Cole took a moment to think about the choices in front of him. On one hand, there was the very real possibility that Paige was a lunatic who carried a weapon everywhere she went. On the other hand, there were other things out there that were a whole lot worse than guns.
“If you need to think it over…” Paige offered.
“No,” he replied. “I’ve already done stuff that I never thought I’d be doing without using a controller or watching it on a monitor. These things know about me. They’ve got my scent. I’m on their radar. However you want to say it, I don’t like the thought of running or hiding for the rest of my life. If I’m gonna give skinning a try, I’d like to stick with you.”
“You’re sure?” Paige asked. “Once I take you past a certain point, there really is no turning back. These things gossip and chatter worse than a group of old ladies at a bake sale. If you leave now, I might be able to help you stay hidden, and they’ll probably lose interest in a while. If you’re seen with me or others like me much longer, you’ll be tagged as one of us and nobody will believe any different.”
“I kind of figured as much. This isn’t exactly what I imagined I’d do with my life, but I got to admit…it’s pretty cool.”
Paige grinned. “I was hoping you’d see it that way.”
The gym bag hit Cole square in the chest like a kick from a mule.
“Put that in the car while I get a few more things,” she said. “Then you need to show me the hotel room where you were attacked.”
“That’s okay. There’s not much of anything left in there.”
“Very wrong, young one,” Paige said as she took on the tone of a kung fu master from a late night movie. “Your opponent leaves more than words in her wake.”
“Huh?”
“Just get moving!”
Chapter 13
It took a few trips back and forth from the car and the restaurant to get all of Paige’s things loaded up and ready to go. Apart from the gym bag, there were pots and pans, some funky cooking utensils, and some black plastic cases that just looked like bad news. Before Cole could ask what was in them, Paige started the car and revved the engine as if she was going to fly away from there without him. He barely managed to get into the car with all his limbs intact.
“You said you were at the Afton Inn, right?” she asked.
“That’s the place. Are there guns in some of those cases?”
“A few.”
Cole let it drop at that.
The sun was out in full force, but didn’t shine down with enough heat to burn through the early morning chill. Considering it was autumn in Chicago, that situation wasn’t bound to get much better. Morning rush hour was growing into a living, sprawling behemoth, so Cole let Paige drive without any more distractions. Before too long he was busy hanging onto whatever he could as she wove between other vehicles without the fear of a mortal being. Doing his best to let go of his love for life, he tried to focus on something more relaxing…like the plane ride into Canada.
He still hadn’t drawn a full breath by the time they’d parked at the Afton Inn and headed upstairs to the second floor. Normally, the cool, sterilized air of a vaguely nice hotel was enough to soothe his nerves. Places like that smelled like vacations or, at the very least, business trips where marginal food was put on the company’s bill. This time, even the faint odor of chlorine didn’t make him smile. Instead of thinking about whirlpools and saunas, he could only think about hissing blondes with sharp claws and greasy fur.
“Which room is yours?” Paige asked.
Cole pulled in a breath and dug the key card from his pocket. Walking to his door, he paused and asked, “What if it’s in there?”
“You think that thing attacked you so it could use your room?”
“No…but…what if another one came back? I don’t have a weapon.”
“Wait right here,” Paige said. “I think I saw a luggage rack by the elevator.”
Plugging his key card into the reader on the door, Cole grumbled, “Smartass.”
When the light on the card reader turned green, he turned the knob and opened the door. Before he could take a step inside, however, Paige walked past him and surveyed the room.
“You made a real mess in here,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“That thing came in through the window?”
Cole walked into the bathroom, flicked on the light and gathered up some of the things he’d left in there. “Yep. In through the window, onto the bed, and back to the window.”
“I’ve heard of worse ways to spend a night,” Paige said as she ran her hand along the carpet in front of the TV. She rubbed her fingers together and shook her head. The expression on her face brightened considerably when she saw the window, mostly shut against its splintered frame. “You said it came and left through here?”
“I said it twice. Jesus, my credit card’s gonna take a hit for this damage.”
Running her hand along the window, Paige grinned as if she’d just looked under the bed to find a wad of cash the previous guests had left behind. “Bring me a towel, Cole. There’s some good stuff here.”
He grabbed a handful of towels from the segmented steel rack above the toilet and brought them out to her. “What sort of good stuff are you talking about?”
“How about this?” Paige asked as she brought her hand around for him to see. At first glance it seemed there was nothing but waves of heat coming up from her sleeve. With a flip of her wrist, the back of her hand became visible. She repeated the trick by flipping her hand around a few more times. Now you see it, now you don’t.
“Wow,” he whispered. “That’s cool.” After squinting and adjusting his eyes a bit, he could make out the vague shape of Paige’s hand when she twisted it around again.
Grabbing one of the smaller towels Cole had brought her, she wiped off her hand and examined it to make sure all her fingers were visible and accounted for. “Now I know why Gerald was willing to go all the way to Canada to meet this Mongrel. I bet he intended on getting some of this invisible stuff after Brad was done talking to her.”
“He never told you for certain?”
“He mentioned her a few times when he was arranging for me to come to Chicago,” she said while holding up her hand to display a finger that had a hazy, mostly invisible tip, “but he hadn’t been able to track her too well. Gerald said she could secrete some sort of oil to coat her fur so she could…I don’t know how to explain it…”
“Bend light?”
Paige nodded as if Cole had guessed the number she’d been thinking of. “More or less. You got that from a movie, right?”
“About a hundred of them, and a dozen or so video games,” Cole added. “I was going to steal that one for one of my own.”
“Real original.”
“Thanks.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “Gerald told me this Mongrel was a hell of a spy thanks to this trick with disappearing or bending light or whatever. She claimed to have some information, but Gerald didn’t trust her.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s a hell of a spy and he couldn’t track her. Let’s just say she was lucky Brad was so new at all this or she wouldn’t have made it out of Chicago. Gerald was traditional and it’s not Skinner tradition to sit down and chat with shapeshifters. The only reason Gerald agreed to the meeting at all was because the Mongrel had escaped and it was the only way to pick up her trail again. This stuff goes a long way to recoup some of our losses. We’ll have to do a little fiddling, but there’s going to be plenty of uses for this.”
“Fiddling. Real technical term, there. Do you think…she might have had anything to do with killing Gerald and Brad? If she can change shape, maybe she could’ve changed into that other thing.”