The Breaking

CHAPTER Twenty-Three


Cole readied the assault rifle as best he could. He might have fired a few different kinds of guns while researching his work on the Sniper Ranger series, but it hadn’t exactly been under field conditions. Also, those weapons weren’t tricked out as much as the ones stored in the IRD locker. He found the safety and knew which end the bullets came out of, and that would have to be good enough for now.

After opening the door, he thought of several different ways he could be attacked after stepping outside. The barrel of his gun could be grabbed, he could be stabbed from above, or he might be smashed in the face. So, ready for almost anything, he jumped outside with his finger on the rifle’s trigger.

“Heya, Cole.”

Spinning around to face the voice, Cole aimed his rifle at a man who leaned with his back against the helicopter and the spear propped casually against the dented metal beside him.

“What are you doing with my weapon, Rico?”

“You gave it to me back in Denver, remember?”

“Yeah. That was back before I found out what a traitorous piece of shit you are.”

The big man scowled, which did nothing to make his face any uglier than it already was. “You’ve been talkin’ to Paige, huh?”

“Yes I have, which is why I should shoot you right now.”

Rico stepped forward and raised both arms. He wore faded green Army surplus pants, heavy biker books with chains wrapped around the ankles, and a jacket he rarely took off. The tanned leather was made from several layers of Half Breed hide, and the strips of canvas were merely filler until he could collect and treat more dead werewolves.

“What are you doing here?”

In the distance, the chattering of gunfire was washed away by the thudding rhythm of helicopter blades and the inhuman baritone of a Full Blood’s howl. Cole had to strain to hear any of that, however, since his blood was pumping through him in a quickening rush that had to be spurred on by the tendrils squeezing him from the inside.

“Didn’t Paige tell you the part that doesn’t make me sound like a prick?” Rico asked as an ugly smile crawled onto his face. “I joined up with her Army buddies to check ’em out. A group of them picked me up outside of Louisville and hooked up with a unit of gunships and a few truckloads of soldiers. When Bloodhound decides to sell out, at least it’s with some style, huh?”

“What happened in Toronto? I want to hear it from you.”

“You mean the guy I brought along who turned out to be Kawosa?” Rico’s eyes shifted nervously upward as he asked, “You want to hear this story somewhere a little safer? This place seems to have some sorta big bat infestation.”

“We’ll talk about it here. I haven’t quite decided yet if I want to keep you from being petrified and eaten.”

Rico opened his jacket to reveal the Sig Sauer he always carried. “I could have pointed a gun at you too. I didn’t. That’s because we’re partners. I’m working to earn my points back with Paige, but we don’t got that kinda baggage.”

“You know what would have won a lot of points with me?” Cole asked. “Getting me out of prison. Since you left me to rot in there, I don’t see any reason why I should play favorites with you over Paige. At least she had a reason to do what she did.”

“And we got a reason to do what we’re doin’. It’s the same reason we didn’t drop everything to spring you outta that prison.” Rico let his jacket fall shut again. “Tonight, the world as we knew it cracks wide open. It’s been brewing for a long time and we all seen it comin’. On the way over here, we wiped out four packs of Half Breeds. That’s just what we found when flying low in these choppers or driving down an interstate. You and I both know how much worse it is in spots we can’t see. If humans ain’t at the top of the food chain when the smoke clears, we’ll either be slaves or dead. You’ve already made your choice.”

“What about Toronto?”

Rico dropped his arms as if he no longer cared about the gun pointed at him. “What about Denver? When that skinny shapeshifter told you he was Paige, we believed it! I made some calls and that thing’s not like anything we ever faced. He didn’t even have to change into something that looked like Paige. He tells us something and humans believe him. Haven’t you ever heard of trickster myths?”

“I think so. American Indian stuff, right?”

Rico smiled. “That’s right. You do something other than play video games after all. In most of those myths, Coyote is the trickster. Kawosa is the coyote. He may be the closest thing to a god or demon that we’ve ever faced, and if you want to get pissed off because I fell for a trick thrown at me by a f*cking god, then that’s your own damn business! He came to me, told me he was an old buddy, and I believed him. He told Paige the same thing and she believed him too.”

“Sounds like she woke up just before you shot her. If you were both under the same spell, how’d that happen?” Cole asked.

“I been wondering about that myself. She’s never really trusted anyone all the way ever since she first laid eyes on a Nymar. Maybe that was enough to give her the edge. All I can tell you is I’m damn glad she did because if I would’ve killed her for no reason, I would’ve eaten my next bullet two seconds later.”

The skies directly above them were still clear. Cole could feel the crackle in his scars that told him the gargoyles were still around, but he figured they must be preoccupied elsewhere. From the sound of it, there was plenty more werewolf meat to be had over the next ridge. As far as Rico was concerned, Cole suddenly realized he was holding the big man at gunpoint simply because he wanted to make someone, anyone, pay for driving Paige into a war zone.

What changed things around was something he had learned to trust more than anything else lately: instinct. Rico was talking sense. He knew the big man. He trusted him. Rico had proven himself when it counted the most and was trying his damnedest to do so again, even with a gun pointed at him and death on all sides. The least he could do was alleviate one of those situations. Cole lowered the gun and asked, “How did you know where to find me?”

“We picked up the trail of a Full Blood at that wrecked prison and followed it south. There was some sort of Lancroft storehouse or lab under there and we think the Full Blood got to another Shadow Spore.” Looking up nervously, Rico asked, “Are those bat things coming back or what?”

Cole’s scars were burning so badly from the shapeshifters nearby that he doubted he could feel the gargoyles if they were circling overhead. Fortunately, more howls in the distance were followed by gunfire and a wave of high-pitched shrieks. “They stay in flocks,” he explained. “I think. Anyway, it sounds like they’re over there.”

“Well that’s where we gotta go,” Rico said. “Bloodhound’s Army buddies are already here. That’s one of their choppers behind you, and there’s another that’s about to go down further up the road.”

The battle in the distance was making its way to the downed chopper. The explosions he heard before had sounded like impacts, but the next ones were definitely grenades. Judging by the bellowing roars that followed each one, the soldiers weren’t making much of a dent. Considering everything going on at the moment, Cole knew he didn’t have time to question Rico thoroughly. Instead, he decided to make him prove himself the hard way and handed the big man an assault rifle. Then he picked up his spear, propped against the side of the helicopter, and smiled as his hands closed around the weapon’s familiar grip. Its weight was perfect. The largest spearhead gleamed with metallic varnish containing flakes of the Blood Blade. Even the thorns in the handle punctured his flesh in the spots marked by the very first scars he’d gotten as a Skinner. There was only one other homecoming he’d looked forward to this much.

“Do you know some skinny psychic dude and a Squam?” Rico asked as he started jogging toward the worst of the fighting.

“Yes! Do you know where they are?”

“The IRD picked them up in Colorado. Once I convinced them that I know you well enough to be trusted, they told us you and Jessup were headed here.”

“So that’s also how you found me,” Cole said. “Why didn’t you say that before?”

Rico looked over to him and admitted, “I wasn’t sure about you yet.”

Considering what had happened about a minute ago, Cole had to laugh.

“Your friends are locked up,” Rico said. “I’ll take you to them.”

Cole kept his eyes open for any trace of Jessup. He might not have known the other Skinner for long, but he’d be damned if he would lose a partner. An explosion rolled through the air like a boulder that had been dropped into a still pond. Both Skinners looked toward the hill where several black columns of smoke rose to smear the sky. As Rico checked the rifle he’d been given, Cole pulled on the harness that Rico must have rigged to hold the spear. It wasn’t much more than a large belt with two loops stitched into the leather, but it did the trick. Without another moment of hesitation, they ran toward the growing storm of gunfire and unearthly cries.

“Did you ever meet another Skinner named Jessup?” Cole asked while taking hold of the other assault rifle he’d taken from the helicopter and checked to make sure it was loaded. Now that he had more than a second to examine the weapon, he recognized it as a Heckler & Koch MP5A3 with some slight modifications made to the barrel and stock.

“Yeah, I know Jessup. Is he here?”

“Hopefully.” There were still about a hundred yards to cover before they crested the hill. “Do you know when the Breaking Moon rises?”

“About an hour ago.”

Cole looked up and found the moon hanging in a smoky, darkening sky, but there was nothing about it to catch his eye apart from a slight rusty hue cast upon its wide face. “Is that a Blood Moon? I’ve seen it redder. And the damn thing isn’t even full.”

“After all this time running with Paige, you still think a full moon has anything to do with werewolves?”

“No, but what’s so special about this one?”

“Nothing as far as we can tell,” Rico said. “But it don’t matter what we see or don’t see. The Breaking Moon has to do with Full Bloods, not tides.”

Cole felt a pain in his gut that caused him to stumble for a few steps. The tendrils inside him had picked that moment to give him a quick, jarring squeeze to let him know they were still there and hadn’t been fed for a while. Before Rico took notice, he regained his footing and came up with a quick bit of acting to try and make his stumble look natural. The sideways stepping movement was close to the one he used when trying to get a bunched-up pair of boxers out from where they’d been wedged. Unlike that awkward situation, this one had to be pulled off convincingly enough to make sure a trained killer didn’t have an excuse to stab him in the chest. At the moment, however, Rico seemed to be having problems of his own.

The big man was still moving, but just barely. He gritted his teeth, hung his head low, and clamped a hand over his stomach.

“Are you all right?” Cole asked.

“Yeah. Just a cramp, that’s all.” Suddenly, Rico lunged at Cole like a battering ram. As soon as they hit the ground, a gargoyle sliced through the air less than two feet over both of them. Cole pressed his face against the dirt, waited until he was sure there wasn’t another shrieking dive bomber behind the first, then scrambled to his feet.

“Don’t worry about a thanks or anything,” Rico said as he followed in Cole’s wake. “There’ll be plenty of time for that when you buy me a beer for saving your neck.”

“Remind me if we’re still alive tomorrow.”

According to several of the small, rectangular green signs they’d passed along the road, they were in a park. Under normal circumstances the wide stretches of New Mexican desert would have been beautiful, but now it looked more like the dry, scabbed patch of exposed bone beneath a section of burnt flesh. Fires were scattered across a stretch of sandy rock on the downward slope of the hill to Cole’s left where another helicopter had crashed. Of the four covered trucks in sight, half were overturned and burning, while the other two were being torn apart by Half Breeds. There could have been more vehicles in the convoy, but he couldn’t figure out how many or what kind they were based on the scorched, twisted metal that seemed to have been dumped from a passing cargo plane. Now that he was at the top of the hill and looking down at the devastation, his ears were nearly shredded by the din of automatic gunfire and pained howls.

“Over there!” Rico said as he pointed toward one of the overturned trucks. “That’s where your prison friends were being held.”

Another wave of howls erupted to Cole’s right and was quickly followed by paws thumping against the hardened desert floor. Once he caught sight of the Half Breeds stampeding toward him, he snapped into survival mode. Rico’s Sig Sauer went off behind him to send a bullet hissing through the air. The Half Breeds were the newer models, which meant the bullets that hit them only chipped a few tusks and pissed them off even more than usual. Allowing the MP5 to hang from his shoulder by its strap, he drew his spear and dove forward as two Half Breeds launched themselves at him. Being animals of sheer instinct and brute force, the werewolves didn’t waste a thought on the threat of mortal danger as they rushed head first toward the business end of the Skinner weapon. The Blood Blade coating on the spearhead allowed the sharpened point to tunnel into one creature’s chest cavity, while the other Half Breed snapped at Cole’s leg.

The thorns in the handle tugged at Cole’s palm when he twisted the weapon down to block the second beast’s attack. Its head rammed against the thorny handle and twisted to try and get at him from another angle. The more Cole pivoted the spear to prevent the second werewolf from getting to him, the more his spearhead twisted within the first one’s chest cavity. Finally, he pulled the weapon out and swung it in a half circle so the forked end raked through the second Half Breed’s throat.

Rico yelled with a haggard voice as he fired a shot into the eye of a third werewolf and jumped aside to let the fourth one sail past him. When that one hit the ground and turned around to face him, he stepped up to it and punched it in the mouth. Cole had read about Rico’s wooden version of brass knuckles in Paige’s journal but hadn’t actually seen them in action. He sure as hell hadn’t seen the big man slip them on before delivering that last blow. Spikes sprouted from a ridge of varnished wood that covered the top of his hand and wrapped around to dig into his palm. The punch shredded the beast’s face, and the multiple joints in its neck allowed its head to turn almost a full 180 degrees before snapping around amid the chatter of gnashing teeth. Before it had a chance to regain its bearings, Rico drove his fist into its jaw two more times. When the third Half Breed rushed at him, Rico pulled his fist back and willed a short blade to emerge from the outer edge of his weapon. Swinging as if gripping a dagger, Rico drove the blade into the Half Breed’s eye. It howled in pain and slumped straight down to spit its last breath into the dirt.

The Half Breed that Cole had impaled was losing steam, but not its will to fight. Even after being forced onto its side, it continued to scrape at the ground. Removing the spear with a straight pull, Cole flipped it around and dropped the forked end to trap the creature’s head. His palms were slick with blood and the thorns burrowed into him as he willed the inside of the fork to sharpen into blades. The spear shifted into a tool that nearly decapitated the creature with a few downward thrusts.

Holding the last Half Breed at arm’s length, Rico placed the barrel of the Sig Sauer against its temple and pulled the trigger. After three muffled shots the werewolf dropped for good. “God damn those new ones are tough,” he said while reloading the handgun.

“This one’s wearing a uniform,” Cole said. After looking at the other two, he added, “What the hell’s going on here?”

“Probably one of the IRD soldiers. The rest might have been bitten or came here to follow the Full Bloods.”

Judging by the way Jessup, several soldiers, and many more Half Breeds converged at the truck Rico had pointed out earlier, the escaped prisoners inside were probably dreading the day they’d left their cells. Cole took a deep breath and started running. The uphill climb had been steep, but the terrain sloped much more gradually on the other side. Dry scrub and exposed rocks covered what looked to be a wide basin surrounded by some trees and a tall fence on the far side. It was next to impossible to judge any distances since every one of his senses were overloaded with the chatter and smoke from automatic gunfire, the stench of burning fuel, and the overwhelming presence of the unnatural. That last part may have come from what some might call a sixth sense. Cole couldn’t see it or taste it, but was overcome by the uneasiness of having the real world turned upside down.

Half Breeds ran wild across the desert.

Gargoyles swarmed the sky, dropping onto the wildest prey they could find.

Cole had to hurdle dead bodies while swinging his spear to deflect incoming claws or swat a snarling face before it ripped his throat out. When his foot touched down again, it became wedged under something heavy enough to break his momentum and drop him onto his face. His ears rang when he hit the ground in a crumpled heap.

The Sig Sauer went off several times at close range, followed by the grinding rattle of assault rifles. “Get up,” Rico said. “We’re almost there.”

“I think I broke my ankle.”

The big man dropped to one knee and unceremoniously twisted the foot in question.

“Holy shit!” Cole gasped.

“It’s not broken.”

“What are you talking about? That hurt like hell!”

“If it was broken, you’d be passed out right now,” Rico explained.

“And if I would have passed out, then what?”

“I would’ve left. You wouldn’t do anyone any good with a broken ankle. Carrying you would just get me killed too. The serum in your bloodstream will kick in and I’ll get an injection for you ASAP. Until then you’re just gonna have to rock through this shit.”

Cole drove his spear into the ground so he could use it to prop himself up. “Rock through this shit? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’ll get up and keep movin’ or I’ll crack you over the head with this rock.”

When Cole looked up, he saw that Rico indeed had a rock in his hand. Suddenly, he seemed more like the ugly a*shole who’d fought and bled alongside of him in Philadelphia and Denver. He tried pulling himself up but his foot was trapped under something. Whatever had ensnared it was solid and unmoving. At first it looked like a thick, dirty root emerging from the ground. The more he tried to pull it loose, the more certain he became that it wasn’t going to budge. It only took one touch for him to realize what it was.

“This is stone,” Cole said. Grabbing hold of it, he added, “I think it’s an arm.”

Rico was already helping him up, so he placed the toe of his boot on the gray protrusion from the ground and pushed against it. “It’s really in there. Looks like a gargoyle got to it, but they usually stay aboveground. Of course, I ain’t seen a flock of them this big before.”

“You’ve seen gargoyles?”

“Yeah, they’ve been popping up in big cities, wedged in between buildings or under rain gutters. You know when you’re driving and you see all that shit hanging from trees that looks like moss or spiderwebs or that kind of thing? It’s usually more gargoyle than moss.”

“Aw, Christ. First goth girls and now road trips. Any other simple pleasures this job wants to spoil for me?”

Cole and Rico scraped at the ground to uncover the stone structure he’d found. Shots were fired from all directions and more soldiers were carried in by a truck at the bottom of the hill about a hundred yards away. When Cole uncovered a foot at the end of the stony arch, he stopped digging. Seeing that put the rest of it in context, and the knee at the top of the arch became clear.

“It’s a Mongrel,” he said after he took a closer look at the curved claws and structure of the foot. Pointing to a flat, smooth patch on the back of its knee, he said, “Looks like a gargoyle got it on the way down. Maybe it burrowed this deep before the shell hardened.”

“Damn,” Rico said. “It actually sounds like you know what you’re talking about.”

“Is that such a surprise?”

Answering the question with a noncommittal shrug, Rico patted him on the shoulder and pointed toward the overturned trucks. Since there wasn’t anything he could do for the Mongrel, and had healed enough to support his weight on his twisted ankle, Cole followed him even further into the storm.

When he heard the shrieking in the air behind him, he shouted, “Drop!”

Both he and Rico hit the dirt and felt a gust of wind as gargoyles passed above them and veered upward. The pain in his ankle spiked as he climbed to his feet, but he continued running toward the trucks. When the howling started again, it blasted through his head like a wave of napalm. One of the overturned trucks rolled onto its back and was shoved aside by a gray Full Blood who stood on its rear legs and roared up at the sky. It was Esteban, and he faced the soldiers and covered his face with both hands as all of them opened fire.

“Shit,” Rico grunted as he pressed his back to another truck. “You feel that?”

Cole took cover alongside him and willed his spear to collapse so he could tuck it into the harness and grab the MP5. “Feel what?”

“It’s like my stomach’s compressing. Makes me wanna tear through this whole goddamn field.”

“You feel that too?”

They looked at each other long enough to wince as the next wave of pressure rolled through them. This time Cole couldn’t blame his discomfort on the shredded Nymar tendrils inside him. Before they could take any time to come up with an explanation, their attention was diverted by another howl followed by a familiar voice.

“Don’t waste your ammo!” the distant voice shouted. “Just keep them offa me so I can get closer!”

“That’s Jessup!” Cole said. “Sounds like he’s with some of those soldiers.”

“Then what the hell are we waitin’ for?” Rico snarled as he swapped his Sig Sauer for the assault rifle Cole had given him. “Let’s lend him a hand.”

At the first lull in gunfire, they bolted from their cover and ran toward the overturned truck that was now swarming with men in bloodied fatigues. Every step Cole took was accompanied by a stabbing pain that began at his twisted ankle and lanced all the way up to his knee. That was shoved to the back of his mind, however, when the earth began to churn on either side of him.

Exploding from the ground in a shower of dry dirt and gravel, two burrowing Mongrels emerged from beneath the surface, hit the ground running and fell into step with the Skinners. One of them was so lean that it looked more like an overgrown weasel. The other was larger, covered in smooth scales, and kept his belly low to the ground so he could move in a quick series of slithering steps. That one glanced up and said, “Been a long time, Cole. Looks like you need help with another Full Blood.”

As soon as he saw that the Mongrel was missing its left leg below the knee, Cole recognized him. “Ben?”

“All the way from KC. We heard there was going to be a meeting here.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Max and Lyssa split off from our pack after you and Paige left Kansas City.” Flattening his body against the ground without breaking his stride, Ben allowed a Half Breed to sail over him and then carried on as if he’d simply ducked under a low branch. “They’ve been recruiting other Mongrel packs to Liam’s cause and were supposed to meet in Oklahoma for the Breaking Moon. Instead, me and some others tracked Lyssa until she met up with a Full Blood and he brought us here.”

Esteban straightened up, grabbed the closest soldier and threw the screaming man at the Skinners. Rico took the brunt of the attack when the flying man’s legs caught him across the chest and sent him to his back. Cole hopped away to avoid getting hit, but Rico was already climbing back to his feet before he could lend the big man a hand. They got to the overturned truck, circled around and put it between them and the Full Blood. Looking to Ben, Cole asked, “How many of you are here?”

“There were five, but two of us were taken out by gargoyles. I thought those things were extinct.”

“Think you can gang up on this one like you did with Liam back in KC?”

“We can try, but we’ll need to get in position around her.”

“Her?” Cole asked.

Ben backed into the ground as if simply easing down a ladder into the dirt. “We saw her outside of town. Looks like a young one. Never seen her before.”

Through the cracked glass of the truck’s side windows, Cole could make out the sandy brown fur covering Cecile’s left side. She stood apart from Esteban and swiped wildly at soldiers who fired shots at her as though prodding her with a stick. She dropped to all fours to point her hazel eyes at Cole and bared her fangs with a savage roar.

“I’ve seen her,” he told the Mongrel while ducking away from the window. “But she was a lot nicer then.”

“All of the werewolves are going wild,” Ben said. “Their blood is boiling. Even our kind who were tainted by them have responded to the Breaking Moon.”

“Great,” Rico grunted as he jogged over to them. “She-wolves gone wild. I think I saw a late night ad for that video.”

“Ben, I need you to bring that Full Blood to me,” Cole said. “The young one. Rico, we need to get Lambert and Frank away from here and help these soldiers bring down that other Full Blood.”

“You want fries with that?” Rico snarled as he braced his elbow on the front end of the overturned truck, then fired three-round bursts from his assault rifle. Several nearby soldiers took that as a call to arms and added their weapons to the mix.

“Just don’t shoot her when she gets to me.”

“Should I let her rip you in half?”

“If it comes to that,” Cole said, “there won’t be much you can do to stop her.”

“Fair enough.”

“God damn! How many times do I gotta tell you that your bullets are only pissing that thing off?”

Cole followed that voice to its source and saw Jessup rush around to put his back against the truck. Patting the Skinner on his shoulder, Cole said, “You can run fast for an old guy.”

Jessup looked once at him and then took a quick glance around the truck. “Where the hell have you been?”

“I was gonna ask the same thing. Haven’t seen you since I ducked into that helicopter.”

“Find anyone?”

“Yeah,” Cole said in a voice haunted enough to tell a good portion of the tale on its own. “They’re gone. One of them turned into a Half Breed right in front of me, and I don’t think it was from a bite.”

“That’s what caused the crash,” Rico said. “Men have just been randomly doubling over with their bones breaking inside of them. None of the ones I saw were bitten, but they just started to change. Some of those were driving trucks or flying helicopters and, well . . . there you go.”

“We need to do something about the Breaking Moon,” Jessup said. “If they can make Half Breeds without attacking anyone, it’ll only get worse as their power grows.”

“It’s rising whether we like it or not,” Rico told them. “Are you gonna make that call to Tristan or not?”

Something heavy landed behind Cole. When he spun around to get a look at it, he found himself within inches of a face that had haunted his nightmares ever since the bloody night in Canada when he was introduced to the power of a Full Blood. The man once known as Mr. Burkis crouched amid the swirl of dust from his landing. The structure of his face shifted slightly, pulling in his fangs and reshaping his jaw so he could say, “This is her first Blood Moon trial. You’ll need my help if you want to control the girl.”

Cole’s instinct was to take a swing at him. As if to prevent him from following through on that desire, the pain inside him hit like a sharp jab to the solar plexus. When he winced and crumbled under the jolt, so did Jessup.

“Ahh,” Randolph snarled while looking at both Skinners. “I see you’re enduring your first trial as well.”