Already shifting his aim to the wide entrance of the parking structure, Walter nestled the rifle’s stock against his shoulder and adjusted his cheek in its spot beside the scope. “I see them.”
“What should I do?”
“You know what to do! Paige can take care of herself. Just keep your eyes open for anyone coming at us and I’ll let you know when I hear from her.”
Although he wasn’t the one who got to use the sniper rifle, Cole wasn’t completely overlooked in the firearms department. The revolver he’d been given was a .44 loaded with rounds that had dark streaks running through them, making them strangely similar to their intended targets. He checked again to make sure the revolver was loaded, then dropped the .44 back into the holster under his arm. He then picked up his wooden weapon, which had been leaning against a tree, and held it like a spear. There was nobody close enough to be of much concern to him or Walter, so he held the spear with his fingers around the barbs. There would be plenty of time to bleed later.
Paige walked up to the parking structure and immediately spotted the reception committee that was headed toward the front entrance. From within the garage, several men and a few women pushed on the metal grate so they could slip through a gap where it had fallen off the track built into the cement doorway.
The men and women who swarmed toward the garage were extremely pale, which meant they were hungry. Their markings were gray, skinny threads stretching beneath their flesh and extending all the way to their hands and up to their chins. The Nymar were definitely fresh kills. Their spores had settled in, but were still stretching out to probe theirs new hosts.
“Here they come,” Paige said just loud enough for her voice to be picked up by her earpiece. “They’re freshly infected. Looks like Misonyk has been expecting trouble.”
“I got ’em,” he replied. “Just try to draw them out into the open so I can get a clear shot.”
The shotgun in her hands was a pump action that could hold half a dozen specially packed shells. She pumped the first round into the chamber, put the shotgun to her shoulder and aimed at the closest target.
“Where’s Misonyk?” she shouted. “He and Henry are all we want.”
The Nymar approaching the garage stopped and looked at Paige while flashing fangs that were still bloody from cutting through their gums for the first time. Despite their tough act, they were obviously taken aback by the fact that she wasn’t scared by their display. The first woman to crawl through the grate was a bit taller than Paige and had skin the color of ash. She looked at Paige with wild, hungry eyes and opened her mouth to hiss and show the set of thinner upper fangs next to her primary ones. Her markings were darker and thicker, which meant she’d been infected a lot longer than most of the others in the vicinity.
“Misonyk is beyond your reach!” the ashen woman screeched. “He controls the Full Bloods and soon he’ll control the Nymar.”
“Where is he?”
“Protecting us. Teaching us.”
“You think so?” Paige asked. “Maybe you should ask the Chicago Nymar about how much bullshit Misonyk’s feeding you.”
The ashen woman scowled defiantly. “We have all seen the power from drinking souls. We will spread from this city and bring true unity to all of our kind!”
Although Paige listened to what the Nymar woman was saying, she was distracted by what was just inside the garage. Stacked up against a booth where parking fees had once been collected, there was a pile of bodies in clothing ranging from uniforms to mismatched coats and boots. Since the bodies weren’t much more than dried husks, she knew these Nymar had been making good on Misonyk’s threats.
“Misonyk has shared his memories of you with us,” the ashen woman said. As she spoke, the other Nymar grinned as if they were all in on a private joke. “If you start running now, you might just get away before we catch you. I still don’t know if you’ll ever be able to outrun the Full Bloods when he calls them down like a—”
Without so much as a wince, Paige pulled her trigger and fired a thundering blast into the woman’s head. Since the Nymar had closed the distance between herself and Paige to less than ten feet, the shotgun blast nearly decapitated her. She fell to the ground and writhed as the Nymar within her slithered out the gaping hole at the top of her neck. The eel-like creature made it less than a foot before it had absorbed all the fluids in the woman’s body in a useless effort to heal the grievous wound. Once the fluids were gone, the body cracked like a section of desert floor.
Paige ejected the spent round and pumped in another. More Nymar sped through the break in the entrance grate and then scattered to flank her. The new arrivals who’d been approaching the garage from the outside moved erratically rather than coming at her head-on. Instead of wasting a round in trying to catch another head shot, Paige lowered her aim and fired into the middle of the crowd streaming from the garage. The shotgun pellets tore through two of the closest Nymar and then spread out to rip into a few more behind them. The pale faces constricted with shock and pain as antidote-infused lead shredded them, but their bodies were already knitting back together.
Nymar rushed at Paige from both sides as she managed to fire two more shells at them. The first one missed completely, but the second knocked one man down. The color of his skin was a bit darker, but that was merely a remnant of his living visage. As the Nymar healed, his skin paled and he became hungrier. When he caught sight of Paige, he ran at her twice as fast, and was dropped by a high-powered round that had been fired from an entirely different section of the park.
“Thanks, Walter,” Paige said as she swung the shotgun so its stock caught a Nymar in the side of the head. The undead man recovered quickly and lunged forward to bite her neck. She dropped to one knee, pulled her clubs from the sides of her boots and rolled backward before anyone got close.
“I’m going after her!” Cole shouted.
Walter levered a fresh round into his rifle and sighted through the scope. “You do that and you’ll leave me open. Stick to the plan.”
“But Paige is outnumbered!”
“You guys are always outnumbered,” Walter replied as he calmly fired another shot.
Cole was debating on whether he should argue or just run for the parking structure. Both options were pushed aside when he spotted movement in the corner of his eye. He looked over to find two shapes racing toward him from the surrounding shadows. All this time, he thought he’d had a good feel for the park. Now he felt as if he’d just been dropped into alien territory. “Someone’s coming,” he said.
Walter’s reply was as calm as it was stern. “Just don’t let them get to me.” He didn’t so much as glance down at Cole, even as the impact of feet upon cold grass rumbled through the ground.
Misonyk and one of the muscular bodyguards from Shimmy’s scrambled forward in a low crouch. The bodyguard snarled while extending his arms and balling up thick, meaty fists. As he approached, Misonyk showed Cole a wide smile, complete with both sets of fangs protruding from his upper jaw.
“So you have chosen to stand your ground,” he said as he glanced at the weapon in Cole’s hands. “I’m always happy to send another Skinner from this world.” He then shifted his eyes toward Walter and snarled, “Kill him before he fires another shot!”
The bodyguard ran toward Cole, but leapt into the air at the last moment.
Shifting his grip to hold onto his weapon more like a golf club, Cole swung the spear upward and snagged the bodyguard’s foot with the two points at the bottom of the grip. That was enough to divert the airborne Nymar’s course and bounce him off the trunk of the tree next to Walter’s.
Walter kept the rifle to his shoulder and fired whenever a target presented itself. If he had any doubts regarding Cole’s ability to protect him, he didn’t voice them.
Tightening both fists around his weapon the way Paige had shown him, Cole swung in a low arc that cut across Misonyk’s ankles. The blow caught the Nymar by surprise, but only caused him to stumble back half a step. Then he straightened and lashed out with one hand. The Nymar’s nails were short, jagged, and sharp enough to slice through the air like tempered steel. Cole leaned back to avoid getting eviscerated and saw Misonyk’s other arm coming straight down toward his face.
It was nothing but reflex that brought both of Cole’s arms up to block the incoming swing with his weapon. Misonyk’s fist landed like a sledgehammer, sending a shockwave all the way up to Cole’s shoulders while also burying the weapon’s thorns into his palms. At first Cole felt numb, then the pain hit him in a white hot explosion that caused his vision to blur around the edges. Gritting his teeth, he pulled one end of the weapon back while pushing the other end forward to drive the twin spearheads into Misonyk’s midsection.
Misonyk hopped backward while pressing a hand against the bloody gashes that had been torn across his
