moment to give him a quick, jarring squeeze to let him know they were still there and hadn’t been fed for a while. Before Rico took notice, he regained his footing and came up with a quick bit of acting to try and make his stumble look natural. The sideways stepping movement was close to the one he used when trying to get a bunched-up pair of boxers out from where they’d been wedged. Unlike that awkward situation, this one had to be pulled off convincingly enough to make sure a trained killer didn’t have an excuse to stab him in the chest. At the moment, however, Rico seemed to be having problems of his own.
The big man was still moving, but just barely. He gritted his teeth, hung his head low, and clamped a hand over his stomach.
“Are you all right?” Cole asked.
“Yeah. Just a cramp, that’s all.” Suddenly, Rico lunged at Cole like a battering ram. As soon as they hit the ground, a gargoyle sliced through the air less than two feet over both of them. Cole pressed his face against the dirt, waited until he was sure there wasn’t another shrieking dive bomber behind the first, then scrambled to his feet.
“Don’t worry about a thanks or anything,” Rico said as he followed in Cole’s wake. “There’ll be plenty of time for that when you buy me a beer for saving your neck.”
“Remind me if we’re still alive tomorrow.”
According to several of the small, rectangular green signs they’d passed along the road, they were in a park. Under normal circumstances the wide stretches of New Mexican desert would have been beautiful, but now it looked more like the dry, scabbed patch of exposed bone beneath a section of burnt flesh. Fires were scattered across a stretch of sandy rock on the downward slope of the hill to Cole’s left where another helicopter had crashed. Of the four covered trucks in sight, half were overturned and burning, while the other two were being torn apart by Half Breeds. There could have been more vehicles in the convoy, but he couldn’t figure out how many or what kind they were based on the scorched, twisted metal that seemed to have been dumped from a passing cargo plane. Now that he was at the top of the hill and looking down at the devastation, his ears were nearly shredded by the din of automatic gunfire and pained howls.
“Over there!” Rico said as he pointed toward one of the overturned trucks. “That’s where your prison friends were being held.”
Another wave of howls erupted to Cole’s right and was quickly followed by paws thumping against the hardened desert floor. Once he caught sight of the Half Breeds stampeding toward him, he snapped into survival mode. Rico’s Sig Sauer went off behind him to send a bullet hissing through the air. The Half Breeds were the newer models, which meant the bullets that hit them only chipped a few tusks and pissed them off even more than usual. Allowing the MP5 to hang from his shoulder by its strap, he drew his spear and dove forward as two Half Breeds launched themselves at him. Being animals of sheer instinct and brute force, the werewolves didn’t waste a thought on the threat of mortal danger as they rushed head first toward the business end of the Skinner weapon. The Blood Blade coating on the spearhead allowed the sharpened point to tunnel into one creature’s chest cavity, while the other Half Breed snapped at Cole’s leg.
The thorns in the handle tugged at Cole’s palm when he twisted the weapon down to block the second beast’s attack. Its head rammed against the thorny handle and twisted to try and get at him from another angle. The more Cole pivoted the spear to prevent the second werewolf from getting to him, the more his spearhead twisted within the first one’s chest cavity. Finally, he pulled the weapon out and swung it in a half circle so the forked end raked through the second Half Breed’s throat.
Rico yelled with a haggard voice as he fired a shot into the eye of a third werewolf and jumped aside to let the fourth one sail past him. When that one hit the ground and turned around to face him, he stepped up to it and punched it in the mouth. Cole had read about Rico’s wooden version of brass knuckles in Paige’s journal but hadn’t actually seen them in action. He sure as hell hadn’t seen the big man slip them on before delivering that last blow. Spikes sprouted from a ridge of varnished wood that covered the top of his hand and wrapped around to dig into his palm. The punch shredded the beast’s face, and the multiple joints in its neck allowed its head to turn almost a full 180 degrees before snapping around amid the chatter of gnashing teeth. Before it had a chance to regain its bearings, Rico drove his fist into its jaw two more times. When the third Half Breed rushed at him, Rico pulled his fist back and willed a short blade to emerge from the outer edge of his weapon. Swinging as if gripping a dagger, Rico drove the blade into the Half Breed’s eye. It howled in pain and slumped straight down to spit its last breath into the dirt.
The Half Breed that Cole had impaled was losing steam, but not its will to fight. Even after being forced onto its side, it continued to scrape at the ground. Removing the spear with a straight pull, Cole flipped it around and dropped the forked end to trap the creature’s head. His palms were slick with blood and the thorns burrowed into him as he willed the inside of the fork to sharpen into blades. The spear shifted into a tool that nearly decapitated the creature with a few downward thrusts.
Holding the last Half Breed at arm’s length, Rico placed the barrel of the Sig Sauer against its temple and pulled the trigger. After three muffled shots the werewolf dropped for good. “God
“This one’s wearing a uniform,” Cole said. After looking at the other two, he added, “What the hell’s going on here?”
“Probably one of the IRD soldiers. The rest might have been bitten or came here to follow the Full Bloods.”
Judging by the way Jessup, several soldiers, and many more Half Breeds converged at the truck Rico had pointed out earlier, the escaped prisoners inside were probably dreading the day they’d left their cells. Cole took a deep breath and started running. The uphill climb had been steep, but the terrain sloped much more gradually on the other side. Dry scrub and exposed rocks covered what looked to be a wide basin surrounded by some trees and a tall fence on the far side. It was next to impossible to judge any distances since every one of his senses were overloaded with the chatter and smoke from automatic gunfire, the stench of burning fuel, and the overwhelming presence of the unnatural. That last part may have come from what some might call a sixth sense. Cole couldn’t see it or taste it, but was overcome by the uneasiness of having the real world turned upside down.
Half Breeds ran wild across the desert.
Gargoyles swarmed the sky, dropping onto the wildest prey they could find.
Cole had to hurdle dead bodies while swinging his spear to deflect incoming claws or swat a snarling face before it ripped his throat out. When his foot touched down again, it became wedged under something heavy enough to break his momentum and drop him onto his face. His ears rang when he hit the ground in a crumpled heap.
The Sig Sauer went off several times at close range, followed by the grinding rattle of assault rifles. “Get up,” Rico said. “We’re almost there.”
“I think I broke my ankle.”
The big man dropped to one knee and unceremoniously twisted the foot in question.
“Holy shit!” Cole gasped.
“It’s not broken.”
“What are you talking about? That hurt like hell!”
“If it was broken, you’d be passed out right now,” Rico explained.
“And if I would have passed out,
“I would’ve left. You wouldn’t do anyone any good with a broken ankle. Carrying you would just get me killed too. The serum in your bloodstream will kick in and I’ll get an injection for you ASAP. Until then you’re just gonna have to rock through this shit.”
Cole drove his spear into the ground so he could use it to prop himself up. “Rock through this shit? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’ll get up and keep movin’ or I’ll crack you over the head with this rock.”
When Cole looked up, he saw that Rico indeed had a rock in his hand. Suddenly, he seemed more like the ugly asshole who’d fought and bled alongside of him in Philadelphia and Denver. He tried pulling himself up but his foot was trapped under something. Whatever had ensnared it was solid and unmoving. At first it looked like a thick, dirty root emerging from the ground. The more he tried to pull it loose, the more certain he became that it wasn’t going to budge. It only took one touch for him to realize what it was.
“This is stone,” Cole said. Grabbing hold of it, he added, “I think it’s an arm.”
