last one of them into the ground so far they won’t get up again.”
“You don’t even know what got them?” Cole asked.
“No survivors. All that’s left to record the incident is a few pieces of a journal from a Skinner who was in training when he left England. Probably just a few pieces of that Skinner left too. Then,” she said as she removed a scalpel from the case and walked over to the garbage bag, “there was the incident in New York.”
“You’re just making this up to scare me, right?”
“You can’t be scared if it’s just bullshit, right?” she asked. “Anyway, there were accounts of some kind of monster ripping through a few of the gangs that used to run New York City back in 1904 or so. As far as we can tell, it was a Full Blood. The gangs tried to protect their streets, the cops tried to rein in the gangs, and everyone got on the bad side of the Full Blood. By the time the bodies stopped dropping, they had to write the whole bloodbath off as a turf war.”
A year ago Cole wouldn’t have believed a word of any of this. But if Paige was making this stuff up, she was doing an awfully good job of selling it. “What happened?” he asked.
She stopped with her hands poised over the carcass and the scalpel ready to cut into the dead werewolf’s stomach. “We don’t really know.”
“Weren’t there any Skinners in New York back then? There had to be.”
“Sure. At least two or three, but they didn’t survive. Some letters were sent back and forth asking for help with some creature they called Standing Bear, but nobody got there in time. Those Skinners were never heard from again, a bunch of people were killed, and the survivors thought it best to cover up the whole thing and hope the Full Blood just went away.”
Cole’s eyes narrowed and he let half a grin creep onto his face. “I know there were gang wars in New York City back in the early 1900s. Those couldn’t have all been Full Bloods wreaking havoc.”
“Not
Grabbing onto the dead Half Breed’s fur, Paige began cutting. The tone in her voice was the same as when she’d been picking barbecue from her teeth at lunch. “The simple fact is that we don’t know exactly what makes one sort of infection cause cold sores and another cause someone to turn into a Half Breed. We understand more than most, but not all the way down to the real essence. Why do some growths turn into cancer and other ones turn into Nymar?”
“Magic? Well…shitty magic.”
“Might as well be,” Paige replied. “Skinners have been trying to figure it out for years. After a lot of trial and error, we can whip up some good stuff, but we just don’t know all the specifics. We can pluck away at our research because there’s no huge organization hounding us. If a government gets involved, they’ll have bigger agendas. Eventually something gets leaked and someone else digs too deep for information, that stuff gets spread around and it causes panic. If it gets ignored, then there really wasn’t any reason to break our traditions in the first place. Too many uninformed people messing around with stuff they don’t understand causes very bad things. Until we figure out more of the bigger answers, it’s best to just put out whatever fires we can and let nature take its course.”
“Nature?” Cole laughed.
“Or magic or aliens or—There it is!” Suddenly, Paige’s face brightened. “Come over here. Take a look at this.” When Cole was close enough to see, she removed a small dark sac from the Half Breed carcass. It looked like sausage casing filled with glue. “This is what you’re looking for when you’re mixing up shapeshifter bait.”
“Aww gawd,” Cole moaned as he used one hand to squeeze his nose shut and cover his mouth. It was difficult to breathe that way, but with the stink that came up from the werewolf’s innards, that didn’t seem like a bad thing.
“Watch and learn, Cole. This is a time-honored tradition passed down through generations.”
“Are you really trying to make this seem like a proud moment?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“It ain’t working.”
“Watch anyway,” Paige snapped. “You need to mix up this crap while I shower and take a nap. There’s a long night ahead of us.”
In the space of twenty minutes the top spot in Cole’s mind for “most disgusting life experience” was replaced about half a dozen times. Ten minutes after that he was sitting at a desk in a corner of the room, mixing ingredients from Paige’s supplies into a bowl and kneading it into a paste with his bare hands. Every so often he had to squish some of the stuff from the sausage casing into the mix, knead some more, and then add water. The only saving grace was the distraction of Paige’s warbling singing voice as she took a shower.
Hearing her through the open door, Cole took his hands from the bowl in front of him and reached for some water to add to the mixture. “To hell with this. I’m jumping in the shower next.”
“You’ll just have to get that stuff on you again. Besides, I’m the one that’s been sweating like a pig in that damn leather for half the night.”
“Then I at least get a nap! You can’t be the only one to get some rest.” As he’d spoken, Cole twisted around to look at Paige. She stepped from the bathroom wearing a pair of faded jeans and a fresh shirt while vigorously rubbing her hair with a hotel towel.
“I was going to show you how to skin that Half Breed,” she said, “but I could just do it myself and put some body armor together. It’s not like there won’t be plenty more for you to practice on when we’re done.”
“Why even bother with armor?” Cole grunted. “You said supernatural creatures can rip each other up, so what good is that gonna do anyway?”
“Their hides can still take a lot of punishment. Even if they just stop a few claws and teeth, it’ll keep you alive longer than regular stuff. Kevlar might as well be toilet paper against a Half Breed.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
She stepped up behind him, dropped her towel and tapped his shoulder. “Go on and catch some sleep. You’ve got more than enough of this stuff mixed. I’ll get started on the rest.” When Cole looked at her freshly scrubbed face, she gave him a smile that had an apologetic curve to it. “You need to sleep,” she said. “I can’t have you trying to run on half a tank.”
“What’s the plan, exactly?” he asked.
“Well, we need to place that stuff you mixed around town so when those Half Breeds come out for the night, they come to where we want them to go instead of wherever they can take down a quick meal.”
“Will they really come to us?”
“That stuff makes them crazy. It’s a blend of pheromones that attracts Half Breeds to one another. We also need to find a spot to take them,” Paige continued. “Once we do, we’ll air out some more of that mixture and wait for our guests to arrive.”
“But you already said there are more dens around than the ones we found.”
“After all the casualties that have piled up, I’d rather take our chances in a hard fight than allow those Half Breeds to run wild another night. I’ve got some extra firepower in the car, and we’re both ready to take out a good number without firing a shot. I’ve been watching you, Cole,” she added while placing a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll do great.”
The warmth in Cole’s chest was put there by the confident smile on Paige’s face. After spending the day thinking about innocent people getting ripped to shreds and gazing into reeking pits, it was nice to have something to live for.
Cole slept for an hour or two and woke up when the sun was still shining through the window. Its light was a bit warmer and duller than it had been during lunch, which told him it wouldn’t be around much longer. Paige was busy placing strips of Half Breed skin inside of harnesses resembling bulletproof vests that had been pulled apart, gutted, and re-stuffed.
“You still asleep?” she asked.
As much as he wanted to roll over and drift off again, Cole grunted, “No.”
“I need you to find us a good spot to meet up with those Half Breeds.”
After plugging his laptop into an outlet and switching it on, he asked, “What exactly am I looking for,
