The Breaking

by Marcus Pelegrimas

  “Where did she go?”

  Since Ben’s face was dominated by a large, hooked beak, and the lids of his black eyes were vertical instead of horizontal, it was tough to read his expression. The movement of his bony shoulders, however, was most definitely a shrug.

  “Thanks for getting her away from here,” Cole said. “Do you think you can find out where she went?”

  “We do our best to track the Full Bloods. We’ll let you know what we find.”

  “Bring her back here,” he ordered. “Just find a way.”

  Ben disappeared beneath the dirt like a Whack-A-Mole barely escaping a giant padded mallet. Cole allowed himself a few tired laughs while tapping the touch screen of his phone. Since he wasn’t getting a good enough connection to log on to the Internet via Rico’s device, he did things the old-fashioned way. “Madison, Wisconsin,” he said to the operator after dialing 411. “Shimmy’s.”

  “What did you say?” Jessup asked as he walked over to him.

  Cole twisted his wrist so the phone receiver wasn’t directly in front of his mouth. “I’m calling information. Shimmy’s is a strip bar in Wisconsin.”

  “People are dead here and dying somewhere else and you’re calling tittie bars?”

  “Not just a tittie bar. It’s one of the Dryad temples. You used the damn portals to get to the Lancroft house in Philly, remember?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We need to separate those Full Bloods from whatever it is they found in Oklahoma,” Cole said. “From what Cecile was telling us about the pilot light and that energy those things are after, the worst thing going right now is that so many Full Bloods are in one place.”

  “You think the nymphs can zap them back to their territories if we could lure them to one of them bars?” After thinking it over, Jessup cringed. “Even if we could get them there, I doubt the girls would go for that. They don’t want much to do with Skinners, with all the police looking for us.” He stared at the statue of Esteban and scratched his cheek. “I just wish I knew what the hell he found beneath that prison of yours.”

  “What about the gargoyles? Are they still here?”

  “Circling,” the older Skinner replied. “With this much blood bein’ spilled and plenty of their own kind gettin’ shredded by werewolves, they won’t be goin’ anywhere anytime soon.”

  “Tell me if you can— Yeah, connect me . . . Yes, I’ll pay the extra fee . . . Sorry, that was Information again. If you can get those gargoyles to— Yeah, is Tristan there?”

  Wiping his hands on the front of his jeans, Rico approached the other two Skinners. “Need something better than dirty rags to patch these guys up.”

  Jessup shoved past the big man and grumbled, “Headin’ back to the truck. Gotta get my medical kit to treat these wounded soldiers proper.”

  “Somehow,” Cole said to Rico, “the Breaking Moon is allowing Full Bloods to turn people into Half Breeds without biting them.”

  “Kinda found that out the hard way, didn’t we?” the big man scoffed.

  “Yes, but if that gets any worse, it could be what Paige heard Liam talking about in Oklahoma. He said something about taking our guns and machines out of the picture. It they’re able to turn anyone just by— Yes I’m a friend of Tristan’s! Just tell her Cole Warnecki is calling. She’ll know who I am!”

  “Get back into the truck, guy,” Rico said to the skinny fellow who tried to sneak past him.

  Lambert stared intently at the Skinners, bouncing his eyes back and forth between them fast enough to make it look like a facial tic. “He’s right about what the Full Bloods can do,” he said to Rico while jabbing a finger at Cole. “I heard its thoughts. I’m psychic.”

  “So you’ve been saying ever since we picked you up.”

  “Why doesn’t anyone believe me?”

  “Because,” Rico snapped, “you talk like a nut job and you’re givin’ me a headache. You got something to say, just say it and stop with the crazy eyes.”

  “Crazy eyes?”

  “Yeah. Was that something you did in prison or did you freak out yer mama with them things too?”

  When Lambert tried to screw his expression into something he felt was more normal, he only succeeded in creeping Rico out even more. Finally, he let his squint and twitch return as he told the Skinner, “I was kept in that place to spy on people’s thoughts, and the ones who used me for that were like you. Skinners. They believed me and they were pricks. You and Cole aren’t pricks, so why the hell can’t you just listen to me?”

  “I’m listening,” Cole said.

  Letting out a relieved sigh, Lambert said, “I heard the Full Blood’s thoughts. It was something I ain’t never heard before. It wasn’t even words. It was just some kind of wild . . . static. It’s the same thing I heard in all of those Half Breeds tonight, but it wasn’t inside the ones back in Colorado.”

  “These Half Breeds are different,” Rico said. “Normally, they got to ferment before they’re ready to run. These just popped and were good to go.”

  “It’s the Breaking Moon,” Lambert insisted. “It’s all the Full Bloods have been thinking about since we left G7. The gray one, the brown one, even the girl. Tonight, everything for them is sped up. They’re getting stronger every second. Even that one.”

  Cole followed Lambert’s trembling finger and was directed to the statue of Esteban. “He’s still alive in there?” he asked.

  Lambert nodded. “And he’s pissed.”

  Cole was about to shove the phone back into his pocket when a voice came through that was almost sweet enough to make him forget about everything else. “Cole?” she said. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah, Tristan. It’s me.”

  “I was so worried.” She sighed in a way that Cole savored like a guilty pleasure. “You were all over the news when you were brought in for those murders and now there’s nothing anywhere. No pictures, no reports. Just nothing. Where are you?”

  “New Mexico. Is there any way for you to get out here?”

  “There are clubs in New Mexico, but that depends on where you are.”

  “What I really need to know is—”

  “Are you in Raton?” she asked.

  Cole did a mental checklist of all the powers he knew the nymphs possessed. They could appeal to senses most humans didn’t even know they had. Dryads were powerful enough to channel the energies given off by human lust and desire into temples scattered throughout the country, but as far as he knew, there was no mind reading involved. Finally, he asked, “How’d you know that?”

  “Because I’ve always got at least one of our TVs turned to the news and it says the National Guard was attacked by creatures or something there.” Beneath the thrumming bass and pounding rhythms of Joan Jett’s “Heartbreaker,” Cole could hear the voice of a newscaster anxiously relaying some information he couldn’t quite make out. “It looks like there are more soldiers flying in.”

  “You need to get here and it’s got to be now,” he said. “Is there any possible way you can reach me using only one temple?”

  After a short, unusually quiet pause on her end of the call, Tristan replied, “Yes. We’ve done it before. It just requires more energy and a Skipping Temple, but we still can’t get involved with known criminals.”

  “It’s too late to worry about that. This is about survival.”

  “You want to talk survival?” she asked in a voice that was severe and still sultry. “The Nymar have more connections than ever with the police. They also view Dryad blood as the most valuable substance in existence. We can’t afford to draw police attention by becoming Skinner accomplices.”

  “The Breaking Moon is rising. Do you know what that is?”

  “I’ve heard some things, but just a few vague legends.”

  “The Full Bloods are gathering and they no longer give a rat’s ass about being seen or anything else,” Cole said in a voice that became fiercer with every syllable. “They’re tearing through entire towns and are drawing
on some kind of power that allows them to change humans into Half Breeds without biting them. Now here’s the big question. Can you make a bridge between two spots where neither end has a temple?”

  “Why do you want to do that?”

  Resisting the urge to snap at her, he said, “Just tell me if it’s possible.”

  “I may be able to act as a Skipping Temple, but it depends on how far you’re going.”

  “There’s going to be more than one that needs to be moved,” he explained. “Some can just go a few hundred miles, but others will have to go across the world.”

  She laughed without a speck of humor in her tone before saying, “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

  “I’m not.”

  At the beginning of the call, her side of the connection had been filled with the usual mixture of loud music, catcalls, and DJ ramblings one might expect from a strip club. Now, she’d moved to a place where her voice was clearer and everything else had been relegated to the background. “What is it you want me to do, Cole?” Tristan asked in an intensely sober tone.

  “First of all, I need you to get me to Atoka, Oklahoma. After that, I’ll signal you, and that’s when I need you to open another bridge.” From there, he proceeded to tell her what he needed, with as many of the details as he’d been able to put together.

  After he finished, Tristan let out a deep breath and said, “That’s a tall order.”

  “Is it possible?”

  “It’s been done before, but that was a long time ago when we had a lot more power at our disposal. I’m talking about daily visits to our temples by true worshippers.”

  “I’ve seen the way those guys look at you when you’re in that hot little outfit with the veils,” Cole said. “You’re being truly worshipped.”

  “Lust and desire are different and much shallower than reverence,” she pointed out. “If we’re going to do this, we need to tap into a deeper well.”

  “Tristan, we need to make this happen. The Breaking Moon has just come up, and every Full Blood may be getting the power to turn humans into Half Breeds just by looking at them. I’ve seen it and it’s only getting worse. These soldiers have already been killed or turned. Paige says it’s worse in Oklahoma, and when more troops are sent here, they’ll be turned too. The people in this town still may be changed by this Breaking Moon or could get torn apart by any Half Breeds that got away from us and turned the old-fashioned way. We need to make sure this doesn’t spread to other towns, other cities, and possibly other countries.”

  “Oh my Lord,” Tristan sighed.

  “Yeah, so what’ve you got for me on this Skipping Temple thing?”

  “Are you sure this is the only way to get this job done?”

  “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m open for it. Just be quick because Paige is in the worst of it right now.”

  Tristan drew a deep breath and let it out in a measured voice. “Our temples and bridges use emotion as fuel. Pleasure, desire, and reverence are the purest sources, but what you need is a quick burn, and the only way to get that is to tap into a darker source. Channeling these emotions can taint even the best of us and possibly destroy the Dryad who attempts to put them to use.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  “Fear.”

  Cole chuckled and closed his eyes as a chorus of Half Breed snarls rose in the distance. “I should be able to accommodate you on that one.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Atoka, Oklahoma

  When Paige’s phone vibrated against her hip, she was sitting in the back of a hardware store on a stretch of East Court Street that had been destroyed by roaming packs of Half Breeds. She’d gotten there in Waggoner’s green pickup. He waited near the broken front window, watching for more shapeshifters while Jesse and Bill Phillips dragged in the bodies of Half Breeds that had either been killed by Skinner weapons or shredded by copious amounts of gunfire. Al drove out to collect more carcasses, leaving Bill to gut the creature with quick, efficient movements. “You gonna get that?” he asked.

  Paige straightened up from where she’d been hunching over a large plastic bucket. It contained a pungent mixture that she stirred using flat sticks meant for mixing paint. She dug her humming phone out, checked the screen, and answered the call. “Cole! This had better be good. Things have taken a turn out here.”

  “Things aren’t much better here.” After filling her in on what he’d discovered, he added, “But whatever they’re doing to force the change doesn’t seem to work on Skinners. Something’s going on with us, though.”

  “I know. I hooked up with a few Skinners who have dealt with the mess since this town was overrun,” she explained. “Once the Breaking Moon rose, they’ve been getting bouts of crankiness that are bad enough to rip each other’s faces off. They say it feels like something stabbing them in the gut.”

  “Same here. What about you?” Cole asked. “Have you felt a tension that makes you want to rip something apart?”

  “No more than usual. Why did you call?”

  “I need you to get as many of those things together as possible because Tristan will be trying to zap me right to them.”

  Paige gave him a tired laugh. “I’m on the front lines and you’re talking to strippers. Typical.”

  “Just call me when you know where they are or where they might be headed.”

  “The Full Bloods won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, I can tell you that much. There’s a source of power here, and from what I’ve heard, they intend on keeping this place as some sort of stronghold.” She felt a warm smile grace her lips. “It’d be nice to see you again at least once more before—”

  “Just stop right there,” he interrupted. “It’ll take a little while for Jessup to find enough gargoyles to chase after me, but I’m on my way.”

  “Why get them to chase you?”

  “Because seeing those things dive straight at me, staring with those black little eyes, freaks me out, and that’s what Tristan needs to open the . . . forget it. Just do what I asked and we’ve got a chance at keeping this thing from getting any worse.”

  “We’ve got at least five Full Bloods to kill,” Paige said, “and maybe hundreds of Half Breeds to put down while we’re being watched by a clueless public and a whole lot of smug Nymar making themselves comfortable in the cities they’ve kicked us out of. I don’t see how things could get much worse.”

  “Some of the Full Bloods are fighting each other,” Cole said. “That’s something.”

  “Any casualties?” she asked hopefully.

  “Randolph was nearly gutted, but don’t get too excited. He’s gone.”

  “What?”

  “I saw him get his ass handed to him by a gray Full Blood named Esteban, and when we went to salvage the body before I made this call, we couldn’t find him.”

  Although Paige didn’t like hearing that, she wasn’t too surprised. Werewolves like Randolph and Liam didn’t survive for hundreds of years by being easy to kill. “The Full Bloods have waited to make a move like this for centuries,” she said. “They’ve got more planned than taking over a few towns or nipping at each other.”

  “According to MEG, the Breaking Moon won’t be fully risen until about three in the morning.”

  “The Witching Hour?” Paige asked.

  “They called it the Dead Hour, but yeah. Three a.m. is when the Breaking Moon will give all it’s got. From everything we’ve seen so far, I don’t think we want to let that happen or be there when it does.”

  “Well, if there’s a big bomb that’s gonna go off, I’d prefer to be two inches away from it. Quick and painless. Same goes for this.”

  “You’re a scary lady sometimes.”

  “Just sometimes?” she mused. “Must be slipping.”

  In the distance a muffled explosion ripped through one end of town. The ground beneath her feet trembled with the passing of digging Mongrels. A few gunshots from directly outside the store silenced a pair of
snarling Half Breeds. She closed her eyes for a second, savored the relative calm that followed, and tried to imagine the face at the other end of the phone connection.

  “How bad is it over there?” Cole asked.

  “Bad enough that this town’s pretty much gonna have to be written off. Kansas City was brutal, but this . . .”

  “Don’t think about that, Paige. We need to keep this craziness from spreading any farther, then we’ll worry about the big picture.”

  “It’s already spreading,” she said, as if admitting to a terrible wrong she’d personally committed. “From what we can tell, at least two nearby towns in this county were hit by Half Breeds. Could be worse already by now.”

  “Well, the cops are already sealing this place off,” Cole reported. “Your IRD buddies have come in to quarantine the spot where all the fighting took place, but Raton, New Mexico, is all over the news. Why the hell isn’t anyone taking notice of Oklahoma?”

  “That’s what I plan on finding out, but I have my suspicions. How long before you can get here?”

  “I’m still waiting for Tristan to get herself prepared for what she needs to do,” Cole said. “It sounds like this could take a lot out of her. I just hope it’s worth it. This would go a whole lot smoother if we knew exactly where to find you, but if I don’t hear from you in an hour, we’ll try to get as close as possible.”

  She nodded and steeled herself as a low howl crept through town. Everytime she heard that sound, it reached deeper inside her. “You said the IRD is there. What about Rico?”

  “He came with the helicopters and soldiers. Seems to be back to his old self.”

  “Keep an eye on him.”

  She heard another explosion, followed by a howl and what sounded like grating interference over the digital connection. This time, all of it came from Cole’s side. “Just try to stay alive long enough for me to see you again, okay?” he said.

  “I will.”

  The next two seconds were heavy with sentiments that neither one of them bothered to express. They knew they could not afford to drift away from the mind-set required to kill or die if the opportunity presented itself. After some bare-bones farewells that slipped from Paige’s mind the moment she said them, the connection was cut and she was on her own once more.