Vampire Uprising

Chapter Three

Alcova, Wyoming

The pickup was covered in a yellow paint that had been faded by decades of punishment from a relentless sun. Even after the sky’s glare faded to a soft, burnt orange, the truck still looked like something that had been flipped out of the proverbial frying pan. Its frame rattled around a powerful engine humming with a dull roar as it slowed to a stop on the shoulder of County Road 407. The passenger side window came down, allowing the driver’s voice to be heard as he leaned over and asked, “You need a ride, buddy?”

The man who’d been walking along the shoulder of the road kept his hands in the pockets of a Salvation Army overcoat. A mane of tangled dark brown hair flapped against his face when he turned to fix blue-gray eyes upon the driver. “No, thanks,” he said.

“You sure? It’s a few miles until the next gas station.”

“I’m sure. Thanks, anyway.”

The driver grumbled under his breath and raised the window.

Having heard the man’s snippy comment just fine, Mr. Burkis turned away from the truck and let it move along.

“Funny,” said a voice from the hills amid a rush of bounding footsteps and the skid of heels in rocky sand. “After all the death that has been brought to them from strangers, they can still justify stopping to ask for more from a monster walking along the side of the highway.”

The county road cut through a section of exposed rock that made the area seem like something closer to a desert than a place within range of so many rivers and dams. No running water could be seen from this stretch of road, although both of the men who now faced each other could smell moisture in the air as easily as they could feel the fading sunlight upon their faces.

“Hitchhiking, Randolph?” the vaguely amused voice asked in a guttural cockney accent. “You’ve never been one to indulge in the finer things, but surely you don’t need to travel on human roads.”

The man in the overcoat wasn’t impressed by the display of speed that had brought the other fellow to his side. He merely stuck his hands deeper into his pockets, turned away from the road and started walking at a normal pace into the surrounding wilderness. The new arrival fell into step beside him, wearing a set of rags that wrapped around his waist and hung over his chest thanks to the good graces of a few stubborn strips of leather and canvas. He wore no shoes. The hair sprouting from the top of his head hung in strands like greasy wires. A jagged scar traced the side of his nose, but that was the least of his injuries. His right eye socket was filled with a mass of hardened flesh resembling wax that had been stirred to the point of hardening.

“I stuck to the roads because I knew that’s where I would find you, Liam.”

“Have I become so predictable?”

“Only since you’ve become famous.” Stopping after cresting a small rise, Burkis removed his hands from his pockets so he could cross his arms sternly over a chest that was thicker now than it had been a few moments ago. “Didn’t you get enough camera time in Kansas City?”

Liam smiled wider than any human could. The corners of his mouth stretched back to his ears, and a few of his teeth flowed into fangs as if melting down to points. “I made a damn fine run of it there, didn’t I?”

“You made a mess and you stirred up the Skinners, just like I said you would.”

“Always know best, eh, Randolph? Remember when you were the one listening to what I had to say?”

“That was a long time ago.”

“And in that time, you’ve become the one with all the answers?”

“This is my territory,” Burkis snarled. “You don’t get to come here and sully it by terrorizing humans for no reason. Feeding is one thing, but you’re—”

“Sending a message,” Liam snapped, in a way that sent his last syllables rolling along the tops of the hills. Immediately aware of the impact he’d made upon his environment, the man in rags lowered his chin as well as his voice. “So you found me. What do you want?”

Burkis pulled in half a breath and grimaced. “You reek of Mongrels.”

“Of course. The filthy buggers took me out of Kansas

City.”

“Before the Skinners could finish you off?”

“To be honest, I think they got closer to putting an end to my days than that group who cornered me in Whitechapel. I always knew the Mongrels were opportunistic little shits, but I never banked on them working with the Skinners.”

“That has yet to be determined,” Burkis said. “How did you get them to take your side?”

“A wild stab on my part. Common greed on theirs.” Casually shifting his gaze to the east, he squinted at the darkest horizon as if he could make out what was happening two states away. “I told the lot of them that Full Bloods are created when one of us bites one of them.”

“And they believed you?”

“One of them did. That’s all it took to get me out of there before I was damaged any further. After that, I suppose the one with the ambition had a convincing couple of words with some of his fellows, because getting bitten by me was all they could talk about when I woke up.”

“Please tell me you didn’t.”

“I did. Of course,” Liam added sheepishly, “some of them didn’t make it. Seems those Mongrels aren’t put together as well as they like to think they are. They had me at a disadvantage so I nipped a few more. Only took some fingers and half an arm. Had to get down to the bone, after all.”

“I know that. What happened then?”

“What do you think happened? They changed.”

“Into what?”

“Into something that’s close enough to a Full Blood to fool the likes of them.” Seeing the other man’s glare, Liam explained, “They’re stronger and bigger than what they started as, but they’re also a little slower. I’d say I did us a favor to that end. Takes away some of their speed advantage. Whether or not those Mongrels truly think they’re becoming Full Bloods, they trust me. I may possibly get more on my side. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Letting out a cynical huff from flared nostrils, Burkis asked, “You honestly believe they’d trust you after the history of blood spilled between our kinds? They took you away from the Skinners to use you, and they’ll keep using until they figure out a way to be rid of you.”

When Burkis started walking even farther from the road, Liam dashed around to get in front of him. “I know what I’m doing, Randolph! If you tracked me down to preach about the error of my ways yet again, you can stuff it up your self-righteous arse.”

“What I want is for you to help me find someone that can give us the answers we’ve all been after for longer than these cities have been scattered across this continent. We’ll need his help before one of the several that may have gotten your message pays us a visit.”

Not only did that cause Liam to straighten his posture, but it put a curious tilt into the angle of his head. “Go on.”

“I want to meet the Mongrels you changed. I’ve seen you in those videos that the humans have been passing around.”

“Ah yes. That motorist with the cameras. They all have cameras these days, don’t they?”

“And they spread their pictures like rumors over a campfire,” Burkis said.

“Have the Skinners seen my movies?”

“I’d wager so. But right now that’s not your concern. You were seen traveling with Mongrels, so I’m assuming those are the ones you altered. Any others wouldn’t split from their pack, and they sure as hell wouldn’t defer to you the way those did.”

“Wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Filling up the massive lungs within his chest, Liam expelled his breath and said, “But I could hardly ever slip one past you, Randolph. They’re not far from here. Maybe ten or twenty miles up in the mountains.”

“Take me to them.”

When he backed away from Burkis, Liam hunched over and pulled his shoulders back while lowering his head. A ripple passed through his body that started from his ribs and flowed out in every direction, to stretch his skin and align his bones into a new pattern. His upper body became too heavy to maintain an upright stance, so he dropped down to all fours. Newly formed claws scraped at the dry earth, digging ruts into the ground as his legs became the hindquarters of an animal. His mouth extended into a snout, and the scar on his nose was soon covered by a patch of white fur that stood out from the rest of his coal black coat.

Randolph shrugged off his outermost layers of clothing before gripping the rocky surface beneath him. His body grew thick with layer upon layer of added muscle beneath dark brown fur. His shoulders and chest were accented by deep scars that looked more like scratches dug into the side of a mountain. The final moments of his transformation forced him to arch his back and hang his head as his face was bent into the fearsome visage of a Full Blood. Teeth stretched from his jaws, quickly becoming long enough to tear through his cheeks. When he opened his mouth and lifted his chin, the daggerlike protrusions shredded the sides of his face before his unnatural healing mended the ugly wounds.

Randolph’s howl was a long, steady cry. Liam added a harsher tone to the song that was more scream than melody. Together, they created a sound that scattered wildlife for miles around. The rodents, birds, and other animals in the vicinity may not have encountered a werewolf before, but they knew when to clear a path for a predator that was superior to them in every possible way.

The first thing Randolph did after settling into his new form was to use his hind legs to kick some dirt over his clothes, the way a common dog would attempt to bury its scat. He then turned around, pulled in a lungful of air next to that section of ground and committed the scent to memory. When he turned to face Liam again, the other Full Blood was gone. Following the trail as if it had been painted onto the air in front of him, Randolph leapt toward the highway and landed several yards past it on the other side. He didn’t need the swirling motes of dirt to tell him something big had raced in that direction a short time ago. His nose was giving him enough information to find Liam, the driver of the truck that had offered him a ride a while ago, the previous ten other drivers that had passed through the area, and several dozen animals that would make a good snack along the way. Focusing only on what he needed, Randolph angled his head forward and started to run.

The wind caressed his face lovingly at first, but as he picked up speed, it rushed along his back and roared in his ears, pressing them flat against his wide head. His lips curled back to allow his tongue to loll out just enough to moisten his lips. When his paws touched the ground, Randolph gripped it tightly and sprang forward. Each leap sent him into the air long enough to stretch out his entire ten-foot frame from the tips of one set of claws all the way down to the opposite ones. He pulled his legs in, touched down and grabbed on tighter, as if the world itself was a beast he intended on mounting and taming.

Liam was in sight. The black Full Blood stayed low to better navigate the increasingly rocky terrain, while shooting a challenging glance over his shoulder. Curling his upper lip into a responding snarl, Randolph churned his legs in a powerful rhythm that covered miles upon miles with the ease of a loping stride. The sky stretched above them, presenting itself as the only thing able to cover more ground than the creatures below.

Mountains rose ahead of them. The werewolves’ paws scratched at the ground as they pressed forward and climbed upward without breaking their powerful strides. Even if their weight caused the rocks to give way beneath them, the creatures simply jumped over the shifting boulders with the ease of a dog hopping over a puddle. By the time they reached an oval basin surrounded by craggy peaks amid the Seminoe Mountains, civilization was a distant memory.

Randolph couldn’t see the Mongrels, but he could smell them well enough to set his sights upon a pile of rocks at the other end of the basin. After skidding to a stop, he paced in front of those rocks and issued a warning growl to let the others know he wouldn’t hold himself back for long.

Three Mongrels poked their heads out from behind or beneath the rocks. At least one of them had maintained his affinity for digging.

Having perched upon the edge of the basin, Liam slid down into the rough clearing awkwardly at first, while shifting his body into an upright form. By the time his feet touched the basin’s floor, they were large enough to support his towering, nightmarish frame. He stood on thick hind legs and hunched forward so his shaggy fists nearly scraped the ground. “This ‘ere’s Randolph,” he said in a thick cockney accent that was stronger when emerging through all those teeth. “An old friend of mine from way back.”

Two Mongrels emerged from behind the fallen rocks, walking unsteadily upon thickly muscled legs. The first had the build of a wolf but the extended limbs of a burrower. This one’s digging days were over, however, since its normally wide feet and long fingers had shrunken down into paws. Judging by its awkward, shuffling steps, the Mongrel was still getting used to being aboveground. The second creature looked like a bobcat that had become a twisted version of its prehistoric ancestors. Thick fangs curled down from its upper jaw. Her light brown coat was uneven and grew in clumps, as if there simply wasn’t enough fur to go around. “Another Full Blood?” she asked through oversized teeth.

“Whhhhyyyy?” asked a third Mongrel as it slithered up from the ground beneath a pile of rocks. Only the front section of its body could be seen, but it looked somewhat similar to the other digger. Unlike the other, however, this one was more than equipped for tunneling. His coat was slick with a waxy grease that allowed it to wriggle easily within whatever opening it found or made. Even as he steadied himself upon the lip of the hole, his claws loosened chips from the stone as easily as a careless hand obliterated a cobweb. What struck Randolph the most was its eyes: yellow pupils of a wolf surrounded by pools of black.

Crouching down to rest his elbows upon his knees, Liam studied all three Mongrels. “Like I said. He’s a friend of mine.”

While Liam’s form allowed him to speak clearly, Randolph was content to communicate with low, rumbling growls issued from the back of his throat.

The burrower-wolf crossbreed scampered around the back side of the rocks. It seemed ready to approach Liam, but was hesitant to glance in Randolph’s direction.

When Randolph stepped back, his body flowed into an upright form and settled somewhere in the middle ground inhabited by creatures whose appearance was just human enough to bring its prey in a little closer. “You are the ones who delivered Liam from the Skinners?” he asked.

The burrower with the greasy fur pulled himself from the hole he’d dug and trembled as his body attempted to mimic the Full Blood’s transformation. With a great amount of effort, his limbs became shorter and thicker. His teeth were sucked up into his gums, leaving thick rounded points, and his fur retreated under his flesh to leave a coarse layer of stubble. With a bit of clothing and the right lighting, he might have passed for a man with a skin condition and an aversion to showering. “I’m the one who took him from Kansas City. My name’s Max. The Skinners were gonna finish him off when Liam told us about how Full Bloods are made. The deal was for him to change us in return for his life.”

“But we ain’t Full Bloods,” the bobcat said.

“Who are you?” Randolph asked.

Deferring to him out of instinct, the Mongrel removed the edgy tone from her voice and said, “Lyssa,” in a way that made it sound close to listen.

“Liam passed the gift to you,” Randolph said. “I’ve heard others of your kind weren’t strong enough to endure as much.”

Lyssa glanced down at one forepaw that looked as if it had been nearly halved by an axe. “We’re different, but not like you. We think Liam was lying just to save his own skin.”

“Lying?” Liam asked as he reared up and showed the full glory of his one multifaceted eye. Subsiding like a tide after laying waste to a beachside community, he growled, “Maybe a little.”

“Kayla warned us of that,” Max explained, curling his lips and tongue around every word, as if still getting used to his new mouth. “But I knew there was a chance of something happening. At the very least, his meat would have been shared by our entire pack instead of handed over to those Skinner ghouls.”

“Shared,” Liam beamed, “and most definitely enjoyed. Just ask some of my old lady friends from London.”

After silencing Liam with a growl, Randolph shifted his focus to the burrower wolf. “Your name?”

As the Mongrel bared his teeth, its eyes showed equal parts fear and longing.

“He don’t speak,” Liam explained. “Either that or the poor fella’s shy.”

“What about the rest of your pack?” Randolph asked. “Have they been changed?”

Even on a face as twisted as Max’s, the contempt was clear to see. His eyes narrowed into yellow lines as he replied, “Kayla wouldn’t allow it. She and Ben are content to grow fat in Kansas City, scrounging for whatever human scraps they can find. When she saw what we became, she wanted to be rid of Liam forever.”

“Some of us volunteered for the change anyway,” Lyssa said. “It’s not perfect, but it’s more than we were before.”

“You think so?” Randolph growled. Even after he stood up straight, his body continued to rise. His ankles stretched into reversed knees as his legs stretched to new lengths. Claws snaked out of his toes and fingers. When his snout emerged from his face amid a series of loud, wet cracks, the true Full Blood stood before them.

Liam looked on with an eye that darted back and forth between the Mongrels. “Oh, see I was afraid of this. Randolph don’t exactly like to share his territory with anyone.”

“You brought us here to be slaughtered?” Max asked. Re-flexively changing into his squat burrower form, he sprouted claws that curved around like scythes to dig trenches into the rock. Whiskers sprouted from a nose that extended from his face to make way for the uniformly rounded teeth in his mouth. “You said we’d look for others like you,” he snarled.

“And it looks like we found one. Sorry, Max. Nothin’ I could do, you see.”

There was no more talking after that. When Randolph sprang forward, he reached out with both hands. A bellowing breath came from his mouth, and if not for the deadly arsenal of fangs and claws, he might have been just another rush of wind.

Lyssa and the digger-wolf hybrid scattered in opposite directions. Their speed was impressive, in that it was enough to get them out of the way before Randolph tore them into bloody ribbons. Max, on the other hand, dove straight into the hole from which he’d appeared.

As soon as Randolph hit the pile of rocks, he slashed at the hybrid with his claws. One bony talon snagged in the Mongrel’s flesh, but the creature was so panicked that it tore itself loose without seeming to realize the damage that had been done. Since that one was temporarily out of reach, Randolph moved his hungry gaze to the female. Lyssa bared her fangs, which were even longer now than when she’d been speaking to him a minute ago. Although she’d shifted into a more bestial form, her body retained the lithe silhouette that defined her species. As blood pumped through her veins, muscles grew beneath her flesh until she was large enough to pose a challenge.

Randolph sized her up in a fraction of a second and twisted his upper body around to snap at her. Impossibly fast, and strong enough to turn one unlucky rock into powder with a wild swipe, the Full Blood would have sunk his fangs deep into her neck if not for the hole that opened up directly beneath his left forepaw.

Thick, rounded paws reached from the hole, sank curved nails into Randolph’s leg and began shredding. Instead of simply flaying skin from flesh, Max used the werewolf’s limb to pull himself up from the ground. As soon as he snagged a tendon, he hooked a claw around the sinewy fiber and pulled until the ropy strand snapped. A bellowing roar flowed from the depths of Randolph’s massive frame and filled the sky above him. Perhaps spurred by the sound of his fellow Full Blood, Liam pounced at Max. If his claws had found their mark, they would have easily torn the Mongrel into uneven chunks. Instead, they scraped along rock and even grazed Randolph himself when Max ducked back down into his hole.

When he’d dug his first tunnel through the mountain, Max was able to take his time and slither through the narrow passages he’d made. Now, the Mongrel scraped frantically beneath the surface, knocking flat sections of the basin’s floor askew as he carved his escape route.

Randolph left a trail of blood in the air as he sprang forward to get ahead of the burrowing creature. Skidding upon his wounded leg, he brought a fist down like a hammer to crush through the rocky crust. Before he could pull Max from the ground, the wolflike Mongrel circled around from another angle to dig into the Full Blood with every tooth and claw at his disposal. Reaching over his shoulder, Randolph grabbed the hybrid by the scruff of its neck and pulled him free the same way he might rip out an arrow lodged between his shoulder blades. The hybrid tore open a large flap of skin from Randolph’s back, but the Full Blood still maintained his grip and slammed him to the basin floor.

As this one went, Liam had to contend with Lyssa. He’d been blindsided by the feline Mongrel as she ran along the edge of the rock wall like a race car cruising on the steepest slope of a track. She pushed away from the wall and flew at him with the intention of sinking her claws into his side, but was stopped in midair when Liam snapped his head around to clamp his jaws around her neck.

The muscles beneath Lyssa’s skin were more solid than any other Mongrel he’d faced. They shifted around his teeth to add another layer of padding before anything vital was pierced. Liam savored the moment while curling his lips back and pressing his jaws in tighter around her. His fangs sank in another quarter of an inch before Lyssa began scraping madly at his eyes and throat.

Unlike the Skinners who needed charmed weapons and trickery to hurt a Full Blood, Mongrels had a natural weapon at their disposal. Even Nymar fangs could wound a werewolf, but the leeches simply didn’t have the raw power needed to get the job done. Normally, a single Mongrel didn’t possess that kind of strength either. Lyssa, on the other hand, was proving that her uniqueness ran deeper than Liam had previously expected.

He pondered this while she shredded half of his face and further ravaged the callused pit where his right eye had been. Considering how bad that wound had itched since he regained consciousness, the Mongrel’s claws weren’t entirely unwelcome. Once the scratching dug a little too deep, he ended it by clenching his jaws shut tight enough for the Mongrel to shift her priorities from attack to defense. He swatted away one of her paws as if disciplining a child and then absorbed a few painful gouges along his forearm before grabbing the front portion of her chest. From there, he tore her off and pinned her to the ground. “There you go, sweetness,” he growled. “Just lay down and let me take care of you.”

“You said you’d lead us somewhere safe,” Lyssa growled. “Somewhere away from the packs and Skinners.”

“I don’t see neither of them around here, luv.”

“You changed us. Made us better. There’s no reason for this.”

Leaning in so he could be heard over the commotion of the other Full Blood’s struggle with Max and the hybrid, Liam said, “Randolph ain’t the sort who plays well with others. Never was.”

Since she was no match for the werewolf in a one-on-one fight, and her pleading was falling upon deaf ears, Lyssa only had one remaining option. She clenched her eyes shut, relaxed in Liam’s grip, and bared her neck to him.

Recognizing the gesture that would bring an end to a great number of disputes between wolves, Liam seethed with an anger that showed even within the ravaged pit of his right eye socket. “What are you doing?” he snarled as he tightened his grip on her. “You wanted to be one of us? A Full Blood defers to no one. Not ever! You make me sick, you pathetic little bitch. Killing you is too damn easy.”

“Liam.”

If the ebon werewolf heard his name, he didn’t acknowledge it. He was taking too much pleasure in slowly grinding his claws within Lyssa’s flesh. “You know how long I made humans suffer when I led the charge against their city? I had to keep them alive so they’d survive long enough to turn into a Half Breed. But you, luv,” he said in a voice that was less intense but twice as chilling. “You can take so much more punishment than one of them.”

“You’ll be taking some punishment yourself if you don’t back up.”

Blinking as if he’d been awoken from a dream, Liam turned toward the source of the voice. Randolph stood behind him in his human form. His fur had receded all the way under his skin, leaving him naked but still less vulnerable than any of the other Mongrels in the vicinity. Liam sought them out next. He spotted the hybrid curled against the far side of the basin licking one of several wounds. Max emerged from another hole and stretched his neck out toward Liam’s belly. All of the Mongrel’s teeth were bared and poised to eviscerate the Full Blood. Even if Max couldn’t get the job done, he was bound to make a hell of a mess.

“You really think you can put me down before I get to you?” Liam growled.

“That doesn’t matter,” Randolph said. “I wanted to find out what these Mongrels were made of, and they’ve shown me plenty.”

“We’re not Mongrels anymore,” Lyssa said. “Kayla was very specific about that.”

“Well you’re sure as hell not Full Bloods,” Liam pointed out. “And if this little bugger doesn’t crawl back into his hole pretty damn quickly, he won’t even be a resident of this plane of existence.”

Reluctantly, Max eased back into his tunnel. As he retraced the path he’d dug beneath the surface, dislodged earthen plates rattled over his squirming back. The motion stopped and one of the plates was shoved aside so he could poke his head up several paces away from either of the werewolves. “He’s right,” Max said to the other Mongrels. “We shouldn’t follow someone like Kayla if she’s not willing to accept us. But we won’t follow the likes of you, Liam. Not anymore.”

“I’ve never seen anything like you,” Randolph admitted. “Our two kinds have fought many times, but there have never been survivors to go through this sort of change.”

“That’s not true,” Max said. “The survivors of those battles were always killed after the fight was over. Put down for their own good, we were told.”

“It’s in our history,” Lyssa told him. “Most of it’s known only to the pack leaders, but it’s there. I saw it for myself in Kansas City. Some of the Mongrels that were wounded while fighting you were killed by Kayla herself. I was tending to my husband after he was wounded by Liam when she came and told me to rest. She thought I was gone, but I watched from a distance and saw her slash his throat. After it was done, she told me he’d died and that we should burn his body immediately.”

Randolph’s brow lifted slightly above his crystalline eyes. “So she knows about the change?”

“She knows the rumor,” Max said. “I spoke to her when the humans in KC were still cleaning up the mess Liam made. She knew something would happen, but not what. I think she was hoping to find some missing element that would make a difference between us changing into whatever she feared and changing into a Full Blood.” Looking to Randolph, he asked, “Is there?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. Most of the times I’ve encountered Mongrels, I’ve been forced to fight back a swarm of them intent on killing me.” Holding up a thick hand before the inevitable argument came, he added, “Whatever the reason for our past conflict, it’s behind us for now.” The wounds on that hand were closing like clay being reshaped by an unseen sculptor. His leg was in much worse condition, but not as bad as it had been a short while ago. “Things are different. Do you know of a Skinner named Jonah Lancroft?”

“The Mind Singer spoke of him,” Lyssa said. “For a while I thought I’d only dreamt that name. Is he real?”

“He was, but I lost track of him over sixty years ago. Lancroft was a creator. He made things to help the Skinner cause, and it’s possible he came up with a way to hide his scent from us. There are groups of Skinners meeting in Philadelphia right now. Loose talk among them mentions Lancroft’s name and that he was the one behind the Mud Flu. It’s also said that he was killed by his own kind.”

“Does Lancroft have a way to complete our conversion into Full Bloods?” Lyssa asked.

Always quick to pounce on an opportunity, Liam jumped in with, “If anyone would have such a thing, it would have been him.”

“Their intent is to kill us, not help us become more powerful. The reason I asked about Lancroft is that he was rumored to have created a way to inhibit our ability to heal. The Skinners must rely on antiquated methods of harming us, but we’ve still been able to heal after surviving a fight with them.”

“Well,” Liam said as he turned the right side of his face toward the others, “more or less.”

“Liam’s eye may well heal if given enough time,” Randolph said. “Anyone who has seen the Mind Singer knows that some of his wounds never did.”

“Got his neck snapped somewhere along the line,” Liam said. “Something like that should have either killed poor Henry before he became one of us or cleared up after his first change.”

“He was a Full Blood, wasn’t he?” Max asked. “Wasn’t that enough to sustain him?”

Randolph sighed and turned his back on the others as if he’d either become fascinated by the rugged landscape or bored with the company he was forced to keep. “I’ve had my neck broken a few times. It’s not pleasant but it’s also not fatal for us.”

“I been hung,” Liam said with the same tone he might use if comparing his story to the ones told by a bunch of drunken fishermen. “Rope burns are just as bad as the bone gettin’ snapped.”

Continuing as though Liam hadn’t opened his mouth, Randolph said, “Henry’s neck was broken while he was held in Lancroft Reformatory. I’ve been through the ruins of that place and found nothing but a single intriguing scent. Years later I’d assumed whatever advances Lancroft had made were either lost after the place became a Half Breed den or taken when it was cleaned out by the Skinners. This new discovery in Philadelphia has unearthed more than Lancroft’s research. Much more. The place is swarming with Skinners. They’re anxious and expecting to be attacked. Fortunately, all five of us have advantages that go beyond brute strength or speed.”

“Perhaps we could talk to them,” Max said. “Some of them are more open to reason than others. After working with them in KC, they may still trust us.”

“Talk will come later.” Shifting his eyes to the other Full Blood, Randolph said, “They think Liam’s dead. Or, they would have if he hadn’t been intent on sending childish taunts to them.”

Liam curled his lip into something between a snarl and a disgusted sneer.

“And I’ve had words with them myself,” Randolph continued.

“Right,” Liam grunted. “We both know how well that turned out.”

Randolph’s face twitched. More specifically, the muscles that ran beneath the jagged scar tissue on his cheek flinched as if he could still feel the Blood Blade sliver that had put it there. “You Mongrels have proven to be an asset. You fight well and can prove valuable in the times that are to come. We cannot allow Lancroft’s creations to be freely distributed. When this current turmoil among them settles, we can cripple their efforts before they even know they’re in danger.”

“They’re always in danger,” Liam said. “Even the dumbest animals would know that by now.”

Focusing on a point to the east, Randolph said, “Yes, but some dangers cut deeper than others.”