right shoulder. Liam tossed Paige into the television just to free up that hand. She hit the TV on one side, but also twisted her body around so she slid along the edge of the bulky set rather than bounce off it. “Go get our weapons!” she shouted to Cole the instant she landed.
Cole had already been thinking along those lines, but hadn’t seen a way to run around Liam without getting knocked through a piece of furniture. Now that Daniels had made his move, Cole was able to slip past both creatures and make a break for the door.
Liam was shifting into his upright wolf form very quickly. Every movement he made was more powerful than the last as one layer of muscle piled on top of another, but no matter how much Liam struggled or swung his arm, Daniels would not come loose. In the few seconds it took for Cole to get by them, the black tendrils along Daniels’s neck and scalp had swollen into thick ridges. The Nymar’s fangs broke Liam’s skin, and the thicker bottom set were dug in deep enough to keep him in place. If Liam intended on ripping Daniels away, he stood to lose a sizable chunk of his arm in the process.
The commotion had already drawn some attention. As Cole raced to his and Paige’s room, he saw a few other doors opening just enough for some nervous guests to peek outside. Not worrying about them, he rushed into the room, took Paige’s batons from the boots she’d kicked into a corner, and then grabbed his spear. On his way back to Daniels’s room, he could only see the rush of hallway flowing around him and felt nothing but his feet pounding against the floor.
Cole wrapped one hand tightly around the grip of his weapon so the thorns could dig into his palms. Unfortunately, the door to Daniels’s room had closed and locked behind him when he left. “Someone open this door!” he shouted as he pounded on the painted metal surface. A few more doors along the hallway opened and someone asked what was going on, but Cole didn’t even acknowledge them. He kept pounding and was about to try kicking the door down, when it came open.
Cole could only get the door open an inch or two because something was blocking it. Leaning his shoulder into it, he looked down to find Daniels slumped against the other side. The Nymar looked up at him and then scooted forward so Cole could step inside. “I…set him up…for you,” Daniels groaned as venom dripped from one of his curved upper fangs. The rest of his teeth were either cracked or covered in blood.
Just as Cole stepped into the room, his vision was blocked by a massive wall of black fur. Thanks to the venom in his system, Liam was unsteady upon his feet. He’d also transformed to roughly double his original size. For the moment, he didn’t seem at all interested in Cole. Instead, he swatted at Daniels and snarled, “God damned leech!”
Taking the opportunity he’d been given, Cole hurried toward the back of the room where Paige was leaning over a small round table situated beneath a lamp that hung from a painted chain. “Here,” he said as he handed over the batons. “That thing’s about to kill Daniels.”
But Paige didn’t take the batons. She didn’t even turn around to look at Cole. “Our weapons aren’t enough. We need more.”
“This is all we’ve got. Just take them!”
The high-pitched grinding sound that followed was a cross between a wasp’s buzz and a dentist’s drill. Paige hunched forward with her right arm resting upon the table so she could use her left to work the tattooing machine Daniels had modified.
“What the hell are you doing?” Cole demanded as he tried to grab Paige’s wrist. “Stop that!”
She knocked him back with her shoulder, clenched her right fist, and said, “It’s either this or we all die here.”
“No! We fought it before, we can—”
The rest of his plea was drowned out by the grating whine of the machine as its needles were dragged through her right forearm. Cole wanted to pull the machine away, but it was too late. The ink was already being inserted under her skin through hundreds of motorized punctures. Moving her now would only cause more damage.
“Don’t stand there watching,” Paige snapped through gritted teeth. “Cover me until I get this done.”
Daniels struggled with Liam in the other part of the room. One quick glance over his shoulder was enough to show Cole that the Full Blood had indeed been slowed by the venom he’d absorbed. Liam was far from unconscious, but his head waggled slightly and Daniels had managed to get close enough to sink his fangs into his left wrist.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, Paige!” Cole said. “This shit needs to be tested.”
“I
Knowing better than to argue with her, he leapt onto the bed with the intention of hitting Liam anywhere he could. If his only target was the Full Blood’s back, he wasn’t too proud to take it. By the time Cole’s foot sunk into the mattress, Liam ripped his arm from Daniels’s fangs. The creature’s other hand elongated and snapped forward to grip the Nymar just below the chin.
Cole pushed himself forward with both legs and extended his weapon out to try and get one solid hit. The tooth attached to the spearhead sank into the meat above Liam’s waist as easily as a knife would cut through mortal flesh. The original spearhead snagged upon the wound, but there was enough momentum behind the strike to drive it farther into Liam’s side.
Liam opened his mouth and let out a furious, pained roar. His eyes glittered with an ancient fire while Daniels hung from his fist like a broken plaything. When he clenched his fist and ripped out the Nymar’s throat, Liam did so with as much effort as he might expend to shred a wet napkin.
Oily blood sprayed across Cole’s face and spattered against the wall, but he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted. His spear wasn’t more than an inch or so within Liam’s side, and he knew he wouldn’t land such a clean blow again.
After tossing Daniels to the floor, Liam grabbed the spear and lashed out with his other paw. Cole ducked under the incoming claws while swinging his lower body around to plant one foot on the floor and the other on the edge of the bed. If not for the thorns in the spear’s handle, the weapon would have easily been shaken from his grip. The more Liam struggled, however, the more the weapon twisted within the wound it had created.
Seeing how much pain Liam was in, Cole planted both feet on the floor and twisted his spear. Even though the weapon was tightly wedged between layers of steely muscle, he got it to move ever so slightly. That little bit was enough to cause Liam’s eyes to glaze over and his jaw to open so wide that it looked as if it might have come unhinged.
“Don’t like that, do ya?” Cole asked. “How about this?” When he tried to twist the spear some more, he could barely get it to move. Pulling it out would have been easy, since all the muscles in the Full Blood’s body were rejecting the weapon in the same way they might push a splinter from his finger. Cole leaned forward but simply couldn’t get the weapon to budge.
Liam drew in a low, rumbling breath, embracing the pain that wracked his body so he could turn it into fuel. Looking down at Cole, he gripped the weapon protruding from his side and started to pull it out. “You’d better pray…that you die tonight…along with the rest of this fucking city.”
All of Cole’s strength wasn’t anywhere close to what was needed to finish the job he’d started. Even with his legs braced and hands clenched tight enough for blood to trickle from his palms, he couldn’t prevent Liam from tearing the weapon out from where it had been lodged. The backs of Cole’s legs hit the bed and he toppled onto the mattress, bringing his spear along with him. The Full Blood leaned forward to bite off his face, but was stopped by the jarring impact of a stout wooden baton against his chin.
Paige gripped her weapons and willed the one in her left hand to shift into the sickle-bladed form she normally used. The one clutched in her right fist was barely able to form a cutting edge and looked more like a small, poorly crafted machete. When Liam swung a paw at her, Paige blocked with her left and was instantly driven to her knees under the force of the blow. The Full Blood lunged at her, but was stopped cold when Paige drove her right weapon straight up into his side. The tattooing machine had dug several crooked trenches through her skin, leaving messy black lines in their wake. Where Nymar tendrils appeared as smooth, flowing markings, these looked harsh and
