“They’re infected with Pestilence?”
“Nah, but they’re working with the old man, because wherever he shows up, there’s always a few of those sweet-ass bitches nearby.”
“What old man?” Ned asked.
“He hangs out at Bunn’s,” Jerry said. “From what we heard, he’s been on a road trip making appearances from Philly, all through Texas and back up here. He’s about my height, got a short white beard, carries a big stick. Plenty of Nymar seen a guy that fits the description in plenty of other clubs. Some say he’s been kidnapping our kind for years, injecting them with some kind of weird shit and lettin’ ’em go.”
“And you just assume he’s a Skinner?” Paige snapped. “I know most of the Skinners working in this country and I sure haven’t heard of anyone with a catch and release injection program.”
Jerry nodded. “He’s a Skinner all right. Either that or he just happened to find a magic stick that changes shapes and can sprout blades.”
Paige and Ned glanced at each other just long enough for Ned to shake his head. It seemed no Skinner came to his mind either.
The pasty girl with Gums dabbed her finger into the smudge of blood on her boyfriend’s neck and licked it up before saying, “That old man…he came after me too! He caught me…touched me…even stuck me with needles.”
“See, that doesn’t sound like a Skinner to me,” Paige mused. “Because we’re usually a little more aggressive than that. Especially when we’re dealing with someone who busted into a strip club, kidnapped some dancer, and then tried to kill two of our friends after a car chase.”
All four Nymar froze. Even the pasty girl left the tip of her tongue less than an inch from her snack.
Paige nodded in the same smug fashion that Jerry had a few moments ago. “That’s right. We know about that. So you’ll excuse us if we’re not ready to kick back and just lap up everything you feed us.”
Jerry stood up and let his arms hang from his sides. “Ain’t no problem,” he said as the oily black claws eased out from beneath his fingernails. “We weren’t there to do anything more than get our hands on one of those nymphs.”
“Let me guess,” Paige said sarcastically. “A rescue mission?”
“No. Them girls got a special kind of honey flowin’ through their veins. Does a body real good, you know what I mean? We need anything we can get to help cure our kind, because this Pestilence shit is spreading fast on its own now. Maybe you heard of the Mud Flu?”
“I don’t know what books you’ve been reading, but Pestilence means something a little worse than a flu,” Ned said.
“Pete thought he had a flu,” Jerry told him. Waving toward the Nymar curled up on the floor in the back of the room, he added, “So did Lara. She never fed on anyone outside of our regular neighborhood and sure as hell never saw a nymph. Only thing I know for sure is that the old man has been seen in all the spots where the Mud Flu’s been the worst. And wherever that Mud Flu is, Pestilence gets into our kind to spill our guts onto the sidewalk. That sure seems like the twisted shit that would come out of a Skinner’s mind, but why don’t you just go down to Bunn’s and see for yourself? The old man’s been hanging out there real steady since about a week or so before the flu hit St. Louis.”
“This had better not be bullshit,” Paige warned.
Holding out his hands as if they were supposed to look nonthreatening with claws sticking out of his fingers, Jerry said, “Pete dragged himself all the way to Chicago because it’d take a Skinner to get anywhere near that club anymore. The old man is there, along with a bunch of nymphs. You already came this far, why not check out my story? If I’m wrong, at least your grampa here can see some bare titties.”
“Have you tried approaching this old man yourselves?” Ned asked.
Smiling in a way that showed too many fangs to be friendly, Jerry said, “Them and our kind have a long history. We can’t exactly pay our money and just walk into any of them clubs.”
“Is that why you kidnapped the dancer?” Ned asked.
“That’s our business, blind man, which ain’t none’a yours.”
“Forget about him. What about the Mind Singer?”
“That’s enough, Cass!” Jerry snapped.
Paige stepped toward the pasty girl and spoke in a voice that managed to be both comforting and assertive. “No, let her talk.”
When Jerry moved to intercept Paige, Ned’s cane lifted to bar his way. Despite the Nymar’s attempt to get past the simple wooden barrier, Jerry couldn’t budge it more than an inch. And before he could gather himself to make a better attempt, the end of the wooden stick flowed into a sharpened edge that cut the hand Jerry used to try and push it aside.
“Let the girl speak,” Ned demanded.
Willing the sickle back into a club, Paige dropped it into the holster on her boot. “It’s okay. Just say what you wanted to say.”
Cass’s eyes darted nervously between Paige and Jerry, which only sped her voice into a quick spray of words. “The Mind Singer started talking to us not too long ago, when Misonyk wanted to gather reinforcements.”
“Misonyk’s dead,” Paige assured her.
“And since then the Mind Singer only got louder. He quieted down for a little bit, but now he won’t shut up about how Pestilence will wipe away all of the creatures who haven’t looked into the eye of the Lord.”
Looking to Jerry, Ned asked, “Is that true?”
The bleach-blond Nymar pulled in a deep breath and closed his eyes before letting it out. “You know what’s worse than some religious freak screaming at you? Having a religious freak scream his crap straight into your brain. I don’t even know what religion it is! Just a bunch of crazy talk about the Lord’s eye and words scratched on the walls.”
“All that matters is that Henry believes,” Cass said. “He spoke about Pestilence and how Skinners would be the only ones left standing. He—”
“Wait,” Paige cut in. “Did you say Henry?”
Cass nodded. “He grew into a Full Blood at Lancroft Reformatory and tried to go back there when you and some other man came to get him. He’s dreamt about it for weeks, and when the Mind Singer dreams, we all see it.”
“Yeah,” Jerry grumbled. “Religious crazy talk and crazy dreams. With that to look forward to every damn day, risking our necks to taste some nymph blood ain’t such a bad deal. We’ll either get the high of our lives or killed along the way. Any way you slice it, we get some fucking peace and quiet.”
Even though she was looking at the reason that Cole and Rico were in jail after getting attacked and nearly killed in a car wreck, Paige was more interested in what Cass had to say. “What did Henry tell you about Pestilence?”
“He doesn’t tell us anything,” Cass replied. “He screams in his sleep. He has thoughts and wishes and fears and we all get to hear them.”
“Do you hear it now?” Ned asked. “What’s he saying?”
All of the Nymar closed their eyes until Cass finally shook her head. “I can hear his voice, but it’s far away.”
“It’s background noise,” Jerry said. “Like hearing some dickhead blast their music every day. You don’t really know what every song is. But when it’s loud, it’s enough to drive us freaking insane. Finding the nymphs at that strip bar was a blessing. They’re the only things that got what it takes to make all the other noise quiet down for a while.”
“You know something?” Paige asked. “I may feel for you a little more if you hadn’t smashed a door in, kidnapped a defenseless girl, and then tried to kill anyone who got in your way.”
Jerry stomped forward, but not close enough to Paige to trigger a fight. “You and another Skinner wiped out damn near every Nymar in St. Louis. Me and the other survivors are scraping by here, but just barely. Now, another one of you cooks up Pestilence to wipe us out, along with shapeshifters, while also infecting a couple hundred humans! Could be thousands by now. If a Skinner gets in my way anymore, I figure I’m more than justified in getting him before he gets me.”