“Things aren’t much better here.” After filling her in on what he’d discovered, he added, “But whatever they’re doing to force the change doesn’t seem to work on Skinners. Something’s going on with us, though.”
“I know. I hooked up with a few Skinners who have dealt with the mess since this town was overrun,” she explained. “Once the Breaking Moon rose, they’ve been getting bouts of crankiness that are bad enough to rip each other’s faces off. They say it feels like something stabbing them in the gut.”
“Same here. What about you?” Cole asked. “Have you felt a tension that makes you want to rip something apart?”
“No more than usual. Why did you call?”
“I need you to get as many of those things together as possible because Tristan will be trying to zap me right to them.”
Paige gave him a tired laugh. “I’m on the front lines and you’re talking to strippers. Typical.”
“Just call me when you know where they are or where they might be headed.”
“The Full Bloods won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, I can tell you that much. There’s a source of power here, and from what I’ve heard, they intend on keeping this place as some sort of stronghold.” She felt a warm smile grace her lips. “It’d be nice to see you again at least once more before—”
“Just stop right there,” he interrupted. “It’ll take a little while for Jessup to find enough gargoyles to chase after me, but I’m on my way.”
“Why get them to chase you?”
“Because seeing those things dive straight at me, staring with those black little eyes, freaks me out, and that’s what Tristan needs to open the …forget it. Just do what I asked and we’ve got a chance at keeping this thing from getting any worse.”
“We’ve got at least five Full Bloods to kill,” Paige said, “and maybe hundreds of Half Breeds to put down while we’re being watched by a clueless public and a whole lot of smug Nymar making themselves comfortable in the cities they’ve kicked us out of. I don’t see how things could get much worse.”
“Some of the Full Bloods are fighting each other,” Cole said. “That’s something.”
“Any casualties?” she asked hopefully.
“Randolph was nearly gutted, but don’t get too excited. He’s gone.”
“What?”
“I saw him get his ass handed to him by a gray Full Blood named Esteban, and when we went to salvage the body before I made this call, we couldn’t find him.”
Although Paige didn’t like hearing that, she wasn’t too surprised. Werewolves like Randolph and Liam didn’t survive for hundreds of years by being easy to kill. “The Full Bloods have waited to make a move like this for centuries,” she said. “They’ve got more planned than taking over a few towns or nipping at each other.”
“According to MEG, the Breaking Moon won’t be fully risen until about three in the morning.”
“The Witching Hour?” Paige asked.
“They called it the Dead Hour, but yeah. Three a.m. is when the Breaking Moon will give all it’s got. From everything we’ve seen so far, I don’t think we want to let that happen or be there when it does.”
“Well, if there’s a big bomb that’s gonna go off, I’d prefer to be two inches away from it. Quick and painless. Same goes for this.”
“You’re a scary lady sometimes.”
“Just sometimes?” she mused. “Must be slipping.”
In the distance a muffled explosion ripped through one end of town. The ground beneath her feet trembled with the passing of digging Mongrels. A few gunshots from directly outside the store silenced a pair of snarling Half Breeds. She closed her eyes for a second, savored the relative calm that followed, and tried to imagine the face at the other end of the phone connection.
“How bad is it over there?” Cole asked.
“Bad enough that this town’s pretty much gonna have to be written off. Kansas City was brutal, but this …”
“Don’t think about that, Paige. We need to keep this craziness from spreading any farther, then we’ll worry about the big picture.”
“It’s already spreading,” she said, as if admitting to a terrible wrong she’d personally committed. “From what we can tell, at least two nearby towns in this county were hit by Half Breeds. Could be worse already by now.”
“Well, the cops are already sealing this place off,” Cole reported. “Your IRD buddies have come in to quarantine the spot where all the fighting took place, but Raton, New Mexico, is all over the news. Why the hell isn’t anyone taking notice of Oklahoma?”
“That’s what I plan on finding out, but I have my suspicions. How long before you can get here?”
“I’m still waiting for Tristan to get herself prepared for what she needs to do,” Cole said. “It sounds like this could take a lot out of her. I just hope it’s worth it. This would go a whole lot smoother if we knew exactly where to find you, but if I don’t hear from you in an hour, we’ll try to get as close as possible.”
She nodded and steeled herself as a low howl crept through town. Everytime she heard that sound, it reached deeper inside her. “You said the IRD is there. What about Rico?”
“He came with the helicopters and soldiers. Seems to be back to his old self.”
“Keep an eye on him.”
She heard another explosion, followed by a howl and what sounded like grating interference over the digital connection. This time, all of it came from Cole’s side. “Just try to stay alive long enough for me to see you again, okay?” he said.
“I will.”
The next two seconds were heavy with sentiments that neither one of them bothered to express. They knew they could not afford to drift away from the mind-set required to kill or die if the opportunity presented itself. After some bare-bones farewells that slipped from Paige’s mind the moment she said them, the connection was cut and she was on her own once more.
After handing over the plastic bucket to Bill, she stepped outside through a shattered window and surveyed the street while her concoction was loaded onto the green truck and driven away. Cars were situated at odd angles on the curb, in parking lots or on lawns where they’d stopped after hitting a tree that was solid enough to do the job. The smoky air reeked of burning oil, gasoline, and charred wood. Sections of concrete were cracked after too many Mongrels had tunneled beneath it, and nearly every pane of glass in sight had been smashed to pieces.
Paige looked through the remnants of the shop’s front window as the ever-present heat in her hands flared up. Two Half Breeds approached the green pickup, drawn by the scents drifting out from the paint store. Bill had gone out the back and Jesse was next door checking to see if any supplies could be salvaged from a discount bakery thrift shop. When one of the werewolves stared directly at her and perked its ears, Paige gripped her machete in one hand and her Beretta in the other. Rather than take cover inside the paint store, she stood just inside the shattered front window where the Half Breeds would have to come at her head-on.
The first one sprung forward, and as soon as it left its feet, she responded with a clubbing downward swing. The flat of the machete’s blade thumped against fur-covered muscle, sending the creature down onto a jagged landscape of broken glass sticking up from the bottom of the window frame. The glass didn’t go in far after being snagged in the natural armor of the creature’s furry hide, but it was enough to hold it there so she could get in a few uncontested shots with the Beretta. The shots were still ringing in her ears when she swung her machete again. The steel coated edge hacked through the Half Breed’s neck and lodged in its spine. Rather than remove the blade, she used the gun in her hand like a hammer to hit the machete and drive it the rest of the way through.