Cole’s breaths came in frenetic bursts. The pain filling his head became even more dizzying when he tried looking around. “Where are the others?”
“We’re the only ones who survived,” George said. “And that won’t be for much longer if we stay here.”
One helicopter hovered over the store, and it landed in the parking lot by the time Cole and George stepped outside. Soldiers were scattered throughout the lot, most of whom were either laying flat on their backs or waiting for medical attention. At the perimeter a few humanoid shapes passed a pair of Humvees and disappeared. Cole guessed they were the surviving Squams.
“The Class One ran away,” Adderson said in a tired yet solid voice. “It tried to howl a few times, but that was just a bunch of noise. When it ran away, the Class Twos scattered.”
Cole nodded and did his best to just keep breathing.
“Eyes in the sky say that the bigger packs have broken up,” Adderson continued. “We did enough damage to keep the bombers away from Shreveport for a while.”
Now was a time where Paige would have said something to put things into context, let him know they’d done good. Instead, there was only silence.
Despite the noise of the helicopters, the cries of the wounded, the distant gunshots, the sporadic growls from stray Half Breeds, and the engines of approaching Humvees, for Cole there was only silence.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Nine days later
Somewhere in the Rocky Mountains
Montana
The wind was colder than it should have been. Randolph sat near the peak of the mountain range in his shaggy, two-legged form, feeling the fierce gusts tear through his fur. To the north was the Canadian expanse of his self-imposed exile when he’d wanted only to run free without a thought about human civilization or the schemes of his own kind. Now, most of the world was a cold, quiet place. If the insanity inflicted by his brethren had a perk, that was it. Unfortunately, there was a lot more that had gone wrong.
Esteban had been the downfall of the entire Full Blood siege. Where Liam was wild and unpredictable, the Spaniard had always been proud and stubborn. Now all of the survivors had to pay for those flaws. Perhaps the one to take Liam’s place would be more reasonable.
The wretches ran wild now. That had always been the case. As Randolph sniffed the air, he could tell they had scattered to cover this continent just as they’d covered all the others. Their numbers would grow, but there was no longer the singular howl to unite them. And even more devastating for the Full Bloods, the link to the Torva’ox had been severed. He didn’t know how the humans had managed to do that, but he’d felt a cool pulse flow from the earth that wiped away everything forged during the last Breaking Moon.
The humans would not be overrun and they would not rest. Doing so would be the end of them. Since the wretches were now left to their own devices, the remaining Full Bloods would need to reconfigure their territories. Esteban had been the most prominent enemy to the humans, but the others had done their part in spreading the wretches to every corner of the world. It was only a matter of time before they would meet again to fight for dominance in a bloodbath that would have made the mighty Gorren smile. Now, even that simple strategy would have to be reconsidered. There was still a newly arisen Full Blood to be found, and the war sat perched upon the brink of becoming a true nightmare just as he sat crouched upon the edge of his craggy mountain slope. Instead of being washed away in a timely manner, the humans had chosen to subject themselves to a lengthier conflict with an enemy they only just met.
Fortunately, his brethren would not be without guidance. The pearls he’d stolen from Icanchu were not from the stream of Torva’ox that nourished every other living thing. They were pure and untainted by whatever had knocked the other Full Bloods from their perch. As he allowed some of that power to trickle into his flesh, Randolph could taste a difference between it and the Torva’ox the Skinners had so recently polluted. It was as distinct as lapping up water melted from a hidden glacier instead of drinking from a rusty spout.
The wretches would eventually fall back into step with the Full Bloods. That was the natural order of things.
Now that they had a foothold once again, the humans would struggle to climb back up from the brink of extinction. That too was the way it had always been.
The next big change, as always, would come from the Full Bloods. One would have to rise above all the others when the human retaliation came, and that one would have to be strong enough to stand against the Mist Born when they inevitably tried to reclaim the power that had been taken from them. Old ones like Icanchu had been content to lie in their native lands even as others like Kawosa and his sister roamed among the humans and shapeshifters. And NOW that he had seized his prize, the Mist Born would no longer be so willing to sit idly by and let the mortals conduct their business.
The early days of this war had been ugly, but the humans had survived. Randolph hadn’t expected them to be so resilient. Bloodier days were coming. The humans would need to fight a lot harder to see more than a few of them.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Onekama, Michigan
The sky had a deep purple hue as the sun breached the eastern horizon. The only sounds came from a restless breeze that shook a few branches in the trees lining Northwood Highway, a few struggling trucks attempting to brave the elements near the homes on the other side of a small inlet of Lake Michigan, and the methodical scraping of a blade against near-petrified wood. There were two cars parked along the shoulder of the highway, one of which was still ticking after having just pulled to a stop behind the other.
George left his vehicle, pulled his coat tighter around him and walked past the trees on that side of the road. Once he stepped beyond them, he could see a wide expanse of partially frozen water leading out to the Great Lake itself. The sun’s rays against the clouds smeared overhead gave them a bright glow, and were reflected off the icy waters to either mesmerize or blind anyone looking at them. He used his iron weapon as a walking stick, keeping the clawed end down so it could dig into the ground whether it was covered in snow, ice, or concrete. It wasn’t long before his steps were muffled by dirt. He stopped, allowed the echo of his arrival to drift away and drew a long breath of frosty morning air. “I didn’t guess you were a morning person,” he said.
Cole sat on a bench with a back that had been partially snapped off by the same creatures that scratched the hell out of the nearby street. He didn’t acknowledge the Amriany’s presence with anything more than half a shrug and continued sharpening the forked end of his spear.
“Mind if I sit down?”
Cole shook his head.
After leaning his weapon against the bench, George reached down to clear off a space. Paige’s sickles sat next to the Skinner and an empty urn rested by his feet, so George moved around to the other side where he only had to move a few bags of fast food away. “These feel warm,” George mused. “You found a place that serves breakfast?”
“Life goes on.”
“Mind if I have some? It’s been a week since I’ve had anything other than bagels or powdered eggs before noon.”
“Must still be riding with the IRD,” Cole said.
“They needed help regrouping. Those Vitsaruuv that left Shreveport tried to take a run at another city. I don’t know its name.”
“They all run together after a while.” Looking up, Cole admitted, “I’m not even sure what this place is called.”
“I guess that’s why it took three days to find you.” Now George picked up the fast food bag, sat down and dug out a sausage egg and cheese muffin. “Looks like the Vitsaruuv were here not too long ago.”
“There was a Half Breed den by the lake. I cleaned it out.”
“By yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
Cole stopped what he was doing, glanced down at the sickles and continued his sharpening.
“If you don’
t know what town this is, why did you come here?” George asked.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I asked you first.”
After a sigh, Cole said, “I heard it was quiet here. When I got here, there were Half Breeds just like every other goddamn place on earth, so I cleared them out. Now it’s quiet.”
“Who told you it was quiet?”
“The nymphs that run the strip bar outside of town.”
“Ahh,” George said through a mouthful of breakfast. “So that is how you got here and why you didn’t even know where ‘here’ is.”
After a few seconds Cole said, “One time, Paige told me she wanted to be cremated because the whole burial and funeral thing was creepy. When I asked where she would want her ashes scattered, all she wanted was someplace quiet.”
“So, have you mourned her enough?”
“I don’t know. Have you already forgotten about Milosh and Nadya?”
“There is forgetting and there is mourning,” George said. “Mourning is something we can’t indulge in for too long. Forgetting is something I doubt either of us will ever do.”
“You got that right.”
“Since you did some work before coming out here to sit on your butt and look at the sunrise, I suppose I can forgive you.”
Cole chuckled as he looked up. The sun was now casting more orange than purple onto the icy water. “Didn’t even realize it was sunrise. What time is it?”
“Time to get back to work.”
If his spear had been made of normal, untreated wood, it would have snapped beneath the force he used to whittle down the forked end. “Adderson’s been talking to me every couple of hours. If my fingers weren’t so freaking cold I would have turned my phone off by now.”
“Cold fingers?”
“Yeah. The touch screen works off of heat. I can push a button to answer the call, but the screen doesn’t respond too well. Paige would have given me no end of crap about that one,” Cole said with a tired laugh. “She always loved to point out when my tech stuff didn’t work right.”
“Is that so? What did she say when it did work?”
“She’d say, ‘give it a few minutes.’ ” Cole started to laugh in earnest, but the effort became too much for him so he turned his attention back to the spear.
George finished his breakfast sandwich in a few overzealous bites and then leaned forward to glance down at the large plastic mug near Cole’s feet. “Is that coffee?”
“Yeah,” Cole replied. “My coffee.”
“Can I have some?”
“If you don’t mind my backwash.”
George shrugged and reached down to grab the mug. “We’ve fought and bled together. We’ve lost dear ones on the same night we both nearly died. I think I can stand to drink some of your coffee.”
“What about the backwash?”
“There was probably worse things in the fast food you insist on buying.”
The whittling stopped and Cole’s hand drifted to the sickles. Rather than pretend he was doing something else or busying himself with the spear, he picked them up and set them upon his knee. The blades were folded down against the handle, which he touched gingerly, as if he was once again afraid of the thorns.
“She’s a hero,” George said. “Everyone who knows what happened in Shreveport knows that.”
“Yeah.”
“The Weshruuv continue to howl, but nobody breaks like they used to.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s over,” Cole said. “There are still more Half Breeds than ever and they can still make more by attacking humans.”
“But the planes no longer drop from the skies,” George pointed out. “The IRD can fight them. Armies across the world are fighting them.”
“Adderson said it was close, but the ones above him in the chain of command aren’t talking about nukes anymore.”
“They were considering nukes?” George asked as the optimism he’d been injecting into his voice dissipated. When Cole nodded, he took another sip of coffee.
“The IRD took some major losses, but they’re recruiting from every branch of the military to make up for it. They’re even splitting into international groups now.”
“I know. I already heard from the IRD UK.” Seeing the question in Cole’s eyes, he added, “That’s the United Kingdom.”
“I know. I just didn’t know they knew about the Amriany.”
“I’ve been trying to drag the clans into the new century for a while now, but they all just want to stay quiet and bitch about you Skinners. I think Shreveport brought us together in more ways than you know. That was Paige’s doing also.”
Leaning back, Cole looked at the water and closed his eyes. A lazy smile drifted onto his face and his eyes pinched in at the edges. “I can still hear her voice. I don’t ever want to forget that sound, but I can’t think about her face for too long before . . .”
“Before you want to break something,” George said. “I know.”
“Killing those Half Breeds helped.”
“Well there are plenty more out there.”
“Plenty more of them along with the Full Bloods and the Nymar.” Cole opened his eyes and tightened his grip on the sickles. “The bloodsuckers have been cleaning their own houses and already started trying to sneak into ours. Tried to get a Shadow Spore into the IRD. One of Adderson’s boys shot the son of a bitch and burned him alive before the antidote rounds could do their thing. Wish I could have seen that.”
“I think you’ll be seeing plenty of that sort of thing for a while. Every country is under some sort of lockdown because of the damn wolves. Eight of our cities back home have fallen to Vasily while the Amriany turned their attention elsewhere. And if you would believe it,” George added, “things continue to become stranger. In Peru and Colombia they say the snakes are reclaiming the rain forests.”
“Snakes?”
“Uh-huh.”
Cole ran his thumb along the edge of his Blood Blade. “Esteban is still out there. Lots of Full Bloods are. The Nymar have just been waiting, and now they’ve got a chance to sink in even deeper.”
“That doesn’t mean we can give up,” George said.
“Give up? That’s never really been an option, and now I don’t even want to hear anyone say those words. This is a war, but it’s because of Paige that it’s no longer an extermination. It was only a matter of time before the shapeshifters either turned or killed most of the people in the world. The ones that survived would have been caught in the cross fire as the military kept trying to kill Full Bloods using the wrong weapons.”
George rubbed his eyes and stuffed the wrapper from his sandwich into the bag with the others. “For a while even we didn’t have the right weapons for that.”
“Now we do, but this fight’s got a long way to go. The Nymar will make another move. The Full Bloods aren’t finished. The Half Breeds are always hungry.”
“And the snakes,” George sighed. “Don’t forget about those snakes.”
Cole grinned. “Paige died to make this war winnable, so I’m going to win it for her. The Amriany can help me. The IRD can help me. Nobody can help me. I don’t care. I’ll find a way to win.”
“Do you know someone other than the IRD or Amriany?”
“There are some assholes in Louisville I plan on visiting.”
“You need someone to come with you?”
Standing up, Cole put his spear into its harness and then collected the sickles. “Check back with me in a few days. There’s one more stop I need to make.”
Epilogue
St. Louis, Missouri
Cole felt strange going to the cathedral in the section of St. Louis known as Dog Town. The last time he’d been to St. James the Greater was when people were still worried about the Mud Flu. Lancroft’s plague seemed like a fond memory compared to the circumstances that brought him back to that chapel on Tamm Avenue. When he tried the door, he found it was locked. His knocks were answered by a stout, bald
ing man wearing glasses that were thick enough to be bulletproof. As soon as the man laid eyes on him, he flashed a wide, friendly smile.
“I remember you!” he said. “Looks like things’ve been rough since we last met.”
Cole’s hand drifted to the three fresh scars that ran down his left temple and picked up again to form three similar gouges on that side of his chin. Since touching the scars would only make them itch, he pulled his hand away and asked, “Can I come in?”
“Where’s Paige?”
Cole twitched but was too tired to react more than that. “Mind if I come in?”
The man with the glasses nodded and opened the door the rest of the way. “Probably a good idea. Nowadays, Dog Town really lives up to the name. Had to keep the place locked up so the wolves wouldn’t get in. Hasn’t been too bad for a little while now, though.”
It was cold, but the layers Cole wore beneath his stitched-up coat kept away the chill. He walked straight through a small room filled with chairs and folding tables to the cathedral, pausing as soon as he got a look at the familiar stained-glass windows and statuary. Even the smell brought back memories. When he clenched his fist, he swore he could feel Paige’s hand in his grasp. “I shouldn’t have come here,” he said.
The man behind the glasses rubbed Cole’s shoulder. “Don’t be silly! What’s this place for if not to give shelter to a fella like you? You’re not about to sprout fur and fangs are ya?” he asked with a subtle St. Louis drawl.
“No,” Cole replied with an uneasy laugh. When he felt his strength start to ebb, he lowered himself down onto one of the pews.
“I didn’t catch yer name,” the man said as he sat down beside him.
“Cole.”
“I’m Bill. Can I get something for you to drink? We’ve got coffee, or maybe something stronger?”
“No thanks.”
After folding his hands across an ample belly, Bill sat quietly for a few seconds before saying, “Paige won’t be coming, will she?”
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