brow and blunt snout. For the first few seconds, the man’s head appeared to have been crushed and reshaped by a set of cruel, invisible hands. The rest of his body continued to spasm as more and more of his bones were snapped into pieces inside of him.
It was a sound Cole would never forget.
The man on the floor struggled to pull himself up. Tears rolled down his face and the pain in his eyes was almost unbearable to witness. Even as he tried to reach out for Cole, his hand was reduced to a rubbery mass of broken bones encased in skin that somehow refused to tear. The convulsing figure struggled to look up, until the life in his eyes faded away and he allowed his head to droop. From then on the twitching and flailing of his limbs made him look more like a puppet being swung at the end of its strings. The human inside the thing gave no more resistance, since his body was too shattered to obey its commands anyhow.
And then, somehow, the man looked up.
Muscles writhed and twitched as the nubs of broken bones were pulled back down into him. His entire shape stretched out and reformed into something more like the other wretches that had been curled up at the bottom of the pit. Cole took one step back before his legs gave out beneath him. Paige shouldered him to one side so she could rush forward with her weapons already swinging for the creature’s neck. The eyes that met Cole’s were no longer those that had been begging for help a few moments ago. They were cloudy, yellow and vacant. The voice that came from the thing’s reformed mouth was an inhuman scream that mercifully ended as both of Paige’s weapons slashed out and across to sever the newly formed Half Breed’s skull from its body.
Cole couldn’t move.
He could barely even breathe.
Offering her hand to him, Paige said, “There was nothing we could do for him, Cole. He was dead as soon as he started to change.”
“But…he asked for help. He…he was looking at me,” Cole stammered. “He was alive.”
She shook her head. “If a werewolf hurts you without killing you, it’s probably infected you. Someone like that can only be helped within the first few hours after they were hurt, and even then it’s hit or miss. The first time they change, it breaks every bone in their body. We know,” she told him with confidence. “We’ve looked for ourselves.”
After what he’d already seen, Cole didn’t want to press her for details.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He looked down at the gruesome remains of the man in the yellow vest. The body wasn’t even close to human. Those dead, yellow eyes still gazed out into nothingness. Cole knew he’d probably be seeing those eyes for a long time to come.
“Do you still want to check out this place or would you rather wait up top?” Paige asked.
Cole nodded once and looked around for his weapon. “Are there more like these things around?”
“Yeah. And every one of them can make more.”
“Then I’m coming with you.” Shaking his head solemnly, he added, “Nobody deserves to suffer like that. It was…”
“I know,” Paige said.
Standing in that spot, Cole moved his eyes back and forth. The last hints of sunlight trickled down through the hole over his head in a dark red haze that faded by the second. Focusing on one of the walls, he asked, “Where’s a flashlight?”
“I’ve got one.”
“Shine it on that wall right there.”
Paige holstered one of her clubs and quickly flicked the switch on her flashlight. Even before the wall was illuminated, Cole moved forward and reached out to brush away some of the dirt and cobwebs encrusted on the cracked vertical surface.
“These markings,” he whispered. “Do you know what they mean?”
Paige stepped forward and lowered her flashlight so the beam wasn’t reflecting directly off the wall. After studying the markings for a few seconds, she said, “I don’t know exactly what they mean, but they’re close to the ones on the Blood Blade.”
“Is it some sort of language?”
“It could be some kind of ceremonial script or possibly an old Gypsy dialect.”
“But you can’t read it?”
Chuckling once, Paige replied, “I can teach you plenty of things, but ancient languages and ritual symbols are out of my league.”
Cole tapped the wall and glanced around. “I’ve seen this room. Not the way it is now, but when all the walls were up and the building wasn’t collapsed. This was the room where Misonyk was kept. This is where he was laying when he had the spear through his chest.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I remember those symbols. He used to look at them when he was laying here. I saw it.” Cole shifted his eyes down and began scraping at the floor with his foot. The dirt had formed a thick shell over the floor. Although he’d hoped to see some sort of trace left behind from the vision he’d taken from Misonyk, all he uncovered was more cracked bricks.
“You’re starting to sound like Prophet,” Paige grumbled. “Why don’t we see what else is in this place and get out? There’s got to be more Half Breeds on their way. They wouldn’t just abandon a den as good as this one.”
“Oh yeah,” Cole said as he looked around at the bloody remains scattered upon the dirty mat of soil, broken rock, and dead leaves. “Prime real estate here.”
Paige held her flashlight in one hand and one of her clubs in the other. Now that he knew what was along the handle of those clubs, Cole had to admire her for wielding it so fearlessly. He found his own weapon and picked it up, careful to slip his fingers between the thorns rather than place his hands on top of them. Since the danger seemed to have passed, there wasn’t a reason to maim himself just yet.
“I think there’s an infection from that stuff you used to coat those thorns,” he grumbled as he followed Paige out of the room. When he checked his palm, he found the wounds irritated but mostly closed. “It’s healing up pretty good, but my skin is burning. I don’t think this is good, Paige.”
Heading for the doorway that led from the room, she said, “Your blood bonds you to the weapon and also to the venom. Everything Nymar reacts to human blood anyway, but you can’t feel it until you get close to an actual spore.”
“So there’s a Nymar nearby?”
She nodded. “Just think of it as an early warning system. It’ll work with shapeshifters too, now that you’ve added some of their blood into the resin.”
“Wow,” he said with genuine admiration. “Did you guys happen to get a Skinner who was also a chemist?”
“No, a couple dozen Skinners worked on the formula for God knows how long before it was perfected. There just happened to be some useful side effects.”
“Were there any bad side effects?”
“Oh yeah,” Paige whispered. “But you probably don’t want to hear about those.”
She walked into a crumbling, dirty hallway beyond the door that led out of the Half Breed den. Taking a few more steps, she swung her flashlight, illuminating the walls and ceiling, which were in somewhat better condition than the room they’d just left. The hall ended a few paces to the right, blocked off about ten paces to the left by tightly packed debris that had settled into a solid barrier.
Having found his flashlight, Cole shined it on the obstruction at the left end. It didn’t take much searching to find the blackened scorch marks that formed a ring all the way around the rubble blocking the rest of the hall. “Looks like there was a fire,” he said while brushing his fingers along the wall. “Maybe this hallway was blasted shut. Whoever did that must have really wanted to be sure nobody else got in here.”
“Or maybe they didn’t want someone getting out,” Paige added. “Take a look over here.”
The wall separating the pit from the hallway was buckled and cracked. Most of the doors had been wedged into their frames by the shifting of the building around them. The room she was pointing at didn’t even have a door. It was directly across from Misonyk’s old cell, and judging by the sounds coming from inside, it was currently occupied.
“Do you hear that?” Paige asked.
