The Breaking

CHAPTER One


Toronto, Ontario

Canada

It had been a long drive from Rochester. Despite the fact that Paige had made longer trips in a much crappier car, she felt every mile as if each one had knuckles to rap against her temples. She missed the rattling comfort of the Chevy Cavalier that had served her so well before sputtering its last breath. What little solace she could gain from the two-door Hyundai she’d rented had been eroded by the company she’d been forced to keep.

“Are we there yet?” Rico groaned. When he saw the death glare Paige shot him, he flashed an expanse of blocky teeth. “Just kidding.”

“Wasn’t funny three hours ago and it ain’t funny now.”

“Why didn’t the nymphs teleport us to where we needed to go?” asked the young Skinner who’d passed off a fake ID well enough to sign the car’s rental agreement. “Are the Mounties cracking down on tittie bars on Canadian soil?”

“I already told you. After the Nymar set us up to take the fall for all those cops that were killed, the nymphs want to keep their distance from us for a while,” Paige explained.

The man in the passenger seat wore a thick biker’s jacket wrapped around a solid muscular frame. After several days of hopping from one cheap motel to another, Rico’s face had become overgrown with the promising start of a graying beard. It was the best opportunity short of surgery to separate himself from the pictures that had been making the rounds on the national news networks after the legal trouble started. Rico was no stranger to scraping the law the wrong way. Even though the last several weeks had been filled with enough running and hiding to make the Skinners feel more like prey than hunters, he hadn’t missed a wink of sleep.

Paige sat in a relaxed posture behind the wheel, with one elbow propped against the window frame so she could keep the tips of her fingers pressed against her forehead. Whenever the car skidded on a patch of wet pavement, she corrected with an instinctive tilt of the wheel or pump of the brakes. “Is there a reason you decided to bring up the nymphs again?”

“Yeah,” the man in the backseat replied. He extended one finger to point at a billboard on the side of the road that read: TURN RIGHT FOR ANDREA’S CHAMPAGNE ROOM. LIVE DANCING AND BUFFET.

When Paige looked at the other Skinner, using the rearview mirror, she found a man in his late twenties with light olive skin, a large nose, and hair cut into a flat top that could be found on any soldier after his first day of boot camp. He’d been fidgety ever since she picked him up at a safe house in a wooded section of New York’s Wayne County. The nervousness was easy enough to explain, since all Skinners had either been burned out of their homes by Nymar or placed on the Most Wanted lists by local and federal authorities. “What makes you think that’s a nymph bar?” Paige asked.

“The buffet. We could stop in and check. Or maybe you could call Tristan. She’d be able to tell us where to go for—”

“Oh she’ll tell us where to go, all right. Besides, it’s too late to need any help with transport. The Nymar we’re after is in Toronto, and we’ve been in Toronto for fifteen minutes.”

“What about gettin’ home?” Rico asked. “You tellin’ me we gotta drive all the way back to St. Louis from here?”

“We’ll figure something out.”

“Just like you figured out with Cole?”

Paige’s foot slammed against the brake pedal, putting the car into a skid that made a stomach-wrenching sound of rubber brushing against pavement that still glistened with rain. They were on a section of the Gardiner Expressway that looked down on a row of squat gray buildings to the left and had a view of an ornate structure with tall towers topped with small green domes on the right. Several cars honked at her, which did nothing to prevent her from coming to a stop on the side of the road.

Her hair had been clipped into a pointed bob the previous summer, and although she tried to maintain the style in the following months, it had grown out into a simpler shape that was only slightly longer along the sides than it was in back. Anger filled her brown eyes, and the nostrils of her subtly bent nose flared as she asked, “Just what the f*ck was that supposed to mean?”

“You heard me, Bloodhound. You were at that warehouse in Denver when the shit went down with the Nymar and those dead cops. Or, I should say you were there at the end when you were flown in via helicopter like a goddamn rock star.”

“Yeah,” the guy in the backseat chimed in. “What’s the deal with that?”

Paige jabbed a finger at the younger man as if she meant to shatter the car’s rear window. “You don’t get to talk to me like that. In fact, do yourself a favor and stop talking altogether.”

When the guy prepared to defend himself, Rico waved at him and said, “Best listen to her, Steve. You weren’t there.”

As she shifted her eyes toward Rico, a hint of pain could be seen amidst the ever-present fierceness. “Any reason you decided to spring this on me now after we’ve been in the car all this time?”

“I was hoping you’d tell me on yer own. After all we been through, it’s the least you could do.”

“It’s between me and Cole,” she said while cranking the steering wheel so she could reenter the flow of eastbound traffic. “And when are we supposed to talk? We’ve been on the run, living off of beef jerky and coffee for two weeks.”

“Then we had that split after nearly getting pinched by those cops in Bismarck,” Rico chuckled fondly.

“We’ve been hiding in ditches and laying low in basements until we got into New York. Ever since then we’ve had that one tagging along.”

Responding to the scarred hand being waved back at him from the driver’s seat, Steve grunted. “You can trust me. I’m a damn Skinner too.”

“So you keep saying,” she told him. “You may have plenty of people vouching for you and a good record in MEG’s files, but you still need to earn your stripes with me, And it’s funny to hear you so concerned about Cole, Rico. Last time I checked, you hadn’t even gone to look in on him.”

“When did you check?”

“Does it matter?”

Suddenly, Rico became concerned with adjusting the vent so warm air from the heater was hitting his face at precisely the right angle. “All right, you got me. I ain’t exactly eager to walk into another prison. Odds are about fifty-fifty of me not walkin’ out again. Besides, after you left to back Gerald’s play when he moved to Chicago, you stopped bein’ me and Ned’s partner. You never checked in on us until you needed help in St. Louis.”

Paige shook her head while weaving between cars on the sloppy expressway. “Are you trying to come off like you stood by Ned no matter what? You expect me to forget about you going rogue in the Badlands or doing work for the mob?”

“Allegedly,” Rico corrected as he snapped an uneasy glare over his shoulder. He shifted in his seat and focused on the road in front of him. Despite being only a few hours away from New York, he could feel a difference in his surroundings. It wasn’t exactly foreign soil, but Canada had a calmness to it that struck a Skinner like the tranquil look in a deer’s eyes when it had no clue how many rifles were pointed at its head. “Maybe me and Ned weren’t exactly sentimental, but that still don’t mean you get a pass on what happened in Denver.”

The bulk of the city was behind them, leaving a wide open expanse of concrete to fill the windshield. The evening rush hour was over, but just barely. Rain that had fallen weeks ago remained pooled on the side of the road, illuminated by the dimming rays of the sun and streetlights that were too weak to cast more than a glow before night fully took hold. Paige scanned the signs marking the upcoming exits and allowed herself to settle into her seat. “What happened in Denver is what needed to happen. I’ll see to it that it gets explained to Cole, but I don’t need to explain it to anyone else.”

“The hell you don’t. I’m the only one of us that trusts you anymore. The only way for that to change is for you to come clean because you sure as hell can’t survive in this fight alone.”

“So when you talk about the other Skinners, are you referring to the ones like Abel and Selina who joined up with Hope and Tara to set us all up for this fall? Yeah, I really want to make sure they don’t think badly of me.”

She didn’t have to look over at Rico to know he was glaring at her. “Some of ’em double-crossed us,” he said sternly, “but there are plenty out there just trying to stay alive. We lost some good people when Liam and those Mongrels hit Lancroft’s place. Even if there are fewer of us now, the ones that are still on the right side of the fence can pull together like never before. We can finally open our eyes to all the shit we’ve been missing and start fighting to win for a change.”

“You’d better not tell me I wasn’t fighting to win.”

“I know you’ve still got your eyes on the prize, girl. That’s why I came all the way up north with you even after you refuse to tell me everything I need to know. We’re all in this together. Ain’t that right, Steve?”

The younger man nodded. “That’s right. We’re in this together.”

Paige took some comfort from that, even though she wasn’t exactly sure why. “That’s not the only reason you’re here right now,” she said to Rico. “You’re keeping tabs on me to make sure I don’t step any further out of line.”

“Could be.”

After rounding a bend on the expressway, Paige turned to look at the big man so she could study him when she asked, “And what happens if I do anything else you don’t agree with? Are you going to take me out?”

Rico’s hand lay casually on his hip. It was close to the Sig Sauer holstered under his arm, but he hadn’t made a move to pull the .45 from its resting place. “You’re worked up,” he sighed. “We been through too much for you to believe shit like that.”

“We have been through a lot. The Nymar have risen up from a pain in our asses, skipped over being a thorn in our sides, and become the stake in our collective chest. As ironic as that is, it means we’ve all got to be careful.” Now that she’d turned onto the Don Valley Parkway and was headed north, she paid closer attention to the street signs and cars around her. “I don’t know,” she grumbled. “Is that even irony?”

“I think so.” After scratching his roughly stubbled chin, Rico asked, “Is that irony, Steve?”

“Nope. That’s just a bad play on words.”

“Look, Bloodhound, I get that everything’s been flipped upside down. I was there when it happened. We been on the run for over a month, hiding, laying low, and living day to day. But that don’t cut it no more. It’s time to stop hiding from the shit storm and start dealing with it.”

“Amen to that.”

“And if we’re gonna deal with it, we need to deal the right way.”

Paige cut him short by holding up a hand to show him one of her scarred palms. “And that means me telling you everything I know, including who those guys were that brought me to Denver in that helicopter. Am I right?”

“That’d be a good start.”

“Too bad we’re almost at our exit,” she said with a crooked grin and half a sideways glance. “If you would’ve asked me about this earlier, I might have had some time to get into the whole story.”

“We got time,” Rico growled. “After you take the next exit, we need to get onto Queen Street and head into the Upper Beaches area.” Seeing the way she raised her eyebrows, he added, “I can do research too, you know. What makes you think this Cobb guy is even there?”

“Before he was taken away, Cole told Prophet how to intercept some of the e-mail the Nymar have been using to communicate with each other. Prophet got a few hits, he sent them to some techie guys, MEG helped out a little more, and finally we got our little fingers into the Nymar Web ring. Remember those bloodsuckers you flushed out of Cedar Rapids?”

“Oh yeah. They talked a big game but didn’t have anything to back it up. Ran like a bunch of bitches.”

“Damn right they did,” Paige said. “Ran straight to me. After some colorful questioning techniques, they told me some more about the guy running the Nymar communication network. He’s supposed to be based here in Canada, and even if he’s not in the house where we’re headed, there should be someone in the area to point us in the right direction. Hope wasn’t the only double-seeded Nymar working on that uprising. I’m thinking one of the others will be guarding this place.”

“Could be Cobb38 is double-seeded too,” Steve offered.

“You really think so?” Paige asked. “Leading a bunch of Nymar on the street is one thing. Those double-seeded bloodsuckers are usually too hungry to do anything on a scale like this.”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Rico said. “There should be a computer setup or at least the remains of one in a Nymar safe house. Did you pay close enough attention to Cole when he was around to learn some of those geek skills of his?”

Paige pulled in a breath, blinked heavily a few times and nodded once.

“Good,” Rico said. “That’s our exit.” Waiting until she was committed to making the turn, he added, “That means you’ve got some time to explain yourself where Denver is concerned. Before you flip me any more of that shit about only explaining to Cole, you gotta remember that you left me, Prophet, and all them Amriany out there to fend for ourselves too. Me and the Gypsies don’t exactly see eye-to-eye, but they held their own that night.”

“Remember Officer Stanze?”

“The cop from Kansas City? Yeah.”

“Before Liam tried to tear that city down, he found a Half Breed carcass and started asking around about it. He even tried to sell it online. I was the one who bought it, but there were other people who took notice of the auction. Once werewolves of all shapes and sizes started charging down metropolitan streets, those people put some very important pieces together. One of them was in that helicopter.”

“Another cop?”

“Not quite.”

Although that eased Rico’s nerves a bit, it didn’t help much. “What, then? A fed?”

“No. I’m going to Kenilworth Avenue, right?”

“That’s right. Tell me who those guys are.”

“They’re the ones that have been keeping all of this from boiling over into something a hell of a lot worse than it is.”

“All of what?” Rico asked. “You mean the crap that the Nymar pulled? Coming from someone whose home was burnt down by those vampire motherf*ckers, it’s hard to believe you’re saying this shit hasn’t already boiled way the hell over.”

“Skinners have been going through hell,” Paige told him, “but we signed up for it.” She drove down a section of Queen Street that was lined on both sides with two-story storefronts ranging from small restaurants and bars to specialty shops and a few little apartment buildings. Traffic was getting worse, but she held her own thanks to a Chicago driving attitude that shifted between persistent and crazy. “It’s not just the casualties we need to worry about anymore,” she continued. “Everything from Misonyk and Henry’s first rampage in Chicago to the vampires running amok a few months ago is out there for the whole damn world to see.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that. The news and God only knows how many websites have been packed full of bullshit about dog attacks and vampires. Most of it’s either dried up on its own or been pushed aside for bigger news.”

“Like the Mud Flu,” Paige said. “And that was one of ours too. Somehow, we were still able to set up shop in Lancroft’s place and try to deal with the Nymar.”

“Great job we did of that.”

“Could have been worse if we had more pressure from the real world. It took the Nymar to bring all of that down on us. Stanze was on to something other than the Half Breed he found. His department and the cops in a few other cities started coming to him for advice on their own wild dog attacks. Pretty soon he was approached by someone else looking for answers. I went to him for help while you, Cole, and Prophet were in Denver. That’s when Stanze introduced me to the guys who found him.”

“All right, then,” Rico grunted. “How’d you wind up in that helicopter?”

“Tell ya what. Why don’t I pull over, order some coffee and doughnuts, and we can talk about it some more?” Kenilworth Avenue was the next intersection she found, so Paige turned left and pulled over. “I know why not. We came here to find out who’s been pushing the goddamn Nymar to wipe us out.” She killed the engine and her headlights, pulled the keys from the ignition, and drew a pistol from the holster clipped to her hip. The Beretta PX4 Storm Compact strayed from Rico’s mandate that all Skinners carry .45s, but the handgun fit nicely in her grip and the 9mm rounds packed a solid punch. When she needed more than one punch, all she had to do was draw the second PX4 from the holster strapped around her shoulder. She pulled out the magazine, checking not only that it was full, but that it contained rounds treated with the antidote used to poison Nymar spore.

“You gotta make this right,” Rico told her. “Not just with me, but with the others too. There’s a hell of a lot brewin’ ever since Skinners were all hung out to dry as cop killers. We gotta pull together and turn this thing around before it buries us all. Them Mongrels that attacked the Lancroft place ain’t been seen for a while. Neither has the Full Blood that was leading them or the one that became your buddy so recently.”

“Mr. Burkis is a long way from a buddy. As for Liam, he could be anywhere. If there was more hours in the day, I could take time to hunt them down.”

“You won’t need to hunt them,” Steve reminded her. “They can find us whenever the hell they want.”

“Good,” she said as she slapped the magazine into the Beretta, then chambered the first round. “I’ve still got some of that ammo dipped in the Blood Blade fragments that should put a real crimp in their day.”

“Hopefully it’ll work better than the Nymar rounds do against Shadow Spore,” Steve said from the backseat. “Did Daniels come up with anything that works on them?”

“Not yet.”

“Then we could be walking into a whole lot of trouble by waving guns around loaded with bullets that won’t even do the job.”

“They’ll do the job,” she assured him. “Just keep firing until their hearts are turned into paste.”

“Any way I can talk you out of this? I know some guys that might be up for this job. They’re workin’ on some angles of their own right now, organizing the Skinners that can make a difference in this fight, but they still might be able to pitch in here.”

“I’m not interested in working with more strangers,” Paige snapped as she turned toward Steve. “You said I needed to put this right and that’s what I want to do. I found you. Prophet is already back chasing fugitives. Those Amriany disappeared on their own. That leaves Cole, and he’s the only one that I owe a goddamn thing to anymore. We didn’t cause these problems. We didn’t create these monsters and we sure as hell didn’t set them loose. We’re doing our best, but if people can’t defend themselves every now and then, something’s bound to pick them off.”

Rico’s features were like folds in an elephant’s hide. When they shifted, it was just to another version of ugly. Paige had known him long enough to recognize the hint of a grin hidden under all of those unattractive layers, but she wasn’t about to answer back with one of her own. Reaching around to grab the Mossberg Model 535 Tactical 12-gauge shotgun he’d stowed on the floor of the seat behind him, he said, “You might get along with these friends of mine better than you think.”

Every other house on Kenilworth Avenue seemed to be a duplex. For each little single family home on the clean, tree-lined street, there was another that looked as if it had been built with one wall butting against a mirror. Paige’s destination was one of the duplexes just north of the intersection at Kenilworth and Norway Avenue. It was a tan run-down structure with two sets of screen doors that had taken equal amounts of abuse from owners and elements alike. By the time she, Steve, and Rico had made their way up the street to get a look at the place, the sky had dimmed to a mix of dark purples and blues. Cars rolled through the residential neighborhood, but the drivers were more concerned with getting home than taking notice of anyone ambling along the sidewalk.

Paige had her hands stuffed into the pockets of a dark green jacket made of heavy canvas. It was baggy enough to allow her to move freely without getting snagged on the underlying layers consisting of a tactical vest over a dark gray T-shirt. The storerooms beneath Jonah Lancroft’s home in Philadelphia had provided her with plenty of Half Breed skins to use as lining for the vest that took a lot of punishment from almost anything, even if it wasn’t treated using Rico’s tanning techniques. The harness zipped around the skins, providing her with more protection than any conventional body armor.

Striding beside her, Rico kept his arms hanging at his sides as if he was walking down an Old West boardwalk with the intention of facing his doom at sundown. His jacket was the sort of battered garment that would have been worn with pride by any self-respecting biker. Several dozen Half Breeds had died to either create or patch up that jacket over the years and it still wasn’t complete. Strips of canvas were stitched in to fill the remaining gaps, and leather cords were laced up both sides so he could expand or tighten the jacket as the occasion demanded. For the moment, it was loose enough to accommodate his shoulder holster and the bulk of extra shotgun shells stuffed into his pocket. It wasn’t long enough, however, to do much to hide the Mossberg.

Steve carried three guns, all .45s, holstered beneath a baggy raincoat. Although he didn’t seem to handle the weapons with much expertise, he assured both Skinners that he knew how to make them sing. That was good enough for Paige, especially since he’d survived the last few weeks, when so many Skinners had been picked off by Nymar who blended into the darkness and moved faster than the now outdated variety of vampire. “How many are inside?” he asked.

“Don’t know.”

Looking at the front of the house, Rico glanced back and forth between both front doors at the top of a single, narrow set of stairs leading up from the sidewalk. “Do you even know which side it’s on?”

“I figured we’d each take one,” she replied. “Shouldn’t be long before we figure out which is which.”

“Good plan,” Rico grunted.

“Thanks.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“I know.” Facing the corner where she’d parked the car, Paige casually reached for the Beretta holstered at her hip. “If you’ve got a preference, tell me now.”

The house wasn’t much to look at, but was well-maintained. Despite the fact that the outside was weather-beaten and battered, the simple curtains in the windows were clean and drawn shut tightly enough to keep the inside tucked away and out of sight. There wasn’t a single feature to differentiate one half from the other. Even the windows on both sides were dark in the exact same way. “I’ll take the right,” he said with a shrug.

“You’ll also take the new guy.” After glancing back and forth to make certain the sidewalk in front of the house and its closest neighbors was empty, Paige held her pistol in a two-handed grip with the barrel pointed at the ground and added, “Either of you needs help, just yell. Remember, we’re looking for any Nymar and a computer setup.”

“I was listening during the ride over,” Steve whined. “I know what you’re looking for.”

“Good. Then let’s find it.”