Paige exited the Cav, walked up to the four-door, ripped the sling from her shoulder and dropped her right arm down onto the hood of the loudmouth’s car like a hammer. “Find another spot, dickless!”
The other guy froze half in and half out of his car. Grumbling to himself, he eased all the way in and drove off. Only when he was a safe distance away did he shout back at her.
Paige nodded at the people walking along the sidewalk and then to Cole. “I needed that.” She rubbed her forearm and tossed her sling into the Cav before leading the way toward Euclid Avenue.
The sun hadn’t set too long ago, and there were plenty of people walking on either side of the street. Cars drifted up and down paths of cracked concrete, passing buildings that were mostly two or three stories tall and made from similar dark red brick. Other structures were lighter in color, but all of them had a flair that made the entire area look as if it had been pieced together with care instead of churned out by a massive corporate construction project. Plants hung down from windows of homes and stores alike. Bright awnings extended over the sidewalks and painted iron trellises framed several windows. Even the people ambling from building to building seemed well maintained. Most of them looked like college students or aiming for that age bracket in the way they dressed. The couple standing between a pair of trees guarded by a little fence near the intersection of McPherson and Euclid would have blended in perfectly if they hadn’t been caught staring directly at Paige and Cole.
He returned the stare and started walking toward them. “I think I spotted them, Paige.”
The man wore khaki shorts and a baseball cap. He eased one slender, hairy leg back, while his female companion in a jeans skirt bent her knees slightly. Their movements didn’t stick out too much amid all the activity around them, but when Cole saw the subtle way they lowered their heads and raised their shoulders, something in his gut told him they were about to pounce.
Paige stooped down to take the baton from her boot holster. “Try to get them across the street to that little garage.”
The structure looked like a small cottage with one large door, and was positioned directly across from the fenced-in trees. It was at the mouth of a narrow side street that wasn’t half as busy as Euclid Avenue. “Got it,” he said as he drove the thorns from his weapon’s handle into his scarred palms.
The instant blood welled up from his hands, both of the people he’d spotted picked up on it. Their nostrils flared as they crouched down and prepared to strike.
Cole and Paige ran at them, scattering a group of four pedestrians along the way.
Apparently, Paige wasn’t the only one who’d scoped out the little garage, because the Mongrels darted across Euclid and disappeared down that very side street. The movement wasn’t spectacular enough to draw more than a few excited voices from the onlookers, but it got the Mongrels out of plain sight. Cole and Paige followed them as the groups of pedestrians went back to their own little worlds.
Having lost sight of the couple, Cole continued down the narrow lane that led past the garage. Paige was directly beside him. Keeping her back against the brick wall of the building directly across from the garage, she looked at Cole and nodded down the side street. The Mongrels were close, which meant they were probably lurking somewhere within the shadows between the buildings.
There was a Dumpster to Cole’s left and smaller, one-car garages farther down on the right. He was just about to step forward when something moved within the shadowy space between the Dumpster and a tall wooden fence. By the time he realized the shadow was actually a constricted mass of black fur, the Mongrel had already exploded from its corner.
Mongrels had abilities that varied as much as their appearance. Some were sleek and beautiful, while others were freakish. This one had short, mangy fur that was thicker in the spots that would need more protection. Coarse patches over its back thinned out along the sides of its squat head and the middle of its bony legs. Having squeezed behind the Dumpster so quickly, its main ability seemed to include twisting itself into more shapes than a balloon animal. Curved claws dug into the pavement as it opened its mouth to display a set of thin pointed teeth with a barely audible hiss.
Cole brought his spear up, angled it diagonally across his body and pushed it forward to stop the Mongrel in mid-jump. The creature’s chest thumped against the middle of the weapon, but its arms stretched out enough to scrape one side of Cole’s head with slender claws. His back was against the brick garage so nothing could get behind him. After shoving the Mongrel back, it slunk in a tight circle and then reared up on its hind legs directly in front of him. Scraping the forked end against cement, Cole snagged one of the Mongrel’s feet and swept its legs out from under it.
The Mongrel huffed as its ribs hit the ground, and then flopped to get all four of its legs beneath it. As it wriggled, the tattered remains of khaki shorts could be seen around its waist. Cole checked on his partner, hoping the second shapeshifter wasn’t more than she could handle.
Paige let out a breath that bordered on a snarl as she backhanded the other Mongrel, using her hardened right arm. The impact wasn’t as loud as when she’d dented the loudmouth’s car, but it spun the shapeshifter around and sent a spray of bloody saliva through the air. Despite the complications that had arisen, that kind of strength was why she’d thought up the ink and tattooed herself in the first place. The idea was to inject supernatural qualities into a human in such small doses that they would only affect a part of them for a short amount of time. One out of two wasn’t bad.
If Cole’s opponent was a man-sized were–alley cat, Paige’s was closer to a were-leopard. The female’s head was wider, giving her room for thicker teeth. Dark gray fur clung to her like paint that was still wet after having been freshly spattered onto her skin. The only noise she made was a low growl as she dropped down to all fours and tensed for another lunge.
Fixing her eyes upon the Mongrel, Paige slashed with the weapon in her left hand, which had shifted from a thick baton to a single, curved sickle blade attached to a thin handle. When the Mongrel popped onto its hind legs to clear a path for the weapon, it was caught with a follow-up blow from the one in Paige’s right hand. Compared to the sickle, the other weapon was awkward and poorly shaped. The same mixture that had forced Paige’s arm into a sling also marred her ability to change the weapon’s shape. The best she could manage was a crude machete. It didn’t look like much, but it could get the job done. Sparks flew from the machete’s edge as it scraped against the ground where the Mongrel had just been.
Ducking just quickly enough to keep from getting impaled by the sickle, the leopard growled, “Sssskinner.”
Hearing that word caused the first Mongrel to snarl hungrily. It had been pacing in front of Cole for the last few seconds, but now raced at him with its belly less than an inch above the ground.
Cole hopped into the middle of the narrow side street with his spear in both hands and the largest point angled downward. He jabbed at the smaller Mongrel defensively but didn’t make contact. The were-cat stepped on the spear to push it down and clear the way for it to swipe at Cole with its other front paw.
Claws sliced through the air so close to his face that Cole could feel them brush against his nose. The thorns in his weapon’s handle dragged through his flesh, but he maintained his grip so he could will the spear to grow a set of barbs that popped out from its middle section to puncture the pads on the Mongrel’s paw.
Twisting away from him, the oversized alley cat let out a high-pitched yelp and limped away. It lifted its nose toward the second floor windows of a building farther down the side street, where several lithe shapes crawled along the ledge and stretched into four-legged forms anywhere from five to six feet in length.