The Breaking

CHAPTER Twenty-Nine


Nadya, Jesse, and Quinn waited for them alongside I-69, waving at the red pickup like a pair of pushy hitchhikers. Farther back on the road, the green pickup was completely covered in a writhing mass of knotted muscle, wiry fur, and gnashing teeth. Al skidded to a halt and Paige crawled across the bed of the truck to lean over Milosh’s side. “How many are left?” she asked.

“We killed many of the Vitsaruuv, but there will be more coming once those get finished lapping up all of the bait we poured onto that truck.”

“Waggoner’s going to be pissed,” Paige said.

“I’ve got something to show you that might make up for it.” Nadya accepted her partner’s help in climbing up into the bed of the red truck. Although Milosh was working with only one arm, he’d offered it to her gladly and now allowed his body to be wedged against the metal wall as she pulled herself in.

“Get in!” Paige said to Jesse.

The man in the U of Texas shirt shook his head strongly enough to waggle his long beard. “I’m headed back into town. With you all dragging these things along, it shouldn’t be too hard.”

“It only takes one to bring you down,” Paige warned.

“If that’s all it takes, then I won’t do no good to you in that truck,” he snapped. With that, he held his rifle at hip level and dashed away from the road, disappearing into the trees.

Milosh growled something in their native tongue when he saw the object in Nadya’s hand. She quickly silenced him and then looked at Paige to show her a long steel tube that resembled an ornate bicycle pump. “This is one of our tools that we guard closely. It’s charmed to attract the Weshruuv.”

“Bait specific to Full Bloods?” Paige asked. “Nice. How does it work?”

Gripping the middle of the tube, Nadya tapped the pump handle with her other hand and said, “Pull back to load the spring. Push forward to shoot.”

“How many rounds?”

“Just one. Make it count.”

“Are we ready to go?” Al asked. “I don’t like sitting still this long unless we’re piling out to make our stand.”

Quinn stayed on the ground and nervously watched the huge pack of Half Breeds. The dirt encrusted in her fur was thick enough to add some bulk to her frame and slick her ears back against her head. “My pack is keeping the Full Bloods occupied. Some of the wretches were diverted to deal with them, but that also means more of my kind will die this night. If those deaths prove to be in vain, you had better hope I’m counted among them.”

“I speak for all of us,” Nadya replied. “They won’t be in vain. Thank you for helping to see us through this hell.”

Bill watched them shake hands and let out a low, disgusted grunt from the back of his throat.

“Tell your pack to bring those Full Bloods to us,” Paige said. “After that, you can all find the deepest hole you’ve got and hide in it until the howling stops.”

Quinn nodded and then disappeared underground with an ease that made it seem more like she’d been absorbed into the earth itself. Everyone in the pickup took a moment to reload their guns in preparation for the thundering wave of shapeshifters that had taken a renewed interest in them. Inside the truck, Bill spoke in a tersely guarded voice that wasn’t loud enough for Paige to hear. Al responded only with an occasional nod as he gripped the steering wheel and stared at a little sign along the side of the road about seventy yards ahead. Paige stomped her heel against the bed of the truck and shouted, “Let’s go!”

The truck’s engine roared, causing the vehicle’s frame to shake. Paige’s eyes were fixed on the road behind her, waiting for any sign of the Full Bloods. Dumping the last of the bait onto the side of the truck, she scooted back until her shoulders bumped against the cab, then drew her pistols. By the time the truck built up some speed, heavier paws thumped against the ground. Trees alongside I-69 shook, shedding their leaves in a slow tumble toward the ground as they were assaulted by heavily muscled bodies. Quinn and another Mongrel exploded from the woods, keeping low to the ground and their heads held high. Seeing the truck, they split up to race past either side of the vehicle while Minh charged after them.

Now it was Nadya who told the driver to wait as she lifted the gleaming metal tube to point it over the tailgate. She drew back the pump handle, causing the mechanism inside to clatter and snap into place. Her feet pressed against the interior of the truck bed and her back stiffened as the Full Blood charged forward. Paige wanted to fire at the creature but choked back that instinct so the Amriany could do her thing.

As soon as Minh came within twenty feet of the pickup, Nadya pushed the pump handle back into the tube. An oiled piston within the device shot a gleaming projectile out to trace a shimmering path through the air that ended somewhere between Minh’s left shoulder and upper chest. The Full Blood grunted, staggered, and then recovered while slowing to a trot. She snarled and nipped at the spot on her coat that was now stained with blood, but was unable to remove the thing that had been shot into her. In the distance, Liam’s distinctive howl rose above all the others. Minh’s crystalline eyes snapped at the truck, found Nadya, and then narrowed.

“Go faster,” the Amriany said. “Go, go!”

Al nearly jammed the gas pedal through the floor, causing the pickup to lurch forward in a burst of speed that sent all three of the passengers in the bed toward the tailgate. Bill reached out to slap the top of the cab gleefully while hollering as if to compete with the baying Full Bloods.

Hanging on with one hand while using the other to tuck the engraved tube under her arm, Nadya said, “Now that the bolt has made contact with the blood of a Weshruuv, they will follow whoever carries this.”

“How long will that last?”

“Long enough. I also dipped the bolt into some of your bait, so she’ll have plenty to keep her busy.”

Al steered toward a small access road on the left that led toward the reservoir. The exit was overgrown and barely seemed large enough for the truck. Paige could only hang on and watch as Minh tore up the road in her haste to keep up. Although she had the same frenzied look in her eyes as the Half Breeds, there was enough intelligence there to keep her from devolving into a mass of flailing limbs like her twisted brethren. Fortunately, that twisted mass was snapping at her, latching onto her coat and forcing her to slow down and periodically swipe at the Half Breeds clinging to her back.

“Now that’s some damn fine teamwork!” Paige said.

“Arvah,” Milosh said with a nod. “This is good.”

Once she’d rid herself of enough Half Breeds to once again face the right direction, Minh caught up to the truck with only a few powerful strides.

“This,” Milosh said with chilling calm, “is not so good.”

Nadya fumbled with the FAMAS strapped across her back. Before she could swing the assault rifle around to use it, the entire truck was jostled by a nudge from the side of Minh’s head. The next impact lifted the truck off its back tires and dropped it down again with a powerful jolt that knocked the small of Nadya’s back against the wheel well and sent the pickup into a fishtail.

Rather than risk being thrown into an uncontrolled skid, Al worked the brakes while wrestling with the steering wheel. The man beside him leaned out the passenger window and fired his rifle at the werewolf.

Bullets from several different weapons thumped against Minh’s hide without penetrating her fur. One knocked against her temple, snapping her head to the side, and when she looked back at Nadya, there was a hellish glint in her eyes. As the pickup gained speed, Minh leapt with both front paws stretched out to snag the vehicle as if to grab a wildcat by the tail. After digging one set of claws into the rear corner of the frame, she roared at the Amriany.

Nadya rattled around the back of the truck like a pinball, struggling to get a better grip on her FAMAS. A rough hand slapped against her shoulder and pulled the strap hard enough to drag her to the other side of the bed less than a second before Minh’s claws sparked against the lining. Paige threw Nadya toward the cab using a right arm that felt stronger than it had in months. Gripping the sickle in her left hand, she put everything she had into a swing that carved a trench across Minh’s chest. The sickle would have opened the Full Blood’s throat if not for a last second defensive movement from the werewolf.

When Minh retreated, Paige surged forward to swing again. The metallic edge of the sickle caught the light from a moon that seemed to glow brighter as the combat intensified. Everything from the weapon’s distribution of weight to the shape of the grip was familiar to her, allowing each motion to flow more fluidly than the one before it. Minh attempted to get closer to the truck, but pulled away from the Skinner’s attacks as though her snout was threatened by a rotary saw.

“Hang on!” Al shouted while powering into a rough stretch of access road. “There’s a clearing that butts right up to the water! We used to come here to get high back in the day.” The truck’s tires kicked up a spray of gravel and dug into the rough terrain well enough to regain some speed.

Keeping her eyes on the Full Blood that now loped behind the vehicle, Paige asked, “How far is it?”

“Less than a mile.”

Although the words were spoken with confidence, Paige didn’t take any comfort from them. She switched out her sickle for the pistols, and when she pulled her triggers, she wasn’t alone. Nadya had the FAMAS against her shoulder and fired in a quick series of three-shot bursts. Weathering the storm of lead, Minh planted her front paws and crouched down in preparation for a leap that would surely overtake the truck. Just as her muscles were tensing for the jump, a .50 caliber round thumped against her front left knee to take that leg out from under her.

Glancing over to Milosh, Paige asked, “Why the hell haven’t you been covering us with that thing until now?”

He pulled the lever to move the rifle’s slide back and then dropped the weapon. “That was my last bullet. Hope we can trust that partner of yours to pull his weight.”

“He’s been pulling his weight long enough to be trusted,” Paige replied fiercely. “You just be sure to do the same.”

Milosh smirked, which curved the scars on his face even more. “For Amriany, the fight doesn’t stop until we are dead. Even then there’s a chance of us taking a few more good swings at whatever needs to be killed.”

Behind the truck, Minh hobbled and licked her leg where it had been shot. Even though the ammunition was treated with a coating that would have allowed it to punch through a Kevlar vest, it wasn’t enough to do more than cause a Full Blood some discomfort. A few seconds later Minh was up and moving again. When Nadya held the metal tube up high enough for it to be spotted, the creature broke into a run.

A rasping howl tore through the night. It only lasted a few seconds, but that was long enough for Paige to be certain the werewolf was less than two hundred yards away and closing in fast. Al followed the road as it turned sharply to the right. When he cranked the wheel to point the truck in the direction of the lake, his headlights illuminated a massive beast covered in thick ebon fur. It shifted to face the truck and then rammed its shoulder into the pickup’s grill.

“Son of a bitch!”

The first two words had escaped Al’s mouth as the truck wrapped around Liam’s body, the last word expelled in a grunt that came when the back tires bounced against the ground. In the rear of the vehicle, Paige, Nadya, and Milosh hung onto whatever they could to keep from being tossed out. They might have stayed inside, but the beating they took in the process made it feel like anything but a victory. Al slammed the truck into reverse and was greeted by a discouraging rattle from beneath the hood.

“Forget it,” Bill said, kicking his door open. “We walk from here!”

“Walk?”

“You’re right,” Bill said, tossing his rifle to the driver so he could take a shotgun from the rack above the rear window. “We should probably run.”

Minh was on her way, but slowed to a walk when the humans began piling out of the truck. She lowered her chest, bared her teeth, and dug her claws in deep enough to create jagged scars in the earth.

Liam shifted into his two-legged form and watched the Skinners with his one gleaming eye. “Where you off to, eh?” When Bill fired his shotgun, Liam turned toward the thump of lead against his shoulder and took half a step in that direction. Al circled around to flank the Full Blood, but Liam intercepted him by lunging and raking his paw along the ground to scoop him up several feet into the air. The werewolf clamped his jaws around the Skinner’s right arm, shoulder, and a good portion of his chest so he could shake the screaming man until Al’s body went limp. All the while, he took no notice of the bullets that thumped against his chest and stomach. When he was done, he spat out the corpse like a piece of unwanted gristle.

The reservoir wasn’t far away, and it took every bit of restraint Paige had to lead Milosh and Nadya into the trees instead of standing her ground to take the Full Bloods on. Even the certainty of that being a death sentence didn’t make the retreat any easier to swallow. Bill, it seemed, was having an even more difficult time restraining himself.

“F*ck you!” he shouted while firing his shotgun again.

Liam walked over to Al’s body and nudged it with his foot. The shotgun rounds ruffled him slightly, but didn’t do much more than that. Once he was satisfied that Al was dead, Liam picked him up and sniffed his bloody torso. “Randolph was right. It is in them!”

Minh tore apart the last of the Half Breeds to come after her and then leapt over the truck in order to take off after Paige.

When Liam looked toward the retreating humans, he caught sight of the polished steel in Nadya’s hand. “Gypsy trickery!” he snarled while dropping to all fours and exploding into a bounding run. “You want me to follow you? I’m happy to oblige!”

“Come on,” Paige said, running toward the large body of nearby water. “We’ve got to keep moving!”

Nadya held the metal tube in one hand, which she extended as far in front of her as her arm would allow. Now that she had both Full Bloods’ attention, she turned her back to the werewolves and ran at full speed to keep up with Paige and Bill. The only problem was that neither of the creatures was running directly after them. Both had split away from the path to circle around on either side.

“You’d better have a real good plan, lady,” Bill grunted once they broke through the tree line to find themselves facing a wide expanse of standing water. “We’re lucky to have made it this far and we sure as hell can’t swim fast enough to get away.”

“We won’t be swimming,” Paige said.

Liam emerged from the trees and stopped so his hind legs were still lost in the shadows. “You got that right,” he snarled in a voice that could barely be heard through the fangs that prevented his mouth from closing all the way.

Minh was nearby as well. Paige couldn’t be certain where, exactly, but the burning in her scars was intense enough so that she knew it was coming from two sources. Now that she’d calmed down enough to focus on what the scars were telling her, she could feel a cold prickly moving beneath the heat like an underlying current of jagged ice.

As if sensing he’d been detected, Kawosa spoke in a voice that drifted through the air like another wandering breeze. “Now this is interesting,” he said.

Despite being able to hear him, Paige couldn’t pin down the shapeshifter’s location. Judging by the way Nadya, Milosh, and Bill looked wildly around at the trees as well as the standing water, they weren’t having any better luck.

“Watch your step, young ones,” Kawosa said. “The hunters have set a trap for you.”

Liam bared his fangs and retreated just far enough into the trees so his single eye was the only thing that could be seen. As he clawed and snarled, he shifted into a shape that raised his face up several feet. When he leaned forward again, he was in his hulking two-legged form. “There is no trap they can set that will do them any good,” he growled.

“Can you be so sure? Why are you holding the others back?”

Liam glanced in the direction of the low growls emanating from the Half Breeds that had followed them this far. Shifting his eye to Paige, he growled, “Because they’ve had all the fun tonight.”

A rustling of branches announced Minh’s arrival. Unlike the other two, she wasn’t content to remain hidden. She exploded from the trees and landed about ten paces from where Bill stood with his shotgun. The Skinner reflexively fired a shot at her when Minh leapt at him. At the apex of her jump, the Full Blood was intercepted by a lean figure that barely disturbed a leaf when it pounced to wrap his arms around her upper body. Both of them landed in a heap, and Minh scrambled back up to all fours to knock Kawosa aside. He hit the ground, stopped his slide with an outstretched leg, and then used his other leg to push forward so he could clamp his jaws around her throat. Minh grunted with surprise, and by the time she swiped a paw at the elder shapeshifter, Kawosa had already moved out of her reach.

Unlike the Full Bloods who shifted to stand upon two legs, Kawosa seemed more comfortable on four. He scampered away from Minh, planted his paws so his chest was lower than his hindquarters and turned his head toward Nadya, to spit something petulantly in her direction. The charmed metal projectile, still smeared with Minh’s blood, hit the dirt and rolled until some of the Amriany markings glinted in the moonlight.

“Feel better, girl?” Kawosa asked.

Minh shook her head to clear whatever had compelled her to blindly chase the charmed device gripped tightly in Nadya’s hand. Although she wasn’t about to recklessly throw herself at Nadya anymore, the promise in her glare was sharp and spiteful.

“Even while I was locked beneath Lancroft’s floor, I knew what our biggest weakness had become.” Kawosa snapped his eyes toward Liam and said, “You are all too damn loud.”

“You want peace and quiet, trickster?” Liam grunted. “You can crawl right back into that hole where you were caged and forgotten.”

Paige glanced at her companions. Although they weren’t fighting for their lives at the moment, there wasn’t anywhere for them to go that didn’t require passing dangerously close to one of the werewolves. In fact, as more seconds ticked by, the panting breaths of encroaching Half Breeds from the nearby town drew closer.

“I gave you a gift,” Kawosa said. “And I passed on knowledge of how to use it. Instead, you either disappear into the forests or bay at the moon like common dogs. Pathetic.”

This time Minh was the one to step forward. “Pathetic? The Torva’ox moves through our veins like never before. You must feel it as well.”

“I do.”

“And you have us to thank for it. Without taking steps like the ones we’ve taken here, we would have simply watched another Breaking Moon rise above cities infested with humans and leeches, above mountains that look down upon lands that are being torn apart by machines. We bay at the moon because we are choking on air that sticks in our throats while the old ones like you are either too far removed to notice or buried too deep to care.”

Kawosa settled into a seated position, looking like a twisted version of a large dog waiting calmly for its supper. While the Full Bloods needed to change their physical shape to speak clearer, his voice was smooth and slippery regardless of the mouth that formed the words. “Interesting that you should mention the leeches. While the human armies now mass to strike against you, the Nymar have taken residence in comfortable businesses and homes after dispatching with the Skinners. Isn’t that right, Paige?”

Having been content to fly under the shapeshifters’ radar, Paige felt her nerves clench when one of them called her by name. Before she could respond to the challenge, Bill stepped forward and said, “We aren’t letting the bloodsuckers get away with what they’ve done. There’s more goin’ on than anyone here knows about.”

“So,” Kawosa said, “there is more than anyone knows. More than, I assume, your so-called friends here even know? Go on, you must tell me.”

When those words slid from the coyote’s mouth, Paige could feel the chill beneath her scars slice even deeper. She turned to Bill and said, “No, you don’t have to tell him anything!”

But the other Skinner shoved her aside in his haste to step forward. “I don’t take orders from f*ckin’ Gypsies and I sure as hell don’t take them from someone who favors working with bloodsuckers and Mongrels over her own kind. When the Full Bloods get cleaned out, so will you.”

“You’ve come this far,” Kawosa urged. “Might as well go all the way.”

Nadya drew a breath and stood by Paige’s side. Milosh stopped her from going any further by grabbing her arm and shaking his head. Whatever information Kawosa was pulling out of Bill, he wanted to hear it as well.

“The Vigilant will take it all the way, a*shole!” Bill roared. “What was started by locking your ass in Dr. Lancroft’s cell will be finished once we collect our own piece of this pie.”

“What pie?” Kawosa asked as his brow furrowed and the smug look on his bestial face drifted away.

“He means the Breaking Moon,” Liam said. “They know.”

Bill nodded triumphantly. “Hell yes, we know. Some of that juice that flows through your veins goes through Skinners as well. The difference between Vigilant and the rest is that we ain’t gonna squander what we’re given, like the Skinners that have been stepping up to get killed over the last year.”

Kawosa nodded and smiled. His eyes shifted from unnaturally clear silver orbs into things that looked to have been stolen from the skull of a mischievous child. “Go on.”

Behind her, Paige could hear water lapping against the shore. It hit the land, rolled back, and was hit by another wave too impatient to wait for the first one to recede. The reservoir churned, and when she turned to look, she could see the first hint of a green glow emanating from just beneath the most turbulent spot on its surface.

“Is this all you’re after, old man?” Liam asked while stalking forward in a two-legged form that easily towered over all the humans. “Talk, talk, and more talk?”

“The Breaking Moon is almost fully risen,” Kawosa replied. “What better way to pass the time with our Skinner friends than calmly standing here and waiting for the Torva’ox to visit us?” Looking over to Paige, he added, “See what I mean about taking the quieter path? These hunters have been pacified with some talk, just as the rest of the humans can be diverted with words instead of actions that endanger us all. Now they can all see what we’ve become before being torn to pieces by the legion that surrounds them.”

Half Breeds snarled from the shadows cast by the trees surrounding the reservoir.

Paige had no vehicle to get her out of that untenable position, no time to get to the survivors huddled in the basements and panic rooms of Atoka, and no way of knowing if any of Quinn’s pack remained. From what she’d heard, the only Skinner in sight didn’t care if she lived or died. Milosh was wounded and Nadya seemed to be out of tricks.

“What’s troubling you, cutie?” Liam asked as he stepped forward and locked his eye on her. “Waiting for that nymph magic to sweep you away?” He drew in a deep breath, craned his neck and licked his lips. “Yes, the nymphs do make good allies. Still, you gotta be quick enough to cross their bridge before I can get to you. Think you’re up to it?”

By the time the scent of freshly cut timber and pine hit Paige’s nose, all three of the shapeshifters were coiled like springs and ready to launch themselves at the first one to take a step in the wrong direction.

Paige took a sideways stance so she could glance back and forth between the Full Bloods and the reservoir without letting either out of her peripheral vision.

The water churned until it began spraying up from the rippling surface. Instead of the shimmering glow she was used to seeing through the beaded curtain of a Dryad temple, Paige watched as droplets of water froze several feet above the surface of the water, as if they’d spattered against a window suspended in midair behind her.

Liam smiled. “Better run, Skinners. Just to keep it sporting.”

The crackle that came from the glistening smudge in the air sounded like a static charge preceding a lightning strike. Cole emerged from the dim green glow as if he’d been thrown through it. He grunted in agony and dropped straight down into the cold waters beneath his feet.

Liam drifted between an amused smirk and a surprised grimace.

Minh raised the hackles on her back, preparing for whatever came next.

Kawosa sat calmly and watched.

Paige turned to the closest Full Blood and snapped her arm like a whip to throw her sickle before the diversion Cole had provided was wasted.

Without even bothering to shift his weight to dodge the incoming weapon, Liam caught the spinning sickle less than an inch from his nose. He flipped it around to grip the weapon by its handle, cocked it back next to his ear, and threw it into Bill’s head, where it landed with a solid thunk. Before Bill could drop, Liam’s ears pricked as another shrieking wave of hooked talons and flattened skin poured through the shimmering opening hanging above the water.