Marcus Pelegrimas - Teeth of Beasts

“These two didn’t know any better. You do.” Dropping his voice to a quiet snarl, he added, “And what the hell were you thinking drawing a gun in public? Anyone could have seen you.”

Rico shrugged. “I got a permit for that.”

“Do you have a permit for being stupid?”

Cole chuckled at that while putting his weapon on the floor with his foot on top of it.

When he pointed at Cole, Rico’s hand made a pistol shape that was almost as big as the real thing. “Don’t get cocky, new guy. You ain’t earned your stripes with me yet.”

Before the conversation could get any more awkward, the waitress showed up. “What can I get for you guys?” she asked.

Paige and the old man agreed to split a pitcher of domestic draft. Rico ordered a Guinness, and Cole gambled by pointing to one of the coasters on the table that advertised Newcastle Brown Ale. Before the young woman got away, the old man warmly asked her about the specials.

“The stockpot special is a Wellington beef stew, plus we also serve clam chowder. Our dinner special is an open-faced turkey sandwich.”

“Does that come with potato chips?”

“It does if you like,” the waitress replied with a grin.

“Sold. Bring another basket of chips for the table.”

“Will do, hon.”

As soon as the waitress left, the old man’s snarl returned. “How did the fracas in that alley get started?” he asked.

Paige told him the short version, but the more he heard, the deeper the old man’s frown became. When she was through, he shook his head and grumbled, “It’s truly shocking that either of you made it out of Kansas City.”

“Yeah?” Cole asked as he fought to get comfortable in the straight-backed, uneven wooden chair. “And just who the hell are you?”

“Sorry,” Paige said. “This is Ned Post. He’s the resident Skinner for St. Louis. Ned, this is Cole Warnecki. He came to me after Gerald and Brad were killed. I’m training him.”

“Doing a hell of a job too,” Cole said as he offered his hand.

Ned grabbed Cole’s hand and used his thumb to feel the scars on his palm as if he was sampling the texture of cheap fabric. Now that he was closer to him, Cole could see the deep red lines in the coarse and chalky skin around Ned’s eyes. That damaged section of his face, combined with the man’s wandering gaze, made it clear why he needed the cane and dark glasses. It didn’t take long for Ned to let go and grunt, “Still feels like you fear the thorns too much. I hear you’re responsible for some of those werewolf pictures on the Internet?”

“Just the ones that got people saying they’re all fake,” Cole replied.

“Fat lot of good it did,” Ned snorted. “Whatever happened to keeping things like that quiet for the common good?”

“That’s kind of tough to do when everybody’s got a camera in their pocket and are being videotaped crossing the street,” Cole said. The waitress stopped by to drop off their drinks and appetizer. When he sipped his Newcastle, he was immediately grateful to whoever had placed that blessed little cardboard advertisement on the table. “Internet rumors are like little bits of leaves and dirt on top of a pool,” he said. “They clump together and look really bad, but then they all drift apart and become nothing. Are those the potato chips you talked about?” The basket on the table was filled with thin, darkened slices of potato that still glistened with hot grease. He snagged one, popped it into his mouth and said, “Damn, those are good.”

“New guy’s right,” Rico said as he took a handful of chips and washed them down with some Guinness. “I’ve seen stuff about KC and Janesville on the Net, pictures on websites, even spots on the news, but it’s all just the same half-assed explanations. Diseased dogs, exotic pets, that kind of thing.”

“Policemen were killed. You think they’ll let this just go away?”

“We were there, Ned,” Paige assured him. “We covered our tracks as best we could, and the carcasses that were left behind won’t be any help to anyone. Whatever tests are done on them will just cause a whole lot of heads to be scratched.”

“You did what you could?” Ned groused. He took some chips, ate them, and clumsily poured some beer into his glass. “Does that include handing an entire city over to the Mongrels? Or perhaps you wanted to hand it over to the Nymar just like you did with Chicago?”

“Screw you, Ned,” Paige said.

“Hey now,” Rico warned. “Let’s keep this friendly.”

Ned waved off everyone else at the table and drank his beer. He couldn’t seem to get enough down to blunt his senses, so he grabbed the pitcher to refill his glass. “City’s been quiet for years but now we got Mongrels in the Central West End and Nymar just across the river. What’s next, huh?”

Rico put an elbow on the table, leaned forward and dropped the tip of his finger between the beer pitcher and the chips to punctuate his next statement. “Those Mongrels were testing us. That’s all that was.”

“How do you know?” Ned asked.

“We can have all the technology we want, but humans are still part of nature’s system,” Rico explained. “Things may have been fucked up between us, the Nymar, and the shapeshifters, but that’s pretty much the way it’s been for a real long time. All the shit that’s been happening lately has fucked things up a whole different way. Janesville and KC threw the whole system out of whack. Bloodhound knows what I’m talkin’ about.”

Having made an island of ketchup on the edge of a potato chip continent, Paige occupied herself by dipping, eating, and subsequently cleaning off her chin. “You go on ahead,” she said while spraying some chewed bits into the air. “Very eloquent.”

Rico nodded in appreciation of the backhanded compliment. “The Full Bloods have been around for centuries. We may not feel it all the time,” he said while holding up a palm to show enough scar tissue to divvy up between a dozen cage fighters, “but you can bet that everything else out there has a real good idea the big boys are out and about.”

“We’ve got a pretty good idea where the Full Bloods are,” Ned said.

“Yeah, but there’s a big difference between being pretty sure I got a gun under my jacket.” Grabbing hold of his jacket as if he meant to open it and flash his goods to the entire bar, Rico raised an eyebrow and added, “And then there’s being really sure.”

Rico’s jacket was a mix of some sort of heavy canvas stitched to large strips of leather that were tanned and treated to the point of being nearly black. A few grommets were positioned on his shoulders and under his arms, and thin leather cords laced up both sides. When he’d first seen the garment, Cole wrote it off as a biker’s jacket. Up close and in better light, however, the leather strips had a texture that reminded him of the Half Breed skins Paige used as protective lining for her body armor rigs.

When the heavy material rustled against the .45, Ned looked at him and hissed, “Don’t create another scene!”

“Throttle back, Ned,” Rico said as he let his jacket fall back into place. “Just makin’ a point.” He snatched some more chips, shoved them into his mouth, smearing grease into the gray stubble on his chin, and washed it all down with half a mug of Guinness. “What I’m sayin’ is that these Mongrels and whatever else is out there can probably feel the Full Bloods the same way a buncha deer know the wolves are roaming the woods. Now, according to Paige, we’re down a few Full Bloods.”

When Ned glanced over to her, Paige nodded. “One was taken down in KC and we don’t know where Henry is.”

“Liam,” Cole said as a way to interject something useful into the mix. “The Full Blood from KC was named Liam.”