Breed and then to Max, she asked, “Should I be worried about that one?”
“No,” Stu said. “The rest sleeps. The . . . the wretch? The wretch sleeps.”
“Why can’t you talk to me?”
“The . . . tore box? Torba box? Can’t make it out. Whatever he’s saying, it’s something about something else giving Liam power. Liam can control the wretches and now he can control Max because . . . shared blood. Something about shared blood. Controls his body, but not his mind.”
In Kansas City, Liam had been able to guide the packs of Half Breeds he’d created with simple commands and barks that steered them in a certain direction or made them cower like any animal showing deference to an alpha male. But that control hadn’t been complete. As far as shared blood, if Liam had turned Max into what he was now, it only made sense that he might be able to control him too.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “How can he hear you?” she asked while shaking the phone. “Why?”
Stu paused for several seconds. The only reason Paige knew she hadn’t been disconnected was because she could hear the tapping of a keyboard and his quick, excited breaths. Finally, he said, “Paige. I recorded this. Let me play it back so you can hear. It’ll be easier that way.”
“All right.”
She heard a few clicks and then static. There was some feedback and a clunk, but she guessed that was just from one machine knocking against another. The voice she heard was a cross between a whisper and a distant gust of wind. Once she locked onto it, she could make out the words. It said, “Guarding the . . . Torva’ox is their power. Full Blood power. Keeps them alive. Makes them stronger. Liam could influence the wretches and now he has absolute control over them. Over me too until the Breaking Moon passes.”
Paige wanted to ask questions but reminded herself she was listening to a recording.
“The Torva’ox is power,” Max continued. “That’s . . . we can talk like this. Liam lied to us, but more will follow him. More like me. The others will grow stronger . . . Torva’ox gives them . . . will die. They will die or be broken. Die or be broken . . .”
“That’s what I got,” Stu said, breaking Paige’s concentration.
“What’s the Torvox?” When she didn’t get an answer, she looked at the phone. Then she looked at Max. Whatever was happening with him, the struggle against it was wearing him out because the Mongrel’s gnarled head now rested on the floor. The Half Breed, however, never stopped twitching. “What are the Full Bloods doing here, Max? You must want to tell me or you wouldn’t have called out to me!”
The Mongrel’s eyes came open and immediately fixed on her. “Full Bloods . . . gathering strength . . . too much strength,” Stu told her. “Want to free plane . . . no, that’s not it. Sorry Paige. It’s reclaim. Reclaim . . . territories.”
“The cities,” Paige whispered. “Now that the Nymar have moved to take the cities, the Full Bloods want to kick them out.”
“All territory. Leeches . . . destroyed. Only . . . Jesus,” Stu sighed, in a way that made it clear that last part came from him and not anything he’d heard. When he spoke again it was in a frenzied rush. “He says the Full Bloods will destroy everyone and not just in the cities. The whole territory. What’s that mean?”
“Full Bloods claim entire continents as their territories. Shit,” Paige sighed. “They’re really doing it. Skinners have always thrown out worst case scenarios, and this is the biggest one. The one where Full Bloods get sick of living in the forests and don’t allow themselves to be hunted.”
“They allowed themselves to be hunted?”
“Think of it in terms of us getting hassled by bees. We get stung and may move somewhere else because it’s easier, but when we get really sick of those things, we start swatting. If that fails, we exterminate them.”
“Not just . . . theirs . . . portion. Not just their portion,” Stu said, sounding more and more like he was on a game show getting pantomime clues from a B-list celebrity. “All. All. All. He keeps saying all. And something’s coming. Oh! I just thought of something.