As he had with all the other statues he was shown, Cole nodded. “Yeah. I see it. It’s a statue of a dog.”
“What about that one?”
A few yards away from the knee-high statue of Man’s Best Friend, there was another, much larger, statue. Those two were part of a collection were set up around the cemetery that included a few wolves and one old man whose features had been worn away by the elements. Examining the next one Jessup pointed out, Cole could only find a few hastily spray-painted words on the side of the sculpture. “It’s a horse. So what?”
“So what? Take a look at those up there. Don’t they strike you as peculiar?”
He looked at the row of statues scattered unevenly near the wall. The cement barrier was barely as tall as he was and seemed to be there not so much for decoration as to keep drunk drivers from interrupting the peaceful slumber of residents interred on the other side. While they weren’t exactly works of art, the statues on the wall itself were of birds, and one winged creatures that had enough detail for Cole to make out ridges of skin above the claws it used to grip its perch. One wing was outstretched and the other was partially folded against its back. Its eyes were blank. A stumpy beak was partially open to reveal poorly chiseled teeth.
“It does seem kinda weird that these would be here at all,” he said. “There aren’t any other decorations that I can see.”
“Very good. Always trust your instinct. You’re a Skinner. If something feels off-kilter to you, it probably is.”
“You’ve never been to Chicago, have you? The off-kilter alarm has to be shut off sometimes.”
“Don’t let the twang in my voice fool you, son. I’ve been to plenty of places, and when it comes to hunting the things we do, chasing them in the cities is easy. Never gets too dark. Out here,” Jessup said as he placed a hand on the wall and let his eyes wander upward, “once the sun goes down, it’s just you and the stars.”
“I’ve been in the dark too,” Cole said. “Are you going to tell me what I should be looking for or do we wait until Frank and Lambert get here?”
Ignoring that, the older Skinner approached the horse statue, looked it over for less than a second and slapped its flank. “See this here? No artistic value. I’m not going to say that every gargoyle on every rooftop is somethin’ special, but take a look at this one. First of all, the placement. Gargoyles on buildings mean all sorts of things, from good luck to keeping bad spirits away. Those are usually up high and made to look nice or scary or whatnot. Like, for example, that one there,” he added, waving at the stone creature on the wall with the birds. Turning his attention back to the spray-painted horse, he said, “These others aren’t anywhere near a roof. There aren’t any other decorative type things about. Even the wall looks like it took all of two minutes to build. Second, the way it’s standing. Decorations are made to look nice. See how the muscles on this one’s back are all swollen and straining?”
“Look at the eyes. It looks scared.”
“Very good! Now touch it.”
Cole looked closer and reached out to tap a finger against the spot on the statue’s back that Jessup was staring at. It felt like rock.
Since Cole wasn’t impressed yet, Jessup led him to the next statue. “See the way that dog is cringing? And that crow’s obviously squawking at something.”
At the third and forth gargoyles, Jessup pointed out how some layers of rock were thicker than others in similar spots on each sculpture’s chest and ribs. They’d gone all the way back to the horse when he proudly said, “But this is the best one of them all! This is why I parked here, so you could see this one for sure. You would’ve scored big-time bonus points if you would’ve spotted this on yer own, but we’ll see.”
“Bonus points?”
“Yeah. You’re a video game guy, right?”
At first only Stu seemed to know about his former life in Seattle. Slowly but surely, ever since he and Paige had monitored the comings and goings at Lancroft’s old house in Philadelphia, more Skinners got hold of that bit of news. Needless to say, a bunch of gun-toting monster hunters weren’t impressed with the multiplayer maps of Hammer Strike ’s lava level.
“Okay, I’ll skip the bonus points,” Cole said. “Just tell me what the hell I’m supposed to be looking at.”
Jessup stepped up to the statue as if sneaking up on a sleeping cat. Pointing to its ribs, he asked, “See these scratches here and here?”
Cole didn’t step right up to the statue because a car was approaching from Hillside. Already imagining how bad it looked to have the two of them lurking outside a cemetery to size up its statuary, he kept his distance and waited for the car to turn north and head farther into town.
“Stop being so squirrelly,” Jessup scolded. “Look at these scratches. It’s important.”
“More important than a Full Blood charging into town in a matter of minutes?”
“Could be.”
The scratches in question were right beneath Jessup’s finger. “Let me guess,” Cole grunted. “No artistic value?”
For the first time since he’d met Jessup, the grizzled Skinner looked genuinely impressed with him. “That’s right! There ain’t no chips along the edges and the texture is smooth, which means the scratches are part of the statue and not just wear and tear. They’re in the wrong spot and go in the wrong direction to have been made by anything flying off the road. That, combined with these thick patches along the sides and back, tell me there are real gargoyles here!”
“And how did you know these statues were here at all?”
“Spotted ’em while passing through town a few months ago,” Jessup told him. “Gotta keep yer eyes open for this sort of thing.”
“How slow do you drive?”
“See, here’s the tricky thing with gargoyles,” Jessup said without paying any mind to Cole’s sarcasm. “It’s the same tricky thing that has to do with a lot of the smaller beasties that have been surfacing lately. Since things like these have been hidden away or sleeping or whatever the hell else, Skinners haven’t seen them for years. And,” he added just as Cole opened his mouth to hurry him along, “since these things ain’t bloodsuckers or shapeshifters, there’s no way for most Skinners to feel them in their scars anymore.”
“So Skinners have seen gargoyles before?”
“Gargoyles were mentioned in almost every Skinner journal from the 1750s all the way through the 1800s. That’s when a Full Blood claimed this whole continent and drove ’em underground. I spotted the first one for myself when I was scouring graveyards for more Half Breed dens or Shunkaws. Did some research and now I’m spotting them all over.”
Pulling open his vest, Jessup revealed a harness that might have started off as a shoulder holster but had been modified to carry two wooden clubs that were each just under a foot long. He pulled one out by the handle, using the tips of his fingers to avoid the thorns. “Shapeshifters and Nymar are the most common things out there. Wasn’t always like that, though. Full Blood’s closin’ in.”
“I know. I can feel her.”
“Can you feel the Squam?”
“No,” Cole said warily. “Can you?”
When Jessup tossed him one of the clubs, Cole reflexively snatched it from the air. The thorns bit into him, sinking like needles through the toughened skin of his palm. As soon as the little spikes touched his blood, something else flowed through the scars. It was a cold tingle that felt as if he’d accidentally gotten window cleaner into his blood.
“Journals talk about there being lots more than what we see nowadays,” Jessup continued. “Skinners had to adapt. Their methods were more or less the same as they are now, but were a bit more flexible. Whenever they found something new, they’d take some of its blood and add it to the mix used for the varnish on their weapons. It’s a practice that’s been phased out lately just because there hasn’t been much need for it. Old-timers like me passed along the methods for modifying the varnish even when the young ones only wanted to fight what they could see.”