“Looks like Gunari is pushing them toward us!”
“Pull up another e-mail, Walter,” Cole said quickly. “One of the ones addressed to Cobb’s whole system. Add my e-mail address to the list of senders and send out a generic reply so it’s placed into the circulation. Drina, you and Rico buy us a minute and then head back out.”
“What about Paige?” Rico asked.
“Me, her, and Walter will stay here to wrap this up. Just go!”
Either Rico was surprised by the forceful tone in Cole’s voice or he truly did respect him more as a partner, because the big man nodded once and motioned for Drina to help him carry out the orders they’d been given.
“Done,” Prophet said as he tapped the last key.
Cole didn’t need to do much more than shift his eyes to get a look at Paige. She stood in the middle of the room, between two cheap folding tables that looked like those professional wrestlers used as landing pads when jumping from the top ropes. Apart from the computer setup and tables, there wasn’t much of anything else within the room. Paige met his glance with an intensity that made it seem they were secluded from the rest of the world. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the good kind of intensity, and it sure as hell wasn’t a good kind of seclusion.
“What do you want to do from here?” he asked.
“You seem to be doing pretty well,” Paige replied. “I’ll follow your lead.”
“Prophet, take this.”
The bounty hunter stood up and had to act fast in order to catch the Nymar prisoner that was shoved toward him. Old instincts combined with job skills nicely enough for him to take control of the prisoner by twisting one arm behind the Nymar’s back and shoving him face first against the computer desk. “What should I do with him?”
“Find out whatever you or your boss needs to know about these Denver assholes,” Cole said. “Right after you find out where the cops are that’re being set up for a fall. If he acts like he doesn’t know about any cops, kill him.” Shifting to look down at the squirming Nymar, he added, “Use those antidote rounds I gave you. They should do the trick.”
“What’s next, Cole?” Paige asked.
Releasing the .45?s slide so he could safely holster the pistol, he snapped it back into the holster on his belt and drew the spear from where it had been strapped to his back. “Next, you tell me who the fuck you are, because you’re sure as hell not my partner.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
An angry twitch drifted across Paige’s face as she backed away. Although the fierceness in her eyes seemed like the woman Cole knew, their color was off by a few shades of brown and they were just a little too vivid to be natural. They shifted to a more sedated hue as she said, “Of course. You have feelings for this one. That would explain the inconsistencies.”
“Who are you?” Cole demanded.
Instead of the muted crackle of broken bones or the internal ripping of muscle and sinew that went along with other shapeshifters’ transformation, Paige’s change sounded more like a breath pulled in through a constricted throat. Familiar features dissolved and her skin pressed in around a narrowing frame. Even as her body’s curves faded like a dream and her clothes turned into rags, her eyes remained the same.
The figure that stood in front of Cole was vaguely familiar to him. Thinking back to the drive from where they’d met up with the Amriany, he realized it was the figure he’d first mistaken for Paige on the side of the road. Tightening his grip on the spear, he took comfort from the trickle of warm blood between his fingers. The bite of the thorns into his palms gave a much needed burst of adrenaline through his veins. “You’re a Full Blood?”
“My name is Kawosa and I am no Full Blood. No more than a king is merely a citizen.”
“Why can’t you guys just talk like everyone else?”
“And why can’t humans ever ask the first question on their minds without trying to dress it up with a lot of chatter and threatening gestures?”
“Where’s Paige?”
“Where did you last see her?”
“You must have known what she looked like or you wouldn’t have been able to change into her. It’s gotta be something like that, right?”
More gunshots ripped through the building, followed by Amriany voices calling back and forth. Somewhere within the building, doors were thrown open and different voices were added to the mix. Cole’s earpiece chirped once and Rico’s voice followed.
“This place is crawlin’ with those goddamn striped bloodsuckers. Someone else is coming and my money’s on them bein’ cops. What the hell happened, Paige? Didn’t you call these guys off?”
Kawosa’s eyes rolled around in their sockets as if he was following a pattern of lights dancing in front of his eyes. After they settled in the direction of his right ear, he pulled the device out, tossed the earpiece to the floor and smashed it under his foot as if it was a tick that had been lodged in his flesh.
Looking at his own hands, just to make sure the weapon was still in them, Cole said, “You’re a shapeshifter, so I know this weapon will hurt you. Tell me what happened to Paige.”
“I took her from your thoughts when you first laid eyes on me.”
“Shit. Another Mind Singer?”
“Oh, no. I can only read what lies on your surface, but that’s all I ever need. It’s rare your species ever uses much of anything deeper than that. Tell me, when did you know I wasn’t your Paige?”
“The moment you got in the car.”
“I doubt that very much.”
The expression on the shapeshifter’s face was so confident and so extremely arrogant that Cole wanted nothing more than to knock it off of him. With the firefight outside and no sign from the real Paige, he figured it couldn’t hurt to buy himself a few more seconds for reinforcements to arrive. “Her arm was wounded in Kansas City,” he said. “Yours wasn’t scarred. It wasn’t even stiff.”
Kawosa absently rubbed that arm. “And the eyes, right?” Despite the fact that Cole didn’t respond, Kawosa nodded serenely. “It’s always the eyes when it comes down to someone a human cares about. You’d think I would know that by now, wouldn’t you? The fact of the matter is that you care deeply for this woman. That’s why you envision her in such pristine condition.”
“Pristine, huh?” Cole chuckled. “You seriously need to do more research on someone before you try to mimic them.”
“And perhaps you should think harder about what you feel for her,” Kawosa said with a cruel, confident smile. “You may not have a lot of time left to enjoy each other. As for the Full Blood claim, I do share certain traits with them. Skinners have rarely been able to detect me, however. Your forefather Lancroft worked for years on end just to catch my scent. That itch in your hands probably came from them.” Kawosa nodded toward the back of the room in a corner near the computer desk.
Cole knew better than to turn around and look. If there was anything worth seeing, Prophet would have spoken up by now.
“Uhhh,” Prophet said. “You better get over here.”
Heavy footsteps scraped against the floor, sounding like sandbags being dragged across the linoleum. The breaths drifting through the air were the low rasp of wind snagging upon ravaged throats. A pair of werewolves stalked across the room, leaving a juicy trail of saliva that fell from their mouths. They moved with a purpose that was nowhere to be found in any of the beasts that had ripped through Kansas City or the wild things that slept in filthy pits after tearing apart any man, woman, or child that crossed their path. They were bigger than Half Breeds and walked without lifting their paws fully from the floor. Their heads swung easily back and forth and their lips curled up to reveal a set of elongated fangs marked by two pairs of curved tusks sprouting from top and bottom jaws.
Watching the bulky creatures, Cole shifted his stance so neither they nor Kawosa were behind him. Unable to come up with a better guess, he asked, “Burkis? Is that you?”
