Liam covered the first few miles in a loping run. Every time a front paw touched down, the corner of his mouth curled into a pained grimace. His chest remained low while his thick rear legs pushed him forward and his front paws swatted at the ground to keep him going. Whenever he collected enough strength, he launched into a jump that allowed him to move at twice the speed.
By the time he reached Kansas City, his wound had stopped bleeding. Scampering into an alley, he shifted into human form just long enough for his body to shed most of its wounds the way it would expel any other waste. The broken tooth remained wedged between his ribs, even after changing back into his four-legged frame. The pain that accompanied every wheezing breath wasn’t enough to mar the night ahead.
The moon hanging above him was slightly more than halfway full, a natural beacon drawing his eye straight through the garish glow of electric illumination surrounding the city. He ran from the alley and tore straight down the middle of a street, snapping at cars as they honked and swerved out of his way. Henry would have enjoyed himself on this night, but that one was nowhere to be found. The other Full Blood’s trail seemed to lead everywhere at once. Liam hadn’t smelled anything like the traces that mingled with Henry’s scent and he wasn’t going to waste time trying to figure them out now.
Randolph’s scent was stronger, which meant his old friend was nearby. Bounding off the street to land on the hood of a pickup truck, Liam barked gleefully as the truck’s windshield shattered and its driver fought to regain control before swerving into a streetlight. If Randolph was watching, Liam knew he would be throwing a fit.
Running from the street to the sidewalk, he sped up when he caught sight of a group of humans gathered around the front of a building that thumped with an obnoxious, pounding rhythm. When he clambered over a cluster of cars, he made sure to scrape his claws against the painted metal and shatter as much glass as possible along the way. All those people looked at him. Some screamed. Some fled. Some poked at their little phones and called for help. Some even pointed their devices at him and took his picture.
So many years of so-called progress, and the humans could only come up with more machines to play with. Liam scattered them like pheasants being flushed from a bush. He nipped at some of their legs, ripping a few tendons and sending weaker members of the herd to the pavement. Unfortunately, he couldn’t indulge in any more than that. He ran down the next street that caught his eye and trampled anything or anyone in his path. Sometimes he chose a new path just so he could trample some more.
Running free through a place that his kind had avoided for so long was akin to walking straight up to someone else’s woman, lifting her skirts, and bending her over the closest piece of furniture. It didn’t matter what that woman looked like, if she was kind, sweet, or even tolerable. She, like this city, was not to be touched. Liam spread his paws out wide, touching the city as much as possible with every single step. He wanted to get to higher ground. There were plenty of fire escapes to climb and ledges to grip, but those were the proper ways. For he and every shapeshifter within the sound of his voice, this was not a night for propriety.
The building he chose was in a part of the city all but deserted after business hours. Weathered stone cracked beneath his claws and thick glass cracked too as he scraped and tore at the side of the structure to create his own foot-holds. While he climbed, Liam shifted into his upright form. His limbs stretched out and the mass that clumped around his chest and shoulders flowed down to more evenly cover his growing torso. Every time he passed a window, his reflection was different. He completed his change a quarter of the way up, so he was able to cover more distance with higher jumps.
Once he was atop the building, Liam paced between the ventilation and air-conditioning units, savoring the cool touch of night air upon his face. He turned toward the ledge and raced to the brink of a long drop to the pavement, but stopped himself by digging his claws into the roof. Gripping the ledge with both hands, he gazed down upon the city. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth as he watched the growing number of flashing lights and cars racing below like fireflies trapped beneath a glass table.
He could smell the Skinners drawing closer.
Some of the Half Breeds were strong enough to poke their noses from their dens, but most were probably content to sleep. Randolph might have found some of the wretches, but he couldn’t have found them all.
Liam’s heartbeat quickened and his breath poured from his mouth like steam from an engine. Leveling his gaze to a point in the distance had something of a calming effect. Things were clearer when he only looked straight ahead. The Full Blood closed his eyes, pulled in one more breath, and sifted through the thousands of scents every passing breeze carried upon its wide back.
There were dozens of reasons to hate humans and plenty of lessons his own kind needed to be taught. At that moment, however, Liam felt no need to justify his actions other than it was a hell of a night for a siege.
He held on to the breath he’d taken, raised his nose to the heavens and howled.
Where any other sound would have died off or been carried away, this one continued on. Where any other creature would have run out of breath, Liam pushed his howl out further and further until it reached every last ear for which it was intended.
The howl was a great and terrible thing.
In comparison, the other howls that rose up in response to it were frayed and ragged. When the creatures answering the Full Blood’s call could howl no more, they scampered from their dens in savage, barking stampedes.
Liam allowed his voice to taper off so he could listen to the Half Breeds’ desperate replies. They were hungry, eager, and still in pain from their first transformation.
They were perfect.
Now that the wretches had been coaxed from their pits, the dead would pile up and the wounded would replenish the Half Breeds that had fallen, until every street became a butcher’s killing floor. Perhaps some of them would run to another town or tear through another city. Skinners would fall until the most powerful among them would finally be flushed out of hiding.
Liam could barely contain himself.
The blood in Cole’s arms hadn’t stopped burning since Liam left the hotel. It took less than an hour to reach downtown Kansas City, where his early warning pains flared up all over again. Looking over to Paige, he asked, “Do you feel that?”
They’d stopped along a quiet street with an all-night diner on the corner. Paige had allowed Daniels to examine her arm during most of the drive, but pulled away from him now. “Yep,” she replied. “Daniels, you stay put. Have some coffee or something and we’ll call you when we’re ready to get you.”
“Mind if I track down something a bit more to my tastes?” the Nymar asked as he reflexively curled his lips back to show the set of feeding fangs that drooped lazily from his gums.
“You know the rules.”
“Sure I do,” Daniels assured her. “The maid at the hotel even came back a few times while you were gone because she—”
“Don’t need the details,” Paige cut in. “Just get what you need and don’t be messy about it. If you don’t hear back from us, find your way back to Chicago and call that number I gave you to tell them we’re gone.”
“Miss Sunshine means we’ll pick you up when we’re through cleanin’ up this town,” Cole said in a drawl that would have offended any true cowboy. “I’ll leave you with something you can use in case you get in trouble. That shotgun’s still in the trunk, right, Paige?”
She nodded, told him to hurry, and got out so she could circle around to take her seat behind the steering wheel.
Once Cole had dragged Daniels around to the back of the car and opened the trunk, he asked, “Is Paige really all right?”
“That ink didn’t work like she thought it would, but I told her we needed more tests. It’s not my fault!”
“I just wanna know if she’s all right.”
Although Daniels was clearly rattled, he forced himself to reply, “She’s in pain, but seems to be handling it. The muscles in that arm are thicker, but appear to be hardening as well. While the shapeshifting properties are present, the ink has also bonded the metallic elements to her living tissue more than I thought it would.”
“So…her arm’s turning into metal?”
“No, nothing so dramatic. I need to test some tissue samples, but I know she’s losing feeling in that arm and is having trouble moving it. There may be other effects, but I can’t just guess as to what they may be.”
Having seen Paige’s trouble in getting her weapon to change shape, Cole already knew of one more effect. That didn’t need to be spread around, though. “Is she in any immediate danger?”
“She didn’t use that much ink, and while the effects don’t seem to be going away, they’re not spreading either.”
“I don’t have a lot of time here,” Cole pressed. “She won’t tell me anything until this is over except that she’s fine. Is she or isn’t she?”
“There could be prolonged, possibly permanent damage to those muscle groups, but there really isn’t anything I can do for her at the moment.”
“And if she was poisoned, she would have died already,” Cole said. “Right?”
Daniels winced and started to shrug. “Not…necessarily.”
Slamming the trunk shut, Cole walked around the back of the car toward the passenger side. “Thanks. Big help. Go get somebody to drink.”
“Hey! What about my shotgun? I still need to protect myself, you know.”
“You think I’m really giving you my shotgun? Are you nuts? You’re a vampire. If something comes close, flash them the fangs.”
Daniels had a few choice words for that, but Cole didn’t listen. The Nymar was still gesturing after Cole was in the car and being driven away.
“What’s that about?” she asked.
Cole looked in the side mirror and waved at Daniels. “Looks like he’s wishing us luck. He wouldn’t take the shotgun. Real noble guy.”
“Sure. Whatever.” She drove slowly for a few seconds, which was all the time she needed to spot the cop cars racing down an adjacent street.
Cole watched carefully as she gripped the wheel in her left hand and allowed her right to lie across her lap. She seemed able to move a little better than a few minutes ago, but continued to flex her fingers as if they’d been asleep. The tattooed lines had faded to a few traces, and the muscles beneath the incisions were losing the gray hue they’d had earlier that night. “So,” he said, “was all that worth losing the Blood Blade?”
Paige ground her teeth and snarled, “Ask me later.”
“What’s the plan now? Just follow the cops?”
She sucked in a breath and seemed ready to clam up for good. When she exhaled, it was more of a reluctant sigh. Judging by the look on her face, the pain she felt cut deeper than any set of claws. “We took a gamble on a lot of things lately. I should have known better about this one.”
“We were caught by surprise, Paige. There’s no shame in admitting it. We’re doing all we can. It’s not like there are policies for werewolves tearing through an entire city.” He paused and then asked, “Skinners don’t have a policy for this, do they?”
“No,” she said with a tired laugh. “But if we get ripped apart on some video that winds up on the Internet, at least other Skinners will know what not to do.”
Cole shifted in his seat and looked out his window. The squat buildings on the outer edges of the city had given way to the thicker and taller ones of the downtown area. Depending on where he looked at any given moment, Kansas City either seemed alive and kicking or dead and buried. Streetlights were on, but most businesses were closed. Offices were empty, while bars and clubs were still attracting crowds. Cops swarmed in packs, leaving empty pavement in their wake. People gathered on some corners, leaving others alone. Sometimes there was a giant rat running alongside the car and sometimes there wasn’t.
“Wait, whoa!” he yelped as he grabbed onto the door frame with both hands.
“What is it?”
Of course, now that he was looking for it, the creature he’d spotted wasn’t there. “I saw something, but I’m not sure what.” Cole kept his eyes on the pavement flowing past his side of the car until the creature came into view again. Its body might have had the mass of a Half Breed, but was stretched out to something much longer and lankier. It ran like a ferret, with its body rippling from front to back in a constant wave. When it looked up at his passenger-side window, the creature knocked the side of its head against the door to make a sound that he realized he’d been hearing in the background for the last few blocks.
“Pull over, Paige.” As soon as those words were out of his mouth, Cole quickly added, “But not to the right!”
“I’m not pulling over. We’re too close and I don’t wanna lose sight of these cops.”
The burning under Cole’s skin grew with every second. Rather than argue with her, he rolled his window down and stuck his head out. The creature outside kept up with the car as if it had barely found its stride. Its beak was even with the front tire of the Cav, and its thick, segmented tail stuck out straight behind its body to a spot well past the rear bumper. The last time Cole had seen the face that now looked up at him, it was poking halfway out from a dirt wall.
“What took you guys so long?” Ben asked. When he glanced back and forth between Cole and the road ahead of him, flaps on either side of the Mongrel’s neck became visible. Every breath he took caused the flaps to open and shut like a set of gills.
“You guys beat us here?” Cole asked.
“By quite a while, unless you’ve been laying low!”
“Who the hell are you talking to?” Paige asked.
“One of the diggers from MEG’s backyard.” It wasn’t exactly an accurate description, but was enough to get his point across.
Paige nodded and asked, “Is he alone?”
“I hope not.” Leaning outside, Cole asked, “You bring anyone else with you?”
Ben spoke as if he was walking briskly next to Cole instead of keeping pace with a speeding car. “We’re all here. Kayla wanted to hang back and make sure you two were going to get your hands dirty. Seeing you charge into the thick of it like this is enough for me.”
“Do you know what we’re charging into?”
Ben hopped over a pothole and then darted to one side while lowering his head to scramble beneath the car Paige was passing. He emerged from under the other vehicle’s front bumper and fell into step where he’d been before. “You mean you don’t know what’s up there? I hate to admit it, but I admire you Skinners. Just crazy enough to get the job done.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“There’s a Full Blood perched on a building a few blocks ahead,” Ben reported. “He started howling, and Half Breeds sprouted up all over town. From what we could see, they all seem to be heading in this direction.”
“Then we might as well meet them there!” Paige shouted.
“We’ll do our part, Skinner,” Ben said in a surprisingly calm tone. “When this is over, be sure to hold up your end. This city is ours.”
“I remember the deal!” she shouted. “But if we don’t stop chatting, we’ll both lose a whole lot more than this city!”
Ben nodded, lowered his head, and ran in earnest. Seeing him pull in front of the Cav and tear down the street, Cole didn’t have any trouble believing the Mongrels had gotten all the way to Kansas City from Omaha in record time.
Paige sped down East Eleventh Street but was forced to slow down due to the growing amount of police traffic clogging the road. Some uniforms were posted to divert the night owl civilians, and others jumped out of their cars to get a look at a tall building a bit farther down the block. Cole’s window was still open, so he could hear the deep, rumbling howl that shook the particles in the air. Until now he’d thought that sound was just a mix of sirens, engines, and music blasting from a club somewhere. As more howls joined in, he reflexively reached for the glove compartment.
Several police cars were parked around a single fire engine that had pulled up to a spot where two civilian cars had crashed into each other. Although he couldn’t see details amid the flashing lights and four-legged creatures darting from one live body to another, Cole spotted plenty of figures sprawled in pools of gore. At least a few of those figures were still in one piece.
“What do we do about all these cops?” he asked as he checked the .44.
“I don’t think they’ll object to a little help with these things. They may have enough guns to take down a few of the Half Breeds, but we’ll have to take the rest.”
“And what about the Full Blood?”
Paige slammed her foot against the brake hard enough to make Cole kiss the dashboard. A couple police officers held their ground in the street and waved at her to turn around and clear the area. They walked toward the Cav but didn’t even make it to Paige’s window before being taken down by a pair of Half Breeds. Bones snapped loudly enough for Cole to hear them as one of the cops was knocked off his feet. The other officer near the Cav was bitten at waist level and pulled down like an unsuspecting gazelle in a nature documentary. She pulled her gun but was overpowered by the gangly werewolf.
Cole kicked open his door and jumped outside as his hands tightened around the thorns set into his weapon’s handle. The pain barely registered, and the blood trickling from his palms felt warm and comforting. When he jabbed the end of his spear into the closest Half Breed’s side, it nearly tore straight through the creature. He attempted to lift the thing up and off the female cop but wasn’t able to divert it from its meal. The attempt did cause the werewolf to lift its head and twist it 180 degrees around, to urgently gnaw upon the spear.
Cole pushed the Half Breed down against the pavement so the cop could drag herself away. The creature flopped and contorted to try and get at him. Its teeth were bared in a gruesome display, and bony claws tore at the pavement until a gunshot cracked through the air. The Half Breed’s head snapped to one side and then twisted back around to face the cop. Cole twisted his spear within it, holding it down just long enough for the cop to empty the rest of her rounds into its body. The creature let out one last grunt before dying. Before the cop could say a word, she and Cole spotted more werewolves attacking another group of officers.
Paige had freed the female cop’s partner by sticking a curved sickle blade behind the creature’s shoulders like a meat hook. As she pulled it closer, she drove her other weapon down through its back. Her right arm wasn’t moving quickly, but she was able to drop that weapon straight down and impale the Half Breed through its spine with enough force for the end of the machete to crack against pavement. Just to be sure, she pulled her sickle blade free and drove it an inch or two through the top of the creature’s skull.
The cop watched Paige with wide, disbelieving eyes. Suddenly, he pulled his trigger again and again. Paige jumped, but quickly realized he was firing at a Half Breed running toward them. Unfortunately, the creature didn’t seem too distracted by the bullets chipping away at its chest and body. The moment it got close enough, Paige swung her right weapon straight across, connecting with the creature’s jaw and lifting the front half of its body off the ground.
Trembling as he reloaded, the cop asked, “What the fuck are these things? Who the fuck are you?”
All Paige said to that was, “Behind you.”
The cop was reluctant to take his eyes off her, but turned around when he heard the sound of claws raking against the cement. Then he added to a chorus of gunfire that dropped one of the smaller creatures charging a police cruiser. When the cop turned around again, Paige had moved on to fight somewhere else.
A few yards down the street, Cole pinned another Half Breed to the pavement. The wretch clawed at the cement, tearing up chunks of concrete while snapping at both him and the female officer he’d already saved. She’d taken a bad bite to the hip but was able to stay upright thanks to another policeman who’d come to lend her some support. The creature’s head twisted around to angles that should have killed any living creature. Since the Half Breed didn’t have a bone that wasn’t already broken, it frantically knotted itself up until enough of the cops’ bullets hit something vital.
But even after it stopped moving, Cole was reluctant to pull the spear loose. When he noticed that there were only three gaping wounds, despite all the shots that had hit, he braced his foot on the creature and freed his weapon. “Nice grouping,” he said to the closest officer.
The policeman, sweaty, scraped up, and shell-shocked, muttered, “Wh-What the hell?”
Cole looked over to Paige just as she swatted at one creature with her left hand and then knocked it into oblivion with her right. When he looked back again, the flummoxed cop had disappeared in a blood-soaked flurry of teeth and claws. From then on, none of the remaining cops were about to stop shooting long enough to ask the Skinners another question.
More Half Breeds raced in from all angles. They knocked over mailboxes and scrambled over patrol cars in their haste to get to the buffet of fresh meat. Some were sent tumbling due to gunfire from the officers on the scene, while others darted around to flank the shooters from a different angle. Every last one of the creatures howled and barked with enough unfocused energy to rend their throats in the same way their claws tore up their prey.
Cole waded through the Half Breeds to help as many cops as he could. One creature dragged a screaming man toward a police cruiser, so he aimed his .44 in that direction. Before he could fire a shot, however, another pair of creatures reached out from beneath the car to grab the Half Breed’s legs. Even with that quick glance, Cole recognized the curved claws and shorter legs of burrowing Mongrels.
At first the Half Breed twisted around to snarl at whatever was interrupting its feast. The surprise it felt when it saw what had snagged it by the hindquarters was enough to show up on even its mangled face. The werewolf barked frantically before yelping in pain as the Mongrels dragged it under the car.
“Can you walk?” Cole asked as he helped the surprised cop back up.
The officer winced, but nodded. “It pulled me a ways, but I can keep going.”
Suddenly, the gunfire rose to a frantic level. Cops screamed at each other and through their radios as stray rounds shattered glass and tore into one of the nearby buildings. More specifically, they fired at the hulking Full Blood that had sunk its claws into the building and was climbing down. Once the coal-black monster made it to the twelfth floor, he pushed away from the structure and dropped into the chaos he’d started.