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.