Vampire Uprising

Chapter Thirty-Five

Byers Peak, Colorado

Kawosa crouched at the edge of a sharp drop-off separating the narrow path behind him from the side of a mountain. His bony knees were splayed to either side, one of which poked out through a tear in his ragged pants. Narrow arms reached down between them and gripped the ground a few inches in front of his stubby toes. When a cold wind scratched along the Rockies, it set Kawosa’s stringy black hair into motion without flushing cheeks that were more weathered than the mound of ancient stone. Denver was a glowing collection of light and movement sixty miles to the east, and Kawosa gazed at it as if tracing every last glimmer back to its source.

A burly figure bounded through the National Forest below, appearing between the pines and leaping over sections of ground that were too densely wooded to cross on foot. If the creature had been inclined to take a more deliberate pace, its black fur would have allowed it to blend in with its surroundings. As intolerant of the terrain as he was with most everything crawling on or beneath it, he shouldered past an old tree with enough force to knock a piece of its trunk away before launching himself into the air.

In a matter of minutes the Full Blood had emerged from the forest and was crawling up the side of the mountain. Taking the narrow trail forced him to shift into the human body he’d all but cast aside over the last few days.

“Where are your Mongrel friends?” Kawosa asked.

“Having a word with the packs in Montana and Wyoming,” Liam said in his thick, vaguely antiquated, cockney accent. “From there they’ll head south into New Mexico and out into the desert. Plenty of lost souls out there.”

“Do you think they will come around to our way of thinking?”

“After what we showed Max and Lyssa? They’d be insane to stay on their own.”

One of Kawosa’s eyebrows shifted upward so slightly that even a Full Blood’s senses might have missed the gesture. “Perhaps I should have a word with them just to be certain.”

Liam crouched so his legs could offer the rest of his body some protection against the wind’s chill. “Like you had a word with Randolph?” When Kawosa glanced over, he added, “He was sticking real close to you until now. I assume you must have done something to escape from his watchful eye.”

“He has business of his own.”

“You’re referring to the two Full Bloods that came over from across the pond?”

Smirking, Kawosa said, “He thinks there is only one new arrival.”

“Sandoval?”

Kawosa nodded and shifted his gaze back to the city.

“That Spaniard always did carry a stronger scent than most. Randolph never met him, but how’d you get him to overlook Minh?” Liam drew his legs in a little tighter and passed his tongue over a dry bottom lip when he said, “She’s not the sort any man would overlook. Even on four legs, she’s a vision. Lyin’ to humans is one thing. Lyin’ to us is another.”

“Perhaps the stench of this paved-over land had washed her from his memory. Or Randolph merely could have grown tired of our company.”

Liam drew a breath and let it out as a huff of steam from his nostrils. “I know the legends about you, Kawosa. Or Ktseena or whatever the hell the humans call you. Older than the deepest dirt and teller of the very first lie. The Trickster Coyote that’s been roaming the New World when there wasn’t nothin’ here but herds of buffalo and teepees.”

“My, my. You are very knowledgeable.”

“Why the hell do you think we busted you out of that dungeon?”

“There are more reasons than you know,” Kawosa said.

As he stood up, Liam shifted into his hulking two-legged form. His feet scraped upon the narrow path but he hung onto the rock as though his paws had been nailed in place. Stooping down so his single eye level was with Kawosa’s face, he snarled, “Randolph’s head has always been full of smoke and foolish notions. He gets sentimental and thinks too much about the past. He’s also restless. I know he wants to leave here, and I ain’t of a mind to stop him. You got a job to do here, though, Coyote. Don’t you forget that.”

Despite the fact that the Full Blood loomed over him while casually stripping away layers of rock with sicklelike claws, Kawosa regarded him with the same amount of concern he might show to a posturing eight-year-old boy. “The Half Breeds are my children. Guiding them, shaping them, giving them a purpose is no chore.”

“And the Mongrels?”

“They are a thorn in both our sides.”

Only another Full Blood could have recognized the glimmer of a smirk that flicked across Liam’s gaping, hellish mouth. “Speaking of thorns,” he said with a simple nod toward a section of the city that was alive with circling helicopters and flashing red and blue lights.

Whether he noticed Liam’s grin or not, Kawosa did nothing to hide his own. “The humans were a simple matter. I told the police their dead comrades were winning the fight against the Nymar and they believed. It has always been so. And no matter what the Skinners know, what they concoct, or what they do, they are humans as well. Playing with them has always been one of the greatest pleasures of my very long life.”

“So, sitting cooped up in Lancroft’s basement. That was a pleasure?”

When Kawosa sneered, it gave Liam a glimpse at a hatred that ran down to the bottom of a black, soulless pit. The Full Blood moved away and adjusted his grip upon the mountain accordingly.

“Lancroft was exceptional,” Kawosa admitted. “He taught me the danger of my own arrogance. Although I would have enjoyed waiting for him to choke on his own confidence and wander close enough to the bars of that cell so I could tear his head from his shoulders, it was even sweeter to see him killed by the very Skinners he cherished so dearly. Now, with everything that has been set into motion, the fruit of Lancroft’s efforts will unleash discord the likes of which I have only dreamed.”

“Ohhhh yes,” Liam sighed. “The times, they are a’changin’.”