The whole reason for breaking away from Adderson was to do a little mixing and matching, right?”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “God help me, I thought about you and your games. When one weapon isn’t working out too well, you modify it. If you’re shooting a fireball at something and it isn’t doing enough damage, you switch to ice. Usually, for the biggest bosses, you’ve got to combine every weapon you’ve got into one big one.”
Cole’s smile warmed up as he asked, “What game have you been playing while I wasn’t looking?”
“Don’t have to play anything. After listening to you talk for as long as we’ve been together, I feel like I’ve already played them all.” Since that wasn’t enough, she grumbled, “
“More than you could know. You’re right, though. Or, I should say, I was right and you were right for listening to me.”
“Don’t push it.”
Chapter Seven
It was a particularly harsh winter, even for a Full Blood.
Especially for a Full Blood.
The snow felt like jagged little icicles between Randolph’s toes as he bounded across wide stretches of open terrain. Winds ranked vengeful claws over his back, sinking deeper than any human bullet could ever go. Sounds normally found in the modern world had ground to a halt, leaving only the churning baritone of breaths pumped by unstoppable lungs to throw a plume of steam into the air directly in front of him.
While mankind scrambled to climb back to its feet and reassert itself, the shapeshifters had become a roiling storm.
Half Breeds charged and fed.
Mongrels burrowed under the ground in erratic patterns, never staying in one place long enough to create a home for themselves.
Full Bloods roamed the New World territories freely. The Torva’ox spilled from North America like a vein of oil that had been tapped by metal fingers. After one Full Blood soaked up some of that power, another crept across a different border to slake its thirst. Every one of them became more powerful, but none were as powerful as those who’d been there during the Breaking Moon. Against them, even the noisiest humans with the biggest machines were toothless and incapable. Randolph narrowed his eyes until his field of vision became a small tunnel through which snowy fields and naked trees streaked past him in a blur. When the scent of the First Deceiver became strongest, he dug his claws into the earth and kicked up a spray of frozen dirt while skidding to a halt.
Kawosa sat on top of a small rise with his front paws casually crossed and his hind legs tucked beneath a lanky body. His form was that of a long, lean coyote, which also happened to be his namesake, thanks to the first humans to have been bent by his flickering tongue. His fur was thinned in parts, perhaps to display the freshest scars. By the time Randolph stopped in front of him, Kawosa had propped himself up and taken a form that eased away from a pure animal and into a vaguely human body with pronounced ribs and limbs that stretched to well beyond natural proportions. “Hello, Birkyus,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d stay away so long.”
“I would have stayed away longer,” Randolph replied without any acknowledgment to his true name. “There’s no point in seeking refuge when the fire is spreading so quickly to anyplace I might be able to go.”
Kawosa’s was a trickster’s smile; steady and shallow. “You never go anywhere you don’t want to be. I trust you completed whatever business you had across the ocean?”
“I did.”
“And since you’re back now, I trust there is business to be conducted here.”
“There is.” Randolph lifted his nose to draw a sample of air that seemed to be frozen around him. It smelled of distant fires, clean snow, and dying trees. He closed his eyes and reveled in the comforting familiarity. When he exhaled, the werewolf’s snout shrank down and his fangs retracted so as not to impede his speech. Compared to the voice he’d used a moment ago, his next words were spoken with a richer timbre and the hint of an outdated accent. “Liam and Esteban may have acted too quickly, but these events were meant to happen.”
“There is no good time for war.”
“Violence can be a healing tool if applied at the right time and with the proper amount of force. I’ve learned that from the humans.”
“Cut just deep enough to get the job done, eh?”
“Yes,” Randolph said. “Perhaps I had been too easy on the Skinners after all. They were the ones to force these events into motion.”
“You’d been taking it easy on the Skinners?” Kawosa scoffed. “From what I overheard while I was in Lancroft’s care, you were one of the only things the old man feared.”
“Don’t try to get on my good side. I barely have one anymore. Where is Esteban?”
“Ever since he acquired the first Shadow Spore, he’s been stretching his newfound legs. Has he truly achieved the final stage of our evolution?”
“There is a reason why the Shadow Spore was cast aside. We are not meant to tread in the mists. Did you warn him of the dangers that come from using that gift too much?”
Kawosa’s grin wriggled on his face like a worm settling into the fur beneath his nose. “He didn’t ask.”
“Of course not. And what of the young one? Is she still in the custody of the Skinners?”
“That,” Kawosa said with a tone that was as overtly deadly as a Full Blood’s snarl, “was a mistake—to send her to them. Why would you betray your own kind that way, Birkyus?”
“I tried to protect her. I warned her about the Skinners. If she had been allowed to run with the others, she would have surely been used as nothing more than a lightning rod to draw attention away from the likes of Liam and Esteban. Once the Breaking Moon had set, she would have been killed before coming to terms with the power she’d acquired.”
“Perhaps you’re right. If she can’t fend for herself using the gifts she’s already got,” Kawosa declared, “then perhaps she doesn’t deserve to live. Especially in times like these. Or perhaps she can hand back the Jekhibar as a way to get in our good graces.” Smirking mischievously, he added, “Oh, that’s right. She handed that over to the Skinners as a way to repay her gratitude to them. What a gracious child.”
Now it was Randolph’s turn to put on a grim, humorless smile. As the expression drifted onto his face, he shifted into a human body that stood in the cold field as if transplanted there from a battleground several centuries in the past. His naked skin was covered in scars, many as fresh and aggravated as the one that marred his face. Thick muscles resided beneath his flesh, honed to a burly stature without the need of any supernatural enhancement. Crouching down to shield himself from a wind that tore across the Canadian landscape, he said, “Times like these. You mean times where the oldest shapeshifter there is, the first shapeshifter there ever was, lends a helping hand to the wretches who’ve been a thorn in our side since the first human was broken? Or consorted with the leeches who’ve made it their life’s work to nip at us when our backs are turned, or spread lies big enough to keep us away from their precious cities?”
“That’s Liam talking.”
“He hated the Nymar, as we all do. Perhaps his actions crossed a line, but at least he never went so far as to help them.”
“What are you accusing me of?” Kawosa asked in an offended tone.
“I’m accusing you of organizing the Nymar by pointing some of their leaders in the right direction to gain an advantage over the humans.”
All of the insulted, self-righteous rage that had flickered across Kawosa’s face melted away until only his familiar trickster’s grin remained. “Oh. You know about that, do you?”
“Of course I do. It’s not as if Esteban was ever very good at covering his tracks. Even in the days before photographs, he was happy to terrorize enough humans to be drawn perfectly in chalk or oils. Now, his scent permeates most of this continent. The only parts that don’t reek of him are the cities controlled by Nymar, and those cities reek of you.” Randolph dug his fingers into the snow and earth as his body shifted into a thicker frame
