The Breaking

Chapter Fourteen

What had once been a flat stretch of land surrounding a little airstrip was now a ravaged battleground. Dirt had been peeled away from the face of the earth by unforgiving claws. The SUV was a dented lump of metal and broken glass, currently good for nothing more than a perch for the ebon Full Blood to survey his newly acquired territory. Minh ripped at the ground, stopping only when she caught a scent that snapped her head up and flared her nostrils.

The Mongrels approached the field in a line and fanned out once they’d been detected. Quinn and two other felines were at the front of the group, while more shapes emerged from the shadows to join them. Two came from behind the wide building with the big garage door, and another came at a dead run from a nearby housing subdivision. By the time that one reached the front line, all of the Mongrels had launched into a charge.

“They come to us for once,” Liam snarled while jumping down from the SUV. “That’ll save us some digging.” The moment his feet hit the ground, clawed hands stretched up from the dirt to grab him. Liam immediately pulled up the leg that had been snagged to reveal the Mongrel that snagged him. Salvatore tightened his grip on Liam’s ankle while trying to drag him down, but the Full Blood was able to pull him up from the dirt. Only the Mongrel’s upper body emerged, but that was more than enough of a target for the werewolf’s left paw.

“Already used this trick in Kansas City,” Liam said while the corner of his ravaged eye socket twitched. “There won’t be a second time.” With that, he sunk his claws into the Mongrel’s belly and ripped him open. Blood sprayed from a gaping wound that went all the way up to Salvatore’s shoulder blade, and when Liam pulled his leg up even more, the evisceration was complete.

Quinn and the other Mongrels leapt forward in unison. Chunks of grass and earth were kicked up behind them as the stampede met a wall formed by the two Full Bloods. While claws and fangs were bloodied, two more figures emerged from the low building with the wide garage door. Beneath that building was the basement where Milosh, Nadya, and eventually Paige, had been taken. The two women paused in the doorway, waiting for a chance to make a run for the airstrip.

“You ready for this?” Paige asked.

Nadya set her sights on the airstrip, pulled in a breath and nodded once.

They bolted from the side door as if the building behind them was on fire. Ahead they could see half a dozen Mongrels tangling with the Full Bloods and a few Half Breeds. When Paige veered to the right to try and skirt the eye of a bloody hurricane, Nadya stayed with her.

The sound of flesh being ripped apart hit Paige’s ears like the tearing of wet canvas, filling the air beneath the victorious howl of a Full Blood. Heavy, thumping footfalls shook the ground beneath her feet. There wasn’t time to stop and fight, and shouting for Nadya to keep running would only draw unwanted attention, so she kept her legs churning and hoped the Amriany woman was doing the same.

A Half Breed ran toward Paige on an intercept course. By the time she’d reflexively drawn her Beretta and aimed at the werewolf, the thing had already been taken down by Quinn. The Mongrel leader screeched at her packmates with blood still pouring from her mouth. Two more Half Breeds had their eyes fixed on the humans but were forced to contend with Quinn as the feline darted between them and raked her claws along both werewolves’ ribs. Paige and Nadya leapt over the first creature to hit the ground in a heap and kept going.

Her entire world was enveloped by the pounding of her feet, the howling of nearby creatures, the constant thumping of her heart, and the powerful huffing of her labored breaths. The ground beneath her shifted from packed soil to softer earth that had been recently turned. There was still half of the field to cover before they made it to the airstrip, and Paige realized they probably wouldn’t even make it if the galloping footsteps behind them caught up.

One quick glance over her shoulder was all she needed to see the smaller Full Blood coming after them. Minh’s dark red fur was slicked back against the low narrow frame of her four-legged form. As her paws grabbed the dirt to propel her onward, her head pumped back and forth like a racehorse in the home stretch. Only one or two more of those strides was all that would be needed for her to get within striking distance of Nadya. A few seconds after that, Paige knew she would be the one feeling her body cut down by the Full Blood’s claws.

She twisted in an attempt to take a shot with her Beretta. Before she could pull her trigger, however, something sprang up from the ground to grab onto Minh’s front paw. It clamped around Minh’s ankle and tightened its grip enough to be pulled almost completely from the earth by the Full Blood’s momentum. The digger reached up with his free hand, grabbed Minh’s shoulder and sank the pointed end of his beak into her back. That forced a yelp from her, which quickly turned into an angry snarl. As Paige turned back around to look where she was going, the blurred form of a cloaked Mongrel bolted past her to hit Minh squarely in the ribs. All three shapeshifters rolled to the side, biting and tearing amid a growing cloud of dust.

Knowing better than to waste time counting her blessings, Paige worked her aching legs harder and focused on the little buildings at the edge of the airstrip. Along the way, she and Nadya encountered several Half Breed carcasses in various mangled poses after being ripped apart by what could have either been a Mongrel or a wood chipper. Paige hurdled those and quickened her pace after making it around the edge of the closest building and getting within sight of the jet wreckage.

There was more of the Gulfstream left than she’d anticipated. The jet lay on its side with one wing reaching toward the sky and the other smashed into scrap metal beneath the bulk of its body. Fires crackled at various points along the fuselage and black smoke rolled up from the cracked tail section. As the stench of burnt plastic and charred steel hit her, Paige slowed to a jog and stopped.

“Where’s the medical kit stored?” she asked.

Nadya came up alongside her and stopped, to bending down to place her hands on her knees. “There was one in the cockpit and another in the passenger cabin near the door.”

“You mean the door that’s flat against the cement?”

Looking up to see which side the plane was laying on, Nadya replied, “Yes. That side.”

“Then we’re headed to the cockpit.”

Both women ran along the airstrip, doing their best to ignore the heat from the fires and the constant threat of being stricken down by a force of nature on four legs. The closer they got to the downed plane, the more it looked like a giant creature that had been frozen while stretching an arm up from a turbulent, smoky sea. The nose cone was cracked open and split against the runway, leaving the tail section several feet off the ground. Although that made it easier for Paige to get to the cockpit, the mangled frame and shattered windows provided a formidable barrier between her and the pilot’s seat.

Half of the curved canopy at the front of the plane was completely gone and was mostly impassable due to the mangled structure. Using whatever footholds she could find, she climbed up the Gulfstream’s nose cone.

“What do you see?” Nadya asked from ground level.

Looking through a crooked frame of shattered glass or plastic, Paige spotted a control panel that had been reduced to a tangled mess of broken, exposed wires and cracked dials. Along with the throttle and flight control levers, it was wrapped around the slumping body of a young man who looked to have been cut in half by a set of rough pincers. “Just a lot of wrecked controls,” Paige said. “Where’s the kit?”

“Do you see where the pilot would be sitting?”

Trying not to meet the dead man’s final, desperate, pleading gaze, Paige replied, “Yeah.”

“The kit should be down near his left hand.”

The pilot’s left hand was nowhere to be found. When she forced herself to look at the section Nadya had described, she realized that the pilot’s left leg had also been sheared away by the crash, or by the Full Blood that had surely followed it. Swearing under her breath, she pulled herself up to clear the window frame, using the side of her hardened right arm. Rather than healing, her wounds on that limb had merely piled up like gouges in a cement post. There was pain, but no more than usual. She couldn’t move it very well, but that was nothing new. It looked bad, but she could go on, so she continued climbing into the cockpit but made it less than a quarter of the way before her foot slipped. After sliding an inch or two along the outside of the plane, her foot was stopped by something solid.

“Got you,” Nadya said while bracing Paige’s foot in both of her outstretched hands.

When she let out a relieved breath, Paige fogged a jagged piece of broken window half an inch from her chin. She leaned back, failed to get a handhold on the frame, and then fell forward. Only by twisting her stomach muscles was she able to avoid impaling her throat. Once Nadya had helped her climb back up again, she found herself looking at a pile of miscellaneous debris that had collected on the co-pilot’s seat almost directly beneath her.

“That medical kit,” Paige grunted while shifting to get a more solid grip on the plane. “Does it look like a gray metal shoe box?”

“Yes. Did you find it?”

“I think so!”

As she stretched her arm toward the co-pilot’s chair, she heard what sounded like car engines nearby. Since the street was too far away to be heard over the crackling fires and the rush of blood in her ears, she guessed the vehicles had to be pulling up to the airport or even onto the airstrip itself. “Is that the fire department?” she asked.

After a few strained breaths, Nadya turned beneath Paige’s weight. “No,” she replied. “Just a couple of trucks.”

Paige could feel heat from the fires on her hands and smell the buildup of smoky grease on her face. The medical kit was within her grasp. If she flexed her fingers, she could feel the tips brush against the heated metal of the box. Standing tiptoe on the shaky platform of Nadya’s hands, she leaned forward and squirmed over the sharp edges of the twisted frame. “Almost got it,” she said to herself as much as to the Amriany beneath her.

“Hurry,” Nadya said. “Vitsaruuv!”

“Vitsa-what?”

“Half Breeds!” Nadya shouted in an accent that apparently thickened under duress. “They are coming!”

Too close to the medical kit to even think about leaving without it, Paige closed her eyes so she could focus on her other senses. Tires skidded against pavement, people shouted back and forth to each other, and the slap of paws approached the plane. The air reeked of blood and burning oil. The box was warm against her fingers and rattled when she managed to pry it loose from the pile of other items on and around it.

“Didn’t do all that goddamn running to quit now,” she grunted. “If I have to climb in there myself, I’ll pull you out.”

“Get back!” Nadya screamed. “Get away from here! Run!”

Since the hands beneath her were steady, Paige figured Nadya was yelling at the locals who’d pulled up in the trucks. She stretched her arm as far as it would go and kept straining until she felt her thumb slide down against the other side of the box. Pinching her fingers together, she gritted her teeth and started lifting it off the co-pilot’s seat. After some struggling, straining, and what could very well have been a self-inflicted dislocated shoulder, she liberated the medical kit from the pile of junk. “How many Half Breeds?” she asked.

“Two.” Nadya’s hands twisted in one direction, which meant the rest of her was most likely twisting that same way to get a better look around. “No. Three!”

Gunshots were fired not far from the airstrip. Paige twitched at the sound of them and nearly dropped the medical kit onto the floor, where it would have slid completely out of her reach. “What the hell is going on out there?”

Enthusiastic hollers erupted from the airstrip, reminding Paige of a Civil War movie she’d seen where a division of Rebs sent a line of Federal troops running for the hills. From what she could hear, the local boys were packing hunting rifles and a few large caliber pistols. Suddenly, she developed a fondness for Oklahoma.

“All right,” she said while sliding away from the window. “Got the kit.”

Nadya helped her down and pointed toward a pair of pickup trucks idling nearby. One was a dark red model with a wide bed and a polished chrome box placed just behind the cab, which looked like it was used for secure storage. The second was a light green rust bucket with a set of lights bolted to the roof, which probably could have lit a full stage performance of “Free Bird.” The red truck’s bed was full of young guys who used the top of the cab to steady their arms as they fired at the Half Breeds.

The werewolves chasing after the trucks had all been hit and were bleeding, but weren’t about to stop. There was too much fresh meat in front of them and the air was thick with the scents of their brethren. Whatever tiny bit of reasoning they had was overcome by those factors, fueling the Half Breeds with a rage that made them send bits of concrete flying when their claws scraped against the airstrip.

“You can’t hit them,” said someone from directly over Paige’s head, addressing the pickup trucks.

She looked up to find a lean animal perched on top of the wreckage. Instead of a bulky Full Blood, this one looked more like the gnarled, beefier cousin of a coyote. Its dull orange eyes weren’t the same as the ones she’d seen in Toronto, but Kawosa’s voice struck a chord deep inside her.

“You men are too frightened to fight,” he said.

The hollering faded away and the rifle shots began sparking against the concrete, when only a few moments ago they’d been thumping solidly into werewolf flesh.

A Half Breed lunged at Nadya and would have torn her face off if she hadn’t been quick enough to duck straight down to let the creature sail over her head and into the side of the wrecked Gulfstream. Paige dropped to one knee, lifted her Beretta and fired at Kawosa.

“Don’t listen to him!” she shouted. “You were just hitting these bastards! Keep it up!”

Nadya reached for the scabbard at her belt and drew a blade just over a foot long and shaped like a boomerang set into an intricately carved handle. Twisting her body around in a full circle, she snapped the blade out and around to catch the second Half Breed across its face as it leapt at her. The creature let out a surprised bark when the Amriany weapon lodged just beneath its eye socket. Jumping gracefully over the incoming creature’s claws, Nadya dragged the blade all the way through to shear off the top of the Half Breed’s skull. When that one hit the side of the jet, it slammed into the metal and slid down into a pile of twitching flesh and bone.

Paige raised her Beretta and pulled the trigger. The shots were taken quickly and without the proper amount of breathing to steady her hands. Fortunately, she barely needed to aim in order to put several rounds into a creature that was barreling straight at her. Absorbing three bullets at close range slowed the Half Breed a little, but the mindless beast threw itself at its prey and snapped wildly at Paige.

“Here, young ones,” Kawosa said from his perch. “This is where you’ll find them.”

His barbed voice carried all the way to the edge of the battlefield where Quinn and her Mongrels struggled to keep the Full Bloods occupied. From that direction, one shrieking, straining howl was joined by another. More Half Breeds gathered, and within seconds the pounding of frenzied feet upon the earth told of their pending arrival.

“You cannot hit any of them,” Kawosa announced to the men who now stood around the pickups as if they’d just woken to find themselves there. “The beasts are too fast.”

“Shut the hell up!” Paige said while sending her last rounds at Kawosa.

The first bullet sparked against the fuselage, and the next might have clipped him if he hadn’t darted away in the opposite direction.

“You can hit whatever you aim at,” she said as she stuck the Beretta back into its holster and approached the red pickup. “But don’t push it. Just get out of here.”

The front line of Rebs looked at her, started to put their rifles to their shoulders and then lowered them. At the head of the group stood a man in his early to mid-forties. His beard was dark brown with a few strands of gray that came almost down to his breastbone. He wore weathered jeans, work boots, and a hooded sweatshirt from the University of Texas wrapped around his thick body. “You two need a ride?” he asked.

Nadya rushed to Paige’s side. The blade in her hand still had blood dripping from it as she said, “Yes. We need to go back up the road to—”

“No,” Paige cut in. “You guys need to get into those trucks and ride somewhere safer than this. We got here on our own. We can get back on our own.”

Another man hopped down from the back of the green pickup, striding past the cab while notching an arrow into what looked to be a compound bow. Paige had seen one or two of the things in hunting catalogues and on a few nature shows when she’d been too lazy to change channels. The man with the bow clamped a cigarette between his teeth, which flared brightly as he inhaled and drew the arrow all the way back to his shoulder. He released the arrow and sent the pointed missile straight into the neck of a Half Breed that had attempted to circle around the group. Even with the arrow lodged so close to its shoulder, the thing barely slowed down. A trickle of blood seeped from the wound, which only made it angrier when it charged the pickup in a series of off-balance steps. The archer cursed while reaching over his shoulder for another arrow. Before he could notch it, his buddies opened fire with their hunting rifles and buried the Half Breed in a storm of lead.

The creature made it to the truck, climbed onto the hood and snapped at the driver through the windshield. Its snout cracked the glass and rivers of saliva smeared the pane.

“Get it away from there, Al!” the archer said while calmly circling the red truck.

While staring at the werewolf through the windshield, the driver of the red truck reached for the steering column and pulled the lever that sent a spray of blue fluid from the squirters. Most of the cleaning solution soaked into the Half Breed’s matted fur, but some of it splashed into its eyes and got the thing to backpedal toward the front of the hood. After shaking some of the fluid away by tossing its head from side to side, the Half Breed glared at the driver with such single-minded intensity that it took no notice of the archer until he put an arrow straight through its eye.

“Don’t like that, do ya?” the archer said while rushing forward to grab the shaft protruding from the Half Breed’s face. When the werewolf snapped at his hand, he gripped the arrow tight enough to hold the werewolf in place as his buddies with the shotguns surrounded him and emptied their buckshot into the creature’s body.

When the Half Breed stopped twitching, the archer jerked the arrow from its eye and asked, “Now what were you ladies saying about us finding somewhere safer to be?”

“You did real good against one of those things,” Paige replied. “But there’s a lot more out there.”

“We know,” the man with the long beard said. “Town’s full of the damned things.”

“Which is why you should get somewhere safe.”

“Ain’t nowhere safe,” the archer grunted as he flipped his cigarette to the ground, then stomped it out. “Didn’t you hear the man just now? The whole town’s full of these fucking things. Now do you have somewhere you need to be or don’t you?”

Paige looked down at the medical kit she’d tucked under her arm. Then she looked at Nadya and back to the guys near the pickup. “Are you guys locals?”

“We can swap names and numbers somewhere else or we can part ways right now. You got until I make it back to my truck to decide.” Without wasting another word, the archer slung his bow over one shoulder and went back to the green pickup.

The driver of the red truck, who Paige assumed was Al, stuck his head out his window and said, “Them things are crawling all over this town and it looks like they won’t be leaving anytime soon. You’re lucky enough to walk away from that wreck, so you might as well come along with us.”

Paige didn’t know what to make of them. If they were Skinners, that would explain some things. With the battle raging nearby, the only thing of which she was certain was that she didn’t have the time to sit and plan out every move as much as she would have liked. “Can you get us to that garage down the road?”

“You mean the autobody place?”

Since she’d smelled motor oil and metal before rushing out of the wide building, she guessed that was it. She climbed into the back of one of the trucks and said, “Just drop us off as close as you can and then get to wherever you need to be. If things get too hairy, you can let us off wherever.”

The archer slapped the side of the red truck as he headed back to the green one. “Lady, every damn thing’s getting hairy around here. Whether we ride up one street or down another don’t matter anymore.” With that, he climbed into the green truck and told the driver to get moving.

Once Nadya was in the bed of the red vehicle with Paige, both pickups made a U-turn and jumped a curb to get back onto the street. Along the way, Paige studied the field next to the airport. It was hard to tell for certain, but it seemed the Mongrels were making some progress. Liam held up the body of a digger, threw it into another Mongrel and was attacked by two more that had been cloaked. Minh tried to jump to Liam’s side and was weighed down by several felines that clung to her with every tooth and nail at their disposal. Bodies of all shapes converged on the Full Bloods. Before she could see any more than that, Paige’s truck veered into a parking lot and sped around to the back of the wide building with the garage doors. Sure enough, there was a little sign on the side of the building that read SAL’S AUTOBODY.

“You gonna be okay here, ladies?” the archer asked.

Paige and Nadya jumped down from the truck. Handing the medical kit to the Amriany, Paige replied, “We’ll be okay. What about you guys?”

“Made it this far. That don’t mean shit when it comes to the end of days, but we should be able to make it a little longer.”

Hearing that made Paige fairly certain the man wasn’t a Skinner. At least, he hadn’t been one for long. Most experienced werewolf hunters had already seen and killed enough to have grown comfortable with anything resembling the end of days. Just to be sure, she approached the green truck and extended a hand. “My name’s Paige and that’s Nadya. I’d ask you in, but that’s not such a good idea.”

Glancing to the door through which Nadya had already disappeared, he said, “John Waggoner. Ask anyone in town and they’ll tell you I ain’t about to hurt you. Whatever you’re protecting in there, it’s safe with us.”

“I’m sure it is, John. I appreciate the help. Is there a way I can get in touch with you?”

“We’ll swing by here in an hour or so. If that throw-down out there gets worse, it may take a little longer. There are other folks in town we need to check on. Any chance we could send some stragglers this way?”

Waggoner was no Skinner. His palms were rough and callused, but not scarred. Although she’d had her notions about the bow slung across his shoulder, that wasn’t a Skinner weapon either. It was too smooth to have ever changed shape, and the handle was made for comfort instead of drawing the blood of its owner.

“Yeah,” Paige said. “If anyone needs to come here, send them over. Just tell them not to be alarmed with what may greet them.”

“Are you sure about that?” Nadya asked quietly.

Patting her arm, Paige watched the men in the pickups. “Just have your stragglers mention my name if you come back and they should at least get shelter. Still, we’re kind of in a bad spot right now.”

“Understood,” Waggoner said with a nod. “Paige, right?”

“Yep.”

“Appreciate the help. We’ll swing by later to check in on you.” With that, he slapped the side of the truck and motioned for the driver to get moving. Both vehicles rolled away, gunning their engines as they were almost immediately chased by a pair of wandering Half Breeds.

“You think we’ll see them again?” Nadya asked.

“Odds of survival aren’t much worse for them than they are for us. Let’s just see what we can do for Milosh right now.”

Nadya led the way downstairs to the cellar inhabited by the Mongrels. Stopping at the top of the stairs, Paige dug into her pocket for her phone. The device might not have been up to Cole’s technical standards, but it was sturdy enough to survive all the bumps it had taken during the last several hours and still let her know she’d missed a call. The number on the caller ID was familiar, so she tapped the screen right away.

“Midwestern Ectological Group, how can—”

Paige interrupted the unfamiliar voice with a bare-bones introduction and an identification number that verified she was one of MEG’s “special contacts.”

“Hang on,” the operator said. “I’m supposed to patch you right through to Stu.”

The first voice was replaced by a very familiar one that said, “Paige! Where are you?”

“Oklahoma.”

“I knew it! As soon as I heard about the town that was overrun, I knew you’d be in the middle of it! Atoka, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s already on the news?”

“Not the major networks, but there’s plenty of reports coming in from people taking pictures and videos and whatever else. They’re getting squashed by official channels that go pretty high up. Know anything about that?”

“Maybe. I need to get in touch with someone in this area. One of us. And nobody who might be a friend of Rico’s.”

“You worried about the Vigilant?”

Paige’s stomach clenched into a knot. “Who are they?” she asked.

“We’ve only heard the name once, but several of you guys have been breaking off from us.”

“How many?”

“It’s hard to say for certain,” Stu replied. “There are a few out west who don’t normally check in anyways and plenty that never made it onto our list, but they aren’t necessarily broken away. Lots more as you head east. We lost track of everyone from Philadelphia and that vicinity. That’s about all we’ve got on them.”

“What about anyone in the Oklahoma area? Anyone out here at all? Vigilant or not?” As she waited for Stu to look up the information, her phone beeped. It was another incoming call, but she ignored it since Stu was already pulling up results.

“Sure. There’s a small group based in Oklahoma City.”

“Is one of them named John Waggoner?” she asked.

“I’ve only got one name and it’s Bill Phillips. You want his number?”

“Just send it to me. I’ve got to go. Thanks, Stu.” Before he could say anything else, she cut the connection. Paige stood at the top of the stairs, listening to what sounded like some very uncomfortable grunts coming from Milosh. Since the noises he made weren’t growls or dying breaths, that probably meant he was getting the treatment he needed. The fingers on her right hand tingled, so she flexed them. More than likely she needed to get some preventive medication herself.

The phone rattled in her hand, causing her to twitch. It buzzed once and stopped, and when she looked down she saw Stu’s text message passing along Bill Phillips’s phone number. That was followed by U R welcome .

The next call she made was to a number that wasn’t listed in any directory. As far as she knew, it wasn’t even supposed to be written down on anything that wasn’t set on fire a minute later. After two rings the connection crackled through several layers of electronic security measures and was answered by a curt, “Adderson.”

Ignoring the beep of an incoming call, she asked, “Have you heard anything about Cole yet?”

“If you know where he is, then tell me right now!”

She grinned, which was enough of a silent gap to make the man at the other end of the connection nervous.

“Paige!” Adderson barked. “I’m serious. I can’t offer any assistance if you don’t offer some in return.”

She cut the call short with the quick poke of a button. By the time she got to the cot where Milosh was being treated, she was already getting another call. This one she answered right away.