Marcus Pelegrimas - The Breaking

“We picked up the trail of a Full Blood at that wrecked prison and followed it south. There was some sort of Lancroft storehouse or lab under there and we think the Full Blood got to another Shadow Spore.” Looking up nervously, Rico asked, “Are those bat things coming back or what?”

Cole’s scars were burning so badly from the shapeshifters nearby that he doubted he could feel the gargoyles if they were circling overhead. Fortunately, more howls in the distance were followed by gunfire and a wave of high-pitched shrieks. “They stay in flocks,” he explained. “I think. Anyway, it sounds like they’re over there.”

“Well that’s where we gotta go,” Rico said. “Bloodhound’s Army buddies are already here. That’s one of their choppers behind you, and there’s another that’s about to go down further up the road.”

The battle in the distance was making its way to the downed chopper. The explosions he heard before had sounded like impacts, but the next ones were definitely grenades. Judging by the bellowing roars that followed each one, the soldiers weren’t making much of a dent. Considering everything going on at the moment, Cole knew he didn’t have time to question Rico thoroughly. Instead, he decided to make him prove himself the hard way and handed the big man an assault rifle. Then he picked up his spear, propped against the side of the helicopter, and smiled as his hands closed around the weapon’s familiar grip. Its weight was perfect. The largest spearhead gleamed with metallic varnish containing flakes of the Blood Blade. Even the thorns in the handle punctured his flesh in the spots marked by the very first scars he’d gotten as a Skinner. There was only one other homecoming he’d looked forward to this much.

“Do you know some skinny psychic dude and a Squam?” Rico asked as he started jogging toward the worst of the fighting.

“Yes! Do you know where they are?”

“The IRD picked them up in Colorado. Once I convinced them that I know you well enough to be trusted, they told us you and Jessup were headed here.”

“So that’s also how you found me,” Cole said. “Why didn’t you say that before?”

Rico looked over to him and admitted, “I wasn’t sure about you yet.”

Considering what had happened about a minute ago, Cole had to laugh.

“Your friends are locked up,” Rico said. “I’ll take you to them.”

Cole kept his eyes open for any trace of Jessup. He might not have known the other Skinner for long, but he’d be damned if he would lose a partner. An explosion rolled through the air like a boulder that had been dropped into a still pond. Both Skinners looked toward the hill where several black columns of smoke rose to smear the sky. As Rico checked the rifle he’d been given, Cole pulled on the harness that Rico must have rigged to hold the spear. It wasn’t much more than a large belt with two loops stitched into the leather, but it did the trick. Without another moment of hesitation, they ran toward the growing storm of gunfire and unearthly cries.

“Did you ever meet another Skinner named Jessup?” Cole asked while taking hold of the other assault rifle he’d taken from the helicopter and checked to make sure it was loaded. Now that he had more than a second to examine the weapon, he recognized it as a Heckler & Koch MP5A3 with some slight modifications made to the barrel and stock.

“Yeah, I know Jessup. Is he here?”

“Hopefully.” There were still about a hundred yards to cover before they crested the hill. “Do you know when the Breaking Moon rises?”

“About an hour ago.”

Cole looked up and found the moon hanging in a smoky, darkening sky, but there was nothing about it to catch his eye apart from a slight rusty hue cast upon its wide face. “Is that a Blood Moon? I’ve seen it redder. And the damn thing isn’t even full.”

“After all this time running with Paige, you still think a full moon has anything to do with werewolves?”

“No, but what’s so special about this one?”

“Nothing as far as we can tell,” Rico said. “But it don’t matter what we see or don’t see. The Breaking Moon has to do with Full Bloods, not tides.”

Cole felt a pain in his gut that caused him to stumble for a few steps. The tendrils inside him had picked that moment to give him a quick, jarring squeeze to let him know they were still there and hadn’t been fed for a while. Before Rico took notice, he regained his footing and came up with a quick bit of acting to try and make his stumble look natural. The sideways stepping movement was close to the one he used when trying to get a bunched-up pair of boxers out from where they’d been wedged. Unlike that awkward situation, this one had to be pulled off convincingly enough to make sure a trained killer didn’t have an excuse to stab him in the chest. At the moment, however, Rico seemed to be having problems of his own.

The big man was still moving, but just barely. He gritted his teeth, hung his head low, and clamped a hand over his stomach.

“Are you all right?” Cole asked.

“Yeah. Just a cramp, that’s all.” Suddenly, Rico lunged at Cole like a battering ram. As soon as they hit the ground, a gargoyle sliced through the air less than two feet over both of them. Cole pressed his face against the dirt, waited until he was sure there wasn’t another shrieking dive bomber behind the first, then scrambled to his feet.

“Don’t worry about a thanks or anything,” Rico said as he followed in Cole’s wake. “There’ll be plenty of time for that when you buy me a beer for saving your neck.”

“Remind me if we’re still alive tomorrow.”

According to several of the small, rectangular green signs they’d passed along the road, they were in a park. Under normal circumstances the wide stretches of New Mexican desert would have been beautiful, but now it looked more like the dry, scabbed patch of exposed bone beneath a section of burnt flesh. Fires were scattered across a stretch of sandy rock on the downward slope of the hill to Cole’s left where another helicopter had crashed. Of the four covered trucks in sight, half were overturned and burning, while the other two were being torn apart by Half Breeds. There could have been more vehicles in the convoy, but he couldn’t figure out how many or what kind they were based on the scorched, twisted metal that seemed to have been dumped from a passing cargo plane. Now that he was at the top of the hill and looking down at the devastation, his ears were nearly shredded by the din of automatic gunfire and pained howls.

“Over there!” Rico said as he pointed toward one of the overturned trucks. “That’s where your prison friends were being held.”

Another wave of howls erupted to Cole’s right and was quickly followed by paws thumping against the hardened desert floor. Once he caught sight of the Half Breeds stampeding toward him, he snapped into survival mode. Rico’s Sig Sauer went off behind him to send a bullet hissing through the air. The Half Breeds were the newer models, which meant the bullets that hit them only chipped a few tusks and pissed them off even more than usual. Allowing the MP5 to hang from his shoulder by its strap, he drew his spear and dove forward as two Half Breeds launched themselves at him. Being animals of sheer instinct and brute force, the werewolves didn’t waste a thought on the threat of mortal danger as they rushed head first toward the business end of the Skinner weapon. The Blood Blade coating on the spearhead allowed the sharpened point to tunnel into one creature’s chest cavity, while the other Half Breed snapped at Cole’s leg.

The thorns in the handle tugged at Cole’s palm when he twisted the weapon down to block the second beast’s attack. Its head rammed against the thorny handle and twisted to try and get at him from another angle. The more Cole pivoted the spear to prevent the second werewolf from getting to him, the more his spearhead twisted within the first one’s chest cavity. Finally, he pulled the weapon out and swung it in a half circle so the forked end raked through the second Half Breed’s throat.