“I’ll need a few minutes.”
“Take them later,” Milosh said. “Right now, this mulosheka needs to call Vasily and tell him everything went according to plan.”
Waggoner stood in the doorway with his back against the splintered frame so he could see inside the cottage as easily as he could see outside. “Doesn’t he have any backup or someone watching him?”
“The Vitsaruuv herders need to work alone so their beasts don’t turn on the other Nymar. Isn’t that right?” George asked as he swatted the side of the Nymar’s head. “Vasily is waiting for the good news, so this one will give it to him.”
The Nymar spat a few words at the Amriany, which were cut short by another swat.
“I don’t care if he finds out. Right now, I just care that he gets good news.” George slid the steel pole under one of the vampire’s arms, across his chest, and against the front of one shoulder. With a bit of subtle maneuvering, he could twist either arm against its joint using the cumbersome yet effective hold.
Once Milosh stepped forward to press a blade to the Nymar’s throat, the vampire grunted, “All right. I will call.”
Milosh nodded to Cole, who asked for the number. When he dialed it, he waited before pressing the Send button. “You sure this is the right number?”
“It is,” Sophie said from the doorway.
Waggoner looked her up and down before asking, “What’s mulosheka mean?”
She looked him up and down as well. “Roughly, it means piece of vampire horseshit.”
“Nice. I’ll have to remember that one.”
George kept the Nymar in place while Cole held the phone in front of him and Milosh held a knife to the vampire’s throat. The conversation was brief and well outside of Cole’s linguistic capabilities, but Milosh nodded until he motioned for Cole to take the phone away. After the connection was cut, Milosh said, “Should buy us an hour for sure. Any more than that is a risk.”
“How much time do we need?” Cole asked. “Your guy obviously isn’t here.”
Looking over to George, Milosh said, “We will search this place and move on.” To the Nymar, he said something in his own language that brought a response that needed no translation. The Nymar spat in his face, prompting George to twist the steel pole and wrench the Nymar’s arm from its socket. As soon as the vampire was allowed to drop to one knee, Milosh raked the blade across his throat, kicked him over, and spat an even juicier wad onto him.
The tendrils reached out from its wound to close it as Milosh put the knife back into its scabbard and removed another one with a darker blade encrusted with wide symbols wrapped all the way around its edge. He waited for the Nymar to look up at him before placing the tip of the blade under his chin and driving it up into its skull. The vampire grunted and flopped at the end of the weapon as his skin hissed angrily where it touched the blade. Cole saw that it was actually the Nymar’s blood that hissed and boiled when it made contact with what had to be specially crafted metal.
“We could have just tied him up or something,” Cole said.
“Why? So he can call another pack of Vitsaruuv or one of his bosses? This is how we deal with the Nymar here. You don’t have to like it.”
The two Amriany knew what they were looking for, so the Skinners allowed them to go through the cottage. Cole and Paige stepped outside, where Sophie, Nadya, and a few others who’d arrived in a different SUV waited. “It looked like you found a way to poison the Shadow Spore,” Paige said. “I’d like to know your recipe.”
“I can pass a few basic ingredients along,” Sophie replied.
“And we should be able to put something together for use fairly quickly. That is, once we get a chance to work on it.”
“Work here if you like. Ira wouldn’t mind.”
“Ira’s your blacksmith?” Paige asked.
“They are called Chokesari, but yes.”
Cole looked at the cottage and then down to the dead Half Breeds. “This, uh, doesn’t seem safe.”
Already the Amriany inside the cottage were making less noise. They’d either found something or were taking a breather.
“I’m surprised you were so squeamish in there,” Sophie said to Cole. “Have the Skinners been easing up on the Nymar even after their uprising?”
“No. We just don’t kill them without good reason.”
“Perhaps that’s why they’ve gotten out of line. Here, the moment they drink another human’s blood, that is good reason.”
“Must be nice to have that kind of leeway,” Paige said. “That and all the fancy jets.”
“Yes, well that has changed. We, like you, have been forced to cut some corners.”
Milosh and George stepped out of the cottage. “Ira left a marker behind,” George announced. “He’s headed north and isn’t answering his phone, but he may just be too deep into the forest for coverage.”
“You guys need a better calling plan,” Cole said.
“Are you sure your guy is still alive?” Paige asked.
Walking straight past them to put his weapon into the closest SUV, George replied, “He left the marker, which means he’s still alive. Even if he isn’t, there’s nowhere else to go but north from here. Vasily has already burned down our safe house in Trizs.”
“You mean the place we slept last night?” Cole asked.
“Yes.”
He blinked away a series of fiery memories that had been in the back of his head since he narrowly escaped the burning remains of the old Chicago restaurant that he and Paige once called home. Those thoughts were jammed in a mental corner along with the rest of the things that would haunt him until he grew too old to recall them.
Sophie lifted her face to a breeze that shook the cottage’s shutters as well as the chunks of broken door still hanging in the frame. There were lights behind some of the windows of the houses and shops in the distant town, but they might as well have been bright spots on a rustic painting.
“Is Chuna in those forests?” Cole asked.
“Yes,” Sophie told him. “Chuna is there, but still sleeps. If that has changed as well, you Skinners will get more old school than you might have wanted.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sixty-five miles northeast of Atalaya, Peru
The journey into South America was one of the longest runs Randolph had taken.
It was glorious.
He was able to run as fast as he could go without holding back. The ground flew beneath his paws without him really feeling it, voices trailed past his ears without having a chance to sink in, and his eyes only needed to focus on what was directly in front of him. If he was human, he might have called it therapeutic. Covering more ground in a series of leaps between runs, he gazed around to notice the landscape changing from mountains to desert to wetlands and back to desert before finally becoming a lush green that stretched up to surround him on all sides. Perhaps the trip had taken hours. Maybe the better part of a day. Perhaps more than one day. All that mattered was that the air rushing over him carried scents he hadn’t experienced in decades. The water splashing against his belly was cool and wild. Creatures snapped at his heels as he passed, and exotic insects buzzed in his ears.
Jungle surrounded him on all sides until it became the only thing capable of slowing him down. Even if he’d wanted to, he would have had a rough time breaking free consistently enough to regain his former speed. He was in his four-legged form, prowling beneath a green canopy as a thousand eyes watched from above, below, and within the waters of the Amazon. Propping himself onto his hind legs, the Full Blood craned his neck while drawing in a breath that not only swelled his lungs, but caused his muscles and skeleton to realign. When he exhaled, he stood upon two legs with thick claws stretching from his fingers.
Something heavy moved nearby. If not for the distinctive scent, he might have allowed the sound to blend in with the constant movement of his surroundings. Even though he could feel the familiar weight against his back, Randolph placed a hand on his chest to touch the strap of the sling he’d fashioned. It was still there, as was the cargo he’d gone through so much trouble to collect and bring to this place that was as far away from human civilization as he was from their species. He turned while crouching down and bared his teeth at the other Full Blood emerging from the thick wall of trees on the opposite side of the river.