Marcus Pelegrimas - The Breaking

“What are you going to do?”

Holding her weapon down so as not to pose a threatening silhouette, Paige backed through the door and into the short hall connecting the two bedrooms. From there she could watch as both of the creatures retreated into their respective corners and settled back into the shadows. Fishing her cell phone from her pocket, she said, “I’m checking to see what the hell this could be.”

Nadya backed out even farther and headed out through the front door.

Once her number was dialed, Paige tapped the Call button.

“Paige?” Stu asked as soon as the connection was made.

“What, you’re not going to thank me for calling?” she whispered. “What happened to phone manners and professionalism?”

“You sound tired. What happened?”

“A lot’s happened,” she replied. “That’s why I’m calling.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“What do you have in your records about Atoka, Oklahoma? And I don’t mean anything from the last few days. I mean something that might be in your files about weird activity or strange energy or …” Pausing because she couldn’t believe what she was about to say, she just spat it out instead of wasting time looking for better phrasing. “Or buried treasure.”

“Buried treasure?”

“I don’t know. Just buried something. You have anything like that connected to Atoka?”

There was a smirk in his voice when he replied, “Nothing jumps out at me, but I’ll check.” After a few seconds of tapping, he said, “Sounds like we’ve got some reception issues.”

“I know.”

“So you hear that voice?”

Paige listened for a moment but could only hear the tapping of Stu’s fingers on his keyboard beneath a thin layer of static. “What voice?” she asked.

“Yeah. Sounds like another call or …that’s gotta be on your end of things. It just mentioned your name.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

The tapping stopped. “You didn’t just hear that? Or …or that ? It’s talking to you. Either that or someone else named Paige who’s standing outside of a bedroom.”

Paige’s eyes drifted toward the shadows in the other room. “Hang on,” she said before lowering the phone so she could listen without the distraction of any noises coming from the call. Even when she closed her eyes and concentrated, she couldn’t make out anything more than the steady panting and the scrape of branches against the house. “Let me ask you something,” she said when she lifted the phone back to her ear. “Is the voice male or female?”

“It’s definitely a man. Sounds like it’s whispering. Did you find it? It was a lot louder when you were quiet.”

“No, I didn’t find anything and I still don’t hear anything.”

“That’s really— Hang on! You know what it sounded like?”

“Still haven’t heard it, but please drag this out a little more,” Paige snapped.

“That sounded like an EVP!”

“You mean those voices you guys hear on tape recorders that come from ghosts?”

“Or other dimensions,” Stu added. “Depends on what theory you subscribe to.” He was quiet for a few seconds and returned twice as excited as she’d ever heard him on any previous phone call. “Yes! That whispering sounds like an EVP. Did you hurt your right arm?”

“You know I did.”

“No. Is it scratched? Bitten?” After a pause, he asked, “Were you talking to another woman carrying a big gun who stepped outside just before you called?”

“Now you’re freaking me out.”

“What did you do before when you were quiet? It got louder then.”

“I just lowered the phone. Look, I don’t have a lot of time, but I want to ask you about …” As she glanced down to the floor, she realized that the paranormal investigator might not have spun off on such a bad tangent after all. “How’s this?” she asked before lowering the phone and stretching her hand toward the pit in the next room.

She could hear Stu’s excited reply despite the distance between her ear and the phone’s speaker.

“That’s it!” he said once she brought the phone back up. “Holy crap! That was the best EVP ever! What did you do?”

“All I did was hold the phone down next to the floor in this house.”

“Is that where you think there’s buried treasure?”

“Yes.”

“Sweet! Now we’re getting somewhere. Okay, I did find something that may be of use. Do you know what ley lines are?”

“Aren’t those supposed to be channels of mystical energy or some crap like that?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Stu replied. “But don’t call it crap. According to a chart in our files, there’s a convergence of ley lines beneath Oklahoma. Nowhere near Atoka, though.”

“Any chance your files could be off?”

“Considering we’re guessing about them using a mish-mash of readings taken from too many different pieces of equipment, I’d say that’s more than likely. What exactly did you find?”

Paige looked down at the floor as if she might be able to see an actual line running beneath the surface. Unfortunately, she had no such luck. “I’m looking at a pile of dirt, but there’s got to be more than that. A Half Breed dug up the floor in a house and is guarding it with its life. Since it wasn’t making a den or trying to get to any food, I don’t know why it would have gone through so much trouble. What would ley lines mean to a bunch of shapeshifters? I thought that was just supposed to be energy used for ghosts or the Bermuda Triangle or psychics.”

“There are tons of theories, but that’s all they are,” he explained. “Energy has been measured. It’s been documented. It’s been recorded, but nobody really knows exactly what it’s for. Most of the time it just gets written off as the earth’s normal magnetic field. Are you standing close to that spot right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Just don’t say anything for a moment, I’m recording this and want to get a clear sample.”

Paige obliged, but only for a few seconds. “You ever hear of the Breaking Moon?”

More tapping. “We don’t have anything with that exact wording on file, but I do have entries under Blood Moon, Bone Breakers, and Hunter’s Moon. None of those have anything to do with shapeshifters, though. All spiritual activity. Holy crap! Did you hear that?”

“Just tell me!” she snapped in a fierce whisper.

“The voice. It mentioned you again,” Stu said as his own voice trembled with excitement. “It says his name’s Max.”

Paige lowered her entire body until she was almost crawling toward the ruined bedroom. “Can you still hear me, Stu?”

“Yes.”

“Can you still hear it? Can you or not?”

“Yes. I’m taping now. EVP lesson number one. When you ask a question, give me or the entity time to answer it.” After the silence that followed, he said, “Yeah. I can still hear it.”

“Fine, but if you post this on a website or anything public I’ll—”

“I know. You’ll mess me up in a profane and creative fashion. Are you ready to start?”

“I’m going to talk to Max and you’ll translate. Okay?”

“Oh my God,” Stu said anxiously. “That is so much better than okay, it’s …all right. Calming down. Go ahead.”

Paige sighed and stared into the shadows at the strange shape hiding there. “Max,” she whispered. “Are you one of the Mongrels from KC?”

After a few seconds Stu replied, “Yes. He is.”

“What happened to you?”

“He was …bitten. On purpose?” As Stu spoke, the creature guarding the pit stretched its neck out even farther. At first its eyes seemed to be twitching, but that was only because the lids closed in the wrong direction. After compensating for that, Paige could better read the concentration on his face. “Liam,” Stu said in a voice that was just as strained. “Liam bit him.”