here?”
Paige zipped the layers of the second vest closed, encasing the werewolf hide within it. “Someplace not too far away, but outside of the city. Lots of open space. Preferably somewhere we won’t be disturbed.”
After a few minutes of getting online and searching the local map pages, he asked, “What about a nature preserve? It says here there’s one with primitive campgrounds and hiking trails.”
“It really says primitive?”
“Yeah, it does.”
“Perfect. How far away is it?”
“Uhhh…about sixteen miles.”
She nodded, set the completed vest on top of the first one, and gathered a few empty baby food jars. “Very nice.”
“What if there’s people camping there?”
“We’ll tell anyone we see that there’s a storm coming. Tornadoes are good, because it’ll be dark by then. If they don’t start moving, we’ll just act crazy and get them to steer clear of us. Once the Half Breeds arrive, any dumb-shit campers that don’t get the hell out of there deserve whatever they get.”
Marveling at Paige’s infallible logic, Cole glanced at the blinking e-mail icon at the top of his screen. Clicking on the little envelope took him to a screen that listed the contents of his in box. There were twenty-six messages that had arrived over the last few days, mostly from work. Since he was almost done with his level designs and didn’t have time to do anything else, he ignored those. Some of the messages were junk that had slipped through his filters, and a few were from MEG’s e-mail server. The name of the sender of all of those was SpookyChik92.
Cole smirked and reflexively turned the laptop so the screen wasn’t visible from where Paige was sitting. The first message read, “Sorry for cutting it short on the phone last time. Stu can be such a jerk. If you ever get time to talk, that would be nice. Later, Abby.”
The second message was sent an hour after that one and read, “Not that I just assumed you wanted to talk. I know you guys want to keep to yourselves. I’ve always wanted to talk to one of you guys and you seemed pretty cool. Plus, the whole Digital Dreamers thing is beyond cool. Maybe we could play some
The third had been sent earlier that night: “I’m not stalking you. Honestly. Stu told me you were asking about me and that’s weird because I’ve asked about you when he mentioned you. Not that he blabs about you guys or anything. He’s full of carp so nobody pays attention to him anyways. Abby.”
The last message was Cole’s favorite. It simply read: “Crap. I meant he’s full of crap. I’ll stop embarrassing myself now. A.”
In response to the last message, Cole typed, “Sorry. I’ve been busy. I’ll definitely give you a call when I get some time. I know what you mean about Stu. It may not be carp, but there’s definitely something fishy about that guy.”
Unfortunately, he sent the e-mail before he could come up with a better joke for the end.
Shattering his comfortable frame of mind, Paige said, “Take a look in those bags over there for some shotgun shells. If I’m out, we’ll need to hit a sporting goods store on our way to that campground.”
Cole set his laptop aside and rummaged through the bags lying closest to him. “Hey, uhh, what’re the odds of any Full Bloods showing up tonight? Will they smell that bait?”
“Full Bloods can smell damn near anything for miles in any direction. If there’s one anywhere near KC, they’ll already know we’re here.”
“Are we equipped for Full Bloods?”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” she said with a nasty grin as she screwed the lid onto one of the jars she’d filled with Half Breed blood, “I got me a few souvenirs. Check out your new weapon upgrade.”
“Speaking of weapon upgrade, did you ever find those level forty
“Forget that video game stuff,” Paige scolded. “This is important.”
Cole walked over to where his spear was propped against a wall. Since the forked end was at the bottom, he didn’t have any trouble spotting the bony spike that had been attached to the main spearhead by several layers of leather cording. “Is this one of those teeth you knocked out of Burkis’s mouth?”
“Oh yeah,” Paige said proudly. “Full Bloods can chew through damn near anything, so that stick of yours can now do the same. The one on my baton keeps it from fitting into its holster just right, but that’s okay. Just don’t smack it against any brick walls and your upgrade should stay put for a while.”
“And I get one of those vests, right?” Cole asked.
Paige nodded. “These babies are gonna go over real well at the party tonight.”
Chapter 17
Cole had never felt so scared and so stupid at the same time. The concoction that he’d put together at the hotel had been split into three squeeze bottles designed to hold mustard or ketchup. Each bottle contained a mixture that ranged from weak to strong on whatever scale was used to measure bait for Half Breeds. Paige drove to the werewolf dens they already knew about so he could hop out and squirt some of the gunk onto a sign or post where it could get the most air. The most diluted stuff had the consistency of jelly and hardened into a crust in a matter of seconds.
Having started at the tail end of rush hour, they managed to drive from point to point without getting snarled up in too much Kansas City traffic. Every so often Cole dashed from the car, looked around for cops or the occasional concerned citizen, then vandalized a public spot with foul-smelling pheromone paste. He got plenty of surprised looks and a few harsh words from people who saw him at work, but nothing bad enough to slow their progress.
As they worked their way east, he switched to the more potent mixture. That stuff took some getting used to. It started as a thicker paste, splattered against whatever he’d chosen as his target, and hardened into a brown shell. Not only did it befoul whatever property caught his eye, but it polluted the air just as badly. People gathered to look up at a lot of those spots, but were driven away by the smell before they figured out a way to clean it off. Just to be safe, he and Paige made several other stops along the path to Highway 24 over the next hour or two.
Outside the city’s limits, Cole switched to the heavy-duty mixture. The instant he removed the stopper from the last squirt bottle, the car filled with a sweaty, bitter odor that stuck to the back of his throat in the same way the jelly from the other two bottles had stuck to any available surface around the city.
“I kind of feel bad about this,” he said after hanging his head out the window. “KC seems like a pretty nice place and we’re spraying this crap all over it.”
“The Half Breeds will be coming out…” She paused to stretch her neck toward the windshield and get a look at the moon, which was just full enough to be seen through the fading sunlight. “…any time now. As far as I can tell, this is the night when things would have really gotten interesting if we weren’t here. The first batch have probably already gotten some sneaky patterns down pat, and the fresher batch will be raring to go. All of the Half Breeds are pretty young, though, so they should be a lot easier to bait.”
“You’re so smart,” Cole chided with an exaggerated twang. “And purdy too.”
She slammed on the brakes and pulled onto the side of a rough road that didn’t look to be in the best part of town. “Cut the shit and do your job.”
Cole opened his door and made a mad dash to a light pole just ahead of a convoy of pickup trucks and SUVs. For a second he was worried that the stuff in his squeeze bottle had completely solidified. After rolling the bottle between his hands and unscrewing the top, he worked enough of the gunk out to fling it up high onto the metal pole. It had the consistency of cookie dough, but smelled as far from that heavenly of all substances as another
