Cole replied, “They’re here.”
“Put me on speaker.”
Cole pressed the speaker button, held the phone out toward the middle of the room, and then instantly regretted it.
“All right,” Paige snapped. “Anyone who hears this is dead if my partner isn’t released pretty damn quick!”
“Who might you be?” Kayla asked.
“I’m the one who can see to it that a whole lot of other Skinners will come back here and turn this town into mulch just to get at you. But,” Paige added in a calmer voice, “I can also be the one that makes sure nobody comes around to bother you again. It all depends on how quickly I can see my partner and what condition he’s in.”
“We’ll set him free and then find you again. It’s probably best if none of us are too excited when we try to discuss any propositions.” With that, Kayla reached out and snatched the phone away from Cole. After cutting off the call, she tossed the phone toward the wall. Ben had to extend his arm out a little farther, but he caught it.
“When we get up top,” she said to Cole, “don’t step out of line. And in case you’re going through the math right now, just know that you and your partners do not outnumber us.”
To prove her point, Ben stuck his face up from over half a dozen spots around the earthen chamber. Cole looked around to find each of those sets of slitted eyes staring back at him. Now that they weren’t peeking out from odd angles or slithering from one spot to another, he could see subtle differences in facial structure and skin tone that made it clear he’d been surrounded by several of the burrowing Mongrels the entire time.
“Any chance there’s some stairs behind you?” Cole asked the one figure in the room that wasn’t embedded in the wall.
Kayla nodded and got to her feet. The ceiling directly above her cracked and began to crumble. As bigger chunks dropped away, Cole could see a flurry of leathery arms and curved claws reaching from the upper portions of the walls to push even more of the ceiling down.
Blind, instinctive panic flooded through Cole’s mind as the entire room caved in on top of him. The certainty of being buried alive would have made him cry out if he wasn’t already so familiar with how unpleasant it was to get his mouth stuffed full of dirt. Just as Kayla’s lantern was buried and he was forced to shut his eyes, the dirt stopped falling and a glorious rush of fresh air flowed down to fill the hole. He looked up to find Ben sticking halfway out of the side of the hole, offering a hand down to him. Seeing the uncertainty in Cole’s eyes, Ben said, “You can climb, but it’ll take longer.”
Just to prove he wasn’t afraid, Cole took the hand Ben offered and was hefted up to a damp patch of grass. After he had cleared the dirt from his eyes, he saw Paige crouching down behind Kayla. One of her sickles was held so its blade was tight under Kayla’s chin and the tip of the other sickle pressed against the feline Mongrel’s belly.
“Anyone makes a move I don’t like,” Paige snarled, “and I’ll open her up in two very undesirable places.”
Kayla didn’t move. Her eyes darted back and forth, which seemed to be enough to keep the remaining burrowers from emerging. Cole could see several sets of limbs, shoulders, and eyes pushing up from the ground within a radius of about ten yards. One by one the burrowers sank beneath the freshly turned soil.
“I’m all right, Paige,” Cole insisted as he got up and dusted himself off. “See?”
She looked him up and down but didn’t relax her weapons. “I know there’s at least ten of you around here,” she said to Kayla. “Where are the others?”
“Ten?” Cole asked. “How do you know that?”
Jogging to catch up to Paige, Quentin held up his expensive toy and said, “This thermal camera rules! I just had to fiddle with the settings and point it in the right spot to—”
“Get back and keep everyone else away from here,” Paige snapped.
Quentin and the rest of the MEG team headed back to the nearby houses. Now that he was in the open again, Cole could see he’d emerged in someone’s backyard surrounded only by the skeletal remains of a chain-link fence. The house appeared to be either half finished or partially demolished. Either way, there wasn’t anyone home. Less than fifty yards behind Paige were the houses under investigation.
“Typical Skinner treachery,” Kayla spat. “Your partner is unharmed and you still intend on killing me.”
Retracting her arms to ease the weapons away from her captive, Paige said, “Lady, I don’t think you have the slightest idea of what I intend. How about we meet somewhere a bit more private so we can discuss it?”
“I won’t meet you anywhere you’ve probably rigged with traps.”
“And I won’t meet you somewhere just to be surrounded and ripped to shreds.”
“Okay, so we’ve got trust issues,” Cole said. “We came to make our proposition, and I already filled her in on the basics. Paige can tell you whatever else you need to know.”
Reaching up to make sure there wasn’t a blade at her throat, Kayla positioned herself so she could see both of the Skinners. Her body was athletic and slender in a way that would have made any human seem frail. The Mongrel was anything but frail, and her fur was about halfway sprouted. Depending on the way the pale light from the moon and surrounding neighborhood hit her, she either looked naked or wrapped in a form-fitting jumpsuit. Her features had flattened out as if her entire face was wrapped a bit too tightly around her skull. “He says you want us to track werewolves for you.”
“That’s right,” Paige replied. “Half Breeds and a Full Blood. As far as I know, Mongrels have always been into that sort of thing.”
As Kayla spoke, the earth around her rippled with the movement of all those burrowers. “Even if we do show up to surprise them, many of us will be killed.”
“Welcome to our world,” Paige replied as she tossed Cole his spear.
Kayla raised her chin and straightened up to her full height. A long, curved tail retracted into the small of her back until it was just a nub. Her coat slipped beneath her skin in spots, leaving only a trail of fur that wrapped around her hips, upper thighs, belly, and breasts. “We have our own concerns,” she said carefully. “Whether humans thrive or die doesn’t really affect us.”
“There are wild packs of Mongrels, but you’re not one of them,” Paige pointed out. “If you were, you wouldn’t care about speaking our language, or making yourself presentable when in plain sight. You’d also be living in a forest or swamp or a field instead of right here where you’re close enough to hear people’s voices and buy your supplies.”
Shifting on her feet, Kayla made no attempt to dispute Paige’s claims. “Why should we risk our lives fighting a Full Blood that hasn’t even threatened us?”
“If you help us find the werewolves we’re after, we’ll see to it that no Skinner comes to this town unless you force us to. On the other hand,” Paige said, obviously weighing every word, “if you step up and fight those things with us, the Skinners will let you and your pack settle in Kansas City. You can do whatever you want so long as it doesn’t involve eating people.”
“We don’t eat people,” one of the burrowers said.
Turning to what sounded like Ben’s voice, Cole said, “Then I recommend the barbecue. It’s superb.”
“What do you say?” Paige asked. “Willing to shed a little blood to live in a real city or would you prefer to keep tilling lawns?”
After glancing at the multiple sets of eyes peeking up from beneath the grass, Kayla nodded. “Our scouts will meet you in Kansas City and we’ll take it from there.”
Cole distinctly heard muffled voices coming from belowground as Ben and the other burrowers slithered away. “Meet us where?” he asked.
Kayla walked past him and turned around just in time to catch him scoping out her twitching tail. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “A Skinner’s scent is hard to miss. We’ll find you.” She dropped to all fours while transforming into a sleek mix of human and leopard. Keeping low to the ground, she bolted away with speed that neither animal could hope to attain.
Chapter 26
Mick, Val, and Quentin stayed behind to continue their investigation. Since Paige was convinced the Mongrels
