He swore he heard a whisper directly behind him, but he wasn’t about to turn away. Cecile’s eyes were too captivating to let him go. They were deep, multifaceted treasures colored by the same brushstrokes that had painted the first primordial earthen tones. And then, as her entire body forced out the last bit of whatever immaterial substance had been stirred up by Lancroft’s collar, her eyes closed, to keep the last bit of their power from leaking out.
“That’s got it,” Jessup sighed. “Turn that thing off.” When he saw Cole wasn’t moving, he smacked the side of his fist against the bars and said, “Turn that thing off!”
One blink was all it took to break the spell that had overtaken Cole. Suddenly, the stark lighting from the overhead bulbs, the dank smells of the basement, even the rough touch of his own clothes against his skin, dragged him back. Cecile was separated from him once more, slumping against the bars no matter how loudly the runes scalded her skin. It had taken Rico’s, Jessup’s, and Paige’s combined strength to pull her back.
“I don’t think she’s gonna give us any more trouble,” Jessup said. “Not as long as that collar stays on her.”
Paige willed one of her weapons to shrink back down enough to be slid back into her boot holster, but she kept the other in her grip. “How does it work?”
“Don’t know,” Jessup admitted. “Either we don’t have the journals where Lancroft describes that part or he kept it a secret. I do know this is what he used to kill the Full Blood that was in Philly.”
“He used this on Henry?” Cole asked.
“Yep. Damned if I know how he got it on single-handed. Word’s been going around that it took a bunch of Skinners to tame that freak long enough for this beauty to be buckled in place, and that Lancroft was the only one to walk away.”
“Or,” Cole said as he cocked his head at a skewed angle, as if to honor Henry while also getting a better look at Cecile, “he handed it over and told Henry to put it on.”
“Well, I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy with this one,” Jessup said. Using the back of his hand to wipe some sweat from his brow, he added, “Thought it would be harder than this, though. That sonic transmitter seems to work pretty well.”
Paige laughed at that. “It’s supposed to incapacitate a Full Blood or possibly even kill them. From where I stood, all it did was drive her crazy enough to rip apart whoever is holding that thing. Don’t think that’ll do much good unless you just happen to have some special bars in front of you.”
“Which is just what we had,” Jessup said. “Well done.” With that, he motioned for the other Skinners to enter the room.
Even though Cecile was slumped on the floor, seated with her back propped against a wall and her head hanging to one side, the younger Skinners seemed just as afraid of her as when she’d been clawing at the floor and howling like a demon. They carried chains, shackles, and more leather straps, some of which had more engraved rings woven into them, while others were simply thick enough to tie down a Mack truck.
While watching a process vaguely familiar from his time locked up in Colorado, the guilty pangs Cole felt hit him even harder. Cecile’s body might have been drained and her eyes were momentarily vacant, but she wasn’t dead. That meant somewhere, possibly buried too deeply to see at the moment, there was a spark inside that would only grow the longer it was kept in the dark.
“Come on,” Paige said, tapping his arm. She’d stepped out of the cage and was already headed toward the stairs. “Let’s let them do their thing.”
Since Cecile was preoccupying almost everyone in the building, Cole and Paige had no trouble getting upstairs and outside to where their car was waiting. “So,” he said after slamming the door shut behind him, “what do you think?”
Paige had yet to take her eyes off the building on the corner of Spring and Payne. “I think there are at least two people watching us from the windows, and Lord only knows how many cameras taping us right now from a couple different angles.”
“You think they can hear us?”
“Just face me when you talk.”
That was no problem. In the last several weeks, they’d barely left each other’s side. Still, they rarely got much time together where they weren’t on the road, refining new combat techniques, or hip deep in a combat zone. Taking a second to stare into her deep brown eyes was a welcome change.
“None of that,” she said, reading his thoughts with ease. “They may have lip-readers in their surveillance room.”
“I meant what did you think about what we heard in there. Did you pick up the same signal that we’ve been getting over the last few Half Breed attacks?”
She reached under the seat to fish out a small digital recorder. Holding it below the dashboard so it wouldn’t be seen by anyone who wasn’t inside the car, she tapped the Play button and turned up the volume. It was a scratchy recording, made by holding the little device up to her earpiece while a battle raged around her. Despite the static and background noise, the clear, keening howl could be heard drifting in and out like a hand-drawn line painted across a mess of digital wavelengths. Paige squinted, closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. “It’s hard to say. There was so much going on down there.”
“I know, but even if you block that out, I still didn’t hear anything downstairs like what we’ve been hearing around the Half Breed packs.”
Reluctantly, Paige said, “Damn it. I thought getting that close to a Full Blood as well as a source of the Torva’ox would allow us to get a fix on that signal.”
“It’s not a signal, Paige. It’s a voice. It’s one of
“I know,” she said. “And we still don’t know if that’s how the Full Bloods are controlling them or if it’s how they’re turning humans from a distance.”
“I don’t think Cecile was giving signals to anyone,” Cole said. “She seemed pretty out of it. I don’t even think she knew what was going on. It’s almost like she was in a coma.”
“You’re just feeling guilty because it’s her,” she grunted while turning the digital recorder off, then throwing it to the floor. “But she isn’t just some poor little accident victim sleeping off an injury. She’s one of the things shredding through the human race. Just when it seems we found some way to get ahead, we wind up right back where we started. That sucks.”
“It sure does. But the trip wasn’t a complete waste. I found out something important down in that basement.”
“What?”
“Those are definitely the assholes who took me away from that first prison in Colorado.”
“You’re sure about that?”
Cole nodded. “Those bars are the same. Some of the writing was different, but the way it was etched into the metal, the way they were set into the floor and ceiling, everything but the little doggy door—and that’s only because they figured they’d have to go in and out of there themselves. Waylon mentioned the Vigilant when Randolph attacked that prison, but I had to be sure. Now, I’m sure.”
“So, what about getting that evidence I talked about?”
“I have an idea about that, but Rico would have to be willing to work with me.”
“Give you two to one on that,” Paige mused.
“For or against?”
Showing him nothing more than a cute grin, she said, “That collar was pretty cool. Not something I’d like to try again, but there’s got to be more little tricks that Lancroft saved for his favorite followers.” With a subtle shift of her head, she leaned in closer and looked at Cole in a way that assured him she was no longer concerned about who was watching them. “We’ve already learned some things about these guys. We know they’ve got Cecile and we know how they’re controlling her. You already broke out of a prison like that, so you know you can bust apart the one in their basement. We got a good look at how many are holed up in that place, what’s inside, how much security they’ve got, and who’s leading them. We know they’ve got a lot of Skinners who are still wet behind the ears and probably haven’t done much fighting. They’ve got the Jekhibar and we know where it’s kept. As far as I’m concerned, that’s more than enough to keep this trip from being a waste of time.”
Suddenly, Cole smiled. “Jonah Lancroft may have been a nut job, but he did have some very effective methods.
