“Wait until you see the basement,” Daniels groaned. “That’s where I test-fired the silver bullets.”
Paige’s laugh was a quick snort.
“Silver bullets?” Cole asked. Then he looked down at the pan and lit up like the proverbial holiday greenery. “That’s perfect! Dip some rounds into this stuff and—”
“And,” Daniels cut in, “you get a mess on the walls as the coating flies off at approximately 1,065 feet per second.”
“But—”
Silencing Cole with a quickly raised hand, the Nymar said, “It won’t stick to lead. I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire, so I’ll work on that one some other time.”
“What about Pestilence?” Paige asked calmly. “Please tell me you haven’t forgotten about that.”
“No, I haven’t forgotten. After everything you told me regarding the Mud People at that club,” Daniels reported in a voice that quickly built to his previous levels of excitement, “I would say my previous deductions were correct. Since I have the infection, but not the actual flu, I was able to isolate the abnormality in my blood. See, Nymar blood is a very simple solution compared to human plasma.” Seeing the impatience building on Paige’s face, he skipped to the next section of his presentation. “I’m mostly certain that the bacteria infecting me and, I assume, most Nymar, originated from a fungus native to what is now called Ecuador.”
“Now called Ecuador?” Cole said. “So it’s in Ecuador.”
“Not anymore,” Daniels replied. “It’s supposed to be extinct. Wiped out by modern contaminants, deforestation, or just died out the way some plants or animals die out. One of Ned’s friends from the hospital helped me isolate it, and there was an obscure record of it on one of my normal research—”
“So this fungus causes Mud Flu,” Paige cut in.
“Yes, but not as we now know it. There are archived accounts from explorers who’d made contact with descendants of the Mayans who reported seeing members of their party display symptoms like the Mud Flu. I figure that fungus was mixed with another ingredient to produce the Mud Flu as we see it today. This muddy residue is toxic to shapeshifters and can potentially cause a most unpleasant death for Nymar, as demonstrated by our late friend Peter Walsh. Things got really interesting when I tested the substance from one of those neighbors who tried to break in a little while ago.”
“When did you get a sample from them?” Paige asked.
The guilty look on Daniels’s face returned. “I snuck out when the paramedics were here. There was so much confusion that nobody noticed.”
“Go on,” she said.
“The mud on those people had something else in it,” Daniels said. “It’s something I think may even be produced within the human body by glands similar to the ones that produce endorphins or other hormones, but it would take some extraordinary activity in the brain to produce it.”
“What about the psychic projection of a crazy Full Blood?” Cole asked.
Looking to be genuinely impressed by the deduction, Daniels said, “Yes! The most dangerous form of the Mud Flu is therefore a three part compound with the fungal base, the mud from those who were infected, and the unique hormones resulting from the presence of the entity known as Mind Singer.” After saying that, he let out a breath and sat down in one of the chairs next to the square table. He looked as spent as Cole felt after his night with Paige, and almost as happy.
“Did you come up with a cure?” she asked.
The happiness on Daniels’s face dropped away. “I came up with all of that and you want more? Do you know how little I’m working with here? Do you know how much research I did to connect all of this data with such limited laboratory resources?”
“Ned’s got more equipment scattered in this house than some small forensics departments,” she said. “And I know you well enough to be pretty sure you’ve been through every inch of this place whether Ned knew about it or not. Plus,” she added with a confident nod, “you’re a smart guy. That’s why I work with you.”
Letting out a ragged breath, Daniels said, “I’ll work on it but can’t guarantee anything.”
“Great, now where the hell is Ned?”
“He never tells me where he goes,” Daniels said. “Always in and out with that guy. It’s his house, so what was I going to do about it?”
Paige dropped to one knee and pulled open a cabinet that was a facade for a small refrigerator locked with a digital mechanism. “Stubborn old man’s probably on patrol,” she said while tapping a number onto the fridge’s keypad. “Look on the wall near the phone, Cole. That’s where he’d leave a note.”
Cole made his way across the room to a small alcove that was just big enough to hold one shelf. A phone rested on top of an answering machine that belonged on display with the other antiques. It was a touch-tone made to look like a rotary dial, and no lights were blinking on the machine. When he returned to the kitchen, Paige was taking a plastic eye-drop bottle from the fridge. “Nada,” he reported.
“Then I’m calling him,” she said while flipping her phone open. The longer it rang, the more she shook her head. Too anxious to bother with voice mail, she asked, “Where’s that card?”
“The one from the cops?” Cole asked. “I’ve got it.”
She extended her hand to him and said, “Hand it over. Maybe one of these dumb shits is forcing Ned to answer a bunch of stupid questions.”
“Umm, maybe I should call the number,” Cole said.
“Then call it! I’ll give our weapons a dip in this stuff. Didn’t you hear anyone knocking when they left the card, Daniels?”
“Sure. On top of everything else you want me to do, I should answer the door and take messages.”
Cole was more than happy to hand over his spear just to give Paige something else to do. She piled her weapons on top of his and grabbed a rag to dip into the silvery mixture in the paint pan.
The name on the card was Detective Tracey Shin, and she picked up her phone after one ring.
“Hi, my name’s Cole Warnecki. I found one of your cards on my door, so I figured I should call.”
Detective Shin spoke in an even, professional tone, sounded somewhere in her late thirties or early forties, and was curt without being rude. “What was the name again?” she asked while flipping through papers on her end of the line.
“Cole Warnecki. I’m a friend of Ned Post’s. It was his house where I found your card.”
The rummaging stopped. “Oh. When was the last time you saw Mr. Post?”
“A day or two ago. Why?”
“What’s your relation to him?”
“I’m a friend,” Cole’s stomach clenched and a cold sweat threatened to break from his forehead. Paige sat at the table, silently prompting him for details.
“Does Mr. Post have any immediate family?” Detective Shin asked.
“Not that I know of. What’s wrong?”
After clearing her throat, Shin said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Warnecki, but Mr. Post is dead.”
“Wh-What happened to him?”
“I’d like to talk to you about that in person if I could. Can you come down to the station?”
“Tell me what happened first,” Cole insisted.
The detective’s voice shifted subtly, which made it seem more like she was an actual person instead of a voice behind a badge. “Mr. Post’s remains were found at a bar in U City along with the bar’s owner. It’s looking like there was a robbery.”
“So he’s…dead?”
Hearing that, Paige jumped up from her chair fast enough to hit the table and splash some of the silver water onto the floor.
“I’d really like you to come and talk to me before I give any more details over the phone. Mr. Post was already in our system due to some minor weapons charges, so we’ve made an identification, but we’d like you to verify it. There are also some reports that need to be filed, and if there are any immediate family members—”