Unable to deny those words, Cole drove his weapon straight through the last bit of armor protecting the Full Blood’s heart. The spearhead stopped less than an inch past the layer of bone, Liam’s body becoming rigid, his claws sinking into the earth. Using every bit of muscle he’d built during Paige’s rigorous training sessions, as well as the jolt of power the tendrils in his body had given him, Cole forced the spear down still farther, until it drilled all the way out of Liam’s back.
The Full Blood’s mouth gaped open to allow his last breath to bellow outward like a curse dredged up from the deepest chasm of primordial bedrock. As bright as the fire in his eye might have been, Liam simply didn’t have anything left to back it up. More of the gargoyle substance dripped into the chest wound and was absorbed in the deeper layers of his body, to seal off even more layers of muscle and prevent vital arteries from resealing. He reached up to grab the spear and barely got his fingers to close before he lost his grip and the back of his head thumped against the ground.
Paige had to fight to retrieve her weapon but eventually pried it from the shifting layers of petrified muscle that had closed around the blade. She looked cautiously into Liam’s eye, nudged him with the sickle, and then dropped to one knee. When she stretched a hand out to his face, Cole said, “Be careful!”
Instead of touching the werewolf, she merely held her palm out to him. Slowly, the expression on her face shifted from battle-hardened intensity to disbelief. “He’s gone.” She looked up at Cole and jumped to her feet so she could grab his wrist. Holding his arm toward Liam, she said, “Feel for yourself, Cole!”
Cole’s scars were lukewarm but slowly cooling. “He’s dead?”
Paige nodded as a tired smile drifted onto her face. “We did it!”
Cole dropped his spear and wrapped both arms around her. She hopped up to wrap her legs around him and gleefully squirmed in his embrace. Before they could get too wrapped up in their celebration, however, Cole’s foot bumped against Liam’s arm. As soon as he looked down, the spell was broken.
“We have to find a way back home,” Paige said as she separated herself from him. “Tristan could barely get me here.”
Still looking down at Liam, Cole asked, “We’ve got to bring him with us, right? Do we need to . . . preserve him or anything?”
“I don’t know. First time I’ve ever killed one.” She smiled and shook her head. “I still can’t believe you pulled this off.”
“I know,” Cole sighed. “I’m pretty great.”
For the first and most likely only time, Paige didn’t say anything sarcastic in response. Instead, she started picking up the largest pieces of shredded gargoyle. “Let’s wrap him in this stuff and crack it open later. At least that way he won’t make such a mess during transport.”
Still reeling from what had just happened, Cole half expected the werewolf to sit up or laugh at them before bounding away. Whether that fear was real or just the product of too many Schwarzenegger movies, he was quick to lend a hand with the task Paige had assigned.
It wasn’t an easy job. Although there were plenty of gargoyle remains to be found, there were barely any in good enough shape to be of any use. Cole explained what Jessup had told him about the creatures as the two of them collected more bodies. They wrapped the partial gargoyle bodies around Liam and squeezed as much of the petrifying solution as they could from the tubes they’d collected. Once the gargoyles were in place and there was no more of the petrifying substance to be found, the Skinners had only to stand back and watch the magic shell harden.
Liam had shifted halfway between his upright werewolf form and human body. His fur was thick and his musculature thicker, giving him a primitive quality offset by the distinctly canine features of his face. His claws had the smooth texture of granite, while his coat, ears, and face looked more like clay that had been fired in a kiln for weeks on end.
Cole dropped to one knee and tapped the Full Blood’s snout, venturing so far as to slide his fingers along the points of Liam’s teeth. “What if he’s still