“I don’t even know what to look for!” she cried. “Randolph protected me, but he wants me to give in to this monster inside of me. You guys haven’t tried to kill me yet, even though you probably had a chance. I don’t want to be a part of any of this.”
Jessup crossed his arms and studied her carefully. “So Randolph is after both of these stones to collect this energy or just to keep it away from the other Full Bloods?”
“All he told me was that the others can’t be allowed to get more powerful than they already are. Once things got past a certain point, he said all of it would be wiped away.”
“All of what?”
Glancing back and forth between the two Skinners, she said, “All of everything.”
Chapter Eighteen
The basement beneath the autobody shop was well-insulated against the outside world. While down there, Paige felt removed from everything that had brought her to that spot. The only things left were the starkly lit room next to the storage space, a few cots, and a couple of dirt walls. The Mongrels had dispersed to scout for reinforcements and not yet returned, leaving Paige and Nadya with Milosh. Treatments from the medical kit meant none of the wounded were going to change into Half Breeds, but Milosh was still missing an arm. The remains of that appendage had been cleaned, wrapped, and tied off to stop the bleeding long enough for the Amriany healing serum to be administered. After that, he passed out. In fact, all three of them had passed out for a few hours of some of the worst sleep Paige ever experienced.
At various times throughout the night Nadya spoke to some of her people on a cell phone. Even though Paige couldn’t understand the Amriany language, Nadya’s tone of voice bounced between angry and desperate.
The Mongrels came and went, and the Full Bloods seemed to be doing the same. Rather than run after every shapeshifter that made a sound, Paige tended to her own business. The kit she had with her was about the size of a small cosmetics bag. It was a length of leather wide enough to carry a few simple tools, some tubes of premixed necessities, and some ingredients to mix up emergency doses of healing serum. When rolled up tightly, it fit perfectly beneath a loop that had been stitched into her belt just behind her left hip.
At the moment she was only concerned with a thin plastic tube of a pungent substance with the color and consistency of maple syrup. Holding the tube up to a light, she shook it to watch the piece of Kawosa’s earlobe move around within the liquid. She’d been carrying the little bundle with her since Toronto. The little chunk of skin had been soft and moist when she cut it from Kawosa’s ear, but when she fished it from the tube it felt more like a glob of coagulated tomato sauce. She squashed the earlobe into the tube and then shook it some more. It didn’t take much Nymar or werewolf blood to create a good batch of varnish, but this was something different. She wasn’t even sure if Kawosa’s sample would have an effect when added to the varnish. No matter what had happened the last time she tested her own innovation, the potential benefits were too great to pass up.
After adding a few drops and some water, the stuff was smeared onto a rag and applied to her weapons to strengthen the coat of varnish that allowed them to bond with her and change shape. This wasn’t the first time she’d whipped up something in the field or modified a weapon. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it backfired. Sometimes nothing happened at all. She considered all of those options while looking at the little chunks of earlobe swirling around in the tube. The safe thing to do would be to add a little bit of the varnish to her weapon and see what happened. Maybe later she could add more. If she didn’t run out of the sample she’d gotten, she could keep trying until she got it right.
Having dealt with Kawosa, Paige knew that something needed to be done quickly. She’d been lucky to realize he was trying to influence her, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d gotten so close in the first place. He was a master deceiver and would only get better as he dealt with more Skinners. If something wasn’t done to help sniff him out, the skinny bastard would have free reign.
Paige checked the tube, held it up to the light and swirled it around again. It seemed that all of the chunks were absorbed, so she opened it.
It smelled gross, but no more so than usual.
She carefully tipped the tube until a few drops fell onto the wet cloth sitting next to her on the stack of boxes where she was seated. About three-quarters of the usual amount, just to be safe. Sliding her hand under the cloth, she folded it once, rubbed the varnish in, then drew her main weapon. She worked the varnish into the machete with the cloth in the usual ritualistic fashion. The stuff glistened on the wood grain for a few seconds before soaking in to give the weapon a slightly darker color. She then applied another coat, waited for it to dry, and set the cloth down. It didn’t take long for her weapon to drink in the varnish, and when it did, she picked it up and clenched her fist around its handle.
Paige barely twitched at the pain from the thorns, but she did feel a chill at the points where they pierced her flesh. She closed her eyes, waiting for something else. It had been a while after her arm was hurt before the thorns would even puncture that hand. If anything else went wrong, she might not be able to fight at all. But she knew that if things were allowed to slide much further without somehow being put into check, no amount of fighting would do much good anyway.
The chill subsided.
When she tried to shift her weapon into a deadlier shape, it responded sluggishly. Normal for that hand, so she removed the stake from her other boot. It still felt like a poor substitute for the sickle that had been destroyed, but she started working the varnish into its handle all the same.
Her phone rang. Even though she didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID, she wasn’t about to take a chance on missing a call from Cole. “Hello?”
“Hey, Bloodhound. Long time no see.”
“Rico?”
“That’s right. Sorry about the mix-up in Canada. Where you been?”
Paige set down the cloth and fought back the impulse to reach for her Beretta. “You’re sorry?” she asked. “You tried to kill me.”
“That was some kind of brainwashing bullshit,” Rico told her. “You know that. He got both of us with that trick.”
“What about the rest of what you told me? About the Skinners branching off from the rest?”
The big man let out a tired breath that came across as harsh static through the phone. “Yeah. That part wasn’t bullshit. You wanna know who introduced me to these guys first? Ned. Turns out the old guy wasn’t just sitting in that house after all. Lancroft had a lot of knowledge to pass along, and them runes are only a part of it.”
“You’ve been learning about those runes for a while,” Paige said. “Does that mean you were working with these Lancroft assholes all that time?”
“Why do you think they’re assholes?”
“Because Lancroft’s Mud Flu got a bunch of innocent people killed! Lancroft created Henry! He was a murderer!”
“He was all about the greater good,” Rico explained. “You think things are bad now? How bad do you think they would have been years ago if Lancroft hadn’t done his best to hold back the tide? He’s always had Skinners following him, but he wasn’t stupid enough to work with just anyone. You met those pricks in Philly. What about those bastards who accepted Nymar in their ranks? Skinner ranks! Soon as we start handing our traditions over to the bloodsuckers, we’re slitting our own throats. Now the whole damn thing is crumbling.”
“So you’re probably going to say that Lancroft prophesized about what’s happening today?”
Rico chuckled. “There ain’t no prophecies, just like there ain’t no Chosen Ones. Lancroft’s predictions weren’t any more impressive than predicting the weather by using a Farmers’ Almanac . You look at past trends, present climates, and you can gauge the future. Lancroft’s just the only one lookin’ at our almanac.”