“A twitch, huh?”
“That’s all that stands between you and dinner.”
Knowing it was useless to bargain with her, Cole extended both arms as though offering Paige his weapon. He tightened his grip around the spear and winced as the thorns dug into his palms. Even though the sharpened protrusions were less than half an inch long, they felt as if they’d bored tunnels all the way up to his elbows. In many ways they went a lot deeper than that.
After a few quiet seconds, Cole glanced up to find Paige standing with her hip cocked and her hand resting upon it. Her hair was long enough to be pulled back in a tail, but several strands always came loose no matter how hard she tried to keep them under control. A single bead of sweat emerged from her forehead to trickle along the crooked side of a nose that still looked cute despite having been broken long before he ever met her. The sweat dripped off her chin and made a wet spot upon the inviting slope of her breasts. When she absently dabbed it away, he muttered, “I’m feeling a twitch or two right now.”
“If I see anything other than that weapon move, I’ll put it down real quick,” she told him while slapping her baton against her open hand.
Cole pulled in a breath and focused upon the forked spear in his hands.
“Concentrate, young one,” Paige said in the bad kung-fu master impression she always found to be amusing.
Just as Cole was about to chalk up his poor performance to being tired, he heard the spear creak.
“That’s it,” Paige whispered.
It wasn’t much, but the spear bowed inward just enough for him to feel the movement.
Paige’s eyes widened and she moved in closer to him. “There you go. Just like that.”
Cole’s mind drifted further away from what he was trying to do and ventured into the area of what he wanted to do. The spear in his hands creaked like a board getting ready to snap, but he couldn’t exactly appreciate it.
“That’s the way, Cole,” Paige said encouragingly. “Keep doing that.”
“Stop it, Paige.”
“What?”
“You’re making it hard to concentrate.”
Smirking, she asked, “I’m making it hard?”
After using the back of her hand to wipe the remaining sweat from her brow, she lifted her right leg so she could slip her baton into the leather holster attached to her ankle. The moment her foot touched down again, she smiled and placed her hand upon Cole’s shoulder. “Sorry. You really are doing well.”
“Better than the other eight people you trained before me?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Now you’re just jerking my chain.”
“Maybe,” she said with a shrug while her hand slid down along his arm. “You’re putting on some muscle, though. I’ll get you into shape yet. Who knows? Before too long, I may not be able to resist.”
As Paige spun around to head for the stairs, the weapon in Cole’s hand creaked again. The spear bowed, but it was tough for him to tell if the wood was changing shape or if he was about to snap it in half.
It had been eight months since Cole first met Paige Strobel. In that time, he’d also met vampires, werewolves, and a few other things that he didn’t quite know how to categorize. He still had an apartment in Seattle, but was currently leasing it to one of the level designers at Digital Dreamers. The sporadic rent checks he received were enough to help pay for some expenses, but not nearly as much as his salary when he’d headed the team responsible for building video games like Hammer Strike and the ever-popular Sniper Ranger series. Digital Dreamers was also behind Zombie House, versions one through four, Puzzle Cube, and plenty of others. Although Cole never wanted to be one of the corporate guys, he would have picked that over getting beat up in a basement any time.
On the upside, he’d definitely lost some weight. There was a mirror hanging from the wall of the walk-in freezer that had been converted into his room, but he was too tired to get up and look into it. Instead, he peeled off his workout clothes, looked down at his somewhat flat belly and gave it a few appreciative slaps.
“Not quite a six-pack, but I’m up to at least a two.”
The longer he sat on the edge of his cot, the more exhausted Cole felt. Rather than watch his stomach expand as he relaxed, he looked up and rubbed his hands over the top of his head. His hair wasn’t much more than stubble sprouting from his scalp. It was cool in the Chicago heat and easy to take care of. His clean-shaven face was thinning a bit as well, but still ached from the hits he’d taken during his frequent sparring sessions.
Paige’s timing was impeccable. The very moment he thought about how great it would be to take a hot shower, he heard the water start to run in the restaurant’s only bathroom. Technically, there were two other bathrooms in what used to be the main dining room, but those were filthy enough to discourage homeless people from wandering into the place. A good portion of the dining room had also been rigged with traps to keep the local monsters at bay.
Monsters.
Cole still couldn’t quite get over how many times he used that word in legitimate sentences. The supernatural creatures out there had not only knocked him out of his happy, video-game-designing existence, but even sucked the fun out of the simple things. For instance, the shower he so desperately wanted would only be ruined by the soap Paige forced them to use. The stuff was supposed to keep their scent from being detected, but it smelled like old tires and felt like a brick of oatmeal. Despite the fact that it didn’t even do a very good job of masking their scent from the things that hunted them, Paige insisted on using the stuff. It was also cheap.
Cole’s room wasn’t bad, as far as renovated freezers went. It was quiet, there were plenty of shelves for his stuff, and it contained more than enough outlets for his computers and recharging needs. Ironically, however, it wasn’t nearly as cool as the other rooms in the place. Since the actual refrigeration unit was gone, the aluminum plated walls were real good at holding in whatever kind of air was left. In the middle of summer, that air was hot.
Paige took her time in the shower, so Cole decided to get to work. Rather than switch on his laptop, he picked up the forked spear and held it in both hands. He’d found it was easier when he didn’t think too long before sinking the thorns into his palms, so he simply gripped tightly and exhaled as the sharp little buggers dug into all the familiar places.
Every inch of the spear was varnished to a dull sheen using a concoction that Paige had taught him how to brew. He applied another coat every two or three days, so the spear was pretty much soaked through by now. Since the varnish was mixed using shapeshifter blood, the weapon would eventually change shape on command. If he hadn’t seen Paige pull off the trick, he never would have believed it was possible.
“Come on,” he snarled as he held on and stared at the petrified weapon.
The longer he begged and threatened the spear, the less it moved. Finally, he couldn’t even bend the damn thing using brute force.
“Honestly, honey,” he mumbled. “This has never happened to me before.”
If the spear hadn’t been attached to his hands, he would have thrown it into the corner. He made do with setting it down gently and kicking it to the other side of his freezer. Cole looked down at his hands to watch the puncture wounds seal themselves up. That part had something to do with the varnish as well. Nymar saliva was another ingredient that naturally sealed puncture wounds to keep victims alive while they were being fed upon. Nymar proteins were also used to make a powerful Skinner healing serum. If those freaks were good at something other than sucking blood, it was healing.
“Nothing’s ever easy,” he grumbled as he straightened up and walked over to the stack of plastic crates he’d been using as a desk. When he got his laptop warmed up and started typing, he realized it had only hurt a little to walk. After a nice shower, he might even be back to normal.