Howling Legion (Skinners, Book 2) (23 page)

“He is a Mind Singer,” Randolph grunted. “The world’s gotten loud enough as it is, but I still hear his song when I’m not even listening. As do the Mongrels. He’s told us the Nymar aren’t as organized as we thought, but the chatter never stops.”

“Try havin’ a conversation with the poor bastard.”

“Wherever he is, he can stay there. Just as we’ve stayed out of the cities because everything moves along smoother that way. That’s how it should remain.”

“No,” Liam snarled.
“You
stayed out for convenience. The rest of us were chased out by cowards and held at bay by a bunch of bragging leeches. It makes me sick knowing that our kind runs and hides from anybody. Once word spreads about what I’ve done here, every Full Blood will see just how easy it is to stake a claim of their own.”

“Word has already spread.”

“Ahh,” Liam sighed contentedly. “Machines can be good for somethin’.”

The closest machine at the moment was the one that had produced the coffee. Randolph let out a measured breath and let his eyes wander from that machine to the others in the kitchen and eventually to the entertainment center in the living room. Lowering his gaze toward the bloodstained carpet, he asked, “What about the family that lived in this house?”

“They’re brewing into another batch of reinforcements. Half Breeds may be a pain in everyone’s collective arse, but they work cheap and bring plenty of friends.”

“The children?”

Liam set the carafe down and stepped up to stand toe-to-toe with the other man. Even though he wasn’t nearly as burly as Randolph, he stuck his chin out and balled his fists as if hoping for a confrontation. “After all the decades of being hunted, of hiding, of being exiled, of scampering away from the idiots in these cities, you’re going to question how I go about my affairs?”

“I merely asked about the children who live here.”

“How do you know there were children here? Can you smell ’em? Some might consider that a little peculiar.”

“There’s crayon pictures on the fridge. Little bowls and little plastic spoons in the sink. Should I bother looking for toys?”

Liam blinked, stepped away, and took another swig of coffee. “Whatever children that live here must be away. They’ll sure get a nasty surprise if they come back, eh?”

For a few seconds Randolph was quiet. The breaths that rolled through his chest were growls that simmered much like coffee in the machine next to Liam’s hand had. When one of those breaths reached fruition, it spilled out of a mouth that was beginning to form into a snout. Abruptly, Randolph turned and headed for the door that led from the kitchen and opened to a set of stairs leading down. The door was nearly ripped off its hinges as he stomped down to the basement.

Liam moved toward the doorway at a leisurely pace.

Randolph stopped at the bottom of the stairs, which was far enough for him to see the broken cement, dirt, and other refuse that had piled up when a large hole had been dug into the basement floor. The hole was just big enough for three Half Breeds to lay curled up in a bundle of gnarled flesh and had the stink of a den, but was empty.

“Where are they?” Randolph growled.

“I planted them somewhere near a snack for whenever they get hungry,” the skinnier man replied from the kitchen. “Even if you do find them, you won’t be able to get to all the others. I had quite a busy evening.”

Just to be certain, Randolph checked the rest of the basement. “If you want to force the humans’ hand,” he shouted from the musty space, “do it yourself. Don’t drag any other Full Blood into it and don’t make any more Half Breeds! If we were ever to have a curse, those wretches are it. Creating them to fight your battle is—”

“Is what?” Liam chided. “A sin?”

“It’s a disgrace.”

“Not the noble crusade like your fight against the Skinners?” Liam sneered in a quiet voice he knew the other Full Blood could hear. “However many you’ve killed, it’ll never be enough. They’re humans, so they’ll only reproduce until
you’re smothered in a blanket of them. But it’s not just you being smothered. It’s all of us. Something needs to be done to wipe them out or put them in their place.”

“And you think this will do the job?” Randolph asked. “Have you truly lost your mind?”

Liam stalked down the stairs, raking his nails along the wall while using his free hand to tap his forehead as if he was sending code. “I’m using my brain! You’ve never understood strategy, Randolph. I’m drawing as many of our enemies to one place and then doing whatever I can to tear that place to
fucking pieces!”

For the first time since he’d arrived, Randolph grinned. The movement not only gave his fresh scar a curl, but displayed some of the rounded teeth that had extended halfway out from where they’d lain dormant beneath his gums. “Sounds like a hell of a war. Too bad you’re too gutless to fight it on your own.”

Although Liam shook his head and waggled a finger at the other man, the hand he’d pressed against the wall tore chunks of it away as if the structure was made from cheap plaster and balsa wood. “Don’t try baiting me. You know damn well we work better together instead of when we butt heads.”

“We haven’t worked together for a very long time.”

“Back then, you knew I had things to teach you. At the very least, you listened to me. Do you even know that these two Skinners have claimed Chicago as their home? Wasn’t that your territory at one time?”

“Most of this continent is my territory,” Randolph growled. “If you truly are this crazy, maybe it’s time I claimed the rest.”

“More blood will be spilled, but all for a good cause,” Liam replied with an offhanded wave. “And with your help, the fight will be that much shorter. You may not believe me, but the Skinners cannot be allowed to run loose. Listen to the Mind Singer. Lord only knows where he is, but when he dreams, he shows everyone what horrors the Skinners are capable of. He’s seen them firsthand. He was there at the start of their so-called science. He’s a product of it!”

“There’s no way you’ll convince me to stand aside while your wretches fight our battle,” Randolph said as he nodded toward the pit as though he was regarding a crudely dug latrine. “You’ll dispose of them, as well as any others you’ve buried around this city.”

“Don’t get hasty. Wait until you’ve heard what else Henry has to say.”

Randolph’s nostrils flared and the seams of his suit were tested by the bulky mass of his growing torso. Thick brown fur sprung up from beneath his collar and slid out from his sleeves, but not enough to completely shred the cheap fabric. “I’m putting an end to this,” he snarled through a mouthful of daggerlike teeth.

“You like chewing up Skinners so much, I thought I’d just—”

Leaping up the stairs, Randolph grabbed Liam by the face and slammed him against the closest wall. “You didn’t think,” Randolph barked. “You
never
think. You didn’t think when you threw London into a panic by eviscerating those women and you’re not thinking now.”

“To be fair, we were both a little out of control in London,” Liam mused as he dusted himself off.

When Randolph swiped at Liam, his claws slashed through empty air and dug a row of trenches through the wall. The skinny man with the greasy hair landed on all fours and had already replaced his sweats with a thick black coat.

“I don’t care about your reasons for doing any of this,” Randolph said. “Just clean up the damned mess you’ve made. I’m through dealing with you, and I’m through treating the Skinners like respected enemies. Either one of you pushes me again and I’ll scatter your remains from one coast to another!”

“That’s more like it! There’s the wild fellow who stumbled in from the forests all those years ago!”

After letting out a snarl that quickly rose to a frustrated growl, Randolph eased back into a human form. He lowered his head, stomped away, and left through the front door.

“Welcome back, friend,” Liam sighed. “I truly missed you.”

Paige twitched a few times, rolled onto her back, stretched her arms, and then peeled her eyelids open just enough to get a look at the outside world. Although her face instinctively drifted toward the sunlight, she snapped it right back to the crooked table where Cole was hunched over his laptop. “What are you doing?” she asked as she swung her legs over the side of the mattress and tried not to fall off.

“Nothing. Working.”

“How long have you been sitting there?”

“You’re so cute when you flop around like that. I mean, most people are a little groggy when they wake up, but you border on disabled.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get back to your game before that computer gets wedged up your ass.”

“Aaaand she’s back,” Cole announced. “Try not to walk into any walls on your way to the shower.”

“If you’re hoping to wash my back, you can forget it. That train has sailed.”

“I don’t care how the soap gets on you anymore, just so long as it does. You’re stinking up the room.” Cole looked up just in time to catch the dirty gesture Paige flipped in his direction. After that came the slam of the bathroom door and the running of shower water.

It was just past ten o’clock, and Cole had been sitting in his chair long enough to mold the cheap foam cushion into
the shape of his butt. His back was stooped and he squinted at his glowing screen while scribbling his finger over the mouse pad of his laptop. It was the closest thing to a reunion with his normal life that he could get.

In the hours since he got up, he had done plenty of work. But instead of tweaking the
Hammer Strike
multiplayer maps, he’d used his graphics and shading programs to touch up the pictures that had become such a recent Internet phenomena. Before he looked up again, the shower had been turned off and Paige was dressed and drying her hair.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Cole proudly turned his laptop around so she could see the screen. “Little bit of work on some pictures you may or may not recognize.”

“Are those Half Breeds?”

“Yep. They’re all over the Internet and more are popping up every couple of minutes. Most of ’em are copies or forwards, but the bunch we saw the other night must have torn right past a whole lot of people with a whole lot of camera phones. There’s even one video on HomeBrewTV.com that’s pretty damn cool.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re putting more pics on the Internet. I’d at least like to get some breakfast before I smack the living hell out of you.”

“No, no, no. Look closer.” Standing up and reaching over the screen, Cole tapped a spot on the current picture where a pair of Half Breeds raced past a light pole. “Right there. See anything weird?”

Paige stared at the screen, glanced up at Cole, stared some more and then scowled.

“Look at the part of the pole above the Half Breed compared to the part below it,” he urged.

After studying it, Paige said, “It’s a little blurry, but I think there’s a sign on there. Is that an ad?”

“No! They don’t line up! Can’t you see that?”

“Ohhhh…uhhh…sure. So?”

A vein started to rise on Cole’s forehead as he rushed around to look at the monitor from Paige’s side. “Check out the tail of this one here,” he said in a rush. “See how it
doesn’t reflect any light being cast onto it from the store?” He flipped to another picture of werewolves running in a blur of motion. “What about this one?”

“Oh yeah! That’s one of the gas stations we baited.”

“No! Look at the placement of their feet. Can’t you tell they’re just a little too high?”

“No.”

Cole took a deep breath and started flipping through several more pictures. “You may not notice all of this, but people who scour websites for this kind of stuff will. They’ll see that the shading on some of the fur was the wrong shade of gray or a reflection doesn’t show up in a window quite the way it’s supposed to. When they pick out little flaws like that, they’ll be tripping all over themselves to claim this whole thing was a hoax or some sort of stunt.”

“People are dead, Cole. Some doctored pictures won’t change that.”

“I know, but it’ll cool off the talk about monsters racing through Kansas City. Isn’t that a good thing? You know, to avoid panic or plague or whatever you were talking about before?”

Turning on the balls of her feet, Paige dried behind her ears and walked back to the sink. Just because she’d started brushing her teeth didn’t mean she was through with the conversation. “Sho, you get a few pictures out there and shay they’re fake. What about all the real ones?”

“They’ll still be out there, but
they’ll
look like the doctored ones. Trust me. People are more willing to believe they’ve spotted a phony than admit this stuff is real. That’s the beauty of it. By the way, do you know how difficult it was to make these pictures look just the right sort of fake?”

Paige spat in the sink.

“Not only did I have to figure out a bunch of little things that might show up in a doctored picture,” Cole continued, “but I had to use all my design expertise to put those ideas into action. A little shading here, a little misalignment there, some displaced objects in the foreground that don’t match up with the background. I’m telling you I’m one hell of an artist.”

Walking out of the bathroom while dabbing at her face, Paige said, “All right. I guess it sounds like a good idea. Post those pics on your website or stick them onto a discussion group and see how far they get circulated.”

Cole grinned and waggled his eyebrows in a way that was excited and unintentionally creepy at the same time. “And now for the next step in my beautiful plan. I’m not posting these. MEG is.”

Pausing with the towel against her chin, Paige finally looked at the laptop as if she truly knew what Cole was talking about. “You’re sure they’ll do that?”

“I talked to Stu and Abby about it while you were still asleep.”

“Who’s Abby?”

“The field investigator who’s answering phones because of a sprained ankle. She’s really funny and sounds cute.” Before he was cut short, Cole quickly added, “She’s got enough experience to know that MEG couldn’t just pretend these Half Breed pictures weren’t out there. They wouldn’t go so far as to purposely debunk something real, but they will post my pics just like they’d post anyone else’s.” Dropping his voice to a whisper even though nobody else was in the room, he added, “I even know a few conspiracy buffs at Digital Dreamers who live to spot this kind of stuff. I mean, we’re gonna take care of things here anyway, so who cares if rottweilers or escaped coyotes get the blame, right? This will defuse some panic and let it blow over when we’re done.”

Paige looked genuinely stunned. She squinted at the pictures on Cole’s computer, went through a few different facial expressions, and then finally looked up at him to say, “That’s a damn good idea! I can’t believe you came up with that.”

“I thank you for the first part and I’ll write off the second part to you being hungry. How about we hit the free breakfast downstairs?”

“Two for two, Cole. If you think of a way to keep Daniels from whining over our bagels, you’ll be my hero.”

Breakfast was served in a room just off the hotel’s modest lobby. There was a TV bracketed to the wall, a coffee ma
chine, some bins of cereal next to a pitcher of milk, and a few plates of pastries laid out for the guests. Since it was the middle of the week, Paige, Cole, and Daniels only had to share the room with an elderly couple reading a newspaper.

“I believe I’ve hit another snag in…” Daniels paused to shoot the old folks a suspicious glare, and then leaned across the table to whisper, “That whole ink idea may not be such a good one.”

Paige leaned across and whispered, “You know, you draw more attention doing this than talking like a normal person.”

Daniels sat back and ran his hand over the spot on top of his head where the Nymar tendrils gathered to blacken his scalp. “Since I take it the Full Blood got away, I suppose you’ll want to take me home to continue real work on that project as soon as possible.”

“What do you mean ‘real’ work?” Paige snapped. “What the hell have you been doing all this time?”

Sensing a definite turn for the worse, Cole asked, “How’s Sally?”

Daniels nodded and smiled uncomfortably. “She’s doing well. The pol—” For some reason, Daniels was still bothered by the little old man and lady who nibbled on sweet rolls while handing sections of the paper back and forth to each other. “She’s been questioned about what happened, but didn’t mention any names. Apparently, the authorities were called about the shots that were fired that night, but there’s not enough of those two Nymar left to draw any suspicion.”

“They probably just figure we were firing at the big thing that crushed one of their cars,” Cole offered.

“Right. Sally told me some officers came by asking if an exotic pet escaped from one of the apartments and she went along with it. I suppose that’s that.”

Cole never thought he’d feel so apathetic about the police possibly looking for him, but he was starting to take on Paige’s attitude about the whole thing: if the cops were good enough to put so many crazy pieces together, then good for the cops.

“So,” Daniels said as he rattled his plastic stirring sticks around in his cream-filled coffee, “when do we head home?”

“You’ve got work to do,” Paige told him. “I didn’t bring you along to call your girlfriend and put together battery packs.”

“I’m doing my best!” Daniels whined. “Perhaps you should accept the fact that this whole idea of yours may not be safe. The work I’ve done has definitely uncovered some theories that could be put to use elsewhere, but—”

Dropping her elbow onto the table so she could stab a finger within an inch of the Nymar’s face, Paige said, “You’ll put them to use where I told you to put them. If you need someone to test it, just tell me when to show up and you can test it on me. I need you to finish this here and now.”

“That would be far too dangerous. You’re talking about…” This time when Daniels glanced over at the old couple, they were glancing nervously back at him. “You’re talking about injecting potentially hazardous, metallic elements directly under your skin. Even without the…
more exotic
…components, that isn’t something to rush into.”

Seeing the intense look in her eyes, Cole stepped in. “We need to drive around KC anyway to check on a few more dens, so you’ll have some more time.”

“No,” Paige said. “It’s too late for that. Even if the Half Breeds that showed up last night were the only ones, we know we didn’t get them all. The Full Blood got away from us, and it could have made plenty more already.”

The old couple shifted their eyes to Daniels, folded up their newspaper, and shuffled out of the dining room as fast as their slippered feet would carry them.

“Then we go after the big game,” Cole said. When Paige didn’t look up at him, he asked, “You do have a way to track down Full Bloods, right?”

“I can think of something,” she replied. “Daniels, what will it take to finish up your work?”

“I’ll cook up the next version of my mix, and try a few things.”

Paige dipped a dry piece of bagel into her coffee. “Fine. Just do what you need to do.”

“Then can we head back to Chicago?”

“As soon as we’re done here.”

“And what if those things get to us first?” Daniels asked.

Locking her gaze onto him, she replied, “If me and Cole get killed, you can fish the car keys out of my pocket and drive back. Good enough?”

Daniels winced, but tried to keep his face stern enough to match Paige’s expression. Failing miserably at that, he got up and headed for the elevator.

Now that he and Paige were the only ones in the room, Cole asked, “You don’t have a plan for what’s next, do you?”

“A lot of the stuff that’s happening right now has never happened before. At least, not on this scale. I’ll come up with something.”

He placed a hand on her arm and told her, “I’ve done plenty of big projects where time was a factor.”

“This isn’t exactly the same as designing a video game,” she said.

“Have you ever been the one to tell a convention hall full of ravenous fanboys that the game they’ve all been foaming at the mouth for is being pushed back eight months? It can get ugly. One scary looking bald dude had the first release date for
Sniper Ranger 3
tattooed on his forearm. His
sniping
arm, is what he told me. When we canceled that date at an electronics expo, I was more afraid of him than any werewolf.”

Paige’s tired chuckle turned into more genuine laughter.

“We just need to break down what needs to be done into bite-sized pieces,” Cole said. “That Full Blood isn’t very subtle, so we probably would have seen him by now if he meant to track us down.”

“He was hurt,” Paige said.

“Those Half Breeds may have even finished him off.”

“That would be nice, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Okay, fine. We found the Half Breeds before. We can do it again. We’ll check the dens, but I’m guessing the next batch will be in new ones.”

“Yep,” Paige sighed. “They could be anywhere. Parks were the easiest choices, but they could be in basements or
abandoned buildings. Hell, considering how many of those ugly bastards showed up last night, we probably didn’t even find all of the original dens in the first place.”

“Too bad we can’t just sniff them out directly,” Cole said. Raising his eyebrows hopefully, he asked, “Can we sniff them out?”

“Not really.” Paige was looking at the TV, which showed a local news break regarding the previous night’s rash of “wild dog attacks.” Fortunately, the only thing caught by a professional cameraman was a German shepherd chasing a rat.

Cole didn’t even try to focus on the grainy amateur photos and frightened witnesses being interviewed. He had enough going through his mind without cramming in any more. Pressing his fingertips against his eyelids, he grumbled his thoughts as they drifted through his head. “They can track us. Those Half Breeds tore after that scent trail we left. Burkis probably followed me all the way from Canada.”