The Breaking

Chapter Twenty

Paige wanted to run.

She wasn’t a stranger to that feeling, but there was never any time to give in to it. After signaling for Nadya to come back into the first bedroom, they huddled behind the bed piled high with blankets and mattress stuffing. Paige caught a smell powerful enough to let her know the rest of the body belonging to that hand was definitely hidden within the mound.

“Are you sure about this?” Nadya whispered.

The two women kept their backs against a wall, their hands wrapped tightly around their weapons, their eyes glued to the doorway.

“Yes,” Paige replied. “There’s a Full Blood coming. I can feel it.”

“And you’re sure about hiding here? Shouldn’t we run? Or at least get ready to fight?”

“There’s something about that hole in the floor in the other room,” Paige explained. “I think it messes with their senses somehow.”

“How do you know that?”

“Those things were placed here as guards, right?”

“Looks that way,” Nadya said.

“As far as we know, Full Bloods can just about smell one M&M in a pile of Reece’s Pieces from three hundred miles away, so why would they need to post a guard?”

“What if the Full Bloods didn’t post a guard?” Nadya asked.

“No Half Breed could think straight enough to do something like that.”

“Could be instinct,” Nadya said in a clipped whisper.

“Whatever is here is important to the Full Bloods. We need to find out why, and this may be our only chance.”

“If it smells us, we’re dead.”

“And it may also hear us, so be ready.”

The slow, lingering groan of old floorboards combined with churning breaths to silence the women immediately. Paige crouched until her nose came within inches of a cracked bone she hadn’t seen before. The stench of death had been overwhelming at first, but she’d gotten used to it enough to stay there without giving away her position by puking up her last two meals. The bed was between her and the door. Under it, apart from the newly discovered body parts, there were plenty of dust bunnies, a few mismatched socks, and a short stack of porno magazines. She gazed across the top of a crinkled set of fake jugs to stare at the doorway as the Full Blood entered the room. From her vantage point she saw a thick paw press down against the floor and flatten as the Full Blood placed its weight on it. Given the lighting in the room and the narrow slot through which she had to look, she could barely distinguish the light rusty color of its fur. When the werewolf approached the bed and sniffed it hesitantly, Paige gripped her machete tighter.

Blood trickled against her palm as the thorns bit into her flesh.

Minh pulled in a deep sniffing breath and the bed creaked as she leaned against the edge of the mattress.

Whatever the Mongrels had splashed onto Paige and Nadya was working because the Full Blood couldn’t seem to smell either of them. The fresh trickle of blood could have been a danger, so Paige lifted her weapon toward the putrid mattress that was already soaked through with enough bodily fluids to mask even the bitter scent of a Skinner’s weapon. At least, that’s what she hoped.

The bed groaned as the Full Blood leaned even closer.

On the floor, huddled against the bed frame, Nadya tightened her grip around the FAMAS she’d inherited from her dead partner.

Paige’s body was twisted into an aching knot. Her head and shoulders were angled to keep from cresting over the top of the bed. Her legs were tucked into an extreme squat and her spine felt like a length of rope that had been pulled taut and stretched over someone’s knee. No matter how much the air stank, her lungs demanded to be filled. Rather than give in to any of that, she maintained her position, held her breath, clenched her lips shut and kept her hand pressed against the leaking remnants of what had once been another human being. All the while, she waited for the swipe of claws through her face or the sharp impact of fangs in her throat. Then again, when dealing with Full Bloods there was always the chance of being killed before you even knew you were hurt.

When Minh drew her next breath, she coughed it right back up. As the bed creaked back to its original position, Paige lay down to watch Minh’s paws swell to accommodate her upright form. Now the only thing she had to worry about was being spotted if Minh decided to use her new height to look over the bed.

Minh turned and walked back out of the room. She paused in the hallway, took half a glance over her shoulder, then let out another hacking breath. Apparently, Paige thought with relief, a hyperkeen sense of smell wasn’t always such a good thing when confined in a room with a rotting corpse.

As the Full Blood approached the next room, Paige looked over at Nadya, who was staring intently back at her, but neither woman dared make a sound. Paige pointed to the Nadya and stabbed that finger toward the spot where they were currently hiding. She then pointed at herself and waved at the door. Judging by the intensity in the Amriany woman’s eyes, Nadya had no intention of staying put while she scouted ahead.

They engaged in a brief staring contest before Paige conceded with a roll of her eyes. Keeping low and close to the wall, she maneuvered around the bed while trying desperately not to bump into anything. Leaving the concealing stench behind made her nervous, but she wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to find out what the hell was going on in the next room.

After leaving the room where two women had been hiding, Minh shifted into her human form for all of two seconds before deciding the house was unfit for her lean, lightly tanned nakedness. By the time she got through the doorway to the bedroom with the pit in the floor, her figure had settled somewhere between woman and beast. Her movements gave her all the grace of a drunk stumbling in after a late night, which Paige guessed was due to the ley lines or whatever sort of energy was flowing up from the exposed section of ground. Although she wasn’t sure about that yet, Paige was confident that she hadn’t been spotted. No Full Blood would have allowed a Skinner to see them in a state like that.

Minh dropped to her knees and reached out to the pit with both hands. Her fingers splayed apart, and when they couldn’t go any farther, her hand shifted into something that allowed them to become even more of a trembling tangle. The noise she made started as a wail but slowly rose to a howl. Paige found herself transfixed by Minh’s cry, almost to the point of walking into the other bedroom just to be closer to its source. Fortunately, Nadya was there to place a cautious hand on her shoulder to keep her in place. Still, from where she stood she got a good look at Minh’s powerful back as the Full Blood bowed down to sink her claws into the exposed dirt. Every coarse strand of fur stood on end, then Minh’s head snapped up. She was about to let out another howl but managed to choke it down.

“It’s a real kick, ain’t it?”

Spoken in a thick cockney accent, the question struck an immediate chord with Paige that made her want to jump up from where she was hiding and sink her weapon into the other Full Blood’s neck.

Liam had strode through the front door on two legs but still wearing the pelt of a wolf. By the time he entered the smaller bedroom, he’d shifted down into a human body covered with a thinning mat of fur. He was nothing but a skinny naked man when he crouched near the pit in the next room and allowed his hands to hang between his knees in what might have been a lazy effort to conceal himself.

Minh’s response was a series of grunts and growls that could have been made while she was in pain or in the middle of a vigorous copulation.

“Yeah,” Liam said. “I know just how you feel. It’s dangerous to be here, though. Too much for the senses to be this close to a source this pure.” He stretched out both hands while fur eased out from beneath his skin and layers of muscle piled up like thick waters coming in at high tide. He’d grown a long snout by the time he lifted his head to gaze up at the ceiling. When he opened his mouth, his human teeth slowly extended into blunted spikes. “Considering how strong it is here, I’m surprised we didn’t get two new pups to take Henry’s place. Wouldn’t that have been a riot?”

Paige made it to the edge of the doorway by the time Minh snapped her head to look over her shoulder. Since Liam had swelled up to his brawnier form, however, there might as well have been another wall between her and the other bedroom.

“Speaking of riots,” he continued, “there’s one going on right now. You should make the rounds and keep the wretches in line.”

“I can’t,” she growled. After the creaking of a few bones, she was able to speak a little clearer. “I can’t control them. They don’t listen to me like they listen to you.”

“You just have to show them who’s boss,” Liam replied.

“Or perhaps there’s another reason. Perhaps Esteban was right when he said you’ve been here drinking more than your share of the Torva’ox for longer than you admitted.”

“I made it no secret that I was here.”

“Did Randolph know?” Minh asked.

The sound he made started as a snarl but shifted into a hacking laugh. “It’s his territory. If he didn’t know something like that, he would have been picked off a long time ago.”

“That’s not the arrangement, Liam. We’ve lived in our own territories so the Torva’ox would be drawn to us equally.”

Now that she’d heard that strange word spoken by a physical voice instead of a recording or secondhand translation, Paige sifted once more through her mental files. She still couldn’t come up with anything.

“And that won’t work anymore, darlin’,” Liam continued. “More humans know about us and the leeches and every other thing that’s been hiding for so long. What they don’t know already, they’re learning about, thanks to insane fools like Misonyk or those fucking Nymar who’ve been making the headlines. And when the Nymar do try to tend to their business without making a spectacle, the Skinners have been stirring things up to the point where it’s gotten tougher for anyone to go about their business like we used to.”

From where she was standing, it was difficult for Paige to tell whether Minh’s response was a laugh or a growl.

“Making a spectacle?” she said in a voice almost fully human. “The Nymar are making a spectacle? This is coming from the one who tore apart a city in front of human police, news cameras, and countless other eyes staring at him?”

“That was more than just a spectacle.”

“I know,” Minh sighed. “You were sending a message.”

“And you got it, luv. You, Esteban, and even the old trickster that had been locked in Lancroft’s cage. Have you heard from Esteban?”

“He’s found another one of Lancroft’s storehouses. The other Jekhibar wasn’t there, but he says he’s found the original Shadow Spore.”

Liam grunted in what was plainly disgust. “You use the name given to it by the leeches?”

“They may have named it, but it was meant for us,” she said. “It’s just been lost until now. Lancroft tried to keep the source separate from the first carrier, but now they’ve both been found.”

“Are the legends true?” Liam asked. “Can he take the forbidden form?”

Paige strained her ears but could only hear the broken floor creaking beneath the two werewolves. Finally, Minh said, “Esteban needs a Jekhibar for that. Randolph chased him away and the humans swarmed in to attack them both before it could be found.”

Shrugging, Liam told her, “If you can trust him. There’s more to worry about than Esteban or his legends.”

Liam’s feet scraped against the floor as he settled into a new position at the edge of the pit. The ebon Full Blood arched his back and sunk his hands into the dirt exposed beneath the splintered floorboards. The way his head craned back and his entire body tensed, Paige imagined his toes were curling as well. When he let out the breath that had built up inside of him, she could almost feel it against her ear.

“Don’t be so troubled if you can’t take as much of it in,” Liam said. “It’s not something meant for all of us.”

“Don’t give me that,” Minh snapped. “You’ve been encroaching on Randolph’s territory for longer than you’ve been telling any of us, soaking up more than your share of the Torva’ox for all of that time.”

“You know Randolph. Maybe not as well as I do, but,” Liam added in a voice that must have been accompanied by a lecherous smile, “certainly in a different way. With that kind of insight, you must also know that none of us could have done much of anything in this territory without his consent. He may not be taking part in this war, but he knows better than to stand against it. It’s inevitable.”

“Nobody thinks Randolph was ignorant of anything happening here. That’s the problem. Why wouldn’t he want his share of the Torva’ox?”

Sliding his fingers from the dirt, Liam said, “He’s old and tired.”

“You still have to answer for how you got away from your assigned lands and managed to trade territories with Jaden.”

“Wasn’t easy.”

“Did you kill her?”

There was a long pause before Liam finally said, “There are other ways to solve our conflicts, luv.”

This time, Paige had to fight to keep from laughing. She knew better than to make a sound or even draw too large of a breath, which didn’t leave her many options as far as getting out of that room. Not far away, Nadya gripped the FAMAS and studied her surroundings carefully.

The voice that came next was smooth and silkier than any human’s. “If she’s not dead, then why isn’t Jaden here?” Minh asked.

“It don’t matter,” Liam replied in an accent that seemed to get more guttural as Minh’s became more refined. “There are enough of us here to draw more of the Torva’ox than any have ever felt. The Breaking Moon will see to that. Esteban probably tried to convince you to kill me before it rose.”

“Something like that,” she admitted.

“And now you must see what a mistake that would be,” Liam said in something close to a purr. “Nobody can command the wretches like I do. After all that’s happened lately, the humans are just frazzled enough for our war to be fought and won.”

“We could all go back to our territories and wait for this storm to blow over,” she offered. “The humans may be worked up right now, but they are short-lived and easily distracted. In a matter of a few years they’ll be back to nipping at each other instead of pestering us. And in a decade or two, these instances will be forgotten.”

“No!” Liam barked with enough force to send a shockwave through the entire house. “How can you be so short-sighted? We live for centuries; observe so much in that time, and still we are blind !”

“What would you prefer?” Minh asked in a snarling rasp that Paige could barely hear. “Do you seriously want us to remain here and continue fighting amongst ourselves? We’ve always been better than that.”

“Have we? How long did it take for us to figure out where the territories needed to be in order to keep any one of us from acquiring too much of the Torva’ox? The only one to acquire all of that power is still a legend among us.”

“Gorren became a rampaging lunatic who nearly unmade us all! He may have become the most powerful Full Blood in our history, but he had to be hunted and killed by his own kind. Is that the legacy you want to repeat?”

Wagging a long, gnarled finger at her, Liam said, “But Gorren wasn’t organized and he wasn’t patient. We gather here and now with a plan, and as the Breaking stokes the fire inside of us, the Torva’ox will let us spread it to the humans with nothing more than a thought! How can you not see the beauty in that?”

“And what of the Balance?”

“The Balance that Randolph loves to spout off about? That’s nothing more than a bunch of dribble spewing from the mouth of a wide-eyed child.”

“Now I see why you wanted to send him so far from here,” she said. “Randolph would tear you apart where you stood if he heard that kind of talk. I’m surprised he hasn’t challenged you already, considering the mess you’ve made of his continent.”

“Randolph’s too busy protecting the newly awakened pup and contending with Esteban to care about what any of us do anymore.” Sarcasm dripped from his voice like saliva trickling from his fangs when he said, “He’s tired. All he wants to do is crawl back into his forest and run free with snow between his toes while you and I and any of the others he considers to be troublemakers kill each other like the brutes of Gorren’s time.”

“And what do you want, Liam?” When his eyes drifted along the front of her body, the female werewolf added, “Besides that?”

“Always time for that later, eh? Remember how well I treated you back in London?”

“I remember how well you treated those ladies in Whitechapel.”

“Those weren’t ladies and it was never proven that I was the only one responsible for that. Besides, what the hell does that have to do with what’s going on here and now?”

“Just reminding both of us what kind of man you are,” Minh said.

“The portion of me that’s a man never was my best,” Liam admitted. “Do you feel the power coming from this spot? It’s the purest essence of what gives us our gifts. Just standing here so close to it now will allow both of us to make the Half Breeds in this town sit, roll over, and play dead. Soon the Mongrels will be put back into their places as well, just like that one right there.”

Until now Minh had seemed too distracted by the power leaking up from the floor to notice Max or the Half Breed. “The Mongrels have been resisting us ever since we got here,” she said.

Liam was all too anxious to reply, “Maybe, but this one is a special creation. He’s got my essence running through his bones. I’ve been able to make him and all the others that wanted a shot at immortality see things my way. After drinking up just a little of the Torva’ox, I’ve made those Mongrels my pets. This one here will keep the local burrowers away while the other ones I turned are out spreading my good word.”

“You’ve turned the packs against each other?”

“I convinced a few of them to take the step between Mongrel and Full Blood. Apparently, they’ve forgotten their history lessons as well,” Liam said. “I sent those few out to infect more, and now that we’ve uncovered this source of the Torva’ox, I can wrap ones like Max here around my little finger.”

“But only from a short distance,” she pointed out.

“After the Breaking Moon rises, distance won’t matter.”

“Why talk to me like this?”

“Because you’ve always been the smart one,” he replied. “Between you, me, and Esteban, the Half Breeds have more chaos in their little addled minds than normal. Just think what will happen when our control over them becomes absolute.”

When Minh shifted into another form, Paige could hear the soft brush of expanding muscle against stretching bones and the scrape of claws emerging from her fingers. Soon, a luxurious breath drifted through the air as the Full Blood squatted down to drive her hands into the pit. “Randolph won’t stand for it,” she stated.

Liam’s response was spoken in a voice that sounded as if it was drawn taut between two halves of a vice. “He’s abandoning this territory for another. Probably back to greener pastures in Norway or some other chunk of forest closer to his hometown.”

“There are a few others who didn’t respond to the message you sent. And what about the Skinners? Esteban has already found one of their strongholds. There must be more.”

“Calling anything those Skinners have a stronghold is giving them a lot more credit than they deserve. They’re scattered, hunted by their own police, and dividing into separate camps thanks to the scraps left behind by Jonah Lancroft. We have the leeches to thank for that. Maybe we’ll only torture them a little once we pay them a visit.”

“What of Kawosa?”

“All he’s ever wanted to do is toy with the humans,” Liam said with absolute certainty. “That and tinkering with the newest model of Half Breed. He’s got his wheels turning and I’ve got mine. As long as they don’t grind against each other, we’ll get along just fine. All I want to hear from you is that you’re willing to stand with me against the humans and those goddamn leeches after we’ve received our dose of what lays in the ground at your feet. And if one of us gains it all, they will lay claim to the last gift that Kawosa has never passed on to his kin.”

“In order for one to get all of the Torva’ox, there would have to be no others to draw it away from them,” Minh said. “We’re not the only ones drawing from this source. Whether they know it or not, humans drink from this well. Skinners may take more than normal, but all of them take some. Is that why you’ve unleashed such widespread destruction? To keep the Torva’ox from trickling even into human souls?”

“By the time the next Breaking Moon rises, we’ll have thinned their herd either by turning them into wretches or killing them outright.”

“And,” she mused, “we’ll be in control of the wretches?”

Hearing the breath coming from Liam was enough to paint the picture of his toothy smile in Paige’s mind. “Now we’re on the same page,” he said.

“But this is not the only spot where the Torva’ox flows,” Minh pointed out.

He looked down at the pit as if there was no looking away. “This is where the first Full Blood has been born in the last thirteen decades. There is no stronger source and there is no better time for us to claim it. The Skinners will collect themselves before too long, but for now they are too weak to be a threat. The Nymar are entrenched, which will only make them overconfident. The humans have always been curious, but now they have the means to scour every wooded patch of land, every cave, and every corner of the desert from space.”

“If that were true, they’d be able to find their own criminals.”

“Human criminals are like the leeches, themselves,” he sneered. “They hide for years at a time, skulking in basements like Mongrel rats or spending every dollar they steal to purchase new names and identities. Do you want to start living like that?”

In a softer voice Minh said, “Some of us already have.”

Liam pivoted around so quickly that Paige was certain she’d been spotted. Instead, he hung his head low while speaking in a voice that rumbled like a tremor through the charged soil beneath the house. “The only reason we would ever fall from the top of the pecking order on this earth would be if we allowed it, and there isn’t one damned reason why we would allow such a thing.”

“We used to go where we pleased,” Minh said in a soft, almost comforting tone. “We avoided humans simply because they were noisy, arrogant, and stank of smoke and metal. When we were curious as to how they were living, we walked among them. The ones that stepped out of line, we wiped off the face of the planet. Then the Nymar spread like a plague and lied well enough to convince us that staying in the cities for too long was more trouble than it was worth. I think Kawosa had something to do with that. He is Ktseena. Some say he can look into the soul of any shapeshifter.”

“He may have spawned us in one way or another,” Liam sneered, “but he can’t look into my soul any more than a father can know what’s truly going on inside his son. If he knew what was goin’ on inside of me, he would never have left me alone for so long.”

Minh approached him in the form of a lean, finely toned human. Her long black hair hung down over smooth shoulders and pert, firm breasts. Even in the little bit of light coming through the window, her skin had the color of lightly creamed coffee. “As more power flows through us, the temptation will arise for us to thin our own herd. Esteban already met Randolph, which means the first blood has already been spilt. The last time we fought among ourselves this way, entire cities were laid to waste. Human history records them as natural disasters only because there weren’t enough of them left on those battlefields to record the truth.”

“I don’t know about you, darlin’,” Liam growled, “but I am a natural disaster.”

A cold knot formed in Paige’s stomach. For anyone else on earth, that statement would have been hot air. Hearing it spoken by a Full Blood was like finding out that a tornado was not only conscious but eager to turn the next midwestern town into a swirling cloud of splinters and screaming motorists.

“There are already precious few of us on earth,” Minh continued. “and there will be even fewer after a fight like that.”

“And those of us that remain will have the power we should have had all along! Do you even know what can be done by someone who wields a lion’s share of the Torva’ox?”

“I know the legends, but those aren’t enough to start killing our own kind and laying waste to so many humans. They may be a weaker species, but they are persistent, they are vengeful, and they have numbers on their side. We must not underestimate the backlash that will follow.”

“Surely you’re not frightened by their precious machines and guns and bombs,” he grunted.

Minh’s human face had soft, Asian features. Her hands slipped through the fur on his chest and her thin lips curled into a wide smile as she said, “Their machines are useless without anyone to operate them. Guns and bombs can’t do anything if there is no human hand to fire them, and with the Torva’ox, such a thing can be arranged.”

“Now this ,” Liam said while reaching around to grab her hips with both hands, “is why I’ve continued this conversation. You have vision, my darling.”

“I do,” Minh replied. “Which is why I can see where this road of yours can take us. Perhaps it is too late to hope for us to go back to quiet times when the humans were blissfully unaware of what hunted them, but we must truly know what we’re starting. What do you hope to accomplish? Do you want to rule them?”

“What I want is to set things in their proper order. The strong are supposed to prosper through strength ! Not by keeping their heads down and staying away from gnats who’ve survived through sheer procreation and strut like kings because they can throw lead pellets in mass quantities or burn their own cities to the ground. We know how to take the machines out of the picture. We know how to knock the humans back down to where they need to be. All we lack is the will to put this knowledge to use. I may have forced our hand, but can you honestly tell me that a part of you doesn’t want to thank me for it?”

After a heavy pause, Minh sighed and said, “This will get bloody. Bloodier than it already has. Bloodier than anyone could anticipate. Bloodier, even, then you may anticipate. What will be left when all that blood is spilled? What will be left when the humans retaliate and start those fires they’re so fond of? What will be left for us when the world finally stops burning?”

“I don’t know,” Liam said with an eagerness that Paige could feel from where she hid. “Let’s find out!”