Marcus Pelegrimas - The Breaking

The hand on the back of her head gripped her skull like a melon, curling short, thick fingers against one ear until claws scraped against her cheek. The weight on her back shifted toward her shoulder blades as the second of the two voices told her, “Lay still and keep quiet unless you’d rather go back up to those goddamn Full Bloods.”

“Let me go,” she said. With every word, dirt trickled from her mouth, adding fuel to the angry fire that was already blazing inside of her.

“Only if you calm down.”

“You know a great way to calm me down? Let me go.”

A few silent moments passed, but Paige sensed that the other two were consulting with each other. Since they were diggers, the creatures were most likely Mongrels. Last time she checked, Mongrels weren’t psychic. Whatever looks or gestures they were exchanging, she let them have a few more seconds to wrap up.

The closest voice said, “I’m going to let you go. Just remember that we dragged you away before you could be hurt.”

“I remember.”

“And we’re not enemies here,” the second voice added. “We’re being pushed around just like you.”

“Sure. Fine.”

The sighs that came from the other two filled the hollowed space they and Paige now occupied. Once she felt the grip on her neck and ankles loosen, she scrambled away and turned to get a look at them.

Both were Mongrels, that was for sure. They had the thick limbs, long claws, leathery skin, and beaked noses that marked them as burrowers who traveled underground as if swimming through water and dug tunnels or dwellings beneath the surface for their pack. She and Cole had found one such pack beneath a suburban Nebraska neighborhood that remained hidden by tunneling between the basements of several homes. The two with Paige squatted within a space roughly the size of a closet that had been hollowed out of the earth. Hard-packed soil closed in on all sides, trickling dusty drips with every move they made. Their chests heaved with the effort of bringing her there, but instead of breathing through their mouths, their exhales caused large gill flaps on the sides of their necks to stretch out before laying flat again.

The Mongrel farthest from her squatted on his haunches and examined her with dark eyes covered by a set of vertical lids. A dented little flashlight clipped to a belt cinched around his narrow waist was the only source of illumination in the confined space. His beak moved in a constant rhythm that was only broken when he took a moment to crack the gum he was chewing. Tossing Paige’s weapons to the ground near his long feet, he said, “You’re a Skinner.”

“And you’re a Mongrel,” she replied. “Next topic.”

“I’m Burke. That there’s Salvatore.”

She nodded slowly and said, “I’m Paige.”

Salvatore was on one knee, still tangled in his own limbs after tussling with her. A filthy wife-beater was stuck to his upper body by layers of wet grime. His lower section was covered by tattered old jeans. As soon as he got himself situated, he stood up so his shoulders, neck, and head were wedged against the top of the hollowed space, as though he was the sole support beam. “Them others ain’t Skinners. They smell like metal and fire.”

“The fire you smell is probably the plane that was brought down. Kind of hard to miss that.”

“We didn’t miss—” Salvatore stopped as if someone had pressed a button to pause him in mid-sentence. When he thought one of the others in the chamber with him was going to make a sound, he held up a clawed finger to pause them too.

Paige looked up but could only see dirt separating from the wall as something heavy thumped overhead. The impacts moved like footfalls but were solid enough to send little shock waves through the ground. They stopped and were soon followed by scratching sounds that sent large sections of the chamber tumbling onto Paige’s head.

“Come on,” Burke said as he rushed toward her. “Gotta move.”

Her first impulse was to struggle before being scooped under the Mongrel’s arm. Since she didn’t have any weapons or backup, she decided that being dragged underground by a shapeshifter was slightly better than being torn apart by another shapeshifter above it. The instant the back of her head pressed into the loosened dirt, she drew a quick breath, held it and closed her eyes.

For the first couple of yards she knew she was going straight ahead. Burke’s side and leg bumped against her, giving her a good enough handle on their orientation to know when they took a downward turn. Behind them the scraping of claws became a sound that rumbled through the earth. The Full Blood’s roar was a tremor that made every muscle in Paige’s body tense in preparation for claws to be dragged through her from above.

Cole had told her about the time when he was taken for a similar ride by the Mongrels in Nebraska. She’d wondered why he hadn’t been able to get away or grab at something to slow them down. Now that she was the one being pulled through the dirt like the tail end of an earthworm, she knew just how helpless he’d been. She quickly lost all knowledge of where she was, how deep she’d been taken, or even if her head was pointed up or down. When the sounds of the Full Blood faded, she couldn’t tell if they were too far behind them or if the lack of oxygen was causing her senses to dim.

Her chest started to ache. Soon she would have to draw a breath. Even if that meant filling her lungs with dirt, she couldn’t just suffocate without a fight. Her limbs twitched and her ears filled with the sounds of her own desperate grunts as every part of her fought back the urge to take a much-needed gulp of air.

The grip under her arms tightened.

Then her body moved forward even faster, making her think she was falling into unconsciousness. As it turned out, she was just falling.

The filthy cocoon of dirt was gone.

Her arms and legs were free to flail but weren’t organized enough to soften the impact when she hit a solid earthen floor. What little wind she had left was knocked from her lungs, to be replaced by air that stank of mold and the hint of exhaust fumes. Once the ringing in her ears faded, she could hear the chugging of a nearby motor. Opening her eyes unleashed a torrent of tears to slice through the grit caking her lids. She scrambled to stand up while swiping at her watering eyes, hoping she wasn’t going to knock her head against another low ceiling. Not only did she stand up without giving herself a concussion, but there were several feet to spare.

The room was supported by wooden beams lining the walls and ceiling with gaps wide enough for Salvatore to emerge from a wall like a leathery portion of sentient ground. Burke hunkered on the floor with his elbows resting on his knees and flipped the switch of his flashlight off. There was plenty of light in the room thanks to three bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling and powered by a generator against the adjacent wall. Pumps brought air in from outside through hoses that poked out of the ceiling at random intervals like headless snakes.

Paige’s eyes darted back and forth, up and down, soaking up as many details as possible. She figured the room was about nine by twelve feet and must have been several yards below the surface. Apart from the two diggers, two feline Mongrels lay on the floor. Two more paced the room on either side of her, visible only as ripples in the air. She not only spotted the distortions, but could smell the oils that bent light around the shapeshifters’ bodies.

“Where am I?” she asked. “Someone had better start talking!”

One of the felines lifted her head, which was somewhere between that of a tigress and a mole. A long rounded snout filled with needlelike teeth opened to form words that were colored by a buttery southern accent. “Or what, Skinner? You’ll fight your way through us?”