Howling Legion (Skinners, Book 2) (25 page)

“Oh boy,” Cole sighed. “If I’ve become just as paranoid as you, what’s next? Foil hats?”

She let out a comfortable laugh. “Sorry about biting your head off before. I’d really hate to lose a partner like you.”

Today hadn’t been the first time he’d considered moving back, but it was the first time he had mentioned it to Paige. The more he thought about it, the worse he felt for not telling her something that could affect her so much. If he left her in Chicago, Paige would have to fend for herself again. He wasn’t about to kid himself into thinking he was keeping her alive, but he was doing his best to watch her back. The way things were shaping up, that job was becoming more and more vital for both of them.

“I’m just keeping my options open,” he said. “Plus, there’s still bills to pay. We can’t just rely on Prophet’s lottery numbers hitting all the time.” When he didn’t get an answer right away, he asked, “Right?”

“Sure.”

“How much was the last hit, anyway?”

“Better than normal, but it was spread over plenty of other Skinners. Just leave it at that.”

“So what do you think about the Mongrel idea?”

“I like it, but Rico’s a damn good tracker. If he couldn’t find them, we won’t be able to.”

“If the Mongrels are even still there,” Cole pointed out.

Paige shook her head and gazed out the window. “They’re homebodies. When they dig in somewhere safe, they stay there until it’s not safe anymore. Since a Skinner came and went without finding them, that place is pretty damn safe.” Her eyebrows flicked up and she turned to look directly at Cole. “I just thought of something! You and I may not be able to find a bunch of holes under some houses, but what if we had a tech team?”

“Skinners have tech teams?”

“No, but we know some folks who are already in on what we’re doing and would
love
to be a part of it.”

Cole looked down at his phone. The number he’d just dialed was still displayed in the corner of his touch screen. “MEG?”

“They go into places all the time with vans full of equipment. They’re always rigging stuff up to try and catch a picture of a ghost or some cold spots drifting through a room. Would it be so hard for them to look for living stuff?”

“I don’t think so. Haven’t you seen their TV specials? Most of their gear is made to see in the dark and record stuff nobody can hear. One time, I saw a show where they found a bunch of mice living in a crawl space that a family didn’t even know had been built right beneath their—”

“That’s a yes!” Paige said quickly. She sat back in her seat, wearing the stunned expression of a lottery winner. More specifically, someone who didn’t have to split her lottery winnings with a hundred or so other people. Since the car had come to a stop at a red light, she took Cole’s head in both hands and kissed him squarely on the mouth. Unfortunately, she pulled away again before he could truly
get into it. “Call MEG and see if you can arrange for one of their teams to meet with us. Where’s my atlas?”

Cole hit Redial while savoring the sight of Paige’s trim backside wriggling beside him as she fished in the back for her giant book of outdated maps. When Abby answered, he felt as if she’d caught him peeking into a dressing room. “Hi, it’s me again.”

In a droll tone, Abby said, “I’ll need your ID number.”

Rather than start in on the series of numbers he’d been forced to memorize, Cole just waited for the snort. When it came, it was just as cute and slightly obnoxious as ever.

“Just kidding again. What’s up, Cole?”

“Are there any MEG offices close to that town in Nebraska?”

No tapping this time. “Sure. Branch 18 is in Omaha. It’s only about an hour away from Valparaiso. Here’s the number.”

“So you’ve been there?” Cole asked after Abby recited the contact information. “Is it less than an hour away from Branch 40?”

“Not unless you can fly.”

“Too bad. I was hoping we could get together.”

“Maybe next time.”

Making sure to keep his confident smile in place, Cole said, “Definitely. We’ve got plenty of work to do anyway. Take it easy.”

“You too, Cole. Be safe and tell Branch 18 I said hi.”

He hung up and tucked the phone away.

“Shot you down, huh?” Paige asked.

“So I’m a little off my game. Living in a freezer for a few weeks will do that. There’s a MEG branch in Omaha that’s about an hour’s drive from those Mongrels.”

“Maybe there’s a sweet little thing answering those phones too. Try not to talk through that freaky smile you were using and you might just get somewhere this time.”

Cole handed over his phone. “Why don’t you make the call?”

Omaha, Nebraska

It was about a three-hour drive into Omaha from Kansas City, so Cole and Paige arrived somewhere between lunch and rush hour. This city was much smaller, but felt like a breath of fresh air. One definite bonus, apart from the lack of festering Half Breed dens, was Omaha’s user-friendly layout. Even Cole could have found his way around without having to rely on the navigational widgets in his phone, if his phone’s battery hadn’t died while skirting the Iowa border.

The MEG branch office was located in a strip mall on the corner of 108th and Maple streets that was built around a grocery store and a few restaurants. Branching out on either side of the grocery store was a Laundromat, a bar, a few specialty shops, an insurance office, and a modest place marked by a simple unlit sign that read:
MEG BRANCH
18.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

Paige tapped her stomach but kept her eyes on the prize. “We came all this way to conduct our business and get back. If Daniels knows how far away we drove, he might just try to sneak back to Chicago.”

“There’s a pizza place,” Cole said in a tempting, melodic tone.

“Go to the MEG office.”

“There’s also a Mexican restaurant!”

“No.”

“Oh, would you look at that!” Cole said as he parked the Cav in a spot a few doors away from MEG. “I tell ya, it’s fate.”

Paige only needed to look straight ahead to see a little place wedged in between the insurance office and a cellular dealer.
CHICAGO DAWG HOUSE
was spelled out in red neon hanging in the front window.

“Give it up,” Paige grunted. “If we struck out so hard in KC, there’s no way we’ll find a good hot dog in freakin’ Nebraska.”

“We’ve got to eat.”

“Business first.”

Cole was hungry enough to feel a magnetic pull toward the door of the Dawg House. The only thing strong enough to override that attraction was his first glimpse through the window of MEG’s local office. After all of the calls he’d made and all the times he’d visited the MEG website, he’d become more and more curious about what one of those places actually looked like. At times it seemed just as likely that MEG was run out of basements scattered across the country. Now was his chance to see for himself.

When Paige stepped into the office, her arrival was announced by a chirping beep triggered by a sensor on the door. There was a sitting area to the right that looked like it had been plucked from a dentist’s waiting room, complete with two chairs and a stack of old magazines. On the left was a wall covered with a mural of grainy orb photos and blurry figures surrounded by newspaper clippings detailing local haunts and past hunts. A single, unoccupied desk was adjacent to the waiting area. Behind that was a short hallway that led to more rooms.

“Hello?” Paige said. “Anyone here?”

A skinny face covered in dark whiskers poked out from one of the first rooms down the hall. Judging by how high up against the door frame that face was, the man connected to it had to have been just over six feet tall. “Hi there. What can I do for you?”

“We called earlier today. I’m Paige and—”

The guy stepped out and raced forward so fast that Paige’s hand twitched toward the baton holstered in her boot. He wore khaki shorts and a gray T-shirt stenciled with the MEG logo. “Paige and Cole! Am I right?”

Recognizing the eager expression of a fan, Cole stepped up and held out his hand. “You’re right. I’m Cole Warnecki.”

“ID number?”

Somehow, that question drained the fun out of being treated like a celebrity. Cole rattled off his number and Paige did the same. By the time she was finished, the guy in shorts looked about ready to jump out of them.

“You’re Skinners. You’re really Skinners,” he said. “Should I not have said that?”

“Only if you think someone has bugged your office and knows what you’re talking about,” Paige replied.

The guy in shorts laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. We were told not to talk about you guys in the open. To be honest, I’ve never personally taken any Skinner calls.”

“Skinners?” someone in one of the back offices asked. “Are the Skinners here?”

Now Paige glanced around nervously. “All right,” she said. “Maybe you should stop using the S word. We’re just Paige and Cole.”

“Sorry about that,” the guy in the shorts said. “I’m Mick. Lead investigator for Branch 18, and that,” he added, pointing toward the woman who’d emerged from the other office, “is Stone.”

The woman who walked down the hall and stepped into the front room was nearly a foot shorter than Mick. She had long black hair pulled into a single braid, which she swatted over her shoulder. Her smooth, dark face was accentuated by high cheekbones and full lips. When she smiled at Paige and Cole, she shook their hands in a grip that was both strong and friendly. “Stone’s not my real name,” she said. “It’s Rosetta.”

“Ah,” Cole chuckled. “Rosetta Stone. I get it.”

She nodded and shrugged. Although she did seem to be impressed with him, she was just as impressed with Paige.
“You’re not what I expected for…you know…people who go after those…?”

“We get that a lot,” Paige said. “Right now we’re working on what’s happening in Kansas City. Do you know about that?”

Now, Rosetta seemed more impressed with Paige than Cole. “Do we know about that? We’ve all been working late nights sifting through the pics and videos that are being posted to the site. I’ve never seen anything like it! So are those things the same as what you’re looking for in Valparaiso?”

“Not exactly.”

“Thank God,” Rosetta sighed. “I mean, we want to help, but not with…I mean…”

“I know just what you mean,” Cole said. “Those things in Valparaiso aren’t the same as what’s in KC, but they might be able to help us deal with that situation.” As he spoke, he felt Paige getting ready to silence him with a quick backhand. They’d spent a good deal of the ride to Omaha discussing just how much the MEG guys needed to be told, and the consensus was to let them know what they were getting into without saying anything that might get them too worked up. Paige seemed happy with his choice of words. Mick, on the other hand, was happier.

“I’ve heard some stuff about what’s been going on in Valparaiso,” the lead investigator said. “When I called some of the people out there, they say they still hear various noises. Knocking, some disembodied voices, rattling, the usual stuff.”

“Wait. You contacted someone?” Paige asked. “Someone other than one of us or another MEG office?”

“Well, yeah.”

Rosetta jumped in and said, “When I spoke to you on the phone a few hours ago, you said you wanted to check out the locations where that Rico friend of yours was doing his tracking. Those places are mostly private homes.
Occupied
private homes. You’re on a tight schedule, so we did a little digging and made a few calls before you arrived.”

“We didn’t tell them much of anything, though,” Mick added.

Rosetta nodded eagerly. “Right. Of course. I made the calls myself and didn’t mention anything about you guys or anything that might scare them.”

“All right, then,” Cole said. “What did you tell them?”

Rosetta shrugged and replied, “That their houses may be haunted.”

“And that’s not supposed to scare them?” Paige asked.

Mick smiled reassuringly and waved his hands as if smoothing off a pile of shaved ice. “We didn’t use the word ‘haunted.’ We never use that term unless we’ve been there and gotten sufficient proof. We told them there were reports of suspected supernatural activity in their area and that we’d like to investigate. Remember the knocking and voices I was telling you about?”

Both Cole and Paige nodded.

Although Mick had been the one to ask the question, Rosetta picked it up and ran with it. “Turns out we’ve been getting reports from there since your other friend was tracking whatever he was tracking. We haven’t followed up on it yet because of a string of disturbances here in town. We never got around to those Valparaiso calls and they stopped coming. Also, we’ve been busy with other stuff.”

“Like what other stuff?” Cole asked.

Rosetta held up her hand and ticked her fingers down one at a time. “Kids, family, real jobs, school, you name it. MEG’s a great time, but she doesn’t pay the bills.”

“So when can we get to Valparaiso?” Paige asked. “It’s about an hour from here, right?”

“Yes, but we need to set up an investigation,” Rosetta said. “The lady I talked to earlier sounded pretty nice, so I should be able to set something up within the next week or so.”

Rosetta and Mick seemed enthusiastic, but Paige and Cole weren’t smiling. Since he could feel Paige getting a little too impatient, Cole told the other two, “This is kind of an emergency. Well, not kind of. It
is
an emergency. How much have you been told about shapeshifters?”

Both of them looked at him without blinking. “We’ve heard some of it. Like there’s some way for people to really be turned into werewolves and that you guys hunt them.”

“And the vampires,” Mick said. “We know about them. Nymar, right?”

Paige pressed her hands against her eyes and turned toward the door. “This was a really bad idea,” she moaned.

But Cole wasn’t about to give up so easily. “You’ve seen what’s going on in KC with the murders and everything.”

Nodding, Mick said, “Those aren’t rottweilers, are they?”

“Not even close. We took out a bunch of them the other night—”

“At that nature preserve outside of Kansas City!” Rosetta said as she snapped her fingers and hopped excitedly.

“You know about that too?” Cole asked.

“There was stuff on the news about a bunch of animals that escaped from a private collection or wandered in from the woods. Apparently some security and stoplight cameras caught some things running by, but they were just a bunch of blurs. You should see some of the wild stuff being posted onto our website about that. It’s just…wow.”

“That about sums it up,” Cole said. “More people will get hurt, and we want to put an end to it as soon as we can. So if you need to cut a few corners or bend a few rules to get us into those homes, it’d be for a good cause.”

“We know you guys do good work,” Mick said earnestly. “That’s why MEG agreed to help you in the first place. But in this field, reputation means everything. If we lose ours by harassing clients, we won’t be able to help you guys at all.”

“But don’t worry about all of that,” Rosetta said. “I just need to call that lady back, set something up, and get the team together so we can all get on the same page. Should only take like two hours or so. Okay?”

“We are overdue for lunch,” Paige said. “How about we come back after we get something to eat?”

Rosetta smiled and clasped her hands together. “Perfect. That’ll give us some time to make the arrangements.”

“And no matter what the home owners say,” Mick added, “we’ll be glad to take you out there and show you where your other friend was hunting.”

“Sounds great,” Cole said. “Now, what’s the word on that hot dog place next door?”

The Chicago Dawg House was one long room, half of which was filled with an order counter and kitchen. At the other half, a row of stools was lined up beneath another counter that was just wide enough for people to share some table space with napkin dispensers and plastic condiment bottles.

Paige squawked the entire way into the restaurant, but quieted down when she saw the Vienna Beef sign. Her mood improved even more when she saw that the menu describing the ingredients in a classic Chicago dog was practically a transcript from when she’d described it in Kansas City. She was about to order that when her eye caught something a little farther down the menu.

“Oh my God,” she sighed. “Look at that. Right beneath the ‘Butkus.’”

Cole had been eyeing the Butkus anyway, which was a sausage covered with what seemed to be anything the cook could find that would singe the hairs on the back of his arm. “You mean the Fridge?”

“Yesssss.”

“Looks like it may even take up some space in that bottomless pit you call a stomach. Go for it.”

Their order was taken by a balding guy who stood a few inches shorter than Cole. The subtle squawk in his voice and the thick mustache on his face made it seem equally plausible that he was either a Chicago native or an off-duty cop. “You want that Fridge hot and wet?” he asked.

Cole reflexively flinched, but Paige wore a smile that lit up her entire face. “Real hot and a little wet,” she said.

The guy behind the counter winked at her and nodded once. “Lady after my own heart. It’ll be right up.”

They moved down to sit at the counter on the opposite wall and waited for their food.

“Do you really think it was a mistake coming here?” Cole asked.

Paige craned her neck to look around at the autographed pictures of Cubs players that were hanging around the occasional framed jersey. “I don’t know. We’ll see what happens with those phone calls. To be honest, though, sometimes
you’ve just got to gamble. If we were in KC, we’d just be checking in on more empty Half Breed dens or guessing where to find new ones. Not that that matters anyway because any Full Blood can just replace the Half Breeds we killed.”

“That means we’ve only got another few days before the new Half Breeds become a real problem.”

“Maybe not even that long,” Paige said. “The Full Blood looked like he was whipping the surviving Half Breeds in line somehow. If it wasn’t for that bait you threw at him, he might have steered those things right back at us.”

“Have you ever seen anything like that before?”

Reluctantly, she cast her eyes down and shook her head. “Never. I only hope the Mongrels we find are willing to fight, because we may need their kind of backup more than a few extra sets of noses.”

“What if they don’t agree to come back with us at all?” Cole asked.

Paige pulled in a deep breath and let it out with an unconvincing smile. “Then we’ll throw everything we’ve got at them one more time. It’s not like we have much choice. Every new Half Breed means someone else was killed, and it’s not like when a Nymar attaches its spore to someone’s heart. That whole process is an easy morning of slow lovin’ compared to how someone is made into a Half Breed. First they’ve got to be attacked and torn up almost to the point of dying. If they survive that, they get to feel all their bones snap as they take their new form. I don’t even want to know what it feels like to have all their muscles unstrung and knotted around the bones that are left. Werewolves are more than supernatural. They’re some kind of horrible miracle.”