Free Extinction Agenda by Marcus Pelegrimas Page B

What brings you here?”
    “We came for the Jekhibar,” she told him.
    “Then you might as well turn right back and go. We went through too much to get our hands on that thing.”
    “I know,” Cole said. “I was right there in New Mexico with you. In fact, I don’t think you would’ve made it out of there if I hadn’t been watching your back.”
    “It’s too late in the game to start asking for credit on the battlefield.” Jessup sighed. “Too much fighting, too many losses. There ain’t hardly anything worth owning up to anymore.”
    “You told me to contact you if I wanted to learn more about the Jekhibar,” Cole said. “Here we are.”
    “It’s been months since I made that offer. You lookin’ to join us?” Jessup asked.
    “No.”
    “Then why the hell should I show you a damned thing?”
    “Because as long as we’re not sprouting fur or fangs, we’re on the same team. If you didn’t have any intention of doing that much, you never would have made contact with me after New Mexico.”
    “True enough,” Jessup admitted. “You guys hungry?”
    Cole and Paige followed him back through the narrow doorway and farther into the building. There were several sticks of dynamite and metal containers that reeked of flammable liquids fastened to the other side of that wall. Wires running from the homemade explosives ran to a set of switches farther inside a round room that had been gutted to make space for several shelves, storage lockers, and chairs. As he surveyed the rest of the area, Cole picked out at least a dozen lines of blocky runic symbols etched into the floor, walls, and ceiling.
    Motioning toward a series of scorch marks, bullet holes, and claw marks adorning the floor and walls, Jessup said, “As you can tell, you ain’t the first ones to pay us a visit.” His long gray hair looked as if it had been scraped up from the ash coating much of the room’s surface area. It was held back by a thin leather cord. “We gotta be careful lately,” he explained. “If the Full Bloods ain’t tryin’ to sniff us out, the bloodsuckers are sending in spies to get as deep into this place as they can to plant bugs or any other kind of electronic bullshit.”
    Without being told, one of the three others in the room stood up and opened a door leading deeper into the building. Until now Cole had barely noticed the other tired faces staring at him from their posts within the foyer. And, thanks to the explosives, he’d all but written off that second door as a possibility of leading anywhere but to the next life. It swung open after a few conventional locks were undone and was held open by a man with an M-16 in his hands and a wooden weapon hanging from one shoulder. The deep patchwork of scars on his hands told Cole that he knew how to put each of those weapons to use.
    “So the Nymar know you’re here?” Paige asked as she followed Jessup into the next room.
    “They’ve been after us ever since all that business with the dead cops,” Jessup explained. “It ain’t like they can really back down after something like that, right?”
    “We’ve been stepping up our work against them,” Cole said as he stepped through the hidden opening and looked around. “Any Nymar Blood Parlor we’ve been able to find has been burnt to the ground.”
    “Just so another can spring up somewhere else. Nope,” Jessup grunted definitively. “We’re well past the point of keepin’ the peace. It’s ‘us or them’ time.”
    The next room was part living quarters and part bunker. Several walls had been knocked down to open what had to be most of the first floor. Men and women in layers of tattered clothing walked quietly between televisions and computer terminals, sifted through racks of guns and wooden weapons, or rested on cots or chairs situated near the back of the room. Some ate from cans or drank from plastic bottles, obviously more concerned with fueling their muscles instead of enjoying a meal. Every last