Vampire Uprising (47 page)

“And perhaps you should think harder about what you feel for her,” Kawosa said with a cruel, confident smile. “You may not have a lot of time left to enjoy each other. As for the Full Blood claim, I do share certain traits with them. Skinners have rarely been able to detect me, however. Your forefather Lancroft worked for years on end just to catch my scent. That itch in your hands probably came from them.” Kawosa nodded toward the back of the room in a corner near the computer desk.

Cole knew better than to turn around and look. If there was anything worth seeing, Prophet would have spoken up by now.

“Uhhh,” Prophet said. “You better get over here.”

Heavy footsteps scraped against the floor, sounding like sandbags being dragged across the linoleum. The breaths drifting through the air were the low rasp of wind snagging upon ravaged throats. A pair of werewolves stalked across the room, leaving a juicy trail of saliva that fell from their mouths. They moved with a purpose that was nowhere to be found in any of the beasts that had ripped through Kansas City or the wild things that slept in filthy pits after tearing apart any man, woman, or child that crossed their path. They were bigger than Half Breeds and walked without lifting
their paws fully from the floor. Their heads swung easily back and forth and their lips curled up to reveal a set of elongated fangs marked by two pairs of curved tusks sprouting from top and bottom jaws.

Watching the bulky creatures, Cole shifted his stance so neither they nor Kawosa were behind him. Unable to come up with a better guess, he asked, “Burkis? Is that you?”

The moment the werewolves got within striking distance of the computer desk, they snarled at Prophet, but shifted their eyes back to Kawosa before doing anything else.

“You have one chance for me to call them off,” Kawosa said. “Tell me all you know about the Skinners, how they communicate, and what else they’ve gleaned from Jonah Lancroft, and I’ll give you a chance to escape before I set these two loose. Make your decision now.”

Cole didn’t want to fight an unknown creature, but knew there was no possible way he would ever tell the shapeshifter a damn thing.

“Fine,” Kawosa said. “If you don’t talk, I know there are others here who will.”

“I hate mind readers,” Cole grunted as one of the bulkier Half Breeds came straight at him.

The other one lunged at Prophet. Until now he and the Nymar had been watching Kawosa and Cole without knowing how to insert themselves into the situation. When they finally saw a chance to do something, both of them sprang into motion. The Nymar lunged for the computer desk, reached beneath the cheap printer setup and hit a button that sent a piercing shriek through the room. A second too late to prevent the alarm from going off, Prophet grabbed the Nymar and shoved him toward the closest werewolf.

The Nymar was lifted off his feet and shaken from side to side when the werewolf’s tusks were driven up under his rib cage. It disemboweled the Nymar and then tossed him onto the computer desk so it could feast. Oily blood ran down its face as it opened its mouth to let out a howling snarl. Prophet fired his pistol at the creature the moment it set its sights on him.

Those shots echoed like a distant, bass-heavy stereo in
Cole’s ears as he planted his feet and willed his spear to shift into something that would hit the other creature before it could get to him. Although the metallic spearhead was too rigid to change shape, the rest of the weapon responded to Cole’s mental command without hesitation. It was still shifting when he drove the spear into the Half Breed’s chest using a motion similar to digging a hole with a shovel. The gleaming spearhead, infused with pieces of the Blood Blade, ripped through the Half Breed’s upper body even easier than bullets from Prophet’s gun. All it took from there was an exertion of muscle for Cole to divert the Half Breed’s glistening fangs away from him and toward the third shapeshifter in the room.

Kawosa dropped to all fours. By the time his hands touched the floor, they were neither hands nor paws. He was a being completely different than anything Cole had seen thus far and shifted from one form to another with as much effort as someone else might use to change an open hand into a fist. Kawosa’s animal form was lean and wiry. Pointed ears rested high upon his head to point straight up at the ceiling. His snout was long and gnarled, filled with unevenly spaced fangs that angled down and back like teeth found on a hacksaw blade. As the Half Breed sailed over him, Kawosa kept his smoky gray eyes fixed upon Cole.

Suddenly, Cole wanted to set his spear down and have a quiet chat with the thing staring up at him.

If not for all the previous beings that had tried to manipulate his thoughts, he might have done just that. But with the Mind Singer’s presence still fresh in his memory, he wasn’t about to roll over so easily for another trickster. It took every bit of his willpower to lower his spear, pretending to behave like a good little zombie. When Kawosa took a less defensive stance, Cole slashed the forked end of the spear across his eyes. The shapeshifter recoiled to avoid getting his face torn off, but the weapon’s points snagged in the clothes that hung off his spindly frame.

Cole had barely even noticed Kawosa was still wearing clothes. The creature’s fur had a coarse, greasy texture that allowed it to lay flat against his body in a manner very similar
to the rags he wore. When Cole pulled the spear free, he ripped a section of the fabric, allowing something to come loose and hit the floor. It was the cell phone Kawosa had taken after hitching a ride with the Skinners. Also, the phone was ringing.

Prophet fired his remaining bullets at the werewolf in front of him. Even after its skull was busted open like a piñata to spill its gory candies all over the floor, its legs still drove it forward. After ejecting his magazine with a quick snap of a lever and downward motion of his hand, he dug a fresh one from his pocket, reloaded and chambered a round so he could empty half of it into the stubborn creature. Whatever hold Kawosa had, it was powerful enough to keep the creature plodding forward no matter how badly it wanted to use its speed to choose another angle. At such close range, Prophet was able to put his next several rounds into the wet pulpy matter within the creature’s head.

Cole’s Half Breed was having trouble getting back to its feet. After hitting the floor and skidding to turn itself around, a good portion of its blood and some even more vital pieces had spilled out through the opening made by the specially modified spear. The werewolf lifted its head, let out a bellowing roar and leapt at Cole. He braced to defend himself, but the creature didn’t even manage to get off the ground before its strength gave out and its body hit the floor with a wet thump. Both front legs were trapped beneath its opened chest, which scraped against the floor.

Kawosa flowed back into a mostly human form and regarded the eviscerated Half Breed with morbid curiosity. “Such simple creatures,” he said. The moment he averted his eyes from it, the Half Breed let out a pained whine and gave up the ghost. “They have evolved into such useful tools.”

Keeping his spear in front of him, Cole inched his way toward the ringing cell phone. By the time he stretched a leg out to kick it toward him, it stopped ringing. It only took a moment for him to scoop up the phone, but it felt like hours before he was able to regain a solid grip on his weapon. “You’re working with the Nymar?”

“No more than I work with any deceiver,” Kawosa replied.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Who the hell are you?”

“I am smoke and mirrors. I am the encouraging hand that prods a child to tell his first lie. Some have written legends about me, but the rest prefer to worship my gifts in secret so their supposed loved ones will not know what untruths are about to be cast at them.”

Tapping his earpiece, Cole said, “Rico, I’ve got some nut job here who was passing himself off as Paige. Says his name’s Kawosa. That ring any bells?”

The gunfire that crackled through the digital connection simultaneously echoed through another section of the building. “Little busy here! You finished dicking around with the computer so you can help us with the real work?”

“How many Nymar are left?”

“Oh, you want me to count? Let’s see …” The gunfire erupting from that side of the building intensified and was still blasting away when the earpiece chirped again. “Still a fucking lot of them! Get over here!”

When Cole looked back to Kawosa, he found the skinny figure reaching out to touch the metallic spearhead with a set of sticklike fingers. “Where did you come from?” Cole asked. “And give me the short version before I drop you and call it a day.”

Kawosa raised an eyebrow that looked more like something hastily glued to his face before he shifted into another form with enough speed to make his bones snap. Every inch of his flesh was pulled and stretched. His muscles tore and squashed in on themselves. His entire structure crumpled into something else in less time than it took Cole’s heart to beat. When he dropped down to all four of his newly reformed legs, Kawosa was covered in dark fur and brandishing teeth that looked strong enough to chew through the side of an Abrams tank.

The creature wasn’t quite Full Blood and was definitely not a Half Breed. Cole might have put his money on a Mongrel, if not for what his scars were telling him. He didn’t have to think long, however, before remembering where he’d seen that dark, snarling monster before.

When he and Paige had faced Lancroft for the final time
in the dungeon beneath that Philadelphia house, he’d caught a glimpse of Kawosa in his present form. Every instinct in Cole’s body had told him to stay away from that cage and be thankful that Jonah Lancroft knew how to keep those bars from breaking. When he’d seen the empty cage during his last visit to the Lancroft house, Cole had wanted to forget about what had been set loose. Somehow, after this simple introduction, the situation had the potential to be much worse than he’d feared.

“Tell me you’re afraid, Skinner,” Kawosa snarled through a mouth that shifted just enough to form the words. “And don’t lie to me. I’ll know.”

Cole used every bit of training Paige had given him. He watched Kawosa’s movements, from the subtle shift of his weight, all the way down to the bob of his head. When the moment was right, he feinted with a quick stab to Kawosa’s face and then followed up as soon as the shapeshifter moved to avoid the blow. Dropping to one knee, Cole swung his spear out and around in a wide arc that caught three of Ka-wosa’s legs. Although he was going for a simple takedown, the thorns in the weapon tore away the shapeshifter’s flesh as he fell heavily onto his side. The creature had barely hit the floor when Cole drove the metal-encrusted spearhead into Kawosa’s chest. He twisted the weapon and pulled it back out as his phone started to ring.

Since Kawosa wasn’t moving and the Half Breeds were down, Cole checked the phone’s screen. Paige had been trying to reach him. More than likely that was why Kawosa had kept the phone in the first place. “Hello?” Cole said after establishing the connection.

“Where the hell have you been? Why the hell would you pick
this
of all times to start ignoring that piece of shit phone of yours?”

“There’s
my girl,” Cole said with relief.

Prophet had reloaded his pistol and was shifting his aim between all three of the creatures lying on the floor. “Is that Paige?”

Cole nodded.

“You sure about that?”

“Ohhh, yeah,” Cole replied.

“I hear gunshots,” she said. “What’s happening over there? Did you start the raid without me?”

“Had to,” Cole said.

“But I just got into Denver!”

“Did the nymphs charge up again?”

“No, Bob got me on a chartered jet. It’s a long story.”

Even though there was more than enough going on in the immediate vicinity, Cole felt his hackles raise when he heard that name. “Bob Stanze? Officer Bob Stanze from Kansas City?”

“That’s him. He knows some people. I’m not sure if they’re Feds or what, but he says they’re from police departments all over the country.” She paused to take a breath, and no matter what else was going on at that moment, Cole waited for her to finish. “They know about us,” she said. “They know about Skinners and what we do. From what he’s been telling me, they’ve known for a while now.”

“So on top of everything else, we’ve got to deal with some kind of conspiracy?”

“That’s why I’ve been sticking with them,” Paige hissed. Her voice had become louder and scratchier, making Cole certain she was cupping her hand over her phone when she said, “Just tell me you’re getting to those cops the Nymar set up. I don’t know how big this thing is yet, but the last thing we need is more bad blood on our hands where the police are concerned.”

“I’m getting to it.”

“Good. Call when you’ve got something. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

When the connection was cut, Cole felt as if he’d been severed from damn near everything in his world. He wasn’t alone in that stark white building, but he no longer had the guiding force that had gotten him this far. Knowing what needed to be done was one thing. Doing it, no matter what might happen to him along the way, was another.

Prophet grit his teeth and kept his back to a wall as hell spilled into the hallway on the other side of the door in front of him. “All right,” he said. “What’s next?”

“You’re gonna stay here and hack that computer.”

“I don’t know anything about hacking a damn computer!”

“It’s already unlocked,” Cole explained as he waved at the bloodstained terminal. “The screen’s a little gross, but the pass codes have already been put in. Do you know how to go through PC files?”

“Yeah.”

“Then go through as much as you can and look for anything that might be useful. If you find something, print it up or e-mail it to yourself.”

“Won’t that be dangerous?” Prophet asked.

The gunfire had moved into another part of the building. In the time it took for Cole to place his spear into the harness strapped to his back, several voices boomed from the front and back rooms. He couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying but they had the cadence of authority mixed in with several choppy syllables that could either be “freeze” or “on your knees.”