Cole followed her back to the parking lot, but couldn’t shake the feeling that someone else was going to jump him at any second. He started telling her about what he’d seen when Misonyk attempted to enter his mind again, but gave up once they reached the car. “Wait a second. What was sniffing around here?”
“It was a shapeshifter. It was too far away for me to tell what kind, but it was a real big one with black fur. It could have been just trying to draw me out far enough to take a run at me, but there’s no time to worry about that. We need to get moving.”
“Could it have been Henry?”
Page shook her head. “I doubt it. No shapeshifters can change their markings that much.”
“He’s a lot more than just some shapeshifter.”
Now that she’d settled in behind the wheel, Paige looked over at him with an intense glare. “What did you find out?” she asked. “Did Misonyk do anything else to you?”
Shaking his head enough to rattle his aching brain, Cole dropped into the passenger seat. “He didn’t get any more of that shit on me, but I still got that asshole rattling around in my head. Or…maybe I was rattling inside of his.”
“All right,” Paige grunted as she threw the car into gear and sped toward the interstate. “Start talking.”
Cole told her what he’d seen from start to finish. When he was done, he added, “I shouldn’t have even left the table back there. This is my fault, Paige. I’m sorry.”
She sighed again, but looked over at him reassuringly. “Don’t be sorry, Cole. There was nothing you could have done. Nymphs have been tempting stronger men than you for a real long time.”
“And what about Misonyk being able to track us?”
“If Misonyk went through the trouble of bringing you to him, his hold on you must have been weakening. But that’s only the start of it,” she added. “There’s rumblings at the top of the food chain that is way over our heads.”
“How far over?” Cole asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
The rest of the ride passed in relative silence.
Misonyk’s presence in his mind was gone.
The shapeshifter with the black fur was nowhere to be found.
Apparently, those at the top of the chain didn’t need to explain themselves to the lower links.
The hotel they stopped at was just off the highway in a place called Big Bend. For some reason, Cole had expected to spend the night in a rat trap with bugs on the walls and rusty water in the pipes. Instead, Paige had pulled up to a place that might even have earned a star or two more than the Afton Inn. And yes, it served free breakfast.
As soon as she unlocked the door to their room, she stepped inside, dropped her bags, and headed for the bathroom. “Walter should be here before long,” she said through the door. “I need to get the stink of all that cigarette smoke off of me.”
Cole pulled his collar up so he could take a whiff of himself. Although the odor of stale smoke permeated his clothes, there was still more than enough of Tristan’s scent to overpower it. He savored the sweet smell and the memories that came with it until the other odors crept back into his nose. “I thought you said Walter wasn’t a Skinner.”
“He’s not,” Paige replied through the bathroom door. “He’s only along this time as a favor.” After that, the bathroom filled with sounds of water running through the shower, mixed with a few contented sighs.
Cole sat on the edge of the bed, turned on the television and flipped through some reruns. He dug the phone from his pocket and thought about giving Jason a call just to let him know he was still alive. There was still the matter of fixing those bugs for
“Cole?” Paige said, while sticking her head out from the bathroom. “Could you bring me my bag?”
“It’s right there,” he groused as he shook his phone in the misguided belief that he could somehow frighten the battery into charging up again.
“I know, but…oh never mind.” Stomping out of the bathroom, she clutched a towel to her chest and walked over to the bags that had been piled beneath a colorful sketch of oversized leaves. Her hair was wet and pulled behind her head, showing off her high cheekbones and the crooked line of her nose. Even though her expression was on the perturbed side, it somehow worked when combined with the quickness of her movements and the water that had beaded upon her skin.
Cole watched her discreetly while playing with his phone, but realized his subtlety wasn’t quite up to par when he saw the annoyed roll of her eyes. Shaking her head, she clutched her bag so it held her towel against her stomach as she turned on the balls of her feet and stomped back toward the bathroom. The damp towel spun with her and kept her front covered pretty well. Fortunately for him, the towel wasn’t wrapped all the way around and he was given a quick, glorious peek at her back. Paige’s wet hair hung down to a spot just below her shoulder blades. The smooth curve of her spine was surrounded on both sides by taut muscle that led his eyes to the perfectly rounded curves of her buttocks.
After she’d disappeared into the bathroom, Cole tossed his phone onto a nearby table and walked over to the plastic bag from the outlet clothing store they’d hit earlier that day. Before he could pull the tags off his new shirts, the bathroom door swung open and Paige stepped out wearing a baggy T-shirt and a clean pair of cutoff sweatpants. “No Walter yet?” she asked.
“Not unless he’s got some of that invisible crap on him. By the way, I’ve got an idea for that.”
“Save it,” Paige snapped as she plopped down on the bed and searched for the TV remote. “I’m too tired.” While she flipped through the channels, someone knocked on the door. “Could you get that?” she asked.
“Is this some sort of initiation thing? The rookie gets to do all the grunt work?”
With a cute grin, Paige replied, “Yep.”
He stepped up to the door and put one eye to the peephole. All he could see through the cracked fish-eye lens was a tall figure in a long dark coat. The man had a large suitcase in each hand and what looked like an overstuffed gym bag under one arm. Without setting any of the bags down, the figure tapped his foot against the door and waited.
“That you, Walter?” Cole asked.
Behind Cole, Paige reached for another one of her own bags and found a .45 pistol.
“Yeah it’s me,” the man outside grunted as he lifted his chin to show his face to the door. “And you’re about to get a real good look at my ass through that peephole if you don’t open the damn door.”
Cole opened the door, but Paige didn’t lower her gun until she could see Walter’s face. At the moment, that face wasn’t happy.
“Sorry about that,” Cole said. “Just being safe. Need any help with those bags?”
“No, I’ve got ’em. Thanks for ruining Shimmy’s for me, by the way. I’m probably banned from there now. Got a place for me to set these down?”
“Anywhere you like, Walter. You want some coffee?”
“Already had plenty. How do you think I scrounged up all that gear Gerald left behind and made it here so quickly?” He kept talking as he set up his cases so they were all evenly spaced on the bed that Paige wasn’t on.
“You did follow Misonyk, right?” she asked.
Walter nodded. “Long as I could. That car was headed west when I lost it, but that means they were headed toward Janesville.”
“So they lost you?” Paige groaned.
“They sure did. Oh, and they also had a running head start and could see damn near anyone pulling away from that parking lot in their rearview mirror. You want to hold that against me too?”
Reluctantly, Paige shook her head. “Sorry. Thanks for trying, Prophet.”
“Wish I could’ve done more, but I should be able to pick up on them later.” Tapping his temple, he added, “I know where they’re going, remember?”
“Oh,” Paige grumbled skeptically. “That’s right.”
Motioning toward the second large case, Walter added, “The Brown rifle is in there. It’s not the .50 cal, but it should do all right.”
