Blood Blade

Chapter 8

Cole knew he should have followed his first instinct and gone home.

He also should have been feeling pain in his battered body, but that wasn’t acting like it was supposed to either. Sitting in the passenger seat of Paige’s used two-door Chevy Cavalier, he poked and prodded his sides and actually hoped to feel a sting. He felt something that shook him more than pain. He felt his fingers pressing against his ribs, and that meant he wasn’t just numbed by whatever Paige had given him. His ribs were better. In fact, they felt stronger than before.

“You said there was a danger of some kind of infection,” he reminded her. “What was that about?”

Paige nodded but kept her eyes on the road. “It’ll all go down a lot easier once you see some things firsthand. Besides, the man I’m taking you to see can explain it a lot better than I can.”

Looking out the window, Cole asked, “All right, then. Where are you taking me?”

“We’re headed to The Levee.”

Cole thought for a moment and asked, “You mean like in that Led Zeppelin song? The Levee that breaks?”

“Sort of.”

“Isn’t that the old Red Light District?”

“That’s the original Levee. This is sort of an homage,” Paige said, while letting the last word roll off her tongue in a way that put a little grin on her face. “It’s a nice little stretch of road just south of the Loop. If you’re looking for some exercise for your lower back now that you’re in better shape, I’m sure we can rent you a partner for the night.”

Cole studied her for a second. Judging by the grin on Paige’s face, her mind was in the same gutter as his. “You’re talking about hookers.”

“Pretty much.”

He let out a sigh and shook his head. Even though the streets outside the car’s windows still looked vaguely familiar, they weren’t nearly as comforting as the ones he’d seen from the cab. “I must be crazy to go along with this.”

“You probably are a little crazy,” Paige agreed. “But you must also be something else to have made it this far. Gerald wouldn’t have sent you to me unless he saw some spark in you.”

“I barely even knew the guy.”

“Exactly! You barely even knew him, but you still made a promise to him and you kept it. Plenty of people do the first part, but not many bother with the rest. Let me ask you something,” Paige said as she turned off of I–290. “What did the rest of those people do when that thing attacked?”

“And that’s another thing! What the hell is a Full Blood?”

“We’ll get to that later. Just answer the question.”

“They screamed,” Cole replied. “They ran. They died. There was a whole lot of the last one going around.”

Paige nodded and ran the tip of her tongue along her upper lip. “And what did you do?”

“Not much. I tried to get some of those people out of there. I tried to help Gerald or find Brad, but I wound up getting my ass knocked against a wall.”

“You tried to fight,” she said emphatically. Pointing a finger at him, she added, “You tried to fight even though you had no clue what you were up against and you had no weapon to use against it. You tried to help those people, and when it was all over, you made a promise to a dying man and went through a whole lot of craziness to see it through. That’s extraordinary, Cole.”

Although he’d been ready to fire back with something else, he didn’t quite know how to respond when she looked at him with genuine admiration. “Uh…thanks?”

“What did Brad and Gerald do when the thing attacked?”

“I don’t even know. All I do know is that they were the only ones to even scratch it. They saved my life.”

“That’s right,” she said while patting the bundle resting on Cole’s knee. “And because you brought this knife back, we’ll be able to make that sacrifice worthwhile.”

No matter how many gruesome images filled Cole’s mind, he couldn’t be diverted from the fact that Paige’s hand was in his lap. Sure, there might have been some steel wrapped in a plastic bag and cotton rags separating her from the rest of him, but he could feel the warmth of her touch all the way through those things. Looking up at her, he raised his eyebrows and smirked.

“Good Lord,” Paige grumbled as she took her hand back. “I thought you were supposed to be traumatized.”

“I am, but I’m not dead.”

Paige shook her hand while weaving between two cars that had the nerve to uphold the speed limit and replied, “I can fix that real quick.”

“So tell me about the Full Blood,” Cole said, as a way to steer the conversation out of the weeds. “Was Gerald after that thing?”

“We don’t know for certain it was a Full Blood yet,” Paige declared. “But they sure as hell weren’t in Canada for that. Full Bloods are smart, though, and somehow this one must have found them before they could prepare for it.”

Cole looked out the window to watch as more of Chicago flew by. He pulled in a deep breath and let it out through his nose.

“You seem to be taking all of this pretty well,” Paige said. “Better than Brad did, anyway.”

“Let me guess. You were all chasing ghosts together or maybe trying to snap a picture of Bigfoot?”

“What?” Paige said as a scowl settled upon her face.

“That phone number,” Cole said. “You know…Stu? MEG Branch 40?”

Paige nodded and her scowl disappeared. “Oh! The MEG guys. We just use those guys for communications and the occasional high-tech thingie.”

“High-tech thingie? You keep talking like that and you’ll ruin that tough exterior you’re trying to maintain.”

Paige glanced over at him with a cute smirk that made her nose crinkle. By now some more of her hair had slipped from where it was tied in the back so it could dangle on either side of her face. In the glow from the cars and streetlights that rushed past the window, a light brown hue could be seen amid the strands of black. “It’s a long story, but the MEG guys investigate hauntings and demons and other crap like that all over the country.”

“Ghosts don’t rank as high as monsters, huh?” Cole chuckled.

Shrugging impassively, Paige continued. “The ectological group crossed our paths a few times after one of the founders nearly got killed by a Half Breed in western Nebraska.”

“A Half Breed?”

“More about that later,” she said while quickly waving away the questions Cole was about to ask. “Anyway, MEG’s already got an international system set up to communicate with all their members and branches. Since they spend most of their time videotaping haunted houses or trying to talk to static, nobody really watches them too closely in any official way.”

“And anyone who might listen in on their networks wouldn’t be too surprised to hear talk about a monster attack?” Cole asked.

“Bingo,” Paige replied with a snap of her fingers. “They’re really nice, but they get a bit too anxious sometimes. Whenever we run across something that’s not too dangerous, we hand it over to MEG and they put it on a T-shirt or sell it to some kook on eBay. We get our own little section of their network and help with the technical stuff, and they get exclusives that no other paranormal club or tabloid would ever dream of. Everybody’s happy.”

“Yeah,” Cole grumbled as he looked out the window at scenery that appeared to be worsening with every block. “Everybody’s real happy. I understand Gerald wasn’t your husband, but you don’t seem too broken up about him or Brad dying.”

“Dying sure beats the alternative.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that the thing you saw in Canada wasn’t the only thing out there.”

Cole gripped the door with one hand and the dash with the other. “Holy shit! There’s one of those things out here? We’re heading toward it?”

“No,” she said impatiently. “There are all kinds of different shapeshifters, just like there are all kinds of other supernatural things out roaming around.”

“Like what?” he asked uneasily.

Twisting her mouth in a shape that drifted from a frown to a wince and back again, she replied, “It’s actually easier for you to see for yourself. I’m taking you to meet someone who will answer some questions I have. Get a good look at him. Ask him anything you like. He’s a doctor, so he likes explaining things, but also look and tell me if you saw anyone else like him up in that cabin.”

“How will I know if anyone looked like him?”

“You’ll need a comparison. That’s why you’re with me now.” Glancing over to his side of the car, Paige added, “You’re quick.”

Watching the city roll past his window, Cole waited for more of an explanation. When he didn’t get it, he gritted his teeth and let out an exasperated sigh. The more he stewed, the more Paige seemed to enjoy it. Finally, he snapped. “So what else are we talking about? Zombies? Vampires? Trolls? Hit me with it.”

Paige raised an eyebrow. “Two out of three ain’t bad, but you only get to see one tonight.”

“What?”

Ignoring his question, she turned onto a dirty street that was populated with dirty men and women dressed in next to nothing. Junkies twitched in the alleys and car stereos thumped their bass lines into the cool breezes blowing in from Lake Michigan. “We’re here,” she said. “Stay quiet and follow my lead. If anything happens to me, you get behind this wheel and…oh, what the hell is this?”

Before Cole could say another word, Paige stopped the car. She rolled down the window and within a few seconds a woman with smooth skin the color of lightly creamed coffee approached her. She was a thin, wiry Latina wearing a tattered denim miniskirt and a bright red halter top beneath a jacket that looked as if it had been made from a very unfortunate poodle. When she bent down to lean against Paige’s window, the Latina pressed her pert breasts together in a move that had been honed to perfection.

“Hola, chica,” Paige said with a warm smile and a voice that sounded closer to a purr.

The Latina returned Paige’s smile and upped the ante with a slow lick of her lips. “You like what you see?”

“I don’t know. Are you a cop?”

Cole listened to the exchange as he spotted a blonde kneeling over a scraggly looking guy with pasty skin in a nearby alley. Even from his spot in the car he couldn’t help noticing that the blonde’s overly generous breasts were about to explode from her white blouse. Turning as if she could feel his eyes on her, the blonde stood up and approached the car.

“Sure, I’m a cop,” the Latina said as she straightened up and lifted the front of her skirt to reveal a little patch of pubic hair trimmed into the shape of a heart. “See my badge?”

“What’s your name, sexy?” Paige asked, staring at the dark veins on the Latina’s thighs rather than the little heart between them.

“Racquel.”

“What about your blond friend over there?”

The Latina kept her eyes locked on Paige as if her legs were already entangled around her. “That’s Wendy. She likes to party too, but it’ll be extra.”

“And why’s Wendy feeding out in the open like that, Racquel?”

As soon as she heard that, Racquel narrowed her eyes and curled her upper lip to reveal a single set of fangs protruding from her upper jaw. Lowering her skirt, she growled, “Why don’t you and your friend keep driving before you get hurt?”

“You know the deal, chica,” Paige said with a slow shake of her head. “You keep your feeding in private without doing any real damage. That way, me and mine won’t have to come down hard on you and yours the way we cleaned out that bunch over on Lake Shore Drive.”

Wendy was still strutting toward the car. Her shirt was cropped short on the top and bottom to show a belly that was just shy of being flabby. The pasty man was now slumped over so his upper body and one arm flopped onto the sidewalk. Blood spilled from a large wound in his neck to pool on the cement.

“Uh, Paige,” Cole muttered. “We might want to get out of here now.”

Paige glanced quickly toward the sidewalk, spotted Wendy and the bleeding man, then slammed the car into Park. Before Cole could do anything to stop her, she was out of the car and pushing past the Latina. “In public and drinking someone dry?” Paige growled as she moved toward the blonde. “That’s a death sentence!”

“Hey, go fuck yourself, shorty!” Wendy shouted as she spat some of the dead man’s blood through the air.

Cole didn’t need to see Paige’s face to know that her fuse had already burned right down to the chewy, explosive center. The shift of her hips and the snap of her head as she flipped open her denim jacket to reveal the holster strapped under her left arm said more than enough.

Paige suddenly took a quick backward hop that bounced her against the mix of rust and flaking white paint covering the Chevy’s exterior. Less than a second later Cole heard a loud thump. He wasn’t quite sure what had dropped onto the street, but it had to have been big. He swiveled in his seat just in time to notice a large, gnarled figure behind the car, standing amid a cloud of exhaust fumes. Its head swung like a loose pendulum at the end of its neck.

When he spotted Wendy again, Cole saw another man standing beside her. He had a shaved head and eyes that were narrowed by a wide smile. His skin was chalky and peeling from what might have been a horrifically bad sunburn. Beneath the flaking layers were black markings that were a lot thicker than the ones on the Latina’s neck and thigh. While hers resembled veins that had been traced in black, his were more like tentacles that flowed up from his neck, wrapped all the way around small, rounded ears, and slid up along his skull. The tentacles met at the back of his head to form subtle ridges where they writhed against the nape of his neck. His mid-length, brown leather jacket barely even rustled as he raked his fingers down the front of Wendy’s chest, ripped away the flimsy material of her shirt, and then grabbed her roughly by one breast. Before she could react or even protest, he sank his teeth into the spot where her neck met her shoulder. Less than a second later blood began to spill from her shredded jugular.

“Paige!” Cole shouted. “We need to get out of here!”

But Paige had problems of her own. She and Racquel had put their differences aside for the moment so they could take in the sight of the gnarled, drooling figure loping toward the Chevy. As the thing walked, it also seemed to grow until it was almost double the size of a normal man. After taking a few more steps, it leaned forward and used one hand against the cement to support his upper body. Its head remained low and hung to one side. When it tried to get a better look at the car in front of him, the lopsided thing winced and let out a pained groan. Putrid rags hung off its body as if they’d grown there and partially rotted away. Matted hair sprouting from patches of his skin was almost long enough to cover him where his tattered clothes couldn’t reach.

“Henry!” the bald man shouted. “Catch!” With that, he lifted Wendy’s limp body off the ground and tossed it to the thing the way he might toss scraps to a dog.

Thick, jagged fingernails scraped against the pavement as Henry loped toward the body. His bare feet slapped against the street inches from Wendy’s half-naked body and he began clawing at her chest. “Golden hair,” he grunted. “And the other. Dark hair. Want you both.” Fluid sprayed from Wendy’s ravaged chest cavity as Henry kept tearing her open. The stuff was a mix of dark red and oily black.

Paige drew a .45 pistol from the holster under her jacket, and the Latina beside her drew a smaller gun from a little pouch strapped around her waist. Both women pulled their triggers at the same time, sending their rounds into Henry’s thick, dirty hide.

Cole wanted to help, but programming video games hadn’t exactly put him into the habit of walking around with a gun strapped beneath his arm. Hoping that he might find another weapon somewhere in the car, he reached for the first possible hiding spot he could think of. As his fingers were fumbling with the latch of the glove compartment, another set of thin, bony fingers tapped on the window a few inches from his face. The bald man stared at him with a set of dark green eyes that showed the slightest hint of black threads wrapping around them from the inside of their sockets. He smiled widely to show just how much of Wendy’s blood was smeared upon his lips and teeth.

“You want to come out now, Skinner?” the man on the other side of Cole’s window asked. “Or should I come in there after you?”

Feeling every muscle in his body tense, Cole leaned toward the open driver’s door and shouted, “Paige! Let’s go!”

Paige had already emptied her clip into Henry and was replacing it with a fresh one. She fired another two rounds into Henry’s shoulder and side, only to see a few shreds of Henry’s clothing and the upper layers of skin disintegrate on impact. She might as well have been shooting at a side of thoroughly frozen beef.

If Henry even felt the bullets hitting him, he gave no sign. He flailed and convulsed on top of Wendy in a perverse set of motions, but wasn’t invading her in the most obvious way. Rather than commit such a recognizable sin, he was scraping at her chest with his jagged fingernails. His hands, slick with the blackened fluid of her blood, moved quickly enough to send a gory spray through the air. Henry was digging into the woman’s chest the way a dog would dig into the earth.

After Wendy’s ribs had been pulled apart, he struggled to widen the terrible breach. The deeper his hands scraped within her, the faster Henry’s arms flailed. As she lost the strength to hold her head up, Wendy let out a gasp and allowed her eyes to wander amid the stars above her.

“Get in the car,” Paige said to Racquel.

Once Henry had ripped away the last layer separating him from his prize, he stopped and gazed down into the hole he’d made, tears welling at the corners of his eyes. Although his face was vaguely human, the way it swayed loosely at the end of his neck made the sight completely alien. It only got worse when he reached into the savaged chest cavity and pulled out something that looked like a black eel. Dozens of thin black tendrils reached desperately into the blond woman, causing her to twitch and squirm as they fought to pull the rest of its slimy black mass into her. Unable to extract the black eel thing completely, Henry leaned down and sank his teeth into the biggest section. As soon as they punctured the filmy skin, a greasy liquid rushed down his chin and into his mouth.

Although she’d been ready to fight Paige a little while ago, Racquel accepted her invitation now by jumping into the backseat of the car.

As soon Racquel’s backside hit the upholstery, Paige jumped behind the wheel and slammed the door shut. “Watch yourself, Cole,” she said as she gunned the engine.

Cole looked through his window to find the bald man reaching out for him with hands that were like skeletal claws wrapped in smooth, pale leather gloves. When the car sped away, the man leaned forward and allowed his nails to scrape noisily against the glass. Straining to get one more look, Cole was able to see the figure casually wave back at him. “What in the hell was that?” he hollered.

“That’s Misonyk!” Racquel shouted as she stabbed her finger toward Cole’s window. “That’s him. Oh my God, get out of here!”

“Who the hell is Misonyk?” Cole asked.

“Meeshonyick,” Racquel corrected. When she pronounced the name, it wrapped around her tongue and made her voice drop to an intimate purr.

“I don’t care who he is or how you say it!” Paige shouted. Hooking her thumb toward Henry, she snapped, “What was that?”

But Racquel wasn’t able to answer any of the questions. Her face had lost its color, which made the black lines beneath her skin stand out even more. As if reacting to the chaos around her, the lines retracted beneath the part of her that was covered by her shirt.

Paige gripped the steering wheel in one hand and took a corner almost fast enough to put the rusted Cavalier onto two wheels. Ignoring Racquel’s swearing and Cole’s involuntary, somewhat girlish yelp, she handed her pistol to him and said, “There’s fresh clips in the glove compartment, Cole. Can you reload this?”

Desperate to rebuild the dignity he’d just lost, he grabbed the gun and flipped open the glove compartment. “Yeah. I can do that, no problem.”

“Good, because that thing with the appetite is coming after us.”

Both Cole and Racquel twisted around to look out the back window. Sure enough, Henry was bounding down the street behind them, closing his distance from the car several yards at a time.

“Start talking, Racquel,” Paige snapped. “What is that thing?”

Sitting upright and straightening her top and skirt, Racquel slid back into her street persona. She showed Paige a bratty scowl and asked, “Why should I tell you anything? Just who the hell are you?”

“I’m the one taking over Gerald’s territory, and your friend should’ve known better than to feed in public. If that blond bitch hadn’t already been torn apart, you know damn well I’d be putting her down myself!”

Although Cole was completely lost in the conversation, he wasn’t about to turn his back on Racquel for long. Looking up every couple of seconds from what he was doing, he could see the Latina twitch at the sound of a solid impact behind the car. Racquel didn’t even look behind her to see what had hit the cement in the Chevy’s wake. As soon as Henry landed close enough for Cole to make out the slick black ooze hanging from his chin, the Chevy was thrown into a sharp turn and the engine roared toward the upper limit of its performance.

“That thing’s Henry,” Racquel said.

Struggling to get control after the maneuver she’d just performed, Paige asked, “What the hell is Henry?”

Racquel sank down into her seat. “I don’t know what he is, but most of us didn’t even think he was real. Wendy used to talk about him. She said…” As much as she tried to fight it, Racquel couldn’t keep herself from wincing before her words stuck in the back of her throat. She swung her hand toward the back window and then pulled it back again when Henry landed behind the speeding car and took a swipe at the Chevy’s bumper. Calcified nails screeched against rusted metal before the car was once again out of his reach.

Cole held the gun out toward Paige and said, “Here you go. I think it’s ready.”

“Good,” Paige replied as she twisted the wheel to take another corner, scattering the group of kids who had been standing there. “Now do me a favor and shoot that thing.”

Cole rolled down the window and stuck his arm out before pulling it back in again. He shifted in his seat and started to aim out the window but caught a very surprised glance from a bar they were driving past. He tried shifting again, nearly dropped the gun, then fell back into his seat with a frustrated grunt. As much as he wanted to lean out the window and fire away, he grudgingly had to admit it looked a hell of a lot easier in the movies.

“So, what about Wendy?” Paige asked as she looked at Racquel in the rearview mirror.

Racquel pulled in a breath to steady herself. “She’s been listening to Misonyk and preaching all his bullshit to me and anyone else who’d listen.”

“Okay, tell me about this Misonyk,” Paige said.

“Gerald knew about him,” Racquel replied. Didn’t he tell you?”

“No. What’s Misonyk been spreading around? And will you shoot already, Cole? That thing already took my bumper off!”

“I’m trying! I don’t do this every day, you know!”

“Fine,” Paige snarled. “Both of you hold on.” With that, she blew past an expensive looking SUV and gunned her engine down a long stretch of road. She had to blaze through a few red lights along the way, but it was late enough at night and in a bad enough neighborhood for there to be a minimum of other cars around. The only police car Cole spotted was parked outside a Jack in the Box four blocks ago.

Paige stared at the road intently, pulled the wheel to the left and slammed on her brakes. She only needed to watch the rearview mirror for a few more seconds before Henry landed on the street with a loud thump and began slamming his hands against the trunk. Throwing the car into Reverse, she stepped on the gas and drove the Chevy right into Henry’s gut. She kept the car moving until she pinned him against a telephone pole. “There,” she said as she looked over to Cole. “Easy enough target for ya?”

Twisting around to lean out the window, he gripped the gun with both hands and took aim. Henry’s lower body was crushed between the pole and the back end of the Cavalier, but he was still squirming and slapping his hands against the trunk as if he wasn’t so much hurt by the impact as confused that he couldn’t move. Cole fired and missed his first few rounds. Cars screeched to a stop somewhere nearby and sirens wailed in the distance. There wasn’t a lot of time before more people would be dragged into this mess, and he knew it would be better for the cops to find a bizarre corpse than a live, heart-eating freak. He let a few more bullets fly and saw them hit their mark amid a fine spray of dirty hair and a hint of blood.

Gritting his teeth as he pulled the trigger again, Cole shook his head and fired his last few rounds. “This isn’t doing much,” he said. “I don’t even think I’m hurting it.”

The moment his gun was empty, Paige drove the Chevy forward a few feet, slammed it into Reverse and backed into Henry again. The impact rocked everyone inside. Henry moaned and wailed, but wasn’t losing steam.

Paige shook her head, threw the car into Drive and sped away. Looking into the rearview mirror, she nodded quickly and said, “I think that shook him up a bit.”

Cole dropped back into his seat beside her and opened the glove compartment angrily. “Next time, tell me before you do that! I was still hanging out the goddamn window!”

“Next time try aiming for the head!” she replied. “I thought you were the big video-game freak. Isn’t that rule number one when shooting at something?”

As much as Cole wanted to shout back at her, he didn’t have much to say. Paige was right about rule number one. He reloaded the pistol, while shifting his focus between several different spots. Racquel was curled up in the backseat with her arms over her head. Paige was speeding toward a ramp that would take her onto I–94. And most important, Henry was still shaking off the gunshots and impacts from the Chevy when Cole lost sight of him.

“Keep talking, Racquel,” Paige said in a miraculously calm voice. “What’s Misonyk been spreading around and what the hell is that Henry thing?”

Racquel sat up again, but didn’t even try to regain her composure. Instead, she rubbed her face with trembling hands and replied, “I need a drink, but nowhere around here.”

“Where should I go?”

“Try Oak Lawn. The only Nymar out there keeps to himself and won’t have anything to do with Misonyk or anyone who’d listen to him. Plus, he runs a pizza place and it’s open all night.”

“Thank God,” Cole said. “I thought it’d be forever until we got some food.”

Paige smirked at him and dug her phone from her pocket. “I still want to meet up with Daniels, but he should be able to meet us for pizza. What’s the address, Racquel?”

“Are you talkin’ about that little guy from Schaumburg?” Racquel asked.

Paige looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Yeah.”

“He used to be one of Wendy’s regulars, but he ain’t been in town for weeks. A lot of Nymar left after Misonyk showed up, so he’s probably one of them.”

As if on cue, Paige received a disconnect message from the number she’d dialed. “Great,” she muttered as she snapped her phone shut. “That’s just great.”

Cole looked at her with concern etched deeply into his face. “We’re still going for pizza, though, right?”