“Just have him bring it down here and stand with it,” she said while holding her phone to her ear. “He can fondle it however he wants from there.”
Sighing, Rico climbed the lower half of the stairs and yelled for Jessup. While those two were engaged in conversation, Cole stood next to Paige and asked, “What are you expecting to hear?”
“Don’t you remember that EVP I caught when I was on the phone with MEG in Atoka?”
“You told me about it. You heard one of the Mongrels talking to you over the cell phone,” Cole recalled. “Kind of like a ghost voice.”
“That’s right. He said he was being controlled by Liam through the power they were all after. It was also through that power that Ben’s voice could be transmitted. Maybe it was a psychic connection or something to do with wavelengths mixing with the Torva’ox. I’m really not the expert in that kind of crap. But I do know that the energy the Full Bloods were after is real, and I was able to tap into it somehow using a phone.”
“Maybe that’s how every other EVP is created,” Cole said. “Maybe haunted places are actually located near sources of the Torva’ox, and when ghost hunters catch voices on their recorders it’s because of that.”
Paige gripped her cell phone tighter and glared at it before smacking it with the palm of her hand. “A phone worked before. This phone, even. It’s not working now. Maybe if Jessup brings us that Jekhibar, I’ll get what I need.”
“Which, again, is what?”
“Weren’t you even listening when we talked about this on the way over here?”
“Yeah. You said you’d try talking to Cecile. You never said what you wanted to say. How did you even know she was here?”
After shaking the phone some more and placing it against her ear again, Paige whispered, “Rico’s been in contact on and off ever since he hooked up with these guys.”
“You mean . . . like a spy?”
“I mean like an old friend who’s no stranger to playing with less reputable teams so long as they’re shooting at the right things. Honestly, I’m surprised he stuck with us for as long as he did without disappearing. He may not be a team player, but his heart’s in the right place. Long as we don’t get on his bad side for too long, he’ll make sure we don’t get hurt.”
“These Vigilant assholes locked me up,” Cole snarled.
“Can you prove that?”
“Not with a paper trail, but I heard more than enough.”
Paige smirked and said, “Well, if you can find some evidence, I’m sure Rico would like to see it. He doesn’t exactly have fond memories of prison cells either, and knowing for sure that these guys not only took you away when you were supposed to be treated for that Nymar bite but also slapped together a secret prison facility for Skinners, he won’t be too happy.”
Shifting his focus to the petrified werewolf, Cole asked, “So what are you going to say to her?”
“Haven’t figured that out yet. I’m surprised we got this far. And don’t look at me like that. Isn’t this better than being carted around by Adderson like just another couple hundred pounds of equipment?”
“Actually, yeah. It is.”
“So just . . . Wait a second. I’m getting something.”
Ashamed that he’d been about to try and listen in on whatever was coming through Paige’s phone instead of listening to his own, Cole fished his from his pocket and asked, “What number did you dial?”
“The old one for Rasa Hill. It’s still connected, but there’s a recording.”
Cole dialed the number from memory and listened to a recorded message that quickly faded out, replaced by static. And then the static was replaced by a voice.
“ . . . kill you,” it said.
Both Paige and Cole looked at the cage. Cecile was still there, etched in stone and unable to move. Two sets of footsteps stomped against the stairs until both Rico and Jessup stood in the room with them. Cole glanced over at the men to see that Jessup was holding the familiar little metal box.
“You try to make a move for this and you’ll regret it,” Jessup warned. “There ain’t no way you’ll make it out.” Before he could say more, he was shushed by Paige. He looked over to Rico, who wore an exasperated look that Cole knew all too well.
“Can you hear us, Cecile?” Paige asked.
“I can hear you and every other filthy hick stinking up the rooms above me,” she replied. Her voice tapered off, then returned like a timid nudge by a hand in the dark. “You can hear me?”
“Yes,” Cole replied. “Can you, Paige?”
“Yes,” she said. “I just didn’t think I’d be able to. Last time, Stu had to record it and play it back. You know . . . like an EVP.”
“What are you two talking about?” Jessup asked. When he stepped forward to get closer to them, the static in Cole’s phone cleared like dirt floating in water that had suddenly been scattered by an outboard motor.
Cecile’s voice was strained and taut. In an attempt to clear it more, Cole approached the bars of her cell. Using the ear that wasn’t flattened against a phone, he could hear a subtle creak similar to what he imagined two tectonic plates might sound like when they rubbed against each other. He backed away from the cage and resisted the urge to back all the way out of the room. “I think she’s breaking loose,” he said.
That brought all the Skinners to the front of the cell.
“You can hear me,” Cecile said through the tinny phone connection. “I can hear you. I can also hear someone else.”
“Someone in the building?” Paige asked.
After a short silence, Cecile replied, “No. One of the other Full Bloods. She’s screaming. Furious. I think . . . far away.”
“That could be Minh,” Cole said to Paige.
Jessup knocked into both of them in his haste to get closer. “The female Full Blood that helped rip apart Atoka? Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Cole lied. Actually, it was only a partial lie. According to Tristan, Minh had been sent away in the same burst of energy the Dryad had used to transport him, Liam, and Paige to Finland. Tristan told him Minh had been sent to one of the older Dryad temples located somewhere in a Japanese bamboo forest. The nymphs hadn’t been eager to tell the Skinners where the temple was located, and as long as Minh was encased in a similar stone shell hidden away from humans, Cole and Paige were content to leave her there. Others, like the Vigilant, on the other hand, wouldn’t be so willing to let sleeping dogs lie.
“Who’re you talking to on that phone?” Jessup asked as he wedged himself between Cole and Paige. “Tell me!”
“What’s wrong with me?” Cecile asked in a voice becoming sharper with every inch that Jessup closed in on the bars. “Why can’t I move?”
Cole stepped back and stretched out an arm to shove Jessup back. “Get that thing away from her!”
“You’re the ones that wanted me to bring the Jekhibar down here!”
“It’s waking her up!”
The creaking that Cole had heard a little while ago became more defined and then took on the sharp, snapping sound of breaking ice.
“Why the hell would I ever listen to you?” Jessup grumbled as he stomped toward the stairs. Rather than climb back to the first floor, he turned to one of the other Skinners who had followed him down and handed the metal box to him. “Take this up to where it belongs and shut it away.” Then Jessup pulled a small wooden ax from where it hung at his belt. Now, the creaking from the cell mingled with the sound of wood stretching into a new form as the crude ax took on the shape of a tomahawk with sharper, jagged edges.
When Paige moved to shush him again, she swung her arm at Jessup as if she meant to knock him through a wall. “Cecile, listen to me. Can you hear me?”
Even after Cole lowered the phone, he could still hear Cecile’s crackling voice cursing him. “Jessup, how can we put her back to sleep?” he asked.
