Teeth of Beasts

“I convinced them to give you a pass, and that was just as a favor to Prophet.”

“How is Walter?”

“Fine.”

“Well, you still have my thanks,” Tristan said earnestly. “And I’ll have you know that we haven’t abused your concession one bit. In fact, we’ve been able to get steady work and create a very lucrative business.”

“An entire chain of purple A-frames,” Cole said.

“Us and IHOP.”

“IHOPs aren’t temples,” he pointed out.

Curling an arm around Cole’s head so she could rub his chin, Tristan replied, “That depends on how much you like banana pancakes.”

It took every ounce of will, but Cole somehow kept his mind in focus. “These are temples, Tristan. Paige and I checked on our way in here and we saw the runes or glyphs or whatever you want to call the markings along the bottom of the outside walls.”

When Tristan looked at him, Rico shrugged and told her, “We did our research.”

“What does it matter if these are temples?” the nymph asked. “We’re not forcing anyone to come here, we’re not preventing them from leaving, and we’re not forcing them to worship us. They choose to do all of that on their own.”

Judging by the way her hips shifted just perfectly against his lap, Cole didn’t have any trouble believing her.

“So why build temples?” Paige asked. “Aren’t there already plenty of these dumps all over the country? It’s not like any of you would have trouble landing a job at one of them.”

Tristan lowered her voice and said, “First of all, our temples amplify our talents. They also allow us to live without being sniffed out by every shapeshifter or Nymar out there.”

“They don’t seem to work too well in that regard,” Rico pointed out. “Otherwise there wouldn’t need to be so much extra security around the side door.”

“Those leeches didn’t find us on their own,” Tristan hissed. “You see that man sitting over there?”

Cole and the other two Skinners looked across the club to a section of small round tables scattered in a far corner. It was almost directly between the VIP area Paige had seen in Christov’s video and the door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY next to a huge mirror. A few of those tables were occupied by adventurous couples looking to spice up their love lives, but most were taken by men on their own watching the dancers from afar instead of sitting close enough to smell the perfume. Only one of them didn’t seem overly enticed by the dancers. In fact, the girls making their rounds asking for private dances completely avoided him. The lighting in the club wasn’t very good, but Cole could see the thick, impeccably trimmed whiskers covering the man’s face.

“You mean that guy with the beard?” he asked.

“That’s the one. Do you recognize him?”

Strobe lights created shadows upon the bearded man’s face that shifted in time to the beat of the music. Black lights were absorbed by the coarse texture of his neck and arms. His posture was just straight enough to make him look confident instead of rigid, and he kept one hand flat on the table a few inches away from a glass of what looked to be cola. He wore simple clothes made of thick cotton and the pleasantly neutral expression of someone watching squirrels scamper across a quiet park.

“He look familiar to you, Rico?” Paige asked.

The big man shook his head. “Why should he?”

“Because,” Tristan said, “he’s one of you.”

“He’s the Skinner you told us about?”

Maintaining a playful smile and nodding without looking directly at the table, she said, “I saw the scars myself. He even smells like one of you. Tree sap, gun oil, and blood. Those leeches were following him, and when they realized my sisters were here, they started camping outside our door waiting for their chance to get us. If it wasn’t for the protection of our temple’s glyphs, they would have been able to charge in here and take us by force.”

“What do the Nymar have against nymphs?” Rico asked.

Tristan shifted in Cole’s lap as if about to float across the table. “We’re the reason vampires exist, sweetie.”

“Nymar spore are why vampires exist,” Paige corrected.

“Yes, but haven’t you ever wondered why there aren’t Nymar dogs or Nymar snakes? Or I should say, why there aren’t Nymar dogs or snakes anymore?”

“Yes,” Cole said. “I have always wondered that.” He shifted to get a look at her face, and Tristan adjusted accordingly. As her body curled in his lap, Cole’s hands supported her. “My brain just works like that.”

Gazing at him as if she’d found a new favorite student, Tristan said, “Nymar spore used to inhabit whatever bodies they could find. Anything with blood flowing through it was good enough. They’d get inside, lay dormant until their systems adjusted to the animal’s body, and then attach to its heart to do what they do. Somewhere along the line, a Nymar got lucky enough to taste the blood of a nymph. One of the stories is that an infected cat curled at the feet of its mistress and lapped up some of her blood when she pricked her finger. After that,” she said in a silky voice that rolled through Cole’s ear as phantom fingers slid down the front of his entire body, “the Nymar became so infatuated that it climbed out of the cat and into any animal that could get closer to that nymph. It’s supposed to have infected her lover, who could get all the alone time he wanted. Her attentions were so wondrous that all Nymar decided to attach to human hearts, just for the chance of getting that close to a nymph again.”

When Tristan shifted back into her normal voice, Cole felt a jolt worse than if he’d accidentally stared directly into one of the nearby strobes.

“Some of the more colorful details were probably exaggerated, but the core of it is true,” she said. “A Nymar’s thirst for human blood above all others stems from that first sip from a nymph. That’s why the few of us that are left must protect ourselves, and why the Nymar will not stop once they’ve found us.” Tickling Cole’s chin, she added, “Deep down inside, they know we’re the sweetest tasting things on this earth.”

“I can vouch for that,” Cole said before he could stop himself.

Losing the singsong quality of her voice as if she’d flipped a switch, Tristan said, “That Skinner over there brought the Nymar to this club, but it’s not why he came. Like those leeches, he came for us.”

“Why does he want you?” Rico asked.

Paige locked her eyes on Tristan so she could watch the nymph carefully as she said, “Maybe it has something to do with how this one can be here after being on the other side of the country less than an hour before.”

For the first time since they’d met, Tristan looked genuinely stunned. Even so, she recovered with a pretty smile and a cute little upward curl of an eyebrow. “That’s part of it. When he arrived, he asked to use us as a way to reach the entire world at once. When we refused, he asked to run some tests on one of my sisters.” Grimacing as if the words themselves were fetid upon her tongue, she added, “He wanted samples from them. When we refused that, he kidnapped two of my sisters and threatened to kill them if we didn’t do what he asked. Ever since then he comes here every other night and sits there like an arrogant bastard, writing in his notebook and collecting our sweat with cotton swabs.”

“Why doesn’t Christov do anything about this?” Paige asked.

“Because I didn’t tell him the whole story,” Tristan replied. “All he’d do is try to send Mikey or one of the others after him, and that would only get my sisters killed. I don’t need bouncers. I need Skinners.”

Cole’s first impulse was to agree to do whatever Tristan wanted. More than anything, he wanted to do what she wanted and it didn’t matter what it was. But before he could roll with those instincts, he took a moment to question what had put them there. And that one bit of questioning was all it took for him to say, “You were lucky to get that first pass from us. Just because we sat here and listened to you doesn’t mean we’re just another group of admirers.”

“What?” Tristan asked.

“Yeah,” Paige said quickly. “What?”

“I haven’t done my research on nymphs, but I’ve seen enough to get the gist of it. You get your way and have a few sexy tricks up your sleeve, which are boosted by this temple or whatever. We’re not drones. If you have a proposition to make, then make it. We don’t do anything just because you snapped your fingers.” Seeing the hurt expression on Tristan’s face, Cole couldn’t help but add, “Not to be mean or anything, but…”

Paige reached over and rubbed his arm. “Valiant effort, young one.” To Tristan, she said, “How about we start