Marcus Pelegrimas - The Breaking

“You’re damn right there are,” Waylon said defiantly. “More than enough to blast you into pieces. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll run before—”

Randolph pulled Waylon from the elevator with such force that his arm came away from his body and blood poured down the side of his suit. Waylon was too shocked to make a sound as he dropped. Even if he could have found enough breath to scream, it would have been washed away by the Full Blood’s bellowing voice.

“No human tells me to run!” Randolph bellowed. “You have survived this long only because we have allowed it. I thought to hinder this madness by collecting the artifacts that would lead your kind to the brink, but perhaps Liam was right. Perhaps things should be allowed to take their course even if it leads to this world being engulfed in fire and humans are all forced to endure the Breaking.”

Cole picked up Waylon’s cell phone and listened to the voice coming through its speaker. “Shit,” he said while disconnecting the call, then tucking the phone under the front of his jumpsuit. “There’s more coming this way.”

“What?” Lambert asked. “Who?”

“I don’t know. Sounded like soldiers.”

“Guns and machines,” Randolph said. “You can go if you commit yourself to one task. Protect the young one.”

Lambert tried easing past the werewolf but was stopped by an open hand covered in Waylon’s blood. “He’s with me,” Cole assured him. “And so is he,” he added, indicating Frank. Randolph let both of them move past him and into the parking garage. “What young one?” Cole asked.

“One of my kind. She is still wild, but must be hidden from the others.”

“Other Full Bloods?” Cole asked as confusion threatened to suffocate him like a rising pool.

“They’ve come for the Breaking Moon and are seeking any way possible to get more than their share of it. Find the young one, take her far from this continent and keep her hidden.” As he shifted into a hulking body that was bigger than most of the compact cars behind him, Randolph snarled, “If Skinners truly care about your species, you must prepare for war. It is too late to avoid now. Organize and find a way to keep my brethren from becoming too powerful to be contained.”

“How the hell do I find a Full Blood?” Cole asked. “You guys always find me !”

“True Skinners find a way. That is why the warrior spirit remains alive in you and not in the rest of humanity. The only way for me to act without answering to Kawosa is for me to remain as ignorant as you in some matters. Now if you wish to survive, you must leave this place.” Shifting his gaze to Waylon, he added, “If you will help me in my search, this can go much smoother.”

Waylon was on the floor, bleeding out through the ragged stump of his right arm. Several guards had shoved open a door somewhere in the parking garage beyond the elevator and fired a few shots at the fleeing prisoners before catching sight of the Full Blood. Cole watched as Randolph absorbed a wave of shotgun blasts that thumped against his side and chest. The blast rippled through the Full Blood’s fur like a hot wind, shredding some of the flesh directly beneath it. The charred flesh quickly solidified into a rough patch of skin that was quickly obscured by his coat. Randolph straightened up and turned to face the guards. “So be it.” Looking over his shoulder, he snarled, “You have a job to do, Cole,” and then charged at the guards.

Cole hurried behind the werewolf and dove behind the cover of some parked cars. Gunshots blasted around him, but none of them came anywhere close to hitting him since they’d been fired by men who were knocked aside or tossed into a wall while their fingers were clamped around their triggers. When a fully armored guard landed heavily on the car Cole was using for cover, a piercing alarm started to wail. He could see the stairwell the guards had used to enter the garage. More armed men and women rushed through the door to fire at Randolph while shouting orders to one another.

Despite what those guards had done to him, Cole couldn’t help but shout, “Just get out of here! You won’t be able to kill him!”

Not only weren’t the guards listening, but a few of them rushed over to Randolph wearing full riot gear and carrying crudely fashioned Skinner weapons. Two were caught in a wild flurry of claws that sent limbs and blood flying. Another was about to be decapitated when he was saved by a large figure in an inmate’s jumpsuit. It was Frank. Leaping in with speed that rivaled a Mongrel, he dodged a blow from the Full Blood and grabbed one guard by the shoulders to toss her back into the stairwell. When Randolph roared at him, the reptile man spat something into the werewolf’s eyes that caused him to recoil and wipe at his face. Frank leapt over the creature’s wildly thrashing claws to land on top of a car. By the time that alarm started to wail, the Squam had jumped away. He landed, then ran alongside Cole, who was headed toward the back of the garage.

“She was just a medical tech,” Frank explained. “Waylon forces everyone to fight whether they want to or not.”

“Whatever,” Cole grunted. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

The Full Blood roared and launched a series of powerful swings that chopped some of the guards to pieces while others maneuvered around him to stab their sharpened wooden weapons into his back and ribs. When Randolph twisted around to sink his claws into one of those men and bite down on another, they made no attempt to block or parry an attack. The guards barely knew what they were doing. They might have wielded Skinner weapons, but were too stupid to do anything but charge ahead, and too frightened to press an advantage.

The guards with the wooden weapons were first to go. Randolph bit all the way down to the spine of one man and then spit him at the others in the stairwell as if he was something caught between the werewolf’s teeth. The Full Blood backed away from the stairwell, but not in retreat. He merely repositioned himself his remaining opponents were in front of him. More gunshots rained down from a gaping hole in the ceiling to thump into his fur. The hole must have been Randolph’s point of entry into the garage, and guards stood at the edge, firing at the werewolf from what should have been a superior position. All they managed to do was further anger the beast.

Not concerned with Waylon or the guards, Cole took stock of any elements that had a bearing on his chances of getting out of that prison. Lambert was crouching behind a car and slowly working his way toward the ramp that led up and out of the parking garage. Frank jumped from one car to another, hissing loudly while flexing his hands until wide, rough nails extended from his fingertips.

Suddenly, four men in tactical armor dropped into the garage through the hole, landing either on the dirty concrete or on Randolph’s back. Instead of firearms, they had wooden weapons that put the guards’ clubs to shame.

One of the new arrivals carrying a large wooden halberd landed on the floor beside Randolph. The long handle resembled Cole’s spear, but the squared blade at the end was unlike anything he’d ever seen. It was at least ten inches wide and over a foot long, squared at three corners, with the upper corner extending up into the shape of a rhino’s horn. The man holding it dug the leading edge into Randolph’s side, raked it across and then spun the entire weapon around his body so it could hit the Full Blood again.

Randolph turned and stopped the next swing with one outstretched hand, closed his fist around the halberd’s blade and tried to pull it away from the man who held it. His other paw reached back to grab his side and remove a guard’s club as if it were no more than a large thorn, then threw it away. The club sped through the air like a bullet, smashing through the windows of one car and, after exploding through the glass, knocking into Lambert’s hip.