Jessup’s laugh sounded like it had been dragged over broken glass and doused in Southern Comfort. “Ain’t no better way to close down a yard sale. Who’s that fella down there?”
The hatchet blow had opened a gash on the side of the unconscious man’s head, but it wasn’t anything serious.
“He’s one of the Shadow Spore,” Cole bluffed while dragging the guy toward the bathroom.
“Yeah,” Jessup said. “I heard of them. Even took out a few dozen up in Montana, but they still wound up taking Helena and a few other cities. He must be a new one, though, since he still hasn’t shown any markings yet.”
Cole looked down. The unconscious businessman lay in a section of the room just dark enough to have brought out the tendrils of a true Shadow Spore. The teeth woven into the leather cords on Jessup’s vest rattled as he stepped up to place the barrel of his .48 holdout revolver against the base of Cole’s neck. The gun moved down just enough to lower Cole’s collar and expose the jagged black lines that snaked up from where the tendrils inside him were nestled.
“Shit,” Jessup growled. “You’ve been turned?”
Cole’s jaw tensed, and when he pried it open, he found his tongue darting out to brush along the edges of his teeth. There were no fangs and no spore connected to his heart to make them grow. There were only the shredded tendrils attached to him, instinctually slicing into his digestive tract like piano wire. Instinct, much like the sudden irresistible force that had brought him to the point of terrorizing an innocent man like just another one of the bloodsucking assholes he was supposed to hunt. “I’m not a Nymar,” he said.
Keeping the gun pressed against Cole’s chest, Jessup raised his hatchet and said, “I heard about what happened to you.”
“From who?”
“Rico.”
“That asshole tried to kill Paige,” Cole replied. “He’s a fucking traitor!”
“At least he ain’t a Nymar. Show me your scars.” When he didn’t get a response, Jessup thumbed his hammer back. “Don’t make me ask again.”
Cole recognized the look of a hunter preparing to kill its prey. Straightening up to his full height, he held up the hand that had previously been wrapped around the businessman’s neck and showed his scarred palm to Jessup. Almost immediately Jessup eased the .48’s hammer down and stuffed the gun into the holster clipped to his belt.
“See there?” Jessup said. “Just what I hoped. You’re a Skinner.”
“No I’m not,” Cole sighed. “This Nymar shit’s got a hold of me.”
“But you’re not a Nymar. You can’t be turned.”
Shaking his head, Cole felt the pain in his throat lessen while the cinching inside him became worse. “It’s the Shadow Spore. It can take root in a Skinner.”
“Sure it can. I’ve seen it happen to the rest of the Skinners in Helena.”
Cole’s head snapped up. Even though he thought he’d had a good grip on a bad situation, it had suddenly gotten worse.
Jessup nodded. “Oh yeah. It took some doing and surprised the holy hell outta me, but it happened. Some multiseeded bitch made the rounds and infected as many of us as she could. Those other Skinners got sick, tried to fight it off, but they were lost before we could do much about it. Soon as they sprouted fangs, their scars healed up. Don’t know if the spore was clearin’ out what it thought was an infection or that was its way of wiping out every bit of Skinner that was in ’em, but it happened across the board. It didn’t happen to you, so you still got a chance.”
“But you just said I can’t be turned,” Cole pointed out.
“That’s what you need to keep tellin’ yerself the next time you get an urge like the one you got here,” Jessup replied while nodding down at the unconscious businessman. “Just because those bloodsuckers infected you don’t mean you need to give in to it.”
“It . . . hurts,” Cole said through gritted teeth. Ashamed by hearing himself say those words, he walked away from the man on the floor.
Jessup didn’t miss a beat before kneeling down to the businessman. “You know what’ll hurt worse? When I jam this hatchet through your chest like I did to the folks in Helena who used to be Skinners.”
Before that had a chance to sink in, Lambert shouted from the parking lot. It was an excited yelp, followed by the slap