Howling Legion (Skinners, Book 2) (32 page)

“Do you know what we’re charging into?”

Ben hopped over a pothole and then darted to one side while lowering his head to scramble beneath the car Paige was passing. He emerged from under the other vehicle’s front bumper and fell into step where he’d been before. “You mean you don’t know what’s up there? I hate to admit it, but I admire you Skinners. Just crazy enough to get the job done.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“There’s a Full Blood perched on a building a few blocks ahead,” Ben reported. “He started howling, and Half Breeds sprouted up all over town. From what we could see, they all seem to be heading in this direction.”

“Then we might as well meet them there!” Paige shouted.

“We’ll do our part, Skinner,” Ben said in a surprisingly calm tone. “When this is over, be sure to hold up your end. This city is ours.”

“I remember the deal!” she shouted. “But if we don’t stop chatting, we’ll both lose a whole lot more than this city!”

Ben nodded, lowered his head, and ran in earnest. Seeing
him pull in front of the Cav and tear down the street, Cole didn’t have any trouble believing the Mongrels had gotten all the way to Kansas City from Omaha in record time.

Paige sped down East Eleventh Street but was forced to slow down due to the growing amount of police traffic clogging the road. Some uniforms were posted to divert the night owl civilians, and others jumped out of their cars to get a look at a tall building a bit farther down the block. Cole’s window was still open, so he could hear the deep, rumbling howl that shook the particles in the air. Until now he’d thought that sound was just a mix of sirens, engines, and music blasting from a club somewhere. As more howls joined in, he reflexively reached for the glove compartment.

Several police cars were parked around a single fire engine that had pulled up to a spot where two civilian cars had crashed into each other. Although he couldn’t see details amid the flashing lights and four-legged creatures darting from one live body to another, Cole spotted plenty of figures sprawled in pools of gore. At least a few of those figures were still in one piece.

“What do we do about all these cops?” he asked as he checked the .44.

“I don’t think they’ll object to a little help with these things. They may have enough guns to take down a few of the Half Breeds, but we’ll have to take the rest.”

“And what about the Full Blood?”

Paige slammed her foot against the brake hard enough to make Cole kiss the dashboard. A couple police officers held their ground in the street and waved at her to turn around and clear the area. They walked toward the Cav but didn’t even make it to Paige’s window before being taken down by a pair of Half Breeds. Bones snapped loudly enough for Cole to hear them as one of the cops was knocked off his feet. The other officer near the Cav was bitten at waist level and pulled down like an unsuspecting gazelle in a nature documentary. She pulled her gun but was overpowered by the gangly werewolf.

Cole kicked open his door and jumped outside as his hands tightened around the thorns set into his weapon’s handle.
The pain barely registered, and the blood trickling from his palms felt warm and comforting. When he jabbed the end of his spear into the closest Half Breed’s side, it nearly tore straight through the creature. He attempted to lift the thing up and off the female cop but wasn’t able to divert it from its meal. The attempt did cause the werewolf to lift its head and twist it 180 degrees around, to urgently gnaw upon the spear.

Cole pushed the Half Breed down against the pavement so the cop could drag herself away. The creature flopped and contorted to try and get at him. Its teeth were bared in a gruesome display, and bony claws tore at the pavement until a gunshot cracked through the air. The Half Breed’s head snapped to one side and then twisted back around to face the cop. Cole twisted his spear within it, holding it down just long enough for the cop to empty the rest of her rounds into its body. The creature let out one last grunt before dying. Before the cop could say a word, she and Cole spotted more werewolves attacking another group of officers.

Paige had freed the female cop’s partner by sticking a curved sickle blade behind the creature’s shoulders like a meat hook. As she pulled it closer, she drove her other weapon down through its back. Her right arm wasn’t moving quickly, but she was able to drop that weapon straight down and impale the Half Breed through its spine with enough force for the end of the machete to crack against pavement. Just to be sure, she pulled her sickle blade free and drove it an inch or two through the top of the creature’s skull.

The cop watched Paige with wide, disbelieving eyes. Suddenly, he pulled his trigger again and again. Paige jumped, but quickly realized he was firing at a Half Breed running toward them. Unfortunately, the creature didn’t seem too distracted by the bullets chipping away at its chest and body. The moment it got close enough, Paige swung her right weapon straight across, connecting with the creature’s jaw and lifting the front half of its body off the ground.

Trembling as he reloaded, the cop asked, “What the fuck are these things? Who the fuck are you?”

All Paige said to that was, “Behind you.”

The cop was reluctant to take his eyes off her, but turned around when he heard the sound of claws raking against the cement. Then he added to a chorus of gunfire that dropped one of the smaller creatures charging a police cruiser. When the cop turned around again, Paige had moved on to fight somewhere else.

A few yards down the street, Cole pinned another Half Breed to the pavement. The wretch clawed at the cement, tearing up chunks of concrete while snapping at both him and the female officer he’d already saved. She’d taken a bad bite to the hip but was able to stay upright thanks to another policeman who’d come to lend her some support. The creature’s head twisted around to angles that should have killed any living creature. Since the Half Breed didn’t have a bone that wasn’t already broken, it frantically knotted itself up until enough of the cops’ bullets hit something vital.

But even after it stopped moving, Cole was reluctant to pull the spear loose. When he noticed that there were only three gaping wounds, despite all the shots that had hit, he braced his foot on the creature and freed his weapon. “Nice grouping,” he said to the closest officer.

The policeman, sweaty, scraped up, and shell-shocked, muttered, “Wh-What the hell?”

Cole looked over to Paige just as she swatted at one creature with her left hand and then knocked it into oblivion with her right. When he looked back again, the flummoxed cop had disappeared in a blood-soaked flurry of teeth and claws. From then on, none of the remaining cops were about to stop shooting long enough to ask the Skinners another question.

More Half Breeds raced in from all angles. They knocked over mailboxes and scrambled over patrol cars in their haste to get to the buffet of fresh meat. Some were sent tumbling due to gunfire from the officers on the scene, while others darted around to flank the shooters from a different angle. Every last one of the creatures howled and barked with enough unfocused energy to rend their throats in the same way their claws tore up their prey.

Cole waded through the Half Breeds to help as many cops as he could. One creature dragged a screaming man
toward a police cruiser, so he aimed his .44 in that direction. Before he could fire a shot, however, another pair of creatures reached out from beneath the car to grab the Half Breed’s legs. Even with that quick glance, Cole recognized the curved claws and shorter legs of burrowing Mongrels.

At first the Half Breed twisted around to snarl at whatever was interrupting its feast. The surprise it felt when it saw what had snagged it by the hindquarters was enough to show up on even its mangled face. The werewolf barked frantically before yelping in pain as the Mongrels dragged it under the car.

“Can you walk?” Cole asked as he helped the surprised cop back up.

The officer winced, but nodded. “It pulled me a ways, but I can keep going.”

Suddenly, the gunfire rose to a frantic level. Cops screamed at each other and through their radios as stray rounds shattered glass and tore into one of the nearby buildings. More specifically, they fired at the hulking Full Blood that had sunk its claws into the building and was climbing down. Once the coal-black monster made it to the twelfth floor, he pushed away from the structure and dropped into the chaos he’d started.

Liam’s feet slammed against the pavement with enough force for Cole to feel it through the bottom of his hiking boots. The Full Blood flattened for a moment and then arose in his full upright form. Unlike the twitching attempt in the hotel room, this transformation was a nightmare firing on all cylinders. It stood just over seven feet tall, was covered in pure black fur, and had muscles that looked twice as solid and unforgiving as the steel of the cars surrounding it. A patch of gray fur marked the spot where Cole’s spear had wounded Liam earlier that night.

Gunfire continued to go off, but Liam barely reacted to the constant pecking of bullets against his coat. The werewolf sucked in a lungful of air, shifted his gaze toward Cole and Paige, and then let out another howl that was raw fury given a body of sound. It directly challenged Cole in a language that predated words, reaching down to the core of every living thing to spark the simplest, most primitive of all choices: kill, run, or die.

Cole was snapped out of his paralysis by the thunder of shotgun blasts. Some police officers were still firing their pistols at Liam, but others had ditched the handguns in favor of something bigger. Liam vaulted over the nearest car, tearing the sirens from its roof with the ease of a bad magician sending a few place settings to the floor. Before his paws touched cement again, he was swiping at one of the cops
holding a shotgun. He clipped the man with his claws, which was enough to send the guy twisting through the air amid a bloody spray.

The shotgunner’s partner still had a pistol in hand, which he’d already emptied. The instant Liam’s eyes found him, the cop raced for another one of the cruisers. He dove headfirst into the car to grab the shotgun, which was still in its rack. As Liam approached, the cop pulled the door shut and wrestled the shotgun free of its housing.

Meanwhile, the remaining cops were firing or calling for backup. Mongrels picked off several Half Breeds by snatching the wretches from alleys, under cars, or any other cover they could find. Paige and Cole had been singled out by another small pack of Half Breeds, but those creatures were already nursing multiple gunshot wounds. Although they’d absorbed enough lead to put down a pack of any other animal, the werewolves were slowed down just enough for the Skinners to finish them off before moving on to bigger game.

One policeman stood frozen with gun in hand, apparently unable to decide whether he wanted to fire at Liam, one of the hidden Mongrels, or one of the circling Half Breeds. Before the cop could make up his mind, a Half Breed raced forward to sink its teeth into his hip. The werewolf’s fangs snagged on the officer’s gun belt, and then Cole’s spear snagged the creature’s ribs. Cole pulled the impaled werewolf to one side so the cop could use his pistol to put it out of its misery.

A few more Half Breeds stalked toward the cops who were firing at Liam. Their eyes were fixed upon the officers’ backs, so they didn’t see Paige coming until she was wading through them. Her first attack wasn’t half its normal speed, but she swung her crudely shaped machete with enough power to decapitate one of the Half Breeds in a single swipe. She snapped the sickle in her left hand down to bury its curved blade into the neck of the next creature. Paige wanted to answer a third creature’s growl with another swing, but her right arm wasn’t up to the task. The weapon in that hand moved like it was being pushed through water,
giving the Half Breed more than enough time to duck beneath it and sink its teeth into her.

Screams erupted from Liam’s direction. There was a crunching impact as the Full Blood tossed three men in full riot gear into the air, sending one of them through the fourth floor window of a nearby building.

Cole barely had time to register what he’d seen before reflexively twisting his spear to block a Half Breed’s attack. Since the werewolf stopped just outside of the spear’s range, Cole adjusted his grip on the weapon to hold it more like a long bat. He waited for the Half Breed to charge at him again, then swung at just the right moment to bury the thorns of the spear’s handle into the creature’s face. It let out a shrieking cry and scampered away.

Rushing toward Paige, Cole found her on the ground, using her feet to push herself away from the Half Breed latched onto her right arm. The creature snarled and snapped its head from side to side like a dog that wasn’t about to let go of its favorite old sock. She took a few swings at it with her sickle, but its frenzy was too far along for it to feel any pain.

It took several attempts, but after Cole stabbed the creature’s chest several times, it finally noticed and opened its jaws. Paige jerked her arm away and then sent it straight back to pound the creature’s temple. The werewolf staggered sideways, only to be impaled by Cole’s spear as well as Paige’s machete.

When it stopped moving, Cole placed a bloody hand on Paige’s shoulder and asked, “How’s your arm?”

“Fine,” she snapped as she pulled away and looked at her arm. The skin had been stripped away along several tracks where the Half Breed’s teeth had dug in, revealing what looked more like a broken sculpture of human anatomy than something that was actually alive. Some of the tissue beneath her skin was scraped, but not nearly as bad as it should have been. “It’s…fine,” she repeated.

They were distracted then by the groan of twisting metal.

Liam had grabbed onto the top of a police cruiser with one hand as round after round of pistol and shotgun bul
lets thumped against his back, ribs, and head. The cop who dove inside for his shotgun was still there, and fired a powerful blast up through the roof. Liam pulled in a breath that swelled his entire body. The streetlights shining on his coat glinted off the spent bullets trapped in his fur like lead ticks. Squatting down to look through the cruiser’s windshield, he saw the single petrified officer who’d sought refuge there. He then brought his fists down on the top of the car, crushing that section of the roof.

Paige got to Liam first and used her sickle to slash at the base of his spine. Her curved blade didn’t even penetrate the outer crust of bullets acting as makeshift armor within Liam’s fur. Cole arrived then and announced his presence by driving his spear into the Full Blood’s chest. The bone and muscle in that section of torso might as well have been an iron plate.

Whatever pain Liam felt was channeled into his fists, which continued to hammer the top of the car. Inside the vehicle, the policeman shouted and kicked at the other door. The frame was so bent by now that the man’s only avenue of escape was through one of the shattered windows. Before he could take his chances at crawling between shards of broken glass, however, he was knocked down by a section of roof that buckled under Liam’s fist. Snarling and panting more from excitement than effort, Liam climbed onto the roof to flatten it under his weight.

Cole hopped onto the hood of the car, where he was immediately grabbed and taken down by several policemen.

“Clear our line of fire, damn it!”
one of the cops bellowed.

“Let go of me!” Cole shot back. “Can’t you see we’re the only ones scratching that thing?”

By now Liam was pounding both fists onto the roof to silence the man inside. Squatting down on the ruined vehicle, he looked around at the officers and issued a challenging roar. His jaw hung open, exposing dozens of daggerlike teeth that filled a mouth large enough to clamp down around a telephone pole.

“Brave Skinner,” Liam snarled as more gunshots blazed through the air and bullets thumped harmlessly into the thick tangle of black fur. He didn’t look at the cops or even at Cole. Instead, he glared down at Paige. The Full Blood took one step off the roof and reached out for her, but was forced to pull his hand back before Paige’s sickle chopped it off. “Strong Skinner,” he mused.

Liam’s attention was drawn skyward, where Cole thought he could hear the distant chop of helicopter blades approaching. As much as he would have liked to see an Army gunship swooping in to save the day, he had a much easier time imagining live video of him getting his head knocked off, filmed by the traffic copter of a local news station.

Pushing that out of his mind, Cole yelled, “Hey, you skinny little fuck!”

The Full Blood turned away from Paige to look at him.

Cole stood in the street a few paces from the police cruiser with his staff held in both hands across his body. “Yeah, I just said that. I’ve seen what you look like when you’re not covered in all that hair. You’re a little prick who was probably a smart-mouthed, sickly little runt his whole life. I bet you got your ass kicked a lot in school too.”

As Liam listened, the cops around him let up on their firing. Cole assumed they had either taken a moment to reload or finally realized their bullets weren’t even making a dent. The Full Blood narrowed his eyes and crawled down to the street. From between rows of saliva-drenched fangs, he growled, “Dead Skinner.”

As the Full Blood’s steps thumped on the concrete, Cole worked to keep his cocky smile in place. He backed up at the werewolf’s approach, however, and nodded to Paige, who looked at him as if to ask just what the hell he was doing.

Liam had just taken his third step forward when a flurry of arms, legs, and narrow bodies exploded from under the police cruiser. There were only two of them, but their elongated torsos and slender limbs wrapped around Liam’s legs like an army of serpents, to claw at him anywhere they could reach.

Another wave of gunfire erupted from nearby, but none of it was directed at Liam. The next batch of Half Breeds answering Liam’s howl were tearing down Eleventh Street like a whirlwind of sharp teeth and scraping paws. The cops managed to slow a few of the creatures down before the Half Breeds got to the main group of humans, but the remainder split up to charge the police from other angles. In another few seconds they would be inside of shotgun range.

Cole and Paige didn’t have time to worry about them. Liam might have been brought down to one knee by the Mongrels, but he was quickly regaining his composure and furiously digging his claws into the creatures attached to him. He grabbed one Mongrel by the head to pull it off of him, but the burrowing shapeshifter had sunk all of its claws in, and it came away like a barbed arrowhead carelessly pulled from a deep wound. Flaps of skin tore loose from Liam’s thigh and a spray of blood trickled from the wound, all of which only served to further enrage him.

The sickle in Paige’s left hand moved through the air in a blur, while the one in her right stayed close to her body, to repel anything that might attack. Cole prodded the Full Blood again and again but was at a bad angle and risked hitting one of the Mongrels instead. It wasn’t until he buried the spear into the patch of gray fur where the broken tooth was embedded that he knew he’d struck pay dirt.

After hitting the chink in Liam’s armor, Cole wished his spear was sharper or even hooked at the end to do more damage. It creaked in his hands, and the Full Blood twitched as if something had scraped against a raw nerve. Judging by the howl that ripped through the air, the spearhead might have even made contact with the tooth still lodged in the werewolf’s flesh. Liam grabbed the spear and pulled it out, but howled as it snagged on a piece of flesh before finally coming loose. Sure enough, the end of the spear had sharpened to a finer edge and curled into a hook.

Liam howled and grabbed a Mongrel that had clamped onto his arm. Tightening his fist around its chest, he squeezed until the burrower’s spine and several ribs
cracked. For good measure, he pounded his other fist into the limp Mongrel’s skull and then gnawed off a large portion of its body.

Ben crawled up along Liam’s back and bit his neck with a set of short, thin teeth. Liam pulled him off, but the burrower wriggled out of his grip and scurried onto the street. From there, Ben let out a series of high-pitched chirps that sounded like a mix of lizard and bird cries.

Within seconds more of the burrowers came to Ben’s side. Some of the Mongrels were wounded and a few were still wrestling with Half Breeds, but no fewer than eight of them answered the call. Cole had expected Paige to join the battle as well, then saw that a Half Breed had blindsided her. He ran past Liam, impaled the Half Breed on his spear, and pulled it away so Paige could drop her right-handed weapon down like a sledgehammer.

“Thanks,” she breathed.

By now some more policemen had arrived, and they opened fire on Liam. One of them screamed into a radio while huddling behind a car, “Any press I see around here will be brought up on obstruction charges. Keep this area
clear,
damn it! We got enough civilians to worry about!”

Liam was still hurting from Cole’s attack, so Paige jumped onto the police cruiser and launched herself at his back. When her body hit the Full Blood’s shoulder blades, she drove her machete in like she was planting a flag.

Liam reared up to his full height, but since he didn’t have the unnatural flexibility of a Half Breed, he was unable to turn his head around and bite Paige. After missing her with a few wild swipes of his claws, he dropped to all fours and took off like a shot.

Cole stood with weapon in hand, feeling like a useless bump on that particular stretch of road as he viewed the scene. Gunshots crackled around him, mixed with the occasional shotgun blast. More people ran farther down the street as he stood there, and he saw others leaning out of open windows in buildings down the block. The helicopters had drifted away, but he could still hear the flutter of blades in the distance. An ambulance was parked near several cops
dressed in riot gear, but the EMTs had been taken out by the Half Breeds. Werewolves snarled and attacked the police. Seeing one of those creatures pounce on an officer in riot gear got Cole moving again.

He reached the officer just as the man had emptied his weapon into the Half Breed’s face. Slug after slug punched into the werewolf, but it still wasn’t enough to put it down. The creature was about to clamp its jaws around the officer’s leg when Cole drove his spear through its upper body. It occurred to him that he might have been overcompensating for allowing Paige to get away, after he brought his spear down so many times that he could have turned the thing into paste.