Howling Legion (Skinners, Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

healing.
    “Nothing’s ever easy,” he grumbled as he straightened up and walked over to the stack of plastic crates he’d been using as a desk. When he got his laptop warmed up and started typing, he realized it had only hurt a little to walk. After a nice shower, he might even be back to normal.
    “Bathroom’s all yours,” Paige hollered from another room.
    Cole waited for it.
    “Hot water’s gone, though,” she added.
    And there it was.

Chapter 2
    When Cole had arrived in Chicago to meet Paige for the first time, the city felt like a different place. The sights and smells were comforting. Driving down West Cermak, he looked at the same city and saw another beast completely. Instead of something that was just there to be sampled, consumed, and abused, Chicago stared back. It dared him to spend too much time in its dark places and enticed him to venture into the most delectable spots that he had yet to peruse.
    At the moment, however, the only thing Cole wanted was a White Castle hamburger. White Castle wasn’t exactly confined to Chicago, but he couldn’t get them in Seattle. Some grocery stores carried frozen versions of the burgers, but those were simply blasphemous and cruel to anyone who’d ever tasted the real thing. Real White Castles were warm, squishy, about the size of a coaster, and were steamed all the way through with pickles and onions. His ex-girlfriend Nora swore a recipe she’d found online allowed her to make them, but those weren’t the same. After making the mistake of sparing her feelings with an approving thumbs-up, he was forced to eat the false idols every couple of months.
    Cole hung a right onto South Cicero Avenue and grinned as he caught sight of a White Castle which he loved despite the damage it consistently did to his intestinal tract. When he drove around the newly remodeled fast food joint, he kept his window rolled down to fill Paige’s car with the gloriousscent that hung like a cloud over the gleaming white building. The line at the pickup window was long and moved a bit too slowly, but brought him to a kid wearing a blue visor who handed him paper sacks stuffed with pure joy. Hamburgers contained in little cardboard castles were stacked on top of flat rectangular boxes stuffed with fries and onion rings. Still sifting through the food to make sure his order was correct, Cole managed to turn back onto Cicero and start his journey toward Twenty-fifth Street.
    Between the hot touch of summer reaching in through his window and the heavenly aroma seeping through the car’s interior, he almost missed the group of vampires loitering in the narrow alley between a bank and a small industrial supply company. The three didn’t look like monsters. They barely even looked like trouble, but they did cause a reaction to the scars left behind by his weapon, which felt like spiders crawling under his palms. After having so much of the potent varnish introduced to his system, he could feel that reaction through both arms by now.
    Only vampires made him itch like that. Actually, they insisted on being called Nymar. Applying the V word to them was like calling a large percentage of the human population “brown people.” It wasn’t inaccurate so much as just plain ignorant.
    He slowed down but didn’t stop. While turning onto Twenty-fifth, he took out his cell phone and called Paige. She answered on the third ring.
    “Did you forget my order?” she asked.
    “It’s not that,” Cole said anxiously. “I just saw three Nymar hanging out on Twenty-fourth Street.”
    “What were they doing?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Were they feeding on anyone?”
    “No,” Cole quickly replied.
    Upon hearing her sigh, he had no problem picturing the annoyed shift of Paige’s facial features. “Then why are you so worked up?” she asked. “I’m hungry.”
    “Aren’t you the one who told me there shouldn’t be any Nymar this close to us?”
    “Yeah, I told you that. I just didn’t think