me do it! He made me do it and then he made me think I wanted to do it. I sort of knew what was going on, but then I didn’t. I just couldn’t quite put my finger on it.”
Paige dropped her weapons, grabbed the Nymar by the front of the shirt and pulled him sharply to his feet. “Who made you do it?”
“Henry,” Daniels squeaked. “The Mind Singer. It’s what he does. He spoke to me, whispered into my brain while you were in Kansas City and told me to destroy the Blood Blade. When I was chipping off samples of the blade I just…kept going.”
“And he didn’t tell you to get rid of the pieces?” Cole asked.
Daniels looked over to him, back at Paige, and back again until his movements became an insistent shake of his head. “Once it was done, Henry was happy. I wanted to tell you, but I just couldn’t get myself to say the words until now. I wanted to say that he was in my head, but I just couldn’t and I don’t know why! I’m so sorry! Henry wanted the blade destroyed and then he made me forget about it. I’m so sorry.”
“Why haven’t you said this before?” Cole asked. “Surely there had to be times when Henry had his guard down.”
“I didn’t even remember what I did until now!” Daniels insisted.
“And how do we know you’re not still talking for him?” Paige added. “We’re probably closer to Henry now than we’ve ever been. It makes sense that he would want to throw us off track.”
“It’s the runes,” Rico said from the doorway of the next room, where he’d been standing in case his partners needed backup. He tucked the Sig Sauer into the holster under his arm and said, “The runes are keeping Henry out of this place. Working with a Mind Singer may come in handy, but Lancroft ain’t stupid. If he didn’t keep someplace safe from the freak, he wouldn’t be the one in charge. Is there a way you can test to see if Henry can hear you or not?”
“Already did,” Daniels replied. “If I usually even think about destroying the Blood Blade, I’d forget why I brought it up. I didn’t this time, so you must be right.”
Wheeling around to return to the room and the wall he’d been studying, Rico said, “Man, I
Daniels shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “There’s always been something I wanted to tell you, but I could never put my finger on it.”
When Cole charged across the room, it wasn’t because of anything he saw or sensed. It was plain, gut-level rage. Leaning into the closet, grabbing hold of Daniels and pulling him out, he slammed the balding little man against the nearest solid surface so there was no escape when he asked, “Did you intentionally screw up the ink Paige used on her arm?”
“Cole, he—”
“I’m not asking you, Paige! I’m asking him!”
She refrained from saying another word. It was one of the few times he’d ever seen her back down so easily.
Daniels tried to clear his windpipe by stretching his neck and craning his chin above Cole’s arm before he was choked into unconsciousness. When he tried to speak, his fangs drooped from their sockets and his tongue flicked out to wet his lips. “I wouldn’t do a thing like that! Paige…she saved my life. More than once, she—”
“Maybe you didn’t do it on purpose,” Cole interrupted while thumping Daniels solidly against the wall. “Maybe Henry told you to do it. Maybe you remember it now.”
“But Henry didn’t know details like that. All he asked was basic things like—”
“Like what? Hurt the Skinners? Hurt Paige? Is that basic enough for Henry?”
No longer struggling to breathe, Daniels hung from Cole’s arm like a dirty shirt on a clothesline. “I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
From behind him, Paige said, “That’s enough, Cole. He told me the ink wasn’t ready. I was the one who pushed for it. I was the one who used it, so I’m the one who messed up my arm.”
“I already heard that from you, Paige. I want to hear it from him.” Narrowing his eyes, Cole glared at Daniels in a way that he’d never looked at another living thing. He didn’t see a man who’d helped them out of life and death situations. He didn’t see a fellow geek who had the best collection of action figures outside of a museum. He didn’t even see a guy in a tough spot who had a girlfriend waiting at home for him. All he saw was someone who wouldn’t draw another breath if he didn’t choose his next words very, very carefully.
Slowly, Daniels shook his head. “I tried to tell her not to use that stuff. I worked on it day and night.”
“Except when you were chipping the Blood Blade into pieces.”
Daniels didn’t have anything to say to that. He clenched his eyes shut, almost as if he welcomed the pressure of Cole’s forearm against his throat.
Touching Cole’s shoulder, Paige said, “It’s okay. If Daniels wanted to hurt me, he would have given me that stuff way before I took it. Lord knows I would have been stupid enough to inject it.”
That didn’t make things easier, but it made sense. Plus, the touch Cole felt was from her right hand brushing against the side of his neck. Paige’s skin was soft, and the muscles were moving like something other than a clunky prosthetic. Finally, he eased back and allowed Daniels to breathe.
Even after he’d been freed, Daniels didn’t move away. “I’m sorry,” he said while rubbing his throat. “I don’t blame you for not believing me, but if there’s anything I can do to—”
“Forget it,” Cole said. “I just…I had to make sure.” He turned away to look out a small window set up high in the wall, as if to overlook something as tall as a dresser. Other than the cheap shades on the window, there were only more runes scrawled in an orderly set of rows along the middle of the wall. Outside, a little woman walked a big dog on one side of a deserted street. The night sky hung over it all like a black canopy faded by the city’s glow, and the black scent from the wall hung in front of it.
“Hey!” Rico shouted from the front room. “Let me know if this does anything.”
The black trails drifting from the runes tapered into wisps before cutting off completely.
Paige jogged out of the bedroom, anxious for any bit of progress she could get. “I think those runes are weakened. Is that what you meant to do?”
Rico studied a cluster of runes on the wall between the front room and the kitchen. Even though it was at the other end of the house, it was still within spitting distance of the bedroom. Cole emerged from the bedroom and asked, “What’s going on?”
“There’s a door being covered up by these runes,” Rico told him with a scowl. “Whatever Lancroft is protecting has gotta be through there.”
When Cole looked at the wall, he could only see more runes. “What door?” he asked.
Screwing his face into a confused grimace, Rico grunted, “Damn! It was just there a second ago.”
“Oh for Pete’s sake,” Paige said as she stomped toward the wall. “Just start wiping these symbols off and let’s see what’s here.”
“You can’t just wipe them off,” Rico insisted. When Paige tried using the sleeve of her jacket to do just that, she was hit by a jolt comparable to sticking her finger in a socket. “Told ya,” he sighed.
Cole watched the street through the front window, saw the little lady with the dog stationed at a patch of grass on the nearby corner. Before he could get too suspicious, the dog squatted.
“What if we break the wall?” Paige asked.
“Tried that while you were in the other room,” Rico told her as he turned to show both her and Cole the left side of his jacket. “It didn’t work out so well.” The heavy canvas had been burnt to ash, and the leather patch on his shoulder was scorched black. “Melted a few layers of skin on my arm, but that’s all right,” he added with a tired smirk. “Chicks dig the scars. I weakened ’em a little, but you can’t just go around busting walls down. Whoever put them there will know if that happens.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, Paige! I’m not sure. I’ve been tryin’ to figure these things out through books and old letters since before you came along, but it’s like learning how to fix an engine without ever gettin’ your hands on one. Just give me a minute to think before you start kicking anything down.”
“The runes we saw at Lancroft Reformatory were mostly intact,” she said. “But Henry came and went as he pleased. Half Breeds made a den there, and I sure as hell didn’t feel any magical barrier.”
Squatting down to follow a line of blocky script that turned vertically toward the floor, Rico said, “That whole
