Extinction Agenda (30 page)

It wasn’t just a Jekhibar. That was something crafted by Gypsy hands and suited to their needs. Perhaps the humans couldn’t do anything with the raw ore, but that wasn’t Randolph’s concern. He was a Full Blood, and the Torva’ox flowed like blood through their veins. Now that the ore was in his possession, he could feel it being drawn to the earth. Perhaps this was why the Gypsies needed to craft it into their Jekhibar. It took all of his strength to maintain his hold on the pieces of metal as the Torva’ox flooded his system.

Rather than clench his fist around that which he’d sought and jump away from the Mist Born, Randolph moved even faster along Icanchu’s writhing body. He was no longer concerned with looking for anything, so he was free to scamper along the Mist Born’s thickly muscled trunk as it swung back and forth. Some of the smaller snakes chased him, while others appeared to block his path or clamp onto him to prevent him from jumping free. Branches of all sizes brushed against his back and tugged at his fur until Randolph was finally slammed into the river.

He kept his focus on the living plateau directly beneath him. Submerged in the chilling waters of the Amazon, he concentrated on shredding the snakes holding him in place so he could circle around Icanchu’s rough cylindrical body toward open air. Breaking the water’s surface and filling his lungs, he found more scales that rose above the smooth plane of the rest. Since he was only a short pull away, he dragged himself along the Mist Born and drove the talon beneath one of them to pry it off. Icanchu responded with a renewed series of twisting convulsions. A snarling hiss drifted from the skies, warning Randolph that the serpent’s massive head was coming his way. Before he could escape, Randolph spotted something that caught his interest. Without wasting another moment of contemplation, he leapt back into the water and dove straight to the bottom of the river.

Icanchu’s head splashed above him, creating a ripple through the Amazon that he could feel as he paddled farther down. The Mist Born’s segmented trunk emerged from the bottom of the river, surrounded by several glittering jewels similar to the ones he’d already plucked. There was more of the ore to be had, but even more interesting than that was the moss-covered portion of Icanchu’s torso that led into the ground itself.

Like a chunk of rock that had been dropped from the sky, Icanchu’s gaping jaws surged toward him. When he glanced over his shoulder, Randolph discovered the Serpent Lord a few inches away, his eyes churning wildly, as if reflecting the mud kicked up on all sides. The Full Blood curled his body so he could turn around sharply and swipe at Icanchu with both rear paws. He drew enough blood to form a hazy cloud around Icanchu’s face and followed that with a solid bite to his cheek. Icanchu recoiled and twisted his head away, more stunned than wounded by the attack. Randolph took the opportunity to swim down far enough to see that his suspicions had been correct. The river bottom was cracked open, and Icanchu’s body emerged from the hole like a worm from the meatiest portion of a rotten apple.

As he floated beneath the surface, Randolph wondered how far down the Mist Born went. If his body had the same proportions as a snake, it would widen in the middle and slowly taper at either end. As far as he could tell, Icanchu’s segmented torso had gotten wider the farther into the water it went. At the spot where it emerged from the cracked river bottom, it was as thick as four tanker trucks lashed together in a bundle.

The rush of water came again. Randolph pushed away from the river floor using both legs and paddled as best he could with both hands clenched around the lumps of ore. Suddenly, the water around him rippled. A distortion formed on all sides, and before he could change direction yet again, massive fangs pierced his back and chest. They tore into him like broken iron girders, dragging him sideways through the filthy water as his powerful limbs kicked uselessly against the current.

Randolph’s mouth opened to unleash a scream that was silent apart from the torrent of bubbles exploding from his throat. Those same bubbles were brushing against his face before being left behind completely. Icanchu’s fangs tugged at the flesh in which they were lodged, and before Randolph could figure out what direction was up, he was lifted from the water and tossed into the air.

Even as he sailed without anything solid beneath his feet, he thought to protect the pearls he’d collected. His fists closed around them and he angled his body so his back would take the brunt of the impact when he landed. Wind rushed past his face and roared in his ears, letting him know he was still sailing.

Trees brushed against him and branches snagged in his fur to pivot him in midair. It was still another few seconds before he snapped the larger branches on his way down through the tree line. Closing his eyes, Randolph tucked his chin in tight against his chest and formed a ball of muscle that skidded against the dirt after a solid thump. His ears hadn’t stopped ringing when he heard the hissing of snakes drawing closer. Icanchu’s voice could be heard above them as it cursed the Full Blood in an ancient language. When Randolph attempted to stand up, he staggered and lurched to one side.

Power surged through his hands, emanating from the pearls that drew their energy from the rawest form of the Torva’ox. Randolph had lived through many full moons when the ancient energies flowed but had never felt the visceral connection to that which fueled everything from the first sparks of life to the whitest core of every flame. He knew if he soaked it in and channeled it through his body, he would become the most powerful shapeshifter on the planet. Even among Full Bloods, he would be a force to be reckoned with. Legends of Gorren told of how the ancient werewolf could rip through legions of wretches and annihilate entire populations of Nymar without their claws or fangs causing more than a scratch. Gypsy clans had been made extinct in the effort to put Gorren down, and cities set to the torch in the smallest hope that he might be caught in the flames. Such legends were unproven, but now Randolph had the means to test them for himself. And unlike those who needed to wait for their share when the next Breaking Moon rose, he would just have to allow the pearls in his hands to recharge.

“Keep that which you took,” Icanchu hissed through the mouths of at least a dozen snakes that wriggled toward him through the grass, “and I will be able to find you. Return them now and you may keep your life.”

Randolph’s fists clenched even tighter as he shifted into a more compact form, one that would allow him to run faster without forcing him to use all four legs. Ahead, Jaden howled in a way meant to show him the quickest way through the jungle. He pointed his nose in that direction and started covering ground in leaping bounds. He only needed to run toward a few more howls before the ground became familiar beneath his feet. Once she’d led him to the river and pointed him north, Jaden disappeared.

He would remember what she’d done.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Slovakia

T
hey hadn’t driven more than twenty or thirty miles after crossing the border, but Cole felt as if he’d been taken into another century. Not only were the roads quieter than those in the States, but they looked as if they’d been that way even before packs of werewolves were such a common sight. Sophie veered onto a path that took them into the forest and even farther from civilization as he knew it.

After emerging in a clearing smaller than half a football field, she pulled to a stop in front of a shack that whistled when the wind blew hard enough to stir the leaves piled on either side. Now that he’d had more than a few seconds to take in the rustic sight, Cole could see the ridge surrounding the clearing. Covered in thick layers of moss, it was too low to be a wall and too high to be fallen logs. Whatever it was, it formed a shape similar to a crater, with the long, rickety shack situated in its center.

Sophie and Milosh approached the shack so she could knock on the door while he scanned the edge of the crater with wary eyes. Paige walked with Cole, while Waggoner stayed behind. Taking a new Skinner under their wing was one thing. Trusting a former Vigilant member with something like this was another. After a few knocks, the door was opened by a tall man who filled the opening almost as much as his solid, muscular body filled the dirty layers of clothing wrapped around him beneath a filthy apron. “Come in,” he said with a thick accent. “I trust these are Skinners?”

“Yes,” Milosh replied. “And they’ve done well enough to chase Vasily’s dogs back into Prague. Ira, this is Cole and Paige.”

“Well then,” the large man said. “Not only will I speak English, but they can help themselves to the stew I just made.”

Cole and Paige followed the Amriany inside. The shack was at least three times longer than it was wide. The front portion was dominated by a rectangular table cluttered with dirty soup bowls, papers, a checkerboard, some battered paperback books, and a phone that was five generations behind the one in Cole’s pocket. At the back of the cabin a stone fireplace crackled, with flames that shed a flickering light on blades hanging from three of the four walls. “Looks like that’s not all you’ve been making,” Paige said.

Weapons sat on pegs that had been knocked into the walls or hung from hooks dangling from crude racks. They ran the spectrum from simple daggers and wedge-shaped blades to curving designs even more complex than the sword strapped to Sophie’s back. Sizes ranged from a few inches all the way to broadswords almost as tall as Cole. Each of the weapons were encrusted with the same runes as the Blood Blade, but all had the rough, ashen look of metal pulled from a fire and left to gather dust. Once he got over the spectacle of being in a room that stank of burnt metal and being surrounded by so many exotic weapons, he noticed that none of the weapons were complete.

“I was hoping you’d make it out here,” Ira said while waddling over to the fireplace. His awkward movements weren’t caused by a problem with weight or coordination, but from joints that were even less pliable than the iron he forged. “Those bastard Nymar swarmed into my summer home and destroyed it!”

“Was that the same place we were at before?” Cole asked. “The place where those Half Breeds attacked?”

“Yes,” Milosh said.

“That was a summer home?”

“It is warmer there than here. Can’t you tell?”

Ira waved at both of them before reaching into the fireplace that still burned with a large flame. He grabbed a black pot by a curved handle, a whispering hiss coming from his hands. He brought the pot to the table with the heated handle still burning his palms, then set it down so he could blow on his hands as if he’d accidentally touched a hot coffee mug. “I would have fought them myself if you would have left at least one strong arm to help me.”

“We don’t have anyone to spare,” Sophie told him. “Besides, I can’t remember the last time you needed someone to protect you.”

Holding up a thick, callused finger, Ira said, “I just needed someone to hold a few of them back so I could swing. Not protect me. Is big difference.”

“Of course.”

Having made her way to one of the walls, Paige reached out to run her fingertips along some of the blades. When she touched one of the shorter swords hard enough to set it swinging into its neighbor, she looked over to the Chokesari as if expecting a reaction. Ira merely looked back at her while spooning some stew into one of the bowls. “Are all of these Blood Blades?” she asked.

“Not yet. Stew?”

“We didn’t come all the way out here to—”

Cole interrupted her with, “I’ll have some stew.”

Nodding with approval, Ira handed over a bowl and stooped down to pull out a bench that had been hiding beneath the long table. “They would be Blood Blades if there were any more Jekhibar around that were . . .” He rubbed his fingertips together as if something vital was slipping through them. After a few seconds he snapped them and said, “Charged. Is that the word?”

Milosh nodded. “Yes it is. All of the Jekhibar we have are drier than my first wife’s . . . what are you looking at?”

Ira’s face had taken on an expression that made him look almost childish. “What happened to your arm? The last time I saw you, there were two of them.”

“Lost to a Weshruuv,” Milosh grunted while rubbing the stump that had been wrapped in several layers of torn scarves.

Turning on the balls of his feet, Ira shoved aside a pile of scrap metal with the same ease someone else might push a chair aside. He reached down and retrieved a bottle, then filled several glasses scattered atop the table. There was no label on the bottle, but a tentative sniff told Cole it was probably whiskey. Either very cheap stuff or home brewed.

Ira raised his glass and looked at each of the others as if daring them to do anything but follow his lead. Not surprisingly, they each took a glass and lifted it to the crooked rafters over their heads. “To the flesh we’ve lost,” Ira bellowed, “and the steel to pay it back!”

No matter how bad the whiskey was, Cole drank it all down.

Letting out a hard breath while slamming his empty glass onto the table, Ira moved to the back of the room in his uneven, waddling stride. “I sifted through this soil for days the last time I was here. The only Jekhibar I found were lumps of worthless stone.”

“One was found in America,” Milosh said. “A Weshruuv collected it and hid it away from the others.”

Ira spun around and raised his bushy eyebrows. “Is it humming?”

“I don’t know. Ask them.”

Although every Amriany eye was pointed at him, Cole looked over to Paige and waited for a nod. When he got it, he dug into his coat pocket and closed his hand around the Jekhibar. Even a direct shotgun blast to the tanned Full Blood leather wouldn’t have been enough to tear through that coat, and yet Cole felt vulnerable just thinking about handing the Jekhibar over. “What do you mean by humming?” he asked.

“The Jekhibar is nothing more than a special kind of rock,” Ira explained. “And all that’s special about it is that the Torva’ox collects inside of it. Soaks it up like a damn . . .” He winced before brightening again as he found the word he was after. “Sponge! Soaks it up like a sponge. Takes a man like me to get it out, though. There may not be a lot of us left, but we can put the Torva’ox into the steel. Turns ’em into Blood Blades. Only other thing that soaks that juice up more than Jekhibar is Weshruuv.”

“That’s why the Blood Blades can hurt them so badly,” Cole said. “They’re connected.”

Ira nodded and approached the Skinners. “Used to be legend that it took someone close to a Weshruuv to kill them. Since I’ve never seen one of those animals hold anyone close enough to care about them, I think this legend is about the Torva’ox. Perhaps something is lost in translation and it is talking about something that is a part of them. Other shapeshifters are part of them and they can hurt each other, but the Torva’ox is part of them, just like she,” he said, pointing to Paige, “is part of you.”

Cole wasn’t about to deny the claim, especially since he and Paige hadn’t stopped watching the other’s back since they made it to the Hub. He hadn’t been aware it was that obvious, though.

“Amriany have always been craftsmen,” Ira continued. “So we forge steel into blades. We hammer iron into tools or weapons and charm it with energies stolen from nymphs or other creatures.”

Sophie made both of the Skinners jump when she snapped at the blacksmith in a string of barbed words in her native tongue. Ira’s face twisted into a tired grimace as he waved her off with his charred hand. “It is true. We can call it whatever we want, but we steal from the monsters so we can do what we do best. Amriany make blades, and Skinners carve wood. Amriany write curses, and Skinners scribble their runes.”

Even as Sophie continued to scold Ira, Cole stepped up to him and asked, “What about the runes?”

The burly blacksmith shook his head as Sophie continued to snarl his name as if it was the harshest curse she knew. “Torva’ox is what powers the runes,” he said. Once that was out, Sophie threw up her hands and stormed to the back of the room to inspect what Ira had been working on prior to their arrival. “I don’t know how they work, because that is savage workmanship. All I know is what I see, and when I see those runes, I know they pulse with Torva’ox.”

“Savage, huh?” Paige said. “Seems refined enough to do the job.”

Ira seemed confused by the tone in her voice, so Milosh explained, “We call you savages. Just another name for Skinner.”

But Cole was too tired to argue semantics. Pulling the Jekhibar from his pocket, he waved it in Ira’s face and asked, “So Skinners must have these things too, right?”

“No,” Ira replied without making a move toward the polished stone. “You people are crude, just as crude as your country, and it serves you well. You draw on as much of the Torva’ox as any man, which isn’t enough for my craft. It is enough for yours, though. As for the shapeshifting wood and blood rituals you do . . . I call them savage. Not another word for Skinner either.
Savage
.”

Paige shouldered past Cole until she’d inserted herself into the narrow space between him and Ira. “What do you need the Jekhibar for?”

“You see these weapons I made?”

“Yeah.”

Motioning to the walls that practically shone with firelight reflected off of the edges of so many blades, he said, “These can all be Blood Blades. They just need a little juice.”

Cole’s knuckles crackled as his fingers closed even tighter around the stone. “You can try to take this from us, but you know it won’t be easy.”

Stepping away so her back was to a wall, Paige followed Cole’s lead as if there were no other way. “Or even possible.” The look she gave her partner showed a hint of surprise mixed with a liberal dose of hope that he knew where the hell he was going with this.

Ira hadn’t moved, but Milosh cursed under his breath and took half a step forward before Sophie stopped him. “Nobody said anything about taking it from you. I know how valuable these weapons are, but enough people have already died for them.”

Cole said, “All I want is to put this historical feuding shit aside for good. Whatever it is between Skinners and Amriany, it’s too petty to keep going now. Our country is overrun, and if yours isn’t yet, it won’t be long before that changes for the worse.”

“I was going to give you blades,” Ira said. “No need for such dramatics.”

“I’m not talking about a weapons exchange. I’m talking about an alliance. A real one.”

“Even you don’t know which Skinners you can trust,” Sophie said. “Why should we trust them?”

“You’ll trust the ones we do, just like we’ll trust the Amriany that you do.”

“And what becomes of our two people then?”

“We form a group that has the weapons and intel of both. With our nymph connections, we can even make it easier for us all to work internationally.”

“And you save your proposal until now instead of when we were all talking before?” Milosh grunted. “Very sneaky.”

“I only just thought of it now,” Cole admitted. “But it’s not like I’m asking for anything that will hurt either one of us. Sure, we’ll both lose some of the whole secret society thing, but it’ll save us having to figure out new ways to tiptoe around each other when the next big emergency crops up.”

“And,” Paige added, “if we join forces on a larger scale, maybe those big emergencies won’t crop up so often.”

“I suppose this starts now?” Milosh asked. “By you Skinners loading up on all the Blood Blades you can carry?”

“Just enough for me and Paige,” Cole replied. “Plus a few for us to divvy out to the Skinners on our nice list.” When he saw the glances going back and forth between the Amriany, he added, “You know. Like the naughty and nice list? You’ve got Santa over here, right?”

Ira stomped over to Milosh and slapped a hand on the shoulder that only had a stump attached to it. “Yes, we do, and you are looking at him. I wasn’t going to let you walk out of here carrying nothing but those sticks!”

“And I wasn’t going to let you leave this country before I proposed something similar to this alliance of yours,” Sophie said. She nodded to Paige and then looked at Cole with newfound respect. “I’ve heard you two were worth watching. Of course we figured there would be good things coming from her, but I wasn’t sure about you, Cole. Until now.”

“Uh . . . thanks?” he replied, as if unsure whether he should feel flattered.

“Don’t worry,” Ira chuckled. “She is still not so sure about me either. Let me see what you brought all the way out into this damned forest.”

Even though he’d been guarding the Jekhibar with his life until now, Cole no longer had any qualms about putting it into the blacksmith’s rough hand. Ira immediately held it to his ear and smiled. Extending the stone toward Cole, he said, “Listen to that one sing! I haven’t heard one that good in a long time!”

Rather than take the stone back, Cole leaned in toward it with about as much expectations as someone trying to hear the ocean through a seashell. Unlike that cheap beach trick, however, this one actually lived up to the hype. The sound that came from the Jekhibar was a single, perfect note that resonated only when his ear was directly in front of it, less than an inch away.