The Breaking

by Marcus Pelegrimas

  Blinking as if none of that had sunken in, Paige gasped, “Did you say Japan?”

  “Cole will explain. We just needed to separate the Full Bloods before they got too powerful.”

  “You mean return them to their territories?”

  “Exactly,” the Dryad said. “Didn’t Cole warn you?”

  Rubbing her shoulder, Paige winced and looked around. “It’s a lot quieter now. Can’t figure out if that’s a good or bad thing.” She watched as sections of the sky sprang to life with gargoyles gliding up and down to attack the remaining Half Breeds. “You seem to know a lot about those things,” she said to Tristan.

  “Yes. We have many gargoyles back home. Dangerous, but merely pests if you know how to handle them. After feeding this much in one night, they will find a place to hibernate for a few months.”

  “Will they kill her?”

  They all looked toward the spot where Minh had stood.

  “No,” Milosh sighed. “They will not be able to kill a Full Blood.”

  “But can one be contained?” Tristan asked. Now that she’d gotten to her feet, she took on a presence that made her seem somehow beyond human. The sight of her supple body encased in wet veils and moonlight was enough to calm even the most raging soul.

  Milosh looked at her with the same mix of awe and arousal that showed up on everyone’s face the first time they gazed upon a Dryad. “I think so, but not for long.”

  “How long?” Paige asked. When she didn’t get an answer or even a glance in response, she reached out to snap her fingers in front of his face. “Hey! How long?”

  “I don’t know! Maybe a few days or weeks.”

  Placing a hand gingerly upon Paige’s shoulder, Nadya asked, “Do you need a sling?”

  “No,” she replied while gently flexing her arm. “You must’ve popped it back into place when you dragged me away. It’s already healing. At least something went better than expected tonight.”

  “Where is the trickster?” Tristan asked.

  Paige’s head drooped forward. “There goes the better than expected thing. How the hell could I have forgotten about him?”

  “The same way your civilization has forgotten him throughout every human era. The First Deceiver survives through lies and being able to slip away after telling them. All he needs to do is distract someone long enough and the memory of him will fall to the wayside.”

  “And there,” Paige said while cautiously approaching one of the many Half Breed statues, “is one hell of a distraction.”

  “What do we do now?” Nadya asked.

  Tristan placed a hand on Paige’s shoulder, but not in a comforting manner. Using the Skinner to keep her upright, the Dryad said, “Cole is alone with Liam. That animal cannot be allowed to claim his prize from this night.”

  Paige felt a surge of adrenaline rush through her that was the instantaneous equivalent of two nights of sleep followed by a cold shower. “Where are they?”

  “Finland.”

  “Finland?”

  “The Torva’ox will be drawn to the Full Bloods more than any other creature on this earth,” Tristan replied. “Now that they are spread out, the power they seek is unfocused. I can’t take you to him without the energy to open another bridge.”

  “Tell me where the closest strip club is and—”

  “No,” Tristan snapped. “We don’t have time for that. We need more power than a local temple can provide. Cole and I tapped into darker energies before, and I’m willing to do that again.”

  “How dark are we talking here?”

  Before Tristan could answer, the distant howl of a few Half Breeds drifted through the air and a lithe body separated from the shadows within the nearby trees. It bounded toward the reservoir in swift, agile steps. Judging from the shape of its head and body, along with the fact that it stopped when it caught sight of the humans, Paige guessed it wasn’t a Half Breed. The creature trotted closer, favoring one of its forepaws. When it shifted to walk on two legs, it became a naked woman who held one arm across her chest for reasons that had nothing to do with modesty.

  “The remaining Half Breeds are scattered,” Quinn confirmed. “My pack is almost completely destroyed, but we should be able to get you to safety if you come along with us now.”

  Tristan lowered her head and closed her eyes. “Let them come.”

  “They’re stronger than we’ve ever seen,” the Mongrel said. “Perhaps they are drawing from the Breaking Moon, but the fewer there are, the worse they get.”

  “Take him to shelter,” Paige said while nodding to Milosh. “He’s wounded.”

  “To hell with that!” he said. “If we are to die here, then we all die.”

  “Bring the wretches to us,” Tristan said, ignoring the Amriany. “They can produce the energy I need.”

  “You can draw strength from Half Breeds?” Paige asked.

  “A little,” Tristan replied, “but I need a pure source that only comes from humans. We take our power from your spirits, which is heightened by emotion. There is no time to collect in our normal way, so I must draw from your fear.”

  Paige had heard about wicked forest sprites and beautiful witches who drained humans of their essences and souls, but hadn’t connected them to Dryads until now. “There’s one problem,” she said while driving the thorns of her weapon handles into her palms. “I’m not afraid.”

  “That is not the only darkness within the human soul,” Tristan replied. “Stand your ground and don’t fight the wretches. Let them overtake you.”

  “There are maybe two or three Half Breeds left,” Quinn said. “Even if they were anywhere close, we couldn’t bring them back here.” When several gargoyles shrieked in the distance, she added, “I think you see why.”

  Tristan’s eyes were closed, and even in the moonlight, the subtle shading of her skin and the smooth texture of her flesh was plain to see. The fact that she was still wet from the water spray coming from the reservoir only added to her sensuality. “There’s nothing I can do for you.”

  “What?”

  “There’s not enough in you for me to use. I won’t be able to do this.”

  “Now you tell us? What about Cole’s plan?”

  The Dryad shrugged and turned her back on the Skinner and Amriany. “You’re right. It was a stupid plan. Sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” Paige bellowed as the Half Breeds thundered toward her. “And now you’re leaving?” The air around her started to crackle, but Paige was too fired up to notice.

  Tristan propped a hand casually on her hip and said, “Sorry, sweetie. Guess we have to leave Cole on his own. But that’s nothing new for you, is it?”

  “What did you just say to me?”

  Nadya and Milosh spoke to each other in clipped phrases pulled from their own language. For once they truly didn’t seem to know what to do.

  “Fuck you, lady!” Paige roared. “If the world’s going to hell right now, then that’s the last thing I want to say! Fuck you!”

  “There we go,” Tristan sighed as the crackling in the air turned into a spark that blinded every human eye in the vicinity.

  The green glow was brighter than the other Dryad bridges she’d used, but Paige recognized the tumbling feeling that came along with it. Instead of having to step through a curtain set up at a temple to mark the spot where the mystical opening would appear, the ground simply opened up beneath her feet and she fell just over five thousand miles in the span of a few minutes.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Hailuoto, Finland

  A few minutes earlier

  There was an explosion, after which Cole thought he fell for an eternity. He’d traveled through Dryad bridges before, but those were jumps between cities, no more impressive than stepping from one room and landing in another. The trips had been more difficult after he acquired the broken, hungry tendrils that wrapped around his insides, but only in a dizzying, disoriented way. This was beyond any of that.

  The bridge w
as wild and unfocused, filled with power that could only flow from one of nature’s opened arteries and set alight by raw human emotion. Plummeting through that was like being dropped down an elevator shaft. After a while, his brain didn’t expect his body to survive the impact of landing. Instead of slapping against terra firma, however, he reached the other side of the bridge and was spat into existence two feet above a patch of cold, desolate ground.

  He hit the hard-packed dirt on his side, his arms jerking at an odd angle because of the spear he still gripped in both hands. The tug of thorns within his palms brought back his combat reflexes as well as recent memories of what was following him from Oklahoma. A fraction of a second after he rolled clear of the landing spot, the Full Blood impacted against the earth. The gargoyles hit the ground next, like wet blankets tossed out of a passing car. Before the creatures could flap into the air, Liam was shredding them and scattering their bodies. Once the others caught the scent of their decimated companions, they scraped their hooked talons against the ground and convulsed until they were able to get some air beneath them. The trip had been dizzying to human and flier alike, but Liam seemed energized by the voyage. He looked up, clear juices dripping from his claws, and let out a breath he might have been holding for the last thousand miles.

  Cole gripped his spear as a harsh wind tore across his face. Tristan had told him they’d land on Finnish soil, but the sudden time difference was still jarring. The sky was colored with light purples and reds. The wind felt as if it had claws that tried to shred his skin off. That alone reminded him of dawn. Only mornings were that cruel.

  “You’re not leaving this spot,” Cole promised the Full Blood.

  Liam crouched down and roared loud enough for his voice to rip across the landscape in every direction. The grass beneath their feet was brittle and thin. In the pale colors reflected from the sky, every green blade seemed washed out and tired.

  Hearing shrieks in the distance, Cole held his spear so the metallic end was pointed like a bayonet at the end of a soldier’s musket. He charged the Full Blood, unmindful of how badly the odds were stacked against him or how slim the chances that he would live to regret it. Liam’s eye caught light from the clear sky and shone it back at the Skinner in an excited gleam. When their bodies collided, it was accompanied by the revelry of dive-bombing gargoyles.

  Cole’s weapon drilled into Liam’s chest, but was stopped by a steely, unmoving rib. The Full Blood splayed his arms out, reared his head back and howled at a moon that could still be seen in the early morning sky. When he was out of breath, he gripped Cole’s hand along with the spear and snarled, “That all you got?”

  “Nope.”

  Remembering his lesson, Cole didn’t bother looking over his shoulder or checking to see where the gargoyles might be. When he heard their cries clearly, he simply let go of the spear and jumped away. His chest hit the ground and he covered his head with both hands, as if expecting a bomb to go off. The fliers, attracted to the blood on Liam’s coat and claws, swooped down with their bodies outstretched so they could immediately sink their talons in.

  The gargoyles clawed Liam’s arms, their excretion making it harder for him to move. In his haste to peel the creatures from his shoulder and back, he left the spear where it was. Cole seized the opportunity to grab the spear again and grind it within Liam’s torso until he could feel it slide against the Full Blood’s rib cage. After ripping one gargoyle away and cracking the stony crust that had begun to form on his upper arm, Liam clapped a hand over Cole’s face.

  “All I gotta do is think it and I can put a human through the Breaking,” Liam snarled. “You can’t take that away from me or any of the others. The power we’ve soaked up tonight is part of us now. You may have stopped the flow, but you won’t be able to stop what we started.”

  It took all of Cole’s strength along with some supernatural reserves, but he managed to grab Liam’s hand and pull it away from his face. But no matter how good it felt to gain less than an inch of breathing room, he knew he was only getting what the Full Blood gave to him.

  “You . . . can’t break me,” he said. “I know you’ve tried but you just . . . can’t do it.”

  “You’re going to tell me what I can do? You think you even know what I can’t do?”

  Liam’s hand shifted within Cole’s grasp. The muscles beneath his skin swelled and expanded like boiling paste. Bones creaked and stretched until his fingers were things that could wrap around Cole’s head and grip it even tighter. Watching a shapeshifter’s body reform was one thing, but feeling the grisly mechanics at work was something that brought the Skinner closer to his prey than he’d thought possible. By the time calcified claws scraped behind Cole’s ears, he couldn’t decide whether to feel panic or awe.

  “I don’t know where you dug up these bats,” Liam said in his guttural cockney brogue while slapping down the last gargoyle that had followed them through the bridge, “but they won’t be enough. And even if you kill me, the gears are already turnin’. The humans that don’t feel the Breaking will watch as the rest of the world is pulled over to our side of the fence . . . just the way it should be.” Pulling Cole closer, he moved his hand so he could see more of his reaction when he added, “God created his finest creatures in his image. Who’s to say the man upstairs don’t ’ave claws and a snout?”

  Cole pulled in a breath while he had a chance. The coppery scent of blood filled his nose, but it wasn’t his. When Liam had grabbed the spear to remove it from his chest, the thorns must have ripped the Full Blood’s palm. Blood trickled from the werewolf’s hand thanks to a wound he probably didn’t notice. Cole took notice, however, as did the tendrils wrapped around his innards. Rather than fight the impulse that came next, he grabbed Liam’s wrist and sank his teeth into the minor wounds.

  If he’d had fangs, he would have gotten much more than a trickle of Liam’s blood. He turned his head and wedged his canine teeth into the Full Blood’s palm as the wounds tried to close around him. The thirst wasn’t something his entire body craved, but the part that felt it most was determined to make the rest pay for being denied.

  “Ain’t this a sight?” Liam mused while waving his free hand to keep the gargoyles at bay. His movements had become sluggish and were now accompanied by the dry crunch of stone being chipped or cracked. “I could smell the leech in you, but thought it was just from that shit you Skinners pump into yourselves. Gonna try to bite me now? That’s just precious.”

  Cole had tasted more blood than he cared to admit. He’d tasted his own during fights both practiced and genuine. He’d tasted splashes of Nymar blood in Denver and even human blood in G7. Now he tasted the blood of a werewolf. It was sweet and alive, shifting into something that stung and burned as it went down.

  “You’re feeding?” Liam gasped, finally noticing.

  Although Cole could only feel the occasional drop on his lips, the tendrils were more than eager for more. He didn’t know how they were getting the blood, didn’t want to think about how they could be slicing into his digestive tract or poking into his throat so they could absorb what he drank. All he knew was that the pain of their clenching grasp was a constant thing, and when it faded, the absence was pure bliss.

  Liam grabbed the back of Cole’s head with his other hand, the gargoyles still attached to him, sinking their talons in deeper and drawing tight against his body and limbs. “What is that? What are you doing?”

  The same question had flashed through Cole’s mind when he felt the tickle deep in his throat as wet tendrils reached up like hungry, eager hands. When Liam pulled back, it was a cautious, tentative movement that drew the tendrils out far enough to make it feel like his intestines were being drawn out by a string. A crystalline eye shifted within the Full Blood’s skull as he tossed Cole aside, forcing the tendrils to snap back into him like juicy rubber bands.

  “So Kawosa was right,” Liam growled as more gargoyles settled on his back. “The leeches truly have gotten a foothold i
nto the Skinners. Perhaps we should have just left you to them.”

  “You’re an arrogant bastard who doesn’t know when to run away.”

  Struggling to stand up proudly while purposely leaving the gargoyles in place, Liam raised his chin and howled to the fading moon. That bellowing roar was still drifting across the Finnish landscape when he proclaimed, “Humans may have weathered the Black Plague, but that was nothing compared to what I’ve started! Even if you unleash your best weapons and set your finest machines upon us, you will only succeed in killing yourselves. Even these bats you’ve dredged up are useless!”

  In the light of dawn, Cole could see the rocky shell forming around Liam’s body. Every move he made caused pieces of it to shatter and fall away. The gargoyles, either too focused or too ignorant to stop, quietly gnawed on him while continuing their attempts to grind him to a halt.

  Before Liam grew tired of reveling in his dominion over lesser things, Cole dove for his spear and then stuck it into his abdomen after piercing the gargoyle that had attached itself there. Light blazed from over the Full Blood’s shoulders, illuminating Cole’s features. Wincing as the spearhead was driven deeper, Liam reached down to remove it. Unlike a few moments ago, he couldn’t take the weapon out so easily. Cole held on to the thorny grip with every ounce of strength at his disposal, and now that the tendrils had fed, he was stronger. He leaned against the weapon to push it between Liam’s grasping fingers.

  The Full Blood tightened his grip until Cole’s hand felt like it was trapped within a vise. “You didn’t bring enough bats,” Liam said.

  Gargoyles lay scattered on the ground like skins shed by a truckload of giant snakes.

  “Don’t need them,” Cole said through gritted teeth.

  Liam’s eyes widened, absorbing the sight of the Skinner before him as though witnessing the birth of a new species. The glow behind him shifted from brilliant white to green. “I can feel the humans nearby,” he wheezed. “Now . . . one of them feels me.”