Eat Rite was a diner.
It wasn’t a restaurant or a bar. It was a diner and didn’t try to be anything but. There were less than a dozen tables in the narrow storefront space located between a pawnshop and a paintball supply store. Cole and Paige sat on stools bolted to the floor along a counter that ran from the front of the place all the way to the storage rooms in back. His spear looked harmless enough, if a bit out of place, propped against the counter like a piece of shoddy sporting equipment near Cole’s feet. Behind the counter were pyramids of mini cereal boxes, stacks of plastic cups, pastries in a clear case, and a display for locally made oatmeal cookies next to a coffee machine and a milk dispenser.
When she sat down, Paige refused a menu and ordered, “Two coffees. Two slingers, scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast on the side.”
The waitress was a cute girl with nice legs and dark hair cut in a bob. Scribbling the order onto a long pad of green and white paper, she asked, “You want onions on those?”
“Of course.”
The coffee was some of the best Cole had tasted in recent memory.
A short cook wearing the standard-issue uniform of greasy white T-shirt under greasier white apron put their order together while Paige told Cole about her introduction to Ned’s neighbors. When the cook was through, he handed the plates to the waitress so he could disappear through the back door with his pack of cigarettes. The concoction that was placed in front of them was composed of eggs, sausage, chili, cheese, and onions served on a bed of hash browns.
“This looks like a heart attack waiting to happen,” Cole mused.
“Say that now,” Paige replied. “Thank me later.”
Cole didn’t know where to start. After taking his first few bites, he didn’t know if he’d be able to stop. “Thank you,” he said through a mouthful of artery-clogging goodness. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
Paige smiled and shook hot sauce onto the glorious mess occupying her plate. “You weren’t inside for long, but I thought you’d be hungry for some real food.” She scooped some potatoes and chili onto her fork, jabbed a hunk of egg, stuffed the whole thing into her mouth and asked, “So what happened in there? I heard there was some commotion.”
Telling her about his encounter with Henry and even describing the slime oozing from those glassy-eyed inmates wasn’t enough to put a dent in Cole’s appetite. He finished his story while smearing grape jelly onto his toast. “After the mess was cleaned up and the paramedics left, things were quiet. The cops took it easy on us since Rico and I helped bring those nut jobs down, but it still wasn’t easy getting out of there. Whoever that Velasco guy is, he pulled a lot of strings.”
“So you’re sure it was Henry?” she asked.
Using the side of his fork to cut up his last sausage patty, Cole replied, “He talked like Henry and knew all the stuff Henry would know. He was sure bat-shit crazy as Henry.”
“Henry’s a Full Blood,” Paige reminded him. “He’s also the only one who’s found a way to get around our early warning system. Maybe he’s not so crazy.”
Cole looked down at the scars on his left hand. “I didn’t feel a twitch from any of those Mud Flu people either, but they seemed to be controlled by him.”
“The medics called it the Mud Flu?”
“Yep.”
“How bad were they?”
“Apart from the bumps and bruises they got during the fight, those muddy prisoners were fine after Henry was gone. The paramedics said he snapped his neck during a seizure because of the flu, but he snapped it himself. I heard his voice in my head, so maybe he can throw the rest of himself into people’s minds now. The whole neck snapping thing may be Henry’s way of getting comfortable in a new body. There’s no bouncing back from that once he leaves, though.” Tapping his fork against his chin, Cole added, “I think I also saw him try to change. He kind of puffed up like he thought he could shift into…” There was only one other customer in the place, reading a newspaper at one of the back tables, and neither he nor the waitress were interested in what the Skinners were talking about. Even so, Cole lowered his voice and grunted, “You know.”
The waitress loitered at the other end of the counter, washing silverware in a long sink. After circling to refill coffee cups, she started in on the rest of her side work.
“When I spoke to the Nymar, they called Henry the Mind Singer,” Paige said. “Maybe this jumping around from one person to another is what separates him from any other telepath.”
Cole didn’t notice the waitress straightening the cereal boxes nearby when he asked, “Did they know the one whose body they showed on the news?”
“Ew, that was gross,” the waitress said. “I think it was some sort of prank, though. Like those fake werewolf pictures from Kansas City.”
Cole showed Paige a chili-stained grin at the mention of his handiwork.
Placing two packets of Wet-Naps on the counter, the waitress said, “Be sure to wipe your hands when you’re done. Can’t be too careful with this Mud Flu going around.” She shuddered and washed hers vigorously in the same sink where she’d just cleaned the dishes. “Can I get you two anything else?”
“No, we’re fine,” Paige said.
“Then I’ll run to the back for a smoke. Just holler if you need me.”
Cole tore once again into the pile of meat, cheese, and potatoes on his plate. “So, you missed me, huh?”
Stopping her hand a few inches from her mouth, Paige allowed her eggs to slide off and plop onto a mound of chili. “I was stuck with Ned. That sort of trauma will make you say things.”
“Well, you made it up to me with this.”
“Play your cards right and I may even spring for a lap dance later tonight. We’re headed back to Sauget to meet your stripper buddy, Tristan.”
“The nymph from Wisconsin? She really gets around.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she told him. “I called Prophet to see if he’d seen her recently and he had. Only an hour before I did. In Albany, New York.”
Cole chewed his next bite thoughtfully. “That’s a hell of a long way to go. Even if a plane could make the trip that fast, that barely leaves enough time to get to an airport.”
“She’s not taking a plane. Those nymphs have something else going on. Either they’ve got some way of getting from one spot to another in a hurry, or there’s more than one Tristan.”
“More than one Tristan?” Cole’s mind drifted to a happy place filled with blue skies, cool breezes, and multiple copies of a woman who seemed built to stimulate the male psyche.
“You’re such a pig,” Paige muttered.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Just because I—” Cole dropped his fork as if it had come to life and bitten him. Something reacted with his scars that felt like a hot poker scraping against the bones of his hand, causing both him and Paige to look at the front door. “Pay the check and let’s get out of here,” he said. “If a Full Blood tracked us here, I don’t want it leveling this place. The food is too damn good.”
She slapped some money onto the counter as Cole picked up his spear. The waitress hurried from the back room as soon as they left their seats, spotted the cash and then separated her generous tip from the price of slingers and coffee. “Come back again!” she implored.
The diner may not have been crowded, but that didn’t hold true for Lindbergh Boulevard. Being one of the main streets that cut through the entire city meant it was almost always filled with a steady flow of traffic. The dinner rush had slacked off several hours ago, and it was a bit too early for the late night snack crowd, which made Eat Rite a quiet spot next to the speeding, honking sampling of the St. Louis population.
Cole’s hands were burning when he slid his fingers between the thorns on his spear’s handle. “It’s close,” he said.
Paige effortlessly plucked the baton from her left boot and then flexed her right hand a few times before drawing that weapon from its holster. “I’m hoping it’s Burkis.”
“You want to see Mr. Burkis again?”
“No, but if this isn’t him, there’s another Full Blood in the area. That’s something we don’t need.”
The first time Cole had seen Mr. Burkis, he’d watched the werewolf shred a cabin filled with hunters, hikers, and two Skinners. The next time, Burkis had tracked him to Daniels’s apartment in the Chicago suburbs and proceeded to tear that building apart before escaping with a chunk of the Blood Blade embedded in his face. As reassuring as it was to know a Full Blood could be hurt, Cole was fairly certain the whole face stabbing thing wouldn’t act in his favor.
A low voice rumbled from the storefronts to his left. “You can lower your weapons. If I meant to feast on your innards, I wouldn’t do so after you’ve gorged on so much greasy food.”
A solitary figure rounded the corner of the short, run-down strip mall where Eat Rite was located. The last time Cole had seen him, Burkis was wearing a cheap suit that had ripped like wet tissue paper during his transformation from man to beast. Now, the tall, broad-shouldered werewolf wore baggy sweatpants and a plain white tank top. His human form was muscular, but not in a way that reeked of locker rooms and gym memberships. Cold, gray-blue eyes peered at the Skinners through a loose mane of dark brown hair. Somehow, those eyes were more brilliant in the shadows than when he stepped into the meager light thrown off by the storefronts.
“Not dressing up for this meeting, huh?” Cole said. Brushing his hand along his cheek, he added, “Suit not match the new face?”
A subtle twitch shifted beneath the scar that ran down the right side of Burkis’s face from the bottom of his eye to just above his chin. It wasn’t the only scar he bore, but looked more tender than the rest. “I wear my mistakes just like everyone else,” he said. “And since you no longer have the blade that did this, I wouldn’t be so quick to taunt.”
When Cole moved toward the Full Blood, Paige stopped him with an outstretched hand. “All right, Burkis. You found us. Now what?”
“I want to know where the Mind Singer is. You know of whom I speak.” Shifting crystalline eyes toward Cole, he added, “You have heard his voice.”
“You mean Henry?” Cole asked.
Burkis’s nod was nothing more than one slow dip of his chin.
“He paid me a visit when I was in jail along with a bunch of those slimy nut jobs that fight for him. If you want to know where he is, maybe you should try a psycho ward with real thick walls.”
Burkis remained silent. Before his pause became awkward, someone stepped out of the pawnshop, climbed into their car and left. Now that the parking lot was all but empty, he said, “Henry’s touched in the head. I don’t know if that’s a cause or effect of his gift.”
“Henry was infected by Nymar spore and controlled by one of their kind named Misonyk,” Paige explained. “That’s how he got his gift. The spores are out of him, but he must have been able to hang on to Misonyk’s ability somehow.”
Burkis was a large man and he moved like an even larger animal; heavy and powerful. “It doesn’t matter how he got his gift. All that matters is how he uses it. Of late, he only speaks of Pestilence. What do you know about that?”
“It’s something that’s causing Nymar to explode like party poppers,” she said. “When it shows up in humans, it makes them hack up some sort of muddy slop, and I think it paves the way for Henry to control them.”
As Burkis studied him and Paige, Cole wasn’t sure if the Full Blood was thinking about what they’d been talking about or if he was wondering how many bites it would take to get to the humans’ juicy center. “You know more than you say.”
“Sure we do,” Paige replied.
“Then tell me about Jonah Lancroft.”
“I can tell you he’s a very popular guy around here, but he’s also long dead.”
“Pestilence is his creation,” Burkis said. “As is the Mind Singer. Both of which are more far-reaching than you know.”
“How can you be so sure of that?”
“Because if you knew the true scope of this matter, you would not be stuffing your faces with food as the rest of your country festers under Lancroft’s plague. Mud Flu is only the most recent name given to something that has been festering in humans for decades, and within the fangs of the leeches for only slightly longer. Do you even know how this plague affects the Mongrels that you embrace as friends?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” Paige snapped.
“Follow me and I’ll show you. That is,” Burkis added as his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, “if you’re able.”
With that, the Full Blood strode through the parking lot toward Lindbergh Boulevard. He crouched down as if to tie his shoe and then leapt completely over all six lanes of traffic. His arms stretched out and his legs tucked in close to his chest as the transformation rippled throughout the werewolf’s entire body. Compared to the form Burkis had taken in Canada or Chicago, this one was leaner and more than seven feet in length. Most of its muscle was packed into the creature’s legs, which were strong enough to launch him onto the roof of a squat little dump of a bar across the street from an Olive Garden.
“Shit,” Paige growled as she raced to the Cav and fumbled for her keys.
Cole followed her while looking around to see how many people had spotted the Full Blood’s inhuman leap. A few cars swerved on Lindbergh and several people pointed toward the bar, aiming their camera phones and clicking frantically. As he dropped into the passenger seat, Cole thought about how he could smooth over this little incident once it made its first appearance on the Internet. After a car screeched to a stop so its driver could hang out the window for a better look, he decided it was already too late for smoothing.
Paige pointed the Cav toward Lindbergh and flipped her blinker on. Burkis crouched upon the roof of the bar, grabbing the edge with both hands and craning his neck to watch the street. Facing the northwest, he pushed off with thick legs that bent backward to accommodate a four-legged gait.
“Aw screw it,” she snarled before hitting the gas pedal and driving through a gap barely large enough to fit a car half the Cav’s size. Other drivers honked at her, but only a precious few swerved to clear a path. Most of the vehicles seemed ready to plow straight into her just to prove they had the right of way.
“Crazy bastards!” Cole yelled. Turning to Paige he added, “All of you!”
“Just buckle up and keep your eyes on Burkis.”
Although Paige was driving without any regard for traffic laws or human life, she wasn’t doing much to stand out from the rest of the pack vying for lane space. Even the cars that ambled along at a leisurely pace sped up when they were about to be passed. Once she managed to get by them, they slowed as if grudgingly admitting to a loss. Looking for a werewolf amid all of that was a welcome distraction.
They’d just crossed Baptist Church Road when Cole’s scars alerted him to the Full Blood’s proximity. Straining to see through the stark contrast of lights and shadow on both sides of the street, he caught occasional glimpses of the creature bounding from a rooftop or disappearing behind a billboard. Just when he’d lost sight of the beast, they drove past a large theater illuminated by several sets of colored lights. A glowing white sign close to the street spelled out movie names and times in short black letters. A familiar shape perched upon that sign, dressed in the tattered remnants of a white shirt and dark sweatpants.
“There he is!” Cole said.
Burkis’s leaner upright form was better suited for scaling surfaces or balancing on narrow ledges. His limbs were extended past the point where he could pass for some lunatic who’d climbed up onto the marquee, and if there still was any doubt as to what he was, his coat of long, dark brown fur was an even bigger giveaway. When the Cavalier closed in on him, Burkis sniffed the air and jumped off the sign as if he’d been launched by a catapult.
“He’s leading us down the street,” Cole said while reaching under his seat to grab the little black case containing his GPS. After switching it on, he waited for it to receive a signal from the satellites.
“What the hell are you doing?” Paige asked. “You think you can look up ‘werewolf’ under Points of Interest?”
“I was just gonna pull up the map and see where this street goes.”
“I know where it goes,” she barked. “I used to live here, remember?”
“Then maybe I can see if there’s any traffic or construction up ahead. Does your inborn city-sense get minute-to-minute updates?”
“You can see traffic updates on that thing?”
Cole nodded and rubbed the top of the GPS without smearing the touch screen. “Romana’s got the deluxe package. Ah. See? Looks like there’s some construction a little further up.”
“There’s always construction,” she snapped. “What about traffic?”
“On the right.”
“How bad is it? Should I detour?”
“No!” Cole said as he pointed at his side window as though there was still glass in the frame. “On the right. There he is!”
Paige leaned over the top of the steering wheel and spotted Burkis leaping down from atop a gas station sign to land in the parking lot and shift into his barrel-chested, four-legged form. His ribs were hidden beneath a thick layer of fur and his chest nearly scraped against the cement as he darted across the busy street. Whether out of reflex or as a warning, Burkis snapped at a few cars that honked at him while driving by. To those drivers’ credit, they seemed just as annoyed to let him get ahead of them as they’d been when anyone else tried to pass.
Since it was obvious that Burkis wasn’t trying to lose them, Paige drove the rest of the way without risking life, limb, or any more police involvement. She remained with the rest of the cars, which put her well above the posted speed limit. The werewolf attracted plenty of attention, but moved too quickly for anyone to get more than a fleeting glimpse. After crossing Watson Road and passing under I-44, they headed north. The large, bounding creature darted from one side of the street to another, sought periodic refuge in the shadows, and finally hunkered down to leap effortlessly into the inky sky. This time, however, Cole couldn’t see where Burkis landed.
“Shit,” he said as he reflexively looked down at the GPS screen. He looked up twice as fast, hoping he wouldn’t catch any more grief from Paige for trying to use the device to spot a landmark that obviously wasn’t in the system. “I think he’s gone.”
Paige settled into her seat. “I don’t think so. He could have left us behind at any time, but made sure we were headed this way.”
They kept driving, but the heat in Cole’s scars cooled at an alarming rate. As they continued north, traffic snarled up thanks to construction that blocked off two of the lanes. Just when he thought he might hop out of the car and try running ahead a few blocks, he felt a jolt of unnatural fire.
“I see him,” Paige said as she flicked on her turn signal and veered to the right.
Burkis was in his human form, but his clothes were ripped and barely hanging on his sinewy frame. There were a few other people near him on the sidewalk, but they were too wrapped up in yelling at each other or into their phones to notice the man who watched the street with icy, predator’s eyes. Once the car had pulled to a stop along the curb between two others, Cole climbed out and slipped his harness over both shoulders. Thanks to the smaller size of the spear, it didn’t make much of a bump under the baggy flannel shirt he tossed on over it.
There was a set of railroad tracks nearby, complete with a station that looked like something from a quaint little toy train set. Most of the other buildings were cast from a similar mold. Cozy houses had been turned into homey shops, giving the area a cute, almost delicate feel. “What should we do if he tries to kill us?” Cole asked.
Paige walked alongside him and flexed her right hand to somewhere near its normal range of motion. “Kill him back.”
After crossing the street, they still needed to walk for another half block before finally catching up with Burkis. “All right,” she snapped. “Why drag us all the way to Kirkwood?”
Burkis turned away from the train tracks to go down a narrow side street. All of the friendly looking shops were closed for the night, but Cole could hear music and raucous voices coming from what he guessed were a few local bars. Uninterested in two-for-one drafts or Jell-O shots, Burkis headed straight to a gazebo built next to a garden supply store on East Argonne Drive. Between the store and the gazebo were bags of soil stacked near a selection of cement lawn statues that were either not valuable enough to be locked up or too heavy to steal. Behind those things were the bodies of three of the Mongrels that had welcomed Cole and Paige to town outside of Dressel’s pub. A fourth lay buried at the bottom of the pile. Unlike the felines that Cole had seen before, the bottom Mongrel had a ratlike tail, two sets of wings evenly spaced along its back, and was covered in a slick layer of mud.
Burkis crouched to grab the base of the Mongrel’s right forewing and flipped it over to reveal yet another carcass. This one was a Half Breed. Its lean body and gnarled snout were almost as distinctive as the knotted muscle holding together the skewed, broken bones beneath its pasty flesh.
“This wretch had just fed,” Burkis said as he gazed down at the Half Breed. “It’s one of the few to make it out of Kansas City, and I’ve been tracking it to see if it might lead me to any more. Once I was certain there were no dens in this city, I was going to put it down myself. That’s when these three descended upon it.”
“Didn’t anyone else see all of this?” Cole asked as he looked around. Cars drove along the street, but were more concerned with finding a parking space than what was going on behind a garden supply store. Pedestrians stayed on the main walkways and were barely paying enough attention to keep from tripping over cracks in the sidewalk.
“There wasn’t much to see,” Burkis replied. “The wretch was barely able to keep its head up, and the Mongrels fell over the moment they drew its blood.”
“So the Half Breed was dying and the others followed soon after,” Paige said. “Sounds like they could have been poisoned.”
“Spoken by someone who knows such cowardly tactics all too well,” Burkis sneered. “Now look closer.” He grabbed the Half Breed’s throat with a hand that had suddenly sprouted thick, talonlike claws. Hooking a couple of the claws into a flap of skin on the Half Breed’s neck, he pulled it aside to reveal the underlying muscle.
Half Breeds always stank, but the inside of a dead one redefined the term. While Cole turned his head and willed himself not to puke, Paige used a baton to hold its neck open. The specially treated wood creaked in her right hand to form a flat-bladed machete that was a distinct improvement over her last few attempts.
“This looks like wet tree bark,” she said as she scraped the tip of the blade against the hardened, leathery surface. “Feels like it too. And there’s hardly any blood.”
The Half Breed had the mass of a small man, but Burkis lifted it as if it was just another sack of manure from a nearby pile. “Its blood is there.”
Cole took his spear from its harness and used it to scrape the muddy sludge caked upon the ground. “This is the same kind of gunk that came out of Peter Walsh,” he said. “There were some men in jail across the river who were leaking it from their eyes. So was Henry.”
“I doubt that,” Burkis huffed. “Henry is a Full Blood, and we are not affected by Pestilence…or War or Famine or even Death. You’re too ignorant to have caused such a plague, but there’s one Skinner whose hands are particularly muddy.”
Gritting her teeth, she said, “Let me guess. Jonah Lancroft?”
“I’ve heard that name whispered by Mongrels and Henry alike, but neither of those are very reliable sources. Lancroft was a brilliant man, and my guess is that some of his journals have been discovered by an element that would be considered undesirable even by Skinner standards.” Dropping the Half Breed onto the pile, he nudged the Mongrels with his toe. “These came from Malia’s pack. With Pestilence known to be linked to a Skinner, these deaths may just convince her to even the score at your expense.”
“And why would you be so kind as to warn us about that?” Cole asked.
“Because now that Henry has been made aware of his full capabilities, it won’t be long before humans, Nymar, and shapeshifters alike will experience death on an epic scale.”
Paige lowered her weapons an inch or so but remained on her guard. “So this stuff is activated by Henry?”
“Or any Mind Singer, I would assume. Since there has only been three in the past two hundred and sixty years, Henry should be the only one you need to worry about. But that brings me back to the problem at hand. I have heard the Mind Singer repeatedly since I have come to this city. His voice is strongest here, but his scent is not.”
“Maybe he’s somewhere else,” Cole offered. “What’s the range on psychic transmissions anyway?”
“Henry’s talent is unfocused,” Burkis continued. “He reaches out to all of us with thoughts that are nothing but wild screams. Now, he whispers to unleash this poison among our kind while turning yours into plague-infested rats.”
“Full Bloods don’t give a shit about Half Breeds,” Paige said, “and I seriously doubt you’ve made a truce with Mongrels. Pestilence has changed from the Mud Flu into Half Breed poison, so you’re just worried that you’ll be the next one to feel the sting.”
Burkis lowered himself to one knee as his entire body shifted into a taller, bulkier form. His face stretched into a long, tapered snout filled with teeth that were angled back like barbs on an arrow. By the time he’d backed into the shadows beneath the gazebo, he was something close to the beast that had almost separated Cole from his head on more than one occasion. He pulled in a deep breath and rolled it around the back of his throat. “The plague is changing. Once it becomes deadly to us, we will have no choice but to kill every carrier we can find. The Mind Singer is the spark, the deliverer and the answer. Since Liam is missing, the responsibility of maintaining this territory falls solely to me.”
“Awww,” Cole chided. “Poor little werewolf is all alone. Cursed to live through the ages with nobody to play with.”
“Wait a second,” Paige snapped. “You said Liam, as in the Full Blood from KC?”
Burkis’s intense glare was more than enough to confirm that.
“So he’s missing. Not dead.”
A barely perceptible nod came from the Full Blood.
“I saw him die in Kansas City,” Paige insisted. “I punched holes in him myself. Cole knocked him out with a car and the Mongrels ripped him to shreds while they…” Her eyes narrowed and she wheeled around to swing her machete straight through one of the support beams of the gazebo. “Son of a bitch!” she shouted, drawing more attention from the pedestrians on the street than the werewolf standing a few paces away. “Why the hell wouldn’t those Mongrels finish him off?”
“Perhaps they have taken him somewhere else to feast on him slowly, just as you Skinners would have loved to tear him apart and use the pieces for yourselves.” When he said that, Burkis displayed fangs that had thickened into ivory stalagmites. The ones that Paige had knocked out before heading to KC were only slightly shorter than the rest.
“They said they would bury him,” Cole reminded them. “They were supposed to suffocate him in the ground or stuff him somewhere he couldn’t be found. Is that why you can’t find him?”
In a flat tone, Burkis said, “I will find him and that’s all any Skinner needs to know. The only reason I’m speaking to you now instead of pulling your bones out through your mouths is because, without your Blood Blade, you are no threat to me. Maintain your territory on your own or I’ll be forced to do it for you.” The more he spoke, the larger Burkis became. While other animals might raise their hackles or puff their chests to assert their dominance, a Full Blood simply became larger than their opponent like a wall of heavy clouds filling a darkened sky.
Paige stepped forward to declare, “We don’t do chores for Full Bloods. You want Henry so bad? You find him. Why would we give a shit if this disease grows strong enough to kill you?”
“Henry’s Pestilence has only started taking root,” Burkis said. “His voice needs to be silenced before this entire continent is infected. I have already been to both coasts and can tell you the stench of this plague has spread well beyond the cities you protect.”
“It’s already gotten as far as Chicago?” she asked.
“And farther.”
“Henry’s a Full Blood too,” Paige said. “You don’t mind us going after him?”
“He is a Mind Singer,” Burkis said. “They have always been trouble. He must be dealt with as quickly as possible. You are given this chance to resolve this situation because I do not wish to see so many humans destroyed.”
“No,” Cole grunted. “Just the ones who get in your way.”
Shifting his gaze toward him, the Full Blood snarled, “Just the ones who don’t know their place.”
“And what if we find him?” Cole asked. “Should we give you a call or just squeeze a squeak toy a bunch of times?”
Burkis dropped to all fours and shifted into his barrel-chested running form. His eyes narrowed into slits and his teeth grew long enough to pierce through his cheeks. It was the first time during this meeting that he truly seemed ready to kill either of the Skinners.
One leap carried the werewolf to the top of the gardening supply store. Several people on the street pointed at the large shape on the roof, but they lost sight of Burkis after his next bounding step. With nothing left to see, the pointers continued along their way.
“You really shouldn’t make doggie jokes when referring to Full Bloods,” Paige sighed as her weapons shrank back down so she could holster them in her boots. “They hate that.”