Blood and Stone (19 page)

“Especially the girl,” Kenslir said, glancing at Josie. He could tell she was injured and trying to hide it.

“Yes, sir,” Atlas said. He turned and scooped up Keegan, lifting her off the ground.

“Wait! What about Victor?” Keegan asked, looking around.

“You can get him later,” Kenslir said. He was nearly grunting as he fought the bucking body beneath him. “Chad!”

Phillips ran over, dropping down at the head of the giant’s body and looking at Kenslir. “What do you want to try?”

“Jimmy!” Kenslir said, “Get her out of here! Now!”

“Right,” Jimmy said. He scooped up Josie, who tried to resist.

“No! Wait! What are you going to do?” Josie demanded.

Jimmy nodded to Atlas, and both soldiers turned and carried their injured charges away. Josie struggled against Jimmy, demanding he put her down.

“What are you planning, Mark?” Laura asked, walking closer.

Kenslir gritted his teeth and shifted slightly, trying for a better grip on the spasming body fighting him. “Go with them—Josie’s got some internal injuries. Make sure they’re okay.”

“What are you planning?” Laura demanded again.

“We have to destroy every cell in this bastard,” Kenslir said. “And I don’t think fire will do it.”

The body suddenly sat up straight, throwing Kenslir back. he rolled clear then leapt back on the body, punching his hands back into place as the head and chest quickly reformed. Bone cracked as he again forced his hands inside the giant’s head and chest.

“Go!” Kenslir yelled at the vampire, then turned to Phillips. “Fry this son of a bitch!”

Phillips swallowed, a completely unnecessary act for a man with a throat of petrified flesh. But he understood. He reached forward and placed one hand on the giant’s head, the other on its left arm.

“This is going to hurt,” he told Kenslir.

“I know.”

Kenslir could feel the flesh churning around his hands, deep in the giant’s torso and skull. The monster was feverishly trying to regenerate, and Kenslir wondered if it was aware of what was about to happen.

“Okay, boss...”

The giant’s body began to jump and twitch as Phillips poured electricity into him. Kenslir gritted his teeth together but couldn’t hold back. He began to scream in pain as the current flowed through him as well.

Laura Olson turned her head away, and ran off after Jimmy and Atlas.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The flesh on the giant again spasmed as muscles contorted. Kenslir began to tremble as well, his face screwed up in a grimace of terrible pain as his scream died out—he had expended the breath in his lungs.

The hair on the Colonel’s head began to smoke, then it burst into flames. His whole body trembled as the electricity poured through him. Lines of gray stone, like the stratification in marble raced up his arms and over his face, his skin petrifying where the electricity was killing tissue.

Then his clothes began to smolder.

Phillips kept up the current. In his stone body he didn’t feel fatigue as he had when he was flesh. He wondered just how long he could keep this continuous flow of current up.

The giant’s skin began to smoke. Then it blackened and flames appeared, erupting from various points on the trembling body.

The gray streaks on Kenslir’s face began to widen, the petrification spreading. His eyes were squeezed shut in pain and the lids began to turn gray as well.

***

On the other side of the pyramid, Josie struggled to get up. Laura Olson had once again healed her, siphoning lifeforce from Jimmy. But the vampire gently held the girl down, where she’d been laid on the ground.

“Josie!” Laura said, trying to ignore the smell of burning flesh her vampire senses detected from the far side of the pyramid. “We have got to operate!”

“Let me up!” Josie demanded. “He’s killing him!”

“That’s the idea,” Pam Keegan said. She was kneeling beside Josie, helping to hold her down.

“Josie!” Laura said again. “Those bullets have got to come out!”

“Do it!” Pam said, all of a sudden punching Josie. The blow knocked the girl unconscious.

Laura gave Pam a surprised look, then turned back to her patient. She carefully tore the flightsuit away from Josie’s side then plunged her index finger into the girl’s skin, her vampire claw cutting through the skin cleanly.

***

Over the crackle of electricity pouring through Mark Kenslir and the giant’s body, Chadwick Phillips thought he heard the sound of a girl screaming. But he knew he couldn’t stop. The giant was finally burning.

The green glow coming from its heart and head flickered now, and Mark appeared to have fully petrified.

Phillips was glad that as a stone soldier, he had no sense of smell. It was bad enough he was killing his best friend, but having to smell him burn would have been too much.

The flames coming off the giant suddenly picked up, erupting all along his body. The smoke coming from the giant was thick and black, and finally obscured Kenslir and Phillips. The remains of Phillips own uniform quickly ignited as well.

The electrokinetic also realized the giant’s body had stopped twitching and jerking.

Locked in place, the three titans sat silently in the midst of the flames, obscured by the smoke around them. Kenslir kneeling, his hands in the giant’s body, the giant sitting up on the ground, and Phillips kneeling behind it, one hand on the giant’s head, one on its arm, completing the circuit of current he was moving through the monster.

***

Josie’s eyes fluttered open and she inhaled sharply. She sat up suddenly, looking around at her companions.

Laura was wiping blood off her hands, and Pam Keegan had a hand on her shoulder. Atlas and Jimmy stood nearby, grim looks on their stone faces.

“I think you’ll be fine,” Laura said, standing.

Josie reached down and felt at her side. Once again, the flesh was healed. She stood slowly and was relieved when there was no pain.

Pam Keegan extended a hand, opening it to reveal a number of small lead pieces. “Want these as a souvenir or something?”

Josie sniffed at the air, realizing something was burning. And it smelled awful. She pushed past Laura, breaking into a run.

“Why did you let her go?” Pam demanded, chasing after Josie.

Jimmy, Atlas, and reluctantly, Laura, all followed after them.

Josie rounded the end of the pyramid in time to see Phillips stepping back from dying flames. In the middle of the flames, the blackened forms of Kenslir and the giant could be seen.

The giant’s shape suddenly collapsed, caving in on itself and falling to the ground, his body reduced to black ash.

“Okay, he’s actually dead now, right?” Laura asked.

Josie gave the vampire a withering glare.

“The giant, dummy,” Laura said. “Mark’ll be fine.”

Josie walked towards the kneeling, blackened Colonel, stepping around Phillips who said nothing and looked at the ground.

Josie extended a hand, touching the smoking Colonel on the shoulder. She recoiled, the stone of his body still extremely hot, had burned her finger.

The Colonel remained frozen in place, on one knee, his hands in front of him, as though he were still clutching the giant’s heart and brain.

Josie concentrated on the Colonel, and frost slowly formed in a spot on his shoulder. No green glow emanated from the stone where the frost formed.

Josie turned around, tears in her eyes. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know,” Phillips said. “Maybe he just needs some water.”

“And some pants,” Keegan said, pointing at Phillips groin. “You too for that matter.”

Phillips glanced down then quickly covered himself with his hands. If he could, he would have blushed.

Josie looked back toward the Colonel. Tears rolled down her cheek, dropping off her chin.

A single bead of water then fell onto the Colonel’s head, sizzling on the hot stone. Overhead, the sky rumbled.

Josie looked up and saw that Tezcahtlip’s dark cloud was dissipating. Then something hit her cheek. Josie reached up and touched it. A droplet of water.

It was beginning to rain.

EPILOGUE

Samantha Elder switched off her TV in disgust. The networks were all abuzz with how U.S. Forces were distributing humanitarian aid in the Yucatan in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks there. The networks made no mention of Kukulcan or the vampires that had ravaged the region around Chichen Itza.

The woman once known as Samazon got up from her chair and headed for the front door of her house. The seven foot tall woman was in a loose fitting dress, covered in a floral pattern and wore flat sandals. It was not what she normally wore, but she knew she’d have to get used to it.

It was just another change in her life as she left behind a career as a Las Vegas performer. It didn’t worry her. She’d made lots of changes in her life over the years. True, this one was a bit bigger, just like the man who’d brought it on.

Samazon smiled to herself, remembering that night when the red haired giant had come to her room. He had been planning to kill her and steal her powers he’d told her. But the Amazonian performer had caught the giant’s eye. He had spared her life.

He talked of taking her out of America and into a new life, once he had his kingdom established.

Samazon had watched the news reports daily as that empire began to take form. Then it had all been taken from her.

She knew the giant was dead.

Samazon shook her head and walked out the door were her driver awaited. She didn’t want to be late for her appointment. Not that she needed a doctor to tell her what she already knew.

She was pregnant with the giant’s baby.

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READ THE NOVEL THAT STARTED THE SERIES!

MYTHICAL

Colonel Mark Kenslir is the last of the Cold War supersoldiers, and he’s just come back from the dead. Unable to remember who, or what killed him, the Colonel sets out to regain his memories, aided by two teens that find him lost in the Arizona desert. Returning to a modern civilization he does not remember, the Colonel slowly pieces together his past and vows to complete his last mission—stop a prehistoric, heart-eating shapeshifter rampaging in the southwest.

BROTHERS IN STONE

A second prehistoric shapeshifter is loose in the modern world, joining his resurrected brother in ripping out and consuming the hearts of victims to steal their power, their memories and their form. Colonel Mark Kenslir came back from the dead to defeat one shapeshifter. Can he hope to defeat two, or will he need help from an FBI psychic?