Cole pretended it had been his idea. “You want me to stop that?” he asked as Esteban looked at him. “Then come and make me!”
The Full Blood’s thick torso was accented by protruding ribs and a backbone that rose up like a stony ridge from a desert floor. He nipped at George to make him back off. Then he barked and swiped at Milosh to send a spray of Amriany blood through the air. Paige held her ground, staying behind him in case Esteban decided to move too far away from the hole in the roof.
Cole held his spear in one hand and the divining rod in the other. When Esteban was close enough, he stepped forward to jab the sharpened end of the Amriany tool at the Full Blood’s head and shoulder. The reaction between the divining rod and the werewolf was similar to a live wire brushing against a piece of wet steel. Esteban bared his teeth and lifted his face toward the roof as a shot was fired at him from above.
The round cut the air with a deeper hiss than a normal bullet. Esteban’s entire body was pulled to one side when the heavy projectile thumped between his shoulder blades, skidded against his flesh and lodged in his fur. Cole was close enough to see the blood-smeared round poking out from his coat. When Esteban turned to bite at the thing lodged in his fur, the humans renewed their attack. The Full Blood slammed the side of his head against Cole’s shoulder, knocking him off his feet, to sail several yards through the air and into a case filled with empty display boxes of games that were current before Shreveport had been overrun.
Although he couldn’t see her, due to the huge werewolf blocking his line of sight, Cole could hear Paige over the earpiece when she asked, “How many more rounds do you have?”
“Just one,” Ouray replied.
“Take it!”
“Fine,” the IRD commando said, and worked the bolt of his rifle.
Cole pulled in a breath and focused on what needed to be done. It looked as if they were already down by two. Nadya wasn’t up yet and Milosh was struggling to get away from Esteban so he could catch his breath. The only one occupying the Full Blood was George, who slashed at the werewolf or pounded against his ribs, depending on which end of his weapon he was using. There were a few more stages of the plan that needed to be carried out, and if one of them didn’t happen, the whole thing failed. And if the plan failed, everyone who’d died in Shreveport would have done so for nothing.
Tossing away his spear, Cole grabbed the divining rod in both hands so he could more effectively use it as a weapon. When he found a wound that had been opened by a Blood Blade, he attacked it using the splintered points of the broken Skinner weapons Ira had attached to the divining rod. The thorny protrusions made contact with the wound and completed a circuit that gave the stored Torva’ox energies somewhere else to go. Even though Ira insisted that’s what would happen, Cole had been skeptical. But the energies flowing through fragments of a shattered Blood Blade had caused Esteban’s body to twitch and the open wound on the side of his neck to pulse with enough raw energy to illuminate the crimson texture of his muscle tissue.
“I know that hurts,” Cole said. He was close enough to see that the Full Blood’s eyes weren’t completely white after all, but more like smooth ivory circles resting on multifaceted ice crystals. By the time a rifle cracked over the rotors churning above the building, the Full Blood was shifting into his upright form. Cole heard the distinctive hiss of the incoming round as if it had been fired into a vacuum.
For the next heartbeat the path of that round was all that mattered.
It needed to hit the breach in Esteban’s natural armor to give the Skinners enough time to deliver the Memory Water.
Cole thought about all of this in the time it took to blink. Meanwhile, Esteban snapped a hand up so the bullet could slap against his palm with its distinctive
It was all Cole could do to jump aside before the Full Blood’s jaws clamped shut around his head. Already Esteban was shaking off the effects of the aerosol as well as the jolt from the divining rod, and Cole knew it wouldn’t be long before he shifted into something that couldn’t be harmed by bullets or blades, no matter how charmed they were.
When Esteban stood up and roared, every Half Breed outside joined him. The chorus was drowned out by a wave of heavy gunfire mixed with the screams of soldiers whose bodies were broken down into those of wild animals. Even though his system was inoculated with more than enough serums to protect him from changing, Cole could feel the Breaking tug at his skeletal structure. He held onto his weapon, ran at the Full Blood and shouted, even though he couldn’t hear his own voice.
Esteban batted away one of Milosh’s blades and tore open a messy gash across his neck with a swipe that was hardly more than a blur. Before Milosh dropped, Esteban turned and snapped at George. The Amriany held his weapon horizontally so the werewolf could clamp down on it instead of anything vital. With one powerful twist, George yanked the staff free and slashed Esteban’s face with the weapon’s sharpened claws. The werewolf pivoted before Cole could drive the Blood Blade into his side and knocked him down. Esteban’s claws shredded his coat but were unable to go much deeper. Paige stepped in to snag his wrist using the curved blade of her sickle before the killing blow could be delivered, but he swung at her with enough force to rustle her hair when she ducked beneath the savage blow.
The beast’s fangs glistened with saliva and his breath stank of blood as he leaned forward to sink his teeth into the portion of Cole’s chest that was exposed, thanks to the shredded coat. Less than an inch before he got there, the weighted end of George’s weapon thumped against Esteban’s face and diverted his bite a few vital inches to the left. That reprieve, however, only lasted until the Full Blood’s vicious backhand sent George into one of the shelves in the next aisle. Cole took a straight shot with his spear but the weapon was knocked aside before its blade could draw another drop of blood. Esteban’s mouth yawned open. His fangs dug into Cole’s temple and chin. Somehow, the Skinner leaned back so those teeth only gouged him and sent a flow of blood down his face. From there, Cole nearly tripped over himself in his haste to put some distance between himself and the werewolf.
Esteban trembled as a few drops of Cole’s blood dripped from his fangs onto his tongue. He strained to get closer so he could take a real bite, but was restrained by something that caused his eyes to clench shut and his head to arch back. Paige clung to his upper back, hanging onto the grips of her weapons as the curved blades came around the front of his neck to keep him from getting any closer to Cole. Roaring as the Blood Blades cut into his flesh, Esteban reached up to grab her arms in an attempt to pull her off.
Cole held his spear in a two-handed grip and jammed the blade into Esteban’s chest. The charmed metal cut deeply, but there were several layers of solid muscle as well as bone that could very well have been cast iron beneath it.
“Not yet!” Paige screamed. “Don’t kill him yet!”
“Shut up and get down from there,” Cole replied through gritted teeth.
“Just get that divining rod ready!” As she spoke, Paige struggled to keep from being pulled in half. The only thing that allowed her to put up any sort of resistance was the last bit of tattoo ink flowing through her muscles. The enhancedstrength bought her leeway to squirm within Esteban’s grasp. When his fingers closed in even tighter, she needed to resort to more creative measures. Her fists were poking out of his clutches, and the sickles had been moved away from his throat. Just as her body was pulled to its limit, she willed the sickle handles to bend so the blades snapped down as if they were about to be holstered. They cut into Esteban’s fingers deep enough to force the Full Blood to let her go before his hands were mutilated.
Since his weapon wasn’t able to go in any deeper, Cole removed the spear and stepped back before he could be cut down by a wild bite. When Paige didn’t hop down from Esteban’s back right away, he shouted, “You all right?”
She didn’t answer, so Cole hurried around the Full Blood in the direction George had been thrown. The Amriany wasn’t on his feet yet but was propping himself up using his staff. Nadya was nearby, laying completely still in a growing pool of blood. Milosh was gone. His body lay in a heap that hadn’t shifted so much as an inch since he’d been cut down.
“Paige, jump away!” Cole shouted.
She tossed a sickle, used that hand to grab some fur on Esteban’s back, and drove the curved blade of her other weapon in deep behind one of his shoulders. That strike came just when the Full Blood was reaching back to grab her, and caused enough pain for him to abandon his attempt so he could howl up at the broken roof.
“I said be ready with that damn Jekhibar!” she shouted. “We’re only getting one chance at this.”
Since he knew his partner well enough to be certain she wouldn’t listen to him no matter how many times he
