edge to clear a path for another Full Blood that was stormed up.
It was one of the biggest werewolves Cole had seen. Normally, a Full Blood was smaller when it walked on four legs. Resembling a bear with longer limbs and a canine head, they used that form for speed or mobility and walked on two legs when fighting or climbing. This one, covered in dark gray fur, galloped like a horse and kicked up dust from the concrete as its claws scraped gouges into the cement and through the occasional speed bump. Where Randolph’s teeth grew at odd angles to slice through his face, this one’s were as organized as they were deadly. The creature pulled in a deep breath and barked in a deep baritone, displaying two sets of long fangs sprouting from each spot where canine incisors would grow.
After tossing the guard with the halberd over a minivan, Randolph turned toward the other creature. “Esteban!” he roared. “There is nothing for you here.”
The Full Blood with the gray fur looked as if he would cross the entire parking area in one leap, but shifted into his upright form to dig his feet into a car’s roof. “This place reeks of Skinners hiding treasures they do not understand,” he replied in a rumbling voice colored by a Spanish accent. “It is no surprise to find you here while the others cluster around the Torva’ox like children gazing upon a shiny trinket.”
Randolph charged at the other Full Blood with men attached to him by blades, hooks, or other weapons embedded in his flesh. The guards dangled from his sides and back like decorations until they were scraped against a post or brushed off against a parked car. The two Full Bloods collided like storm fronts, completely ignoring the wave of guards that had just arrived. In his upright form, Randolph was shorter than the gray werewolf, but wider in the shoulders. Once they clamped their jaws around the thick matting of fur protecting the other’s neck, Cole found his opening to put that place behind him.
He ran down the ramp and quickly spotted Lambert and Frank racing across a crumbling parking lot for the safety of a wooded hillside less than a quarter mile away. It was early evening and the sun was making its descent to the western horizon. Police cars and several unmarked trucks sped toward the building, which sat by itself at the base of a tall set of hills. Wailing sirens filled the air, a helicopter roared in from the east, and more vehicles sped down the road that led to the prison’s poorly tended fence line. No one, however, seemed to notice Cole and his companions working their way up the rise that led to higher ground covered by trees and dense bushes.
Above all the chaos surrounding the cement block of a building, Randolph’s howl was joined by the voice of the other Full Blood. Before the armed men could leave their vehicles, the werewolves exploded from the parking garage. The few remaining men trying to hold a line in front of the building’s main entrance were decimated by the gray creature’s teeth and claws as Esteban tore through them.
Even when he got to the top of the rise, it was tough for Cole to make sense out of which Full Blood was winning. All he could tell from his new vantage point was that the prison would need some repairs if it was ever going to be used for anything more than a quarry. Randolph jumped down onto the gray werewolf but was grabbed in midair before he could sink his teeth into Esteban’s flesh. He then found himself on the ground with the gray wolf on top of him. The group of men Cole guessed were police opened fire on the Full Bloods, unleashing a chattering wave of gunshots from everything ranging from handguns to high-powered rifles. The Full Bloods hunkered down beneath the pelting of bullets, too engrossed in their own fight to answer them. After tossing Randolph against the side of the building, Esteban grabbed his leg and lobbed him into the largest cluster of police cars.
“Well,” Cole said from behind the rocks he and the other two escapees were using for cover, “they can’t pin that one on me.”
“They would if they knew what you did,” Lambert replied. “Lowering them defenses was a stupid goddamn idea.”