“Great.”
“Blink, but don’t rub it in. The rest will pass.”
It only took a few seconds for him to be proven right. Her vision cleared to the point where she felt like she needed glasses to see beyond a distance of about twenty or thirty yards. The waves of color, on the other hand, remained. When traffic thinned out, the waves became less like smears hanging in the air and more like smoke that held together without the cars breaking it apart. Most of the colors were dull and stagnant, but there was one particular shade of red that caught her attention.
“You say those Squams hunted Nymar?” she asked.
“Sure did.”
“There’s some sort of trace in the air, but it’s not the same color as the rest.” Lifting her head like a dog that had just caught a whiff of something cooking in a nearby kitchen, she added, “This one’s bright red with some…yellow? Yeah, I guess yellow or orange is about right.”
“That’s it.”
“There’s a scent coming off of you, Ned. It’s got some dark blue and black in it.”
“Maddy said those came from the antidote used to kill that Nymar.”
“Yeah? Well I’d have to agree because those colors are also coming from you.”
Ned patted his pockets and removed a few small syringes containing the antidote that meant instant death to any Nymar who got it injected into their bloodstream. “You still see it?” he asked.
“Oh yeah,” she replied as she studied the waves rolling off the thin little cylinders. “But it’s also coming from you. Not the syringes. You.” Twitching toward the sound of an approaching engine, Paige was able to pick out a subtle glow emanating from the car’s windows. She hurried down the sidewalk and soon felt a familiar itch within the scars on her hands. “There’s Nymar in that car,” she said. “I could see them before I could feel them.”
“So the drops really do work,” Ned sighed. “I knew it.”
“They’re weird, but they work. I might have to place an order before I leave.”
“It’ll be a while before I can fill it. That is, unless you’ve spotted any Squamatosapiens recently.”
Resisting the urge to rub her eyes again, Paige tapped Ned’s shoulder as she hurried toward the car. “Which way is the club?”
“A few miles south of here.”
“Some of the traces lead back that way, so I guess that’s the direction they came from.” She pointed past a barely visible cloud of red that only she could see. “If we get moving quickly, I should be able to follow them.”
Ned grabbed her arm with one hand and his cane in the other. “Excellent. Can you drive?”
“I can separate the smells from the stoplights…mostly. How long does this stuff last anyway?”
“Maybe an hour or two. It evaporates fairly quickly, but I’m putting together some wraparound sunglasses to prolong the effect. Conversely, you can let it dissipate so the effect wears off a little sooner.”
He went on about more options for shades, but Paige was too busy rushing to the SUV to listen. Although she was able to see a little better now that she’d adjusted to the constant flow of color drifting around her, it still required some concentration. She simply didn’t realize how many smells were out there until she could see them. Fortunately, the Lizard Men were literally focused on Nymar, so those scents stood out like neon amid a background of forty watt bulbs.
After nearly taking a black hatchback out of its misery while trying to make a U-turn from her parking spot, Paige sped to where she’d first picked up the scent and caught it just as the red waves were dissipating. Driving directly through the scent only disrupted it more, so she kept her eyes glued to the traces in front of her.
“Look out!” Ned screamed.
Getting a warning like that from a man who was nearly blind was not a good sign. Paige swerved around a motorcycle in her lane and tried to watch the road as well as the scents. Her task became a lot easier when she caught up to the Nymar’s vehicle on East Broadway. Her scars reacted to the Nymar presence and her eyes could see their bright red scent billowing out of their vehicle through partially rolled-down windows. They turned onto Sixth Street and headed into a part of town that, depending on whether someone’s glass was half empty or full, could be described as “run-down” or “in development.”
The buildings on either side of her were drab but clean. Parking lots were mostly empty, and there were no angry people baring fangs at her from the sidewalk. So far she didn’t mind the neighborhood one bit. “Have you ever been to this part of town, Ned?”
“I don’t get much past the Central West End anymore.”
Tracking the Nymar through one more turn before they pulled to a stop at a curb, she said, “Well we’re right around Sixth and…Missouri Avenue.”
“Still doesn’t sound familiar.”
Although the Nymar parked in front of a two-story building made from dark red and light brown bricks, none of the three that got out of the car entered the place. Paige stopped along the curb at the intersection, just shy of making the final turn. She sat there, fighting the urge to scoot down in her seat as the Nymar checked their surroundings. Keeping her head pointed forward, she put on the bored expression of someone who was waiting for someone else.
“I can feel them nearby,” Ned said.
“Yeah, they’re just down the street.”
“Do they know we’re here?”
“I’m not sure yet.” When a fourth Nymar stepped out of the car, he joined the others in lining up along the curb. They talked to each other and studied a building across the street covered in white stucco. Red, white, and green striped awnings hung over the two second floor windows, and a larger one shaded a first floor window in a pattern that resembled a giant simplistic face on that side of the building.
The guy who’d come out of the car last was the biggest of the group and had short, bleached blond hair. He stood with his arm draped around a lanky girl with sunken cheeks and Asian features. Although she wrapped an arm around the blond guy’s waist, the gesture seemed more out of habit than anything else. The other two were skin and bones, shifted like little dogs that had to be taken for a walk, and were dressed in clothes from Goodwill’s reject pile. The male half of that couple had the scrawny build of a lifelong junkie, and the girl had skin that even looked pasty on a vampire. Their black markings stood out in the sun’s glow as they turned around to walk toward a different two-story brick building on the same corner where Paige had parked. This structure didn’t have a single window that wasn’t boarded up, and judging by the dirty scorch marks on the walls, the glass had probably melted from the panes in a very impressive fire.
“All right,” Paige said as she plucked the keys from the ignition. “I’m going to introduce myself before they spot us.”
Ned hopped out first, gripping his cane tight enough for the thorns in its handle to dig into his palms. “I’m coming with you.”
Since she knew that arguing with him would be a lost cause, Paige strode across the street and met the Nymar’s glances with open arms and a beaming smile. “What’s the matter with you guys?” she asked. “Can’t you afford a nicer hideout?”
The big guy with the blond hair stood in front of the burnt building, wearing the same work shirt he’d had on the previous night. It hung open, so Paige had to wait for the wind to catch it just right before she could read the stitching on its pocket. “You lost or something?” Jerry asked.
The moment Ned stepped onto the curb beside Paige, the junkie beside Jerry bared his teeth in a hiss that would have been more threatening if he wasn’t missing most of his human teeth along with a few of his fangs. There was enough ferocity on the guy’s darkly tanned face, however, to make up for his oral deficiencies.
Jerry narrowed his eyes and nodded slowly. “I get it. The Skinner from St. Louis finally got some backup.”