“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.