Nobody said anything. Reluctantly, Jessup nodded and turned to deal with the other Skinners, who converged around him to speak in harsh whispers.
Rico motioned for Cole and Paige to follow him as he headed to the back of the room. “Things have been pretty hectic since we parted ways in New Mexico,” he said. “Hope you’re not still riled up about that.”
“Riled up?” Cole grunted. “You mean since you told us to get bent for not doing anything right over the last few years?”
“I never said that. I just said it was time to take a harder road.”
“You mean Jonah Lancroft’s road,” Paige pointed out.
Nodding as he tapped a few runes on a wall to uncover a small doorway, he replied, “Yeah. Would you have just come along if I asked nicely?”
Neither Cole nor Paige answered him, but Rico grinned as if he’d heard them loud and clear. “Didn’t think so,” he chuckled.
The stairway was lit by a few bulbs encased in wire frames. They were obviously going down into a basement, and Cole was immediately reminded of when he, Paige, and Rico had descended into Lancroft’s cellar another lifetime ago. There was a small landing at the point where a normal staircase might end. The stairs continued down for another eight feet into a room that looked like it had been freshly chiseled from a single block of concrete. It was a space sealed so tightly that he could hear every breath the three of them took. About three-quarters of the way into the room, a set of iron bars was set into the floor and ceiling to turn the rear portion of the room into a large, long cell.
“This looks familiar,” Cole mused as he approached the bars and studied the runes etched into the iron. “You make these markings?”
Rico glanced at the angular script like a carpenter examining one of his own joists. “Nah, but I did a lot of the rune work upstairs.”
Cole’s attention was so absorbed by the dust-covered writing that he almost didn’t notice what was being kept inside the cage. Paige stepped forward, placed her hands on her hips and looked straight past the bars at the rough stone statue of a cowering Full Blood. Cecile’s features might have been crude, but there was an underlying intricacy to the lines that crossed her body and limbs in a pattern much too complex to be cracks or imperfections in a sculpture. It was fur that had been plastered down and frozen into place.
“She’s in there all right,” Paige said as she brushed her fingers against her palms.
Cole could feel the heat in his scars as well. It wasn’t as strong as when he was usually in the presence of a Full Blood, but it was there. Muted to a dull ache in his bones that he couldn’t feel when he’d been upstairs, the pain snaked beneath his skin as if deftly avoiding the instinctive, probing touches of his fingertips.
“Damn right she’s in there,” Rico said. “Not like that bastard that walked away from New Mexico.”
“You’ve seen Esteban?” Paige asked.
“We’ve all seen him, Bloodhound. The others split apart after the fall of Atoka, and he’s the one that’s been organizing the packs in the States.”
“We didn’t know for sure,” she said, as if hesitant to dispel the hint of pride that had crept into her former trainer’s voice. “It seemed a pretty safe bet that you’d at least have her locked up, even if she did manage to crack out of that magic shell. Or that you’d at least have . . . pieces of her.”
“Whatever you left back in Oklahoma, it’s still in there.”
“Have you heard anything from her?”
“Like what?” Rico scoffed. “A squeaky plea for an oil can?”
“No,” Paige said. “Like a radio frequency.” She looked him straight in the eyes to make sure he wasn’t about to make another bad
“Why would you even ask that?”
“Just answer the question,” Cole said. “It’s important.”
“No,” Rico grunted. “We’re in a subbasement. It don’t take a tech genius to figure your cell reception might not be so good down here. Why the hell are you so worried about that?”
“Is anyone listening to us down here?” Cole asked.
“No.”
“Are you sure of that?”
Rico drew a deep breath and stepped up to him until he was almost close enough to touch the end of his nose against Cole’s face. As creepy as that might have been, Rico maintained the close quarters as he spoke in a voice that was hardly more than a rustle in the back of his throat. “This place was wired up before I got here. Whoever is in charge of the Vigilant ain’t seen fit to introduce himself to me even after I hooked these jokers up with the runes upstairs.”
“You left us to join up with them and you sound like you barely trust them,” Cole said in a similar whisper.
“They’re paranoid and a little crazy. Far as I can tell, that’s just the sort of thing that’s needed since everything’s been going to hell.”
“But can you trust them?”
“Why do you ask? What do you need to say that you can’t just come out and say?”
Paige dropped her right hand onto his shoulder and turned him around. Even though she was strong and that hand was still partially petrified from her injury, she could tell that Rico was allowing himself to be moved. “You may have given up on us, Rico, but that doesn’t mean we’re ready to give up on you.”
“And,” he told her, “just because I’m testing the waters somewhere else, that don’t mean I’m your enemy.”
“Sure seemed that way when you left New Mexico,” Cole pointed out.
“A lot happened that day,” the big man said. “And even more’s happened since. Believe me, if I was your enemy, you woulda gotten a lot more than a gruff tone back at that Army camp in Raton. And speaking of them, and you joining up with the IRD, most of the folks here and plenty more of the Skinners that are still alive think you two are spilling all of our names and everything we ever learned to the government. Look me in the eyes and tell me what you make of that.”
Although Paige was ready to speak for them both, Cole knocked Rico’s shoulder with his fist just hard enough to turn the big man toward him again. “I think that’s just the sort of bullshit that makes working with the IRD seem like such a good idea. What happened when we found Lancroft and that warehouse of Skinner memorabilia in Philadelphia? We contacted everyone else and had a freaking yard sale. And when things got really bad with the Nymar, we drew as much fire as possible so everyone else could pull their own plans together, and when things got even worse, we took the worst fall of anyone. I went to prison, for Christ’s sake! A prison,” he added while extending an arm to point at the bars in front of him, “with cells that looked a hell of a lot like that.”
“I get what you’re sayin’,” Rico said. “I may not know everyone in this operation just yet, but they all respect what you two have done. When you turn your back on them, it rubs ’em the wrong way. Know what I mean?”
“Awww,” Paige said with a mocking sigh. “Is the poor little Skinner militia feeling left out? They can weep about it in their diaries. Right now we need to get a look at what’s inside the cage.”
And just like that the subject was closed. The most pressing matter stood behind bars of charmed iron, pushing seven feet tall and wielding claws that looked deadly even encased in a layer of stone.
“Most of the gargoyles were either shredded or went back into hiding after the feeding frenzy over the fall,” Rico said, “but we pulled together enough of what was left to wrap her up good and tight.”
Cole stood quietly looking at her. Even though the young Full Blood’s eyes were hidden beneath a stone crust, he found it difficult to look into them. “Her name’s Cecile.”
“What?” Rico said, looking surprised.
“She trusted us. Asked for our help. Even fought Esteban to give us a chance in New Mexico, and to repay that, she winds up like this behind bars.”
“So the least we can do is call her by name?” Rico grunted. “Fine. But you should know that any Full Blood is a danger right now. And you know who else has got a name? Randolph Standing Bear. He’s dropped off the map lately, and for something as powerful as him, and considering how visible he used to be, that don’t bode well.”
“I agree,” Paige said. “Bring down the Jekhibar.”
“I doubt Jessup will allow it out of his sight. He was the one to bring it in and he’s real fidgety when anyone else tries to handle it. I’m surprised he let you see that hole in the floor.”
