Blood Blade

Chapter 22

Cole’s feet smacked against the dirt with a jarring impact. Pain shot up through his ankles, burned all the way past his knees and settled into his hips. Switching on his flashlight, he scraped his foot against the ground and took a look at the ground beneath him. The first few layers of dirt on the floor came away easily to reveal smooth, evenly placed bricks. He then saw that the hole wasn’t actually a pit, but the remains of an old room.

One side of the room was piled high with a mixture of broken bricks, dirt, and rotted beams similar to the rest of the rubble aboveground. There was a distinct odor underground, however, which was only made worse by the mangy, deformed creatures sleeping noisily against one of the only walls that had remained in tact. Paige was in that area, covering most of her flashlight’s beam with the palm of her hand. The light she cast was muted and reddened from being filtered through body.

“I see two of them,” she whispered. “What about you?”

Cole’s first reaction was to look away from the closest Half Breed, as if the creature was some pathetic collection of remains laying on the side of the road after being decimated by a passing truck. It had looked strange from a distance, and was only stranger now that he was close enough to hear every last one of the thing’s rasping, grunting breaths.

Pale skin varied in texture from smooth spots along its back to callused and wrinkled patches along its limbs and side. Its face looked like something sculpted from wet clay by someone who couldn’t decide if they were making a pig, a dog, a person, or a monkey. Half of a snout emerged from between misaligned cheekbones and slanted to one side as if it had started to melt and then cooled. A thick, meaty tongue lolled over its crooked jaw. Some of its teeth were dangerously sharp and others blunted and broken. Greasy hair sprouted in tufts that didn’t even come close to covering its wrinkled privates or sagging teats.

One of the creature’s hands sprouted wrinkled, clawed fingers. The other was definitely some sort of paw. Both of its feet were drawn up close to its torso, where they twitched and wriggled in fits of sleep. As Cole’s eyes wandered along the length of the creature’s body, he couldn’t help but wonder if the jagged bumps in the thing’s flesh were some sort of growth or broken bits of bone poking up from beneath its flesh.

“I’ve got one over here,” he reported. As he spoke, he noticed the chewed-up flaps of skin over the creature’s ear holes twitching a few times before coming to a rest. “Wait a second,” he added as his flashlight wandered toward a dark corner to reveal another figure huddled on the ground. “Make that two.”

“Damn,” Paige hissed.

Cole moved in a slow crouch to keep his head from knocking against the fallen supports that kept the ceiling from collapsing into the pit. He didn’t have to go far before noticing something about the sleeping figure he’d just found. “This one’s human,” he said. Upon spotting the dirty jeans, flannel shirt, and neon yellow vest wrapped around it, he asked, “Didn’t Walter mention something about a survey crew that was supposed to be coming out here?”

Paige’s voice was faint as she whispered from another section of the pit, “Yeah, but they were supposed to stay away for a few more days.”

“Looks like they didn’t follow orders.”

When Paige shined her light on the figure laying in front of Cole, she illuminated the face of a man somewhere in his forties. His hands were clasped to a gaping wound in his chest. Blood had dried into a crusty paste that held his arms in place. His eyes were partly open, but clouded over and unresponsive to the light.

“Oh God,” Cole moaned. “He’s hurt. He’s gotta be dead.”

“Come over here,” she said. “That body’s probably just there for a snack.”

He was all too happy to turn away from the gruesome remains and walk toward her light. Along the way, he nearly tripped over a section of broken wall that protruded almost a foot from the floor. It wasn’t hard to find other sections hanging from the ceiling directly overhead like rocky growths inside a cave. Swinging his flashlight along the ceiling, he said, “Looks like this used to be divided into smaller rooms. Maybe it’s some sort of basement?”

“There’s more this way,” Paige replied from a crooked doorway supported by crossed pieces of lumber that seemed to have fallen there when the rest of the place collapsed. Shining her light through the doorway, she added, “Looks like a whole hallway. A lot of it’s in bad shape, but we should be able to get through.”

“Great. Let’s just get the hell out of this pit.”

“Not until we put those Half Breeds down,” she said.

Cole wanted to keep moving, but Paige was blocking the way. Judging by the intensity of her stare, she wasn’t about to step aside any time soon. Doubting that he could force her to move, he nodded and said, “You’re right. These things have already killed one guy and they’ll only kill more.”

“Just one? You might not want to look in that corner.”

Following her eyes to the corner to his left, Cole found a collection of bones scattered among bits of clothing matching the outfit worn by the dead guy in the opposite corner of the room. “All right,” he sighed. “There’s the rest of the survey team.”

“If Henry is any kind of Full Blood, he could have made any one of these things. As long as all of them are out hunting, there’ll be even more. Let’s clean these things out now before they wake up.”

“Should I use the shotgun or the stick?”

“The stick,” Paige told him. “The wood needs to absorb shapeshifter blood, and the shotgun will only wake the others up.”

“Got it,” Cole snapped before he lost his nerve. “The stick it is.” He reached over his shoulder to take hold of the weapon, which now had the feel of lightweight metal. After getting his shirt snagged by the forked points at the bottom a few times, he finally managed to wield it using both hands. He felt more than a little comforted just having the strange weapon in his grasp. He got an additional boost of confidence when Paige stepped up beside him with her own weapons drawn.

The two closest Half Breeds were laying against the wall facing the doorway. Both creatures sprawled with their limbs at awkward angles and their heads tucked in against their chests. Of course, it would have been difficult to think of a position where the creatures would have looked comfortable.

Paige approached a Half Breed and tightened her grip on one of her clubs. Now that Cole knew what to look for, he had no trouble spotting the trickle of blood as the barbs in her handle dug into her palm. A few seconds later, the blunt end of the club stretched out to form a pointed stake. Holding the stake over the top of the Half Breed’s spine, she whispered, “We’ll take these two out together so one won’t get a chance to wake the other. One quick, strong stab here will put them down quickly and quietly.”

“What about that one?” Cole asked as he nodded toward the other end of the room, where the third Half Breed was laying.

“These two first. After we take out that other one, we can see what else is down here. You ready?”

Cole stood beside her and turned his weapon around so the single spearhead was pointed at the base of the creature’s skull. Just then, the creature twitched and kicked. Looking down at the pathetic thing, Cole realized he’d never killed anything bigger than a spider. The longer he waited, the more inadequate he felt for only having been exposed to his little bit of rushed training.

Picking up on his hesitation, Paige kept her own weapon steady and asked, “What’s the matter, Cole?”

“Why don’t we just shoot them? Wouldn’t that be quicker?”

“You miss the perfect spot and they won’t go down,” she warned him. “You wound them and they’ll be even more of a goddamn nightmare than when they’re hungry. They’ll kill just because they’re pissed, and it won’t be pretty.”

“What about pulling out these supports?” he asked. “We could cause a cave-in that would—”

“That might just bury them until they get really hungry and manage to dig themselves out again. These things are killers, and this is the quickest way to get rid of them.”

Cole tightened his grip on his weapon and raised it again. He looked down at the Half Breed and saw a mangled rat that was bigger than a German shepherd. He saw twisted limbs and broken bones. He even saw what could have been a tattoo on the thing’s left shoulder blade.

“What if I miss? What if I—”

“Dammit, Cole! Kill it!”

Paige’s voice echoed through the pit. It was all she could do to break through the haze settling into Cole’s brain, but it was also enough to wake the animals laying on the floor.

Paige’s Half Breed shook its head and rolled onto its belly so it could get its legs beneath it. The thing managed to stand up halfway before her stake was driven through the back of its head, instantly snuffing out the light that was flickering in its eyes. The Half Breed twitched and then dropped into a heap of bones and muscle.

Beneath Cole’s weapon, the other Half Breed pulled in a quick breath and let out a wet hacking sound that was part bark and part cough. Its eyelids snapped open to reveal milky yellow eyes that found him in less than a second. It opened its mouth, showing him pointed fangs that pushed their way out through shredded gums. Suddenly, Cole realized the creature was scrambling to its feet with its body pointed away from him and its head twisted 180 degrees around to let out a strained snarl.

Acting out of pure reflex, he jabbed his weapon downward, but buried the single spearhead into the meaty portion of the thing’s neck instead of the spot Paige had singled out. Ignoring the sharpened spike gouging into its flesh, the Half Breed snapped at Cole with enough ferocity to clip its own tongue in half. The only thing keeping it from eviscerating him was the spearhead that all but pinned it to the floor.

“Keep it there, Cole,” Paige said. “Nice and steady.”

In the space of a few seconds he could feel the resistance from the creature growing stronger and stronger. Fur was sprouting from its back, and the ridges beneath its skin were smoothing out to disappear under thick layers of muscle. “I won’t be able to hold it much longer,” he warned.

Paige’s weapon shifted into the sharpened sickle, which she swiped across the Half Breed’s throat and opened its jugular. Now, Cole struggled to hold the creature as it thrashed and then finally slumped to the floor. Lowering his arms, he placed one foot on the Half Breed so he could pull his weapon free. Behind him, frantic steps scraped against the dirty floor, followed by the impact of something heavy knocking against his back.

Cole fell over and skidded until he hit the wall. His weapon was knocked from his hand and disappeared from sight. Even before he could figure out how he’d landed, he reached for the shotgun slung across his back. The moment his finger found the trigger, he saw the third Half Breed crawling toward him. The creature was trembling like a drowned cat, fur spewing out to form a thick coat over its skin. Claws snaked from the ends of its paws and its gnarled face took on a distinctly canine shape. When the Half Breed opened its mouth to let out a vicious snarl, Cole pointed his shotgun at it and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in his hands and let out a deafening roar, sending a load of buckshot into the Half Breed’s face.

Blood sprayed onto the wall behind the creature as it staggered back to bump against the filthy bricks. It caught most of the buckshot in the mouth, losing a portion of its lower jaw and several teeth in the process. Its feet were still forming, which made it even harder for the creature to keep its balance when it stepped into a nearby pile of chewed body parts. Cole wanted to take another shot, but the gun in his hands was empty. Instead of being able to pump in another round, he had to open the breech and manually fit in two more shells. Swearing under his breath, he discarded the spent firearm.

“Your weapon’s over there,” Paige said as she shoved past him and faced the disoriented Half Breed. “See if you can get it!”

Cole looked around and spotted his spear under the hole that led back up to the mansion grounds. Scrambling toward it, he saw more movement coming from the end of the room that was filled with debris. A faint voice also came from that direction.

“Someone…please help…” the voice groaned.

Cole hurried to that end of the room, figuring Paige had things well in hand. After crossing beneath the hole that led outside, he saw what he’d previously thought was a corpse in a yellow safety vest. Not only was the man alive, but he was crawling toward him, fingers scraping against the floor and eyes locking onto his with desperation that bordered on the fanatical.

“Please…you gotta…”

“Don’t move,” Cole said. “We’ll help you!”

Suddenly, the snarls behind Cole turned into a muted gurgle. After that, something heavy hit the floor.

“Stay away from him, Cole,” Paige commanded.

But Cole was already reaching out for the wounded man. He would have been able to get to him if Paige hadn’t rushed over and pulled him back. She was saying something in a hurried series of words, but he wasn’t hearing any of it. She struggled to pull him even farther back, but he reflexively wanted to help the man on the floor. And then, when he heard the first wet pops coming from the man’s body, he couldn’t get himself to look away.

The man was on all fours, convulsing uncontrollably. His fingers clawed at the ground and his feet thrashed against the unforgiving surface. When that first crack sounded out, the front part of the man’s body fell forward. After the next pop, his forearm folded in the middle and caused that shoulder to slap against the ground. Still propping himself up with his other arm, the man pushed against the ground and kicked his legs out as more of his bones cracked and sent jagged splinters up through his skin.

Craning his neck until he reached its limit, the flailing man looked at Cole. By the time his eyes locked upon the sliver of darkening sky that could be seen through the hole in the ceiling, his face exploded outward to form a ridged brow and blunt snout. For the first few seconds, the man’s head appeared to have been crushed and reshaped by a set of cruel, invisible hands. The rest of his body continued to spasm as more and more of his bones were snapped into pieces inside of him.

It was a sound Cole would never forget.

The man on the floor struggled to pull himself up. Tears rolled down his face and the pain in his eyes was almost unbearable to witness. Even as he tried to reach out for Cole, his hand was reduced to a rubbery mass of broken bones encased in skin that somehow refused to tear. The convulsing figure struggled to look up, until the life in his eyes faded away and he allowed his head to droop. From then on the twitching and flailing of his limbs made him look more like a puppet being swung at the end of its strings. The human inside the thing gave no more resistance, since his body was too shattered to obey its commands anyhow.

And then, somehow, the man looked up.

Muscles writhed and twitched as the nubs of broken bones were pulled back down into him. His entire shape stretched out and reformed into something more like the other wretches that had been curled up at the bottom of the pit. Cole took one step back before his legs gave out beneath him. Paige shouldered him to one side so she could rush forward with her weapons already swinging for the creature’s neck. The eyes that met Cole’s were no longer those that had been begging for help a few moments ago. They were cloudy, yellow and vacant. The voice that came from the thing’s reformed mouth was an inhuman scream that mercifully ended as both of Paige’s weapons slashed out and across to sever the newly formed Half Breed’s skull from its body.

Cole couldn’t move.

He could barely even breathe.

Offering her hand to him, Paige said, “There was nothing we could do for him, Cole. He was dead as soon as he started to change.”

“But…he asked for help. He…he was looking at me,” Cole stammered. “He was alive.”

She shook her head. “If a werewolf hurts you without killing you, it’s probably infected you. Someone like that can only be helped within the first few hours after they were hurt, and even then it’s hit or miss. The first time they change, it breaks every bone in their body. We know,” she told him with confidence. “We’ve looked for ourselves.”

After what he’d already seen, Cole didn’t want to press her for details.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He looked down at the gruesome remains of the man in the yellow vest. The body wasn’t even close to human. Those dead, yellow eyes still gazed out into nothingness. Cole knew he’d probably be seeing those eyes for a long time to come.

“Do you still want to check out this place or would you rather wait up top?” Paige asked.

Cole nodded once and looked around for his weapon. “Are there more like these things around?”

“Yeah. And every one of them can make more.”

“Then I’m coming with you.” Shaking his head solemnly, he added, “Nobody deserves to suffer like that. It was…”

“I know,” Paige said.

Standing in that spot, Cole moved his eyes back and forth. The last hints of sunlight trickled down through the hole over his head in a dark red haze that faded by the second. Focusing on one of the walls, he asked, “Where’s a flashlight?”

“I’ve got one.”

“Shine it on that wall right there.”

Paige holstered one of her clubs and quickly flicked the switch on her flashlight. Even before the wall was illuminated, Cole moved forward and reached out to brush away some of the dirt and cobwebs encrusted on the cracked vertical surface.

“These markings,” he whispered. “Do you know what they mean?”

Paige stepped forward and lowered her flashlight so the beam wasn’t reflecting directly off the wall. After studying the markings for a few seconds, she said, “I don’t know exactly what they mean, but they’re close to the ones on the Blood Blade.”

“Is it some sort of language?”

“It could be some kind of ceremonial script or possibly an old Gypsy dialect.”

“But you can’t read it?”

Chuckling once, Paige replied, “I can teach you plenty of things, but ancient languages and ritual symbols are out of my league.”

Cole tapped the wall and glanced around. “I’ve seen this room. Not the way it is now, but when all the walls were up and the building wasn’t collapsed. This was the room where Misonyk was kept. This is where he was laying when he had the spear through his chest.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I remember those symbols. He used to look at them when he was laying here. I saw it.” Cole shifted his eyes down and began scraping at the floor with his foot. The dirt had formed a thick shell over the floor. Although he’d hoped to see some sort of trace left behind from the vision he’d taken from Misonyk, all he uncovered was more cracked bricks.

“You’re starting to sound like Prophet,” Paige grumbled. “Why don’t we see what else is in this place and get out? There’s got to be more Half Breeds on their way. They wouldn’t just abandon a den as good as this one.”

“Oh yeah,” Cole said as he looked around at the bloody remains scattered upon the dirty mat of soil, broken rock, and dead leaves. “Prime real estate here.”

Paige held her flashlight in one hand and one of her clubs in the other. Now that he knew what was along the handle of those clubs, Cole had to admire her for wielding it so fearlessly. He found his own weapon and picked it up, careful to slip his fingers between the thorns rather than place his hands on top of them. Since the danger seemed to have passed, there wasn’t a reason to maim himself just yet.

“I think there’s an infection from that stuff you used to coat those thorns,” he grumbled as he followed Paige out of the room. When he checked his palm, he found the wounds irritated but mostly closed. “It’s healing up pretty good, but my skin is burning. I don’t think this is good, Paige.”

Heading for the doorway that led from the room, she said, “Your blood bonds you to the weapon and also to the venom. Everything Nymar reacts to human blood anyway, but you can’t feel it until you get close to an actual spore.”

“So there’s a Nymar nearby?”

She nodded. “Just think of it as an early warning system. It’ll work with shapeshifters too, now that you’ve added some of their blood into the resin.”

“Wow,” he said with genuine admiration. “Did you guys happen to get a Skinner who was also a chemist?”

“No, a couple dozen Skinners worked on the formula for God knows how long before it was perfected. There just happened to be some useful side effects.”

“Were there any bad side effects?”

“Oh yeah,” Paige whispered. “But you probably don’t want to hear about those.”

She walked into a crumbling, dirty hallway beyond the door that led out of the Half Breed den. Taking a few more steps, she swung her flashlight, illuminating the walls and ceiling, which were in somewhat better condition than the room they’d just left. The hall ended a few paces to the right, blocked off about ten paces to the left by tightly packed debris that had settled into a solid barrier.

Having found his flashlight, Cole shined it on the obstruction at the left end. It didn’t take much searching to find the blackened scorch marks that formed a ring all the way around the rubble blocking the rest of the hall. “Looks like there was a fire,” he said while brushing his fingers along the wall. “Maybe this hallway was blasted shut. Whoever did that must have really wanted to be sure nobody else got in here.”

“Or maybe they didn’t want someone getting out,” Paige added. “Take a look over here.”

The wall separating the pit from the hallway was buckled and cracked. Most of the doors had been wedged into their frames by the shifting of the building around them. The room she was pointing at didn’t even have a door. It was directly across from Misonyk’s old cell, and judging by the sounds coming from inside, it was currently occupied.

“Do you hear that?” Paige asked.

Cole nodded. “Should I get the shotgun?”

“No. I’ve still got mine. But,” she added as she took a look into the next room, “I don’t think a gun will do either of us any good.”

Cole’s hand reflexively tightened around his weapon. Some of the thorns scraped against his fingers, but he was more concerned by the way the irritation in his hand suddenly felt as if someone was holding a match against his skin. The wheezing voice coming from the next room, however, was more than enough to distract him from a bit of pain.

While keeping her flashlight pointed into the room, Paige held her weapon so the curved blade was ready to be swung.

As he followed her into the room, Cole noticed the etchings on the outside of the door frame. They were similar to the strange letters he’d seen in the other room, but the symbols inside this one had been scratched and clawed until they’d almost been gouged from the brick. Somehow, the marks still showed up like stubborn water stains in a leaky basement. The room stank of urine and worse. There were no furnishings or anything else in that cramped space apart from a few short bones on the floor next to the door and a large figure rocking anxiously in the opposite corner.

The beam from Paige’s flashlight played along the walls and reflected off the smooth, rounded surface of Henry’s corner. Even though it appeared to have been made from the same brick as the rest of the walls and floor, that corner had been worn down to glassy perfection, which hugged Henry’s body like an old rocking chair. Although that body was more compact than the last time Cole had seen it, Henry’s flesh was still gnarled and twisted into something alien and unnatural. A hole in the ceiling opened up to show the bottom of a pile of rubble that could very well have been the same pile he’d scaled while searching the mansion grounds. Dirt trickled in to patter upon the floor in a dusty drizzle that blended nicely with Henry’s voice.

“I’mGod’sfavoriteHespeakstomeandtogetherwemakeh armony,” Henry mumbled in a single, continuous stream. As he spoke and rocked, his head lolled back and forth with a hypnotic rhythm. His lips twitched and his mouth hung open to reveal a few sharpened teeth that had pushed through his jaw and split apart several of his old teeth in the process. “SitandwaitsitandwaitsitandwaitwaitwaitforGodtocallmyname.”

Paige stepped into the room, keeping her hands where Henry could see them. When she spoke, it was in a soothing voice that almost blended in with Henry’s seamless mumbling. “Where’s Misonyk?” she asked. “Where is he?”

When Henry shook his head, the disconnection from his spine made it difficult for him to stop. “I made a friend,” he said in a slower, clearer voice. “He’s…like me.”

From behind Cole, a coarse howl rolled through the subterranean confines. It was definitely coming from outside, but that didn’t make Cole feel any better. The howl didn’t sound like it came from an animal nor did it sound like it came from a man. It was more like the sound a demon would make while getting its bony wings torn off. After the first hellish roar, it tapered off into something more familiar.

Familiar, but still unnerving.

“Uhhh, Paige?” Cole whispered.

She waved quickly at him and nodded. “Can you hear that howling? Are those more like you, Henry?”

Curled up in his corner, Henry looked as if half of his body mass had simply folded in on itself. His arms were wrapped around his knees and his chest heaved with strained breaths. When he rocked forward to get a closer look at Paige, it was easier to see the deep groove that had been worn into the corner behind Henry as well as beneath him. “They weren’t like me. Not at first. God told me to hurt them, so I did. He said they’d help us, and they will. They did. They like to run with me. They…like me.”

“How many did you hurt?”

“Don’t know. God didn’t teach me to count. God told me about you,” Henry said as he bared his teeth. “He said you wanted to kill me.” Furrowing his brow, he clenched his eyes shut and let out a groan that boiled up from the back of his throat. “You tried to kill me! I remember!”

Paige held her weapon behind her back. “I want to hear about God,” she urged as she took a few steps toward Henry’s corner. “What did God say? Where is he?” When she saw the happy gleam in Henry’s eyes, she added, “Can you take me to him?”

Henry kept trying to see what was happening in the shadows behind her, but Paige pulled his attention back to where she wanted it to be.

“I…didn’t mean to make her,” Henry said.

Paige narrowed her eyes and asked, “What?”

“I was looking for someone. She reminded me of the pretty lady from the saloon.”

“Saloon?”

Henry nodded, but could only manage a slight bob before letting his head swing along its normal course. “The golden-haired one. She…so pretty. Her friend was so pretty. I thought she missed me. They all screamed at me. Just like they did the first time I…” Henry’s eyes shifted and his brow twitched. On anyone else the expression would have seemed vaguely contemplative. On Henry it looked as though a caterpillar was slowly crawling beneath the skin of his forehead. “I don’t…I don’t…I hear His voice now. I hear him!” Suddenly, Henry twitched and he flopped into his corner as if he meant to curl into a ball of filthy, knotted muscle. “God don’t like it when I think too hard. AgoodmanobeyshisLordandhonorsHimwithswiftstepswhenHecalls.” In a voice that had suddenly cleared, Henry said, “I’m hungry. God will provide! Godwillprovide! I’m so hungry.”

When he pulled himself to his feet, Paige shouted, “Henry, no! Stay here! Tell me about God!”

But her words were lost amid whatever else was swirling through Henry’s mind. He shoved past Cole and ran across the hall. Cole looked into the den and was just in time to see Henry squat beneath the hole leading outside and then jump straight up through it.

“Cole?” Paige called out from behind him. “Did he get away?”

“I sure as hell couldn’t do much to stop him!”

“Grab one of those Half Breeds,” she said as she anxiously patted Cole’s chest, “and I’ll help carry it to the car.”

“You want to bring one of those dead things with us?”

“That’s right. You made it this far, so don’t punk out on me now. We need to get moving. Half Breeds only howl for a few minutes before they start hunting, and we need to make sure we don’t lose sight of them.” She made a straight line for the Half Breed directly beneath the entrance in the ceiling. “This one’s perfect,” she said while pointing to the werewolf carcass as if it was the prettiest Christmas tree in the lot. “Hand him up to me and we can get the car started before the rest of those things start running.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Just do it!” she growled with more ferocity than the monsters outside.