“By the way,” Jessup added, “you’d better not be trying to communicate with those friends of yours from the military. If any of them IRD choppers or trucks come along, we’ll know it was you that brought ’em here.”
“What have you got against them anyway?” Cole asked. “We’re all trying to kill the same Half Breeds.”
“Sure, but what happens once the fight’s over? We know what should be done with those monsters. We know what Lancroft would have done with them. We know what any other Skinners would do. Can you tell me you know exactly what the Army or Marines would do? They might as well be a bunch of excited kids playin’ around with the shotgun they just found in their daddy’s closet.” Rather than show them to any of the other doors near the back of the room or any of the steel lockers guarded by armed men as well as several layers of iron bars, Jessup dropped to one knee and pulled up a thin section of floor to reveal a solid block of runes that fit together into a clump at least twelve inches square. He touched several of the runes with such quick, fleeting motions that Cole didn’t have a chance to memorize the sequence. A second later the square shifted and Jessup was able to open a hole that contained a dented metal box. He opened it so Paige and Cole could see inside.
Cole hunkered down to examine a thin wedge of silvery metal that looked like it had been blasted by fire and painted with thin streaks of blood. “That’s the Jekhibar?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“What does it do?”
“Near as we can figure,” Jessup explained, “it stores up whatever power the Full Bloods were after during the rise of the Breaking Moon. Don’t know how to tap into it yet, but we’ll figure it out.”
Paige started to reach for the dirty little rock, but paused with her hand lingering just above the opening to the small hole. “Mind if I take a look?” she asked.
A knowing grin slid across Jessup’s face. He tapped another couple of runes, which caused the air within the small hole to crackle before settling down. Fortunately, both Cole and Paige had seen the runes at work enough times to realize they did much more than cover secret panels or warn of approaching vampires. Now that the barrier had been dropped, she reached down to pick up the prize that was important enough to be guarded by at least a dozen armed Skinners, several false fronts within a single building, and multiple arcane rituals that had probably been burning intruders down to the bone for centuries.
Paige used her right hand to pick up the stone, but quickly shifted it to her left. Even though she’d been making huge strides in healing that arm, there was just no way to compare it to what she could do with a hand that hadn’t been through the hell of nearly being petrified into a stump.
“You’ve worked with the Gypsies,” Jessup said to them. “Anything you can tell us about this thing? Maybe they keep files you could hack into?”
“Haven’t been able to try it without a dozen military techies looking over my shoulder,” Cole said. “Even firing up my laptop makes me wonder if someone in a black van is blazing past my firewall to look at how much porn I’ve got.”
“We might be able to scrape up a few computers for you to use.” Although Jessup knew exactly which of the others in that room to look at for a response to that, the tall young woman sitting near one small bank of monitors didn’t seem particularly happy to return his grin.
“Maybe you’d like to see the main attraction?” Jessup asked as he took the Jekhibar back and placed it in the box. “It may be enough to convince you that we have more to offer than those government jokers who’ve been doing nothing but shooting up the whole damn country.”
“You talkin’ about me?” Rico asked as he strode in from one of the two back rooms. “Because if you ain’t, I’ll be real disappointed.”
Chapter Five
“So,” Rico said, “how you been?”
The instant Paige stepped toward him, she was flanked by men on either side. “I’ve been out there fighting. How about you?”
“Unless yer blind, you’d know we’re already losing that fight. All you been doing is riding around with the IRD providing cover fire while the military tries to impress the common folk by blasting a few Half Breeds to hell. Then you show up here and figure we’ll welcome you with open arms? For all we know, you’re settin’ us up to be taken down. Which, by the way, would be a very bad move on your part.”
Paige stood with every muscle in her body tensed and ready to go. “We’re not the only ones fighting with the IRD,” she said.
“Right. You also got that Squam playing scout for ya. How’s that workin’ out?”
“There’s a few other Skinners working with them as well,” she continued. “Two in Texas and a few in Jersey.”
Without missing a beat, Rico said, “The Texas crew is gone. Wiped out when the IRD flew into San Antonio and stirred up all those Half Breeds that were tucked away in the suburbs. Nobody walked out of that cluster fuck. As for the Jersey bunch, I believe Maddy is the only one left there, and she’s locked up by the cops on more of that bullshit from the Nymar frame-up.”
Paige bristled at that but let it slide.
“So that leaves me with the million dollar question,” Rico said. “Why the hell did you decide to drop everything and come here now?”
Cole could see the tension in her neck fading away. It left her looking weary when she said, “You’re right. We’re losing this battle. Cole and I have been fighting alongside the military and all we’ve been seeing is soldiers getting killed.”
“All they want to do is keep firing weapons at things that barely feel a bullet,” Cole said. “And all they want from us is to make them more bullets.”
“Did you give them my Snappers?”
“Yeah. They work great.”
Rico beamed like a proud papa.
“They put down a Half Breed in one shot,” Cole continued. “Doesn’t do much against a Full Blood, though. Slows them down, but not long enough for us to finish them off before they jump away to heal.”
“So put another one into them when they’re runnin’!” Rico snapped. “Jesus, do I have to do everything for you guys?”
“Actually,” Paige said, “we were hoping you might be able to give us some more of those Snappers. They go a long way in helping to keep things under control out there.”
“I can do that.”
“And there’s something else.”
Jessup let out a short, snorting laugh. “Sounds like you made a whole list of demands. Why not save us some time and let us see it?”
“Where’s Cecile?” Cole asked.
That was enough to quiet everyone else in the room. “Why the hell do you wanna know that?” Jessup grunted.
“She’s still new to being a Full Blood, and unless she’s had a complete change of heart in the last few months, she still hasn’t bought in to what they’re doing.”
“She’s one of them,” the older man stated. “Plain and simple. The most she can do for us is stay out of the fighting before more of them Half Breeds decide to rally around her. Unless you ain’t noticed, those things have been getting tougher to kill and better organized. Some packs have more’n thirty sets of fangs in ’em. That’s getting worse every week.”
“And you think she’s behind it?” Cole asked. “She was just a girl trying to get the hell away from all of this.”
“So what makes you think she’s got anything to contribute?” Rico asked.
“Because the other Full Bloods must have approached her by now,” Paige replied. “According to what Cole told me, she’s already been in contact with Randolph Standing Bear. He’s the one that gave her the Jekhibar in the first place. She could know where to find him or at least be able to stand still long enough for him to find her.”
Jessup looked as if he’d just been forced to drink lemon juice when he asked, “And then what? Your friends in the Army shoot at them some more?”
“No. We take care of them the old fashioned way. I would have thought you guys would b
e into that sort of thing.”
“If we were ready to stand toe-to-toe with Full Bloods, we’d be out there doin’ it by now.”
“We’ve got connections to get some improved weaponry,” Paige said. “Finding Cecile may take some time, and even if it doesn’t, it’ll probably take a little while for her to lead us to another Full Blood. When that develops, we’ll be back with the weapons needed to kill at least a few of those things. Do you know where she is or not?”
“Yeah,” Rico said. “I know just where you can find her.”
“Hey!” snapped the woman sitting near the computers. “We don’t know if we can trust them!”
When Rico swung his gaze toward that other Skinner, it was with an intensity that even Cole could feel. “I been working with Bloodhound well before I ever knew who the fuck any of you guys were. I’m takin’ these two downstairs. Anyone got any objections,” he added while looking primarily at Jessup, “tell me right now.”
Nobody said anything. Reluctantly, Jessup nodded and turned to deal with the other Skinners, who converged around him to speak in harsh whispers.
Rico motioned for Cole and Paige to follow him as he headed to the back of the room. “Things have been pretty hectic since we parted ways in New Mexico,” he said. “Hope you’re not still riled up about that.”
“Riled up?” Cole grunted. “You mean since you told us to get bent for not doing anything right over the last few years?”
“I never said that. I just said it was time to take a harder road.”
“You mean Jonah Lancroft’s road,” Paige pointed out.
Nodding as he tapped a few runes on a wall to uncover a small doorway, he replied, “Yeah. Would you have just come along if I asked nicely?”
Neither Cole nor Paige answered him, but Rico grinned as if he’d heard them loud and clear. “Didn’t think so,” he chuckled.
The stairway was lit by a few bulbs encased in wire frames. They were obviously going down into a basement, and Cole was immediately reminded of when he, Paige, and Rico had descended into Lancroft’s cellar another lifetime ago. There was a small landing at the point where a normal staircase might end. The stairs continued down for another eight feet into a room that looked like it had been freshly chiseled from a single block of concrete. It was a space sealed so tightly that he could hear every breath the three of them took. About three-quarters of the way into the room, a set of iron bars was set into the floor and ceiling to turn the rear portion of the room into a large, long cell.
“This looks familiar,” Cole mused as he approached the bars and studied the runes etched into the iron. “You make these markings?”
Rico glanced at the angular script like a carpenter examining one of his own joists. “Nah, but I did a lot of the rune work upstairs.”
Cole’s attention was so absorbed by the dust-covered writing that he almost didn’t notice what was being kept inside the cage. Paige stepped forward, placed her hands on her hips and looked straight past the bars at the rough stone statue of a cowering Full Blood. Cecile’s features might have been crude, but there was an underlying intricacy to the lines that crossed her body and limbs in a pattern much too complex to be cracks or imperfections in a sculpture. It was fur that had been plastered down and frozen into place.
“She’s in there all right,” Paige said as she brushed her fingers against her palms.
Cole could feel the heat in his scars as well. It wasn’t as strong as when he was usually in the presence of a Full Blood, but it was there. Muted to a dull ache in his bones that he couldn’t feel when he’d been upstairs, the pain snaked beneath his skin as if deftly avoiding the instinctive, probing touches of his fingertips.
“Damn right she’s in there,” Rico said. “Not like that bastard that walked away from New Mexico.”
“You’ve seen Esteban?” Paige asked.
“We’ve all seen him, Bloodhound. The others split apart after the fall of Atoka, and he’s the one that’s been organizing the packs in the States.”
“We didn’t know for sure,” she said, as if hesitant to dispel the hint of pride that had crept into her former trainer’s voice. “It seemed a pretty safe bet that you’d at least have her locked up, even if she did manage to crack out of that magic shell. Or that you’d at least have . . . pieces of her.”
“Whatever you left back in Oklahoma, it’s still in there.”
“Have you heard anything from her?”
“Like what?” Rico scoffed. “A squeaky plea for an oil can?”
“No,” Paige said. “Like a radio frequency.” She looked him straight in the eyes to make sure he wasn’t about to make another bad Wizard of Oz reference. “Or something from your cell phone. Do they even work around her?”
“Why would you even ask that?”
“Just answer the question,” Cole said. “It’s important.”
“No,” Rico grunted. “We’re in a subbasement. It don’t take a tech genius to figure your cell reception might not be so good down here. Why the hell are you so worried about that?”
“Is anyone listening to us down here?” Cole asked.
“No.”
“Are you sure of that?”
Rico drew a deep breath and stepped up to him until he was almost close enough to touch the end of his nose against Cole’s face. As creepy as that might have been, Rico maintained the close quarters as he spoke in a voice that was hardly more than a rustle in the back of his throat. “This place was wired up before I got here. Whoever is in charge of the Vigilant ain’t seen fit to introduce himself to me even after I hooked these jokers up with the runes upstairs.”
“You left us to join up with them and you sound like you barely trust them,” Cole said in a similar whisper.
“They’re paranoid and a little crazy. Far as I can tell, that’s just the sort of thing that’s needed since everything’s been going to hell.”
“But can you trust them?”
“Why do you ask? What do you need to say that you can’t just come out and say?”
Paige dropped her right hand onto his shoulder and turned him around. Even though she was strong and that hand was still partially petrified from her injury, she could tell that Rico was allowing himself to be moved. “You may have given up on us, Rico, but that doesn’t mean we’re ready to give up on you.”
“And,” he told her, “just because I’m testing the waters somewhere else, that don’t mean I’m your enemy.”
“Sure seemed that way when you left New Mexico,” Cole pointed out.
“A lot happened that day,” the big man said. “And even more’s happened since. Believe me, if I was your enemy, you woulda gotten a lot more than a gruff tone back at that Army camp in Raton. And speaking of them, and you joining up with the IRD, most of the folks here and plenty more of the Skinners that are still alive think you two are spilling all of our names and everything we ever learned to the government. Look me in the eyes and tell me what you make of that.”
Although Paige was ready to speak for them both, Cole knocked Rico’s shoulder with his fist just hard enough to turn the big man toward him again. “I think that’s just the sort of bullshit that makes working with the IRD seem like such a good idea. What happened when we found Lancroft and that warehouse of Skinner memorabilia in Philadelphia? We contacted everyone else and had a freaking yard sale. And when things got really bad with the Nymar, we drew as much fire as possible so everyone else could pull their own plans together, and when things got even worse, we took the worst fall of anyone. I went to prison, for Christ’s sake! A prison,” he added while extending an arm to point at the bars in front of him, “with cells that looked a hell of a lot like that.”
“I get what you’re sayin’,” Rico said. “I may not know everyone in this operation just yet, but they all respect what you two have done. When you turn your back on them, it rubs ’em the wrong way. Know what I mean?”
“Awww,” Paige said with a mocking sigh. “Is the poor lit
tle Skinner militia feeling left out? They can weep about it in their diaries. Right now we need to get a look at what’s inside the cage.”
And just like that the subject was closed. The most pressing matter stood behind bars of charmed iron, pushing seven feet tall and wielding claws that looked deadly even encased in a layer of stone.
“Most of the gargoyles were either shredded or went back into hiding after the feeding frenzy over the fall,” Rico said, “but we pulled together enough of what was left to wrap her up good and tight.”
Cole stood quietly looking at her. Even though the young Full Blood’s eyes were hidden beneath a stone crust, he found it difficult to look into them. “Her name’s Cecile.”
“What?” Rico said, looking surprised.
“She trusted us. Asked for our help. Even fought Esteban to give us a chance in New Mexico, and to repay that, she winds up like this behind bars.”
“So the least we can do is call her by name?” Rico grunted. “Fine. But you should know that any Full Blood is a danger right now. And you know who else has got a name? Randolph Standing Bear. He’s dropped off the map lately, and for something as powerful as him, and considering how visible he used to be, that don’t bode well.”
“I agree,” Paige said. “Bring down the Jekhibar.”
“I doubt Jessup will allow it out of his sight. He was the one to bring it in and he’s real fidgety when anyone else tries to handle it. I’m surprised he let you see that hole in the floor.”
Extinction Agenda s-6 Page 7
