Extinction Agenda

Chapter Twenty-Three

When they’d piled into the SUVs again, Cole thought the Amriany were taking him, Paige, and Waggoner back to the club where they were ushered into the country. But the small caravan turned eastward and headed into a small town called Imola. Although the rural setting was much different than what he was used to, the occasional glimpses of Half Breeds running to the right of the vehicles reminded him very much of home. To the left, however, there was once again nothing but trees.

“What’s over there?” he asked while tapping the window.

Sophie was behind the wheel, and she only had to look at where Cole was pointing before replying, “We avoid that place.”

“Is it a forest?”

Her interest sufficiently piqued, Paige leaned across him to get a look out Cole’s window. “Doesn’t look like enough trees to be a forest. Pretty, though.”

Milosh sat in the passenger seat and chuckled. “Yes. Real pretty. Perhaps you will find out for yourself.”

He was silenced by a few terse words from Sophie.

The landscape that had caught Cole’s attention consisted of rolling hills covered in grass and thin layers of snow. Large clusters of barren trees were spaced unevenly to make the terrain look densely packed in some spots and wide-open in others. There were roads that led between the trees, and every now and then he caught sight of buildings that looked to be no bigger than two or maybe three stories tall. It was a tranquil scene, especially because he had yet to see any Half Breeds roaming on that side of the road. Having spotted packs or the occasional stray roaming the countryside, he had a good idea about the extent of the Amriany shapeshifter problem. Yet, this other side of the road presented a different picture. Not only did it look clearer, but his scars burned less as they drove closer to those trees. Neither of the Amriany seemed ready to talk, so he let it drop for the time being. Paige did too, and they enjoyed the rest of their trip across the cold Hungarian terrain.

On the outskirts of Imola, Sophie pulled to a stop in front of a cottage near what could have been a small farm. Once the motors of both vehicles had been cut, the air became deathly still. No sounds came from the cottage. No voices greeted the Amriany or their guests. No hinges creaked to announce the opening of a single door or window. Milosh led the Skinners to a shed only slightly smaller than the main cottage. The Amriany in the other SUV approached from another direction.

The instant Sophie got close enough to reach out for the cottage’s door, Cole felt his scars flare up. “Get back!” he shouted.

But even though Sophie moved away from the door, she wasn’t quick enough to keep from getting hit by it as a Half Breed exploded out of the cottage amid a shower of splinters and broken wood. She, Milosh, and George all drew their weapons, and Cole, Paige, and Waggoner already had their weapons in hand. There were more Half Breeds inside. Cole’s scars didn’t burn until they were almost on top of him.

Normally, three Half Breeds would have been enough to give a few Skinners a run for their money. But this wasn’t a normal situation. These werewolves were thinner and shorter than the normal breed. Also, they were overzealous and charged out through the doorway to knock aside the one that had smashed through it.

Cole hopped to one side and didn’t bother expanding his spear to its full length before driving it into the side of a passing creature. The Half Breed’s momentum carried it forward, opening a gash in its side as the spearhead raked along its ribs. Paige put a few rounds into it from her Beretta as soon as he had a clear shot, and after that, it was the Amriany’s turn. Milosh threw one of his knives into a werewolf’s eye while it was in mid-jump. As soon as it hit the dirt in front of him, he grabbed the handle protruding from the Half Breed’s face and started twisting.

Then two more Half Breeds emerged and went through a similar gauntlet. Paige caught the first by dropping the curved sickle blade down behind its head with a blow almost precise enough to put it down then and there. Its front paws crumbled beneath it, dropping it out of Waggoner’s range before he could swing the sharpened end of his longbow. It regained its balance as soon as Paige’s weapon was pulled loose, and by the time it climbed to its feet, George was there to meet it. His weapon was a collapsible steel pole almost as tall as he was. One end had a flat weight to counter the weight of the iron claw at the other end. Forged into something that wasn’t quite animal or human, the claw was capped with points at the end of each finger that ripped through the Half Breed’s flesh before the weighted end was spun back around to knock against the side of the creature’s head. George planted his feet and went to work with the claw as another Half Breed sprang through the doorway.

Cole jabbed at it with his spear but only managed to land a glancing blow.

One of Paige’s sickles would have finished it if the creature hadn’t dropped its head beneath it and kept running.

Waggoner loosed a hastily notched arrow that parted the fur on the werewolf’s back but wasn’t enough to prevent it from charging at Sophie.

She stood calmly with her bronze sword drawn. The Half Breed’s eyes were focused intently on her as Amriany bullets thumped into its gnarled body, using pain from the glancing wounds to drive it forward. With the last bit of strength it had, the Half Breed lunged. Long fangs dripped with saliva as they were bared and a hungry growl erupted from its throat. Sophie stepped back with one foot, scraped the curved end of her sword blade along the ground and then swept the weapon up to catch the werewolf in the chest. The strength in her arm as well as the momentum of the heavier end of the sword knocked the werewolf up off its front paws to land heavily onto its back. She finished it off with a downward swing and plunged the blade into the creature’s heart.

She issued orders in her own language to George, who moved in to clear the place out. When she saw Paige and Cole start to enter the cottage, Sophie barked, “Stay put! This isn’t Skinner business.”

“Soon as we came over here, this became our business,” Paige said as she shouldered past the remains of the door that hung from the top hinge.

George held the steel staff so it ran along the back of his arm, the clawed end resting behind his shoulder. He moved into the cottage, leaving Waggoner outside with the other two Amriany.

Inside, the cottage was just as messed up as anyone might expect after Half Breeds had torn through the place. Cole and Paige held their weapons at the ready as their eyes darted to every corner and behind every piece of overturned furniture. There was one room with two small doors on the opposite wall leading to what looked to be a small bedroom and a bathroom. When the Skinners tried to take another step, they were stopped by a length of rounded steel placed in front of them.

“Hold on,” George said while holding his weapon out to block their way.

Although she remained where she was, the look on Paige’s face made it clear that it was on a temporary basis. “We’re on the same team here. Always have been, whatever screwed up history we—”

“Shush.”

“Did you just shush me?”

“Oh boy,” Cole moaned.

To make matters worse, George pointed a finger at her as if threatening a child with a time-out. Then, before she exploded, he raised that finger toward the ceiling. Both of the Skinners looked up to find one shadow squirming among the others within an exposed section of roof just above a series of old rafters. Cole could barely make out a human shape, but had been familiar enough with the Nymar infected by the Shadow Spore to recognize one when he saw it.

The vampire hissed from the shadows. It might have known it had been spotted, but there weren’t a lot of choices for a quick escape. Dropping to the floor would put it into dangerous territory, and the little window built into the apex of the roof’s peak was too far away for it to be a convenient escape route. Light cast by lamps in the cottage glinted off its fangs as it began to shimmy backward along the roof like a giant, coal-black spider.

“I’ll pull it down and you sweep it up,” George whispered. “One . . . two . . .”

“Three,” Paige said as she raised her Beretta and fired at the ceiling.

The rounds hit the Nymar in one arm, forcing it to let go and dangle upside down from where it had sunk its claws. George was quick to swing the weighted end of his weapon, connecting with a solid blow that dropped the vampire onto the floor. As soon as it hit, Cole was there to pin its neck in place beneath the forked end of his spear.

“He’s just a scout,” George said. “Indentured to Vasily, the Nymar who controls most of northern Hungary.”

“You have Nymar that control that much territory?” Cole asked.

“They’re not like the American Nymar. They work quietly and have made it their business to breed the Vitsaruuv into things that can be used. Just like the ones we saw here.”

“These are just like the ones that attacked you at the club,” said a shaky voice from outside.

Paige turned toward the door and looked out to find Nadya hunkering down next to one of the dead Half Breeds. Her light brown hair had been allowed to grow out since Paige fought alongside her in Atoka. She’d been wounded in that battle, but the Amriany woman seemed to have healed up well enough since then. Her sharply angled features appeared more weathered since Oklahoma was overrun, but her light brown eyes still showed a hint of warm familiarity when she cast a quick glance at Cole and Paige. That was all she gave by way of a greeting before announcing, “They’re infected with the Shadow Spore.”

Cole leaned against his spear. That wasn’t enough to keep the Nymar on the floor from squirming, so he pressed a boot down on its chest. “Is that even possible?”

“We’ve found some similarities between the pure Shadow Spore and shapeshifters. There may be some shared lineage.”

Paige stood by one of the dead Half Breeds and used the tip of a sickle blade to move aside a clump of its fur and take a look at the pale skin beneath it. While most Half Breeds had fairly thick coats, these looked mangy. Beneath the patchy coat was an intricate black design that looked tattooed onto the creature’s hide. Since its mouth was hanging open, she already had a good enough look to say, “They don’t have Nymar fangs, so why would they bother with a spore?”

Even though he had a few ideas of his own, Cole went straight to the source. He leaned down harder both on the boot that was pressed against the fallen Nymar’s chest as well as the spear pinning its head to the floor. “Answer her,” he demanded. “Why bother with the spore?”

“It . . . connects us,” the Nymar replied in a thick Slavic accent. “Just like the spore connect me to our own kind.”

“So that’s how you command them?”

“Yes.”

The Nymar was male, and because of the sporadic lighting from a few sputtering lamps, his tendrils had widened into stripes that moved beneath his skin like seaweed swaying in a gentle tide. The tendrils were spread evenly over most of his body, even crossing his face as if drawn there in camouflage paint. He wore a pair of black pants and a tight black shirt beneath a heavy cotton shirt. Judging by the trembling Cole could feel through the spear, the cold was getting to the Nymar as he remained pinned to the chilled wooden floor.

“Who sent you?” Cole asked. He didn’t expect the answer to come right away and wasn’t surprised when the Nymar smirked and looked silently up at him. Tightening his grip on the spear, Cole forced a slow trickle of blood to swell between his fingers and run down along the weapon. The Nymar’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the Skinner’s hands with a mix of confusion and hunger. Panic was added to the mix when the inner edges of the tines became sharp and started moving together like a pair of scissors.

Milosh stomped into the cottage, dropped to one knee and leaned down to snarl almost directly into the Nymar’s face. “You never seen a Skinner before, eh?”

The Nymar tried to shake his head and reached out to grab the spear. Milosh stabbed a blade through the back of his hand, twisted to angle it toward the floor, then nailed it into one of the wooden slats. For a one-armed man, it was a very impressive move. He maintained a grip on the knife as he spoke to the vampire in a steady flow of words that Cole couldn’t understand. Due to the sharp texture of the Amriany’s native language combined with the occasional twist of the knife used to punctuate certain words, the conversation seemed to be dragged straight back into the Dark Ages.

Before too long Milosh stood up and retrieved his knife with a quick, merciless pull. “Vasily sent him. This was the same one who sent those dogs after us when we were waiting to meet the Skinners at that club.”

“How’d they know we were coming?” Paige asked.

All it took was a mental nudge on Cole’s part to tighten the forked end of the spear against either side of the Nymar’s neck. Once the blood began to trickle from the wounds, the vampire started talking in a quick flow of broken English.

“We get call . . . Vasily get the call . . . from America!”

“Who called him?” Paige snarled.

When the Nymar turned wide, tendril-edged eyes up toward him, Cole winked and tightened the spear a little more.

“I never talk on those calls,” the Nymar insisted. “Vasily. He say it was from America.”

“Who?”

“Cobb . . . Dirty Egg. Something like this. I only heard a little.”

“Cobb38,” Cole grunted. The rage that sparked inside of him upon hearing that name caused the spear to tighten even more. When he heard the Nymar yelp, he willed the tines to separate.

George was there to grab the Nymar’s stringy black hair and drag him to his feet once Cole stepped back. “Where is your phone?” the Amriany asked.

Although the Nymar had gone silent again, Paige didn’t need to search long to find one of the few things the Nymar carried in his pockets. She took the phone and tossed it to Cole. “Can you find anything on that?” she asked.

“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.”