The Breaking

CHAPTER Thirty-Two


Raton, New Mexico

Eighteen hours later

The hill where Cole and Jessup had met Rico was now completely cordoned off by the military. In fact, most of the town had become a base inhabited by men wearing fatigues adorned with a mix of Army and Marine Corps insignias. The only thing those uniforms had in common was a patch on the shoulder bearing the wolf and skull insignia of the IRD. Helicopters roared through the air. Armored vehicles rattled down the streets. Command centers had been set up in spots that were formerly in the quiet section of town.

“Well,” Cole said as he and Paige were escorted by Adderson and three soldiers carrying large caliber machine guns, “at least we don’t have to worry about news choppers getting too close.”

Dressed in simple khakis that could have been lifted from any Middle East conflict over the last couple of decades, Adderson displayed nothing but the IRD insignia and a colonel’s eagle pinned to his shirt. “You obviously haven’t been watching the news,” he said.

“No. We’ve been busy.”

“I’m sure you have, but it’s all out there. These creatures have taken over entire towns, which has made our jobs that much more difficult. What happened in Atoka is still under review. In the last twelve hours several Class Two shifters have been spotted throughout the country.”

“Half Breeds,” Paige said to Cole.

Grimacing as if her use of such common terminology hurt his ears, Adderson continued, “There have also been several reports of spontaneous transformations occurring in neighboring states.”

“Do we really have to go through all this official talk?” Cole asked. “You’re just adding syllables and wasting time.”

“You want me to cut down on the syllables? Fine. How’s this? FBI. Manhunt. Escaped prisoner. Oh, sorry. Was that last one too long for you?”

“Nope,” Cole replied. “Point taken. Continue.”

“You’re taking care of that escaped prisoner thing, right?” Paige asked.

Adderson nodded. “Already done. Just try to steer clear of Colorado for a while.”

They’d reached the center of the IRD barricades, which put them within eyeshot of a crude stone statue. Esteban still crouched on all fours and snarled at something roughly at Cole’s eye level. The Full Blood’s stone covering was a little dusty but mostly intact.

“We want to contract your services on a regular basis until this crisis is dealt with,” Adderson said to her.

Paige looked around at the uniformed soldiers. “Don’t you have enough bullets to throw at these things?”

“Bullets don’t help. I don’t need to tell you that. Since you and your associates are the only ones to have hurt these creatures, I’ve been authorized to make an offer. You’ll be compensated for your efforts, but trust me when I tell you we can’t afford to take no for an answer. Things have gone way past the point of people like you sneaking around and covering up vampire raids as gang fights, or werewolf sieges as wild dog attacks. We’ve already been covering those tracks and now our entire unit has been forced into action, so you might as well come along for the ride. It’s either that or get rolled over by the machine you see around you.”

Paige closed her eyes, unable to think back to simpler days when changing a license plate or laying low for a while was enough to shake unwanted attention from the authorities. “I’ll have to contact some of the others to see what they think about this.”

“You could always give us their information so the IRD could—”

“Or,” she cut in, “I could do it myself. Nice try, though.”

“I’ll give you time to think it over, but don’t take long. We’re launching an offensive within seventy-two hours, with or without your help. Between you and me, your help could save a lot of soldiers’ lives.”

“Or you could just stick to lying to the media and keeping the cameras away from us while we do our job.”

Adderson shook his head. “Too late for that. And before you tell me about how tough it is being a Skinner, just know that I’ve got an appointment with several highly ranked officials to try and convince them not to carpet-bomb areas that show signs of getting half this bad.”

“So there really have been Half Breeds sighted?”

“In six different states. There are unconfirmed reports of sightings escalating internationally as well. Canada, the Czech Republic, and Finland have all made reports that coincide with Class—” Recognizing the exasperated look on Paige’s face, Adderson crossed his arms and said, “—Half Breeds, and at least one Full Blood was spotted. That’s just the first wave of intelligence, with more coming. We need expert help. We’ve got resources you could never match, and it’s not like you people could deal with this problem on your own anyway. Shouldn’t be much to think about, but I’ll let you talk to your partner.”

“Where’s Rico?”

Adderson pointed to a tent that had been constructed near a portable toilet and said, “Right over there getting medical attention, not that he seems to need much. That’s a trick that could do my men a lot of good, you know.” When he didn’t get a response to that, he added, “Naturally this offer extends to him as well. He was a definite asset to us here. Take a few minutes and talk it over. You know where to find me.” He walked away and took his escort with him, leaving Paige and Cole mostly alone at the top of the hill.

She got to Cole’s side as quickly as she could and leaned in to whisper fiercely at him. “I don’t like this!”

“I hit that point when we were met at the Casa Bonita Club by G.I. Joe and a freaking tank,” Cole snapped as he ran his hand over Esteban’s petrified back. “So does that mean you told them about the nymphs as well?”

“No,” she said. “I just told them we were calling from a strip bar and to come pick us up. They’re already in this and would have been dragged in sooner or later anyway. This way, we’ve got some say over what goes on.”

“You really think so?” Cole scoffed.

Paige turned away from the pair of modified AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunships being tended by a crew and said if a low voice, “It’s not like we could just wash our hands of this and take a vacation in Finland.”

“At least they could have let us get something to eat while we were at that club.”

“Didn’t you take anything from that buffet in Sven’s Viking Lounge?”

“Is that what that strip bar was called?” Cole asked.

“I don’t know! I can’t read Norwegian or Swedish or whatever the hell was on the signs in that place. It was creepy enough that all those girls knew Vihtori on sight. So . . . what do you think about Adderson’s offer?”

“First things first. I want my coat back from Canon City’s lockup.”

“Sure,” Paige said. “Let’s push our luck with that. What will you say when they ask about the other prisoners that got away?”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” Since she obviously wasn’t buying that, Cole added, “You could fire back by asking where to find Esteban.”

“What do you mean?” she asked while slapping the Full Blood statue. “He’s right here.”

“Right. Too bad it’s hollow.”

She cringed, glanced at the group of soldiers clustered around Adderson, and then peeled her hand away from the statue to touch her palms. Cole knew damn well that she wasn’t feeling any heat in her scars either. When she slapped the statue again, it was hard enough for the sound to reverberate beneath the stone surface. “Did they take him somewhere?”

Circling the statue, Cole found the scratches along Esteban’s midsection as well as the multiple smooth spots where the petrifying substance had been administered. “This is the real thing,” he said, placing his palm against the stone.

“Well you’re the expert,” she said in a low, insistent voice. “How did he get out? Is that even possible?”

Cole dug out his phone and tapped a few icons on the screen. “I don’t know, but Jessup may know.” He didn’t get an answer, so he called the next number on his list.

“MEG Branch 40, this is—”

Cutting him off with a hastily whispered identification number, Cole asked, “Where’s Jessup? Have you heard from him?”

“Are you kidding?” Stu replied. “I’m surprised to hear from you! Every other Skinner has dropped off the grid. Nobody’s answering our calls, but a few have left messages.”

“Is Jessup one of them?”

After some tapping on a keyboard, Stu said, “Yes, but he didn’t give a location. The message he left is for you or Paige.”

“Could have started off with that part,” he growled.

“I didn’t take the message. Abby did. Anyway, there’s a phone number.”

“Give it to me.”

Stu rattled off the digits, which Cole committed to memory. Suddenly feeling very nervous with continuing the call around so much military communications equipment, he was about to wrap up the call with a quick goodbye.

“Wait!” Stu pleaded.

“What is it?”

“There’s chatter all over the place about what’s happening. People are getting killed and werewolves are showing up on the news. Reporters aren’t even bothering to call them anything other than werewolves, for Christ’s sake! What the hell, man?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Stu.”

“Tell me this isn’t as bad as it seems.”

It was a simple request, but one Cole knew he couldn’t fulfill. “Just stay safe and keep your eyes open. Don’t give out any information unless you get an ID number. On second thought, we need to change the ID numbers.”

Happy to have something to do that fell within his area of expertise, Stu said, “On it.”

Cole hung up and dialed the number that was already fading from his memory. The call was answered on the first ring by a familiar scratchy rasp. “Jessup?”

“Cole, thank God. Where are you?”

“Back in New Mexico. Where the hell are you?”

“About six miles outside of Louisville, Kentucky. I’ve been driving all damn day tracking Cecile. What happened with you?”

“Never mind that. The military’s got this place and us locked down tight. Where’s Esteban?”

There was a pause, followed by the rattle of an engine winding down. Knowing the older tracker, it had to be another Ford. “I stayed as long as I could. That thing just walked out and ran away.”

“What do you mean he walked out?”

“Stepped out of that stone shell like he was a ghost. I made some calls and found out what he was doin’ at that Colorado prison where you were being held. He was after some of them Nymar Shadow Spore collected by other Skinners. There were other samples down beneath that place. Older samples.”

Cole could still feel the Nymar hand clamped around his throat while he was strapped to a hospital bed, and could still hear the hungry rasp of the vampire’s voice taunting him when his body was almost too drugged to move. Shaking off those memories like so much cold water, he asked, “The IRD has been collecting Nymar?”

“No. It’s one of us. That prison has been there since 1868, but portions of it shifted into private ownership in 1904. The deal was made as part of an experiment in corrections philosophy but basically gave one man free access to prisoners to be used for his own research.”

“God damn,” Cole sighed. “Lancroft?”

“We knew Jonah Lancroft ran more than just his reformatory. He had labs and hidden facilities like this prison all over the country. Probably all over the world.”

Although Adderson and the soldiers were keeping their distance, Paige was becoming increasingly anxious. “Did you say something about Lancroft?” she asked.

“Wait a second,” Cole said while going through the potentially painful motions of waving Paige away. “You said we knew. Who’s ‘we’?”

“It’s not as sinister as it may sound. Your friend Ned Post was a Lancroft historian. Lots of us are. We could all learn a lot from a man like that. Now that his journals are being unearthed, he’s getting an even bigger following than he had when he was alive.”

“Lancroft was a murderer. He killed Ned,” Cole said while stabbing a finger into the air as if jabbing it through Jessup’s chest.

“What’s he saying about Ned?” Paige asked.

The harsh crackle that came through Jessup’s end of the phone connection was either static or a heavy sigh. “Ned may have had a falling out with the old man, but Lancroft had plenty of supporters, and after everything that’s happened, he’s got even more. The Full Bloods aren’t dead. Now that the Breaking Moon has risen, the Army won’t be able to do a damn thing against them. The Nymar are sitting pretty. Lancroft’s ideas may have been radical, but they may also be the only ones that make any sense. If we would have listened to him before, things may not have gotten this bad. At least one saving grace is that we got the cargo Cecile was carrying.”

It took Cole a moment, but he recalled it and asked, “The Jekhibar?”

“Poor girl was more than happy to get that thing out of her arm.”

“And what happened to her then?”

“She’ll find somewhere to hide, and stay there if she knows what’s good for her. You want to hear more, then come find me when you’ve learned some damned respect. I’ve got to go. There’s work to be done.”

With that, the connection was cut. Cole jammed the phone into his pocket and stormed over to the entrance of the tent where Rico stood sipping from a steaming paper cup. Paige tried to follow but veered away in order to keep Adderson busy before he joined the party.

Stepping up close enough to Rico to smell the vanilla almond cream in his coffee, he said, “I just talked to Jessup.”

“Really?” Rico replied as he grinned widely. “How’s that old cowboy doin’?”

“He says Ned was tight with Jonah Lancroft and that the prison I was in was one of Lancroft’s facilities. Since you’re the one who was close enough to Ned to inherit his house, I’d like to know what you think of that.”

“I gotta be honest with you, Cole. The man may have been a cocksucker, but Lancroft made a lot of sense back before the cheese fell off his cracker.”

“So he’s still alive?”

“Not unless you believe in all that ghost shit or the philosophical ‘He’s with us right here’ garbage,” Rico chided while tapping his chest. “I’m talkin’ about his ideas. Lancroft knew this shit was brewin’. All you gotta do is read his journals.”

“I have.”

“Really? I know some Skinners who’d love to have a look at those things.”

Cole nodded and glanced toward Paige. It was obvious he wouldn’t have much more time to himself, so he asked, “Have you been setting us up? Is that the real reason you tried to kill Paige?”

“You think I’d cover my tracks by making me look like a punk bitch who got his brain twisted around by shapeshifter? I would’ve come up with somethin’ better than that.” He sipped his coffee and then tapped the rim of the cup against Cole as he said, “You need to get your priorities straight. All the tiptoeing bullshit is over. Lancroft used to track Half Breeds down, poison them, and set ’em loose. Did some innocent townsfolk get killed? Maybe, but the whole den was destroyed with a minimum amount of fuss. There ain’t many of us left, Cole, so we gotta do things like that. You wanna hear about effective tactics? In some of the earliest journals—and I’m talkin’ books that date back to the 1700s—Lancroft’s followers talk about how the old man used to take Nymar that stepped out of line and stake them to the ground outside of the spot where all their buddies hung out. He’d wait for dawn so everyone could see what had happened to the bloodsucking little shits who’d been talking so tough and then douse them in kerosene. Once he was sure all the other Nymar were watching, he set their asses on fire.”

After pausing to sip his flavored coffee, Rico shrugged. “Some might see that as extreme. Maybe some wrong ideas were put into a few storytellers’ heads, but it sent a message that convinced the Nymar not to f*ck with us. Those messages are gone, my friend. The bloodsuckers know no fear and the shapeshifters are out of control. Don’t you think now’s the time for some good old-fashioned barbarism?”

“Who are you talking about?” Cole asked, thinking back to his conversation with Jessup. “The people who’d be interested in those Lancroft journals? The ones who run that prison in Colorado? The ones who you’ve obviously already signed on with? Who are they?”

“Lancroft used to say the only difference between a Skinner and any other human being is vigilance. That’s who we are. And now that we’ve found what could be the source of the Full Bloods’ power, we may be able to unlock the one last juicy tidbit he didn’t get to pass along.” Leaning in closer, Rico dropped his voice to a snarl that rivaled a Half Breed’s. “There’s been one big question on everyone’s mind since the Mud Flu. It’s just been too far out of our reach to really ask it. If that truly was Jonah Lancroft—the Jonah f*ckin’ Lancroft—then how the hell did he live that long? Maybe the Torva’ox that all them Full Bloods were yappin’ about had something to do with it.”

Paige, Adderson, and a group of soldiers were approaching, but Cole wasn’t going to stop short just because of them. “You think Lancroft was immortal because of what we found in Atoka?”

“Not immortal, since you did kill the old guy, but yeah. If that power’s in us, then we could live long enough to do what needs ta be done. That is, if we know how to use it.” Rico snapped his head forward so he was close enough to speak to Cole using words that could barely be heard over his rasping breath. “Nymar, shapeshifters, you name it. We can’t f*ck around with these things no more. We need to take them out before the human race is either wiped out or runnin’ around on four legs.”

“And now that you’ve got the Jekhibar, you think you can just put everything back to the way it was?” Cole asked. “You think you’ll make us all live for hundreds of years like some twisted old man who may be just another freak like the ones we hunt down and kill?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Rico replied. “It’s something better than the bullshit we’ve been doin’ lately.”

“We did some good work. One Full Blood’s still contained, another one’s dead, and the rest are scattered. The last thing we need is to make them worse by tearing each other apart. Our system works. It just—”

“Our system is in pieces! Open yer f*ckin’ eyes and take a look. The goddamn Army is here tryin’ to shoot Full Bloods! How do you think that’s gonna end?” With that, Rico turned on his heels and stomped away without spilling his coffee.

“Everything all right here?” Adderson asked.

“Sure,” Cole replied.

Some of the soldiers had moved in to flank Rico, but were dispersed by a quick shake of Adderson’s head. When Cole fell into step with her, Paige steered them back to the Full Blood statue. “We need to find out what the hell happened with Esteban,” she said. “I know the Breaking Moon made them stronger, but Full Bloods can’t just start walking through rock. What if Minh pulls the same crap?”

“She’s gone.”

“What?”

“That Lancroft cult or whoever they are,” Cole said. “I think they got her already. If Esteban found something that Lancroft was hiding away, I don’t know how much help a bunch of helicopters will be in tracking him down.”

“Esteban isn’t the only other Full Blood out there. Finding the gargoyles worked out this time, but if we don’t find some more tricks pretty soon, this little war will go on for a long time.”

“So this is a war now?” he asked.

“What else would you call it?” She moved in closer beside him, but only to give them some more privacy as she said, “We’re the only ones that couldn’t be forced into the Breaking. When these guys figure that out, we may both be headed straight back to a prison.”

“Don’t forget the Amriany. They didn’t change either. Are they around here too?”

“I couldn’t say much of a goodbye to Nadya and Milosh before I was zapped to Finland, but they said they’d mention us to their clan leaders when they got back. We’ve got an in with the Amriany now, and they could prove to be even more valuable than the IRD.”

He pulled in a breath but couldn’t bear to hold it for more than a fraction of a second. “What in the hell are we supposed to do now, Paige?”

“We take advantage of the breathing room we’ve earned and gear up for the next round.”

Rico shoved past some more soldiers on his way to a beat-up Toyota parked at the end of the road.

Military personnel snapped pictures and took measurements of Esteban’s statue without getting too close to fangs that were still caked in flaking blood.

Helicopters roared over Raton, New Mexico.

Paige’s hand closed around Cole’s.

He smiled at her.

Things could have been worse.





Epilogue


North Yorkshire Moors, UK

Later

The old territory felt cool and familiar beneath Randolph’s paws. Perhaps it had been selfish for him to return when there were so many wheels in motion back in his old territory. Or perhaps it was foolish of him to think he could leave those things behind to indulge in comforting surroundings while his wounds healed into yet another set of scars on his ancient body. If he stretched his senses out far enough, sniffed the breezes that blew across the oceans or simply bothered listening to enough human chatter, he could piece together what was left after the debacle that Liam had started.

None of that mattered now.

Liam was gone. The Full Blood pacts had broken down and the humans dragged into immortal affairs. Those things were unavoidable. Randolph knew as much because he’d spent too many years trying to avoid them. The only task remaining was to try and steer things so they fell in the most beneficial direction.

Beneficial to the humans? That was no longer a concern. Liam might have been right in thinking they had to be put back in line before the Skinners got even better at their craft.

Beneficial for the Full Bloods? He thought he’d known what was best for his brethren for all of these years, but perhaps he was wrong about that, like he’d been wrong about so many other things.

Beneficial for himself? That brought a smile to Randolph’s long snout and a sparkle to his multifaceted eyes. He might have fooled himself into thinking he was sitting out while the rest of the world turned and everyone played their games without him, but that was absurd. It was inevitable that Cecile’s Jekhibar would be taken from her. But since that had been such a battle in itself, perhaps the second Unity Stone would be forgotten for a while. Randolph clasped his prize in a fist that could feel the Torva’ox seeping from the perfect little trinket hidden away by Lancroft for centuries. All of the machinations, all of the fighting, even help from the First Deceiver himself had been necessary to shake things up enough for not one but both of the Jekhibar to rattle loose. As his reward, Randolph played the part of expatriate for a few glorious days.

Or had it been weeks?

Even if it had been for an hour, a few precious seconds, his time in the familiar moors was worth the trouble of getting there. Some Full Bloods spoke ill of short spans of time, as if seconds didn’t matter simply because they had so many of them. After over a thousand years of life, however, time hadn’t lost its meaning for Randolph Standing Bear. He knew only too well how different one moment was from the next and how valuable each minute could be. The others wouldn’t see that. There was no way to speak sense to closed ears and no way to show truth to eye sockets filled with nothing but scar tissue. Sooner or later this terrible moment would have come, and he felt no shame in wanting to be far away when it finally arrived.

The Breaking had come and gone. Randolph was sure of it. He’d sensed its passing just as he could feel the fog drift through his fur and smell the humid day turn into a damp night. Moving in slow, deliberate steps that allowed his claws to sink into the same soil that had once squished through sandals wrapped around the feet of a young Celtic boy, Randolph headed back toward civilization. His pace quickened until the moors were behind him and a new tumultuous world lay ahead.

There was no more time to be bought.

No way to hold the Skinners back.

No way to rein in the other Full Bloods.

Too late to stall the fight between us and the humans, Liam’s memory whispered into his ear, but not too late to win it.





A special preview of the final book in the Skinners saga:




EXTINCTION AGENDA



Available Fall 2011





This wasn’t the first time Kansas City had fallen beneath the cruel whims of a monster. Unlike the days when Liam had climbed its towers to claim the city, there was no denying what was happening and nobody trying to paint a prettier face upon a siege. As in the rest of the country, the first packs had claimed their victims within two days after the incident in Atoka, Oklahoma. Those wretches were born hungry and they fed to create more. Unlike many cities in America, this one had its protectors.

I-29 was covered with snow. Although it had been plowed well enough to reveal the surface of the concrete, there were drifts on the side of the road that had empty cars and pickups embedded in them like peanuts wedged into a candy bar. Most of the wrecks were tagged and all of them were empty. A few still blinked their hazard lights onto the pristine surface of the white layers that had collected on the vehicles. In the morning, patrols would come along to check the freshest of the accidents to see if someone either needed to be brought to shelter or shot before they turned. Those unlucky enough to have wiped out between patrols would have to stay inside their cars for the night, lock their doors and pray the only thing to gnaw at their faces was the cold.

As if responding to the panicked thoughts of those stranded motorists, three Half Breeds trotted along the side of the Interstate, sniffing wildly at each car. Their gnarled faces twitched with every flake of snow that came to rest upon their snouts or ears. Half Breeds didn’t need a reason to flinch because they were always in pain. Having been born to the sounds of the breaking of their bones before their muscles could stretch out to hold them together, the werewolves were in a constant state of wincing, whining or snarling. The cold, it seemed, only made them worse.

A man and woman sat huddled inside a blue Dodge with its two right tires buried hopelessly in the slush. Their faces were pressed together and their eyes widened when frightened breaths drifted from their lips to smear against the glass. That hint of movement was enough to catch one Half Breed’s eye a second before its companions caught the humans’ scent. The trio of werewolves lowered their chests to the snowy ground and stalked toward the car.

Both of the people inside wore glasses. Their lenses were fogged, but not thickly enough to keep them from seeing what was coming. As the unexplainable terrors spread across the country, people had no choice but to either hide or carry on as best they could. Judging by the tears streaming down both sets of reddened cheeks, these two were reconsidering their choice.

As the Half Breeds approached the car, they bared their teeth along with two sets of tusks curving down from one row of teeth and up from another. The tusks were thicker than the rest of their teeth, but thin enough to scrape against each other like scissor blades as the werewolves opened and closed their mouths to sample the frigid, late night air. Once they’d spread out to form a semi-circle around the vehicle, the creatures planted their feet and fixed their eyes upon the trembling humans. After hunkering down for a moment, the Half Breed in the middle of the group lunged forward to ram its head against the car’s door. It made a dent, but could tell it wasn’t going to get inside like that so it reared up and began scraping at the window.

From within the car, muffled voices wrapped around each other in much the same way the people’s bodies clung together for warmth. When something moved beneath the car and scraped directly below the passenger compartment, the couple began to scream.

By now, all three of the Half Breeds were doing their best to find a way inside the car. Thick paws slapped against the frame. Twisted faces pushed against the doors and windows before the weight of a heavy body caused the entire vehicle to groan. The thing that scraped against the bottom of the car quickened its pace toward the side being attacked by the Half Breeds. As soon as it reached the driver’s door, the scraping against the window stopped. Soon, the other two Half Breeds were pulled away from the car as well.

When the man wiped the frost away off the window to get a look outside, he found several shaggy bodies wrestling in the snow. Blood sprayed through the air in a fine mist, cast from fangs and claws. It was impossible to tell which creatures were winning or even where one ended and another began, so the man eased away from the window before he was noticed.

“I think we should make a run for it,” he told the trembling woman.

“Where are we going to go?”

“I don’t know. Just away from here!”

And, as suddenly as the creatures had appeared, the fight was over.

The wind scraped against the car’s exterior, its slow rustle the loudest thing in the world at that given moment. Glass creaked and bits of ice rapped against the side of the car as if the winter itself had sprouted claws.

“Should . . . we still run?” the woman asked.

Two sets of claws wedged into the driver’s side door; one at the base of the window and another near the handle. With a minimum amount of effort, the door was separated from its frame and tossed aside. Outside, a tall creature stood wearing a thick coat of light blond fur peppered with streaks of darker brown and encrusted with chunks of snow. Blood was already frozen where it had been spilled. Kayla had presided over Kansas City since her pack had taken part in ending Liam’s siege. Although the Mongrels under her command had been thinned out due to treachery within her ranks or combat with the encroaching werewolves, she wasn’t about to step aside so any invader could have their way with her territory.

“Yes,” she snarled through a snout that seemed just a bit too long for her feline facial structure. “You should run.”

The couple within the car pressed themselves against the opposite window and nearly jumped from their sweat-stained coats when another Mongrel appeared outside the passenger window. Ben’s appearance was even more disturbing than Kayla’s. Being a digger who could practically swim underground, he was accustomed to remaining out of sight. Gill flaps along his neck stretched out and immediately snapped shut after drawing in too much freezing air instead of the soil they were meant to process. Blood and ice stuck to the beak that dominated his face and his black eyes remained calm beneath their vertical lids as they studied the people within the vehicle. His fingers slipped beneath the door’s handle and were strong enough to force it open despite the ice that had sealed it shut. “There is another car further up the road,” he said. “White four-door just past a minivan facing the wrong way.”

Dazed by the words that came from the Mongrel’s beak, the woman stammered, “We can’t just . . . steal a car.”

“Get away from us!” the man snapped as he tried his best to squirm in the cramped confines to put himself between her and the Mongrel.

Ben merely stepped back, allowing the man to play his role as protector without reacting to the threatening tone in his voice or the way he grabbed a long flashlight and wielded it like a club. “It’s not stealing,” he told them both. “The owners of that car were killed by the same creatures we just chased away. My advice is to take that car and get to somewhere safer. Also,” he added while dropping to all fours and scraping away the top layers of snowy earth using long, curved claws, “don’t look too hard at the mess in the ditch.”

When the man turned to where Kayla had been standing, he found only the bloody remains of two Half Breeds. The third had already bounded down the Interstate chasing after a lean figure that slid gracefully into another lane.

“I think we should go,” the woman said.

Taking his eyes from the sight of the chase toward the row of lonely abandoned vehicles on the side of the road, the man swallowed hard and zipped up his coat. “Right. Do you have our suitcase?”

“Just move!”

He followed her order and bolted from the car. Along the way, he thought about the fire that had all but consumed Topeka after the werewolves had sprung up in the autumn. Only during the drive to KC had he asked his fiancé why they might have been spared. The conversation had lasted until they pulled over to fill the gas tank and their stomachs at a place that had a Subway sandwich shop and Pizza Hut tacked onto it. Every seat was filled with people of all ages, genders and nationalities. Each stunned face was focused intently on their meals. The terror implied within their features was all too familiar to the man from Topeka. He’d been wearing it ever since he’d abandoned his hometown.

It hadn’t been an easy decision. When the first werewolves showed up, everyone he knew wanted to fight them. A call to arms swept throughout the entire country at about that same time, encouraging everyone to buy a gun and defend their homes from the animals that meant to do them harm. Explanations would wait for later. Now was the time to fight.

That lasted for a few weeks.

When the angry voices died down, it wasn’t because of victory or fatigue. The people who’d bought their guns and started firing at the wild animals in their yards had been torn to shreds. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t spectacular. Even the few who’d rigged explosives with some degree of success barely managed to do any damage. After that, the wolves had swept in to kill them all.

The police were just more men with guns.

The military was taking a stand, but not in Topeka.

Soon, like most other cities, Topeka burned. Whether the fires had been started by accident or as a last-ditch effort to kill the werewolves didn’t matter. The flames rose and the people who tried to put them out were set upon by another pack of ravenous beasts. The firefighters that lived to crawl away only howled in pain as their bodies were twisted into one of those things that set out to hunt for food. Like the rest of his family, the man who now clung to his fiancé to keep from slipping on a patch of ice on I-29 hadn’t wanted to leave Topeka.

His natural instinct was to stay. For the first several weeks of the crisis, people barricaded themselves indoors to fight for survival. They watched their televisions for news about how far the insanity had spread and what was being done to stop it. Before long, people stopped watching the news and just focused on living for another day. Then, as things got worse, the highways became crowded with cars on their way to someplace better. The people behind the wheels may or may not have known where they were headed, but it was time to go.

The man from Topeka stayed until his friends and family were consumed. That’s what people started calling it, since there often wasn’t a way to know if they were truly dead. At least that word was better than the thought of seeing a parent, child or neighbor broken down into a screaming heap to be re-forged into something with fangs and wild, pain-filled eyes. The last possible good he could do was take his fiancé away before her pretty face was twisted into something cruel and hungry. They’d made it as far as KC and he was determined to keep going. When she slipped, he was there to pull her to her feet and urge her onward. They’d passed the minivan which had spun one hundred and eighty degrees before plowing into a drift. The four-door was directly ahead of them, cleared off and waiting for them like a freshly unwrapped present.

“Stay here and I’ll check it out,” he said.

The door was unlocked and the keys were on the dash. After fidgeting with fingers that were almost too numbed to feel the keys, he slipped the right one into the ignition and started the car. “Come on, honey!”

The woman cautiously stuck her feet into the snow. Tracks that were too large and spaced too far apart to be set down by humans surrounded the car. They converged a bit further away from the road near a pile of crimson pulp that had been covered by a fine layer of snow. Heeding Ben’s advice, she turned her eyes away from the mess and fumbled with the handle of the passenger side door. After she’d gotten in, but before she’d gotten a chance to pull the door shut, the car lurched forward.

“Where are we going?” she asked while frantically tugging at her safety belt.

“I’ve got some old friends in Saint Louis. We’ll go there.”

“Can we make it all that way? How far is it?”

Blinking furiously as a Half Breed leapt out from a hole on the side of the road, only to be overtaken by a beaked Mongrel, he sputtered. “I don’t know, but we’re going. We came this far, we won’t stop now.” He looked over to her and saw nothing but determination on her trembling features. She swiped some tears from her eyes, nodded and placed her hand in his.


About the Author


MARCUS PELEGRIMAS graduated from the University of Nebraska with a degree in Criminal Justice as research to become a maniacal super villain. When too many of his plans were thwarted, he went back to his first love: writing. He is also an active member of the Nevermore Paranormal ghost-hunting group. That one worked out much better than the world domination thing.

Visit Marcus on the web at www.marcuspelegrimas.com.

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