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 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 wou
nd. 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.
“Taking a breather?” he asked. “Get your lazy ass up before the Half Breeds come sniffing around again.”
She sat with her back against the wall, her legs stretched out, and her arms wrapped tightly across her chest. When she started to laugh, she winced and allowed her arms to droop toward her stomach. “Did your stupid plan actually . . . work?” she grunted.
“First of all, it was our plan, and second, it wasn’t stupid.”
“Did it work?”
“There was a big flash, so the stick must have been charged up with something it took from that Full Blood. Didn’t you see the lights?”
She blinked but kept her eyes closed. When she started to get up, she grunted and coughed up some blood that trickled down from her lip. “Think I blacked out for a few.”
Cole tossed his weapons and dropped to one knee. Reaching down to place a hand on her shoulder, he asked, “Are you all right?”
“Sure. Just give me a second.”
“You’re bleeding.”
Paige used her tongue to get some of the blood from her mouth, pulled in a breath and opened her eyes. “This isn’t over, Cole. Those Full Bloods are still out there, but they’re weaker. And Randolph . . .”
“I know. We’ll find him.”
She cut him off with a fierce glare that he hadn’t seen since their first sparring sessions, when he would still get distracted by the sight of her in tight sweats and a sports bra. “Listen to me! Randolph wasn’t here, and he’s always been around. With everything that’s been happening . . .” Cole started reaching to help get her to a more comfortable spot, but she slapped his hands aside and added an even sharper edge to her voice when she said, “With everything that’s been going on, he’s got to be doing something. He wasn’t here, but he was somewhere putting something together. You need to figure out what it was.”
“We will. Just take a moment to breathe.”
Rather than try to get up, she settled against the wall and closed her eyes again. “The IRD’s wiped out, aren’t they?”
“It’s pretty quiet out there.” With a low growling tone better suited for cheesy movie trailers, he added, “Too quiet.”
“Are there any left?”
Cole’s tired laugh faded as a helicopter thudded overhead. “I just heard from Adderson. Frank brought a few more Squams from another part of the state to help keep the Half Breeds from converging on this spot.”
Paige’s face showed intense concentration, quickly followed by frustration.
“You’re still grabbing your side,” Cole pointed out. “Did you break some ribs?”
“Maybe.”
He reached down to move her arms, careful to hold the right one someplace that wasn’t torn up too badly. Too much blood had soaked into her clothing to have just come from her arm. “Holy crap,” he said, looking at the tattered remains of her tactical vest. “Looks like that big bastard got you worse than I thought.”
“Yeah. I think so.”
Tugging at one of the straps holding her vest in place, he found four quarter-sized holes that had been punched through it, above a fifth that hadn’t managed to pierce her body armor. He thought back to when Esteban slammed her against the wall. Now he could see that the Full Blood had drilled his claws straight into her chest like four railroad spikes.
“Oh my God,” he whispered. “Are you . . .”
When she forced a chuckle from the bottom of her throat, more blood seeped from the deep chest wounds. “You ask me if I’m okay and I’ll smack the shit out of you.”
“Keep your eyes open and I’ll get some serum!” As he started to turn away, he saw the first hint of desperation he’d ever seen in Paige’s face. When she grabbed hold of his coat to keep him from leaving her, he took another look at the wounds in her chest. Two of them went straight down into her heart or damn close to it. There wasn’t enough serum to fix that and not nearly enough time to administer it if there was.
“What should I . . .” Rather than finish the question, he lowered himself onto the floor so he could sit beside her. The moment his leg settled against hers, she lifted her foot so she could drape it over his shin. Since that seemed to have sapped a good portion of her strength, he reached down to pick up her hand.
“I don’t . . . want to leave you,” she said.
After all he’d seen and all the pain that had been heaped on him that night, this was the first time his vision blurred so badly that he couldn’t see anything at all. He cleared it with a few blinks, squeezed her hand and said, “I know.”
“I’m sorry about when I was a bitch to you. Sorry about dragging you into this whole . . . Skinner thing.”
“What about trying to stake me through the heart?” he asked.
“Nah. That was the right call.”
“I guess so.”
Her hand turned inside his so she could hold him a little tighter. “Do you forgive me?” she asked.
Cole turned and put his face close enough to hers so they could hear each other without having to raise their voices above a whisper. He didn’t care about what else might be out there or creeping into that store to sniff out fresh meat. The only thing on his mind was the feel of Paige’s cheek against his and the little bit of warmth he could still feel from her body.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said. “Thank you for everything you’ve shown me. I’m a better man because of you.”
When she nodded, Paige bumped his forehead a few times. Her skin was becoming cool and clammy. Her words were strained even though they could barely be heard. “I love you, Cole.”
“Lo
ve you too. So much.”
“Are you sure I can’t stay?”
“What?”
Then, Cole could tell that she wasn’t talking to him. He doubted she even saw him when she smiled and sighed, “All right.”
Her body slumped against him.
Every one of Cole’s muscles tightened until he felt like a fist was clenching inside his head to wring the tears from his eyes. He wrapped his arms around her, buried his face against her neck so he could feel the touch of her hair against his skin, and screamed until his throat was raw.
If there was anything nearby looking for a chance to attack him when his guard was down, he wished they would just hurry up and get there.
A hand dropped onto his shoulder but he didn’t react. When that hand started pulling him away from Paige, he swung back with one arm to knock aside whoever or whatever was attached to it.
“Come on,” George said. “We have to go now.”
“Then go.”
“There isn’t any time, Cole. She’s gone.”
He was right. Paige was gone. She was just . . . gone.
As his grip around her tightened, Cole felt once more like he was being thrown through empty air. “I can’t leave her here!” he said in a voice he barely recognized. “She’s not . . . I can’t . . . I can’t just . . .”
George grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him to his feet. “We have to go!”
Cole jumped up, pulled away from the Amriany and took a wild swing that George didn’t even try to evade. “I’m not leaving her here,” he snarled.
Blood trickled from George’s lip. Testing his jaw, he winced with pain as he said, “We’re not leaving them here, Cole. But we have to go.”
Extinction Agenda s-6 Page 38
