The Breaking

Chapter Nineteen

Atoka wasn’t a large place, but traveling by foot went a long way in shifting someone’s perspective. Quinn and another digger could only take them as far as West Fourth Street. As Paige and Nadya headed toward Montana Avenue, she swore the town tripled in size. Every step she took was stuffed with worry that it might be too loud. Even when her foot managed to land without kicking anything or crunching on something else, there was a legitimate concern of making a noise that could be picked up by supernatural ears. Then there was the smell. That was something new, and it bugged her most of all.

When she couldn’t hold her tongue any longer, she leaned over to Nadya and asked, “What the hell is this stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“The stuff Quinn smeared on us before she left,” Paige said in a voice that wanted nothing more than to lift into an aggravated snarl. “The stuff that stained my shirt and will probably stink until three Christmases from now.”

“You heard the same speech I did. It’s supposed to keep the Half Breeds from smelling us. But it won’t do us much good if you keep talking. They have pretty good ears, you know.”

“I have good ears too. That’s how I can tell they’re still fighting with the Mongrels on the other side of town.” Paige managed to keep quiet for a few more seconds before asking, “You think this stuff really works?”

“If we get torn apart before we reach that house, we’ll know it doesn’t work. Happy?”

Paige sniffed her sleeve, which smelled like a strange mix of ammonia and rotten fruit. Although she did find a bit more of the Mongrel concoction spattered on her elbow, she instantly regretted the discovery. “Oh God. I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Don’t you ever shut up?”

“Did you just tell me to shut up?”

“No,” Nadya said as she stopped and turned to face her. “I asked if you ever shut up and that seems like a good question. Do you?”

Paige stopped as well, resisting the urge to point her shotgun at the Amriany when she said, “Fine. You want quiet? How about I just forget about the fact that we might be getting set up, bite my tongue, and quietly walk into an ambush?”

“If those Mongrels wanted to hurt us, they could have done it a hundred times by now. Why do all Skinners have to be so suspicious?”

“Why didn’t she get us any closer to this house, huh? You seriously think her pack’s got this whole town covered with tunnels and everything else and she couldn’t have dropped us off any closer than this?”

Nadya took a moment to consider that. Then, as she narrowed her eyes and studied Paige carefully, it seemed she was considering her even more. “You don’t like to be helped, do you?”

“Things generally get done better if I do them myself.”

The Amriany’s only response to that was to cast a lingering glance at Paige’s right arm, which was still stiff and scarred. “Get done better?”

Sighing, Paige propped the shotgun barrel against her shoulder and spun around to look at the houses behind her. “See, that’s why I’d rather work alone. Fewer grammar lessons. Is this the house?”

They stood on the side of the street with their toes brushing against the edge of an unkempt lawn. The house had two arches in the roof, one of which looked like a cheap add-on that had probably started leaking after its second heavy rain. The arch on the right was actually in the middle of the structure that had what looked like a boarded-up door. Directly above that was a tall brick chimney. On the right side of the house, a porch led up to a door. One of the front windows was boarded up as well, the other covered by a sagging air-conditioning unit.

Nadya approached the house holding the FAMAS at waist level and pointed at the ground. Ever since taking the assault rifle from Drina’s body, she’d all but abandoned her MAC-10. There was a broken cement path leading from the street to the lowest porch step, but she deftly avoided stepping on the trail in favor of making a silent approach through the weed-infested grass. Looking back at Paige, she nodded and pointed to the cracked frame where the front door was supposed to be. She then pointed to herself before motioning to the boarded window.

It was one of the few times Paige took orders without question. Once Nadya was in position, Paige approached the door. There was something about the house that spoke to her like an intelligent chill that knew precisely how to run up her spine before reaching out to rake icy nails along her shoulders. She gripped the shotgun, bent one knee and reached down to quickly check the holster on her boot. Her weapon was in place and ready to be drawn. All she needed was a target.

Not only had the door been broken, but the hinges were knocked clean away from the frame. Crouching to examine the frame, she immediately spotted the claw marks left behind by the creature that had torn the door from its moorings. It didn’t take long for the stench of spoiled food, mold, and rotten meat to drift over her on its way to the outside. A short hiss caught her attention, and when Paige swung around to see what had made the noise, she found only Nadya.

“Anything?” the Amriany asked in a barely audible whisper.

Paige shook her head, raised her shotgun and moved inside to a living room that looked like it had never been anything but cluttered. The floor of the cramped square space was littered with broken furniture and blanketed by an uneven layer of shredded papers. For her first few steps into the building, she was forced to draw shallower breaths until she became used to the smell of spoiled meat. Another hiss came from the short hallway that led to some smaller rooms. Since Nadya was no longer at the window, Paige moved toward the hiss to meet her.

She walked through the living room, holding the shotgun at hip level. Adopting a low, crouching stance, she peeked down the hall to find two bedrooms. One of them had a single queen-sized bed with a mattress ripped open almost as badly as a scarecrow that had fallen victim to flying monkeys hired by the Wicked Witch of the West. It lay splayed out with its fluffy innards piled in a mound topped by blankets, dirty clothes, and sheets. Paige almost moved on before spotting the hand dangling out from the bottom of the pile.

“Shit,” she whispered as she approached the bed. One quick tug on a finger told her two things: the hand was dead and it wasn’t attached to anything. Considering those facts, she didn’t bother sorting through the pile of stuffing and moved on to the next room.

The second bedroom might have been about the same size as the first, but it felt a lot smaller due to all the furniture jammed into it. There were two beds, both of which had been shoved aside and upended by whatever pulled up the floorboards to expose bare dirt in a spot roughly three feet across. The air in the room had the heavy stillness of a storm that had passed. Splintered remains of dressers and bed frames had been thrown to the sides of the room as if blown there by the same explosion that ruined the floor. Paige absorbed all of this with a single sweeping glance. The heat in her scars had spiked, making her hands reflexively tighten around the shotgun. Keeping perfectly still, she bent at the knees to put the weapon holstered in her boot within reach.

The hissing she’d heard was still present. It changed in pitch, shifting between higher and lower registers. As she inched into the room, the sound was accompanied by a grating rasp.

Not hissing, she knew then. Panting.

Light came in through a filthy window to create a mass of shadows along that wall. Taking a moment so her eyes could adjust, she spotted one shape that didn’t match the jagged edges and straight lines of all the broken furniture and cracked wood. Now she could see the shape swelling and contracting in time to the rasping pants. She might not have known what was causing the electric crackle through her scars, but the heat was different than what a Half Breed projected. It wasn’t intense enough to come from a Full Blood, but had the electric crackle that came from a Mongrel. Whatever the thing in the corner was, it studied her with every bit as much scrutiny as she studied it.

Cautious footsteps came from the hallway. She turned toward them using only the muscles it would take to angle her head and move a hand back to motion for Nadya to stop. The Amriany froze in her tracks and questioned her with a silent expression. Paige responded by pointing at the corner. It took a moment for Nadya to find the source of the panting, and when she did, she nodded and raised her FAMAS.

“No,” Paige said in a quick whisper. “I think it’s guarding something.”

“We leave it?”

“Just try to keep it from calling any others.” With that, Paige eased the shotgun to the floor.

The creature tensed and inched forward. When it emerged from the shadows of its corner, it showed itself to be smaller than one of the newer Half Breeds, with a leaner frame and a snout that twisted into a beak. As it opened its mouth to growl at her, the creature dug its hands into the floor, pushing curved claws through the boards. Its dark eyes fixed intently on her while blinking with flapping, vertical lids.

“I think it’s a Mongrel,” Paige whispered. “Or it used to be.”

“That is no Kushtime,” Nadya said. “Not like one I’ve ever seen.”

“No. There’s something wrong with it.” Paige couldn’t stop looking at its eyes. No matter how strange its body was, there was something in its eyes that brought her mind all the way back to Kansas City when Liam was dragged underground by one particular burrowing Mongrel. That creature’s name snapped into her mind almost immediately.

“Max?” Paige whispered.

A flicker of recognition drifted across the creature’s face, but was pushed back by something else. Its eyes darted toward a second shape in the corner of the room farthest from the door. Tucked away behind the foot of one overturned bed was a more recognizable horror. The Half Breed scraped at the floor and stared at Paige with wide bloodshot eyes. It was in its resting phase where most of its fur was still tucked away to expose pale, leathery flesh. Werewolves in that form shunned the sunlight but weren’t destroyed by it. As near as Paige had been able to figure, Half Breeds transformed simply by flexing whatever muscles were required to do so. The effort made their bodies tense to the point of trembling and drove them to become wilder than the wounded creatures they were. If the trait was given to them by design, it effectively shaped them into taut killers that were always snapping their jaws and full of nervous energy. Paige didn’t like to think of it that way, however, because the god she prayed to would never design such a thing.

As she reached for her boot, the Half Breed shifted its gaze to follow her hand. The creature didn’t have a way of knowing what she was reaching for. Half Breeds ran on instinct and pain. This one’s instincts drew it from the shadows even farther as its panting grew into a snarl. Max watched Paige as well and growled in a way that caused every other living thing in that room to take a step back. There was no doubting it now. A Full Blood had reshaped Max into this thing. Paige’s scars could feel it. She just wasn’t sure she could believe it.

Lowering her shotgun, she closed her hand around the grip of her machete. She felt the rush of adrenaline shoot through her as its thorns bit into her palm. The connection between herself and the weapon allowed her to make the blade narrower so she could ease it from the holster without making a sound.

The Half Breed stretched out a forepaw that looked more like the gnarled hand of an elderly man with nails that had been filed down to points. Muscles beneath its skin twitched spastically, tugging the corners of its mouth to reveal fangs coated with old blood that had caked on and dried to flaky rust. Its eyes were bloodshot and its chest swelled with the effort of hauling its body up onto all four legs. Its entire frame quaked when it leaned forward, and its eyes widened even more, as if the lids were being pulled back by fishhooks connected to the wall. Once Paige stopped moving, however, it followed suit.

“All right,” she said. “It’s definitely guarding something.”

“Maybe it is buried in the floor.”

Paige studied the floor carefully, focusing on the spot where the boards had been torn up. Easing a little flashlight from her pocket, she took a quick look at the edges of the hole. Layers of the foundation were visible, along with cement and thicker pieces of wood that had either been beneath the floor or fallen in later. That hole went all the way down to the dirt, which looked to have been turned and then piled back in. Careful not to shine the light into the faces of either shapeshifter, Paige watched both creatures for any sign that they were about to attack.

Max stayed rigid and still. His body was relaxed and his eyes were all but dead. Something was holding him in that spot. Even a wild animal had more going on inside its head than that. The Half Breed presented an opposing picture. It strained and snarled as if testing the boundaries of an uncompromising leash. Its pale skin trembled and its muscles flexed in an erratic rhythm. Only when Paige backed away from the pit in the floor did either of the creatures retreat to the spots from which they’d come.

“I’ll take the Mongrel,” Nadya said. “You take the Half Breed.”

“No.”

“You want the Mongrel? Fine.”

“No,” Paige repeated insistently. “They’re not attacking us. They’re just guarding. Have you ever seen anything like this?”

“Never.”

“Maybe they’re just here to raise an alarm.” Looking at Max’s face, Paige couldn’t help but feel sorry for the Mongrel. She’d only met him once for less than a few seconds, but he played a big part in ending the Kansas City siege. Now, his body was twisted into something else, his brain was somehow on hold, and she suspected Liam had something to do with it. If that was the case, the Mongrel was most likely going through hell. “Keep watch outside,” she said. “Let me know if you think anyone knows we’re here.”

“What are you going to do?”

Holding her weapon down so as not to pose a threatening silhouette, Paige backed through the door and into the short hall connecting the two bedrooms. From there she could watch as both of the creatures retreated into their respective corners and settled back into the shadows. Fishing her cell phone from her pocket, she said, “I’m checking to see what the hell this could be.”

Nadya backed out even farther and headed out through the front door.

Once her number was dialed, Paige tapped the Call button.

“Paige?” Stu asked as soon as the connection was made.

“What, you’re not going to thank me for calling?” she whispered. “What happened to phone manners and professionalism?”

“You sound tired. What happened?”

“A lot’s happened,” she replied. “That’s why I’m calling.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“What do you have in your records about Atoka, Oklahoma? And I don’t mean anything from the last few days. I mean something that might be in your files about weird activity or strange energy or …” Pausing because she couldn’t believe what she was about to say, she just spat it out instead of wasting time looking for better phrasing. “Or buried treasure.”

“Buried treasure?”

“I don’t know. Just buried something. You have anything like that connected to Atoka?”

There was a smirk in his voice when he replied, “Nothing jumps out at me, but I’ll check.” After a few seconds of tapping, he said, “Sounds like we’ve got some reception issues.”

“I know.”

“So you hear that voice?”

Paige listened for a moment but could only hear the tapping of Stu’s fingers on his keyboard beneath a thin layer of static. “What voice?” she asked.

“Yeah. Sounds like another call or …that’s gotta be on your end of things. It just mentioned your name.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

The tapping stopped. “You didn’t just hear that? Or …or that ? It’s talking to you. Either that or someone else named Paige who’s standing outside of a bedroom.”

Paige’s eyes drifted toward the shadows in the other room. “Hang on,” she said before lowering the phone so she could listen without the distraction of any noises coming from the call. Even when she closed her eyes and concentrated, she couldn’t make out anything more than the steady panting and the scrape of branches against the house. “Let me ask you something,” she said when she lifted the phone back to her ear. “Is the voice male or female?”

“It’s definitely a man. Sounds like it’s whispering. Did you find it? It was a lot louder when you were quiet.”

“No, I didn’t find anything and I still don’t hear anything.”

“That’s really— Hang on! You know what it sounded like?”

“Still haven’t heard it, but please drag this out a little more,” Paige snapped.

“That sounded like an EVP!”

“You mean those voices you guys hear on tape recorders that come from ghosts?”

“Or other dimensions,” Stu added. “Depends on what theory you subscribe to.” He was quiet for a few seconds and returned twice as excited as she’d ever heard him on any previous phone call. “Yes! That whispering sounds like an EVP. Did you hurt your right arm?”

“You know I did.”

“No. Is it scratched? Bitten?” After a pause, he asked, “Were you talking to another woman carrying a big gun who stepped outside just before you called?”

“Now you’re freaking me out.”

“What did you do before when you were quiet? It got louder then.”

“I just lowered the phone. Look, I don’t have a lot of time, but I want to ask you about …” As she glanced down to the floor, she realized that the paranormal investigator might not have spun off on such a bad tangent after all. “How’s this?” she asked before lowering the phone and stretching her hand toward the pit in the next room.

She could hear Stu’s excited reply despite the distance between her ear and the phone’s speaker.

“That’s it!” he said once she brought the phone back up. “Holy crap! That was the best EVP ever! What did you do?”

“All I did was hold the phone down next to the floor in this house.”

“Is that where you think there’s buried treasure?”

“Yes.”

“Sweet! Now we’re getting somewhere. Okay, I did find something that may be of use. Do you know what ley lines are?”

“Aren’t those supposed to be channels of mystical energy or some crap like that?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Stu replied. “But don’t call it crap. According to a chart in our files, there’s a convergence of ley lines beneath Oklahoma. Nowhere near Atoka, though.”

“Any chance your files could be off?”

“Considering we’re guessing about them using a mish-mash of readings taken from too many different pieces of equipment, I’d say that’s more than likely. What exactly did you find?”

Paige looked down at the floor as if she might be able to see an actual line running beneath the surface. Unfortunately, she had no such luck. “I’m looking at a pile of dirt, but there’s got to be more than that. A Half Breed dug up the floor in a house and is guarding it with its life. Since it wasn’t making a den or trying to get to any food, I don’t know why it would have gone through so much trouble. What would ley lines mean to a bunch of shapeshifters? I thought that was just supposed to be energy used for ghosts or the Bermuda Triangle or psychics.”

“There are tons of theories, but that’s all they are,” he explained. “Energy has been measured. It’s been documented. It’s been recorded, but nobody really knows exactly what it’s for. Most of the time it just gets written off as the earth’s normal magnetic field. Are you standing close to that spot right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Just don’t say anything for a moment, I’m recording this and want to get a clear sample.”

Paige obliged, but only for a few seconds. “You ever hear of the Breaking Moon?”

More tapping. “We don’t have anything with that exact wording on file, but I do have entries under Blood Moon, Bone Breakers, and Hunter’s Moon. None of those have anything to do with shapeshifters, though. All spiritual activity. Holy crap! Did you hear that?”

“Just tell me!” she snapped in a fierce whisper.

“The voice. It mentioned you again,” Stu said as his own voice trembled with excitement. “It says his name’s Max.”

Paige lowered her entire body until she was almost crawling toward the ruined bedroom. “Can you still hear me, Stu?”

“Yes.”

“Can you still hear it? Can you or not?”

“Yes. I’m taping now. EVP lesson number one. When you ask a question, give me or the entity time to answer it.” After the silence that followed, he said, “Yeah. I can still hear it.”

“Fine, but if you post this on a website or anything public I’ll—”

“I know. You’ll mess me up in a profane and creative fashion. Are you ready to start?”

“I’m going to talk to Max and you’ll translate. Okay?”

“Oh my God,” Stu said anxiously. “That is so much better than okay, it’s …all right. Calming down. Go ahead.”

Paige sighed and stared into the shadows at the strange shape hiding there. “Max,” she whispered. “Are you one of the Mongrels from KC?”

After a few seconds Stu replied, “Yes. He is.”

“What happened to you?”

“He was …bitten. On purpose?” As Stu spoke, the creature guarding the pit stretched its neck out even farther. At first its eyes seemed to be twitching, but that was only because the lids closed in the wrong direction. After compensating for that, Paige could better read the concentration on his face. “Liam,” Stu said in a voice that was just as strained. “Liam bit him.”

“When he was being dragged down,” Paige said. “Liam said something about changing Mongrels into Full Bloods. Is that what you mean?”

The pain was written across Max’s face, and one of his lips curled up to reveal part of a fang.

“Yes,” Stu said. “It changed him, but not into that. Something about …others. Better. I can’t make it out.”

“There were others that were changed too,” Paige said. “Made them better, but not Full Bloods.”

Some of the concentration on Max’s face eased up.

“Yes,” Stu said. “How did you know? This is me talking, by the way.”

“I can see what happened,” Paige explained. “I’m looking at it. I can feel it. I’m also on borrowed time here, so could you just repeat what you hear?”

“Sure, sure. Sorry.”

Looking at the Half Breed and then to Max, she asked, “Should I be worried about that one?”

“No,” Stu said. “The rest sleeps. The …the wretch? The wretch sleeps.”

“Why can’t you talk to me?”

“The …tore box? Torba box? Can’t make it out. Whatever he’s saying, it’s something about something else giving Liam power. Liam can control the wretches and now he can control Max because …shared blood. Something about shared blood. Controls his body, but not his mind.”

In Kansas City, Liam had been able to guide the packs of Half Breeds he’d created with simple commands and barks that steered them in a certain direction or made them cower like any animal showing deference to an alpha male. But that control hadn’t been complete. As far as shared blood, if Liam had turned Max into what he was now, it only made sense that he might be able to control him too.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “How can he hear you?” she asked while shaking the phone. “Why?”

Stu paused for several seconds. The only reason Paige knew she hadn’t been disconnected was because she could hear the tapping of a keyboard and his quick, excited breaths. Finally, he said, “Paige. I recorded this. Let me play it back so you can hear. It’ll be easier that way.”

“All right.”

She heard a few clicks and then static. There was some feedback and a clunk, but she guessed that was just from one machine knocking against another. The voice she heard was a cross between a whisper and a distant gust of wind. Once she locked onto it, she could make out the words. It said, “Guarding the …Torva’ox is their power. Full Blood power. Keeps them alive. Makes them stronger. Liam could influence the wretches and now he has absolute control over them. Over me too until the Breaking Moon passes.”

Paige wanted to ask questions but reminded herself she was listening to a recording.

“The Torva’ox is power,” Max continued. “That’s …we can talk like this. Liam lied to us, but more will follow him. More like me. The others will grow stronger …Torva’ox gives them …will die. They will die or be broken. Die or be broken …”

“That’s what I got,” Stu said, breaking Paige’s concentration.

“What’s the Torvox?” When she didn’t get an answer, she looked at the phone. Then she looked at Max. Whatever was happening with him, the struggle against it was wearing him out because the Mongrel’s gnarled head now rested on the floor. The Half Breed, however, never stopped twitching. “What are the Full Bloods doing here, Max? You must want to tell me or you wouldn’t have called out to me!”

“I’m getting something,” Stu said. “I think he’s saying, split. Split apart.”

“Something needs to be split apart?” Paige asked.

The Mongrel’s eyes came open and immediately fixed on her. “Full Bloods …gathering strength …too much strength,” Stu told her. “Want to free plane …no, that’s not it. Sorry Paige. It’s reclaim . Reclaim …territories.”

“The cities,” Paige whispered. “Now that the Nymar have moved to take the cities, the Full Bloods want to kick them out.”

“All territory. Leeches …destroyed. Only …Jesus,” Stu sighed, in a way that made it clear that last part came from him and not anything he’d heard. When he spoke again it was in a frenzied rush. “He says the Full Bloods will destroy everyone and not just in the cities. The whole territory. What’s that mean?”

“Full Bloods claim entire continents as their territories. Shit,” Paige sighed. “They’re really doing it. Skinners have always thrown out worst case scenarios, and this is the biggest one. The one where Full Bloods get sick of living in the forests and don’t allow themselves to be hunted.”

“They allowed themselves to be hunted?”

“Think of it in terms of us getting hassled by bees. We get stung and may move somewhere else because it’s easier, but when we get really sick of those things, we start swatting. If that fails, we exterminate them.”

“Not just …theirs …portion. Not just their portion,” Stu said, sounding more and more like he was on a game show getting pantomime clues from a B-list celebrity. “All. All. All. He keeps saying all. And something’s coming. Oh! I just thought of something. It could be a vortex!”

“A vortex is coming?” Paige asked.

“No, it could be a vortex instead of ley lines. That would explain a lot, but not the whole cell phone thing. The other part about something coming was from him.”

The heat in her scars flared up again, but this time it was a deeper burn caused by the most powerful of all shapeshifters. “See what you can find about a Torvox or whatever that was. I’ll check in for a report later, and don’t call me!”