Chapter 28
The instant Lancroft ducked into his lab, Cole fired another shot at him. The Snapper round missed its target but dug deep enough into the stone to break apart some of the runes Lancroft had been tracing. Since Henry was having an easier time clawing his way into the house, Cole guessed those shattered runes were another part of the house’s defenses.
Paige knelt at Rico’s side. “Here,” she whispered as she handed Tristan’s flask to him. “Drink this.”
“Just send that Nymar down here with some fucking serum,” he growled.
“You were hurt too bad for serum. Plus the wound was made by a Skinner weapon. You know those don’t heal like regular ones.”
Rico grit his teeth and looked down at his bloodied shirt. Allowing his head to fall back and knock against the floor, he spat, “Damn it.”
After pulling the stopper from the flask, she jammed it into Rico’s mouth almost hard enough to chip some teeth. When she told him what he was drinking. Rico almost spat it out.
Pausing at the door to the examination room, Cole shifted his grip on his spear so he could swing it with his left hand while maintaining his hold on the .45. He fired once into the room, stepped through the doorway, and fired again when he caught sight of Lancroft standing with his back pressed against the wall directly beside the door. He didn’t have time to fire another shot before Lancroft dropped straight down and snapped his pike up with a flick of both wrists. The end of the weapon shifted to become as long and thin as a whip, and it cinched tightly around Cole’s wrist like piano wire.
“You did a good job, Henry,” Lancroft said as he pulled his weapon sharply to send Cole’s .45 sailing over the Full Blood carcass. “But you know you shouldn’t be down here.”
Cole’s arm was snapped so violently that losing the .45 seemed more like a favorable alternative to losing his hand. He hopped to one side and swung his arm down to wedge the cord beneath the top of the examination table. “Why don’t you come take a look in here, Henry?” he shouted while unwinding himself from the whipcord. “There’s a whole secret room you need to see.”
From the workshop as well as the back of Cole’s mind, the little boy shouted, “I’m not allowed in there.”
As soon as the cord came loose, Cole bolted from the examination room so he could check on his partners. Rico was scooting into the corner farthest from the lab, where a dainty hand appeared from over his shoulder to pull him into the wall itself. Cole could only guess that Jordan was behind the cloak in the corner and helping the bigger man into her shelter.
“You three did a very good job finding me,” Lancroft said while walking out of the examination room. “I’m actually quite proud of you.” His weapon reformed into the single-bladed staff.
“High praise coming from a murdering asshole,” Paige snarled as she drew her gun and fired two shots at him. Spending so much time with a gamer had rubbed off on her. Rather than aim for his center of mass, she tried for a headshot, which sailed past Lancroft when the older man quickly hunched over and twisted around. Her next shots were lower and hit him in the upper back, turning bits of his tweed jacket into lint and exposing patches of leather reinforced with a wire mesh.
“That’s a new form of ammunition,” he said as if admiring a neighbor’s riding mower. “Nearly made it through the upper layers of my jacket.”
As Lancroft turned around, Cole saw the flaps of leather exposed in the damaged sections of the old man’s jacket. It reminded him of the material in Rico’s body armor, but was layered like sections in a compressed phone book. However Lancroft had managed that bit of craftsmanship, it might be enough to withstand all the bullets the Skinners had brought.
Cole threw himself at Paige as the whipcord extended from Lancroft’s pike. Since he wouldn’t get to her in time, he deflected the incoming snare with an upward swing of his spear. Paige dropped to a crouch, tucked the gun away and drew her other baton while running at Lancroft. She feinted with the sickle before swinging the machete, but was blocked by a move that sent a burst of sparks to the floor. Lancroft slashed her elbow, but she twisted all the way around and followed through with a swing from her machete that would have left most other opponents without a head.
Even though Lancroft seemed genuinely surprised by her last attempt, he still managed to duck under it and step away. “It’s too late to stop Pestilence,” he said while knocking Paige down with a clubbing blow from the shaft of the pike. “I’ve been infecting Nymar across the country with their portion of the disease since the early 1970s. The component festering in the leeches is derived from pollen. Very sweet, but very toxic. It’s only one of several lifetimes of work I’ve done. Work any Skinner should damn well appreciate!”
Paige rolled to get her feet under her while swinging at Lancroft’s legs. When the old man hopped over both weapons, Cole rushed straight at him. Lancroft deflected Cole’s spear and then willed his pike to curl around it so he could twist the weapon from Cole’s grasp. The thorns in the handle kept the spear in place, but also threatened to pull the skin from Cole’s hands in the process.
Paige swung at Lancroft’s neck, only to have him skillfully lean away from the sickle. After Cole forced the old man to twist away from a lunging stab with the spear, she hit Lancroft squarely in the back with her machete. It cut through several layers of Lancroft’s jacket, exposing the fresh bullet holes. Focusing on one ragged bull’s-eye, she sank the pointed end of her sickle into a bullet hole and drove all the way through the protective garment. Beneath that were thin metal plates, layered to protect the old man’s back while allowing for complete freedom of movement.
“I want to help, Dr. Lancroft,” the little boy said from the doorway connecting the temple to the workshop.
The old man edged along the opposite wall while spinning his weapon in a flow of constant motion to keep Cole and Paige at bay. Rico fired a shot from his corner, which didn’t do anything more than turn a few beads into powder and obliterate some more etchings. After that he made certain to keep at least one of the other Skinners between him and Rico’s corner. “Of course you want to help,” Lancroft said as he poked a shallow hole into Cole’s chest with a quick jab from his pike. “Be a good boy, Henry, and bring the others down here. Remember, though, you’re not allowed in my lab.” While blocking attacks from Cole and Paige, he still had enough speed to take a few swings of his own.
Paige used her machete for defense. Although that arm was getting hit, the hardened limb prevented Lancroft’s weapon from cutting too deeply. The pike was a blur and the rest of him moved in a fluid series of unpredictable bobs and weaves.
Fixing an intent scowl on Paige, he said, “Say what you want about my methods, but I
“So instead, you come up with Pestilence,” Paige replied. “Real noble.”
Lancroft backed toward the examination room. “After spending decades in laboratories without sticking my nose into the sun and hunting creatures that now are only footnotes in the most obscure legends, I would think you’d want to learn from me.”
Gunshots sounded from upstairs as hurried footsteps rushed the door and began stomping down into the workshop. The other garden-level windows were knocked in, allowing the smaller of the reawakened Mud People to squirm their way into the basement. Their strained wheezes were a foul wind that rolled out of the workshop to sully the Dryad’s makeshift temple.
Cole and Paige circled Lancroft so they could catch their breath and try to give Rico a clean shot. While they had used the respite to collect themselves and heal, Lancroft had done the same. All of his wounds were closed, including the ones that would have taken Paige a few days to shake off. As the Mud People started pushing into the temple, Lancroft said, “Wait a second, Henry.”
All the Mud People obeyed the order.
“Maybe you just aren’t aware of what I’ve created,” Lancroft said to the other Skinners. “If you were able to study the bodies of the most recent Half Breed victims, you would have seen the nymph pheromones used to attract
