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.”
“When he was being dragged down,” Paige said. “Liam said something about changing Mongrels into Full Bloods. Is that what you mean?”
The pain was written across Max’s face, and one of his lips curled up to reveal part of a fang.
“Yes,” Stu said. “It changed him, but not into that. Something about . . . others. Better. I can’t make it out.”
“There were others that were changed too,” Paige said. “Made them better, but not Full Bloods.”
Some of the concentration on Max’s face eased up.
“Yes,” Stu said. “How did you know? This is me talking, by the way.”
“I can see what happened,” Paige explained. “I’m looking at it. I can feel it. I’m also on borrowed time here, so could you just repeat what you hear?”