and jumped away. After hitting the ground face first, he could only listen as the shrieks swooped in behind him and leathery bodies flapped against his back. Rico dashed away before he was consumed, swearing venomously.
Esteban roared and slashed several of the fliers, but that only caused more of them to swarm to him. Without any other prey to distract them, the gargoyles hit the Full Blood as a unified force. They surrounded him in a tornado of bony limbs and curved talons to envelop the werewolf completely. Cole made a cautious retreat, and with such a big meal to tackle, none of the gargoyles seemed interested in giving up their share to come after him.
“Could have . . . warned me about that,” Frank said from nearby.
Unable to look away from the mass of gargoyles grabbing onto the Full Blood, Cole asked, “You all right?”
Frank cradled his right arm against his chest and allowed Cole to take his left hand and help him up. “Yes. I don’t hear Lambert’s voice. We should check on him.”
They went back to the truck to find the skinny inmate hanging quietly from his chains. Cole approached, carefully extended a hand toward his chin and raised Lambert’s head so he could get a look at his face.
“I think my bones are broken,” the inmate grunted.
“Which ones?”
“All of them. Is that possible?”
“Yeah, it is.” Unable to think of a quick way to humanely check Lambert’s claim, Cole used the forked end of his weapon to prod his ribs. When he didn’t get a reaction, he repeated the procedure on an arm and leg.
“Knock it off!” Lambert screeched.
“Just checking to see if your bones are broken.”
“What the hell is poking me with a stick gonna do?”
“If your bones were broken, you’d be screaming a lot louder than that.”
“Maybe I have a high pain threshold,” Lambert said. “What about that, huh?”
Cole prodded him once more, this time with the sharp end delivered to a tender spot beneath one of the inmate’s arms. When Lambert twisted away and yelped like a scalded dog, Cole said, “So much for the high threshold theory.”
“Fine, so the pain from before stopped while you were out there. What about getting me down from here?”
Cole used his key to unlock the shackles around Lambert’s ankles. When those around his wrists were removed, the inmate dropped like the proverbial sack of rocks. His legs held him up for a second, and when they buckled, Cole was there to prop him up.
“Are you all right to walk?”
Although he wheezed with every inhale, Lambert replied, “If it means getting the hell away from here, I’m ready to sprint the goddamn hundred and fifty yard dash. Are there any other trucks in good enough condition to drive? From in here, it sounded like most of them got taken apart.”
“They did,” Rico said as he stepped up to the rear of the truck. “The Half Breeds are either dead or turned to stone. Wanna know what I like best about this job? I get to say crazy shit like that.”
“Where’s the other Full Blood?”
“The Mongrels dragged her down before she got away. Guess she didn’t get the memo about what happened to Liam in KC.”
When Cole tried to use the sparkly phone he’d stolen, all he got was dead air. Actually, it had taken Brianne longer than expected to deactivate it. “You got a phone, Rico?”
“Yeah.”
“Hand it over.”
The big man did and asked, “Who are you calling?”
“Information. Just give me a second.” Cole lifted the phone to his ear before pressing the button to make his call. The clearing in front of him was a mess of broken vehicles, smoking metal, dead werewolves, and mangled soldiers. The ground glistened like mud after a long rain, due to moonlight reflecting off so many shredded gargoyles. He’d barely noticed them during the fight because their fragile bones and paper-thin bodies had been trampled into paste.
Although Lambert was happy to be out of his chains so he could rub the raw spots on his ankles and wrists, Cole didn’t have more than a few seconds of quiet time before Jessup walked around the overturned truck and asked, “What are you dicking around with this time?”
“Making a call. Have the Mongrels showed up yet?”
“One’s right here. Says he needs to talk to you.”
Cole spotted Ben’s head and shoulders emerging from the dirt. It was in a clearing well away from where Rico now tended to a few of the fallen soldiers. Injuries