Vampire Uprising (36 page)

“I suppose I could make an incision to try and extract the spore,” Daniels said.

“It’s on his heart,” Rico said. “Wouldn’t you have to cut through a lot of bone?”

“Not if I go in between the ribs.”

Cole shifted even more. “Wait a second! Are you a surgeon?”

Daniels rubbed his chin and held his hand beneath his nose as if smelling the side of it helped him think. “I can guesstimate where the spore would be by now with some degree of accuracy and go in with some tools that wouldn’t require much of an incision.”

“Guesstimate?”
Cole bellowed. “That’s something my high school shop teacher used to say, not a heart surgeon!”

The reassuring pat once more slapped against Cole’s shoulder. “Relax, Champ. It ain’t like he can put you in any worse condition than you already are.”

“But he doesn’t know what he’s doing!”

“True,” Paige said as she held her stake just high enough to catch Cole’s attention. “But I know exactly what I’m doing. Want me to continue or him?” Since she didn’t get much from Cole, she said, “Good. Daniels, what if we can get the spore to come out to us?”

“How do you propose we do that?” the Nymar asked with a laugh that was equal parts chuckle and snort. “Give it
something it really wants?”

Paige slowly smiled and eased the stake back into the holster stitched into her boot. “Pack up what you need to get this done. You’re coming with us.”

The drive from Schaumberg to West Chicago felt a lot longer to Cole than the one that had brought them to Schaumberg from Rush Street. That was mostly attributed to the fact that he was conscious this time around. Also, every bump in the Veteran’s Memorial Tollway was marked by a jab from the needle that Rico used to stitch the wound in his chest.

“Son of a bitch!” Cole yelped as Paige bounced across another pothole. “Can’t you just leave it alone? The serum in my system should close that up, shouldn’t it?”

“The serum was all used up by keeping the spore from attaching to your heart,” Rico pointed out. “And this wound was made by one of our weapons. They’re not something a Full Blood can bounce back from right away, so how fast do you think you’re gonna heal up from it?”

“Can you at least wait until we stop for a minute?”

Rico pressed one hand down onto Cole’s chest to keep him still while giving the needle a few quick tugs. “I could,” he said evenly. “But I won’t.” As if to prove he was a man of his word, Rico continued stitching even as Paige ran onto the bumpy shoulder of the road while passing a red sports car.

“We’re on our way now,” she said into her cell phone. “I need at least one of you there, and then we’ll have to travel afterward.” Shaking off Daniels’s insistent tapping from the passenger seat, she said, “I’m not sure where we’re going yet. I need to make another phone call. Oh, and I’m going to have to ask a favor of one of you girls. I need Dryad blood … No, it doesn’t matter who donates it. I may need a lot, though.”

Cole had heard the bare bones of the plan while being
taken from Daniels’s apartment. It had to do with an incident a while ago, when Tristan—one of the hottest women he’d ever seen—revealed that she was not only a nymph, but a Dryad, which apparently ranked higher on the “mythological hottie” scale. She also claimed that Nymar spore preferred infecting human hosts as opposed to any other creature with a beating heart because Dryad blood was the most magically delicious treat there was. Considering the package in which it was wrapped, Cole didn’t have trouble believing it. And considering that he only had a few hours before his entire existence was to be written off as a lost cause, he was willing to take another frantic drive out to Pinups.

“No, I don’t know exactly how much we’ll need!” Paige said. Turning toward Daniels, she asked, “How much will we need?”

“I’ve never done this. How should I know?”

Glaring at the Nymar hard enough to make him press back against his door, Paige said, “Better have a couple of donors ready … Yes, it’s important, and you
owe
us. In fact, call Tristan and tell her Cole’s life depends on this.” After that, she hung up as forcefully as her thumb on a button could manage and stuffed the phone into her pocket.

“There,” Rico said as he pulled the last stitch taut and hastily tied it off. “That’ll hold for as long as you need.”

Now that he was able to sit up without leaking, Cole flopped into the corner between the backseat and the door. He looked down at the stitches and said, “I’ve seen sock puppets sewn together better than this.”

“If this don’t work, you won’t be alive to see tomorrow,” Rico said with complete certainty. “Those stitches’ll hold that long at least. Maybe even a little longer. I’d like to see you do a better job in the back of a moving car.”

“You feeling all right, Cole?” Paige asked.

Normally, the sight of her eyes reflected back at him from the rearview mirror would have been enough to give him some comfort. This time, not so much. Rather than get into that, he replied, “No.”

“Tough. Call Prophet and see what he knows about those Nymar in Denver. You were right about them being our
next stop. If they’ve been making trouble this long, it makes sense they’d be hooked into what’s going on now.”

“Why can’t you call him?”

“Because I’m busy figuring out a way to keep you alive. What the hell’s your problem?”

“You tried to kill me!”

“I’d expect you to do the same for me.”

“I’m thinking about it.” Rico tried to pull him back by the shoulder, but Cole shoved the big man away. “After all we’ve been through, I’ve got to lump you in with all the other things out there trying to rip me apart?”

“If it’s between that or letting you turn into a Nymar? You bet your ass.” Shooting a quick glance over to Daniels, she added, “No offense.”

Daniels was a smart guy, which meant he waved off the comment without a word.

Apparently, Rico had a similar idea. “You two go on ahead,” he said. “I’ll call Prophet.”

“I won’t let you turn, Cole,” Paige told him. “Why would you ever think I’d let something like that happen to you?”

“What about what we’re doing right now?” Cole asked. “If I hadn’t stopped you, we never would have gotten this far. You would’ve just killed me, wrapped me up in some plastic bags, and then what? Salvaged me for parts? Dumped me in a hole like you do with the leftovers you can’t use from all those Half Breed carcasses?”

“You’re upset, Cole. I get it. Just calm down and try not to make things worse.”

“Worse?”

“The spore is exerting a lot of energy right now,” Daniels explained. “It’s feeding where it can, and if you get all worked up or excited, it’ll make your heart beat faster and add adrenaline to the mix. Feeding all of that to—”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it,” Cole grunted as he dropped back into his seat.

Accustomed to being cut off in mid-sentence, Daniels shrugged and looked out the window to let the Skinners settle things among themselves.

Apart from Rico’s conversation with Prophet, it wound up
being a quiet ride across town.

When they arrived at Pinups, Daniels, Paige, and Rico carried Cole, along with various supplies bundled beneath coats and tucked under arms to keep them out of sight. The security guys at the door wouldn’t stop Skinners if they were carrying tactical nukes under their jackets, but there were still customers to worry about, so they moved as discreetly as possible to a large supply room.

The space was smaller than a bedroom but larger than a closet, and partially filled with boxes of paper towels, plastic cups, and stacks of chairs. Rico grabbed one of the chairs, set it down in the middle of the floor, and dropped Cole onto it. “You all right?” he asked.

Cole winced and grabbed his chest with both hands. “I think you just shook something loose.”

“Does it pinch inside or do you just wanna puke?”

“Feels like I got hit in the lungs with a baseball bat. And now that you mention it, I may actually have to puke.”

“As long as it’s not pinching yet, you’re good.”

Next to come through the door were Daniels, Paige, and two dancers dressed in their work clothes. One wore a miniskirt that could have been made from a few strips of black tape wrapped around her hips, the other clad in the same shade of purple she’d worn almost every other time Cole had seen her. It brought out the glimmer in her eyes and the luscious texture of her lips. It was Tristan, and unlike those other times, she did not seem pleased to see him.

“What’s this I hear about you wanting our blood?” the Dryad asked. “Isn’t it enough that we send you and all the other Skinners back and forth across the country with no questions asked? Do you have any idea how long it takes us to collect the amount of energy we’ve been using for that?”

“Cole’s in trouble,” Paige said. “The rest can wait.”

Tristan looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Are those Nymar tendrils?”

“Yep. Hence the whole trouble and rushing over here thing.”

“What can I do for him?”

“Remember what you said about Dryad blood being the sweetest thing any Nymar’s ever tasted?” Paige asked.

“Yes.”

“Was that true?”

Tristan drifted close enough to Cole for him to smell the intoxicating blend of aromas in her hair. He tended to close his eyes when pulling in a breath like that, almost as if sniffing a pan of hot brownies. The thought of sinking his teeth into Tristan had always been at the front of his mind, but in a sociable context. This time he felt an urge that snapped his eyes open and nearly brought him to his feet with his teeth bared.

“Whoa there, cowboy!” Rico said as he shoved him back down again. “You’re gonna get us thrown out of here.”

The Dryad’s clothes were loose fitting, secured with a dark ribbon wrapped around her waist like the final touch of the greatest Christmas present ever conceived. Even as she hopped away from Cole’s seat, the filmy material somehow managed to cover her breasts and hips. “He’s not fully changed,” she said. “No fangs.”

Paige stepped between Tristan and Cole while saying, “I know. The process is slow, but we can’t stop it. We want to get that spore out of him.”

“Is that even possible?”

Since Cole was still restless, Paige drew her machete and held it flat against his chest, more as a restraint than a cutting tool. “That’s what we came to find out. Daniels thinks he can extract the spore if he can get it away from Cole’s heart. And the best chance of getting it away from his heart is to make it come out on its own. We’re hoping we might be able to get it to poke its ugly little face into the open for the chance to get something every growin’ boy wants.”

“You,” Daniels said as he unrolled one of the kits he kept wrapped in canvas and leather so it was always ready to travel. “She means you. Can we please hurry?”

“Yes,” Tristan said while wrapping her flimsy outfit around her a little tighter. “Have you ever tried anything like this before?”

Daniels removed a scalpel from his kit and scraped his
thumb against the blade to test its edge. Rubbing away the blood that swelled up from the little cut he’d made, he replied, “There’s normally not enough time to try anything like this. Under regular circumstances, the spore would have either been too small to notice any external stimulus or too entrenched to detach without killing the host. This is a special case.”

“It’s a case that shouldn’t have happened,” Rico snarled. “Do you feel that?”

Paige shifted her attention to the door leading out to the main room. “Yeah. Either that spore is growing real quickly or there are more Nymar close by. The old-fashioned kind.”

Letting out a quick, impatient breath, Tristan looked to the other Dryad that had accompanied her into the storage room and said, “Get the rest of our sisters back here and send one of the regular girls to see if there are any Nymar in the club.”

“What about him?” the other Dryad asked.

“I’ll do what I can for Cole. If my blood’s not enough to get the job done, yours won’t make any difference.” To Paige, she added, “I’m willing to do my part, but you people better not get used to storming in here and demanding us to sacrifice ourselves this way.”

“Fair enough,” Paige said. “You ready?”

“What do you need me to do?”

Daniels approached her with a hypodermic needle. “I’ll start by collecting a sample and we’ll go from there. If I need more, I’ll let you know.”

Extending an arm and nodding resolutely, Tristan said, “Do it before I change my mind.”

He took the blood quickly and handed it to Paige.

Cole removed his shirt, turned around so his chest was against the back of the chair, and stretched his arms out. After twisting Cole’s shirt into a thick strap, Rico used it to tie his wrists together. He then pulled up another chair so he could face Cole and get a firm grip on his arms. “You ready for this?”

“Does it matter?” Cole asked.

“Suppose not. Get to it.”

“I brought anesthetic,” Daniels said.

“Is there a chance it may slow down the spore?” Rico asked.

“Perhaps, but I can’t be certain.”

“Then skip it,” Paige said. “He can take the pain.”

Cole looked over to her, unsure whether he should be flattered or angry at the cavalier way she sentenced him to the agony of his torso being sliced open. Since there was already enough fire in his gut without adding any more, he settled on flattery.

In movies this would have been the part where he was given a bullet to bite, a wallet to chew, or maybe a shot of whiskey to throw down. Instead, he got a jolt of cold from the gel Daniels smeared on his ribs followed by a deep cut from a very sharp piece of steel. Cole’s eyes widened, and when he started to move, Rico pulled his arms so his chest was mashed against the chair’s back rest.

“Does that—”

Cutting Daniels off sharply, Paige said, “Shut up and keep going.”

Cole didn’t hear anything specific from then on. Every noise blended together until voices from within the room, music from the oversized sound system, and everything else became a singular entity filling his ears. Pain spread like a fire from his left side, and spread in every direction.