His hands closed around the spear with the sole intent of preventing the weapon from being taken from him. As his grip became tighter, the thorns were driven in deep enough to hit nerves that hadn’t been deadened by previous contact or protected by scar tissue. They dug all the way through, growing longer due to the desperate commands rushing through his mind, until they formed little bumps on the tops of his hands. Letting out a primal scream, he straightened his legs and used both hands to scoop the Nymar up off the floor. She still grabbed the spear, if only to keep from sliding all the way down the length of the weapon like a hunk of meat that was too heavy for its kebob.
“Where’d you get one of our weapons?” Cole roared.
The Nymar’s legs flopped uselessly and her mouth hung open as she struggled painfully against the laws of gravity. “Hope … brought it … from Miami.”
“Are any more cops going to die?”
“Most of the ones that tried to get close to us … are already …” All of her grievous wounds caught up to her and the color drained from her face.
Rico’s voice echoed through the room, tainted by rage, pain, or both. A small group of Nymar rushed around the stack of pallets, only to be stopped cold by the sight of Cole holding the impaled Nymar several inches off the floor.
“… already dead,” the Nymar croaked. “Killed by Skinners … all over the country.” The fight was quickly draining out of her, and the effort of holding onto the spear dimmed the spark of life in her eyes even more. The only thing she had left was a tired, resigned smile.
Since the Nymar seemed content to fade at her own pace, Cole shook his spear to rattle the body attached to it.
Her eyes snapped open and she looked around as if she were taking in the sights for the first time. Fresh waves of gunfire erupted in the vicinity, but since he wasn’t getting pelted with live rounds, he figured Rico and the Amriany were dealing with it. “Tell me the rest, God damn you!” he demanded.
“Every cop in this building will be executed,” the Nymar announced. Baring her fangs in a spiteful glare, she added, “You being here will be enough to brand every one of you as cop killers. You’re fucked! Every Skinner everywhere is fucked!”
Cole could no longer contain his anger. He didn’t even want to. He twisted his entire body around to fling the Nymar at the pallets without a single thought about the strength required to toss her that far. Ignoring the fiery pain that incinerated his insides, he tapped his earpiece while racing to the door that led to the hallway.
“Something’s happening to those cops that busted in here,” Cole said.
Rico’s voice was the first to come back to him. “Whatever it is, I hope it lasts long enough for us to get the hell outta here!”
“I’m with him,” Prophet chimed in. “By the way, I got all I’m gonna get from this computer.”
“Prophet, just go. Rico, we need to get to those cops. They’re going to be torn apart.”
“They probably got bigger guns than us and—” Something snarled into his earpiece but was just as quickly silenced by a muffled gunshot. “And we got our hands full in here as it is.”
“Fine,” Cole snapped as he bolted into the hallway with a few stray rounds thumping against the back of his coat. “I’ll handle this on my own. Come find me when you can.”
Following the sound of shouting, gunshots, and squawking radios, Cole jogged down the hallway to retrace the steps that had brought him to the loading dock. The doors behind him were thrown open and someone charged through them. Driving his shoulder into the same soda machine Rico had used for cover a while ago, he allowed his body to slide along it while turning around to point his spear at his pursuer.
Nadya hobbled down the hall carrying Drina’s FAMAS with the stock pressed against her shoulder and the muzzle pointed downward. “Where are you going?”
“Those cops are going to be killed.”
“I know. I heard what that Nymar said as you lifted her. How did you do that?”
Cole had already turned back around and was heading toward the branch of the hall that led to the front of the building. “I don’t know. Adrenaline, I guess.”
“Where are you going?”
“I didn’t sign up for this Skinner crap just to let innocent people get killed while I run away.”
“Then I want to help you.”
“But you’re injured.”
Shifting the submachine gun against her shoulder, she nodded at him and said, “So are you.”
When Cole looked down, he saw no fewer than five deep gouges across his chest and a few holes in his jeans that were ringed with blood. Although he could recall being scratched a few times, he didn’t know where the holes in his jeans had come from. The healing serum in his system must have been doing its job because the wounds weren’t anywhere close to slowing him down. Most of the commotion he heard was confined to the rooms closest to the building’s front entrance, so that’s where he went. Since he didn’t feel like arguing with Nadya, he tucked the spear under his arm and reloaded the .45 before jamming it back into its holster.
“What will we do when we get there?” she asked.
“Will your partners back us up?”
“There were many Nymar back there, including Shadow Spore and a Kintalaphi. My partners will be lucky to get out alive.”
“Then maybe you should go help them.”
“We came to do a job and we’ll do it,” she said. “They do not need me getting underfoot and you should not go on alone.”
“All right, then,” Cole sighed as he placed his hand on the long metal bar of the door separating the hallway from the front of the building. “Sounds like those cops are fighting for their lives, so let’s help them out. Hopefully that’ll be enough to convince them which side we’re on.”
“And what about the police that have already been killed? Aren’t you and your friend wanted for that?”
“We’ll wait for a lull in the fight and slip away.”
“What is your plan for slipping away?”
“Ask me when the shooting stops,” Cole said as he shoved the door open. “Hopefully I’ll come up with something by then.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The door opened into a room that stretched out for about ten feet on either side. Less than six feet in front of him was the back of a counter and a window that looked out to a larger room that had the appearance of a lobby or display area. At the moment every square inch of that tiled floor was covered by cops, overturned furniture, broken glass, Nymar, or spilled blood. It was impressive, considering the room on the other side of the window was large enough to hold several cars and a few desks with plenty of space for customers to wander freely and peruse whatever the front company was supposed to sell. The front windows were blacked out, but powerful searchlight beams still managed to get in through narrow gaps in the paint around the edges of the glass.
Cole picked out half a dozen Nymar, based solely on markings he could see on exposed skin or wounds that were too serious to be on a human being without putting them permanently out of a fight. What disturbed him the most was all the officers clustered at the front door. The armed figures in bulky gear were backlit by headlights and watching what happened inside. They all seemed to be held back by a solitary man standing at the doorway wearing raggedy clothes over a wiry frame.
“There you are,” Cole snarled as he set his sights on Kawosa’s back. Jabbing a finger at him, he told Nadya, “Stay here and cover that skinny bastard. If he makes any sudden moves or starts to change into something, shoot him.”
“My bullets won’t do much to a shapeshifter.”
“Then aim for the head. Maybe you’ll knock him out long enough for me to get to him.”
She wasn’t happy about it, but took a position in the doorway and sighted along the top of the FAMAS.
The Nymar in that room were increasingly easy to spot, wearing their affliction on their sleeves by baring their fangs and hissing like animals. Clawe
d hands were wrapped around pistols taken from the dead, and when the cops put a bullet into them, they straightened up to allow the mashed hunk of lead to be ejected from their bodies by greasy black tendrils.
Cole gripped his spear, hopped over the counter and into the battle. When he was targeted by the closest vampires, he tucked his chin against his chest and twisted his body around so the shots fired at him thumped against his coat. The impacts hurt like hell, but mundane rounds couldn’t even scratch the hardened Full Blood leather. A second later something larger than a bullet slammed into his right side.
Hope tackled Cole as if she’d been launched by a catapult. Her shoulder pounded against his ribs and her arms wrapped around him like a pair of steel bands. If he hadn’t been fast enough to get his spear around to buy himself an inch or two of breathing room, the life would have been squeezed out of him in a matter of seconds.
“There’s more Skinners here,” Hope shouted. “Find them!”
A few Nymar separated from the group. One of them clung to the ceiling, so it got to Nadya first. Although Cole couldn’t check on the Amriany, he heard the FAMAS chattering and saw the muzzle flash from the corner of his eye.
Once again, strength rushed through his body. It was enough to pry Hope off, but left him too unsteady to stay upright. He dropped to one knee, using the spear as a crutch to prevent him from keeling over.
“Don’t worry about the police,” Hope sneered while popping lightly to her feet. “The ones that aren’t under our control are dead on their feet.”
Cole turned to take a better look at the cops. Sure enough, many of them had a slick coating of venom on their faces. If any of that crap had gotten into their eyes, they were susceptible to suggestion as well as disoriented and groggy. Cole reached up to feel his own face, hoping to explain some of the strangeness going on inside of him. The only thing he found was some blood and a whole lot of sweat.
Approaching him while craning her neck to look at the rest of the room, Hope took in the carnage as if she was enjoying a movie. “I’m torn on what to do with you,” she said. “Our coordinated efforts have come together nicely to either put your kind into the ground or in the sights of your own authorities. It’s tempting to let them have you. Still, I do enjoy the taste of Skinner blood. You all have such a nice blend running through your veins.”
She crouched down slowly as chaos closed in around her.
Nadya emptied her last few rounds into whatever was attacking her.
Cops who’d expended their ammunition swung blindly at anything that moved, while others fired at their partners because of the temporary mind control forced on them by the venom. Nymar exploded from the shadows, dropped from the ceiling, or struggled with the few officers who’d managed to keep their wits about them. The only calm within the storm were Cole and Kawosa. The shapeshifter stood in the doorway, quietly talking to the anxious officers waiting to barge in while occasionally motioning to the room behind him as if the bedlam was just another busy day at the office.
Cole remained still because he was too weak to waste what energy he had left. He’d had enough training and been through enough hell to recognize the anticipation in Hope’s eyes as a ruse meant to lull him into committing to a wild attack. When she switched direction like a cobra swaying back and forth, the hunger in her eyes spiked. He knew what came after that.
The markings on her face pulsed in a way he’d never seen on a Nymar. They covered the sides of her head like a pair of hands gripping her between them. Her attack came so quickly that Hope didn’t even seem to move. She simply flickered from one spot to another, confirming that the two spore attached to her heart could truly work in lethal concert. Somehow, Cole was able to move fast enough to intercept her.
His muscles felt as if they were being shredded from his bones, but they pulled his body down and brought his arms up in short, powerful motions that allowed him to jab the spear into her chest. He knew he’d missed her heart, but when she landed, the metallic spearhead was completely buried inside her torso.
Hope gripped the spear and snarled at him. Unlike the previous Nymar to be caught that way, she had the power to wrench it out and shove him back. “You can’t kill me with your weapons,” she said. “No Skinner can.”
Her mouth continued to move, but Cole wasn’t listening to what she said. His strength was fading so quickly that he barely had enough juice in his batteries to process the sights flooding into his eyes or the sounds filling his ears. Something pounded against the floor just enough for him to feel the impacts. A fast, chopping rhythm washed through the building, which soon distinguished itself as the roar of helicopter blades. Paige had arrived, but every fiber in Cole’s body told him that he couldn’t hold out until she got to him.
He needed to fend for himself.
He needed to feed.
As Hope began to recover from being impaled, Cole swung his spear at her throat. She leaned away from that with ease but underestimated how quickly he could follow it up. The forked end of the spear twirled around almost as fast as the blades of the helicopter outside the building, and she ducked under it before her head was taken from her shoulders. A deep gash was torn across her jugular, and before she could place her hand to the wound, Cole was on her.
What his leap lacked in finesse, it made up for with sheer power. Every joint in his legs felt as if it had snapped loose. His groin muscles strained to the point of tearing. As soon as he got his hand on Hope’s neck, however, all of that discomfort went away. He rode her down until her back hit the floor, slipping his hand up under Hope’s chin and driving the back of her skull against cement and tile. The thumping impact resounded through his ears as he clamped his mouth upon the open wound on her neck.
He didn’t know what he was doing.
The rational part of his brain had been shoved too far back into his subconscious to be heard.
His teeth scraped uselessly against the torn flaps of Hope’s skin, so he jammed his face in closer and probed the wound with his tongue. A tremble moved through her body as he licked and sucked, adding another layer of disgust to the many that were already heaped on top of him. Hope’s blood trickled into his mouth at first. Once his tongue found a stronger flow coming from one of her severed arteries and directed the fluid into his mouth, the pain in his muscles lessened. All of the tearing he’d felt before simply faded as if the twine cinched around his innards had been loosened or cut.
Then the tastes hit him.
The coppery sweetness of blood mingled with something bitter and pungent. Each gulp was sweet and then sour. Something in him pushed through the latter just to get more of the former.
“What are you doing?” Hope groaned. “Are you feeding from me?” She tried to squirm away, but Cole’s entire body reacted to hold her in place. Despite his best efforts, she was able to draw enough strength from both of her Nymar spore for her to gain some purchase on the floor. “This is even more interesting than I’d anticipated.”
Nadya may have had a chance to reload the FAMAS, but that wouldn’t explain the multiple bursts of gunfire erupting from different angles. Other voices came from the hallway, speaking in some sort of European dialect Cole couldn’t place. Someone yelled for the damn Gypsies to speak English. He didn’t need more than one guess to figure out who that was. At the same time, voices chattered through his earpiece, trying to get his attention, asking where he was and what he was doing.
Even though she seemed capable of getting away, Hope remained within Cole’s grasp. “So you were unable to prevent the seeding, even after somehow ridding yourself of the spore,” she said in a breathy voice that was the only one Cole cared to hear. “This alone was worth the trouble of making sure I saw you and your partners again. This changes everything.”
Her body swelled against him as she writhed on the floor. Her chin brushed against Cole’s face as he dug his mouth in deeper. Finally, when his throat was all but filled with the oily Nymar blood, he tore himself away and stru
ggled to stand up. Hope lay beneath him, looking up at him longingly while her fingers trailed along the dripping wound. “Now you have another reason why you can’t kill us,” she said. “Soon, every Skinner will have that same reason.”
“Cole!” Rico shouted from the back of the room. “Are you all right?”
The big man was finishing off one of the Nymar that had charged over the counter to greet him and the remaining Amriany. Of the policemen and-women who had been in the room, only a few very confused cops were still standing. They’d finished off the couple Nymar that had stayed behind, then checked with each other, radioed to the ones outside, and started screaming at the solitary figure that stood between them and backup.
Kawosa raised his hands in compliance to the orders being barked at him and dove away from the door. Gunshots rang out, punching holes into the wall and thumping against Kawosa’s hide. The gunfire intensified, causing the shapeshifter to stumble and fall forward. That small victory was taken away as his body flowed into a lean, four-legged canine form and darted toward the back of the room. He raced past Cole, cleared the counter in one jump and scampered away like a fleeting thought.
Gunari had a gun in each hand but was unable to pull either trigger. Instead, he watched the shaggy blur streak past him and gasped, “Ktseena.”
Cole absorbed all of this as if his senses had been extended in every direction. Perhaps it was the blood that gave him that gift because Hope surely didn’t have it. Otherwise, she would have seen Drina come up behind her with what looked to be a thick metal arrow in each hand. The Amriany bared her teeth and dropped both arms to drive an arrowhead into each of Hope’s shoulders.
The way the Nymar rose to her feet meant that she had either pulled herself up by bending the laws of physics or was dragged up by the objects in Drina’s hands. When Hope twisted around to slash as Drina with her claws, she remained attached to the arrows by thin silver chains.
“You bitch!” she snarled. “Whatever this is, I’ll shove it down your throat and pull it out through your fucking ass!”
Vampire Uprising Page 39