very subtle, so we probably would have seen him by now if he meant to track us down.”
“He was hurt,” Paige said.
“Those Half Breeds may have even finished him off.”
“That would be nice, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“Okay, fine. We found the Half Breeds before. We can do it again. We’ll check the dens, but I’m guessing the next batch will be in new ones.”
“Yep,” Paige sighed. “They could be anywhere. Parks were the easiest choices, but they could be in basements or abandoned buildings. Hell, considering how many of those ugly bastards showed up last night, we probably didn’t even find all of the original dens in the first place.”
“Too bad we can’t just sniff them out directly,” Cole said. Raising his eyebrows hopefully, he asked, “Can we sniff them out?”
“Not really.” Paige was looking at the TV, which showed a local news break regarding the previous night’s rash of “wild dog attacks.” Fortunately, the only thing caught by a professional cameraman was a German shepherd chasing a rat.
Cole didn’t even try to focus on the grainy amateur photos and frightened witnesses being interviewed. He had enough going through his mind without cramming in any more. Pressing his fingertips against his eyelids, he grumbled his thoughts as they drifted through his head. “They can track us. Those Half Breeds tore after that scent trail we left. Burkis probably followed me all the way from Canada.”
“Don’t forget Jackie. She’s another little present you brought back from Canada.”
Cole would never forget Jackie. In fact, there’d been many a tired and frustrated night in his walk-in freezer when he’d thought about her. Jackie was a shapeshifter known as a Mongrel. Where werewolves typically turned into something vaguely canine, Mongrels could look like any one of a motley assortment of representatives from the animal kingdom. According to Paige, there were were-leopards, tigers, snakes, and plenty more. Jackie was a cat of some sort. Her lithe body produced the substance that Paige had used to make herself invisible when sneaking into Stephanie’s Blood Parlor. Apart from that substance and her fur, Jackie hadn’t been wearing anything else when she introduced herself to him.
That was the part that kept his thoughts warm when he was feeling restless. The term “Mongrel” just didn’t fit a creature like Jackie. In human form, her body was tight enough to make a professional dancer jealous. They had wrestled when they first met, but not in the good way. Now, as his thoughts pointed him in that direction, Cole slapped his hands down on the table and stared at Paige with wide eyes.
“I think I’ve got it,” he said.
She smiled and angled her head toward a family of four that had wandered into the room to raid the cereal bar. Every other table was empty, but the middle-aged parents and their two eleven-year-olds just had to cluster around the one directly beside the Skinners.
Cole was too excited to worry about disturbing the new arrivals. “The Mongrels! They could track me, so maybe they can track a Full Blood!”
Paige got up, marched to the door and impatiently motioned for Cole to follow. He caught up with her at the elevator.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked while jabbing the Call button.
“Jackie tracked me from Canada. You told me she did at least some of that through scent, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Half Breeds smell like ass, so they should be easier to track. And didn’t you tell me Full Bloods and Mongrels fight like…well…cats and dogs? Those two must have a good way of keeping tabs on each other!”
The elevator doors opened and a couple in their early thirties stepped out. One was a guy with a shaved head and a long goatee dragging a black travel case. The other was a brunette with rosy cheeks and generous curves. As soon as they stepped out of the elevator, Paige and Cole stepped in.
“Mongrels are the only thing we don’t have to worry about around here,” Paige said. “Let’s deal with what’s already on our plate before we start thinking about the next course.”
“Good Lord, you really don’t play any sort of games do you?” Before she could answer that, Cole said, “It’d help you with your tactical thinking, you know. For instance, in all the games I’ve played or designed, there’s always something that sets apart the grunts from the bosses. Bosses aren’t bosses just because they’re tougher. You’ve got to figure something out. They’ve got a weakness. It’s either a soft spot or a pattern or something, but it’s there.”
“Why does everything come down to video games with you?”
He shrugged and considered that for a moment. “Would Star Wars analogies work better for you?”
“Forget I asked. I already know Full Bloods have weaknesses. That doesn’t help us track them.”
“We know that most supernatural things can be hurt by other supernatural things. Our problem is that we’ve just been using
The elevator’s panel dinged and the doors opened to the second floor. Paige stepped out and said, “The live ones usually aren’t very cooperative.”
Cole tagged along with her, smiling and nodding like an idiot. Rather than say what was racing through his mind, he gave her a second to figure it out for herself. It was a good thing she was quick on the draw, because he couldn’t have held out much longer before the vein in his forehead popped.
“They’re not cooperative,” she said slowly, “unless there’s something in it for them.”
“You just found the secret cheat code.”
“Mongrels know how to find Full Bloods,” she continued. “That’s how they survive. If you find a Mongrel’s home, you know it’s a spot far away from Full Bloods.”
“Are there any Mongrel homes within driving distance of here?” Cole asked.
“I’m not sure, but if another one of us found one, they would have let MEG know about it.”
“You want to make the call or should I?”
Chapter 22
Cole sat in the car and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel while watching the sidewalk that ran along Forest Hill Cemetery. Paige had told him to hold off on calling MEG so they could focus on finding stray Half Breeds in the dens they knew about. Even though she was the one searching the section of broken sidewalk, he knew she wouldn’t find anything. He could feel there were some shapeshifters about, but not anywhere close. Even with all the news regarding wild dogs and the charred remains that had been discovered at the nature preserve, the city just felt calmer than it had the night before.
His leg was bandaged, but the wound was sealed as if it had been healing for weeks. All the smaller cuts had faded, but the serum didn’t do much for the bruises. Despite the ache that claimed nearly every inch of his body, he’d actually started to relax while watching Paige search the perimeter of the cemetery grounds. When his cell phone rang, he cleared his seat.
He plucked the phone from his pocket and was surprised to find Digital Dreamers, Inc. on his caller ID. “Hello?”
The voice that came through was familiar but distorted. His new phone might have had a nice, bright touch screen, but sometimes the reception was worse than a pair of cans connected by a string. “I just got finished with a meeting where you were supposed to be fired,” Jason Sorrenson announced.
“Really?” Cole asked as a way to test the waters. “Maybe I should have showed up to that one.”
“That might have helped when I went in to try and defend you to the other two directors. Fortunately,
“I don’t know, Jason. I really don’t.”
“Then I don’t know if I can have you on the design team for
Cole straightened up so quickly he nearly broke a rib on the steering wheel. “Hammer Strike is all me! You can’t
