It was a Skinner’s duty to use the antidote syringe as soon as they’d completed their final task. They had to let the spore take root in order for it to do any good, and if they didn’t have the stones to kill themselves afterward, there were plenty of others out there who would make it their mission to track them down and do it for them. Since the Skinners couldn’t afford to let their knowledge fall into any bloodsucker’s hands, it became top priority for anyone using the vial to deliver themselves and the new little buddy attached to their heart right back to hell.
Life sucks and then you die. Twice.
“Stay focused, Cole,” Rico said.
Until that moment, Cole hadn’t known he’d been drifting away. The thoughts, voices, and memories all just curled around his brain and removed him from what was happening. When the needle jabbed into his arm, he barely felt it. As the antidote was pumped in, it rolled through his body like a wave of saltwater that had been charged by downed electrical wires. He sat up with nothing on his mind other than the desire to kill the man with the syringe in his hand.
Rico pushed him down with one thickly callused palm. “Take it easy. Just give it a minute. And don’t think I forgot about you, bitch,” he said to the Nymar. “Every bullet I got has your name on it.”
The Nymar was being held in place somehow, but Cole wasn’t worried about the details. He barely even noticed when Paige dropped to the floor a few feet from him. Seeing her reminded him what the Resurrection Vial was for. He’d been given a few more moments to hang on and didn’t intend on wasting them.
“Son … of a …
Rico’s voice was still nearby. “You all right, Bloodhound?”
“Yeah. She just … made a big mistake. Tried to seed me.”
“Same here. Is this Cole’s first time?”
Now Paige looked at him too. There was pain written across her face. Cole had seen that before, but there was something else in her eyes that spoke of a wound deeper than the ones already being closed by the healing serum her body had been conditioned to produce. “Yes,” she replied while injecting herself with antidote from one of the syringes in her pocket. “It’s his first time. Did you get him injected?”
“Yeah, but it’s still tearing him up.”
“He should be able to handle it.” She turned her head quickly enough for her newly cropped hairstyle to flap against her cheek. “You wanted to see?” she yelled. “Come over here!”
“She’s gone, Paige,” Rico said. “She took off after tossing you over here. Was that …?”
“Yeah. It was Hope. She’s still somewhere close. She told me that—Oh, Christ!”
“You okay?”
Ignoring the question while pulling herself onto one knee, Paige gnashed her teeth and said, “She seeded me just to watch me squirm. Fucking bitch still gets off on pain. Don’t worry, Cole. It hurts, but the serum in your blood will keep the spore from attaching, and the antidote should kill it. Stings like a mother, but it’ll stop before long.”
“We gotta get out of here,” Rico said. “Those sirens are way too close, and when the cops find them bodies, things will get messy.”
The pain lessened, but Cole’s discomfort grew. “It’s still in there,” he said.
“I know,” Paige said through gritted teeth. Her hand rested on his chest, moved directly to the spot where it hurt most and rubbed him gently. “It’ll keep fighting for a while,” she said while trying to mask her own pain.
When Rico stood up, the Nymar beneath his heel grunted. He bent down and picked her up. “You’re coming with us.”
“You’ll kill me no matter what,” the Nymar spat. “Skinners can’t be trusted.”
“No, but we can be great listeners.”
“I won’t help you.”
“Then you’re in for one hell of a long night.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“One of the others is coming,” Randolph announced.
Liam stood with the other Full Blood in a wooded area less than two miles east of a small coastal town. It was a cool, windy night. They’d covered a lot of ground at a vigorous pace but none of the shapeshifters were any worse for wear. Full Bloods were accustomed to traversing their vast territories. Half Breeds were only content when they were moving, and Kawosa had been eager to stretch his legs after being huddled in Lancroft’s basement for too many years. Pointing his scarred nose toward the Atlantic, Liam drew a breath and said, “Kawosa told me about our approaching guest. You think it’ll be our friend from Australia?”
“My money’s on Sandoval. He’s more the kind who would respond to the news you’ve been so good at spreading.”
“You flatter me.”
“No flattery intended. Your attack on Kansas City was meant to draw attention, and that’s what you did. If it’s not Sandoval, it could be any of the others. Not that there are many to choose from.” Randolph crossed his arms over a solid chest covered in a jacket that had been hanging just inside the back door of a house in town. Breaking into the house had been a lot easier than convincing Liam to leave its owner sleeping, but he’d somehow accomplished both jobs. A wind brushed through the trees with barely enough strength to shake the leaves in it.
“Do you smell the young one?” Liam asked.
Nodding to a trio of figures at the edge of a nearby clearing, Randolph replied, “No, but they do. Look how restless they are.”
“Even with the old trickster reining them in, those wretches still look ready to break loose. They really are a piece of work.”
The other three were just far enough away for Randolph to see the shapes of their bodies, but not the expressions on their faces. Two of them were Half Breeds, but hardly looked the part anymore. They’d evolved to survive in a world left behind by Lancroft’s pestilence and had changed once more thanks to Liam’s attentions. In Randolph’s opinion, trying to infect the marrow of another shapeshifter was akin to sneezing on someone who already had a cold. The damage had been done. Liam had a knack for changing a shapeshifter even more, which made him something more than just company.
“You’re thinking this was a mistake, aren’t you?” Liam asked.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because you always start to think along those lines once things really start to get good. Do you doubt those wretches can get the job done?”
“They were once human,” Randolph stated. “Now they’re a little bit of three species. If they can’t do the job, nobody can. What of your Mongrel friends? We haven’t heard from them in a while.”
When Liam spoke, he seemed to be both savoring and choking on his own words. “They’re pariahs among their own kind, but there are plenty among them that have higher aspirations than living in the dirt and hiding beneath the humans’ sewers. I haven’t asked them to do anything that isn’t within their best interests.”
Randolph’s eyes shifted within their sockets. “We both set the task in front of them.”
Where Randolph was careful, Liam positioned himself so there would be no mistaking his intent. “You try giving them an order without me approving it and see what happens. Are you so proud that you can’t admit you need my help even this long after you’ve already begged for it?”
“I didn’t beg,” Randolph replied as his teeth reflexively melted into points.
Grinning with satisfaction, Liam said, “At least it’s nice to know you still appreciate me.”
“The wretches swarmed into a city. The humans have enough pictures of you on their computers to make you a celebrity. The Skinners are pooling resources that would have been lost if Jonah Lancroft hadn’t been forced to play his hand, and now we’re awaiting the arrival of a Full Blood who’s probably looking to add to all of the confusion
