Marcus Pelegrimas - The Breaking

The markings weren’t anything as simple as manufacturer stamps or graffiti left behind by a prisoner. They were carved very carefully into the iron with too much precision to have been put there by tools that could be smuggled into a cell. Cole’s suspicions were confirmed when he noticed the same markings etched into every bar he passed. They were runes. He’d seen enough of the blocky, arcane shapes on Lancroft’s walls and above the doorways in Ned’s house to recognize the Skinner symbols anywhere. He didn’t know what they said, but it meant there was a lot more going on here than he’d suspected.

One guard hurried to get to one of the cells farther along the line. Although Cole didn’t hear the rattle of keys or the movement of machinery, he could hear the creak of metal hinges grating against each other. After several more paces he was pulled to a stop, turned to the right and shown a set of bars set directly into the floor. An opening three bars wide had been created when a door, only slightly bigger than one built for a dog, was unlocked.

“Get in,” the guard said.

Cole planted his feet and told him, “No.”

“Get in.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on. Are you guys Skinners or not?”

The silence was thick enough to let him know they weren’t strangers to that term.

He forced his head up, turned around and was taken aback by the presence of four guards instead of the two who had brought him to the third floor. “I’ve seen cells like this before. They were in Jonah Lancroft’s basement. You know who he is, don’t you?”

Slapping the end of a baton against Cole’s chest, the guard shoved him toward the cell. “Shut up and get moving.”

Cole grabbed the stick and moved it aside. “You do know who he is. What about the guy in the suit? I bet he knows plenty.”

“Get into that cell. This is your last warning.” Now that the other guards were closing ranks around him, the man with the baton was rediscovering his courage. His partners brandished weapons ranging from bats to shotguns.

Cole clenched his fists and tried to draw on whatever strength he could pull from the tendrils inside him. Without a spore at their base, and now blood to replenish what they’d burned up earlier, however, the tendrils were nothing more than remnants that constricted or relaxed out of hunger-driven reflex. “This is a mistake. I know what these runes are. I don’t belong in this cage.”

“That’s what they all say.” Placing the end of the baton once more against Cole’s upper body, the guard said, “Now get in.”

“I want to see the warden. I want to see someone in charge! At least bring me the suit guy! Anyone who can tell me why I’m being moved to this place.”

Before Cole could hit his stride, he was jabbed by something sharp that poked through the front of his jumpsuit to dig into his flesh. The point had emerged from the end of the guard’s baton with a creaking sound that he knew all too well. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw the trickle of blood dripping from between the guard’s fingers.

“You are Skinners,” he said.

The guard held the pointed end of the baton in place. It had barely pierced Cole’s skin, but wouldn’t need much of a push to dig deeper. “You need to stop throwing that word around. Especially after all the damage you’ve caused.”

“I didn’t kill any of those cops.”

“I’m not talking about that. You and the bitch from Chicago practically gave the Nymar the keys to the kingdom. You let them set up shop in one city, allowed a pack of Mongrels to dig into another, and then you killed the one man who had a chance of changing things for the better. If it was up to me, you would’ve been dead about two minutes after we snuck you out of the state pen.”

“Why didn’t you do it, then?”

“Because we follow rules. We respect the chain of command. You won’t be going anywhere. It may even do me some good to see what happens to you after you’ve been locked in here for a year or two.”

“Sounds like a shorter sentence than I would’ve gotten at a real trial.”

“We’ll see how happy you are about it once the testing starts. On your knees.”

Cole had seen a similar little door leading into a cell beneath the Lancroft house in Philadelphia. His guess had been that the small entrance was created to force a prisoner to crawl if they wanted to get in or out. It wasn’t his area of expertise, but there had to be psychological as well as practical reasons for putting a prisoner into such a compromising position while passing through the bars. “I’ll get in once you back up,” he said. “I don’t know how, but I seem to have gotten a little paranoid over the last few weeks.”

Reluctantly, the guard with the weapon took a step back. As he did, the other guards fanned out on either side of him to form a half circle that Cole would have to break if he intended on going anywhere other than the cell. Since the other guards were armed and he had no quick way of telling how many of them had supernatural tricks up their sleeves, he dropped to his hands and knees and backed into the cell. Every inch of floor he scooted across felt like a bad idea. Unfortunately, his only other choice was to attempt getting killed or beaten into unconsciousness, so he would probably just wake up in that cell anyway.

Fighting now would be pointless.

Dying, even more so.

The guards stepped forward, pushed the door closed and turned a key in a lock that was so well-maintained it didn’t even make the sound of metal moving against metal. After that, the guard closest to the bars reached up to touch the wall. Cole knew he was tracing his finger along some of the runes, just as Rico and Ned had done to activate or deactivate the power within the symbols. Since he didn’t know which runes were being touched or what direction the guard’s fingers were moving, he didn’t have a shot at deactivating them himself. Plus, there was the fact that he would need longer arms and a few more joints to reach that section of the wall.

“What about that phone call?” Cole asked as he stood up to face the men in uniform.

The guard with the sharpened club in his bloody hand held the weapon up and willed the spiked end to sink down until it was a simple baton. “I’ll get right on that.”

“You’d better, or my lawyer will hear about it.”

Either missing or ignoring Cole’s sarcasm, the guard said, “The system doesn’t apply to us, Mr. Warnecki. We make our own, and if we’re not careful, ours will be the only system left.”

“Real philosophical,” Cole grunted. “Can we discuss it further over some food? Maybe some water?”

Leaning forward until his face was almost touching the bars, the guard said, “I’m surprised you’re hungry at all, you Nymar piece of shit. If I were you, I’d stop whining before we bring some of those cops’ buddies in here. They won’t care where you’re being held or what’s going on here as long as they get a chance to tear you apart with their bare hands.”

“I didn’t kill those—”

He was cut off by the sharp clang of a baton against the bars. “I saw what you are. Shut your goddamn mouth and pray we don’t kill you just to cut down on the bloodsucker population.”

Having heard that tone of voice and even similar words from Skinners he knew all too well, Cole realized there was nothing he could do or say at that moment to make any progress. So, rather than waste his breath, he backed up until his shoulders bumped against the smooth cement wall and slid down to sit on the floor. His arms came to a rest upon his knees, and his eyes focused on the guard as though he was staring at him through a sniper’s scope.

The guard had no smart remarks or threats to give. He stepped away from the bars and headed back to the elevator. In a matter of seconds all footsteps were washed out by the rattle of the elevator door and the rumble of machinery that took the car to another floor.