Teeth of Beasts (Skinners) (18 page)

“You see?” Christov asked. “That man in your picture spit into
his
face.”

Blake’s eyes rolled toward the top of his head at the indignity of having to wedge himself into such a cramped space just to relive that particular memory.

“Tell them what happened after he spit on you.”

“I…I don’t see what…” Blake stammered in a voice that was so low it practically rumbled beneath the floor. Seeing the insistent scowl on Christov’s face, he said, “I almost passed out.
Almost
.”

Looking around at all the monitors, Paige said, “Something tells me we can see all of this for ourselves.”

Christov dropped into his chair and filled the office with wailing squeaks as he rolled to a small table weighed down by a stack of VCRs and tapes. “I expected the cops might be poking around, so I had this ready.” Picking up a remote and jabbing a button, he added, “I think you’ll see more than the cops anyway.”

One of the monitors on the wall showed a view looking down into what must have been the VIP room. Separated from the rest of the club by a thick curtain, the room was
a silky, padded cave lit by a few recessed bulbs tastefully covered to look like glowing moons in a velvety sky. More curtains lined the walls, and plush couches interspersed with wide, heavily padded chairs were filled with customers that must have paid through the nose to be escorted into their excessively comfortable seats. The time stamp at the bottom of the screen was from a Friday night about a week and a half ago.

Shae was only one of many dancers grinding in laps in impressive displays of erotic contortionism. Some of the guys were a bit too excited, but were kept in line with a few polite wags of their girl’s finger. “All right,” Christov said, having already seen the movie. “Here comes the good part.”

As promised, a young man wearing torn jeans and a Black Sabbath T-shirt lunged into the frame and grabbed the blond nymph. She struggled to pull her wrist from his grip but was unable to pull free. There was no sound on the tape, but it was obvious that the guy in the T-shirt wasn’t screaming compliments about the upholstery or curtains. Paige stood up and walked over to the screen, which only made the picture seem worse. She took a step back until the pixilation wasn’t so bad, studying the man dragging the dancer by the wrist.

“Is that Peter Walsh?” she asked after catching a glimpse of the black markings on the young guy’s neck.

Christov nodded. “That’s the guy from the picture you showed me.”

The image was close enough for Paige to sit down, but it was a far cry from the image in her head of the sweating, sickly Nymar who’d showed up at Rasa Hill.

On the video, Blake and Mikey rushed into the room and knocked the Nymar against a wall. Peter fought back just enough to shove the bouncers away, but it allowed Shae to wriggle free and seek refuge between a couch and chair. Peter got within inches of her before Mikey grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him away again. Tearing free with enough force to send both men staggering into separate pieces of furniture, Peter jumped onto a couch and showed them all three sets of fangs.

The bouncers kept their composure, even when dark froth began trickling from the corners of another customer’s mouth. Looking like some random guy in his forties, the customer went from pressing himself against a wall to throwing himself at the nearest bouncer. From out of frame another person with a mud-smeared face grabbed Blake and started pounding both fists against his chest and stomach.

“Who are these guys with the dirty faces?” Paige asked.

“Don’t know,” Blake replied. “They didn’t have fangs or tats. One of ’em’s been coming to the club for a few weeks without any problem. That night he flipped out.”

Not all of the customers joined the fray. Some scrambled to get out, while the dancers still trapped in the room did their best to put as much furniture as possible between themselves and all those swinging fists. The moment Peter started to get overwhelmed, he backed away from the bouncers and found the guy in his forties with the muddy face. It was a standard tactic for cornered Nymar to get an extra dose of strength by feeding on anyone in sight. Peter clamped his mouth onto the patron’s shoulder, drank what he could, then discarded the man like an empty juice box.

When the next wave of bouncers appeared, they were brandishing pistols. Peter took a few powerful swings at them, which were followed by a quick series of muzzle flashes. The blood was too fresh in his system for the gunshots to do much against him, so he refocused on Shae. The next bullet caught him in the back, and the wound was closed by a black tangle of threadlike tendrils. When Blake tried to get to Shae, Peter spat a wad of venom into his face. The hulking bouncer staggered, Peter knocked him down, and Shae leapt from the room. Finally, Peter clutched his chest and dropped to his knees with a severe case of dry heaves. Before Mikey and another bouncer could grab him, Peter darted away in a flicker that looked more like a glitch in the VCR.

“Didn’t see him again after that,” Christov said.

Still squinting at the monitor, Paige asked, “And you never saw anyone with that stuff on their face before?”

“Hell no! Nobody looking like that would be allowed in
my club.” Staring at his bouncers, Christov added, “Would they?”

The bouncers couldn’t shake their heads fast enough.

Grateful to look away from the screen after straining his good eye for so long, Ned asked, “Did you call the police?”

“No,” Christov replied sternly. “We handle ourselves when there’s a fight. Other clubs have been shut down for less than this. Besides, the police would only make me piss into a test jar if I told them vampires were storming my place to try and kidnap a nymph. And with all this talk of the Mud Flu, if a video or even rumor of something like this gets out, I’ll be lucky if the government doesn’t burn my club down to the foundation.”

“What do you know about Pestilence?” Paige asked.

“Never heard of it.”

“I doubt that very much,” Ned stated. “You and your men seem accustomed to the presence of Nymar. You know the nymphs on a first-name basis. You even know about Skinners. The odds that you don’t know about something like Pestilence are pretty damn remote.”

Mikey positioned himself behind Ned, and Blake draped his thick, steaklike hands on Paige’s shoulders. She wasn’t helpless, but she doubted she could put the massive bodyguard down quick enough for both her and Ned to get away.

“I have dealt with many different monsters to get where I am,” Christov hissed. “Just because you help one of my girls doesn’t give you the right to come in here and make demands.”

“Dealt with monsters,” Ned repeated. “So the Nymar approached you before?”

After nodding to his guards so they eased toward the back of the room, Christov said, “When I first opened this club, they came to me and asked to use it for their own. Before I had a chance to get worried about it, they disappeared. I hadn’t heard from them again until the last few weeks.”

“Are they the same ones who’ve been stalking your dancers?”

“No. Different faces. Same tattoos.”

“Let me guess,” Paige said. “The first Nymar were
tall, dressed in fancy clothes, and threw a lot of money around?”

Christov nodded. “They offered to buy in to my business, but threatened me when I wouldn’t sell.”

Paige didn’t have to say a word to Ned on the matter. That was a picture-perfect description of the Nymar that had resided in St. Louis prior to her and Rico’s infamous “training exercise.”

“These new ones,” Christov grunted as he settled back into his chair and rolled behind his desk. “They’re filthy. They reek of cheap beer and act like punks off the street. At least those other ones bathed. These are crazy. They sniff around my new girls, waiting for them to leave. Jerry, the leader, he even followed me home and offered to buy one of them from me! Every time I tell one of them to go to hell, they all get bolder. Just when I think I’m rid of them,” he added while waving at the monitor displaying the frozen image of what Peter left behind, “they charge my club like a pack of wolves.”

Paige pulled up another picture from her phone and held it up. “If that’s Peter’s Before picture, take a look at the After one.”

Christov’s eyes widened at the sight of the dead Nymar lying on the floor of Rasa Hill with the petrified tentacles emerging from his chest. Even in the darkened room it was obvious he’d gotten a whole lot paler. “I’ve heard someone mention Pestilence, but I don’t know who.”

“Could you point him out to us?” Ned asked.

“I don’t know. It’s…a bunch of people. Just random customers at the bar, they babble about crazy things including this Pestilence.” Waving a hand to his guards, Christov added, “They know the voice I mean!”

“It’s like folks whisper all this stuff as they wander around,” Blake said. “Then they just start talking normal again.”

Mikey listened to all of this, but seemed ready to jump out of his shoes. Focusing on him, Paige said, “You’ve heard this too.”

The bouncer rubbed his hand over a layer of hair thin
enough to be a single coat of paint on his scalp as Christov muttered to himself in another language. Mikey was about to say something, but stopped as the faint scent of lavender drifted into the room. The brunette who appeared in the office doorway was several inches taller than Paige, had straight black hair that formed a single wave down to the middle of her back, and a perfectly upturned nose. She smiled at Christov and his men while saying, “I believe I can take it from here.”

“Well now,” Paige said. “You’re a long way from Wisconsin. What was your name? Trinity?”

“Tristan,” the brunette corrected. “Who’s your new friend?”

Even with one eye damaged beyond repair and the other one not quite what it used to be, Ned could still enjoy the sight of the statuesque nymph. He introduced himself and was promptly led out of the office by her. When Paige went to follow them, the men in the office seemed more than happy to be rid of them both.

Tristan moved with natural grace. Although she wore a plain white tank top and not-too-tight jeans, she still managed to be a work of art. Falling into step between Paige and Ned, she draped her arms across their shoulders and moved with them like a shared thought. Her hair smelled of fresh, airy mornings that only happened in coffee commercials. “Christov is just protecting his interests. Come back tonight and he won’t be so snippy.”

“Paige never told me she had such interesting acquaintances,” Ned said.

“Prophet was watching Tristan at a club in Wisconsin,” Paige replied, “and my partner got to know her in a more professional manner.”

“How is Cole?” Tristan asked.

“Locked up.”

“Well he couldn’t control himself very well the last time we met, but he had the stench of Nymar venom on him. I heard you mention Pestilence. When you come back tonight, I’ll be able to help you with that.”

“How about you help us with it now?” Paige asked.

Tristan smiled and shook her head in a way that was decisive without being arrogant or condescending. “There’s a regular you’ll want to meet.”

“Is he the old man we’ve heard about?” Ned asked.

“He gets here a few hours before closing, so if you come back around midnight or one, I should be able to introduce you. Don’t think too hard about it. Just come back then and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

“We’re here now,” Ned said. “Why not just tell us what you can?”

“Because if I mention too much, you’ll be thinking about it when you leave. You may not try to think about it, but the names and information will be rattling around in your heads and it’ll all be used against you when you return.” Having taken them past the window looking out at the main room, Tristan grabbed the handle of the door that opened near the largest stage. “You did a favor for me that has paid off in more ways than you could know, Paige. I owe you. I assume you’re here about the Nymar. They are a nuisance, but they’re not the real threat and they’re not the ones who took my sisters. Come back tonight and I’ll show you the man you’re after,” she said with a smirk that was equal parts naughty and nice. “We can mask you from the Mind Singer, but only if you’re here. You’ll need to prepare to fight a murderer. Bring whatever weapons you need. I promise nobody will stop you at the door. Just remember there will be customers here as well. I can’t warn them away without making our mutual friend suspicious.”

Before she knew it, Paige had another escort on her way to the front door. Kate was dressed in green shorts and a matching top that made her red hair look ridiculously attractive. She started to wave at the Skinners, but backed off when she saw the quick shake of Tristan’s head.

“You’ve got to give us something,” Paige insisted. “How are we supposed to prepare if we don’t know what we’re up against?”

Arriving at a decision by the time she arrived at the main entrance, Tristan said, “The Mind Singer may be able to read anyone’s thoughts if they’re not properly guarded. If I
say anything more, you could be at risk of allowing a trap to be set.”

“Didn’t you see what happened to the Nymar who attacked one of your girls in the back room?” Paige asked. “This place isn’t as safe as you think it is.”

Tristan had only been leading the two of them by entwining her arms in theirs as if the trio was simply walking down the Yellow Brick Road. When she let them go, the Skinners still didn’t drift too far from her side. Reluctantly, she nodded.

“You may be infected with the same thing that’s been killing Nymar,” Paige explained. “The one who attacked Shae was infected and now he’s dead. Other people are dead too, and this mud crap is showing up all over the country.”

“My kind cannot be sick,” Tristan said. “It’s just impossible.”

“Then they’re the lucky ones. There’s a whole lot of people out there who don’t have it so good.”

“This infection has been around for a long time, but never amounted to anything until recently.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Smiling as if she was gently breaking bad news to a child, Tristan said, “Humans are always infected with something. There are plagues, poisons, diseases, and any number of things that come from any number of places. For every one that’s fatal, there are hundreds that you don’t even know about. This particular affliction first struck your kind in other parts of the world a very long time ago. Now, something has caused it to blossom into something worse. Some call it the Mud Flu, while one man has named it Pestilence.”