“He could figure out something and get it to the right people. If anyone’s got a shot,” Cole added, “Stanze would do better than one of us.”
“He’s right,” Paige said. “I’ll try to get to him right away. In fact, it might be better if I saw him in person. Tristan, can you get me to KC?”
The Dryad closed her eyes and swayed ever so slightly in perfect harmony with what had seemed like so much random background noise. Before long she stood up and said, “We should be able to send all of you out of here, but only once, whether it’s together or separate. After that you’ll have to take your chances with the temples wherever you may wind up.”
Sifting through the contact list on her phone, Paige said, “Might as well get me out to KC now. Catching up to Stanze shouldn’t be too tough, whether he’s on the clock or off.”
Tristan opened the door to show a stunningly beautiful brown-haired dancer wearing a tight pinstripe suit from the Naughty Secretary collection. “Elle, make sure Paige gets to Kansas City as soon as possible. What about the rest of you?”
“I’m not going anywhere except by car,” Daniels said as he hopped to his feet. “If you want me to examine these spore remains, then I’ll need to do it at my apartment.”
“Fine,” Paige said. “Go ahead.”
“You might not want to go out there,” Elle warned. “Those Nymar are trying to get to the back rooms. I think they know you guys are here.”
“Lead them here,” Cole said. “Make sure nobody follows and give us some privacy.”
“You sure you’re up for that?” Paige asked.
“We want to see why they’re here, right? Rico and I should be able to take two Nymar.”
“Actually,” Elle said, “there’s three of them now.”
“Three. Fine. Whatever. Just go on to KC and get the ball rolling.”
Either Paige didn’t know what to make of the sharpness to Cole’s voice or didn’t want to get into it at that point, because she agreed to the proposition despite whatever else was bothering her. Even though Elle didn’t follow her, she couldn’t leave the utility room fast enough.
“Is everything all right with you?” Tristan asked Cole when Paige had left.
“I’m fine,” he assured her quickly. “Just …” After taking a moment to soften his demeanor with a deep breath and a strained, vaguely confident smile, he said, “Could you just get the Nymar back here before they call for reinforcements?”
Daniels was happy to leave the utility room with his kit and plastic Baggies full of samples taken from the spore removed from Cole’s chest. Since he was still of the male persuasion, he was even happier to be escorted by Tristan to the back exit of the club as she sent a human dancer to fetch the club’s vampire guests.
Now that he was alone with Cole, Rico slammed the door shut and wheeled around to face him. “Whatever’s going on between you and Paige has gotta be set to the damn side. You hear me, boy?”
“You know I don’t like being called that.”
“Yeah? And I don’t like having to rely on a partner that’s got his head somewhere other than where it needs to be. So you two got some bump ‘n’ grind time in. That’s abundantly clear. Now you’re worried about her goin’ off and letting some cop crawl down the front of her pants?”
“That’s not what—”
“The hell it isn’t,” Rico snarled in a voice quiet enough to remain inside the room, but powerful enough to shake Cole down to the soles of his feet. “You gotta straighten that shit out one way or another. Paige ain’t the kind to get too close to just anyone, and she sure as hell ain’t the slut you’re thinking she is.”
Cole jumped up so quickly that it reminded him how weak his system still was. Even so, he kept his back straight and his chin up when he stood toe-to-toe with the bigger man. “Nobody calls her that. Not you. Not a Full Blood. Not even God himself. You hear me?”
Scowling as he took stock of Cole all over again, Rico said, “Yeah. Then you think she’s got something for this cop?”
“He can have her. Maybe she’ll try to get him killed for a change.”
“She’s keeping you alive, asshole. But if you got infected by a Half Breed, she’d put you down even quicker than when it looked like you were gonna turn into a bloodsucker. Just because she did you in the nice way, don’t think that puts you above the rules of the game.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
“Really? Is there? You wanna share? You wanna curl up with some hot cocoa and tell me all about your fucking feelings? Tough. You hear them voices? That’d be those Nymar headed back this way. How about we take care of business here and then continue the therapy later?”
From the instant he found himself alone with Rico in that room, Cole had known the conversation would head this way. The only problem was, his mouth didn’t come equipped with one of those huge, red, plastic-encased Abort buttons that were next to every guided missile panel in James Bond movies. Damn, his mouth needed one of those buttons sometimes.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The three Nymar were feeling cocky when a redhead in high heels and a nightie led them to the club’s back rooms. More than likely it was a combination of the human dancer’s charms and the high that all Chicago Nymar were running on that night. No matter how confident they felt, the vampires didn’t have a prayer when they stepped into the utility room. One of them was still wearing the self-satisfied look on his face when Cole’s spear pierced his heart. Rico kept the second one quiet by knocking him down and stepping on his mouth.
When the third one started hissing in a threatening manner, Cole flipped his spear around so the Nymar’s chin was wedged in the forked end. He was a greasy looking idiot with a gold T hanging from a chain around his neck that must have been forged somewhere in the darkest fashion days of the eighties. “What’s your name?” Cole asked.
“M-My name?”
Rather than repeat himself, Cole tightened his grip on the weapon so the thorns sank deeper into his palms. It took only a thought for him to cause the forked ends to extend, curl slightly around the Nymar’s throat and tighten.
As soon as he felt the pressure, the Nymar sputtered, “Dave … David! It’s David, okay? My name’s David!”
Tightening the wooden snare a bit more, Cole twisted the spear to angle the Nymar’s face toward the floor. “Take a look at your friends there, David. What do you think they’d tell you if you asked how patient we are tonight?”
“How’d you know where to find us, Dave?” Rico asked. When he didn’t respond, Rico flipped out the blade he’d sunk into the eye socket of the Nymar at the tunnels. “I already tortured one of you today,” he said while holding the knife close enough to Dave’s face for him to smell the oily blood that remained on the sharpened steel. “One more’d just be a bonus.”
“Steph and Ace’ve been recruiting for weeks. She kept most of the newbies around the Blood Parlor and they were all out looking for you. One of them saw you drive away from the parlor, and another saw that same car driving here. Hope wanted us to make sure the seeding took root. Then we’d get our Shadow Spore.” His eyes darted toward Cole and his nostrils flared with a quick inhalation. “What happened with that, anyway?”
“Still want to file your report?” Cole asked as he angled the spear so the forked end grew sharper than a pair of scissors and fit snugly under Dave’s chin. “What about now?”
“So Steph knew we were coming?” Rico asked.
Dave nodded as best he could. “We didn’t know the exact time, but Steph knew you’d show up at the parlor eventually. So did Hope. She said she knew Paige real well.”
“What about those cops? Were they on Steph’s payroll?”
“They were just cops.” Dave squirmed and made the mistake of moving his hands more than an inch. He paid for it by getting Rico’s fist buried in his gut. “Some of us approached them as informants,” the Nymar wheezed. “I got a card in my pocket.”