Extinction Agenda

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Slovakia

They hadn’t driven more than twenty or thirty miles after crossing the border, but Cole felt as if he’d been taken into another century. Not only were the roads quieter than those in the States, but they looked as if they’d been that way even before packs of werewolves were such a common sight. Sophie veered onto a path that took them into the forest and even farther from civilization as he knew it.

After emerging in a clearing smaller than half a football field, she pulled to a stop in front of a shack that whistled when the wind blew hard enough to stir the leaves piled on either side. Now that he’d had more than a few seconds to take in the rustic sight, Cole could see the ridge surrounding the clearing. Covered in thick layers of moss, it was too low to be a wall and too high to be fallen logs. Whatever it was, it formed a shape similar to a crater, with the long, rickety shack situated in its center.

Sophie and Milosh approached the shack so she could knock on the door while he scanned the edge of the crater with wary eyes. Paige walked with Cole, while Waggoner stayed behind. Taking a new Skinner under their wing was one thing. Trusting a former Vigilant member with something like this was another. After a few knocks, the door was opened by a tall man who filled the opening almost as much as his solid, muscular body filled the dirty layers of clothing wrapped around him beneath a filthy apron. “Come in,” he said with a thick accent. “I trust these are Skinners?”

“Yes,” Milosh replied. “And they’ve done well enough to chase Vasily’s dogs back into Prague. Ira, this is Cole and Paige.”

“Well then,” the large man said. “Not only will I speak English, but they can help themselves to the stew I just made.”

Cole and Paige followed the Amriany inside. The shack was at least three times longer than it was wide. The front portion was dominated by a rectangular table cluttered with dirty soup bowls, papers, a checkerboard, some battered paperback books, and a phone that was five generations behind the one in Cole’s pocket. At the back of the cabin a stone fireplace crackled, with flames that shed a flickering light on blades hanging from three of the four walls. “Looks like that’s not all you’ve been making,” Paige said.

Weapons sat on pegs that had been knocked into the walls or hung from hooks dangling from crude racks. They ran the spectrum from simple daggers and wedge-shaped blades to curving designs even more complex than the sword strapped to Sophie’s back. Sizes ranged from a few inches all the way to broadswords almost as tall as Cole. Each of the weapons were encrusted with the same runes as the Blood Blade, but all had the rough, ashen look of metal pulled from a fire and left to gather dust. Once he got over the spectacle of being in a room that stank of burnt metal and being surrounded by so many exotic weapons, he noticed that none of the weapons were complete.

“I was hoping you’d make it out here,” Ira said while waddling over to the fireplace. His awkward movements weren’t caused by a problem with weight or coordination, but from joints that were even less pliable than the iron he forged. “Those bastard Nymar swarmed into my summer home and destroyed it!”

“Was that the same place we were at before?” Cole asked. “The place where those Half Breeds attacked?”

“Yes,” Milosh said.

“That was a summer home?”

“It is warmer there than here. Can’t you tell?”

Ira waved at both of them before reaching into the fireplace that still burned with a large flame. He grabbed a black pot by a curved handle, a whispering hiss coming from his hands. He brought the pot to the table with the heated handle still burning his palms, then set it down so he could blow on his hands as if he’d accidentally touched a hot coffee mug. “I would have fought them myself if you would have left at least one strong arm to help me.”

“We don’t have anyone to spare,” Sophie told him. “Besides, I can’t remember the last time you needed someone to protect you.”

Holding up a thick, callused finger, Ira said, “I just needed someone to hold a few of them back so I could swing. Not protect me. Is big difference.”

“Of course.”

Having made her way to one of the walls, Paige reached out to run her fingertips along some of the blades. When she touched one of the shorter swords hard enough to set it swinging into its neighbor, she looked over to the Chokesari as if expecting a reaction. Ira merely looked back at her while spooning some stew into one of the bowls. “Are all of these Blood Blades?” she asked.

“Not yet. Stew?”

“We didn’t come all the way out here to—”

Cole interrupted her with, “I’ll have some stew.”

Nodding with approval, Ira handed over a bowl and stooped down to pull out a bench that had been hiding beneath the long table. “They would be Blood Blades if there were any more Jekhibar around that were . . .” He rubbed his fingertips together as if something vital was slipping through them. After a few seconds he snapped them and said, “Charged. Is that the word?”

Milosh nodded. “Yes it is. All of the Jekhibar we have are drier than my first wife’s . . . what are you looking at?”

Ira’s face had taken on an expression that made him look almost childish. “What happened to your arm? The last time I saw you, there were two of them.”

“Lost to a Weshruuv,” Milosh grunted while rubbing the stump that had been wrapped in several layers of torn scarves.

Turning on the balls of his feet, Ira shoved aside a pile of scrap metal with the same ease someone else might push a chair aside. He reached down and retrieved a bottle, then filled several glasses scattered atop the table. There was no label on the bottle, but a tentative sniff told Cole it was probably whiskey. Either very cheap stuff or home brewed.

Ira raised his glass and looked at each of the others as if daring them to do anything but follow his lead. Not surprisingly, they each took a glass and lifted it to the crooked rafters over their heads. “To the flesh we’ve lost,” Ira bellowed, “and the steel to pay it back!”

No matter how bad the whiskey was, Cole drank it all down.

Letting out a hard breath while slamming his empty glass onto the table, Ira moved to the back of the room in his uneven, waddling stride. “I sifted through this soil for days the last time I was here. The only Jekhibar I found were lumps of worthless stone.”

“One was found in America,” Milosh said. “A Weshruuv collected it and hid it away from the others.”

Ira spun around and raised his bushy eyebrows. “Is it humming?”

“I don’t know. Ask them.”

Although every Amriany eye was pointed at him, Cole looked over to Paige and waited for a nod. When he got it, he dug into his coat pocket and closed his hand around the Jekhibar. Even a direct shotgun blast to the tanned Full Blood leather wouldn’t have been enough to tear through that coat, and yet Cole felt vulnerable just thinking about handing the Jekhibar over. “What do you mean by humming?” he asked.

“The Jekhibar is nothing more than a special kind of rock,” Ira explained. “And all that’s special about it is that the Torva’ox collects inside of it. Soaks it up like a damn . . .” He winced before brightening again as he found the word he was after. “Sponge! Soaks it up like a sponge. Takes a man like me to get it out, though. There may not be a lot of us left, but we can put the Torva’ox into the steel. Turns ’em into Blood Blades. Only other thing that soaks that juice up more than Jekhibar is Weshruuv.”

“That’s why the Blood Blades can hurt them so badly,” Cole said. “They’re connected.”

Ira nodded and approached the Skinners. “Used to be legend that it took someone close to a Weshruuv to kill them. Since I’ve never seen one of those animals hold anyone close enough to care about them, I think this legend is about the Torva’ox. Perhaps something is lost in translation and it is talking about something that is a part of them. Other shapeshifters are part of them and they can hurt each other, but the Torva’ox is part of them, just like she,” he said, pointing to Paige, “is part of you.”

Cole wasn’t about to deny the claim, especially since he and Paige hadn’t stopped watching the other’s back since they made it to the Hub. He hadn’t been aware it was that obvious, though.

“Amriany have always been craftsmen,” Ira continued. “So we forge steel into blades. We hammer iron into tools or weapons and charm it with energies stolen from nymphs or other creatures.”

Sophie made both of the Skinners jump when she snapped at the blacksmith in a string of barbed words in her native tongue. Ira’s face twisted into a tired grimace as he waved her off with his charred hand. “It is true. We can call it whatever we want, but we steal from the monsters so we can do what we do best. Amriany make blades, and Skinners carve wood. Amriany write curses, and Skinners scribble their runes.”

Even as Sophie continued to scold Ira, Cole stepped up to him and asked, “What about the runes?”

The burly blacksmith shook his head as Sophie continued to snarl his name as if it was the harshest curse she knew. “Torva’ox is what powers the runes,” he said. Once that was out, Sophie threw up her hands and stormed to the back of the room to inspect what Ira had been working on prior to their arrival. “I don’t know how they work, because that is savage workmanship. All I know is what I see, and when I see those runes, I know they pulse with Torva’ox.”

“Savage, huh?” Paige said. “Seems refined enough to do the job.”

Ira seemed confused by the tone in her voice, so Milosh explained, “We call you savages. Just another name for Skinner.”

But Cole was too tired to argue semantics. Pulling the Jekhibar from his pocket, he waved it in Ira’s face and asked, “So Skinners must have these things too, right?”

“No,” Ira replied without making a move toward the polished stone. “You people are crude, just as crude as your country, and it serves you well. You draw on as much of the Torva’ox as any man, which isn’t enough for my craft. It is enough for yours, though. As for the shapeshifting wood and blood rituals you do . . . I call them savage. Not another word for Skinner either. Savage.”

Paige shouldered past Cole until she’d inserted herself into the narrow space between him and Ira. “What do you need the Jekhibar for?”

“You see these weapons I made?”

“Yeah.”

Motioning to the walls that practically shone with firelight reflected off of the edges of so many blades, he said, “These can all be Blood Blades. They just need a little juice.”

Cole’s knuckles crackled as his fingers closed even tighter around the stone. “You can try to take this from us, but you know it won’t be easy.”

Stepping away so her back was to a wall, Paige followed Cole’s lead as if there were no other way. “Or even possible.” The look she gave her partner showed a hint of surprise mixed with a liberal dose of hope that he knew where the hell he was going with this.

Ira hadn’t moved, but Milosh cursed under his breath and took half a step forward before Sophie stopped him. “Nobody said anything about taking it from you. I know how valuable these weapons are, but enough people have already died for them.”

Cole said, “All I want is to put this historical feuding shit aside for good. Whatever it is between Skinners and Amriany, it’s too petty to keep going now. Our country is overrun, and if yours isn’t yet, it won’t be long before that changes for the worse.”

“I was going to give you blades,” Ira said. “No need for such dramatics.”

“I’m not talking about a weapons exchange. I’m talking about an alliance. A real one.”

“Even you don’t know which Skinners you can trust,” Sophie said. “Why should we trust them?”

“You’ll trust the ones we do, just like we’ll trust the Amriany that you do.”

“And what becomes of our two people then?”

“We form a group that has the weapons and intel of both. With our nymph connections, we can even make it easier for us all to work internationally.”

“And you save your proposal until now instead of when we were all talking before?” Milosh grunted. “Very sneaky.”

“I only just thought of it now,” Cole admitted. “But it’s not like I’m asking for anything that will hurt either one of us. Sure, we’ll both lose some of the whole secret society thing, but it’ll save us having to figure out new ways to tiptoe around each other when the next big emergency crops up.”

“And,” Paige added, “if we join forces on a larger scale, maybe those big emergencies won’t crop up so often.”

“I suppose this starts now?” Milosh asked. “By you Skinners loading up on all the Blood Blades you can carry?”

“Just enough for me and Paige,” Cole replied. “Plus a few for us to divvy out to the Skinners on our nice list.” When he saw the glances going back and forth between the Amriany, he added, “You know. Like the naughty and nice list? You’ve got Santa over here, right?”

Ira stomped over to Milosh and slapped a hand on the shoulder that only had a stump attached to it. “Yes, we do, and you are looking at him. I wasn’t going to let you walk out of here carrying nothing but those sticks!”

“And I wasn’t going to let you leave this country before I proposed something similar to this alliance of yours,” Sophie said. She nodded to Paige and then looked at Cole with newfound respect. “I’ve heard you two were worth watching. Of course we figured there would be good things coming from her, but I wasn’t sure about you, Cole. Until now.”

“Uh . . . thanks?” he replied, as if unsure whether he should feel flattered.

“Don’t worry,” Ira chuckled. “She is still not so sure about me either. Let me see what you brought all the way out into this damned forest.”

Even though he’d been guarding the Jekhibar with his life until now, Cole no longer had any qualms about putting it into the blacksmith’s rough hand. Ira immediately held it to his ear and smiled. Extending the stone toward Cole, he said, “Listen to that one sing! I haven’t heard one that good in a long time!”

Rather than take the stone back, Cole leaned in toward it with about as much expectations as someone trying to hear the ocean through a seashell. Unlike that cheap beach trick, however, this one actually lived up to the hype. The sound that came from the Jekhibar was a single, perfect note that resonated only when his ear was directly in front of it, less than an inch away.

“Usually it is a soft purr,” Ira explained. “This one couldn’t hold more juice if you crammed it in using a bar.” He winced. “Crow bar? You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Paige said as Cole moved away. “What do you need to do now?”

Ira turned from the others and walked toward a large workbench while flipping the Jekhibar in his hand like a smooth rock he was about to skip across a lake. “The hard part is done. All that’s left is to put what’s in here into all of these fine blades.”

Once again Cole looked around at the weapons hanging from the walls. He hadn’t been able to count them before and surely couldn’t do it now. Giving voice to the same thoughts going through his mind, Paige asked, “How long is that going to take?”

Without a word, Ira went to one of the blades dangling from a hook on a rack placed higher on the wall. It was about four inches wide at one end and tapered down to about half that length before forming an angular point at the other end. The hook fit through a metal stem meant to be hidden inside a handle. Ira grabbed that blade and held it up so the Skinners could see it curved to form a subtle wave shape just under two feet long. Gripping the blade in the middle with one hand, he tapped the Jekhibar against its tip and slowly raked it along the flat metal surface while muttering words that didn’t sound close to the Amriany dialect or any other language Cole had ever heard. One by one the symbols etched into the blade shimmered, and when the dim light in them faded, that section of the weapon had the imperfect sheen of a silvery lake muddled by murky patches of shadow. It was the same mix of light and dark marking the very first Blood Blade that Cole had ever seen.

“This,” Ira said proudly once he’d moved the Jekhibar all the way down the blade, “is for you.”

It took Cole a few seconds to realize the blacksmith was staring directly at him. “Oh,” he said tentatively. “I’ve already got a weapon. I’m kind of attached to it.”

“I know you are, but I will make it better. Give it here.”

When he didn’t move, Cole felt a familiar elbow prodding him in the side. “Go on,” Paige said. “You’re the one that wanted to build bridges.”

Cole drew the spear from the harness strapped across his back. He held it out to Ira, only to have the weapon pulled away with enough force for the thorns to draw his blood. He’d become immune to that pain, but seeing the blacksmith hack at the spearhead using the newly charmed Blood Blade was a whole other kind of agony. “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

It only took four chopping cuts, delivered beneath the spot where the metallic varnish had been applied to the tip of the spear and angled upward, to chop off the end of the weapon and leave a neat little point. From there, Ira carved a shallow notch into the point and handed the weapon back. “Concentrate,” he said while positioning the Blood Blade so the prongs from which it had been hanging were fitted into the notch. “Close the wood. Grow it back. Do whatever it is you savages do. Just fit the pieces together.”

Cole grabbed the spear so the thorns in the handle pierced his palms. Emotions helped when it came to shifting the weapon’s shape, and there were plenty of them boiling inside him at the moment. In a matter of seconds the wood flowed up and out, to slip between the prongs and meet again. Ira nodded slowly and watched the process while prompting Cole with a few instructions as to where he should move the spear or which portions needed to be grown out next to envelop the prongs and inch its way up toward the wider portion of the blade.

Paige was so entranced by the gradual little miracle that she jumped when she felt a hand touch her shoulder. Sophie had come up to her and said, “This could take a while. Are you serious about this whole bridge building thing?”

After a moment of consideration, Paige nodded. “Yeah. Like a lot of Cole’s ideas, it seems dumb at first but stands up to reason. We need to do something drastic if we’ve got any chance of coming out of this, and by ‘we,’ I mean all of us. And . . . by that I mean all of us.”

Sophie let out one of many tired breaths. “There have been plagues, both natural and unnatural, that have hit mankind, but we come out all right. Some of those seem more like God trying to trim the population. Cruel but necessary. This is different. The Weshruuv have been content to prowl their territories, but now they have committed themselves to an extinction agenda. Even the most bullheaded among us can see our entire species is in danger and that old rivalries need to be set aside.”

When she said that last part, Sophie looked directly at Milosh. The one-armed Amriany grumbled and headed for the door. “I will tell the others that we will be in the company of savages for a while longer,” he said. After that, his grumblings shifted into his own language.

“Don’t worry,” Sophie said as she led Paige to the door. “I’m sure Ira’s got something for you. Whenever Milosh or Nadya spoke of you to him, he wanted to know about your weapons. Now I see why.”

“Kind of like an old college friend of mine,” Paige said fondly. “Whenever I mentioned something I liked to Karen, she always remembered it. A little while later—or sometimes a lot later—she’d send a little gift that was always perfectly suited to whatever I’d mentioned.”

“She seems nice. Is she a Skinner?”

“No. She was living a normal life when I last saw her, but the way things have gone back home . . . I just hope she’s still alive.”

Obviously no stranger to the sadness that crept in on those last few words, Sophie steered her outside the cabin and then around its perimeter to the wide field behind it. “How much influence do you have with the nymphs?” she asked.

“A good amount, but we’ve been kind of pushing it lately. Things seem to be getting better, though. Why? Looking for some free trips? I’m sure they’ll bring us all back to America, but I should be able to get them to extend the courtesy to a few of you right away. Probably won’t be an all access pass, but one or two of you should be given a trial membership to the VIP rooms until they get used to you.”

“They know us well enough. At least, they know my people. The Amriany have bad history with the Dryad.”

“How bad?” Paige asked.

Sophie drew a long breath before replying, “Let’s just say it would not be a surprise if our first trip through their temple ended with us being sent into a bad place.”

“Like Iowa?”

“Like the bottom of an ocean.”

“Hmm,” Paige said slowly. “I guess that could be worse than Iowa. We may be able to put a good word in for you.”

“We do have something to offer them,” Sophie said as she and Paige walked toward the low ridge surrounding the clearing.

Now that she was closer, Paige could see that it was more rounded than what she’d originally assumed, and there wasn’t as much dirt on it as she’d guessed. The texture was part of the rock instead of something that had collected in uneven layers on it. Also, the rock was trembling. “Is that what you want to trade?” she asked. “Seems like the kind of messed-up crap the Dryads might be into.”

“No. That is the reason Ira works here. He used to find many Jekhibar wedged into this stone. He thinks it is a statue or idol left behind by the nymphs.” Sophie climbed over the ridge and headed toward a clearing Paige hadn’t noticed until she gotten closer to the trees. Then she noticed another ridge, only slightly higher than the first, was formed around it like a huge, loosely coiled rope that peeled away from the outermost ring to point toward the nearby clearing before gradually angling into the ground.

It took them a few minutes before they reached a spot where the ridge dropped off altogether into a series of cracks that ran so deep they couldn’t be filled by the dirt, leaves, and grit that had blown into it. At a spot where the ridge met the cracks, Paige crouched down to lay her hand upon a section that had been rubbed smooth. Wiping the glassy texture revealed something that made her pull her hand away. “Are those scales?” she asked.

Sophie paused just long enough to look over her shoulder. She drew the sword from its scabbard and held it in a loose grip at her side. “That is Chuna.”

“I thought we were supposed to talk to Chuna.”

“Sometimes it does talk,” Sophie said as her gaze drifted upward and into the trees. “This forest is usually full of snakes. They are scarce when it is colder, but usually there are still some around. And in the warmer months, Chuna’s real face can sometimes be seen.”

“Where did he go? Underground?”

The smirk on Sophie’s face showed that she was fully aware of the condescending tone Paige was trying to cover. “This is another Skinner weakness. You rely too heavily on what you can see and touch. Some legends are allowed to slip away.”

“Legends are full of too much BS. Paying too close attention to them keeps you from tackling things head-on. Maybe that’s an Amriany weakness.”

“Or perhaps another reason why our peoples should learn from each other. Chuna is one of two siblings, so the legend says. Our Chokesari have always worked close to this place, which is probably why the nymphs mentioned that name instead of Ira’s. The last Chokesari they knew by name was the great-great-grandfather of Ira’s cousin’s neighbor.”

“That explains that,” Paige said as she rested her hand on the trembling ridge that led directly into the earth. “What about the rest?”

“Chuna has always been here. The Jekhibar are fashioned from jewels that were supposed to be found beneath his skin. He is an ancient creature that commands the serpents. Or perhaps the serpents are part of him. Maybe only the serpents in this forest are part of him. As you say,” Sophie added with a shrug, “legends are not always accurate. It could very well be that this is just some thick, peculiar root that snakes like to use as a home. Whatever it is, it has always been called Chuna and we have never seen its twin brother or sister. I suppose a Skinner would have dug it up to see what it is.”

“And if there were a bunch of snakes in there,” Paige said as she cautiously stepped away from the ridge, “or one giant one, we might have gotten ourselves killed.”

“If we work together, Amriany and Skinners, it must be to make up for our weaknesses without overlooking our strengths.”

“Agreed. Now can we get the hell away from this thing? I don’t care what anyone calls it, it give me the creeps. Instincts like that are usually dead on.”

“Yes. That is true. What I need to show you is nearby.”

Paige followed her into the clearing and was greeted by a sight that was so beautiful it nearly overwhelmed her. The trees, grass, and sky were different than what she’d been looking at until now, making every other leaf or cloud seem a poorly made copy. The wind that had once been so sharp and cold now treaded softly through finely crafted branches, delicately brushing the thick green and brown carpet, nudging a few fallen seeds against a fragile ivory lattice that rose up from the earth. She moved forward because there simply wasn’t anywhere else she wanted to be. The moment her feet touched the soft ground surrounding the structure, Paige felt a tranquility that had abandoned her the moment she’d gazed into the hateful eyes of the creature that dragged her into the Skinners’ world over a decade ago. And yet, because she never would have visited this place outside of that world, she was glad to have endured every bit of pain required to bring her there.

“Is this,” Paige breathed as she closed her eyes and savored the fleeting touch of her fingers against a divinely curved archway that rose up to almost twice her height, “a Dryad temple?”

“How did you know?”

“I’ve been to enough of them.”

“But you can’t have been to one like this.”

“No,” Paige sighed. “Not like this. It’s more of a gut reaction. It just feels so much like them. There’s no getting around it.”

Sophie nodded slowly and mulled that over. Something about the way she looked at Paige made her seem jealous—either that she’d seen enough of that kind of beauty to recognize it, or that she had what it took to trust her instincts without question. “This may very well be the first Dryad temple. At least it is one of the first.”

“And you won’t let them use it?”

“We took it from them. This was long before either of us were born. Way back when there were no Skinners.” When she looked at the structure that seemed too delicate to stand upright, letting her eyes drift along the flowing Dryad script that had been written with a perfection to which no human hand could aspire, Sophie paused. She looked away as she said, “Our ancestors took this place from the Dryad, piece by piece, and brought it here. Perhaps they thought to try and figure out how to make it work for themselves.”

“Maybe they . . .” Even thinking about what she meant to say, Paige had to take her hand away from the smooth contours of the arch. “Maybe they wanted to hold it for ransom. Force the nymphs to help them.”

“The fact that we can even think of such things when in the presence of such beauty does not speak well of us. But yes, that could have been the case. We have maintained this place as best we could, but haven’t wanted to approach the nymphs because of our bad history.”

“And,” Paige said, “you thought that bringing it here and leaving it next to Chuna might charge it up enough for you to use it without anyone’s help.” Seeing the weary look on Sophie’s face, she let her off the hook by adding, “It’s something we might have done too. Are you willing to give this back to them, even if it means letting the Dryad so close to Chuna, Ira, and the setup you have here?”

“Yes. Keeping this has never been something I’ve been very proud of.”

“And you’ve got the pull to make that call?”

“The Amriany have many layers of leadership,” Sophie explained, “but I am high enough to make this decision. Nobody will be too surprised by it, and anyone who has a problem will be quiet when they see that we’re allowed to use the Dryad bridges just as the Skinners do. I trust you have the pull to make that happen?”

Chuckling at how strange it sounded for her to mimic slang that was obviously so unfamiliar, Paige told her, “Yes I do. Skinners don’t have any layers of leadership, but anyone who doesn’t like it can come to me so I can tell them personally to suck it.”

Now it was Sophie’s turn to laugh. “I think this will work out for all of us. Our peoples have been apart for too long. When do you think you can make the first arrangements?”

Paige dug into her pocket and checked her phone. Although she knew she wouldn’t be able to use it overseas, she looked up a number and committed it to memory. “How’s now sound?”

No phone could get much reception that close to Chuna and the ancient Dryad ruins, but Sophie loaned hers to Paige. As soon as she got some privacy, she dialed the number and was immediately connected to the Hub.

“Paige, is that you?” Tristan asked.

“Yeah, I’m using someone else’s phone. Is something wrong? You sound like you’ve been running.”

“Things are getting worse here. I know you said not to pay attention to what’s on the news, but they’re saying the entire East Coast may be overrun by Half Breeds within three days.”

“How did they come up with that figure?” Paige asked.

“I don’t know. The Army and Marines are fighting in Shreveport. It’s worse than ever. Are those the IRD soldiers you talked about?”

“Probably. How bad is it there?”

“People are getting evacuated,” Tristan said breathlessly. “So many are getting killed and even more are being turned that the reports don’t even mention numbers anymore. I’ve heard from someone named Frank. He says he’s a friend of Cole’s from Colorado.”

“Right. What did he say?”

“He just said that he can call for help in Louisiana but it might not be enough. Paige, the people on the news are saying there may be bombers flying down toward Shreveport. What does that mean?”

“It means the military is getting desperate.”

“How desperate?”

Lots of things sprang to mind when Paige thought about that question. Some of them involved too many soldiers dying for a lost cause, and others involved doomsday scenarios complete with mushroom clouds and large craters where cities used to be. She hoped she was just getting carried away, but she had been with Adderson for too long to write those things off completely. No matter what scenario was playing out, there was still only one thing to be done. “We need to get to Shreveport as quickly as possible. Remember what you did in Atoka? Can you send us directly into Shreveport without a temple on the other end?”

“I don’t have the energy to do it myself, but if you can get to the Hub, I should be able to get you into the city. After that you’ll have to get to a temple if you need to be taken out again.”

“Just get us there and we’ll do the rest.”

“Can you get to a temple right now?”

Paige looked in the direction of the forest where she and Sophie had their conversation. “Actually, I’ve got some pretty good news about that. What about the Memory Water?”

“I’ve collected more than enough to set one Full Blood back to how it was before the Breaking Moon, but I don’t know about the others.”

“Fine. Just have whatever you’ve got ready and we’ll pick it up when we see you.” After hanging up, Paige looked over to Sophie and asked, “Do you have any idea how the Full Bloods are changing so many humans into Half Breeds without biting them?”

“They must be tapping into the Torva’ox,” Sophie replied. “We’ve seen people forced into the Breaking who aren’t anywhere near a Full Blood.”

“How can that happen?”

Sophie let out a strained breath. “Chuna is the source of the Torva’ox, according to our legends, but any of the Mist Born may be able to bend it to their will. Are they still working with Ktseena?”

“If you mean, Kawosa, then yes,” Paige told her. “But we haven’t seen him for a while.”

“It could be possible that Ktseena charmed the Full Bloods. Gave them access to the Torva’ox. There are several legends where the Mist Born trickster gave someone great power in exchange for his soul. He nearly tore apart the Amriany by knowing exactly who to corrupt within our ranks several generations ago.”

“Skip the history lesson for now. We have a way to take the power away from Esteban, but it won’t do a lot of good unless we can take away power from some of those others.”

“What about poisoning the Torva’ox?” Cole asked as he approached the two women. Paige and Sophie both spun around to look at him, “The Full Bloods are all plugged into the Torva’ox,” he explained, “so if we can find a way to get what we need into there, it should be passed along to the others, right?”

“We get some of that crap too, you know,” Paige pointed out.

“But if it’s Memory Water, it’ll only help. Besides, we barely get a trickle compared to the shapeshifters.”

Paige couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so she looked over to Sophie. The Amriany nodded and said, “I have an idea.”

Minutes later they were back in the cabin. “Good,” Ira said as he held out a callused hand. “I need your weapons next.”

After he had Paige’s sickles and started hacking off the blades, Sophie explained the topic they’d been discussing.

“Sounds like you need a divining rod,” Ira said.

Paige said, “I need my weapons back before you— Hey!” she yelped as the curved blades of her sickles were snapped off and unceremoniously pitched aside.

“Building bridges, remember?” Cole said while grabbing her by the shoulders and holding her in place.

“Isn’t a divining rod used to find something?” Sophie asked.

“It is drawn to energy,” Ira said without paying attention to Paige’s seething glares. “Now that I have such a fine Jekhibar, which just so happens to be empty at the moment, I could build it into something that would draw Torva’ox in and maybe channel it.”

“Maybe?” Cole asked.

The smith ground his teeth together and flipped the handles to Paige’s weapons in the air. “You want to poison the Torva’ox just for Weshruuv, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Then poison one who is already dipping into Torva’ox . . .”

“Wait,” Paige snapped. “Dipping in?”

“Using it,” Ira said. “In it. Whatever. I know what I want to say, but there is no translation.”

“We know what you mean,” Cole said. “Go on.”

“Poison a Weshruuv who is dipping into Torva’ox, then draw the Torva’ox through him and into Jekhibar. Then, plug Jekhibar back into the Torva’ox.” Snapping his eyes back to Paige, he added, “However you want to say. You know what I mean?”

“I think so,” Paige replied.

“I can craft something to hold the Jekhibar and channel it into the Torva’ox,” Ira continued. “Once the power you draw from the Weshruuv is mixed in with the source, it should trickle down to the other Weshruuv that drink from it. If the first beast is poisoned, the others should be poisoned too. And since the poison came through a Weshruuv, it should only effect Weshruuv.”

“Are you sure about all of that?”

Ira puffed out his chest in response to Cole’s question and said, “Of course I am! I am Chokesari! This is what I know!”

Sophie nodded and patted the burly man on the shoulder. “He is the only one in this country who can make that claim.”

“I can craft something to hold Jekhibar and channel the Torva’ox for you, and it should be easy,” Ira said. “The tricky part will be to draw out the Torva’ox from a Weshruuv instead of a pure source. You would have to do more than stab the Weshruuv. You would have to get the weapon to soak up his . . .”

“To bond with him?” Cole asked.

“Yes. Can you accomplish this?”

Cole stooped down to pick up a portion of his spear that had been chopped off. Most of it was coated in the metallic varnish, but an inch or so of the original wood could be seen. “We’re Skinners. That’s what we know.”

A few hours later Paige was standing outside Ira’s cabin with her arms folded and her eyes focused on the trees beyond the ridge. Light had pulsed from there ever since Tristan arrived. When the Dryad stepped through the arch and saw the temple, she dropped to her knees and wept.

Now, Cole asked, “What is she doing?”

Without turning to look at him, Paige replied, “There are other nymphs there now. They’re all performing some sort of ritual to connect that temple with the others.”

“Are they singing?”

She closed her eyes and felt herself drifting off into something between a waking dream and a light, much-needed nap. “Yeah.”

Cole’s arm settled around her shoulders and drew her close. “It’s incredible.”

They stood in the freezing night air to listen to the song of joyful nymphs dancing in the Slovakian forest. Of all the things he’d experienced since becoming a Skinner, this was one of the strangest and most sublime. And like most of life’s greatest moments, it was over much too soon.

“I am finished,” Ira said as he stormed around the cabin to approach them.

Straightening up and forcing the stupid grin off his face, Cole turned to ask, “Sure you couldn’t charm a few rounds of ammunition for us?”

“How many times do I have to tell you? There are no silver bullets! That is Hollywood movie bullshit. There is not enough room to write the proper engravings on a bullet, so stop asking. I do have these for you, though.”

Cole took the weapons the blacksmith offered and handed two of them over to Paige. Ira’s slap on the shoulder was almost hard enough to send him staggering to the ground. He laughed heartily and spoke to the Amriany who had come around the cabin with their weapons.

“Not looking to go back on our truce already, are you?” Paige asked.

“No,” Milosh said. “Me, George, and Nadya are coming with you.”

“We can use the help, but it’s gonna be rough,” Cole warned.

“I know that. It’s all over the news. We were with you in Atoka, so we will be there for this as well.” And before anyone might think the Amriany was getting overly sentimental, Milosh added, “If we leave it to you, the Weshruuv will spread to our country after cleaning out yours.”

“Fair enough.”

“But one of you must stay behind.”

Cole felt the hairs on his arms stand up when he heard that. “We never agreed to that.”

“No,” Sophie said, “but it is a necessity. I’ve brought up our arrangement to the rest of the Amriany leadership and they refuse for us to part with so much just so you can go back to America.”

“You don’t think we’ll return?” Cole asked.

“I do,” Sophie replied. “They don’t. They ask for a representative to stay behind.”

“You mean a hostage,” Paige snapped. “Screw that.”

“No,” Waggoner said as he approached the group. He’d been so silent until now that Cole had almost forgotten about him. The expression on Waggoner’s face was surprisingly calm when he said, “It makes sense. I’ll stay behind.”

“I don’t know when we’ll be back,” Paige warned.

Waggoner shook his head. “I know you’ll come back. Besides, I don’t think these folks will hurt me. I wanna fight, but whatever you’re headed into right now . . . I know it ain’t a place for someone who’s still learnin’ the ropes.”

Nodding, Sophie said, “This will be acceptable. We can even show him how things are done here as a way to start forging our alliance.”

“Just keep him safe for now,” Paige said. “You sure you’re all right with this, John?”

“Yeah. I still feel bad for signing up with Jessup for the short time I did. This’ll go a ways in proving I intend on being more than an overblown hunter.”

When Paige looked over to him, Cole said, “Seems like the way it’s gotta be. I sure as hell won’t be staying behind.”

The group walked to the clearing, checking their gear, weapons, and ammunition along the way. Before they could see the Dryad temple, melodious voices drifted through the night air. When they caught sight of the delicate structures, and a soft, green glow, the winter chill evaporated. Cole didn’t feel warm or cold when he stepped into the clearing. There was only comfort and peace within the circle of tall, wispy grass that had sprouted since the temple was reclaimed. In that short time the grass had grown tall enough to brush against his waist.

Marissa and Lexi stood swaying on either side of the arch as Tristan knelt before it with both arms raised. They were all naked and their hair flowed around them without a breeze to push it. When Tristan stood and turned to face them, it looked as if she’d just arisen from a lake of the purest water earth had ever known. Her skin shimmered and her nipples stood erect. When she spoke, her voice was carried by the air to slip enticingly into each human’s ear. “I can see where you wish to go.” Her eyes, without pupils, were a solid, jade green. “I can send you there, but not all at once. This temple is fragile and not fully entwined with the others. I can use the Hub as a Skipping Temple to send you straight into Shreveport, but I can’t guarantee both groups would land in the same spot.”

“We’ll just have to take our chances,” Paige said.

The symbols on the arch began to shine, and when they grew bright enough to cast shadows in every direction, a rippling, translucent wave toppled from the apex and came down like a ghostly version of the beads that hung from the entrance of the Dryad bridges Cole had seen before. He steeled himself before stepping through, but knew there was no way to prepare for what awaited him on the other side.