Paige glared at him, then her expression softened and she nodded. That’s when Cole noticed that she was either unwilling or unable to lift her arm toward Daniels’s hands.
The Nymar slid his fingers along her forearm before pressing it harder with his thumbs. Paige pulled in a few sharp breaths, and Cole knew it took a lot to get that much of a reaction from her. “The muscle is shifting, but slowly,” Daniels said. “Very slowly.”
“Then it’s probably wearing off,” Paige said.
Daniels leaned back among all the stuff piled in the backseat. When Cole looked at him in the mirror, he saw the Nymar nervously shake his head.
“What about your weapon?” Cole asked Paige.
“I grabbed them both, and yours is here too,” she replied.
“No, I mean the weapon you held in your right hand was different. Did you do that on purpose?”
She looked down at the crude weapon lying across her knees. Wincing when she closed her fist around the handle, she quickly switched it to her left hand. Only then did the weapon creak and flow into a finely etched sickle that matched her other one. “It’s fine,” she grunted. “I can hurt a Full Blood, so that’s what we’re gonna do. Just drive.”
Cole knew better than to try to argue. The fire in her eyes wasn’t quite the same as usual, but the idea behind it was the same: fight now, talk later.
It was a relatively short drive to Kansas City and traffic was at a minimum. Once they got close enough to see downtown silhouetted against the night sky, Paige glanced at Daniels and asked, “Which of your cases has the Blood Blade?”
“You gave that to me for use in creating the ink,” Daniels replied uneasily. “I needed to melt pieces of it down to create the compound. Each dose requires a piece of the blade to provide the ingredient I couldn’t replicate.”
“Right, so give me what’s left.”
“It’s right here,” Daniels replied as he patted one of the satchels containing their essential belongings.
“Give it here. We’re gonna need it.”
The Nymar grumbled and fussed for a few seconds, before extending his arm to hand her a plastic Baggie with a zip seal across the top. Inside the bag was what appeared to be large flakes of silver confetti.
“What the hell is this?” Paige asked.
Daniels immediately retreated as far back into his seat as he could. “You told me to prepare the ink, so I prepared it. You told me to get everything ready so you could mix up as much of it as you could whenever you wanted, so I did!”
“And you said you weren’t even ready to test it yet!” she shot back. “What if it didn’t work and we’re stuck with some black crap and a bag full of shavings?”
“That wasn’t enough to stop you from using it!” The moment those words came out of his mouth, Daniels clamped it shut. Cole didn’t see the look Paige was shooting at the Nymar, but he could imagine it. Daniels tapped him on the shoulder. “Could you help me out here?” he asked.
Cole turned toward Paige to keep her from pulling Daniels’s head off, but was cut short when she flipped the plastic bag out in front of him. Not one of the silver pieces in it was bigger than a penny. “Seriously, Daniels?” he roared. “What the hell!”
Flattening himself against the backseat, Daniels gripped the cushion as though he feared he’d be ejected from the car at any moment. “You left me in that room all day and all night! I wanted to feel useful, so I prepared as many doses as I could.”
Cole snatched the bag from her and swung his hand back as if he didn’t only want to show the metal chips to Daniels, but force him to eat them. “This is what you consider useful?”
“Also…maybe…I got bored.”
After handing the bag to Paige, Cole nodded and gripped the steering wheel. “That’s it. I don’t care whose life he saved. Baldy dies tonight.”
For the first time since they’d left the hotel, Cole saw a glimpse of the Paige he truly knew. She tucked the bag into a pocket and sighed. “If you boys keep fighting, I won’t take you to see the big scary animals.”
“That’s another thing,” Cole grunted. “How are we supposed to find those things anyway?”
“Something tells me finding them won’t exactly be the hard part.”
Chapter 28
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.