Cole picked out half a dozen Nymar, based solely on markings he could see on exposed skin or wounds that were too serious to be on a human being without putting them permanently out of a fight. What disturbed him the most was all the officers clustered at the front door. The armed figures in bulky gear were backlit by headlights and watching what happened inside. They all seemed to be held back by a solitary man standing at the doorway wearing raggedy clothes over a wiry frame.
“There you are,” Cole snarled as he set his sights on Kawosa’s back. Jabbing a finger at him, he told Nadya, “Stay here and cover that skinny bastard. If he makes any sudden moves or starts to change into something, shoot him.”
“My bullets won’t do much to a shapeshifter.”
“Then aim for the head. Maybe you’ll knock him out long enough for me to get to him.”
She wasn’t happy about it, but took a position in the doorway and sighted along the top of the FAMAS.
The Nymar in that room were increasingly easy to spot, wearing their affliction on their sleeves by baring their fangs and hissing like animals. Clawed hands were wrapped around pistols taken from the dead, and when the cops put a bullet into them, they straightened up to allow the mashed hunk of lead to be ejected from their bodies by greasy black tendrils.
Cole gripped his spear, hopped over the counter and into the battle. When he was targeted by the closest vampires, he tucked his chin against his chest and twisted his body around so the shots fired at him thumped against his coat. The impacts hurt like hell, but mundane rounds couldn’t even scratch the hardened Full Blood leather. A second later something larger than a bullet slammed into his right side.
Hope tackled Cole as if she’d been launched by a catapult. Her shoulder pounded against his ribs and her arms wrapped around him like a pair of steel bands. If he hadn’t been fast enough to get his spear around to buy himself an inch or two of breathing room, the life would have been squeezed out of him in a matter of seconds.
“There’s more Skinners here,” Hope shouted. “Find them!”
A few Nymar separated from the group. One of them clung to the ceiling, so it got to Nadya first. Although Cole couldn’t check on the Amriany, he heard the FAMAS chattering and saw the muzzle flash from the corner of his eye.
Once again, strength rushed through his body. It was enough to pry Hope off, but left him too unsteady to stay upright. He dropped to one knee, using the spear as a crutch to prevent him from keeling over.
“Don’t worry about the police,” Hope sneered while popping lightly to her feet. “The ones that aren’t under our control are dead on their feet.”
Cole turned to take a better look at the cops. Sure enough, many of them had a slick coating of venom on their faces. If any of that crap had gotten into their eyes, they were susceptible to suggestion as well as disoriented and groggy. Cole reached up to feel his own face, hoping to explain some of the strangeness going on inside of him. The only thing he found was some blood and a whole lot of sweat.
Approaching him while craning her neck to look at the rest of the room, Hope took in the carnage as if she was enjoying a movie. “I’m torn on what to do with you,” she said. “Our coordinated efforts have come together nicely to either put your kind into the ground or in the sights of your own authorities. It’s tempting to let them have you. Still, I do enjoy the taste of Skinner blood. You all have such a nice blend running through your veins.”
She crouched down slowly as chaos closed in around her.
Nadya emptied her last few rounds into whatever was attacking her.
Cops who’d expended their ammunition swung blindly at anything that moved, while others fired at their partners because of the temporary mind control forced on them by the venom. Nymar exploded from the shadows, dropped from the ceiling, or struggled with the few officers who’d managed to keep their wits about them. The only calm within the storm were Cole and Kawosa. The shapeshifter stood in the doorway, quietly talking to the anxious officers waiting to barge in while occasionally motioning to the room behind him as if the bedlam was just another busy day at the office.
Cole remained still because he was too weak to waste what energy he had left. He’d had enough training and been through enough hell to recognize the anticipation in Hope’s eyes as a ruse meant to lull him into committing to a wild attack. When she switched direction like a cobra swaying back and forth, the hunger in her eyes spiked. He knew what came after that.
The markings on her face pulsed in a way he’d never seen on a Nymar. They covered the sides of her head like a pair of hands gripping her between them. Her attack came so quickly that Hope didn’t even seem to move. She simply flickered from one spot to another, confirming that the two spore attached to her heart could truly work in lethal concert. Somehow, Cole was able to move fast enough to intercept her.
His muscles felt as if they were being shredded from his bones, but they pulled his body down and brought his arms up in short, powerful motions that allowed him to jab the spear into her chest. He knew he’d missed her heart, but when she landed, the metallic spearhead was completely buried inside her torso.
Hope gripped the spear and snarled at him. Unlike the previous Nymar to be caught that way, she had the power to wrench it out and shove him back. “You can’t kill me with your weapons,” she said. “No Skinner can.”
Her mouth continued to move, but Cole wasn’t listening to what she said. His strength was fading so quickly that he barely had enough juice in his batteries to process the sights flooding into his eyes or the sounds filling his ears. Something pounded against the floor just enough for him to feel the impacts. A fast, chopping rhythm washed through the building, which soon distinguished itself as the roar of helicopter blades. Paige had arrived, but every fiber in Cole’s body told him that he couldn’t hold out until she got to him.
He needed to fend for himself.
He needed to feed.
As Hope began to recover from being impaled, Cole swung his spear at her throat. She leaned away from that with ease but underestimated how quickly he could follow it up. The forked end of the spear twirled around almost as fast as the blades of the helicopter outside the building, and she ducked under it before her head was taken from her shoulders. A deep gash was torn across her jugular, and before she could place her hand to the wound, Cole was on her.
What his leap lacked in finesse, it made up for with sheer power. Every joint in his legs felt as if it had snapped loose. His groin muscles strained to the point of tearing. As soon as he got his hand on Hope’s neck, however, all of that discomfort went away. He rode her down until her back hit the floor, slipping his hand up under Hope’s chin and driving the back of her skull against cement and tile. The thumping impact resounded through his ears as he clamped his mouth upon the open wound on her neck.
He didn’t know what he was doing.
The rational part of his brain had been shoved too far back into his subconscious to be heard.
His teeth scraped uselessly against the torn flaps of Hope’s skin, so he jammed his face in closer and probed the wound with his tongue. A tremble moved through her body as he licked and sucked, adding another layer of disgust to the many that were already heaped on top of him. Hope’s blood trickled into his mouth at first. Once his tongue found a stronger flow coming from one of her severed arteries and directed the fluid into his mouth, the pain in his muscles lessened. All of the tearing he’d felt before simply faded as if the twine cinched around his innards had been loosened or cut.
Then the tastes hit him.
The coppery sweetness of blood mingled with something bitter and pungent. Each gulp was sweet and then sour. Something in him pushed through the latter just to get more of the former.
“What are you doing?” Hope groaned. “Are you feeding from me?” She tried to squirm away, but Cole’s entire body reacted to hold her in place. Despite his best efforts, she was able to draw enough strength from both of her Nymar spore for her to gain some purchase on the floor. “This is even more interesting than I’d anticipated.”
Nadya may have had a chance to reload the FAMAS, but that wouldn’t explain the multiple bursts of gunfire erupting from different angles. Other voices came from the hallway, speaking in some sort of European dialect Cole couldn’t place. Someone yelled for the damn Gypsies to speak English. He didn’t need more than one guess to figure out who that was. At the same time, voices chattered through his earpiece, trying to get his attention, asking where he was and what he was doing.
Even though she seemed capable of getting away, Hope remained within Cole’s grasp. “So you were unable to prevent the seeding, even after somehow ridding yourself of the spore,” she said in a breathy voice that was the only one Cole cared to hear. “This alone was worth the trouble of making sure I saw you and your partners again. This changes everything.”
