The Breaking

CHAPTER Thirteen


Atoka, Oklahoma

The rumble of the exploding Gulfstream was still ringing through her ears when Paige tried to open her eyes. Something pressed against her lids along with every other inch of her body. She felt like she was falling, but suspended at the same time. Her ears, nose, and mouth were filled with dirt, which meant she hadn’t been delirious when she thought she’d been pulled underground.

Panic set in.

When she felt rough hands grabbing her arms and cinching around her ankles to drag her deeper into the earth, panic became a fond memory.

She tried to shout but her muffled voice couldn’t make it past her lips.

She tried to kick and actually felt her feet bust through into empty space beneath her, but the grip around her ankles tightened to prevent her from moving again. There was another sharp pull and Paige was dislodged to fall to a hard surface, landing with a jarring impact she felt all the way up into her molars. One hand pressed against the back of her head while more hands scrambled to search her and take away anything they could find.

At first she was too stunned to react. After a few seconds that feeling was replaced by an instinct honed over several years of getting jumped by any number of creatures. She hadn’t liked it the first time it happened and liked it even less now. She put her left hand flat against the floor to prop herself up and balled her right fist. With a sharp twisting motion of her upper body, she brought that elbow around in a blind swing that connected with something solid.

“Hold her down!” someone grunted from the direction of where her elbow landed.

From directly behind her someone else voice replied, “I am holding her down.”

“Use both hands, idiot!”

In the time it took for that little spat to take place, Paige had already wriggled onto her side and pulled one leg free from where it had been pinned to the floor. Even after she twisted her head around to get a look at where she was, she couldn’t make out much more than a crowd of shadows cast by a dim light.

The hand on the back of her head gripped her skull like a melon, curling short, thick fingers against one ear until claws scraped against her cheek. The weight on her back shifted toward her shoulder blades as the second of the two voices told her, “Lay still and keep quiet unless you’d rather go back up to those goddamn Full Bloods.”

“Let me go,” she said. With every word, dirt trickled from her mouth, adding fuel to the angry fire that was already blazing inside of her.

“Only if you calm down.”

“You know a great way to calm me down? Let me go.”

A few silent moments passed, but Paige sensed that the other two were consulting with each other. Since they were diggers, the creatures were most likely Mongrels. Last time she checked, Mongrels weren’t psychic. Whatever looks or gestures they were exchanging, she let them have a few more seconds to wrap up.

The closest voice said, “I’m going to let you go. Just remember that we dragged you away before you could be hurt.”

“I remember.”

“And we’re not enemies here,” the second voice added. “We’re being pushed around just like you.”

“Sure. Fine.”

The sighs that came from the other two filled the hollowed space they and Paige now occupied. Once she felt the grip on her neck and ankles loosen, she scrambled away and turned to get a look at them.

Both were Mongrels, that was for sure. They had the thick limbs, long claws, leathery skin, and beaked noses that marked them as burrowers who traveled underground as if swimming through water and dug tunnels or dwellings beneath the surface for their pack. She and Cole had found one such pack beneath a suburban Nebraska neighborhood that remained hidden by tunneling between the basements of several homes. The two with Paige squatted within a space roughly the size of a closet that had been hollowed out of the earth. Hard-packed soil closed in on all sides, trickling dusty drips with every move they made. Their chests heaved with the effort of bringing her there, but instead of breathing through their mouths, their exhales caused large gill flaps on the sides of their necks to stretch out before laying flat again.

The Mongrel farthest from her squatted on his haunches and examined her with dark eyes covered by a set of vertical lids. A dented little flashlight clipped to a belt cinched around his narrow waist was the only source of illumination in the confined space. His beak moved in a constant rhythm that was only broken when he took a moment to crack the gum he was chewing. Tossing Paige’s weapons to the ground near his long feet, he said, “You’re a Skinner.”

“And you’re a Mongrel,” she replied. “Next topic.”

“I’m Burke. That there’s Salvatore.”

She nodded slowly and said, “I’m Paige.”

Salvatore was on one knee, still tangled in his own limbs after tussling with her. A filthy wife-beater was stuck to his upper body by layers of wet grime. His lower section was covered by tattered old jeans. As soon as he got himself situated, he stood up so his shoulders, neck, and head were wedged against the top of the hollowed space, as though he was the sole support beam. “Them others ain’t Skinners. They smell like metal and fire.”

“The fire you smell is probably the plane that was brought down. Kind of hard to miss that.”

“We didn’t miss—” Salvatore stopped as if someone had pressed a button to pause him in mid-sentence. When he thought one of the others in the chamber with him was going to make a sound, he held up a clawed finger to pause them too.

Paige looked up but could only see dirt separating from the wall as something heavy thumped overhead. The impacts moved like footfalls but were solid enough to send little shock waves through the ground. They stopped and were soon followed by scratching sounds that sent large sections of the chamber tumbling onto Paige’s head.

“Come on,” Burke said as he rushed toward her. “Gotta move.”

Her first impulse was to struggle before being scooped under the Mongrel’s arm. Since she didn’t have any weapons or backup, she decided that being dragged underground by a shapeshifter was slightly better than being torn apart by another shapeshifter above it. The instant the back of her head pressed into the loosened dirt, she drew a quick breath, held it and closed her eyes.

For the first couple of yards she knew she was going straight ahead. Burke’s side and leg bumped against her, giving her a good enough handle on their orientation to know when they took a downward turn. Behind them the scraping of claws became a sound that rumbled through the earth. The Full Blood’s roar was a tremor that made every muscle in Paige’s body tense in preparation for claws to be dragged through her from above.

Cole had told her about the time when he was taken for a similar ride by the Mongrels in Nebraska. She’d wondered why he hadn’t been able to get away or grab at something to slow them down. Now that she was the one being pulled through the dirt like the tail end of an earthworm, she knew just how helpless he’d been. She quickly lost all knowledge of where she was, how deep she’d been taken, or even if her head was pointed up or down. When the sounds of the Full Blood faded, she couldn’t tell if they were too far behind them or if the lack of oxygen was causing her senses to dim.

Her chest started to ache. Soon she would have to draw a breath. Even if that meant filling her lungs with dirt, she couldn’t just suffocate without a fight. Her limbs twitched and her ears filled with the sounds of her own desperate grunts as every part of her fought back the urge to take a much-needed gulp of air.

The grip under her arms tightened.

Then her body moved forward even faster, making her think she was falling into unconsciousness. As it turned out, she was just falling.

The filthy cocoon of dirt was gone.

Her arms and legs were free to flail but weren’t organized enough to soften the impact when she hit a solid earthen floor. What little wind she had left was knocked from her lungs, to be replaced by air that stank of mold and the hint of exhaust fumes. Once the ringing in her ears faded, she could hear the chugging of a nearby motor. Opening her eyes unleashed a torrent of tears to slice through the grit caking her lids. She scrambled to stand up while swiping at her watering eyes, hoping she wasn’t going to knock her head against another low ceiling. Not only did she stand up without giving herself a concussion, but there were several feet to spare.

The room was supported by wooden beams lining the walls and ceiling with gaps wide enough for Salvatore to emerge from a wall like a leathery portion of sentient ground. Burke hunkered on the floor with his elbows resting on his knees and flipped the switch of his flashlight off. There was plenty of light in the room thanks to three bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling and powered by a generator against the adjacent wall. Pumps brought air in from outside through hoses that poked out of the ceiling at random intervals like headless snakes.

Paige’s eyes darted back and forth, up and down, soaking up as many details as possible. She figured the room was about nine by twelve feet and must have been several yards below the surface. Apart from the two diggers, two feline Mongrels lay on the floor. Two more paced the room on either side of her, visible only as ripples in the air. She not only spotted the distortions, but could smell the oils that bent light around the shapeshifters’ bodies.

“Where am I?” she asked. “Someone had better start talking!”

One of the felines lifted her head, which was somewhere between that of a tigress and a mole. A long rounded snout filled with needlelike teeth opened to form words that were colored by a buttery southern accent. “Or what, Skinner? You’ll fight your way through us?”

Responding to a subtle nod from the feline, Burke tossed Paige’s machete, stake, and Beretta. They hit the floor near her feet, kicking up a slight puff of dust.

“Go ahead,” the feline Mongrel said. “You’ll make enough of a ruckus to bring those Full Bloods straight down here, and if you make it through them after us, you’ll still have to tunnel your way out.”

“Before you get too cocky,” Paige said, “you should know that I see those other two with the cloak. That invisibility thing is a neat trick, but I’ve done it a few times myself.”

“Of course you have. Probably killed one of us and gathered up the fur like the morbid scavengers you are.”

Although that wasn’t quite the truth, it was close enough to take the wind from Paige’s sails. She stooped down, holstered the pistol, and held her machete so the blade was pointing directly at the feline spokesman for the group. Sighting along the top of the weapon, she could make out a few rounded facial features. Those, combined with the pitch of the Mongrel’s voice and curve of its body, gave the impression that it was female. “I’ve worked with Mongrels before,” she said. “I helped Kayla’s pack settle into Kansas City.”

The feline’s lips peeled back to show even more sharp teeth. “Sure. After Liam was done tearing it to pieces and every human in the place was anxious to bag themselves a gen-u-ine werewolf to mount onto their wall. How many Mongrels do you think were killed because they poked their noses into the wrong place just to find some food?”

“Not my problem,” Paige replied. “Kayla was free to go or stay. Last I heard, she stayed. I’ve been busy since then, and it’s not my job to babysit.”

“Busy,” one of the cloaked Mongrels snuffed. Its cloak fell away, allowing its body to be seen as if the air itself had parted like a curtain. “We all know what busy means to a Skinner.”

“I didn’t invite myself down here,” Paige said. “I didn’t even know there were Mongrels in Oklahoma.”

“Excuse us if we’re anxious right now,” the feline said. “Things are a bit of a mess around here.”

With a thought placed in the right corner of her mind, Paige willed the machete in her hand to shrink back down into a thick gnarled stick. “They’re a mess everywhere. Since it looks like you’re all pretty well settled, I take it you aren’t happy about the Full Bloods moving in?”

“You got that right,” Salvatore said. When the others glared at him, he looked to the feline spokesperson and said, “Hell, Quinn, I’m just cutting through the bull. With them monsters digging for us, we ain’t got time to be cute with each other.”

Quinn stood up on her hind legs, shifting into a form that wasn’t quite human but was definitely female. “Tell us about the others that came with you. Until we know who we’re dealing with, we don’t go any further.”

A rumble worked its way through the ground, followed by a howl and several feral snarls.

“That’d be the boys locking up with a Full Blood,” Burke reported as he lifted his pointed beak toward the section of wall that he’d emerged from not too long ago.

“Better only be one,” Salvatore said, “or we can say goodbye to them boys.”

Unaffected by the noise that drew closer by the second, Quinn kept her gaze locked on Paige. “Tell me who those other hunters are,” she demanded.

“We came to deal with a Full Blood,” Paige said. “Instead we find two. I should be asking what the hell they’re doing here. If you’ve set up camp in this town, then you must know what’s going on above your heads.”

“We know plenty. We just don’t know who those others were that came in on that jet. Tell me or you’re staying down here for the Full Bloods to sniff you out. If you think you have a prayer of digging your way out before they uproot this entire shelter, then you’re dumber than you think.”

The humorless smile on Paige’s face was a gesture that showed just how resigned to her fate she truly was. “If you want to stay here talking tough with me, I’m all for it. Any cannon fodder is always welcome.”

“After the Breaking Moon rises, your kind will have more cannon fodder than you’ll be able to deal with.”

“What the hell is the Breaking Moon?”

“Who the hell are those people that came in on that jet with you?”

“Amriany,” Paige replied. “Kind of like Euro-Skinners. They’re the ones that forged the Blood Blades.”

Quinn’s brow furrowed. “The Travelers have joined forces with you?”

“Not exactly one big family, but yeah.” The next impact from aboveground was enough to make Paige unsteady on her feet. “Do you seriously have a plan to get out of here?”

When Quinn nodded, it wasn’t to Paige. She turned to look at a spot just behind her and to one side. Before she could see what had caught her attention, she felt a familiar hand snake around her waist and pull her toward the wall. She held her breath and closed her eyes as she was dragged once more through the dirt.

It was a shorter trip this time. They traveled in a fairly straight line, and as they picked up speed, she heard the muffled grunts of Mongrels straining to complete the equivalent of a sprint while being buried alive. Before that thought could creep her out too badly, Paige was pushed upward and deposited into another room.

This one looked like a modern basement with a section of its cement floor stripped away to reveal dirt through which the diggers could enter. The hand that closed around her wrist to pull her up was smoother and thinner than any of the Mongrels’ paws. Paige batted it away and climbed to her feet.

“Take it easy,” Nadya said.

Blinking the grit from her eyes, Paige saw the Amriany woman in front of her. A stifled grunt drew her attention to a cot in a nearby corner where Milosh lay on his back gripping the stump of his left arm. It was wrapped in several towels that were soaked through with blood. “Weren’t you guys on that jet?” Paige asked.

Nadya shook her head. “We were taken by these Kushtime before reaching it. Gunari tried to tell the pilot to come back, but . . .” Noticing the lost expression on Paige’s face, she sighed and said, “Your Mongrels, we call them Kooshteemay.” Although she slowed down to pronounce that word for her, she wasn’t about to break stride any more than that. “They took us through the ground and away from the jet before the Full Bloods could get to us. Our pilot had to take off because he was being surrounded. Gunari shouted for him to stop. That was the last we heard before the explosion.”

Looking over to Milosh, Paige asked, “What about him?”

Another Mongrel became visible as it shed its cloak. Reappearing next to the cot, it sniffed Milosh and said, “This one’s turned.”

“I can help him,” Paige said. “All I need is my medical kit.”

“And where’s that?” Quinn asked from another part of the room.

It wasn’t until Paige spun around to face her that she saw that the rest of the basement was nothing more than a simple storage space fenced off within a larger room. The last time she’d seen her medical kit was when she’d restocked it for her trip to Canada. Doubting that Burke or Salvatore were up for a run to the Great White North, she turned to Nadya and said, “You guys said you brought your own medical supplies, right?”

“We did,” Nadya replied, “but they were in the plane.”

“Tough luck for him,” Burke said.

“What’s that mean?”

Stepping forward to put herself between Paige and the digger, Quinn said, “You know what that means. It means he’s going to turn into a Half Breed and there’s nothing to do about it but put him down before he is broken.”

“We’re not there yet,” Paige snapped. “He fought and bled right alongside me, and I won’t just stand by and let a partner go when things get hard. Not again!”

“You want to go up top among those Full Bloods?” Quinn asked.

“We’ll have to eventually, right?”

Quinn’s eyes had the glint of polished stones within the smooth, furry contours of her face. Her snout had shrunken, along with the pointed ears that sprang straight up from the top of her head. One by one she checked silently with the other Mongrels. And one by one they nodded back at her. Shifting her focus to Paige, she said, “We can help you get to what’s left of your plane by distracting the Full Bloods. We can’t guarantee they’ll all come after us, and we sure as hell can’t guarantee the Half Breeds will follow. He’s got less than an hour before the process is too far along to stop. If you’re not back here with that medicine or whatever it is you have, we take care of him ourselves.”

Nadya placed a hand on Paige’s shoulder. “Agreed.”

“Once this is done,” the feline Mongrel continued, “we’ve got some things to discuss.”

Paige took a moment to check the remaining magazines for her Beretta. The one already in the pistol was half full, and there was a fresh one in her jacket pocket. “I’m sure you do,” she said while slapping the magazine back in place and chambering the first round. “Every good deed’s got its price.”