Marcus Pelegrimas - Teeth of Beasts

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 Full Blood yet. The closest we got was watching one get dragged underground by Mongrels in Kansas City, and if you knew where they took him, are you telling me you wouldn’t like to dig him up and see how many different uses you could think of for all those teeth and bones?”

“I’ve never seen anything like what’s in that room.”

“Yeah? Well I might have believed you were all broken up about it if I hadn’t seen you gut a Half Breed in the backseat of your car.”

“Half Breeds are different. They’re mobile wood chippers with a taste for our blood. Toss in a risk of becoming a wood chipper yourself and I don’t see a downside to killing them.”

“Killing them is one thing. That,” Cole added while waving toward the room with the table, “is something else. I don’t even know what that is.”

“Hunters hunt,” Paige stated. “Werewolves hunt us, and our choices are to hide, die, or hunt them. The Native Americans were Skinners long before us, and I mean that literally. They skinned werewolves the way they skinned buffalo and it worked out pretty well.” In a softer tone, she added, “This is the first time we may have spoken to something after it’s been laid out, pulled into a thousand separate pieces, and put into jars. Personally, that’s freaking me out too.”

“He’s trying to get here again,” Jordan said from the doorway to the temple. “We can delay him long enough for you to leave, but it won’t be long before he forces one of our sisters to get here without our help.”

“Let him come,” Cole said.

Jordan blinked and was moved aside when Elsie poked her head into the workshop. “We haven’t heard the Mind Singer for a while, but there can’t be much time for us to get away.”

“Let him come,” he repeated with more conviction. “We came here to get Lancroft, and we’re as ready now as we’re going to be, right?”

Paige drew her left baton and formed it into a sickle. “If he wants to save us the trouble of tracking him down, I’m all for it. Where’s Rico?”

“He’s still in the…the green room,” Jordan replied, obviously making an effort to mention the examination area without actually thinking about what it contained.

Cole walked past the two women, but Paige gathered them under her arms like a mother hen with two nervous hatch-lings. “Do both of you need to be here for this temple to work?” she asked.

“No,” Elsie replied. “He kept two of us so he always had at least one in case the other passed out or couldn’t form the bridge.”

“All right, then. I want one of you to get out of here.” Both of the Dryads started to protest, but Paige had no trouble in overriding them. “We came here to help as many of you as possible, and we won’t risk you both getting hurt now. One goes back now and the other will leave as soon as you can after Lancroft gets here.”

“No,” Jordan said sternly. “We’ll stay to help and that’s final.”

“You two may fluster the guys, but I’m not as easily swayed as the ones in the next room. Do what I say and don’t make me say it again. I need you to tell your sisters what happened here. More importantly, once you’re gone, he’ll be stuck here. Am I right?”

Both of them nodded. “If he has no sisters here and no sway over the others,” Jordan said, “then the temples are useless to him. But you’ll all be stuck here. Elsie can leave now, I’ll stay to help.”

“Fine. Just get moving.”

The Dryads huddled together and spoke in a series of words that were either too quick to understand or in some language that Paige had never encountered before. Rather than try to figure it out, she headed for the examination room where Rico was busy pulling open the last set of cabinets and Cole tapped furiously at the computer.

“Hurry up,” she warned. “One of our girls is going to leave and then the other will bring Lancroft here. After that, hopefully the word will be spread and there’ll be no more magic beads for Jonah Lancroft.” There was a crackle of static followed by a flash from the temple behind her, prompting Paige to say, “Did I mention hurry ?”

Rico dumped the contents of the cabinet onto the floor. “I’m just tryin’ to get a handle on what we may be up against. Like if this guy was building weapons or if he might have worked something out to—”