“Most of our gifts use energy that we extract from a person’s spirit,” Tristan explained. “And most of our talents aren’t much use to anyone but our kind. There are some gifts, however, that have made my sisters and I very sought after throughout the years. We are what you might call magical beings.”
“Oh, Christ,” Paige groaned. “Here we go.”
“See!” Rico said as he snapped his fingers. “I told you magic was a real thing! I’ve been telling this one for years, but she never listens.”
Paige stepped through the beads and pivoted on the balls of her feet as a crackling force tugged at her hair. “Magic is what people call something they can’t explain. It’s a term used for something that can’t be explained. Our weapons, everything we do, and all the things we fight, have an explanation. There is no magic. Even these beads have an explanation. What are they made from?”
“Ceramic,” Tristan replied. “Some are glass and some are metal.”
“Forged through a specific process?”
“Yes.”
“There you go, Rico.” Paige nodded to Tristan and said, “Please continue.”
“The magical forces my sisters and I produce allow us to create a bridge from one temple to another. With enough power, we can create a passage using only one temple, but it’s not very stable.”
“So that’s why Lancroft took those other nymphs?” Cole asked.
Rico stood with his back to a wall, eyeing the beads as if he was ready to charge through them no matter where they led. “If that asshole is spreading Pestilence around, I can’t think of a better method. He could just teleport it into the sky or into the water. Ain’t that right?”
Lowering her head, Tristan pulled in a deep breath and let it out while the lids slowly fell down over her eyes. “It shames me to think of it, but I suppose so. With all the other Dryads he’s been collecting, he must be doing…something else with them.”
“Dryads?”
“It’s the proper name for our kind, Cole. We’re more than the nymphs of human legend. Actually we’re more like several of your legends combined.”
Tensing up even more, Paige asked, “So can you send us to Lancroft or not?”
“You must understand. The moment we send you anywhere or do anything to put you onto this man’s trail, my sisters’ lives are in jeopardy.”
“They’re in jeopardy now,” Rico told her.
Slowly, Tristan nodded. “You promise you’ll help them?”
Paige stepped in front of her and held onto both of Tristan’s hands. Looking her directly in the eyes, she said, “There could be thousands of lives at stake if Pestilence isn’t stopped. That’s our first priority.”
“Pestilence may not be anything you can stop. It could be something no human can stop. Ancient Mayan mythology tells of the Mud People and Wood People. Legends say the gods made several attempts at creating man before they got it right. Among the failures were people made of mud, who were too soft, and people made of wood, who were too brittle. Those beings were discarded once the gods settled on flesh and bone as their materials of choice.”
“Ah,” Paige sighed. “That makes sense.”
But Tristan wasn’t put off by Paige’s sarcasm. “A lot of mythology and folklore came about as people’s way of explaining their world, so this legend could very well have been inspired by a jungle tribe stricken with an early form of Mud Flu. At the very least, that means Pestilence has been around for a very long time. Something that old rarely dies without a fight.”
“We’re ready for a fight,” Paige assured her. “And I swear to you, if there’s any way for us to find those other women and free them, any way at all, we’ll do it. That may not be exactly what you want to hear, but we’re the only ones who stand a chance against this guy.”
The Dryad nodded again. This time there was conviction in the gesture instead of merely resignation. “You’ve already proven to be good to your word.” Pulling in a deep breath, Tristan straightened her back and lifted her chin. While she hadn’t been slouching before, she seemed to have cast aside her other posture like a dirty coat. Her beauty remained, but there was now something else in her aura. Something regal. “It takes a lot of energy to send a human from one temple to another,” she said. “Even more is needed to make a bridge without an active temple on either end. Since we’ve gotten set up here, we’ve been dancing for days and have drawn quite a crowd.”
“This room isn’t exactly as nice as the other one,” Paige said.
“Our new hosts have been accommodating, but we’ll return to Christov when he’s back on his feet again. Let me spread the word for my sisters to prepare for your trip.” Striding past the spot where Daniels had set down all of his cases, but stopping with her hand on the door, Tristan said, “There’s something else you need to know about the man you’re after.”
“Now’s the time to tell us,” Rico said.
“When he first arrived, he wasn’t fully shielded by the Mind Singer. Being in our temple allowed us to see more of him than he would have shown. He’s more than a Skinner. He is a torturer. He is a murderer. And he is more than three hundred years old.”
Chapter 24
It didn’t take long for Daniels to get his cases open and prepare the equipment. Grinning at Cole in a way that made him look more like a vampire than usual, he said, “Roll up your sleeve, tough guy. Time to get inked.”
“Wh-What?” Cole sputtered. Hearing the grating whine of the electric tattooing machine in Daniels’s hand didn’t calm him down in the slightest. While it had been modified for portable use and fitted with tubes of ink that slipped in and out like smaller versions of printer cartridges, the equipment still sounded like something from a sadistic dentist’s wet dream. “Screw that! No offense, but one backfire with that stuff is enough, don’t ya think?”
Rico stepped up beside him and dropped a hand upon Cole’s shoulder that felt more like a hammer. “C’mon, boy! All the bugs were worked out. Stop whining and pick your design. I’m thinking of something in the snake or shark territory.”
“And if anything goes wrong, I’ll be there to help,” Daniels said as he took hold of Cole’s wrist while revving the machine to get the ink flowing into the needle. “I already have a design in mind. Just hold still or you’ll ruin it.”
“Where did you learn to tattoo anyone?” Cole asked.
“From a book,” Daniels replied. “And I’ve been practicing on cuts of meat.”
“Shouldn’t you sterilize that thing first?”
“Listen to this one,” Rico said while slapping Cole’s back hard enough to shake him and Daniels like rag dolls. “He’s about to get shapeshifter blood and exotic metals injected under his skin and he wants to be swabbed first.”
Before Cole could request a shot of something from the bar, the electric needle dug into his forearm. It hurt, but not as badly as he’d expected. After the initial sting wore off, it became more of a scraping sensation. “So what’s this deal you worked out with Tristan?” he asked as a way to distract himself.
Rico’s posture straightened into the pose of an old-fashioned mayor holding onto the lapels of his leather jacket while modeling for a portrait as he proudly declared, “After this job, we’ll get to take full advantage of the Strip Club Express.”
“We’ll be able to teleport to strip bars all across the country, huh?” Paige asked. “Do we still have to pay the cover charge?”
“Laugh all you want, Bloodhound. From what Tristan told me, there are temples all over the world, and we’ll be able to go back and forth between them when we want. We hear about some Full Blood in Alaska, and we can get there! Even if there ain’t a club in the exact city we need, we’ll get close enough to save a hell of a lot of time and travel expenses. We just need to let ’em know we’re coming and they’ll be ready to zap us where we want to go.”