“Because the fresh air feels good,” Jessup replied. “Don’t tell me you expect there to be AC blowin’ on your face no matter where you go. Besides, it’s a dry heat.”
“You know what else is dry heat? The middle of a freaking oven. Crank the AC.”
“So what’s Paige got to say?” Jessup asked without even looking at the control to raise his window.
She’d told him the highlights of what she’d gleaned from the conversation between Liam and Minh, so Cole relayed that to Jessup while staring out the window.
Finally, Jessup said, “No need to stare outside like a mooning hound. If that gal was around, we’d feel her.”
Cole’s scars weren’t burning and he couldn’t see Cecile anywhere outside. Still, he couldn’t quite get himself to lower his guard. “Are you sure she’s going to meet up with us?”
“If she wasn’t, there ain’t a lot we could do about it.” Since he wasn’t taking any comfort from that, Jessup added, “Sometimes you just gotta do your thing and have faith that whatever you set into motion before will keep on turning.”
“You think she heard anything I said about what Paige found?”
“They can sniff out quite a lot, but I don’t think it’s the same for hearing. At least, not for one as inexperienced as her, especially since she’d have to hear past this damn powerful engine to put any pieces together. I still can’t believe Paige heard all of that from two Full Bloods without them knowing she was there.”
“There was some sort of interference. She says it messed up a little bit of everything, including cell phones. Whatever it was, it distracted the Full Bloods long enough for them to have their meeting and leave before they noticed she was there. She got away and was still running when I talked to her.”
“I suppose that ain’t too surprising. Considering how everything’s been going, the Full Bloods don’t have to worry if we hear them talking or not.” When Cole stared at him, Jessup added, “Time to face up to it. We’re scrambling just to see another sunrise. The quicker we wrap our heads around that, the better. We’re almost in town, so I’d better tell you what I got in mind for when we get there. You do much hunting lately?”
“Do werewolves count?”
“You think I let that Full Blood girl run out on her own so we could get enough privacy to talk about hunting squirrel? Of course werewolves count! Have you been out hunting since the Mud Flu cleared up or not?”
“Actually, no,” Cole admitted. “We’ve been busy with the Lancroft business, the Nymar, and then I was locked up. The whole prison thing happened when I was hoping for some time to rest.”
“Typical Monkey’s Paw scenario.” Seeing the blank look on Cole’s face, Jessup scolded, “Don’t you ever read? ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ is a short story about making wishes. It’s this charm that grants ’em but turns them around to bite you in the ass through some loophole. You wish for a million dollars, it gives you a million that was stolen from some bank. You want time away from hunting, you wind up in prison.”
“Now I see why Cecile was so quick to get the hell away from you.”
“The reason I brought up hunting,” Jessup said without trying to disguise the sharpness in his voice, “is because it’s been getting mighty crazy out here. A lot of Skinners, me included, have been stumbling onto plenty of things that even we thought was bullshit or myth. Some of them were just laying low because of Half Breeds in the area. Just so you know, Half Breeds love the desert. Wide open spaces, plenty of room to run, folks living out in trailers or cabins that nobody’ll hardly miss.”
“Tons of little caves to use for dens?”
Jessup raised his eyebrows. “Very good. Most of the critters out here hid because they didn’t have what it took to survive a pack of Half Breeds. What’s so funny?”
“Did you just say critters?” Cole said through a persistent chuckle. “Why not just call them varmints, Yosemite Sam?”
“I can see why Paige likes you. Smartasses travel in packs. Anyway, after the Mud Flu cut the Half Breed population, the things that were hiding from them didn’t have to hide no more. What we’re after in Raton is something you ain’t gonna find in any Skinner journal. At least, not one from this century. I checked.”
When they passed a green sign on the side of the interstate that told them they were within ten miles of Raton, Jessup eased his foot off the gas and leaned forward to scan the horizon. “Cecile wants to hide and Randolph wants us to guard her, but we’re not playing this by any Full Blood’s rules. I sent her ahead to sniff out some Half Breeds in the desert. When she finds ’em, she’ll have to bring me a few of their hides in one piece so I can get a few of their sweat glands and mix up something that will make her smell like one of them and not a Full Blood.”
“Can we really make that?”
Jessup let out an exasperated sigh. “What the hell did Paige teach you, boy? Anyway, that won’t keep her busy for too long. She should find some Half Breeds, but bringing back pieces large enough to use will be tricky.”
“What if those things kill her?” Cole asked.
Stabbing a finger at Cole, Jessup said, “Just because that girl is scared and young, don’t forget what she is. She’s a Full Blood, so she can handle any Half Breeds. We also need to watch her to see if she’s setting us up for another fall. Understand me?”
Cole nodded, but hesitantly.
“When we get to town, you’ll follow my lead,” Jessup said. “You’ll just have to trust me on the rest because there ain’t time to tell you every little thing.”
“The hell there isn’t,” Cole said while opening the glove compartment and digging beneath the receipts, napkins, tire pressure gauges, and Handi Wipes to find a snub-nosed .38 revolver.
“How’d you know that was in there?”
“Skinners are more likely to have one of these in the glove compartment than they are a pink slip.”
“So you know all about us, huh?” Jessup asked. “If you know so damn much, you should know there aren’t a lot of us left out here and that we have to stick together no matter how badly we got along before. Oh yeah,” he added when he saw the expression that drifted across Cole’s face. “I remember what a dick you were to me in Philly.”
“Actually, I remember you as the dick.”
“We need to put that aside. More importantly, you need to put that gun aside.”
Cole tossed the revolver back into the glove compartment and slapped the little folding door shut. “There. Now since I’m willing to go along with you, the least you can do is show me the same respect and tell me what the hell you’re dragging me into. If you can’t trust me that far, then I might as well get out of this truck right now.”
“All right. But first I need you to tell me somethin’.” Placing his hands on the steering wheel at ten and two, Jessup turned to point a cockeyed stare at Cole when he asked, “Ever seen a gargoyle?”
The road circling around Mt. Calvary Cemetery ran straight along the eastern border of a burial ground surrounded on all sides by a cement wall that angled steeply up or down to accommodate the natural flow of the terrain. Naked trees scattered among dry scrub, making the barren stretch of land look as if it had been scooped straight from the desert. Unlike the lonely outside of town, this one’s graves were marked.
Jessup parked on the northern edge of the cemetery on Hillside Road. From there he led Cole around the perimeter of the cemetery like a Scout leader taking his troop on a tour of the Grand Canyon. “See there?” he said while waving his hand to a chipped stone statue erected on the cement barrier.