Extinction Agenda

tried to convince her, Cole rushed back to where he’d left the divining rod. Outside the store, everything seemed quiet. Even the helicopter that had been hovering overhead was gone. Unlike most conflicts, however, the lack of gunfire and shouting wasn’t exactly a good sign.

“What do you want me to do?” George grunted. The Amriany had gotten close enough for Cole to take half a swing at him when he was shocked by the sound of his voice and realized who he was.

“Just keep her alive and don’t get killed,” Cole said. “In that order.” Then he Cole carried the divining rod to the spot where Esteban stood upright, swaying and snapping on empty air while snarling in a baritone that drifted between coarse Spanish obscenities to primal animal grunts.

The Full Blood had grown to his full height, between eight and nine feet tall. Paige was still on his back, hanging onto one sickle with her right arm like a mountain climber dangling from a vertical slope. Even though she and Esteban were in constant motion, Cole could see that her arm had been stripped down to muscle hardened by the first batch of tainted ink. Now that her tattoos had burned off, that arm—the skin been peeled away, revealing tissue that looked like chipped, wet rock—was the only thing that kept her from being tossed through a wall. Paige’s grip would not be loosened, no matter how many times Esteban’s claws slashed at her. She winced and sweat rolled down her face as Esteban slashed at her again. Anyone else would have lost their limb or let go by now, but she hung on.

Cole pushed himself harder than he thought possible as he stabbed Esteban with the Blood Blade. The effort tapped into the last of his tattoo ink but wasn’t enough to inflict a mortal wound. But it succeeded in distracting the Full Blood before he ripped into Paige again.

“What are you doing?” Cole shouted.

Grunting as she pressed her body against Esteban’s back, she said, “That wound is still open. Just . . . give me another few seconds!”

“Get the hell away from him! We’ll think of something else!”

“No, I . . . got it!” As she said that, Paige braced her feet against Esteban and lifted the vial of Memory Water that Tristan had given her before sending them all through the temple in Chuna’s clearing.

The Full Blood roared, clenched a fist, swung it at Paige, and was stopped short by a gleaming length of charmed, Amriany iron. George’s effort had burnt away the rest of his tattoos, but the clawed end hit Esteban’s arm to rip out a sizable chunk of flesh and bone. The weapon even smashed apart a section of the floor on its downward trajectory. That bought Paige enough time to get a solid grip on the vial and drive it into the wound on Esteban’s back. Glass shattered and the mystical fluid seeped directly into the werewolf’s body. Some of the Memory Water might have even worked its way in deeper when the Full Blood pivoted around to hit George with a blow that knocked the iron pole from his hands. Cole heard the wet crunch of breaking bone and watched helplessly as George crumpled to the floor like a broken doll.

“What have you done to me?” Esteban snarled.

“Paige!” Cole shouted. “Get away fr—” The rest of his plea was lost in a gust of air that felt as if it had been pulled from the lowest reaches of his lungs. His feet were no longer on the floor, the roof no longer over his head. He even lost sight of Esteban until the Full Blood’s savage face swung across a portion of his peripheral vision. After that, everything in his sight became a jumble of cascading shapes, blocky figures, and shades of black as he toppled through the air. Esteban must have thrown him twenty to forty feet with a blow that no human eye could have seen. Cole was reminded of the first time Randolph had tossed him aside in Canada when his back slammed against something solid and unforgiving. Even with his coat absorbing a good amount of damage and the serum pulsing through his veins, he had to fight to stay conscious.

Opening his eyes just in time to see Esteban rear up, Cole heard the beast shout, “Skinner bitch!” The towering creature tried to stand up straight, but his wounds weren’t healing and blood poured from the multiple places he’d been stabbed. Since he couldn’t move well enough to swipe at Paige anymore, Esteban threw himself toward a shelf and turned at the last moment to mash her between himself and the flimsy metal structure.

“Cole!” she shouted. “Now!”

Without pausing to think about the pain that lanced through his body, Cole climbed to his feet and ran across the room. Along the way he felt a jolt through his back that clouded his vision and made him feel as if he were still sailing through the air. Bones were cracked. He knew that for certain. Blood had seeped into almost every inch of his clothes, but he was still alive. By the time he found the divining rod again, Esteban had pushed through another row of shelves and would have crushed Paige against a solid cement wall if she hadn’t used a sickle lodged in his shoulder to steer him into a sharp turn. Now that Daniels’s spray had worked its way through his system, he tried to shift.

Esteban remained solid. The Memory Water had done its job. Unfortunately, the Dryad mixture was also healing his wounds.

Cole picked up the divining rod and ran toward the Full Blood. He had a substantial amount of ground to cover, which left the Esteban with just enough time to finally pull Paige from his back, grab her by the front of her tactical vest, and slam her against the cement wall.

She can take it, Cole thought. She’s tough. She’s had worse.

Paige was slammed again. This time Esteban snarled at her while chips of cement fell away behind her. Blood dripped from his claws as he pulled that hand back and allowed her to slump to the floor. Before the Full Blood could touch her again, Cole stuck him with the Blood Blade. Esteban tried to swipe at him, but Cole followed that attack with a second. The moment he pulled the spear out from between the werewolf’s ribs, he jammed the wooden end of the divining rod into the wound. That end of the weapon was a mass of sharp edges created either by splinters from the forging process or points of the weapons from which it had been made. He clenched his fist around a sharpened piece of one of Paige’s old sickle blades and immediately felt the bond form between himself, the hybrid weapon, and the Full Blood.

Images from the Full Blood’s thoughts rushed through Cole’s mind.

Knowledge he’d never gleaned came to him.

Memories of unknowable power flashed behind his eyes in a murky haze.

As much as he wanted to soak up more of those wondrous visions, Cole staggered back and found the large patch of ruined floor. Keeping his grip on the divining rod, he used the rest of his strength to drive the metal end into the ground.

The sparks that had flown before were nothing compared to the flash that pulsed through Cole, Paige, Esteban, and every other living thing within miles of that store. It ended quickly, snapping back into the rod before rushing through the earth along a current that Cole could only see for a fraction of a second. It was a sight as beautiful as it was terrifying.

Esteban dropped. Rather than allow himself to be seen in such a weakened state, he stood up and pulled in a haggard breath. For once, a Full Blood sounded as bad as Cole felt. His exhalation was a wheezing strain on his entire body. His muscles twitched but weren’t able to shift the way he wanted them to. The werewolf’s frustration was palpable as he looked over to the wall where Paige was still resting. When Esteban turned to look at Cole again, he seemed somewhat appeased. He leapt up to the hole in the roof, where he scraped to get a grip on the jagged edge and pull himself out. His footsteps were heavy and uneven on top of the store, and when he leapt away, a rush of movement from the parking lot followed him.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Milosh was dead. Judging by the amount of blood on his knives and the number of times he’d thrown them, he put up more of a fight with one arm than some who had an army behind them.

Nadya still lay where she’d fallen early in the fight. Esteban’s claws had hit her along an artery. The expression on her face made it seem she’d fallen asleep and simply failed to wake up.

Cole thought the third Amriany had joined the other two, but George was still feeling good enough to throw a shaky wave at him when he called his name. But those were secondary concerns as Cole shoved past some toppled shelves to get to Paige.