he’d suddenly thought of something more important than what they’d discovered, he asked, “You’re keeping a journal, right?”
The question didn’t even register in Cole’s brain. He stood near the top of the table, staring down at the massive gaping maw of the Full Blood’s mouth. Most of the teeth in its upper jaw had been pulled and the entire lower jaw had been removed. Its tongue had been whittled down to a nub, both of its eyes were gone, the sockets were hollowed out, and a good portion of its skull were emptied. All that remained even vaguely resembling a canine face was a snout and the ridges of its brow.
“This can’t be,” Cole sighed.
Rico stood up and circled the table to get to the next set of cabinets. Outside, Paige was doing her best to calm down the Dryads. “I know,” he said. “When we take ’em down, they at least die fighting. Half Breeds ain’t nothin’ more than sick, wild animals, and sometimes I still feel bad killin’ those in their sleep. This is a whole other story.”
Cole looked away from the creature’s face and stared down at the spot where the flesh had been pulled away from its arm to reveal bones that were snapped off and scorched at the tips. An acetylene torch rested against the table near his feet, confirming just how tough a Full Blood was even after it was dead. Something registered in his mind that made him reach into the gaping chest cavity and slide his fingers along the top of the rib cage.
“There’s plenty for us to use in these jars, Cole,” Rico said. “No need to go fishin’.”
Now that his hands couldn’t get any dirtier, Cole reached all the way in and started feeling for a spinal column. Considering how much had already been removed from the carcass, the task wasn’t too difficult. With a little nudge here and a gentle push there, the innards gave way like pieces stuck to a model with glue that hadn’t been given a chance to dry.
Finally, Paige appeared at the door. “Elsie and Jordan are the only two Dryads here and they can take us anywhere we want to go. They also say someone’s trying to get back here through the curtain, so we need to—Holy shit on a shingle,” she gasped when she took in the sight on the table. “What the hell is that?”
Cole’s voice was a shaky whisper when he told her, “This is Henry.”
Chapter 27
Paige’s eyes were focused upon the gruesome sculpture of carnage displayed upon the engraved silver table. The Dryads gathered behind her, peeking into the room before quickly looking away.
“That can’t be Henry,” Rico said. “There ain’t no way this much work was done so quickly. I found a goddamn hacksaw and something that looked like a miniature Jaws of Life in here. It must’ve taken weeks to do that kind of work. We’ve just been talking to him, for Christ’s sake!”
“We have been talking to Henry,” Cole whispered. “But he’s right here.”
“Are you sure about that?” Paige asked.
Cole looked at the dead creature’s face from another angle to imagine if the thing on the table truly could have been the same Full Blood that ran away from him after Misonyk was killed in Janesville. His hand remained buried inside its chest cavity, resting upon a section of broken spinal column that had been rubbed smooth after years upon years of Henry’s head swinging like a pendulum.
“It’s him, Paige. I can feel where the neck was broken.”
“That don’t prove jack,” Rico grunted. “Damn near everything on this poor bastard is broke.”
Paige approached the table and ran her hands over the shaggy fur of the werewolf’s leg as though she was comforting a pet that had just been put down. At the midsection, she pulled one of the pins free and examined the flap of skin on the creature’s side.
“Coloring of the fur is right,” she announced coldly. “According to Gerald’s journal, Full Blood fur gets coarse and wiry after they die, so this one couldn’t have been dead for any more than a month. Probably less. Here we go,” she said while folding the flap of skin over to show Cole and then Rico. “These scars were made by a Blood Blade. They look like the ones on Burkis’s face. Same color around the edges, and this is the spot where I cut Henry open in Janesville.” Nodding while pointing to spots on the inside of the chest, she said, “Those are bites from a Nymar spore. You and I have seen plenty of those, Rico.” Looking to Cole, she added, “Usually, you only see bite marks like this on a Nymar’s heart.”
Cole wanted to ask how she’d seen a Nymar’s heart before it dried up, but quickly decided he didn’t want to hear about it until his stomach had settled.
Placing the flap so it covered its section of the werewolf’s chest cavity, Paige announced, “This is Henry. What the hell could have done this to a Full Blood?”
“Jonah Lancroft did this,” Jordan said from just outside the room. “We were hidden and silenced, but we could hear him in here working…sawing.”
“Where are the others?” Rico asked.
Jordan locked eyes with him, grateful to have a point of focus away from the table. “What others?”
“The other Dryads. We were told that you two were only the most recent ones that were kidnapped. There’s supposed to be more.”
“They could be at other places like this,” Paige offered. “If Lancroft is able to teleport anywhere there’s a temple, he would need other nymphs to keep them working, right?”
“We’re the only ones left,” Jordan said.
Cole walked over to her and offered her the shirt he wore over his T-shirt. She allowed him to drape it over her shoulders, but wasn’t modest enough to close it. “Can you sense your sisters? Are they at another temple?” he asked, hoping that term might spark something in the woman.
Whatever he may have sparked in her wasn’t good.
She backed away from the door and then opened the shirt so Elsie could huddle in there with her. Once together, both Dryads put their backs to a wall and lowered their heads. “This is a Skipping Temple,” Jordan said. “Lancroft doesn’t need another one. It’s named that because it can work as a hub like the other temples or it can skip a traveler along to somewhere else like a stone across the top of a pond.”
Paige left the examination room and stood beside Cole. “I’ve already been talking to them about the others, Cole. They’re gone.”
“Gone where?”
Tightening her grip on his arm, she pulled him all the way back to the workshop. Even then she kept her voice low. “The other nymphs are dead. Lancroft used most of them up for a healing tonic called Memory Water. According to Jordan, enough of that stuff in a properly distilled form could keep a human alive for a long time.”
“Like…hundreds of years?”
“Longer. He tore some of them up pretty badly and buried them when he was done.”
Surrounded by all those carcasses on the benches or the hides that were stretched out to dry, Cole didn’t have any problem believing Lancroft could do such a thing to something as naturally beautiful as a Dryad.
“He’s been going back and forth using this temple,” she continued, “and Elsie said the Dryads that weren’t killed to make that memory stuff were kept as an unwilling power source.”
“But Tristan and Shae had to sing to get the beads to work,” Cole said. “Even Lancroft had to make them sing before he could go through.”
“That was in a proper temple, but Lancroft doesn’t give a shit about that here. He forces them to transport him however it best suits him. Everything with those purple A-frames—from the architecture to the script on the walls —is to draw and store whatever energy these women produce. Without all of that, this place must be like letting your laptop run on its battery instead of plugging it into the wall. If you’re never able to recharge the right way, you need to keep replacing the battery. That’s all these women were to this guy, Cole. He used them up and tossed them out after they died from exhaustion.”
Cole pulled in a few breaths, looked toward the temple and then studied the workshop. “So Lancroft traps creatures, strips them for parts, uses them up and dumps them. I guess that really does make him a Skinner, huh?”
Paige knocked his shoulder so he was facing her directly. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh come on, Paige. The only reason we don’t have a setup like this in Rasa Hill is because we haven’t killed a
