Marcus Pelegrimas - The Breaking

As Nadya helped Milosh to his feet and held him steady, Gail stood with her back pressed against his chest while Quinn tied him to her. Within a minute or two rope was looped under Gail’s arms and around her waist to form a makeshift harness. The Mongrel shifted into her four-legged form, which added enough bulk to tighten the harness as well as support Milosh’s weight when she crawled to the wall Quinn had been monitoring. The feline’s claws extended farther out from her hands and sank into the vertical surface. Although her scraping dislodged plenty of dirt, most of it merely shifted within the wall and allowed Gail to squirm inside. There was something else keeping that wall from collapsing. When the Mongrel’s head got to within an inch of the wall, the dirt compacted as if being pushed by something and even moved aside before it made contact with her fur. But Paige wasn’t inclined to try and figure it out. Sometimes it was best to let the experts do their thing.

“All right,” she said. “You wanted our help. Did you have something specific in mind?”

“The Full Bloods have been paying special attention to a house on Montana Avenue,” Quinn said as heavy bodies charged down the street above them. Judging by the scrapes and fleeting impacts, the Half Breeds were most likely scrambling across the roof in their haste to jump over the garage. “They can’t track us by scent as long as we stay underground. There are precautions we can take for you two, but the Full Bloods’ senses seem to have gotten even stronger than normal. The moment we come up, they will know where we are.”

“Which means you can’t check out that house,” Paige said.

“Right.”

“As long as it involves leaving this freaking basement, count me in.”

Atoka wasn’t a large place, but traveling by foot went a long way in shifting someone’s perspective. Quinn and another digger could only take them as far as West Fourth Street. As Paige and Nadya headed toward Montana Avenue, she swore the town tripled in size. Every step she took was stuffed with worry that it might be too loud. Even when her foot managed to land without kicking anything or crunching on something else, there was a legitimate concern of making a noise that could be picked up by supernatural ears. Then there was the smell. That was something new, and it bugged her most of all.

When she couldn’t hold her tongue any longer, she leaned over to Nadya and asked, “What the hell is this stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“The stuff Quinn smeared on us before she left,” Paige said in a voice that wanted nothing more than to lift into an aggravated snarl. “The stuff that stained my shirt and will probably stink until three Christmases from now.”

“You heard the same speech I did. It’s supposed to keep the Half Breeds from smelling us. But it won’t do us much good if you keep talking. They have pretty good ears, you know.”

“I have good ears too. That’s how I can tell they’re still fighting with the Mongrels on the other side of town.” Paige managed to keep quiet for a few more seconds before asking, “You think this stuff really works?”

“If we get torn apart before we reach that house, we’ll know it doesn’t work. Happy?”

Paige sniffed her sleeve, which smelled like a strange mix of ammonia and rotten fruit. Although she did find a bit more of the Mongrel concoction spattered on her elbow, she instantly regretted the discovery. “Oh God. I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Don’t you ever shut up?”

“Did you just tell me to shut up?”

“No,” Nadya said as she stopped and turned to face her. “I asked if you ever shut up and that seems like a good question. Do you?”

Paige stopped as well, resisting the urge to point her shotgun at the Amriany when she said, “Fine. You want quiet? How about I just forget about the fact that we might be getting set up, bite my tongue, and quietly walk into an ambush?”

“If those Mongrels wanted to hurt us, they could have done it a hundred times by now. Why do all Skinners have to be so suspicious?”

“Why didn’t she get us any closer to this house, huh? You seriously think her pack’s got this whole town covered with tunnels and everything else and she couldn’t have dropped us off any closer than this?”

Nadya took a moment to consider that. Then, as she narrowed her eyes and studied Paige carefully, it seemed she was considering her even more. “You don’t like to be helped, do you?”

“Things generally get done better if I do them myself.”

The Amriany’s only response to that was to cast a lingering glance at Paige’s right arm, which was still stiff and scarred. “Get done better?”

Sighing, Paige propped the shotgun barrel against her shoulder and spun around to look at the houses behind her. “See, that’s why I’d rather work alone. Fewer grammar lessons. Is this the house?”

They stood on the side of the street with their toes brushing against the edge of an unkempt lawn. The house had two arches in the roof, one of which looked like a cheap add-on that had probably started leaking after its second heavy rain. The arch on the right was actually in the middle of the structure that had what looked like a boarded-up door. Directly above that was a tall brick chimney. On the right side of the house, a porch led up to a door. One of the front windows was boarded up as well, the other covered by a sagging air-conditioning unit.

Nadya approached the house holding the FAMAS at waist level and pointed at the ground. Ever since taking the assault rifle from Drina’s body, she’d all but abandoned her MAC-10. There was a broken cement path leading from the street to the lowest porch step, but she deftly avoided stepping on the trail in favor of making a silent approach through the weed-infested grass. Looking back at Paige, she nodded and pointed to the cracked frame where the front door was supposed to be. She then pointed to herself before motioning to the boarded window.

It was one of the few times Paige took orders without question. Once Nadya was in position, Paige approached the door. There was something about the house that spoke to her like an intelligent chill that knew precisely how to run up her spine before reaching out to rake icy nails along her shoulders. She gripped the shotgun, bent one knee and reached down to quickly check the holster on her boot. Her weapon was in place and ready to be drawn. All she needed was a target.

Not only had the door been broken, but the hinges were knocked clean away from the frame. Crouching to examine the frame, she immediately spotted the claw marks left behind by the creature that had torn the door from its moorings. It didn’t take long for the stench of spoiled food, mold, and rotten meat to drift over her on its way to the outside. A short hiss caught her attention, and when Paige swung around to see what had made the noise, she found only Nadya.

“Anything?” the Amriany asked in a barely audible whisper.

Paige shook her head, raised her shotgun and moved inside to a living room that looked like it had never been anything but cluttered. The floor of the cramped square space was littered with broken furniture and blanketed by an uneven layer of shredded papers. For her first few steps into the building, she was forced to draw shallower breaths until she became used to the smell of spoiled meat. Another hiss came from the short hallway that led to some smaller rooms. Since Nadya was no longer at the window, Paige moved toward the hiss to meet her.

She walked through the living room, holding the shotgun at hip level. Adopting a low, crouching stance, she peeked down the hall to find two bedrooms. One of them had a single queen-sized bed with a mattress ripped open almost as badly as a scarecrow that had fallen victim to flying monkeys hired by the Wicked Witch of the West. It lay splayed out with its fluffy innards piled in a mound topped by blankets, dirty clothes, and sheets. Paige almost moved on before spotting the hand dangling out from the bottom of the pile.