after chugging through too many recalculations.
Letting his eyes wander along the scenery, he asked, “You used to live here, right?”
“Yep.”
“Isn’t this where you did your training?”
“That’s right,” she replied.
“What’s his name? Rico. You worked with him here, didn’t you?”
“Sure did.”
Cole drew a deep breath and hung his arm out the window. When they were flying down Highway 40 at seventy miles an hour, the breeze actually felt pretty good. “Rrrrrico,” he said, making sure to roll the R off his tongue. “I’m picturing some baby-face little pretty boy with a bandanna and no shirt under a leather jacket.”
“Are you? Well, whatever floats your boat.”
“You know. Because of that song from the eighties. Rrrrrrrico.”
Paige nodded. “Be sure to mention that when you meet him. He loves that joke.”
“Is he still here?”
She looked over at him while gunning her engine to get around a Mustang lingering in the right lane. “Ned Post is the resident Skinner around here, but he isn’t exactly up to that sort of thing anymore. Rico came by to lend him a hand.”
“Sure would have been nice for him to lend us a hand in KC.”
“Rico was stomping through the Rockies after some domestic Yetis. Once he gets wrapped up in a hunt like that, he doesn’t resurface until it’s done.”
Paige exited at Kingshighway Boulevard and drove past a large park. Normally, Cole would have enjoyed the greenery, but he’d become all too familiar with the kinds of things that live in wooded areas, whether they were in a city or not. He and Paige both kept their eyes pointed forward.
“This town seems pretty quiet,” he said.
“Then you must be deaf.”
As if to prove her point, tires squealed at the intersection in front of them and four people started screaming at the white pickup that had stuck its front end out where it didn’t belong. Two of those screamers weren’t even remotely involved in the averted accident.
Cole made loose fists to rub his fingertips against his palms. “No, I mean quiet in the…wait,” he said as a fiery pain touched his hands. His scars’ reaction to shapeshifters felt like a match being dragged across his skin. “I guess this place isn’t as quiet as I thought.”
“Rico told me he cleared out all the Half Breeds.”
“When did you talk to him?”
“While you were helping Daniels load that body into his backseat.”
As they continued down Kingshighway, the pain grew stronger. It wasn’t the deep tissue burn caused by a Full Blood, and it wasn’t the prickly sensation set off by a Half Breed. When Paige turned onto McPherson Avenue, Cole put a name to the pain. “Mongrels,” he said. “And they must be close.”
Paige gunned the Cav’s engine so she could skid into a parking spot against the curb a split second ahead of the black four-door that had been waiting for it with its blinker ticking. “Damn,” she said. “I am one hell of a good teacher.”
The black car held its ground, and when Cole got out, a man with a meticulously trimmed goatee stuck his head through the driver’s side window and screamed, “That’s my spot, asshole!”
Cole took his harness from the backseat but tried to keep it out of sight. Even though the spear was collapsed down to about half the size of a baseball bat, he didn’t quite succeed in keeping it under wraps.
“Oh, you wanna go?” the man with the goatee blustered as he kicked his door open.
Paige exited the Cav, walked up to the four-door, ripped the sling from her shoulder and dropped her right arm down onto the hood of the loudmouth’s car like a hammer. “Find another spot, dickless!”
The other guy froze half in and half out of his car. Grumbling to himself, he eased all the way in and drove off. Only when he was a safe distance away did he shout back at her.
Paige nodded at the people walking along the sidewalk and then to Cole. “I needed that.” She rubbed her forearm and tossed her sling into the Cav before leading the way toward Euclid Avenue.
The sun hadn’t set too long ago, and there were plenty of people walking on either side of the street. Cars drifted up and down paths of cracked concrete, passing buildings that were mostly two or three stories tall and made from similar dark red brick. Other structures were lighter in color, but all of them had a flair that made the entire area look as if it had been pieced together with care instead of churned out by a massive corporate construction project. Plants hung down from windows of homes and stores alike. Bright awnings extended over the sidewalks and painted iron trellises framed several windows. Even the people ambling from building to building seemed well maintained. Most of them looked like college students or aiming for that age bracket in the way they dressed. The couple standing between a pair of trees guarded by a little fence near the intersection of McPherson and Euclid would have blended in perfectly if they hadn’t been caught staring directly at Paige and Cole.
He returned the stare and started walking toward them. “I think I spotted them, Paige.”
The man wore khaki shorts and a baseball cap. He eased one slender, hairy leg back, while his female companion in a jeans skirt bent her knees slightly. Their movements didn’t stick out too much amid all the activity around them, but when Cole saw the subtle way they lowered their heads and raised their shoulders, something in his gut told him they were about to pounce.
Paige stooped down to take the baton from her boot holster. “Try to get them across the street to that little garage.”
The structure looked like a small cottage with one large door, and was positioned directly across from the fenced-in trees. It was at the mouth of a narrow side street that wasn’t half as busy as Euclid Avenue. “Got it,” he said as he drove the thorns from his weapon’s handle into his scarred palms.
The instant blood welled up from his hands, both of the people he’d spotted picked up on it. Their nostrils flared as they crouched down and prepared to strike.
Cole and Paige ran at them, scattering a group of four pedestrians along the way.
Apparently, Paige wasn’t the only one who’d scoped out the little garage, because the Mongrels darted across Euclid and disappeared down that very side street. The movement wasn’t spectacular enough to draw more than a few excited voices from the onlookers, but it got the Mongrels out of plain sight. Cole and Paige followed them as the groups of pedestrians went back to their own little worlds.
Having lost sight of the couple, Cole continued down the narrow lane that led past the garage. Paige was directly beside him. Keeping her back against the brick wall of the building directly across from the garage, she looked at Cole and nodded down the side street. The Mongrels were close, which meant they were probably lurking somewhere within the shadows between the buildings.
There was a Dumpster to Cole’s left and smaller, one-car garages farther down on the right. He was just about to step forward when something moved within the shadowy space between the Dumpster and a tall wooden fence. By the time he realized the shadow was actually a constricted mass of black fur, the Mongrel had already exploded from its corner.
Mongrels had abilities that varied as much as their appearance. Some were sleek and beautiful, while others were freakish. This one had short, mangy fur that was thicker in the spots that would need more protection. Coarse patches over its back thinned out along the sides of its squat head and the middle of its bony legs. Having squeezed behind the Dumpster so quickly, its main ability seemed to include twisting itself into more shapes than a balloon animal. Curved claws dug into the pavement as it opened its mouth to display a set of thin pointed teeth with a barely audible hiss.
Cole brought his spear up, angled it diagonally across his body and pushed it forward to stop the Mongrel in mid-jump. The creature’s chest thumped against the middle of the weapon, but its arms stretched out enough to scrape one side of Cole’s head with slender claws. His back was against the brick garage so nothing could get behind him. After shoving the Mongrel back, it slunk in a tight circle and then reared up on its hind legs directly in front of him. Scraping the forked end against cement, Cole snagged one of the Mongrel’s feet and swept its legs out from under it.
The Mongrel huffed as its ribs hit the ground, and then flopped to get all four of its legs beneath it. As it wriggled, the tattered remains of khaki shorts could be seen around its waist. Cole checked on his partner, hoping
