Marcus Pelegrimas - Blood Blade

“That’d be me. What’s it matter to ya?” Manny asked with a sigh that reflected almost as much impatience as the recent flickering of the lights.

She dug out the bundle from the inner pocket of her jacket and unwrapped it. Handing it forward, she asked, “Think you can tell me what kind of blood that is?”

Manny took the knife from her, swiped his finger along the mostly dried, partially sticky streaks of blood along the blade, then placed his finger on his tongue as if sampling a new tomato sauce. “Shapeshifter,” he said. “Ain’t Half Breed. Too pure for Mongrel. Could be Full Blood.”

“You’re sure?”

“You asked me and I told ya,” Manny replied. “Now get out.”

Paige shrugged and took the knife back from him. “Good enough for me,” she said to Cole. “Let’s go.”

Once he and Paige were outside, Cole asked, “ That’s why that knife needed to be hauled all the way back here?”

She shook her head without even trying to hide her excitement. “Nope. That just tells me what it is and what it can do. Since that knife actually cut a Full Blood, it can kill a Full Blood. Only Blood Blades can kill Full Bloods. And since these little babies only get stronger as they soak up more shapeshifter blood, this one’s ready to do some real damage. Plus, I’ve got a project of my own that’s been at a standstill until right about now.”

Cole sighed and decided to let go of the next batch of questions that filled his mind. Instead, he asked, “Weren’t you supposed to swap a license plate before we left?”

“Already on it,” Paige replied as she unlocked the trunk and searched inside. When she walked back around the car, she was holding a screwdriver and two dented Illinois license plates that were different from the ones already on the Cavalier. “This should keep any overeager cops from getting lucky and stumbling on us. Feel better now?”

“Oh yeah,” Cole droned. “This makes everything just wonderful.”

The drive back to Rasa Hill went by fairly quickly. As Paige talked on her cell phone, Cole looked out the window at the scenery and thought about what the hell had happened to him since he’d left Seattle.

He’d seen men die. He’d seen monsters of several shapes and sizes. Some of them had sharp teeth. Some had big breasts. Some had both. His head spun and his stomach clenched as he realized there was still a job waiting for him back home. There were still reports to be filed and levels to test. Hammer Strike had plenty of bugs in it, and he had forgotten to submit them all before packing up and heading into Canada. He gritted his teeth until the car pulled to a stop behind the deserted restaurant. A dull ache began to fill his head.

Paige strode toward the building’s back door in a quick, bouncy stride. She paused before going inside and turned to glance back at him. “You coming, Cole?”

“Yeah. I just need to check my messages.”

Although he had expected some sort of warning about keeping what he’d seen and heard a secret, all he got was a shrug from her. “Just let me know if you still want to go home. I can scrounge up some money for a plane ticket.” She then held her own phone up to her ear and entered the restaurant.

Cole removed his phone from his pocket and was grateful to see the lights on the scratched plastic surface telling him he had coverage. It looked as if he might not have enough battery life to check the forty-six voice mails and sixty-seven text messages he’d missed. “Good God,” he muttered as he looked at those numbers again. “Are you kidding me?”

With a snap of his thumb, he moved the cover of his phone aside to reveal a small keyboard and a screen that looked complicated enough to enter trajectory data for a barrage of missiles. Since he didn’t even know what most of those blinking lights meant, he ignored them and sifted through his text messages. The first few were of the “How’s your vacation?” variety, and then they drifted toward the “Where the hell are you?” end of the spectrum. Rather than start punching out replies, he swiveled the cover shut and dialed his voice mail.

The recordings were about the same as the text messages. After listening to the first five or six all the way through, Cole started deleting them once he’d listened long enough to get the general flow of the message. After that, he deleted them after hearing the tone in the caller’s voice. Finally, he pressed and held down the button that was the speed dial for Jason’s private line.

After a few rings the connection was made.

“Jason Sorrenson,” droned the voice on the other end.

“That’s so pretentious when you answer that way,” Cole said. “Can’t you say hello like a normal human being?”

“Cole?”

“That’s me.”

“Jesus, man, we were starting to think you’d gotten lost or weren’t coming home,” Jason exclaimed.

Cole chuckled and ran his fingers over his eyes. “Afraid I’d get addicted to maple syrup?”

“That or hockey. What have you been doing? Are you still in Canada?”

“No. Actually, I’m back in the States.”

“You need a ride from the airport?”

“Not that state,” Cole added. “I’m in Chicago.”

After a slight pause, Jason said, “That’s not a state, moron.”

Cole laughed a bit too hard at the snide comment, but couldn’t help himself.

“So why haven’t you come home?” Jason asked. “A pool just got started around here that you shot yourself through some part of your body and were too embarrassed to call from the hospital.”

“What did you have your money on?”

“The right shin. A grazing shot through the right shin. I know it sounds a little obscure, but it’s a better payoff.”

“Asshole,” Cole muttered.

“Hey! You don’t even want to know where Nora put her money.”

“Is she upset?”

“She misses you.” Cole had no trouble picturing the cruel grin on Jason’s face as he added, “Kind of like a pet.”

Before Jason asked about it again, Cole told him, “There was…an incident in Canada.”

“That doesn’t sound good. Are you all right?”

“Yeah. It was messy, but I’m okay. Have you heard anything on the news about…”

Once a few seconds had ticked by, Jason asked, “About what?”

Cole realized then that he couldn’t explain anything to him. He knew better than to try and lay out the facts that he’d been attacked by some sort of monster and was now in the care of a Skinner. Jason wouldn’t believe it. Nobody in their right mind would believe it. He, on the other hand, had no choice but to believe. Even if he might somehow manage to convince Jason, it seemed a cruel thing to do; kind of like dragging a preschooler off the playground so you could explain topics like rape and war. Unless there was a good reason, it was just mean to tell so much to someone who was so unprepared for it.

“Come on, Cole,” Jason prodded. “About what?”

“About some stupid American shooting himself in the right shin.”

“Yes! I just won enough to pay off my new home theater.”

“Glad I could be of service,” Cole replied.

After the laughter died down, Jason asked, “When are you coming home? A lot of us were really worried when we couldn’t get ahold of you. I might have been worried too, if I didn’t already know that piece of crap phone you insist on carrying couldn’t get a signal beneath an antenna.”

“Leave my phone out of this. It wasn’t her fault. Things have…changed.”

“Now that really doesn’t sound good.”

Although there was nobody to see the wince on his face, Cole knew his voice would reflect it. “There’s a lot going on, but I should tell you I probably won’t be back for a while.”