The Breaking

by Marcus Pelegrimas

  “Take it from him,” Waylon said.

  Another guard handed his weapon to the woman with the shotgun and clamped a powerful hand around Cole’s wrist. Just to be sure he got what he was after, Cole showed the guard a sweaty grin when he whispered, “Sure takes a lot of backup for you to take a stick away from a wounded man. Your mom must be real proud of you. How about I ask her the next time I’m—”

  Taking hold of the stake, the guard pulled it loose in a powerful motion followed by a twist to scrape the thorns as much as possible against Cole’s bloody palm. He let out a pained grunt to cover the sound of snapping wood and slumped forward to rest his head and chest against the table. When he placed his hands flat on the tabletop, he slid them across the smooth surface to leave crimson trails and smear the blood on his skin.

  “What are the readings?” Waylon asked.

  The tech nervously rattled off some numbers.

  “How’s his leg?”

  The guard who’d already gotten his hands dirty moved in to restrain Cole while the tech checked the bullet wound.

  “It went right through the meat,” the tech confirmed. “Looks like that serum we put together does work faster than the original formula.”

  “Great. That means we can continue.”

  “I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why? We can always patch him up if things get too bad. I just want to make sure he hasn’t sprouted fangs.”

  “I haven’t,” Cole said. “Can’t you see that much for yourself?”

  “They retract,” Waylon said, as if explaining a simple sketch to a child. “They also respond to external stimulus such as perceived threats or sources of food.”

  “Haven’t you starved me enough and thrown enough goddamn threats at me to spark what you needed?”

  Waylon smiled and then shrugged. “Maybe. But perhaps the process of turning you into a Nymar hasn’t been halted. Perhaps it’s merely been slowed.” As he continued to talk, guards surrounded Cole and another one moved in behind him with something that looked like an upended gurney. “Perhaps something else is happening, but we know the Nymar organism evolves quickly in response to the unique situations of its host. Since we’ve got you here and you resisted the drugs to put you back under again, we’ll run our experiments while you’re awake.”

  “When did I refuse anesthesia?” Cole asked while he was stood up and strapped into the gurney. “Seriously! I’ll take whatever painkillers you’ve got.”

  “Relax, Cole. This should only take another hour or two.” Once Waylon’s subject was completely tied down and surrounded by armed guards, he said, “Get the drills.”

  A door opened at the back of the room and something was wheeled out. Cole spent the short amount of time preparing himself to stay awake and keep his fists clenched tightly enough to keep his palms secure. When he caught his first glimpse of the little handheld drills on the cart that was wheeled to his table, keeping his fists clenched wasn’t much of a concern. The motor of the first drill sounded like a smaller version of a hydraulic tool used to remove bolts from a car’s wheel.

  “Someone get him a towel,” Waylon said.

  Cole needed his hands to remain dirty until he got back to his cell. If that wasn’t allowed to happen and his palms were examined too carefully, all of the pain he’d suffered would count for squat.

  When the tech stepped up to his side holding one of the prison’s threadbare towels, Waylon said, “Good, now stuff it in his mouth.”

  As the tech pushed the towel in, he made sure he was still able to see Cole’s teeth. The drill gouged into his shoulder smoothly, but squealed when it hit bone. Agony shot through Cole’s entire body and he nearly bit all the way through the towel as he screamed into it. Waylon looked pleased as his subject thrashed against his restraints and the machines recorded every moment of Cole’s ordeal.

  Chapter Eight

  Eighteen hours later

  Sixty-five miles northeast of Atoka, Oklahoma

  Paige hadn’t been eager to make the call to Prophet regarding the Amriany, but it proved to be a gamble worth taking. Not only had the European hunters agreed to extract her within hours after she contacted them, but they’d flown into a private strip at Buffalo-Niagara International Airport and took off before the engines of their Gulfstream G200 had a chance to cool.

  The inside of the jet looked like a smaller version of the waiting room Paige had haunted while waiting for the Amriany to arrive. It was sparsely furnished, smelled of stale cigarette smoke, and vibrated with the hum of engines. Three of the ten seats in the cabin were occupied. She sat near one of the windows, angling her chair so she could watch the other passengers. Two of them had worked with Cole, Rico, and Prophet in Denver. The third was a short man plagued by a constant twitch in his right eye. His olive-colored skin was deeply tanned and marred by scars of all shapes and sizes, some of which were deep enough to interrupt the flow of a short, curly beard. The largest scar ran along his left cheek and down his chin. If Cole had been there, Paige thought, he’d make a comment about how the bush on the scarred man’s face would have looked more natural between the Gypsy’s legs. She laughed quietly, reminding herself to call the Amriany by their proper name.

  “What is so funny?” the man with the bush on his face asked.

  Paige shook her head. “Nothing. Just trying to pop my ears. We took off so fast that I barely had a chance to grab onto something.”

  “You said you were in a hurry.”

  “Right, but I didn’t expect you guys to come so quickly.”

  “If you could have waited, you should have said something,” the man said impatiently. “There is a lot to do and we don’t need to waste time picking up Americans who are too cheap to pay for a goddamn ticket.”

  Before the man could get any more riled up, he was shoved back into his seat by a firm hand that slapped his shoulder several times. The woman attached to that hand kept her short brown hair beneath a leather skullcap. Her pointy nose dominated an otherwise fragile-looking face. “We’re still on schedule, Milosh,” she said. “Paige will prove to be worth the diversion.”

  “She’d better,” Milosh scowled through his beard. From there, he pulled a long blade from a scabbard at his waist and began polishing the gleaming steel with a cloth that reeked of oils smelling vaguely like the varnish used for Skinner weapons.

  “Hi, Nadya,” Paige said in the cheeriest voice she could manage. “Prophet sends his best.”

  The woman had a face that was pretty, but rough around the edges. Reflexively touching the spot where she’d been wounded during the ill-fated raid on the Nymar warehouse in Denver, Nadya sat down in the seat directly across from her and said, “We’re sorry about what happened to Cole. That was an unfortunate sacrifice, but it allowed most of us to escape.”

  “He didn’t get brought in just to save you,” Paige said. “There’s more to it than that.”

  “And he wasn’t the only one to sacrifice,” Milosh pointed out. “Tobar was captured as well.”

  An athletic man wearing a tactical vest and brown fatigues stood up from a seat at the other end of the cabin. His vest looked to be the same make and design as the shell Paige used for body armor, but was modified by strands of silver woven into black mesh. Despite the graying hair on his head, his face still had a youthful smoothness that would get him carded at casinos for years to come.

  The smooth-faced Gunari might have been one of the Amriany who had joined forces with the Skinners in Denver, but the fire in his eyes still reflected generations of mistrust between the two groups of hunters. Sometimes tradition was a real bitch. “We had to flee from that bloodbath,” he said to Paige, “but not before we saw you step out of a fancy helicopter. Tell me, did the Skinners win another lottery thanks to that psychic you work with?”

  “No,” she replied. “Prophet’s been busy doing other stuff, like trying to stay out of jail and divert any attention that might come our way thanks to warr
ants issued after all of that Nymar business. Speaking of that, since he’s covering your asses too, maybe you should call him by name instead of ‘that psychic.’ Okay?”

  Gunari nodded. “He was also supposed to find information from those Nymar about their communication network and pass it along to us in exchange for us helping you Skinners survive that massacre. We haven’t gotten anything from him or you.”

  “And,” Milosh grunted, “if you think we’re gonna let you go so you can screw us over, you’re fucking wrong.”

  “I told you I’ve got information you can use,” Paige said. “You can make a copy when you drop me off in Denver.”

  “Not good enough,” Milosh grunted.

  She extended her arm, flipped up one finger and panned it slowly back and forth so all of the Amriany could see it. “I’ll e-mail the rest to you. Until then, kiss my ass. Good enough now? My partner’s in a maximum security prison so the rest of you could get away. If I don’t hear from him soon, it means he’s probably dead and I made the worst mistake of my life. Prophet brokered an information exchange to repay you for this ride. You don’t like it? Either drop me at the next airport or hand me a parachute.”

  “Cole can handle himself,” Nadya said. “I saw him wade through the worst moments in that warehouse.” Her voice trailed off as memories of that night flooded through her mind. Just when it seemed she might become lost in those images, she blinked them away. “If anything, the men in that prison should fear him. Since Tobar is also locked in a cage somewhere, we’re all working toward the same thing.”

  “Are we?” Paige asked. “Why do you want that Nymar communication network so badly? I haven’t heard anything about an uprising overseas, so the network probably only covers the U.S. and Canada.”

  “You know nothing about what the Nymar do in our country,” Tobar replied. “And you know nothing about reports of any policemen that may have been hurt or killed by those leeches.”

  Unfortunately, Paige knew that she truly didn’t know about those things, so she slid right into the next topic. “The Nymar communicate through a site on ChatterPages.com run by someone named Cobb38. I got some stuff from their computers but haven’t had a chance to look through it yet. The computer was barely guarded by a bunch of Stripes like the ones we found at the warehouse. You know. The Nymar with those black markings?”

  “We know,” Milosh said. “We’ve been trying to find a simpler way to kill them since that day.”

  “And?”

  “And we would not tell you shit even if we found it.”

  “So you didn’t come up with anything either,” Paige said. “Seems like we’re all the same kind of worthless.”

  Even though Milosh looked as if he was ready to use the knife in his hands, Gunari and Nadya shared a quick sideways glance before laughing. Their camaraderie struck a nerve with Paige. It hadn’t been so long ago that she had the same sort of connection to a partner, but it had been a while since things were easy enough for her and Cole to relax and enjoy a moment together. Thinking back to one moment in particular brought a fraction of a smile to her face. Before it was noticed, she asked, “Any chance of you telling me where we’re going?”

  “Oklahoma,” Gunari replied.

  “Where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain.” When she didn’t get a reaction from that, Paige added, “Wavin’ wheat can sure smell sweet?”

  Surprisingly enough, it was Milosh who said, “And the wind comes right behind the rain. Rodgers and Hammerstein. Geniuses.”

  “I don’t know if I’d push them into genius territory, but you’re in the right ballpark. I knew we’d find some common ground before too long. So what’s in Oklahoma besides wheat, wind, and rain?”

  “Werewolves,” Nadya said. “The same one that was in Kansas City and at least one other.”

  All of the humor in Paige’s voice dried up when she heard that. “How can you be sure? Did someone see them?”

  “We got a sample of its fur.”

  “Nadya!”

  “Hush, Milosh!” she snapped as if scolding a dog. And, much like a pup that had just sniffed the wrong piece of carpeting, he backed down. Nadya drew one of her blades and removed a sharpening stone from a kit strapped to the back of the seat in front of her. “We can take you to Denver, but not until this other matter is settled.”

  “Cole’s in a lot of trouble,” Paige said. “He needs help now.”

  “And so does Tobar,” Gunari snapped. “Yet we let him stay where he is because we know he can fend for himself. If not, then he is surely already dead. I’ve seen enough of Cole to know he should be given that same sort of respect. Since we thought you might not want to share your information right away, we expect a favor in return for picking you up on such short notice.”

  Paige reached into her pocket to remove the little plastic flash drive. “If you’ve got a laptop or something, you can download a copy right now.”

  Although all three of the Amriany sat up and took notice of what was in her hand, none of them made a move to take it. “Can you guarantee what’s on there will be enough to make up for dragging us into the legal troubles with your police that will follow anyone helping such a group of wanted criminals like yourselves?” Gunari asked.

  “If they were my police, they wouldn’t want to drag me over the coals so badly,” Paige said frankly. “But this information is all I’ve got. You’re right, though that if there are Full Bloods gathering somewhere, we need to see what they’re doing.”

  Rather than take the flash drive from her, Gunari reached into one of the overhead compartments for a computer. He handed the notebook device to Nadya and said, “Download a copy.” To Paige, he added, “You’re welcome to watch if you want to make sure it is done properly.”

  “Cole’s the one who’d know if you were trying to put one over on me. If it takes too long, I’ll just rip it out of there and smash that computer to bits.”

  Gunari grinned at her and nodded. “And if you prove to be someone we can work with this easily, we may be able to extend our hand to you in the future.”

  “And I don’t mind lending a hand with you guys for whatever you need, especially since we seem to be working toward the same thing. Your partner is in the same tight spot as mine. He may even be locked up by the same group.”

  “They are both in prison,” Gunari said. “Isn’t that what you mean?”

  “They are both in buildings called prisons, but they’re not in the system.”

  Milosh leaned forward in his seat as if to mirror Paige’s confidence. “What do you know of Tobar?”

  “Have you seen any videos of him online or on the news?”

  “No,” Nadya replied.

  “Have you been able to contact him?”

  “No.”

  “Which means he’s disappeared just like Cole. I’m trying to find out something about where he wound up after he was pulled out of Denver. At the very least,” Paige added as she shifted to look at each of the Amriany in turn, “I should be able to check if both of them are alive, dead, or presumed something else.”

  Gunari pointed a critical stare at Paige and asked, “How do you know this?”

  “I’ve got contacts. Isn’t that what you like about me?”

  “Americans,” Milosh grunted. “Always talk in circles, but never saying anything.”

  Looking out her window, Paige said, “Prophet told me about what you guys did in Denver, so I don’t have any problem with doing what I can to find your partner. In the meantime, you can tell me how you’re so sure about that Full Blood in Oklahoma.”

  The speakers mounted in the cabin over their heads crackled, and a feminine voice with a sharp, eastern European accent was transmitted through them. “Is that Drina?” Paige asked, pointing up to the closest speaker.

  “We’ll be landing in five minutes,” Nadya said. “Buckle up.”

  Paige tugged on the strap of her seat belt to show that she’d never unbuckled it.

 
“How quickly can you find out about Tobar?” Gunari asked.

  “Depends on how long it takes to finish up this Oklahoma business. By the way,” Paige said, cocking her head to one side, “what was this business again?”

  Nadya fixed her eyes on Paige, but before she could say anything, Milosh snarled something at her in their native tongue. After tersely responding to him, she looked back to Paige and said, “We need to be more trusting of each other. There is no cause for bad feelings between you and I, other than the rivalry that has existed between Skinners and Amriany for generations.”

  As the plane dipped into a landing pattern, Paige felt something in her gut that came from more than just a change of altitude. The Amriany all stared at her expectantly before casting their eyes at each other as if they didn’t know whether to open up to her or gang up to make certain she never got up from her seat.

  “We have Dikh Chakano,” Nadya declared. “Far Seers. All they need is a piece of a shapeshifter and they can find them.”

  “They need more than that,” Milosh was quick to say.

  “Really?” Paige scoffed. “Because I was about to piece together and steal an entire Gypsy ritual with just that last sentence.”

  Milosh wagged a blade at her and asked, “You know what my people call an ignorant savage? ‘Skinner.’ See how that word rolls off my tongue like a kernel of shit someone slipped into my soup? When your people speak of us as superstitious fortune-tellers and thieves, ‘Gypsy’ sounds much the same way. If we are to start respecting each other, we can stop spitting these words at each other this way.”

  “Fair enough. So what’s the Gypsy method for spotting Full Bloods?”

  In a strange way, the word did sound different that time.

  Tossing a dismissive wave in Milosh’s direction, Nadya continued, “We have been collecting samples of as many shapeshifters as we could from this country, just as we’ve done for our own. With all that’s happened here recently, there’s a lot more for us to collect.”