“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.”
Chapter 11
After spending some time in the cell without incident, Cole was starting to relax. In fact, the cage was bigger than his first apartment, and its television had better reception. On the other hand, that television was bolted to the upper corner of an open room that contained three short, steel benches, a pair of miniature toilets, and seven other inmates. Three of the inmates were asleep against the cement walls. Two occupied one of the benches. One paced along the iron bars, and the last one waged a losing war against his most recent meal upon one of the toilets. Since that toilet wasn’t far from the TV or the benches, he didn’t have much choice but to watch.
“Why don’t you take a load off?” Rico asked from his bench.
“I think those two want the benches.”
Rico twisted around to look at the pair of inmates sitting nearby. They were so dirty that it was tough to determine what they might look like beneath the grime. Rico greeted them with a curt nod and they scowled back at him just as they’d scowled at Cole.
“They’re fine,” Rico said with an off-handed wave. “Sit down.”
Lowering himself onto the bench, Cole took a position that allowed him to keep his eye on as many of the inmates as possible. The pacer was impossible to watch all the time, and the guy on the crapper was impossible to miss. Leaning over to Rico, he whispered, “This is my first time in prison.”
“No shit.”
“What about you?”
“First off, this ain’t prison. It ain’t even jail. It’s a holding cell. Three very different animals. I actually got fond memories of jail. There was a place up in North Dakota where I spent a few nights with some friends of mine. Served the best franks and beans you ever had. And no, that ain’t slang for a hot date.”
Cole laughed uneasily and said, “Beat me to the punch.”
“After eight weeks there, I got transferred to a real joint in Illinois.”