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.
Keeping his head down and shotgun raised, Cole hurried to get to Lambert before he was stomped, slashed, or otherwise destroyed by the rampaging Full Blood or the growing number of guards. He tried to channel some of the power that had been in him earlier, but all that remained was the agony of broken tendrils cinching in around his stomach. Each step was harder to take than the previous one, but he somehow got to the fallen inmate and helped him to his feet. “Get up, Lambert. We gotta get out of here.”
Frank’s strained, hissing voice could barely be heard over the rest of the chaos as he dispatched one of the new arrivals by grabbing a gnarled quarterstaff from the guard’s hands and twisting it away. “Stairs should be this way,” he said while cracking the guard in the jaw with his own weapon. Then shots were fired at the Squam, forcing him to drop down and out of sight.
When Lambert looked his way, Cole told him, “Go on. I’m helping Frank.”
“Ain’t time for that, man. We got another minute or two at best before them guards find us.”
Already breaking into a run, Cole shouted, “Just go. This won’t take long.”
Frank climbed to his feet and staggered toward him. By the looks of him, Cole didn’t thing he had the strength to make another jump. The Squam’s yellowish skin was cracked and bleeding in several places, discolored to look like mud. His narrow vertical pupils shifted toward Cole. “They are keeping the Full Blood occupied, but won’t be able to kill it.”
“Go on and get out of here,” Cole said without sparing so much as a glance toward the battle raging a stone’s throw away. “If level two is a bust, then take the ramp. Cars get in and out of here, so there’s got to be a way for us to do the same.”
Frank nodded and did his best to run toward the ramp Lambert was now using. He kept his upper body hunched down so low, it looked like he was running on all fours.
The heat in Cole’s scars flared up until he reflexively pulled in a breath and tightened his grip around the shotgun. The club he’d taken from one of the elevator guards was tucked under one arm. Frank was almost at the top of the ramp now, but he dove off the edge to clear a path for another Full Blood that was stormed up.
It was one of the biggest werewolves Cole had seen. Normally, a Full Blood was smaller when it walked on four legs. Resembling a bear with longer limbs and a canine head, they used that form for speed or mobility and walked on two legs when fighting or climbing. This one, covered in dark gray fur, galloped like a horse and kicked up dust from the concrete as its claws scraped gouges into the cement and through the occasional speed bump. Where Randolph’s teeth grew at odd angles to slice through his face, this one’s were as organized as they were deadly. The creature pulled in a deep breath and barked in a deep baritone, displaying two sets of long fangs sprouting from each spot where canine incisors would grow.
After tossing the guard with the halberd over a minivan, Randolph turned toward the other creature. “Esteban!” he roared. “There is nothing for you here.”
The Full Blood with the gray fur looked as if he would cross the entire parking area in one leap, but shifted into his upright form to dig his feet into a car’s roof. “This place reeks of Skinners hiding treasures they do not understand,” he replied in a rumbling voice colored by a Spanish accent. “It is no surprise to find you here while the others cluster around the Torva’ox like children gazing upon a shiny trinket.”
Randolph charged at the other Full Blood with men attached to him by blades, hooks, or other weapons embedded in his flesh. The guards dangled from his sides and back like decorations until they were scraped against a post or brushed off against a parked car. The two Full Bloods collided like storm fronts, completely ignoring the wave of guards that had just arrived. In his upright form, Randolph was shorter than the gray werewolf, but wider in the shoulders. Once they clamped their jaws around the thick matting of fur protecting the other’s neck, Cole found his opening to put that place behind him.
He ran down the ramp and quickly spotted Lambert and Frank racing across a crumbling parking lot for the safety of a wooded hillside less than a quarter mile away. It was early evening and the sun was making its descent to the western horizon. Police cars and several unmarked trucks sped toward the building, which sat by itself at the base of a tall set of hills. Wailing sirens filled the air, a helicopter roared in from the east, and more vehicles sped down the road that led to the prison’s poorly tended fence line. No one, however, seemed to notice Cole and his companions working their way up the rise that led to higher ground covered by trees and dense bushes.
Above all the chaos surrounding the cement block of a building, Randolph’s howl was joined by the voice of the other Full Blood. Before the armed men could leave their vehicles, the werewolves exploded from the parking garage. The few remaining men trying to hold a line in front of the building’s main entrance were decimated by the gray creature’s teeth and claws as Esteban tore through them.
Even when he got to the top of the rise, it was tough for Cole to make sense out of which Full Blood was winning. All he could tell from his new vantage point was that the prison would need some repairs if it was ever going to be used for anything more than a quarry. Randolph jumped down onto the gray werewolf but was grabbed in midair before he could sink his teeth into Esteban’s flesh. He then found himself on the ground with the gray wolf on top of him. The group of men Cole guessed were police opened fire on the Full Bloods, unleashing a chattering wave of gunshots from everything ranging from handguns to high-powered rifles. The Full Bloods hunkered down beneath the pelting of bullets, too engrossed in their own fight to answer them. After tossing Randolph against the side of the building, Esteban grabbed his leg and lobbed him into the largest cluster of police cars.
“Well,” Cole said from behind the rocks he and the other two escapees were using for cover, “they can’t pin that one on me.”
“They would if they knew what you did,” Lambert replied. “Lowering them defenses was a stupid goddamn idea.”
“We would have been dead if we’d stayed there.”
“You think so?”
Cole looked over at him and said, “Yeah. If it wasn’t for the Legion of Doom over there tag-teaming the entire prison, we would have been locked away, picked apart, and cut to pieces.”
“He’s right,” Frank said. “Nobody knew we were there, and Waylon was after something important enough for him to kill to get it.”
Another wave of gunfire erupted from the police encroaching on
the prison. Randolph rolled to his feet and shifted into his four-legged form to charge the armed men who had tried to flank him. With bullets thumping uselessly into his fur, he scattered the humans, lowered his head and came back around to drive it into Esteban’s stomach. Having flipped the other Full Blood into the air, Randolph shifted into his upright form to catch Esteban by two clumps of fur and fling him away. The werewolf clawed at empty air while snarling ferociously, but was unable to do much more than that before slamming into the side of the building with enough force to go through the outer wall. Randolph turned to face the cops then, warned them back with a primal, territorial roar, and leapt through the hole in the side of the prison to pursue his prey.
“We need to get moving,” Cole said. “There won’t be any better time than this.”
Lambert couldn’t nod fast enough as he jogged toward the top of the rise so he could put more distance between himself and the raging battle.
Frank, on the other hand, wasn’t so eager. “You’re just going to leave?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Cole replied. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do after successfully breaking out of prison?”
“You’re a Skinner, aren’t you? If Skinners are good for anything, it’s hunting things like them,” he said while pointing a leathery hand at the howling Full Bloods. “Now you just want to leave?”
Cole stepped up so he was toe-to-toe with the Squam. Even though he had to look up into Frank’s yellow eyes, he glared at him as though doing so from higher ground. Normally, he was on the receiving end of stares like that, and when he saw the hesitation in Frank’s eyes, he realized why Paige used the tactic so often. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t exactly a normal day of monster hunting. They’re hunting us, and so far they’re winning. Even if we did run back there to try and take on a pair of Full Bloods using nothing but a few crappily prepared sticks and foul language,” he added while holding up the confiscated club, “those cops would shoot us and toss us back into a cell before we had a chance to get torn apart. Either way, we wouldn’t be able to do much more hunting, and those Full Bloods would still be able to do whatever the hell they want!”
“They’re doing that already,” Lambert said, pausing to look back at them. “Let’s just get to steppin’!”
“You want us to do something, Frank?” Cole asked without budging. “Then tell me what I should do.”
The Squam’s mouth remained closed so tightly it resembled a line scribbled across his face with a pencil.
“No?” Cole challenged. “Anything you want to do?”
Although the muscles in his face jumped beneath the scales embedded in his skin, Frank shook his head.
“Didn’t think so. We’re getting the hell away from here. You’re welcome to try your luck on your own, but if you want to come along, then spare me the speeches.” With that, Cole turned his back on Frank and the ruined prison so he could join Lambert as he headed for what looked to be a distant access road. A few cars raced by, but the drivers were too preoccupied with the werewolves tearing through a small army to notice a few figures making their way through the trees.
They ran for a mile, heading west through a patch of rocky terrain. Since the cars were coming from a highway to the north and helicopters were still flying in from the east, Cole didn’t see any alternative but to press on into the hills. Never before had he so deeply regretted not being a Boy Scout when he’d had the chance to learn more about wilderness survival or navigating using the sun’s position in the sky. When he thought the prison was far enough behind him to stop and catch his breath, he heard another explosion that spurred him onward.
Once they were deeply entrenched in what appeared to be some sort of park or nature reserve, Lambert slowed to a halt. “All right,” he gasped. “Enough of this. Before I take one more step, I need to know who I’m runnin’ with.”
Frank looked at the wheezing, sweating inmate and replied, “I refuse to explain myself to—”
“You sure as hell will,” Lambert cut in. “Right now.”
Cole looked at the Squam and said, “He’s a wanted fugitive just like the rest of us. We’re in this together. If he was going to turn on us, he would’ve done it already.”
“You can trust me or not,” Frank said while hunching over so his chest was a few feet from the ground. “Rather than defend myself to you two, I’ll find out if anyone’s after us. You should move on, so don’t wait for me. I’ll find you.” And with that, he scurried around a nearby cluster of trees.
Since he couldn’t possibly follow the Squam, Lambert said, “Maybe we should just put a pin in this for now.”
“Put a what?” Cole snapped.
“Something my ma used to say. It means it might be a good idea if we stuck this shit somewhere else for a little while until we’re not so close to a bunch of wild animals and cops who want us dead.” Shrugging, he added, “My ma was an interesting lady. What’s your plan from here?”
Cole laughed and stooped, placing his hands on his bent knees and catching his breath. “I gotta level with you, Lam. I knew something would be coming to tear that place down, but I only kept that chunk of the bar because I thought it was charmed metal.”
“And it was,” Lambert said proudly.
“Right. I figured I could jam it into something’s eye or . . . that sounds pretty stupid, huh?”
After a short pause filled by the thump of distant explosions and howls, Lambert said, “Yeah. That does sound pretty stupid. But no dumber than me running from the law with you and a lizard man.”
Something crawled out from the trees behind Cole. Without casting more than a quick glance at the wide-shouldered figure that had crept up behind him, he asked, “What’s our situation, Frank?”
“Nobody’s following us yet. The cops are too busy sorting through the rubble and keeping out of the way of those two Full Bloods. Looks like plenty of people were hurt. Maybe worse. Ambulances are coming. Helicopters are hanging all around. Some are bringing wounded to the hospital and others are just trying to get a closer look.”
“Reporters,” Cole grunted. “Perfect.”
“Nobody’s after us?” Lambert asked. “You’re sure?”
“I said it once,” Frank hissed. “But that could change if we stay here.”
The Squam’s face wasn’t the kind that inspired trust, but Cole decided to accept what came out of it. “All right. We need to keep moving.”
Chapter Thirteen
Atoka, Oklahoma
The rumble of the exploding Gulfstream was still ringing through her ears when Paige tried to open her eyes. Something pressed against her lids along with every other inch of her body. She felt like she was falling, but suspended at the same time. Her ears, nose, and mouth were filled with dirt, which meant she hadn’t been delirious when she thought she’d been pulled underground.
Panic set in.
When she felt rough hands grabbing her arms and cinching around her ankles to drag her deeper into the earth, panic became a fond memory.
She tried to shout but her muffled voice couldn’t make it past her lips.
She tried to kick and actually felt her feet bust through into empty space beneath her, but the grip around her ankles tightened to prevent her from moving again. There was another sharp pull and Paige was dislodged to fall to a hard surface, landing with a jarring impact she felt all the way up into her molars. One hand pressed against the back of her head while more hands scrambled to search her and take away anything they could find.
At first she was too stunned to react. After a few seconds that feeling was replaced by an instinct honed over several years of getting jumped by any number of creatures. She hadn’t liked it the first time it happened and liked it even less now. She put her left hand flat against the floor to prop herself up and balled her right fist. With a sharp twisting motion of her upper body, she brought that elbow around in a blind swing that connected with something solid.
“Hold her
down!” someone grunted from the direction of where her elbow landed.
From directly behind her someone else voice replied, “I am holding her down.”
“Use both hands, idiot!”
In the time it took for that little spat to take place, Paige had already wriggled onto her side and pulled one leg free from where it had been pinned to the floor. Even after she twisted her head around to get a look at where she was, she couldn’t make out much more than a crowd of shadows cast by a dim light.
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 Breaking Page 18