and was jamming his sausage fingers into the innards. In a few seconds he’d singled out a circuit and pulled it out as far as the wires would allow.
“This is a small GPS tracker,” the Nymar said. “You just want to know if it’s there or do you want it reprogrammed?”
“I want it gone.”
Daniels plucked the circuit out as if removing a splinter. “Done.”
“Now what about tracking the Torva’ox? I was thinking maybe you could use a device like that to create some sort of feedback that could be sent all they way through the system to maybe damage whatever is drawing from it the most. Since that would be a Full Blood or maybe even the Half Breeds, that could . . . What?” Cole stopped because Daniels was gawking at him with even more exasperation than normal.
“This isn’t one of your games, Cole. It’s not like I can just flip a switch to make that stuff happen. There’s readings to be taken, testing to be done, frequencies to find, possibly frequencies to
“I didn’t think that!” Seeing Daniels’s raised eyebrow, Cole admitted, “Well, maybe I thought that a little. Do you think you can do anything at all along those lines?”
Regarding the emitter and then tossing it back, he said, “Sure, but I’d be better off starting from scratch. Since I have this circuit, I should be able to mess with that signal if you want.”
“Okay. Get to work on that. Any progress on something to use against Esteban when he’s in his ghost body?”
Daniels brightened when he said, “Actually, that wasn’t so tough. I mixed some of that Blood Blade varnish for your weapons into a compound that can be added to an aerosol. As long as you spray it into the incorporeal Full Blood’s center of mass, it should do some major damage. Can’t say if it’ll kill him, but it should hurt enough to discourage him from fading away for a while.”
“We can call it Wolf-B-Gone,” Cole said, which was met by a prompt eye roll from the Nymar. “I’ll take it.”
“Should be ready soon.”
“We need it now!”
Paige had joined them by then. She tapped Daniels on the arm with a hand still feeling the aftereffects of using one of his mixtures before it was ready. “How much time do you need?” she asked.
“Not much. Mostly, I need to get it loaded into a proper container so it can be administered . . . er . . . properly.”
“What about a toxin that will work on the Shadow Spore?”
“You want me to tamper with a previously unknown planetary energy field, fidget with government security measures, find a way to damage a ghost, or figure out a way to poison Nymar that even you guys can’t poison? I’m already running on next to no sleep, so you’ll just have to pick one.”
“You think that tracking device is from the government?” Cole asked.
“I got a crash course in justified paranoia from some very talented people. Which will it be?”
“I’ll take tampering with unknown planetary fields for a thousand, Alex.”
“That’s what I thought.”
An hour later Cole was pulling to a stop in front of Pinups. The nymph who pushed open the side door was Taylor. She wore a long, heavy robe and was accompanied by the dancer who’d loaned the Skinners her Accent. “What took you so long?” the second nymph asked. “It’s almost morning.”
The other dancer rushed outside to examine her car, but was stopped by a breeze that kicked up a torrent of snow from a drift that had almost grown tall enough to reach halfway up the side of the building. She wore a short yellow coat, but the legs emerging from the bottom of it were wrapped in nothing but white stockings. “Did you dent my fender?”
“No,” Cole grunted as he was loaded up like a pack mule.
Paige was the one doing the loading, and when Cole couldn’t carry any more of the supplies they’d either brought with them or gotten from Daniels, she started piling them into Waggoner’s arms. “The car’s all yours, but we’ll be needing one more trip.”
“For all of you?” the nymph asked.
“Yes.”
“We should be able to get you through,” Taylor said with a smile. “Ever since the cold weather hit, we’ve been busy almost every night. Could be the turkey and egg nog we added to the buffet.” Just then another gust of wind blew open her robe to reveal a curvaceous body that could have been sculpted by a pornographic mastermind. She was wrapped up like the best present ever in a light blue thong and a chain of little ornamental snowflakes wrapped around a smooth stomach.
“Yeah,” Paige said as she walked around the car and dug her chirping phone from her pocket. “I’m sure that’s it.” She spoke on her phone while the rest of the luggage was unloaded from the car. When she was done, she grabbed a duffel containing her own weapons and gear and joined the others inside the back portion of the club. “That was Milosh,” she said to Cole. “None of the Amriany are in the States anymore.”
“The Gypsies moved on, huh?” Waggoner grunted. “Big surprise. Things get too hot for them around here?”
“Full Bloods are wandering back to their own territories,” she explained. “The Amriany think some of the other shapeshifters are moving in on the ones that have decided to stay here. They think Esteban left a good portion of Spain and Europe unguarded and another one has come along to claim it. They’ve never seen her before.”
“Her?” Cole asked. “Is Minh still locked up?”
“She’s supposed to be somewhere in Japan,” Paige said. “There’s no reason to distrust the person who told me that, and there haven’t been any confirmed sightings of her there or in any other region yet.”
Waggoner crossed his arms and said, “That’s a whole lot of vague talk. You don’t trust me?”
“Don’t take offense to it,” Paige said. “It’s hard to trust anyone. Besides, we’ve got a whole lot of vague information. From what you’ve seen regarding your Vigilant buddies, you can’t blame us for being a little cautious.”
“I suppose not.”
Paige stood just inside the door and told Taylor, “I was thinking we’d only have to go to Texas to meet our friends, but it looks like we may have to go farther.”
“How much farther?”
Wincing, Paige replied, “Hungary. Do you have enough energy stored up to get us all that far?”
Taylor shook her head and rubbed the smooth slopes of her arms. “I’m afraid not. Why don’t I get you guys something hot to drink?”
That sounded good to Cole, but since his partner wasn’t moving, neither was he.
“If we can’t get what we need here, then we can’t stay long,” Paige said. “I’m not a huge believer in signs, but even I can’t deny that every single one of them is pointing us toward the Amriany. We need to get someone we can trust on our side who knows how to deal with Full Bloods. They’re the ones who designed the Jekhibar. We know we need their expertise on that.”
“You have a Jekhibar?” Taylor asked.
Cole recognized the awe in Taylor’s eyes. Considering that expression was on the face of a Dryad, it held more weight than usual. “Yes,” he said.
“And what do you expect to use it for?” There was an unmistakable sternness to Taylor’s question that made it clear she required an answer before she made them regret they’d even considered coming to a Dryad temple.
“The Torva’ox is how the Full Bloods got so powerful,” Paige explained. She wrapped her arms around herself as if she’d just discovered the cold. “The Jekhibar is the only thing I know of that can let us manipulate it.”
“The Unity Stone cannot manipulate the Torva’ox,” she said. “It can only store it.” Taylor’s eyes narrowed and she drew in a breath. When a wind came along to tug at her robe and rustle the jewelry around her waist, she didn’t even shiver. In fact, Cole wondered if every twitch or vaguely human response the nymphs had shown was merely another dance they performed in order to blend in with the world around them. “Do you know about the Mist Born?”
“I never even heard of a Unity Stone,” Cole said.
Smirking as if to a child, Taylor said, “It’s just a translation for Jekhibar. As for the Mist Born, that is what they
