Vampire Uprising (21 page)

“Nice, huh?” Rico beamed. “The rig draws the slide back so you don’t have to. When you bring your hand up, it’s good to go. Shaves a few precious seconds off the draw time and gets you ready to do some damage that much faster.”

“Good. We’ll need this when we go to Miami.”

“No. We’re headed back to Philly. Paige can handle herself for now. If she needs us, she’ll call.”

“If she’s able to call. What if she’s lying in a ditch some-
where?”

“Then we don’t have much of a chance of finding her,” Rico replied.

“Damn,” Prophet grunted. “That’s cold.”

Giving the bounty hunter a sideways glance, he asked, “You think you can find her in Miami just by asking around about a little brunette with an attitude problem and food stains on her shirt?”

Cole walked over to one of the shelves covered in supplies and books. Grabbing one eyedropper from a narrow wooden rack, he showed it to Rico and told him, “These are the drops we used before. The ones that allow us to see scents. We tracked Nymar with them and we know we can see Skinners the same way. We’ll use these to find Paige.”

Prophet was definitely intrigued by the drops, but knew better than to ask for a free sample.

“There was a breach at Lancroft’s place,” Rico said. “Two of them. We need to go back and see what the Full Bloods were after.”

“Could have been they were just after Skinners,” Cole pointed out. “That’s why Burkis hit that cabin in Canada. He heard about Gerald and Brad being there and set an ambush.”

“Gerald, Brad, and the Blood Blades were there,” Rico corrected.

“So with all the crap that was in that place, you expect us to just go in and see what’s missing? There were rooms, closets, cases, lockers, and boxes filled with God only knows what, and less than half of it was identified.”

When Rico looked over to Prophet, the bounty hunter said, “He’s got a point. I was in there. That place was piled high with Skinner shit.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t go back and have a look around,” Rico insisted. “There had to be a good reason for the Full Bloods to go in hot like that. I’ve never even heard of two of them working together like this, not to mention running with Mongrels.”

“And,” Cole replied, “there’s no reason for us to think that place isn’t a pile of rubble. They set off the explosives Lancroft
rigged, remember? Didn’t you see what was left of the reformatory? The Dryads could send us right into a pile of rocks. Maybe we’ll materialize into solid—”

“Aw, for Christ’s sake, we’re not talking about beaming in like some goddamn movie.”

“Oh, excuse me. We’re talking about riding a green wave of happy thoughts and music,” Cole snapped. “Big difference.”

When Prophet started laughing, both men turned to look at him. The bounty hunter sat behind the computer, shaking his head and chuckling to himself. Knowing he was the center of attention without having to look up, he said, “You two really don’t know what the hell to do without Paige leading the way, do you?”

Rico and Cole both sputtered for a second as they tried to be the first to speak up in their own defense. Then, after thinking it over and taking stock of the situation, they found they were only sputtering. Finally, Cole took off the coat that was making him sweat like the proverbial working girl in church and asked, “Has there ever been this much going on with you guys? I don’t just mean Philly. I mean KC, what happened at Chicago, Henry, Misonyk, all of it. If so, how the hell didn’t I know about you guys before I met Paige?”

“It’s been a hell of a season,” Rico admitted.

“I’d like to think I’m not the new guy anymore, but I’m in over my head with this.”

Without pausing, Rico said, “We’re always in over our head.”

“You know what your problem is?” Prophet asked. “You’re used to dealing with these things like hunters and wild game. Now there’s more game out there than you can pin down. You two are just runnin’ around like kids in a candy store.”

“Got any more analogies, Walter?” Rico grunted. “Or were you heading somewhere with this?”

Prophet tapped one last key on the clunky keyboard, stood up and announced, “You need to go about this a different way. And here’s where you’re gonna be glad I came along.” He circled around the desk so he could pick up Cole’s new
coat and run the unusual leather between his fingertips. “Shift your mind-set into my world on this one. Come at these guys like fugitives instead of animals.”

“We know they’re not just animals,” Rico said.

“Sure, but you’re tracking them that way.”

Cole fidgeted with the .45 to get it back into its holster as he said, “Let me guess. When you say we should track them like fugitives, you mean we should track the Nymar that your boss wants us to track.”

Doing his best to look offended, Prophet let out a few hacking breaths and glanced over to Rico. He got no support on that front, so he shifted back over to Cole and dropped the act completely. “You remember the last time you talked to my boss? You told Stanley you’d help track down those Nymar that were giving him trouble in Denver.”

“I never said that.”

“Paige did.” Immediately sensing what was coming next, Prophet quickly added, “And if Paige was here, I’d be telling her the same thing. When wild animals start going nuts, you track them down and catch them. That’s what you guys have been doing, and it’s worked so far. When those animals get organized into groups and start making precision hits on places like that Lancroft house as soon as there’s an opening, that means they’re not wild at all. From where I stand, it seems they’ve got their shit together a whole lot more than you do. These guys in Denver have been an organized pain in the ass for a while. What’re the odds they might also know something about what’s been going on with the rest of the vampires in this country?”

Cole and Rico looked at each other but couldn’t put together an argument strong enough to take Prophet out of his stride.

“Denver’s a big city,” Prophet continued. “What if things go to hell there the way they did in Chicago and Philly? Lots of people could get hurt. Me and Stanley already know where these guys are, and we know some folks to call that’ll tell us when they’re in one place. Wouldn’t that help in surprising them when you kick their doors in? Once you do, you can catch one, make him talk, inject him with whatever,
do what you do.”

“What does your boss want with a bunch of bloodsuckers anyway?” Rico asked.

“To you, they’re bloodsuckers,” Prophet replied. “To Liberty Bail Bonds and the Denver PD, they’re tattooed fugitives who don’t like showing up for court dates. They’ve been recruiting from the lowlifes out there, which also happen to be Stanley’s client base. The more of them disappear off the grid, the more money he loses. I’m a shareholder in the business, so I’m losing money too. More than that, they’ve been protecting their interests by attacking our bondsmen. That shit’s gotta stop.”

Reluctantly, Cole admitted, “We do owe this to Velasco for paying our bail when we were locked up.”

“He’s a bail bondsman,” Rico grunted. “That’s what he does for a living.”

“Then we should just pull the money together and pay him back. You got that much on you?”

Looking over to Prophet, Rico said, “Ask Walter over there. He’s the man with the lottery picks.”

“We’ll do it,” Cole said. “First we check up on the Lancroft house to see what’s left there. After that we’ll head on out to Denver. The nymphs will be able to send us out that way, right?”

“I don’t see why not,” Rico said. “But if you think I’m gonna let you take off after Paige on yer own, you got another think comin’. If something did happen to her, the last thing I’ll need is to be forced to track
both
of you down.”

“You’re right,” Cole admitted. “Paige can handle herself, and she also wanted me to read these journals. I’ll do my homework while keeping busy with this other stuff. If we don’t hear from her before too long, we’ll go after her. It’s just a simple quest list.”

“Quest list?” Prophet asked.

Rico rolled his eyes and stomped into the kitchen. “Aw, great. Here we go with this geek shit again.”

“In any game where you get a bunch of things to do, you can’t try to do all of them at once. You need to pick one and keep your eyes open for keys or whatever for the others
along the way.”

“Ohhhh,” Prophet said. “That kind of geek stuff.”

Cole continued as if everyone was right there on the gaming journey with him. The simple fact was that it felt good to touch base with his roots, if only for a minute or two. “When time is of the essence, you pick the quick quests first and work your way down the list. If Lancroft’s temple was destroyed, the Dryads should know about it. They can feel that sort of thing when they try to open a bridge.”

“You’d better hope they can,” Rico warned.

“Tristan mentioned that when we went there last time, remember? If we’re able to go, we should be able to figure out whatever we’re able to figure out before too long. I’ll tell you right now that there’s no chance in hell of me sifting through all of that stuff to take a real inventory. If you’re willing to accept a quick once-over, I’ll do that much.”

“You won’t just fart around for a minute and call it quits?”

“No. I’ll fart around for several minutes before calling it quits.”

Rico accepted that with a shrug and headed to the kitchen.

Outside of Salem, New Jersey

Kawosa crouched with one knee and two hands pressed against a recently disturbed mound of earth. His long wiry hair hung straight down, unmoving in the wind that blew around him. The collection of clothes he wore had been picked up from several different contributors along their relatively short run from Philadelphia. His appetite had been mighty after being imprisoned for so long and he was quick to sate it by the meat wrapped up in those clothes. Even the other werewolves in his company were impressed with how quickly the gangly shapeshifter could strip flesh from unwilling bone.

“So this is truly the resting place of a Full Blood?” he asked.

Liam stood nearby, clad in the same rags he’d worn before finding Randolph in Wyoming. “We both have his scent well enough.”

Looking up at Liam with a wolf’s yellow eyes, Kawosa said, “What I need to find out is how this one was killed.” Without another word, he started digging. It didn’t take long for him to find Henry’s body. When the savaged remains were uncovered, all of the creatures reacted.

“Mongrels,” Kawosa snarled. “Go away.”

Purposely avoiding the sight of Henry’s body, Max separated
from his feline companion and approached Kawosa in his human form. “Whatever you have to say, we can hear it too. We lost one of our own breaking you out of that Skinner dungeon.”

“And you’ll lose the rest of your number if you don’t do as I say.”

Randolph didn’t feel the need to step in, and Liam seemed content to watch what would happen next.

Max lowered his head and moved away from the Full Bloods. Lyssa sniffed the wind that had brushed Kawosa’s back, quickly lowered her head and followed in his footsteps.

When he spoke, Kawosa used a voice that could easily be mistaken for the whisper of wind through flailing branches. “I smell Amriany craftsmanship at work.”

Both Randolph and Liam rushed forward to get a better look. Rather than force their eyes to absorb the sight of what lay in the upturned dirt, they studied the notches in Henry’s bones and the stains upon what little there was of his tattered fur. Liam went so far as to lower himself to all fours and dip his lengthening snout into the grave.

“The Amriany have no presence here,” Randolph said. “They would rather hand this continent over to us than work with the Skinners.”

“The Blood Blades were forged by Amriany hands,” Kawosa said. “And it seems those have found their way to these shores.”

“This wasn’t done with a Blood Blade,” Liam said.

Randolph allowed himself to see the carnage for what it was, the sight clearly sickening him. “I am very familiar with the scent of a Blood Blade. I could have told you already if one had been used to bring Henry down.”

After sniffing the remains intently, Liam perched upon the edge of the hole. “Not a Blood Blade, but there is something else.” He looked at Randolph and added, “It’s something I haven’t smelled since I came to the New World. There was plenty of this in Britain, though. I can’t put my finger on what, exactly, but the scent brings me right back to the days of cobblestones and dark ale.”

At first it seemed as if Randolph was merely drawing a
contemplative breath. But when the air was pulled through his nostrils, he rolled it around in his throat like a pungent vintage of wine. “Perhaps you’re right.”

“More likely,” Kawosa said with half a smirk, “some of their influence has been taken and changed by the Skinners. The colonial hunters always did have a knack for stealing whatever they needed.”

“What are you keeping from me?” Randolph asked.

Once again Liam held his tongue so he could watch events unfold.

Kawosa stood up to his full height, which expanded with every shifting muscle beneath his skin. Even though he didn’t change into another form like those the Full Bloods traded like so many different shirts, each variance had a distinct personality. By the time he settled on one that allowed his dark blue eyes to gaze directly into Randolph’s, he was exuding power like steam that seeped almost imperceptibly through imperfections within an engine. “I was in that cage for years, boy. All that time, Jonah Lancroft tried to figure out what to do with me, how to kill me, what he might harvest from my bones. He trod lightly upon the floorboards above my head, knowing that I could hear every word that fell from his stinking human mouth. As time went on, he grew confident, speaking louder, unknowing or uncaring that I may have heard.

“In that cage, I could smell the chemicals he mixed, the blood he spilled, the weapons he forged. I saw him fill the other cells and then drag out the bodies after cutting them to pieces using devices gleaned through methods unknown to anyone on this side of the Atlantic. That is why the Skinners came running to that house after the pretty little bird with the wounded wing finally disposed of Lancroft. In that cage, I heard Henry scream until his voice became nothing more than an insane whisper in the dark. I know about the Amriany methods because I was there to witness them put to use, which I assume is why you went through the trouble of setting me free.”