“Put these in,” Rico said. “Both of you.”
“What is it?” Waggoner asked.
Taking the bottle and sniffing the top, Cole tipped his head back so he could put a couple drops in each eye. “It lets you see scents,” he said. “You can also see certain kinds of energy patterns like whatever flows through the Skinner runes.” Handing the bottle over to Waggoner, he asked, “What does flow through those runes, Rico?”
The big man shrugged. “Long as they work, I don’t give a crap.”
Waggoner sighed in a way that reflected his uncertainty at putting his eyesight in the hands of men who barely seemed able to keep themselves from getting killed. Cole knew as much because he’d let out the same sigh plenty of times. Already in too deep as it was, Waggoner put the drops in his eyes and immediately dropped the bottle. “It burns. Shit, it burns. Wash it out!”
“Keep yer voice down,” Rico snarled.
Cole was a little more supportive. “It’s supposed to burn. Just let it soak in.” Grabbing Waggoner’s sleeve, he pulled him away from the street even though there hadn’t been a hint of a car since they stepped out of the Vigilant’s building. “And do it over here so the cameras don’t see.”
“You’re worried about the goddamn cameras?” Waggoner asked. “I could be going blind and you . . . oh wait. It’s feeling a little better.”
“When it gets cold, open your eyes.”
After a few more seconds Waggoner opened his eyes.
Rico was in the process of blinking in the drops he’d just applied as he pocketed the bottle. “All right,” he said. “We need to walk back into that bar and order a drink.”
“Doesn’t Jessup have that place wired?” Cole asked.
“Yeah, and I’m supposed to be on patrol right now. Most of the times, patrol winds up at that bar. Come on.” As they walked back to the Spring Street Bar and Grill, Rico wiped at his eye and told Waggoner, “If anyone realizes that rock is missing, I’m blaming it on you.”
“Go right ahead. You think I didn’t work out a few stories to tell if I was caught with it?”
Rico’s eyebrows waggled upward and he nudged Cole. “This one might work out after all.” He knocked on the bar door and said, “Step inside and try not to make a big deal about all the pretty colors you’ll see.”
When the door to the bar was opened, they were greeted with plenty of colors. First, there was the matted black of the shotgun leveled at them by the doorman. Since they weren’t Half Breeds or showing any Nymar markings when they were forced to uncover their necks and wrists, they were allowed inside. On the walls, there were bright red and blue beer signs, pink neon advertising a brand of rum, flashing spectrums thrown from video games and a pinball machine, and of course the sparkling yellow and greens of an old jukebox. More than that, Cole saw something he’d never seen before.
When he used the eye drops on previous occasions, he’d seen green wisps coming from Dryad symbols, dark smoky reds from Nymar, and even a disturbing black from Skinners themselves. What he hadn’t seen was the light blue curls of vaguely glowing smoke seeping from the people gathered there. The color streamed off everyone in the bar, swirling about them as they moved and entwining when one person’s path crossed another.
“Holy crap,” Waggoner said. “This stuff is really messing with me.”
“Me too,” Cole said. “What’s with the blue?”
“That,” Rico told him, “comes off of everyone who’s not tainted by anything.” With a grin, he added, “At least nothing that isn’t for sale in a place like this. From what I’ve seen, it comes off of yer run-of-the-mill human.”
“When did this start?” Cole asked.
“Can’t say for certain since I don’t put this shit in my eyes all the time, but I’d say right about the time of the Breaking Moon.”
As he spoke, Cole noticed all of the blue wisps in the room were working their way in one direction. His direction. They converged on him like ghostly fingers that just realized there was some sort of treat in his pocket.
“You think that’s weird,” Rico said. “Get a load of this.” He removed the Jekhibar from his pocket, held it in his hand and let it rest on his palm.
There wasn’t much of a change at first, but the blue wisps subtly shifted their direction until they were drifting toward Rico. Upon reaching his outstretched hand, they circled it and brushed against the Jekhibar before pressing into the rough, silvery surface.
“Just wait,” Rico said before Cole could ask the question that had popped into his mind.
In a matter of seconds the ghostly smoke emanating from the bodies in that room poured out of them even faster and blended to form a singular current that swept through the room. Although it was still disrupted by the constant motion of the bar’s patrons, the glowing haze took on a brighter hue as it flowed into the stone sitting on Rico’s palm.
“It’s coming from the ground,” Waggoner said.
Cole tore his eyes from the sight of the shimmering fog and looked down. Although he couldn’t see a definite source, the flow of the ghostly substance moved in such a way that a pattern emerged. It was indeed emanating from the people, but also rushed up from the floor, passing through boards and tile as if they were nothing but a screen. It all went directly to the Jekhibar.
“What is that thing?” Waggoner asked while looking to the lump of silver in Rico’s hand.
“Whatever the power was that the Full Bloods were after when they took Atoka,” he explained, “it’s drawn to this rock. It’s also drawn to the Full Bloods. What we didn’t know before was that it’s also drawn to us. I’ve done a bit of snooping around and I can tell you it ain’t drawn to Nymar. And ever since the Breaking Moon, it’s been flowing like a damn river.”
Their conversation was interrupted as the stringy woman behind the bar leaned over and asked, “You guys drinkin’ or what?”
“One for the road,” Rico said. “For each of us.”
The bartender reached under the bar and came back up with three matching bottles of cheap domestic, which she opened. “That’ll be nine seventy-five.”
“Pay her, new guy,” Rico grunted as he took a beer for himself.
Since it wasn’t light beer, Cole took one and told Waggoner, “I used to be the new guy, so now it’s your turn.”
“Last time I do a favor for you assholes,” Waggoner muttered as he fished out a ten and handed it over. The other two were already headed out the door, so he didn’t get a chance to hear the skinny woman unenthusiastically thank him for the pathetic tip before he was outside with them.
“Here’s the good part,” Rico said as he led the way down the street in the direction of the house marked by the bitten satellite dish. He turned and faced the bar again, having already put the Jekhibar back into its box. “As near as we can figure, that blue energy is the Torva’ox or whatever Paige was talking about back in Oklahoma. It’s been surging ever since the Breaking Moon.”
“Kind of like when you siphon gas from a truck?” Waggoner asked.
“Yeah. Something like that.” Shifting his focus back to Cole, Rico said, “Jessup may look like the leader of the pack around here, but that’s just because he’s got seniority. He ain’t the one calling all the shots and he ain’t the asshole you think he is.”