Marcus Pelegrimas - Blood Blade

Cole rolled down the window and stuck his arm out before pulling it back in again. He shifted in his seat and started to aim out the window but caught a very surprised glance from a bar they were driving past. He tried shifting again, nearly dropped the gun, then fell back into his seat with a frustrated grunt. As much as he wanted to lean out the window and fire away, he grudgingly had to admit it looked a hell of a lot easier in the movies.

“So, what about Wendy?” Paige asked as she looked at Racquel in the rearview mirror.

Racquel pulled in a breath to steady herself. “She’s been listening to Misonyk and preaching all his bullshit to me and anyone else who’d listen.”

“Okay, tell me about this Misonyk,” Paige said.

“Gerald knew about him,” Racquel replied. Didn’t he tell you?”

“No. What’s Misonyk been spreading around? And will you shoot already, Cole? That thing already took my bumper off!”

“I’m trying! I don’t do this every day, you know!”

“Fine,” Paige snarled. “Both of you hold on.” With that, she blew past an expensive looking SUV and gunned her engine down a long stretch of road. She had to blaze through a few red lights along the way, but it was late enough at night and in a bad enough neighborhood for there to be a minimum of other cars around. The only police car Cole spotted was parked outside a Jack in the Box four blocks ago.

Paige stared at the road intently, pulled the wheel to the left and slammed on her brakes. She only needed to watch the rearview mirror for a few more seconds before Henry landed on the street with a loud thump and began slamming his hands against the trunk. Throwing the car into Reverse, she stepped on the gas and drove the Chevy right into Henry’s gut. She kept the car moving until she pinned him against a telephone pole. “There,” she said as she looked over to Cole. “Easy enough target for ya?”

Twisting around to lean out the window, he gripped the gun with both hands and took aim. Henry’s lower body was crushed between the pole and the back end of the Cavalier, but he was still squirming and slapping his hands against the trunk as if he wasn’t so much hurt by the impact as confused that he couldn’t move. Cole fired and missed his first few rounds. Cars screeched to a stop somewhere nearby and sirens wailed in the distance. There wasn’t a lot of time before more people would be dragged into this mess, and he knew it would be better for the cops to find a bizarre corpse than a live, heart-eating freak. He let a few more bullets fly and saw them hit their mark amid a fine spray of dirty hair and a hint of blood.

Gritting his teeth as he pulled the trigger again, Cole shook his head and fired his last few rounds. “This isn’t doing much,” he said. “I don’t even think I’m hurting it.”

The moment his gun was empty, Paige drove the Chevy forward a few feet, slammed it into Reverse and backed into Henry again. The impact rocked everyone inside. Henry moaned and wailed, but wasn’t losing steam.

Paige shook her head, threw the car into Drive and sped away. Looking into the rearview mirror, she nodded quickly and said, “I think that shook him up a bit.”

Cole dropped back into his seat beside her and opened the glove compartment angrily. “Next time, tell me before you do that! I was still hanging out the goddamn window!”

“Next time try aiming for the head!” she replied. “I thought you were the big video-game freak. Isn’t that rule number one when shooting at something?”

As much as Cole wanted to shout back at her, he didn’t have much to say. Paige was right about rule number one. He reloaded the pistol, while shifting his focus between several different spots. Racquel was curled up in the backseat with her arms over her head. Paige was speeding toward a ramp that would take her onto I–94. And most important, Henry was still shaking off the gunshots and impacts from the Chevy when Cole lost sight of him.

“Keep talking, Racquel,” Paige said in a miraculously calm voice. “What’s Misonyk been spreading around and what the hell is that Henry thing?”

Racquel sat up again, but didn’t even try to regain her composure. Instead, she rubbed her face with trembling hands and replied, “I need a drink, but nowhere around here.”

“Where should I go?”

“Try Oak Lawn. The only Nymar out there keeps to himself and won’t have anything to do with Misonyk or anyone who’d listen to him. Plus, he runs a pizza place and it’s open all night.”

“Thank God,” Cole said. “I thought it’d be forever until we got some food.”

Paige smirked at him and dug her phone from her pocket. “I still want to meet up with Daniels, but he should be able to meet us for pizza. What’s the address, Racquel?”

“Are you talkin’ about that little guy from Schaumburg?” Racquel asked.

Paige looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Yeah.”

“He used to be one of Wendy’s regulars, but he ain’t been in town for weeks. A lot of Nymar left after Misonyk showed up, so he’s probably one of them.”

As if on cue, Paige received a disconnect message from the number she’d dialed. “Great,” she muttered as she snapped her phone shut. “That’s just great.”

Cole looked at her with concern etched deeply into his face. “We’re still going for pizza, though, right?”

The place was called DiGuido’s, and it was a little family-style restaurant on a quiet street amid several drugstores and a few funeral parlors. Cole didn’t pay complete attention to where they were going, since he’d been more concerned with being chased by the twisted abomination that they left plastered against a post. When Paige pulled to a stop in front of the pizza place, he was hesitant to leave the car. Once scents from the nearby kitchen drifted into his nose, however, he couldn’t get into DiGuido’s fast enough.

Although DiGuido’s didn’t appear to be open for business, the front door offered no resistance, and the unusual party of three made their way to a booth against a wall of fake wine bottles. The lighting was dim. The tables were just a bit dirty, and the music sounded as if it never strayed from the Rat Pack’s greatest hits. Paige and Cole slid into one side of the booth, while Racquel slid into the other.

A perturbed man with a greasy shirt and an even greasier apron around his waist walked up to the booth. The moment he got a look at the black markings on Racquel’s neck and wrists, he lightened up a bit and asked, “What do youse guys want?”

Since Racquel waved her hand to pass, and Paige seemed slow on the draw, Cole jumped in and replied, “How about a large sausage and mushroom?”

“No fungus,” Paige said.

“Fine,” Cole said. “Sausage and pepperoni. And black olives! How about black olives, too?”

The guy in the greasy apron nodded and turned his back to the booth. Cole was about to shout a request for garlic bread but was distracted by the sight of the black markings crawling up the back of the guy’s neck. But feeling better just knowing food was on the way, he asked, “All right, so who’s going to start?”

“I can’t stay long,” Racquel said. “Henry is supposed to be able to sniff out a Nymar from miles away.”

“What’s a—” Cole started to ask, but was cut short when Paige’s raised a hand.

“Who’s Misonyk and what’s he been telling you?” she asked.

Racquel sighed like a teenage girl cornered into a sex talk with her mother. Rolling her eyes, she muttered, “Misonyk’s been in town for a few months. He laid low for a while, but then word spread about how he’s been preaching to everyone how they could gain power from drinking souls.”