Extinction Agenda

Chapter Twelve

Sixty miles west of Great Falls, Montana

The two powerful beasts had been running in ever-widening circles. Randolph did his best to keep Kawosa’s scent fresh in his nose, but had lost it on a few occasions. Whenever that happened, the trickster snuck up on him to attack from another angle. Claws slashed through flesh and fangs ripped meat from the bone of both creatures as they circled and launched themselves into the next onslaught. Kawosa was always the one to break off when things got too rough. He needed to find some way to lose Randolph or defeat him. There was no third alternative.

When the Full Blood slowed his pace again and the snowy terrain became more than a white and gray blur, the peaks of the Rocky Mountains loomed before him. Blood surged through Randolph’s body, feeding his senses with an elemental fire that allowed him to see in total darkness or stare straight up into the sun. At the moment, he simply took his bearings by looking at the sky and allowed the wind to spill across his panting tongue.

“You . . . can’t . . . find me.”

Despite the power entwined within those words, which would have made them believable to almost any living thing, Randolph continued his search. But the force of that suggestion had a weight that made his head droop and his next breath seep like tar all the way back down to his lungs. Yet still he searched.

“And you can’t escape me!” he bellowed. “If there was a way, you would have taken it already. Step out and face me!”

“To what end? So you can test your might against a god?”

“You are no god, trickster. You are old and powerful, but so am I.”

The reaction came swiftly and without mercy. Kawosa exploded into Randolph’s field of vision as if he’d been taking refuge behind a veil of falling snowflakes two feet away. He charged to get in close and clamp his jaws around the Full Blood’s neck.

Randolph turned his head to one side and then snapped it along with his entire body in the opposite direction. Since Kawosa had latched onto him, the trickster was cracked like a whip. He lost his grip on Randolph’s neck with a pained yelp and raced toward the mountains. When Randolph tore after him, Kawosa stopped and pivoted in a way that spat gleefully at the laws of physics and inertia. Shifting into a creature with skin of glistening oil and wings of tattered canvas, he left the ground and sank curved talons into Randolph’s back. The more Randolph struggled against the grip that lifted him off the ground, the deeper those talons sank into him. With every powerful flap of Kawosa’s wings, he was lifted higher.

“You compare yourself to me?” Kawosa snarled through a wide, twisted beak. “You are a lesser creature! The only reason I’ve helped you at all was because of your passion to deal with other lesser creatures.”

“And this lesser creature,” Randolph said while straining to shift into his two-legged form without scraping too many of his muscles against Kawosa’s talons, “has forced the First Deceiver to show his true form. How long has it been since you’ve worn a body that isn’t a lie?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you, Full Blood. I’ve done more than enough to repay you for breaking me from Lancroft’s cage. I helped combine the new Half Breeds with your bloodline to track down the newest pup among your kind, and then paved the way for you to escape with her while all of your brethren cried out for your death.”

Randolph was being carried toward the mountains, and after a few more flaps of Kawosa’s wings, they were there. Jagged slopes and frozen peaks sped beneath them as Randolph finally settled into a form that hung more naturally from the trickster’s painful grasp. Without the bulk of his four-legged body, and thanks to his newly elongated limbs, he was able to reach for Kawosa while pulling his lower half up.

“Even Liam wanted you killed,” Kawosa continued. “And I steered him away so you could pursue your own course.”

“Liam wanted you killed as well,” Randolph grunted. “He wanted to see everyone dead at one time or another. It was one of his many flaws.”

“And now this nonsense with Icanchu,” Kawosa said, as if merely talking to himself. “Now that I see you may actually be persistent enough to find another Mist Born, I must bring an end to this little game you’ve started.”

“Game? Look below you!”

Kawosa shifted his half-blue, half-orange eyes toward the earth, where a battle raged on the other side of the mountains. A small town was in flames, gunshots crackled through the air, and Half Breeds bayed at the skies. The other voice that lent itself to the wild collection of noises belonged to a Full Blood. It was the pure howl of one of Randolph’s brethren, but he didn’t have the wherewithal to put a name to the cry. Louder explosions rocked the town and were quickly silenced as the humans pulling those triggers were subjected to the agonies of the Breaking.

“It is because of me that the Full Bloods gained so much power during the Breaking Moon,” Kawosa shrieked. “Your kind still have to be close to a source of the Torva’ox for the effects to be felt, but the more of my children that exist, the wider the howls spread. When one as powerful as Esteban sends out the call, a few unlucky humans on the other side of the world drop to their knees in agony. Did you foresee that, Birkyus?”

“You couldn’t have wanted the world to turn into this!” Randolph roared as the wind beat against his face. “Of all the Mist Born, you have always been closest with the humans. Some say you even taught them to speak. The slate needs to be wiped clean. Purged of everything that has sullied it. It’s too late for anything else. There must be a drastic change!”

“This is not drastic enough for you?”

“Your wretches are nothing but wild hunger, much like the Nymar. Both of those bloodlines need to be severed. I know of a way to continue the work that has begun and steer it toward something better for those who truly deserve it.”

The wet grinding sound in Kawosa’s neck made it seem as if his throat had been cut when he turned to look into Randolph’s eyes. “I’ve heard talk similar to that,” he said. “When I was locked in Lancroft’s dungeon.”

“He spoke of murderous humans. I speak of the species that first graced this earth with the touch of their feet.”

“That was not your species either, young one. And don’t play word games with me. I invented them. All you want to do is paint a horrific picture and then convince someone that you’re the only one who knows how to clean it up again. Very crude.” Flapping his wings without gaining any altitude, Kawosa eventually dropped toward the stark landscape. “If you want to take a stand against my kind, then your best outcome is to die now before you are ripped asunder by what you find in the jungles to the south. You may be able to give me a brisk run, but Icanchu is more ruthless than you can conceive. The only reason I’ve shown you my true form is to let you know there are still things in this world that even the mighty Full Bloods haven’t seen. Learn your lesson and try to be thankful for what is left of your world.”

Randolph hung from Kawosa’s talons like a worm curling in upon itself at the end of a line. He craned his neck to get an upside-down view of the mountains they’d left behind. He drank in the sight of all that comforting open ground for what could very well have been the final time, then dug his claws into Kawosa’s side. “Thankful?” he roared. “What is there to be thankful about?”

“You live.”

Now that Randolph had a firm grip, he used all of his might to tear himself free of Kawosa’s talons. The curved nails had sunk in even deeper than he’d thought, but once he started ripping, there was nothing to do but continue along that hellish road until he was free. “I live. In the filthy pit my world has become?” he asked once one shoulder came away amid a spray of blood and fur. “If living in this was my plan, then yes I’d be thankful.”

“You can still see tomorrow. Be thankful I have not yet taken that away from you.”

“Keep your thanks,” Randolph snarled as he dug his claws higher up on Kawosa’s back. When the second set of talons ripped away, the pain almost sent Randolph toppling into unconsciousness. It was a glorious, unfamiliar sensation he hadn’t felt since his youthful body was first reshaped into the beast. For one who’d felt countless bullets thump against his hide and endured agony that would have shattered any other creature, reaching a previously unknown level of suffering was as much a gift as being taken to higher realms of pleasure.

“You are still a Full Blood,” Kawosa said in a wheezing voice that was somehow unaffected by the buffeting winds. “Savor your power and take what is given to you. When this war is over, you can start anew.”

Icy fingers of air raked all the way down Randolph’s throat, shaking him back into full awareness. “Don’t think you can coddle me by dangling the future in front of my nose! You can’t distract me with vague notions of brighter horizons! I’ve been plummeting for a long time, and now,” he added while closing a hand around the base of Kawosa’s wing, “so are you.” With that, he focused every bit of his strength into that arm and pulled.

“You can’t do this!” Kawosa cried.

Once Randolph broke through the trickster’s outer shell, the tendons, muscle, and sinew connecting wing to torso unraveled. “Another lie,” he growled.

Kawosa’s appendage tore like wet burlap. The sound of it could barely be heard beneath the overture of his screams and the mounting currents of air marking their swift descent. “We’ll both die!”

“Then that’s how it shall be,” Randolph said. “Perhaps you should be thankful for the view while you still have it.”