Extinction Agenda (36 page)

Although he couldn’t see her, due to the huge werewolf blocking his line of sight, Cole could hear Paige over the earpiece when she asked, “How many more rounds do you have?”

“Just one,” Ouray replied.

“Take it!”

“Fine,” the IRD commando said, and worked the bolt of his rifle.

Cole pulled in a breath and focused on what needed to be done. It looked as if they were already down by two. Nadya wasn’t up yet and Milosh was struggling to get away from Esteban so he could catch his breath. The only one occupying the Full Blood was George, who slashed at the werewolf or pounded against his ribs, depending on which end of his weapon he was using. There were a few more stages of the plan that needed to be carried out, and if one of them didn’t happen, the whole thing failed. And if the plan failed, everyone who’d died in Shreveport would have done so for nothing.

Tossing away his spear, Cole grabbed the divining rod in both hands so he could more effectively use it as a weapon. When he found a wound that had been opened by a Blood Blade, he attacked it using the splintered points of the broken Skinner weapons Ira had attached to the divining rod. The thorny protrusions made contact with the wound and completed a circuit that gave the stored Torva’ox energies somewhere else to go. Even though Ira insisted that’s what would happen, Cole had been skeptical. But the energies flowing through fragments of a shattered Blood Blade had caused Esteban’s body to twitch and the open wound on the side of his neck to pulse with enough raw energy to illuminate the crimson texture of his muscle tissue.

“I know that hurts,” Cole said. He was close enough to see that the Full Blood’s eyes weren’t completely white after all, but more like smooth ivory circles resting on multifaceted ice crystals. By the time a rifle cracked over the rotors churning above the building, the Full Blood was shifting into his upright form. Cole heard the distinctive hiss of the incoming round as if it had been fired into a vacuum.

For the next heartbeat the path of that round was all that mattered.

It needed to hit the breach in Esteban’s natural armor to give the Skinners enough time to deliver the Memory Water.

Cole thought about all of this in the time it took to blink. Meanwhile, Esteban snapped a hand up so the bullet could slap against his palm with its distinctive
snap
. He crushed the dart and threw the pieces away before leaning forward to spit a defiant growl into Cole’s face.

It was all Cole could do to jump aside before the Full Blood’s jaws clamped shut around his head. Already Esteban was shaking off the effects of the aerosol as well as the jolt from the divining rod, and Cole knew it wouldn’t be long before he shifted into something that couldn’t be harmed by bullets or blades, no matter how charmed they were.

When Esteban stood up and roared, every Half Breed outside joined him. The chorus was drowned out by a wave of heavy gunfire mixed with the screams of soldiers whose bodies were broken down into those of wild animals. Even though his system was inoculated with more than enough serums to protect him from changing, Cole could feel the Breaking tug at his skeletal structure. He held onto his weapon, ran at the Full Blood and shouted, even though he couldn’t hear his own voice.

Esteban batted away one of Milosh’s blades and tore open a messy gash across his neck with a swipe that was hardly more than a blur. Before Milosh dropped, Esteban turned and snapped at George. The Amriany held his weapon horizontally so the werewolf could clamp down on it instead of anything vital. With one powerful twist, George yanked the staff free and slashed Esteban’s face with the weapon’s sharpened claws. The werewolf pivoted before Cole could drive the Blood Blade into his side and knocked him down. Esteban’s claws shredded his coat but were unable to go much deeper. Paige stepped in to snag his wrist using the curved blade of her sickle before the killing blow could be delivered, but he swung at her with enough force to rustle her hair when she ducked beneath the savage blow.

The beast’s fangs glistened with saliva and his breath stank of blood as he leaned forward to sink his teeth into the portion of Cole’s chest that was exposed, thanks to the shredded coat. Less than an inch before he got there, the weighted end of George’s weapon thumped against Esteban’s face and diverted his bite a few vital inches to the left. That reprieve, however, only lasted until the Full Blood’s vicious backhand sent George into one of the shelves in the next aisle. Cole took a straight shot with his spear but the weapon was knocked aside before its blade could draw another drop of blood. Esteban’s mouth yawned open. His fangs dug into Cole’s temple and chin. Somehow, the Skinner leaned back so those teeth only gouged him and sent a flow of blood down his face. From there, Cole nearly tripped over himself in his haste to put some distance between himself and the werewolf.

Esteban trembled as a few drops of Cole’s blood dripped from his fangs onto his tongue. He strained to get closer so he could take a real bite, but was restrained by something that caused his eyes to clench shut and his head to arch back. Paige clung to his upper back, hanging onto the grips of her weapons as the curved blades came around the front of his neck to keep him from getting any closer to Cole. Roaring as the Blood Blades cut into his flesh, Esteban reached up to grab her arms in an attempt to pull her off.

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 wound. 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.