with an extra layer of muscle and fur.
As Randolph’s form swelled, Kawosa’s dwindled down into a thin silhouette, like a candle being melted in the sun. His head hung low and his snout tapered to a point “Don’t raise your voice to me, boy,” he warned. “Just because you got me out of Lancroft’s pit doesn’t mean I’ll live the rest of my days indebted to you.”
“I don’t need your debt and I don’t expect your gratitude,” Randolph replied as if he was spitting out every foul-tasting word. “What you owe me is some respect! If not for me, you would still be rotting in Lancroft’s basement. Just another one of his amusements to be eventually passed around to the Skinners like a whore.”
Kawosa stood on two withered legs that barely seemed able to support him. His words were barely distinguishable beneath a throaty growl as he said, “I am your better, Full Blood. When you speak to me—”
“Shove your platitudes up your bony ass, Ktseena!” Randolph barked. “Your only strength is in your lies, and I never believed a word you said to begin with!”
“Not even when you asked me for the one favor you knew only I could provide?”
“You never had any intention of granting favors unless it benefited you. The reason you were removed from that prison was to upset the balance, draw the Skinners out of hiding and set this war into motion.”
“Which I have done.”
Leaning down to scowl directly into Kawosa’s face, Randolph said, “Look into my eyes and tell me you haven’t been guiding the leeches into strengthening their position.”
Kawosa shrugged and settled back down onto his haunches. “They intrigue me.”
“I know your fondness for the wretches. They grow stronger with every generation.”
“And considering how many humans are succumbing to the Breaking, one generation flows into another very quickly. With the Torva’ox flowing, it is easier than ever to shape them. Soon they will be almost as hard to kill as . . .”
“And there we have it,” Randolph said with a nod. “I’m actually surprised you even started to say it. And wipe that surprised look off your face. You say nothing that hasn’t been plotted, planned, and rearranged.”
“Actually, I’m surprised it took you this long to get so upset about the wretches becoming stronger. What kept you so busy? Still plotting your own little attempts to gain more power than your brethren? You kept young Cecile under your wing,” Kawosa pointed out. “You wanted to use her to hide the Jekhibar from me.”
“From you and all of the others.”
“Well you got your wish. At least,” Kawosa added, “for the moment.”
“That doesn’t excuse your involvement with the leeches,” Randolph continued. “Perhaps the lies that kept Full Bloods in the forests for so long weren’t of their own design.”
“Humans do so love the romantic notion of vampire royalty. I think they know how fragile they are as a species and so they want to worship something they see as erotic and desirable. Kind of like a prisoner who convinces themselves that their master is truly worth serving.”
“Is that what happened to you where Jonah Lancroft was concerned?” Crouching down a bit lower so he could dig his hind paws into the earth, Randolph asked, “Did you decide that it was better to lick his boots since you couldn’t find a way out of that dungeon on your own? The great First Deceiver became nothing more than a lying old fool who got caught by someone who was just a little bit craftier.”
“I know what you’re doing.”
“What’s that?”
“You want to earn my admiration so that I will take you into my favor.”
Those words rolled out of Kawosa’s mouth like a breeze that was just a bit colder and heavier than the ones already freezing the outermost layers of Randolph’s fur to a glistening, icy sheen. They swirled within the Full Blood’s head, causing his ears to twitch and his head to twist around as if in reaction to a beetle scurrying toward the interior of his skull. After a few seconds he snapped his head to the side, straightened it out and glared at Kawosa. “Your tricks don’t work on us.”
“Hmmm. Seems like that one got close. I have set things into motion. It’s what I do. Isn’t that why you freed me?”
“There’s enough in motion now,” Randolph said. “You know why I’ve sought you out this day.”
“Ahh yes. There’s still the matter of that favor you requested as a condition of my release. You want to find the other Mist Born. You want to seek out
As Randolph shook his head, it became shaggier and thicker. Fangs slid in to fill his mouth, slicing through the sides of his face with the ease of a sharp stick piercing a cobweb. “You never intended to grant any favors. Anyone who knows your legend would have figured out as much.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Liam never lost sight of the truest nature of things, no matter how terrible it was.”
Randolph shook his head as if trying to jog something loose. His blue-gray eyes remained sharp even as his body shifted into its two-legged form. Still crouching, he was able to look down at the coyote creature with ease. When he stood on his hind legs, he might as well have been gazing down from a thousand feet above. “Liam partook in too much of the chaos he created. That’s why he’s dead.”
“He just wanted a change of scenery. What do you want, Randolph?”
After pulling in a deep breath, holding onto it and finally letting it go, the Full Blood told him, “Quiet. All I want is . . . quiet.” He started pacing then, circling Kawosa while the trickster only moved the muscles necessary to keep a constant distance between them.
“Even in the deepest woods before any of this started,” Randolph said, “I couldn’t get any quiet because Liam, the Mongrels, Esteban, the Skinners, the humans, the Nymar, even Minh, wouldn’t stop howling with madness and bloodlust. Once the Blood Blades were out of the picture, the Skinners were supposed to go back to their old ways. If nothing else, they were good at maintaining the Balance. After Liam’s farce of a siege against that first human city, larger steps needed to be taken.”
“Larger steps,” Kawosa snarled. “Like freeing me?”
“You are something that every Skinner but one still thought was a legend. When I caught your scent, I hardly believed it. But if Lancroft was keeping you squirreled away from his favorite Skinners, that made you a perfect wild card.”
“Ahhh, there’s Liam’s voice speaking through you once again.”
“Stop saying his name,” Randolph warned. “I knew him for several lifetimes, which means I’ve earned the right to speak about him after he’s gone. I was the only one among us who had the courage to say those things to his face. Even in the short time you ran at our sides, all you ever did was watch and listen.”
“It’s all I ever do,” Kawosa said in a voice only a bit louder than a whimper.
Randolph shook his head. “No. Even if I did believe any of your lies, I would never believe that one. You stir the pot. Going back to legends spoken in forgotten tongues, that’s all you’ve ever done.”
Kawosa’s eyelids drooped shut and he lifted his snout. “You were here in those days,” he said. “You heard their songs. Heard the rattle of their beads when they danced. So many of those songs were for me.”
“Not just for you. They were for all of the Mist Born elders. I come to you now because I only need to find one of them.”
Randolph’s statement hung in the air for a minute.
And then another minute.
The wind blew. Branches shook. Finally, the silence became too much for one of them to bear.
“Which one?” Kawosa asked.
“Icanchu.”
“You only care to find one of the twins? Chuna will be disappointed.”
“Where are they?”
Some of Kawosa’s fur settled back down to cover his back, and a hint of the sly grin eased onto his face. “I could have told you as much without all this fanfare. You’ll need to ask Jaden. She hasn’t left the jungles even with the flap of the Breaking Moon, but you shouldn’t have any trouble sniffing her out.”
“I’ll need you to arrange the meeting,” Randolph said. “The Mist Born have remained hidden so well that we don’t even know the true name of their species. The only reason you were found was because of your propensity for toying with humans to earn a starring role in their myths.”
