upper floor, supported by round posts. A few marked cars were parked in front, but were just as empty and ravaged as the building itself. Waggoner led her toward the corner of the building, down a sidewalk and to a side entrance. She followed him while taking a moment to make sure they hadn’t picked up any four-legged followers.
Paige couldn’t feel any additional heat in her scars, so she ducked into the door that Waggoner held open without bothering to check the street behind her. It didn’t take much of a detective to realize that a pack of Half Breeds had spent extra time inside the building. Not only was the floor covered with broken glass and splintered wood, but the walls were covered with claw marks and bullet holes. Drawing her machete, she stepped through a door hanging partially off its hinges and into a room with a desk and several metal lockers bolted to the wall adjacent to a caged window. A broken metal detector crackling with electricity marked the entrance to a hallway leading farther inside the building.
Behind her, Waggoner notched an arrow into his bow and pulled it halfway back. She motioned down the hall toward three more rooms. From one of them a man’s voice could be heard engaging in an urgent conversation. Waggoner acknowledged Paige’s signal with a nod and shifted his stance so he could watch the area behind them while slowly following her down the hall.
“There are no werewolves in Atoka. I don’t care what you’re being told,” the voice in the other room said. “Whatever you heard didn’t come through official channels. It’s probably just a bunch of kids trying to pull some sick joke in light of the crap they’re seeing on the news.”
Paige moved along the hall with her weapon held at the ready. Now that she’d pinpointed the source of the voice as coming from the second door from the end of the hall, she put her back to the wall and watched it intently. Her scars gave off the same prickly cold that she’d felt at the site where the Amriany plane had gone down.
Metal springs creaked in the room in front of her. “There are some problems, a few disturbances and such, but they’re small fires and we can put them out. You should do your best to keep any armed response from being sent to the state of Oklahoma …Yes, sir. I will, sir. Thank you.” A heavy sigh followed the distinct sound of a phone being slapped onto its cradle. Then Paige heard, “Hello, this is the Atoka County Sheriff’s Department.” Clearly, another call had been made. “Yes, sir I’m the sheriff …Yes, sir, I’ve seen the news …Really? Someone said that was happening here? Who would say such a thing?”
The voice was like smooth metal being dragged over a wet stone, but Paige was certain that’s not what the people on the other end of the phone calls were hearing. They heard whatever they were told to hear and believed it without question. With the grating chill beneath her scars provided her with a warning, she steeled herself to deal with a being that could change the way she perceived her world with nothing more than a carefully worded statement.
“Whatever you’ve been told about what’s going on in Atoka,” Kawosa carefully stated, “it’s wrong. Everything here is under control, so you should focus your efforts where they’re needed elsewhere …Sounds good to me … That’s right.”
As he wrapped up his bundle of lies regarding this latest pleas from a cowering citizen or someone driving close enough to town to hear the howls, Paige made her way down the hall. When she got close enough to see the shadow he cast while shifting in his spot, she fought the impulse to rush into the room and chop his head off. Behind her, Waggoner’s bowstring creaked as he drew it back in preparation to take whatever shot he might be given.
Kawosa hung up and dialed a number in a quick series of taps.
Paige stood still and signaled for Waggoner to do the same. Once that rasping voice emerged from the next room again, she inched toward the door.
“Hello, Associated Press? I’m the duly appointed spokesperson for the state of Oklahoma. You need to connect me to whoever is in charge of reports regarding recent attacks made on cities by these creatures in or near my state …Yes, I’ll hold.”
When she was aligned with the doorway so she could take a look inside, Paige recalled the first words she’d heard coming from that room.
Opening her eyes again, she stared almost directly into the bloodshot eyes of a Half Breed who sat just within the door, its twisted snout pointed at her, its muscles tensed in the same manner as the sentry who had been posted in the house with the hole dug into its floor. As with any simple animal, the werewolf’s emotions were clearly painted on its face. It wanted to run. It wanted to howl along with all of the other shapeshifters that had claimed the town for their own. And when it saw her in the hallway, its entire body trembled with the desire to lunge at her and taste the delicate meat just beneath her skin. Judging by the twitching of its nose, it had smelled her coming for some time.
“You must spread this same news to any official channels and prevent any more resources from being wasted by investigating Atoka,” Kawosa said from where he sat with his feet propped up on a desk. “I have to do the same, so you have to give me the contact information of anyone in the government who might be able to get this news to the military …Yes, I’ll hold.”
With a subtle wrinkling of his brow, Kawosa sent a command to the beast guarding the door. The Half Breed slumped as if an invisible chain around its neck had finally been allowed to drop. When it charged at her, Paige stepped aside so Waggoner could put an arrow through the creature’s eye. Instead, the other man ran past her while gripping an arrow in each fist to hit the werewolf at the apex of its jump. The two of them met like feuding stags, their chests thumping solidly against each other with an impact that brought both of them to the floor. Not only was Paige shocked by the reckless intensity of Waggoner’s attack, but she would have been hard pressed to say which of the two was hunter and which was prey.
Both of them had the same glassiness in their eyes as they fought. Although the Half Breed was able to contort its body to snap at him with a minimum amount of wasted time, Waggoner thumped his fists against the werewolf’s sides, driving both arrows between its ribs. Somehow, Waggoner’s muscles were strong enough to flip the Half Breed onto its side and pound both arrows into its chest cavity. Paige finished it off with a stabbing blow from her machete that cut straight up into its heart. When she pulled the weapon out, there were enough barbs protruding from the sides of the machete to pull a sizable portion of the creature’s innards out along with it.
“Come in,” Kawosa said as he tapped a button on the phone. “And don’t worry. There isn’t—”
Before he could finish, Paige rushed forward to look inside the room. A second Half Breed sat on the other side of the doorway, looking even more tortured by its inability to move.
Swinging his feet down from the desk, Kawosa leaned forward in his chair and clasped his hands. Long stringy hair hung on either side of his face, plastered to his forehead and parted like a curtain to reveal angular features that looked as if they’d been drawn onto him with chalk. Studying her carefully, he said, “There isn’t another Half Breed guarding that door.”
“I’m looking straight at it,” she said with what little bit of confidence she could dredge up.
“No. Your partner did away with the only guard I posted. There wasn’t enough time for me to find another. There is no other Half Breed guarding that door.”
Even though she could see for herself that Kawosa was lying, his words were still tunneling into her brain. Paige kept her eyes focused on the second Half Breed, holding onto its image as if it was about to fade from her sight. And no matter how hard she tried, that’s exactly what it did.
The Half Breed strained against its instinct to run and destroy.
Paige fought to keep hold of the knowledge and vision that set her apart from every other schmuck who didn’t know any better than to believe monsters didn’t exist.
None of that struggling helped either one of them.
The Half Breed remained where it was, and Paige’s sight was clouded until she saw nothing but empty floor space where the bestial guard had been.
Kawosa allowed his fingers to slide together so he could clasp his hands. Although he was still watching the door, he relaxed when Paige’s gaze wandered away from where it had been anchored a moment ago. “So, Skinner, how did you find me?”
Unsure whether she could sneak a bluff past Kawosa, she told him, “There’s a distinct lack of authority figures around here for a town being overrun by werewolves. This seemed like a good place to look for an explanation.”
