paige’s height, but outweighed her by at least thirty pounds. Even so, Paige carried her with ease and gently lowered her to one of the cement blocks marking the nearest parking space. When Paige walked back inside, Cole asked, “How is she?”

“She’ll be all right. Are there any more breathing?”

Cole shook his head. “I can only see a few bodies that look human. The rest…” What he didn’t need to say was that the rest were either leaking oily black liquid instead of blood or clawing at the ground with stiffening hands. Now that the diner was quiet, he could hear the sounds of dry snapping. The Nymar bodies had already become dry enough to crack and send flakes of skin into the air. Taking in the sight of it all, he wondered if it was good or bad that he could remain in that spot without puking his guts out.

“I’ve got some good news,” Paige said after taking a quick survey of the bodies. “All these Nymar are real dead and Jen’s still real human. She was bitten, but there would have been some of that black stuff in the wound already if a spore had been passed into her. I gave her a bit of the antidote anyway, but it’s not like Nymar can just reproduce accidentally.”

“That puts them one up on humans, then,” Cole grunted.

Paige chuckled and took a closer look at the Nymar whose spine had been ripped out. “Come over here. You should see this.”

He stepped beside her and looked down.

Pointing at the black marks on the back of the dead Nymar’s neck, she said, “Just so you know, you can always get an idea of what you’re dealing with by looking at these marks. The older or stronger the Nymar is, the blacker the marks are.”

“Wow. All this carnage and a lesson too. Lucky me.”

“This is the job, Cole. I didn’t plan on this, but here we are. You might as well learn something before we burn this place down.”

Rather than air out the questions that reflexively popped into his mind, Cole set them aside and reminded himself he’d rather set fire to the place than allow anyone else to eat there. “All right. What next?” he asked.

“You got a camera on that phone of yours?”

“Not just a camera, but a four megapix—”

“That’s a yes,” Paige cut in. “Take pictures of everything you can and follow me.” Without waiting for an okay from him, she walked over to another one of the human bodies. “This,” she said as she pointed down to the corpse’s decimated throat, “came from a Nymar feeding. And not one of those sexy, moaning ones you see in the movies. This was quick, violent, messy, and not at all voluntary. If the throat’s torn up like this, that means the Nymar clamped down with those thick bottom fangs. When Nymar use those fangs, they’re out for a lot of blood in a short amount of time. Whoever’s on the receiving end of that won’t be able to get away, and it’s a miracle if they survive.”

While snapping a few pictures, Cole asked, “So the Nymar came here and started feeding before these people could get away?”

“If that was the case, they wouldn’t have missed Jen. This is more of a panic feeding. When Nymar are caught by surprise, feel threatened, or just in a hurry, they feed on whoever is nearby to make sure they’ve got all the strength they can to fight or do what they need to do. This is why we avoid fights in public. If you charge in without picking your spot and setting things up, innocents get slaughtered. Remember that, Cole.”

He shook his head solemnly. “There’s no way I’m forgetting this.”

Paige reached into the gaping hole in the Nymar’s back. After feeling around a bit, she withdrew her hand and wiped it clean on the Nymar’s sleeve. “Henry went straight for the spore, just like everyone’s been saying.”

“I know it’s on their heart, but…what is it?”

“Once it attaches, it spreads itself throughout their whole body. See this?” She rolled the corpse so Cole could get a good look into the hole.

He almost spilled his breakfast onto the floor, but he did notice something. “I’m no doctor, but it all just looks like mush in there. I don’t even see any organs.”

“That’s right,” Paige replied. “Once the Nymar attaches, it converts everything inside the person into one big organ. It’s like a bug that’s filled with one kind of juice. That’s why, if someone might be infected, you treat them quickly. Once they turn, there’s no way to turn them back. Not unless you can hollow them out and replace everything.”

“Gotchya. Are we done? Jen’s still out there.”

After taking a look through the front window, Paige said, “She’s still crying. She could use a little more time on her own.” Squinting at the window, she reached out to swipe something that looked like yellow milk that had been spilled upon the glass. She rubbed it between her fingers, sniffed it, then said, “See this stuff here? This is the venom I was telling you about. It can paralyze anyone within a normal person’s size. Even if it just gets on you, it can make you dizzy. If it gets in your eyes, that’s really bad news. Smell it.”

Cole sniffed at it and his stomach turned at the bitter smell. “What happens if I get that in my eye?” he asked.

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

“When?” Paige snapped. “How much?”

“During the fight. It was—”

But Paige had already rushed to her medical kit and retrieved another syringe. She removed the cover, slammed it into Cole’s neck and pressed the plunger. She then used the same syringe to roughly extract some of his blood.

“Is that sterile?” he snapped.

Paige held the syringe up to the light and examined it. She let out a breath and asked, “Did Misonyk spit this stuff on you?”

Even though he feared another needle in the neck, Cole replied, “Yeah.”

“Hopefully I got to you quick enough, but you should steer clear of him for a while.”

“You think?”

Paige nodded and stomped toward the kitchen. “Just go out front and check on Jen. Get her to the car and ready to go. I’ll be out soon. With all the grease that’s in this kitchen, torching it shouldn’t be much of a problem.”

“You said getting that stuff in my eye was bad,” Cole said. “What’s that mean?”

“Well, some Nymar can control someone for a few hours after they do that. It’s only simple stuff like making them obey easy commands, but the Nymar’s got to be close.”

“You’ve researched this?”

“No,” Paige replied, “but another Skinner has. There are nerves that run from the eye straight into the brain. I guess the venom works along those lines.”

“Did this other Skinner figure out a way to counteract it?” he asked hopefully.

“He’s still working on it, but it’s been rough since he blinded himself.”

“That’s just…that’s…that’s really great.”

“Go help Jen,” Paige said. “She’s about to wander away.”

With his stomach still on spin cycle, Cole jogged out of the building and to the woman with the bandaged hand. Jen was leaning against the car and facing the highway. He approached her slowly and announced his presence by clearing his throat.

She jumped, but relaxed when she saw him. “Are you all right?” she asked.

Cole nodded and told her, “More or less. I was more concerned about how you’d answer that same question.”

“I’m…well…I guess I’ll be fine. Sooner or later.”

Cole leaned against the car next to her and crossed his arms. “I know just how you feel.”

“I saw how you fought those things. I was too frightened to move and you two came in to chase them off. I doubt you’re afraid of much of anything.”

“You wouldn’t be so impressed if you saw the mess I left in there.”

For a second Jen just stared blankly at him. Once she allowed herself to laugh, the tired woman quickly dissolved into a mix of trembling giggles and choking sobs. Cole eased his arm around her but didn’t know what else to do. Judging by the way Jen turned and pressed against him, he was doing more than enough.

“Don’t worry about any of it now,” he said. “Just try to breathe.”

Jen nodded and pulled in a few measured breaths. She held the air in her lungs and let it out as she forced herself to look back toward the diner. “Thank you so much. I wish I could find a way to thank both of you.”

“And I wish we could have gotten here a little earlier.”

Jen wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him so tightly that he began to see stars. The anaconda grip didn’t let up until the crunch of boots against gravel approached the car.

“We need to get going,” Paige said. Before she could say another word, she was nearly knocked off her feet by a hug from Jen that was equally as enthusiastic as the one she’d given to him. Paige smiled and rubbed Jen’s back as the scent of burning grease drifted through the air.

“Good Lord,” Cole said, catching sight of flames through the diner’s front window. “We really do need to get going.”

All three of them piled into the car and sped back to the highway.

“Why don’t you call 911 before that fire gets too big?” Paige asked.

Cole took out his personal phone, flipped it open and then swore loudly. “No coverage. Freakin’ Wisconsin!”

“Freakin’ bad phone is more like it.” Leaning to look at Jen in the backseat, Paige added, “So far, that phone of his makes a better camera than anything else.”

“Ha ha,” Cole grumbled. “It’s also got some pretty decent games on it.” Before he could expound upon the virtues of playing Tetris during gridlock, he was connected to the authorities via Gerald’s satellite phone. He called in the fire, pointed them in the right direction, then hung up.

“Now call MEG,” Paige said. “She can make sure you don’t get any calls from the Fraternity of Firefighters bugging you about tickets for their charity banquets.”

“Huh?”

“MEG. Call MEG and tell her your number’s now in the 911 system.”

Finally, Cole nodded and said, “Oh, you mean MEG! Right.”

Paige looked in the back and started to say something but was cut short by Jen’s quickly upraised hands.

“Don’t want to know,” she said.

“Perfect,” Paige replied, nodding, and shifted her eyes back to the road. “There’s another gas station at the next exit. You can wait there for a while and then come for your car later.”

Jen shook her head forcefully. “I don’t want to go back there. If that means abandoning my car, then so be it. I left my purse back there as well, so I might as well complete the set.”

Digging into the pocket of her jeans jacket, Paige took out a wad of money and handed it back to her. “Take this and get a bus ticket or a ride or a room or whatever you can. You need to call anyone?”

“No. Well…I can do that when I get cleaned up.” Looking at the money, she asked, “Are you sure you can spare this much?”

“Yes. Take it. You want us to drop you off here or—”

“Here’s fine,” Jen said. Holding the money in both hands as if cupping a head of lettuce, she said, “That truck stop would be good. Aren’t there usually showers there?”

Cole nodded. “Yep. And great food. Some of the best ham steaks I’ve ever tasted came from truck stops.”

Jen smiled warily and stuffed the money into her pocket. She didn’t say another word until they were braking in front of a store that appeared to be stocked with everything from country music CDs to pecan logs. Even then she seemed too tired to pull herself out of the car. Once she heard the sounds of hydraulic brakes, talking, and other signs of normal humanity, she perked up a little. “Thanks again,” she said.

Paige waved. “’Bye. Take care of yourself.”

“If you…” Cole kept the rest of his offer to himself, since Jen was all too anxious to get out of the car. He watched her go until she disappeared within the sprawling mecca of gasoline, beef jerky, and ridiculously strong coffee. Once the door had rattled shut behind the woman with the curly hair, he looked over to Paige and asked, “Do we need any gas?”

“Yeah,” she replied as she backed away from the entrance and drove past the pumps, “but we’ll wait until the next place.”

“I don’t think she’ll say anything to anyone else. About us, I mean.”

“Me neither.”

“Should we even be worried about that?” he asked. “I mean, don’t we swear anyone to secrecy?”

“It wouldn’t matter if we did. Most people just want to forget whatever they saw so they can get back to what they were doing before.” Paige sighed. “The ones who latch onto this sort of thing don’t usually have a lot of credibility anyway.”

Cole rolled down his window and let his arm dangle in the cold breeze. With Paige’s window already open, a stiff wind blew through the car. Even though he could feel his fingers starting to tingle before the car even got up to speed on the highway, he let them dangle. The cold washed through him and made it difficult to focus on anything else.

It was nice.

“Should I call MEG now?” he asked.

Paige looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. She studied his face for just long enough to get Cole thinking there might have been something hanging from his nose. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“What?”

“You heard me. That was a lot to take in, even for me.”

“Are you surprised I’m not back there eating a ham steak with Jen?” he asked.

Without hesitation Paige replied, “No, but still…it was a lot to take in. Are you all right?”

Slowly, Cole nodded. “It’s just one more batch of strangeness heaped onto all the rest.”

“It does seem to get heaped onto some of us more than others, huh?”

He shrugged. It was a lot easier than trying to figure out why things turned out the way they did.

“Call MEG later,” Paige told him. “Our phones are all registered to fake names and addresses anyway. They can send you a new SIM card registered to another fake name and that usually does the trick. If it doesn’t, there are plenty more phones out there. Just remember to think ahead whenever you—”

“When I use official Skinner phone lines to contact the authorities. Got it.”

“I’ve got to admit, Cole. You impressed me today.”

“Thanks. Now when do I get my own set of stakes?” He snapped his fingers and said, “You’re not supposed to stake a Nymar through the heart! You’re aiming for the spore attached to the heart, right?”

“Now, you learn, young one. But a stake won’t kill it unless you hit that spore just right. The thing squirms around in there, so it’s mostly luck if anyone gets a lethal hit. You stake a vampire and it may be able to live for a long time while the spore heals. A big hit will take a while to heal, but it can be done. Sometimes, if a Nymar gets hit too close to the spore too many times, the spore can pull some bone aside to hide behind. Don’t forget that thing is alive inside of them. It’s got a mind of its own.”

“That reminds me,” Cole said. “I shot Misonyk in the chest and it looked like there was solid bone protecting his heart.”

“Yeah,” she sighed as the day’s events caught up to her in a single rush. “And that means we’ll need to get real close and be real fast to take him out. It’ll probably take an injection directly in the neck. How are your eyes, by the way? Getting any strange urges?”

“I wouldn’t mind biting you in a few choice spots, but that’s nothing new.” The moment that came out of Cole’s mouth, he flinched. “Sorry, maybe I am possessed.”

Paige did her best to keep from laughing.

“So,” he said in a desperate attempt to change the subject, “there’s no turning a Nymar back into a human. Doesn’t the antidote cure them?”

“It reacts with the black stuff that contaminates their blood,” Paige replied in words still strained by the laughter that flowed just beneath them. “Kind of like another virus that spreads inside and—”

“More technical jargon,” Cole moaned. “I love it. So the antidote cures them.”

“Once it gets into those black tendrils beneath their skin, it cures them just like cyanide cures depression.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry about leaving a body either. When a Nymar dies, the thing inside them sucks up all the blood and water to try and stay alive. Whatever is left will crumble in a day or two on its own. Inject them anywhere other than the black tendrils and you’ll either knock them out or give them a wound it’ll take weeks to heal.”

Suddenly, Cole felt as if the rest of the world was slipping away from him and he was standing on the edge of it all, just watching it go. Unfortunately, looking out the window or closing his eyes only made the dizziness worse.

Picking up on the change that had come over him, Paige asked, “Are you all right, Cole? You’re pale and sweaty.”

“I’m fine. I guess all of this is just catching up to me.”

She kept her eye on him as much as she could without driving off the road. Even when she had to make a few jerky corrections to stay in her lane, she acted as if watching him was more important than plowing into oncoming traffic. “Are you sure about that? How are your eyes?”

“They feel fine. Maybe a little—”

They feel fine.

The voice was so subtle in the back of Cole’s mind that he could have easily mistaken it for his own. He began to nod and say the words he’d thought of, but suddenly realized he hadn’t thought of them. He shook his head and pressed his palms to his eyes until red splotches danced in the darkness behind the lids. “Maybe I’m not fine. I think Misonyk got to me.”

No. It was nothing.

The voice drifted through Cole’s mind like a gnat skittering into his ear, and was already gone before he had a chance to swat at the thing responsible for it.

“Yeah,” he said. “He got to me. Maybe you should give me some more of that antidote.”

Paige looked over at him once more and then pulled the wheel toward the right shoulder of the interstate. The tires screeched, skidded on the loose dirt on the shoulder, then the car came to a stop without a major incident. She got a few honks from some of the people who’d been directly behind her but ignored them.

“If you just tell me where the stuff is, I can inject myself,” Cole said. “No need for all of this.”

“What do you hear?”

“It wants me to tell you I’m fine.”

“Do me a favor, Cole. Imagine telling me you’re fine. Focus on it really hard.”

He let out a deep breath and then thought about saying those words. He imagined saying them to Paige and then shook his head. “I can’t focus.”

Still studying him, Paige said, “Think about what you’d say as if you were singing a song in your head. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah. Actually I do.” At first he started to sing those words. He stopped himself and then used that same inner voice to repeat them.

“When you imagine saying them to me, it doesn’t matter if it’s one hundred percent accurate,” she said. “Just make sure the basics are in there and imagine it in a way that’ll make it really vivid. It doesn’t matter what you focus on, but it’s got to be something you can truly hold onto. Think about it like you’d picture one of those games you design. Once you’re locked in, let the words go through your mind.”

Although he started off taking Paige’s advice, the imagery wasn’t sticking. It came and went like scrambled porn on a channel he hadn’t paid for. The more he tried to zero in on it, the fuzzier it got. Then, perhaps drawing inspiration from the comparison he’d just made, he imagined Paige sitting there beside him in her sweats and halter top. He added a bit of water to her hair and beads of moisture running along those sexy freckles that were scattered over her chest and the image became clearer. Once he lost her clothes altogether and added more water running down her body, he was in business.

“I’m all right, baby,” he said in his inner voice to the Paige that was naked and smiling back at him.

“Is it working?” the real Paige asked.

When he heard her voice, Cole realized it was working a bit too well. He shifted in his seat, thanked the god of denim that his jeans were loosely cut, then nodded. “I think so.”

It’s all right, he thought. I’m just fine, baby.

Very good.

Paige smiled in his mind, and when Cole focused on the real world, he found her smiling there as well. She nodded and placed her hands back on the wheel so she could pull onto the road and bring the car back up to speed.

“Misonyk is powerful,” Paige said. “I’ve never heard of a Nymar getting this kind of range with any sort of mind control before.”

“Aw, hell.”

“Don’t worry and don’t think too hard about it,” Paige said quickly. “It’s tricky, but we can work with it. For the most part, a Nymar that’s linked to someone can make out more of what that person is seeing than what they’re thinking. He got to your eyes, remember?”

“Yeah,” Cole said as he began squirming for a very different reason.

“He can read your thoughts, but only the ones you’re broadcasting. You know, the ones you’re really concentrating on? The kind of stuff a really good poker player might be able to read on your face if they looked at you hard enough.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t give you any more antidote for a while, since you’ve already had some not too long ago. We don’t want too much of that in your system. In the meantime, if Misonyk is tracking us through you, you can steer him away for a while.”

“How do I do that?” Cole asked.

“First of all, don’t look out the window anymore. Look down or at me or just close your eyes. I’m going to tell you directions that we want Misonyk to hear, and I want you to take in everything I say. Think about it really hard and try to put those thoughts out there.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

Paige shrugged and smiled at him. “At best, it’ll keep your brain busy enough that Misonyk won’t get anything but static from you. At the very least, you should keep him away long enough for us to conduct our business with Prophet.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah…well…sort of.” She cut herself short and reached over to rub Cole’s knee. “Just trust me, okay?”

Cole nodded and focused on the touch of her hand upon his knee. It helped feed his reserves when he imagined her hand drifting a bit higher up along his thigh. “Okay.”

“We’ll be heading north on 94 all the way up through Milwaukee,” she said as if telling him a story that she thought was enthralling. “Around Milwaukee, things get sort of crazy, but we’ll catch I–43 toward Fox Point. From there…”

While listening to her go on about interstates, turnoffs, and rest stops, Cole imagined that map in his head and the creeping red line that came along with it. Oddly enough, that red line calmed his nerves just as it had when he’d been flying over Canada. Paige’s voice was soothing and she went into more than enough detail to add some texture to his mental map. His focus remained on that map thanks to the naked version of Paige he imagined pointing to it while bending at the waist or arching her back like a naughty meteorologist.

He wouldn’t be able to watch the evening news the same way again, but at least he was finally able to relax.