Blood Blade

Chapter 21

When Cole saw the way Paige handled a hunting knife, he couldn’t decide whether he was aroused or uncomfortable. It was a distinction he hadn’t had to make since the tight gym shorts he’d been forced to endure in junior high. She wielded the blade with speed and efficiency as she whittled the sapling down to his specifications. While she did that, he was given the task of patrolling the property. After glancing a few more times into the dark pit where the bizarre creatures were still sleeping, he became accustomed to the sight of them. Over the next hour and a half or so, the cold air seeped under his clothes and brought a silence to the area that normally only came in the dead of winter.

Rubbing his hands together while hunkering down to watch Paige some more, he asked, “Can weapons like this hurt a Full Blood?”

“Yes, and that’s saying a lot,” she replied without allowing her hands to lose the rhythm she’d built up. “There’s only three things that we know of that can kill a Full Blood and this is one of them.”

Cole’s face darkened as he thought about what he wanted to say. As much as he wanted to bite his tongue, he couldn’t keep from telling her, “It didn’t help Gerald very much.”

If Paige was fazed by that in any way, she didn’t show it. “That’s because he wasn’t prepared. You take any boxer and tell him he’s training for a featherweight match and then toss his narrow butt into a ring against a heavyweight who’s carrying a sledgehammer in each hand and that boxer won’t have much of a chance. He’s got weapons, but they’re just the wrong ones. I won’t lie to you, Cole. Even with the proper weapons, we’re a hell of a long way from having the upper hand.”

“But there’s got to be a better way than swinging a spear at them,” he insisted.

Paige sat with her back against a tree so she was facing the pile of rubble behind the Lancroft mansion. She and Cole had moved farther into the trees so nothing could get behind them without rustling several yards of dead leaves or shaking a whole lot of dry branches. As she got back to her work with the knife, she said, “We can treat bullets to hurt some of these things, but not Full Bloods. Charmed weapons like that Blood Blade do a lot of damage, but the Gypsies who craft them don’t part with their secrets.”

“I’d think anyone who could make those weapons would want to get them to the ones who can use them.”

“Yeah,” she grumbled. “That’s how you’d think it would work. Those families do things their own way and don’t get along with Skinners too well. It’s some sort of feud from a long time ago, but all I care about is here and now.”

“We’ve got a Blood Blade here and now,” he pointed out.

She shook her head definitively. “I can’t risk anything happening to that. That Mongrel in Canada was supposed to have two Blood Blades. Full Bloods are known to collect the things just to keep them away from us, which was probably what brought that one running to Gerald and Brad. I’ve got plans for this blade and I can’t risk anything happening to it. Gerald didn’t believe in my idea. He thought the blades should just be used for fighting, and too many other Skinners agree. We don’t need the Blood Blade yet.”

“So those blades are the best way to kill one of those things?” Cole asked.

Shaking her head without taking her eyes from her work, Paige said, “The only surefire weapon to use against any supernatural creature is another supernatural creature. Nobody knows the specifics, but they can tear each other apart just fine. It may be some sort of natural balance, but it didn’t help us until a Skinner from a couple hundred years ago came up with what I’m about to show you.”

“Will you show me how to get that stick to change shapes like yours did?” he asked.

“I can turn this stick into something that will hurt a Half Breed. That’s all we’ve got time for. Normally, I wouldn’t even bring you on a hunt like this, but we don’t have a lot of choice right now. We’re the only two Skinners within a couple hundred miles.”

“What about Walter?” Cole offered weakly.

“I counted him as half and you as half.”

Although that bent Cole’s nose out of joint, he quickly snapped it back into place. “You were probably being generous where my half was concerned. Will you at least show me how to swing that stick?”

“Sure,” she said as she tossed the trimmed sapling at him.

The stick was somewhere between four and five feet long, and still fresh from getting its bark peeled off by Paige’s hunting knife. It felt a little damp in his hands and had plenty of give when he swung it back and forth. Even though the ends had been whittled down to points, he still would have been more confident wielding a broomstick.

“You sure this isn’t another initiation joke?” he asked.

Circling him in slow, measured steps, Paige spoke in a soft voice that made it sound as if she had her eyes closed and was describing something from a dream. “Try to imagine fighting a Full Blood,” she said from behind him. “Or imagine fighting that Mongrel. You know how well you can move. You know how fast or slow or strong or flexible you are. What kind of weapon do you think you’d use?”

“When fighting a Full Blood?” he mused. “I’d call in an air strike. Or how about a nice red button with a few nukes on the other end of it? That sounds good.”

Paige laughed under her breath and then calmly said, “Turn around.”

When he turned, he could hear the subtle brush of feet against the ground, which didn’t at all match the sight of Paige stepping forward while swinging both of her clubs at his head. He let out a surprised grunt and turned at the waist while swinging the sapling up in both hands to protect his face.

Stopping less than an inch before hitting him, she completed her attack by lightly tapping his forearm with the short blunt clubs. “There you go,” she said. “You should fight the way your instincts want to fight. You’ll need a two-handed weapon.” As she ran a club along the edge of his arm that was facing toward her, she added, “And see the way this arm is turned more than the other? You should be able to shift the weapon to block with that arm, but you’ll be able to use it either way.”

“Actually,” Cole said, “there was this one weapon I designed for Hammer Strike that had these—”

Paige cut him short with a politely raised hand. “Is it about this size?” she asked as she tapped the sapling he was awkwardly gripping.

“More or less. Don’t you remember when I told you about Hammer Strike while we were driving out from Chicago?”

“No.”

“Before we got to the outlet mall,” he added. “You know. It was the game with the Cerberus.”

Slowly, Paige began to nod. “Oh yeah. You got going about that a couple of times, but I sort of blocked you out. Here,” she said as she tossed the hunting knife to him. “You should do the carving.”

“I really don’t know how to carve.”

“You know how to whittle?”

“Barely.”

“Same idea,” she said. “Just sharpen the ends the way they should be and get it down to the basic shape you’re after. I’ll check on you later.”

“What about the Half Breeds?” Cole asked.

After glancing at her watch and then looking up at the bright gray sky, she replied, “I’ll check on them too, but they won’t be going anywhere until the sun starts to go down.”

“So they stay out of the sunlight completely? Does it hurt them or something?”

“If you looked like a peeled grape, you’d probably stay out of the sun too. Besides, they’ll be resting up for a good run tonight.”

Cole caught her looking up toward the sky again. “Full moon?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. Unfortunately, that legend’s true. Now get to whittling.”

By late afternoon Cole’s feet were covered in wood chips. His hands were bleeding from several cuts and splinters and his arms ached so badly that he prayed for them to fall off. In his lap, the fruit of his labor rested like a pathetic mockery of the feeble efforts that had produced it. The crooked stick was pointed at both ends and shaped roughly like a thick bow. One end was thicker than the other and had the beginnings of a notch carved into it.

“Behold,” he said as he held up the length of wood for Paige to see. “I shall name it…aw, this thing sucks.”

She sat nearby, with cases she’d unloaded from the car on either side of her. As the day had worn on, smells had drifted through the air from one of several holes she’d dug into the cold soil. Each of those holes had a small clay pot set into it. Now, she stood up, dusted herself off, and walked over to sit beside him. “What’s wrong with it?” she asked.

“First of all,” he replied as he tapped the rough notch, “this is supposed to be like two points split apart. Maybe it’s stupid, but it looked really cool in the—” Before he could finish his criticism, metal sliced through the air as Paige swung the hunting knife straight down toward the stick. The blade landed in the notch with a solid thunk and caused the wood to split another couple of inches down.

After twisting the knife to separate the two halves a bit more, she asked, “Is that more like it?”

Cole looked at that end of the stick and nodded as he compared it to the forked tongue model of his favorite melee weapon from Hammer Strike. “Yeah! I don’t know if it’ll do a lot of damage, but that’s the look of it.”

Taking the whittled piece of wood from him, she hefted it in both hands and nodded. “This isn’t bad. See if you can get these points a bit sharper, though,” she said, handing the wood back. “Then it’ll do plenty of damage.”

Cole rested the bow-shaped stick across his lap and got back to whittling. Once Paige returned to the clay pots she’d partially buried, he asked, “So, I had this really great dream where I kissed you and you seemed to like it. It seemed real, but I guess you weren’t there.”

“I was there,” she said quietly.

“Maybe it wasn’t a dream, then. Maybe it was a mistake?”

“I hope not,” she replied as she lowered her head and kept stirring the mixture at her feet. “You surprised me and I ran with it, but maybe it wasn’t the best time. Then again, who knows when there’ll be a better time?”

“For tomorrow we die,” he declared. “Is that it?”

“Could be tomorrow. Could be tonight. Maybe I’ve just been living day to day for too damn long.” She shook her head just enough for her hair to slip down into her face. “You probably think I’m such a—”

“Hey,” he cut in. “If you can help me turn this piece of crap I whittled into anything more than a glorified toothpick, I’ll think you’re a miracle worker.”

Paige looked at him without saying a word. Slowly, the frustration in her eyes faded away. After holding onto the silence that stretched between them for a few more seconds, she lifted a small bowl from the dirt and moved over to sit beside him. She reached out to take a small rag from one of the nearby cases and dipped it into the concoction. Cole watched her, savoring the grace in her movements, which brought out the sublime in even the most mundane of tasks.

“This is a resin made from a recipe that dates back to the 1600s,” she said. “I don’t know the name of the Skinner who cooked up the first batch, but I will tell you it works real well.”

“Do I need to learn how to make it?” he asked.

“Yes, but not tonight. This just needs to be worked into the grain of the wood in a thick, even coat. Here,” she said as she carefully handed it over. “This is your job.”

“Should I get any on me?”

“Only if you don’t mind losing the use of your fingers.” Paige smirked as she saw the panic that drifted across his face.

As soon as he got a look at that grin, Cole relaxed and simply held onto one end of the stick as he applied the resin like a coat of foul-smelling varnish. Before he was three-quarters done, he could hear something creaking and snapping like bones being bent until they broke.

“Is that supposed to happen?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Paige told him. “That’s the resin soaking in.”

Cole looked down at the stick and noticed how the sunlight was reflecting differently along the surface where the resin had been applied as opposed to where it hadn’t. While the end he was using as a handle still felt like freshly cut wood, the treated areas looked almost petrified.

“Coat the rest of it,” Paige instructed. “End to end. Top and bottom.”

Only about a minute after the rest of the coat had been applied, she took the stick from him and tested to make sure the varnish was dry. “Show me how you’ll wield it,” she said, and tossed it back to him.

Cole caught it and hefted it in his hands. Not only was the resin dry, but it made the stick somehow feet lighter and stronger at the same time. Holding onto it stick so the bowed angle arced away from him, he said, “I guess like this, but I could always switch it around.”

“You’ll hold it the first way,” Paige told him. “That’s going to be more effective. Now hand it back. Quickly.”

He gave the stick back to her and watched as she used the hunting knife to hack at a few spots halfway along the length of wood. She split off a few thin sections, peeled them back, then dabbed more resin onto the spots of fresh wood that had been revealed. After repeating the process several more times in a few different spots along the length of the stick, she dropped the rag and tossed the hunting knife so its blade stuck into the dirt. Gripping the stick between the barbs she’d created, she dipped the barbs into another one of the pots she’d been using to create one of her potent mixtures.

“When the time comes,” she said, “this weapon will save your life. It will be an extension of your own body. It will be the only weapon you’ll need.” As she lifted the stick, a clear, glistening string extended from the barbs to the pot. It was broken by her finger, which she then used to smear the resin a few more places. “When the time comes, you’ll hold the weapon just like you showed me.”

“Those spikes are gonna get in my way,” Cole pointed out.

She looked up at him and nodded once.

He furrowed his brow and studied her face. He didn’t exactly like what he saw. “You want me to fit my fingers between the spikes?”

“The thorns will cut into your hands, but try not to think about that,” she explained as she handed the weapon to him. “It’s a necessary part of the process.”

Glancing between those thorns and Paige’s hands, Cole could see the thick layers of scars that marked her palms. He suddenly recalled seeing similar scars on the palms of almost every other Skinner he’d met. “I need to tear my own hands open every time I use this thing?” he asked.

Paige shook her head reassuringly. “Not every time. Trust me, it looks worse than it is. Just to get the feel of it, hold the weapon up like you’re blocking something.”

Tentatively placing his hands around the spot that had been carved into a rough grip, he felt the wooden barbs press against his palms. “When’s the first time I’m gonna have to do this?” he asked through gritted teeth.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Paige drew one of her clubs and cracked it against the middle of the stick, causing some of the thorns in Cole’s handle to snap against his hands. The rest pierced his flesh and dug into the meat of his hands.

“Holy…God…that hurts!” he moaned.

She dropped her club back into her boot and leaned forward to examine his hands. Just when it seemed that she was going to tend to his wounds, she pulled the weapon up from his palms and then forced it back down a bit farther. This time Cole was too shocked to make a sound.

“That’s not so bad,” she told him. “We got what we needed on the first try. I know someone who had to go four or five times before he got so much blood drawn.” As she spoke, Paige lifted the weapon until all the thorns came free of Cole’s hands. The ones that hadn’t snapped were coated with a slick layer of blood. A few of the broken ones remained lodged in his flesh.

Cole’s mouth hung open and he held his hands out. Most of the color had drained from his face as his fingers slowly trembled and curled in and out like squirming caterpillars. “What in the hell was that for?”

Having already gotten herself situated on the ground with her legs bunched up beneath her, Paige dipped one rag into the second of her concoctions. “It connects you to your weapon. It’ll also toughen you up. Bring me the small vial on top of the case over there,” she said.

Cole pulled the largest of the broken splinters from his palm and flexed his fist to work the pain out. It stung like hell, but the pain was seeping into him and becoming easier to bear. After finding the vial she’d requested, he asked, “Do I want to know what’s in this?”

“Diluted Nymar venom. I’m going to mix it with your blood on these thorns so your weapon will bond to you and eventually respond to your commands.”

“What sort of commands?”

“One thing at a time, young one. Come over here and watch what I’m doing. You’re going to need to learn this.”

“What about the Half Breeds?” Cole asked.

“We’ve got another few hours before they wake up. I just hope to teach you a few basic moves before then.”

“How long before I need to fight?”

Paige looked up at the sky to check the moon and then looked at her watch. “Like I said…probably a few more hours.”

After modifying Cole’s weapon with her hunting knife, she tossed it back to him. Although the thorns on the grip were either cut off or trimmed down, the remaining ones were sturdier and a bit sharper than their bigger brothers. Cole listened as she gave a quick rundown of what she was doing.

“Something in Nymar venom allows them to control someone the way Misonyk controlled you,” she explained. “Basically, this resin mixed with a little diluted venom allows us to control our own weapons. It’ll only work for you, though. For everyone else, this’ll just be a stick.”

“And for me, it’s something that shreds my damn hands anytime I want to use it.”

Paige shook her head slowly. “The venom is diluted with Nymar saliva—”

“And it gets better!”

“That saliva,” she cut in, “has a weak healing property.”

“Healing?” Cole asked.

“Nymar can heal up their victims a little bit, just to make sure the throats get ripped open enough to feed but not enough to kill.”

“That’s nice of them.”

Meeting his eyes, Paige said, “A beating heart makes it easier for them to get more blood from the veins. That’s all there is to it. For our purposes, it keeps our hands from being ripped apart too badly. But,” she added as she held up her own hand to show him the scars on her palm, “it’s not perfect.”

Once the weapon was treated with the venom and another coat of the varnish, Cole was put through a few paces to practice using it. Thankfully, Paige allowed him to grasp the weapon with his fingers between the barbs instead of on top of them. He wasn’t allowed to bandage his hands, however. More blood needed to soak into the resin. Tightening his grip on the weapon, he got used to the feel of it as she slowly swung one of her clubs at him. The two weapons knocked together, allowing him to feel the sturdiness of what had so recently been a sapling.

“So how come my weapon isn’t half as cool as yours?” he asked.

Paige sped up her attacks and watched every one of Cole’s movements. “Because it’s not finished. Even so,” she added as she snuck in a lower swing, “it’ll never be as cool as mine.”

“Just because you’ve got some magic kind of wood that changes shape.”

“We’ll get to that part later. Right now, just try not to hurt yourself.”

They spent the next half hour with Paige attacking and Cole defending in one of two basic ways. After that, they switched roles and practiced for another hour with her showing him two simple ways to attack after each defense. When she finally called for him to take a break, he was ready to collapse.

“You ready to meet your first Half Breed?” she asked.

Cole tried to laugh but could only manage a few short-winded gasps. “Just as long as…you don’t expect me to…”

“Oh, you’ll be fighting,” she said before he could finish his sentence.

His mouth hung open but no words came out. After a bit of coaxing, he finally managed to spit out, “Unless a Half Breed is some sort of rabid dachshund, there’s no way I’m ready to fight!”

Even though she’d been working twice as hard as Cole throughout their sparring session, Paige was practically jumping out of her skin for more. “It’s not about the moves,” she told him. “It’s about the warrior’s spirit, remember?”

“I thought that was just inspirational bullshit.”

She shook her head as a hungry smile drifted onto her face. “The Half Breeds will be coming for us as soon as they wake up.”

“You can’t seriously expect me to do this. We’ve only been practicing for a couple hours. How good can anyone be after a couple hours?”

Paige eyed him for a few more seconds before easing up on her stance. “Fine. Would you feel better if I told you there’s a shotgun in the case behind me?”

“Is there?”

“Yep.”

“Then yes,” Cole sighed. “I feel much better.”

“You’ll still need to be ready to use some of those moves I taught you. All you’re doing is stabbing like it’s a spear. If a caveman could figure it out, I think you’ll do just fine. It’s getting close to nightfall,” she added. “That means we still have time to get into that pit and introduce ourselves.”

Some of the supplies that Paige took from the case included a flashlight and hunting knife for each of them, some rope, and a plastic container about the size and shape of the one he had used for his retainer when he was in eighth grade. When he opened the plastic case, he saw two sculpted glass vials and a syringe. One of those vials was very familiar.

“That’s your Resurrection Vial and dose of antidote to reverse it,” Paige explained.

“What about the other one?” Cole asked as he eyed the vial that had a single delivery needle as opposed to two.

“That’s what you take if you get mauled by a shapeshifter and survive,” she told him. “It’ll kill you quick and painlessly.”

“Jesus, you Skinners are morbid.”

“Just safe,” Paige said as she pulled out a false bottom from the larger case, then removed two sawed-off shotguns. “If you ever see how a Half Breed changes, you’ll know the alternative is a hell of a lot better.” She handed one of the shotguns to Cole and took the other for herself. Both had a mesh strap that allowed the weapons to be slung over their backs so their hands were free. Leaving the rest of the supplies in the clearing, she led the way to the pile of rubble. “When you use that weapon,” she explained, “grab hold of the thorns tightly. It’ll be quick and may even fire you up.”

“Stick versus shotgun? That sounds like an easy loss for the stick to me.”

Paige dropped to one knee once she got to the edge of the pit. Looking down to make sure the gnarled creatures were still laying in their spots, she whispered, “You empty both barrels into a Half Breed’s head or chest and you should put it down. Of course, they do have a tendency to rip apart everything in the vicinity when they’re wounded, so no wild shots.”

“If this is payback for me getting frisky a while ago, it’s a bit extreme.”

“No, no,” she said with a sexy grin as she tied a length of rope to a stake she’d pounded into the ground. “I get pretty frisky on full moons too. It’s a shame you didn’t feel your wild side a bit more when we had the time.”

Before Cole could reflect upon what could have been, she was gone. She’d simply grabbed hold of the edge of the pit, swung her legs over, and dropped into the shadows with the rope trailing behind her. He glanced up at the darkening skies. There were still clouds overhead, but they’d thinned out into tattered, smoky shreds. The sun had dipped below the horizon, which allowed a good portion of its light to sneak in beneath the clouds and wash over the rubble and neighboring mansion. When he craned his neck a bit more, he could already make out the pale shape of the moon hanging back like an actor waiting for his cue. He looked into the pit and was stricken by the vast contrast between that dirty hole and the sky above it.

He expelled the breath he’d been holding, dangled his legs over the edge…and dropped.