Vampire Uprising (45 page)

“Well, there was that voice mail you left where you told him he could stick his favor up his ass.”

“That don’t count,” Rico replied without missing a beat.

“Who’s with you?”

“It’s just me and Cole.”

“Where’s Paige?” Prophet asked.

“Warning the cops that they’re being set up by these informants they think they got.”

Prophet’s comfort level dropped quicker than a phone
call in the middle of a cement tunnel. “She’s warning them? What happens if the Nymar get wind of that?”

Leaning over to make his presence known, Cole said, “Then things might get a little crazy. Oh, wait. That already happened. Are we doing this tonight or what?”

“Yeah, we are. Best pick up the pace too.”

“My thoughts exactly. Who’s driving that car?”

“Gunari. We got the whole Czech crew in here. We’ve gotten pretty tight over the last day or so.”

“Hey, Drina. Haven’t seen you since Philly,” Rico said. “Keepin’ busy?”

The rear passenger window came down and the green-eyed blond woman acknowledged him with a curt upward nod.

Showing her an ugly smile, Rico asked, “Walter getting on your nerves yet?”

“It’s been a long trip,” she said before leaning back and rolling her window up.

“Check your e-mail, Cole,” Prophet said. “Stan should have sent you the rest of our files on these guys we’re after.”

“There’s more than what he already sent?”

“Sure. That shit’s confidential. We’re not just gonna spread it all over the place until we need to. You know how it goes.”

After refreshing his e-mail in-box on his phone’s Web browser, Cole found the newest arrival from S.Velasco@ LibertyBailBonds.com. “Is there anything more than where to find them?”

“There’s a whole history in there. Prior arrests. Suspected involvements in—”

“Anything that can help us
tonight?”
Cole cut in.

Wincing, Prophet said, “There’s the location. Only thing is, that information’s a little old. Last time one of our bondsmen checked, that address had gone through two other owners.”

If not for the hit he’d taken to his credit card and the two year service plan he’d already signed, Cole would have thrown his phone out the window.

“There’s something else we need to talk about.”

Rico’s eyes narrowed as he asked, “What might that be?”

“It’s about why we’re here in your country,” Tobar said from Cole’s side of the car.

Not only hadn’t Cole heard the other man approach, but he hadn’t seen a single shadow to announce the Amriany’s presence. Rico snapped his arm up to point the Sig Sauer across Cole’s face toward the window, proving he’d been just as surprised.

“I wouldn’t advise you sneakin’ up on me like that again, Gypsy boy,” Rico said.

Tobar’s stocky build filled a good portion of Cole’s window. He grinned to display his missing section of teeth as he replied, “It speaks a lot that it was so easy to sneak up on you. And if you speak the word Gypsy as if it was a curse again, I will shoot you both through this door.”

Cole leaned over just enough to see the .357 in Tobar’s hand. “He’s got us there,” he said while settling back into his seat.

Despite the gun in Rico’s hand, Tobar kept talking as if he was ordering lunch from a familiar menu. “Your country has been exporting Kintalaphi and we have traced them here.”

“At first we thought they had come from your
prala
Lancroft,” Gunari said from the driver’s seat. “But there are too many of them and they are too old for this to be the case.”

“I thought you only came here to steal from Lancroft,” Rico said. “What’s with all the jet setting?”

The rear window of the other car came down again so Drina could say, “Our stolen belongings have been scattered to every corner of this country. And you call us thieves?”

“No. I called you Gypsies.”

Tobar’s expression remained unchanged as the menacing tap of a gun barrel against the outside of the car filled Cole’s ears.

Compared to Tobar’s movements a few seconds ago, Nadya practically announced her exit from the car with a marching band. She slammed her door, stomped around the rear of the vehicle and marched straight over to the Amriany that wielded the .357. “You know better than this,” she said to Tobar. “The Americans always goad us. It’s what they
do.”

Rico shrugged in a comically apologetic fashion.

“And you,” Nadya continued while bending down to glare through Cole’s window, “should have better things to do than pick a fight. We came here because you asked us, remember? We had plenty to do in Texas when your friend here convinced us to come to the mountains instead. Tell us why we should help you or we’ll drive away and continue doing our own work.”

“First of all,” Cole said, “if you guys are gonna shoot each other, could you at least wait for me to switch seats?” When Rico laid the Sig Sauer back on his lap, Cole could only assume the nod from Tobar meant the .357 had also found its home. “And second, what’s a kin-talapia?”

“Kintalaphi”
Tobar said in an accent that had been lifted from every Frankenstein movie to come out of Universal Studios’ golden age. “It’s—”

“It’s their word for a multiseeded Nymar,” Rico cut in. “You know, like Tara and Hope?” Running his fingers in straight lines along both sides of his face, he looked out to the Amriany on Cole’s side of the car and asked, “Ain’t that right?”

Tobar nodded. “We have many reasons to come to your country. Many possessions to reclaim. Until now we were willing to let you squabble over our trinkets while the Nymar picked you apart. Now that the Kintalaphi are spreading, we must come to make sure it goes no further.”

“Ain’t that nice, Cole?” Rico asked. “They’re here to lend us a hand.”

“It is not our concern if all Skinners will probably be killed in the war to come. We are only here to make sure the blood does not spill too far beyond your own shores.”

Sitting up straight, Cole asked, “What war?”

“The one that has already started,” Nadya replied. “The weapons have been collected for generations by killers like Jonah Lancroft, put to use by demons like the Kintalaphi. To make matters worse we—like your common people and your police—are being manipulated by the Nymar. This must end.”

Tobar nodded solemnly. “Before long we may become as
blind and ignorant as you.”

Rico wasn’t about to bite on the worm being dangled in front of him. “So you guys got anything to share?” he asked. “Sounds like you may know some things to make this easier.”

The look on Tobar’s face wasn’t giving much away.

Prophet hadn’t opened his mouth in a while and sat in the Amriany’s car as if there was a gun stuck into his ribs.

Cole could only assume the other European hunters were in the car as well, but they weren’t talking either.

Finally, Nadya said, “We have friends who watch the Nymar in your country. They are the ones who pointed us toward Texas. We were ready to close in on a group in Austin, but the Nymar all left that place to go somewhere else before our plane could land.”

“Where did they go?”

“We don’t know. Since you seem to have more current information, we came here. If this place turns out to be empty or a trap, then we’ll know who had something to do with it.”

When Cole met Prophet’s eye, he got the distinct impression that the bounty hunter wasn’t as willing a passenger as he might have been letting on. Either that or Walter was going along with the Amriany without tipping off the Skinners for some other reason. Neither of those possibilities sat very well with him.

“Who are these friends of yours?” Rico asked. Upon seeing the glares coming from every Amriany in sight, he added, “For all you know, they could be the ones that are misinformed. Hell, they could be the ones tipping off the bloodsuckers.”

“They are friends,” Tobar said. “We trust them much more than we can trust you.”

“Look here, asshole. You can call them whatever you want. Hell, you can call me your papa, but that don’t mean I screwed your—”

“He gets it,” Cole said before Rico sparked something that would involve way too much gunfire crossing in front of him. “We’re not doing ourselves any favors by having a convention out here in the street where we can be spotted
by any Nymar out for a smoke break. They do take smoke breaks, right?”

“He’s got a point,” Rico grudgingly admitted. “If those Austin bloodsuckers got access to the Internet, we may know who tipped them off.”

“Who?” Tobar asked. “Is it someone we can look up now?”

“Probably,” Rico told him. “But you can look it up the same time Cole has a look at whatever computer setup they got in there or wherever they moved to since then.”

“They’re about a mile from here on Oneida Street,” Prophet said.

Rico’s face turned even uglier than usual. “How long were you gonna wait before telling us that little tidbit?”

“That was our doing,” she said. “After we caught him trying to follow us out of Philadelphia, we brought him along with us and convinced him it would be easier to work with us. As for meeting you here, we thought it might serve us better to work out our differences before attacking the Nymar.”

“That actually makes sense to me,” Cole said. “How screwed up is that?”

Although Rico seemed ready to bust someone’s head open, he nodded and grudgingly sighed.

The Amriany were happy with the development and got back to their car. Prophet watched through his window, seeming genuinely shaken as he was driven away.

“What?” Rico grunted as he turned his deathly glare in Cole’s direction. “You feel sorry for poor little Walter?”

“Hell no! Son of a bitch is riding with the Gypsies now, right?”

Rico slapped the car into Drive and pulled away with a lurch.

Bracing his feet against the floor and making sure his seat belt was fastened, Cole did his best to appear relaxed as Rico followed the other car. “Besides,” he added, “what did Prophet ever do for us, right? Saved me and Paige in Wisconsin. Oh, and he did lay the groundwork for our arrangement with the nymphs. Guess that’s something.”

“Free strip club buffets don’t make up for switchin’ sides,” Rico snapped. “He didn’t switch sides.”

“Yeah? We’ll just have to wait and see about that.”

They drove east through the industrial district. It was a part of town defined by abandoned cars, flat buildings made of cement and metal siding, open fields of dying grass, and businesses that might or might not have been empty shells. The brighter part of the city could be sensed more than felt. Its glow smeared the stars overhead, but its voice was too distant to be heard.

Cole took advantage of the short travel time to dial Paige’s cell. Just when it started to ring, he spotted a familiar face on the side of the road. As they drove closer, the figure waved its arms to flag him down. Cole hung up the phone, stuffed it into his pocket, and swatted Rico’s arm. “Pull over!”

“Huh? Why?”

“Just do it. Look!”

As Cole pointed to the side of the road, Rico spotted the figure. “I’ll be damned!” he said as he hit the brakes and steered toward the shoulder. “That you, Bloodhound?”

“What the hell are you doing out here?” Cole asked.

“Just got in town and I thought I’d try to catch up to you,” Paige replied. “Mind if I get in?”

As Cole’s phone rang, he reached back to unlock the door directly behind him. “Go ahead.”

“Is that your phone ringing?” she asked while climbing in.

“Yeah.”

“Give it to me. I’m expecting a call.”

“What?”

“I lost my phone and knew you’d be here, so I gave them your number.”

When Paige shot her right arm over Cole’s shoulder and impatiently snapped her fingers, he gave her the chirping phone before it was taken from him by force. She tapped the screen a few times, muttered to herself, then slumped back against the overly worn seat cushions. “Too late,” she huffed. “They hung up. I’ll just wait for them to call back.”

“So how’d you get back in town?” Rico asked.

“Same way you did, only I had to get a cab to get this far.”

Before they could get into any more explanation than that, the brake lights on the Amriany car lit up. Cole’s phone chirped again, so Paige took it from her pocket and answered it. After a few quick sentences and an even quicker explanation as to why Cole hadn’t answered, she hung up and pointed to a white building surrounded by chain-link fence. There was no sign to be found, but the place was too utilitarian to be a residence. The stark cement walls without the first attempt at decoration reminded Cole of a large storage unit or an even larger garage.

“That’s the place,” she said.

The other car killed its lights and rolled to a stop in a lot adjacent to the white building at the corner of Fiftieth and Oneida Street behind a small cluster of tractor-trailer trucks. All four doors of the car opened, allowing Prophet and the Amriany to file out and disperse into the shadows. The bounty hunter and Drina stayed close to the darkened trucks as they hurried to the corner.

Rico parked farther up along Fiftieth, which meant a somewhat longer walk to the white building. A small Nymar presence could be felt within Cole’s scars as well as throughout his entire body, but he knew that meant nothing where Shadow Spore were concerned. His muscles tensed and a jab shot through his heart like a phantom pain caused by the body compensating for a vital piece that had been cut away. He did his best to forget about it.

By the time the Skinners had gotten out and circled around the car, Prophet and Drina were close enough to speak without shouting.

“The others are scouting ahead,” Drina told them. Tapping her ear, she added, “I will keep in touch with them with this.”

Rico removed a small pouch from his pocket and said, “Yeah, we got electronics stores over here too.” After dumping similar earpieces into his hand from the pouch, he handed them out to Cole and Paige before taking one for himself.

“Where are the others headed?” Paige asked.

“The Nymar must be preparing something,” Drina said. “If they are watching the street, Gunari will give them something to see other than us.”