Blood and Stone (4 page)

After consuming the prisoners that were allowed outside, Tezcahtlip had gone inside, seeking out the rare few with great power. These were held in special cells, segregated from the remainder of the population. Like Allan Porzig.

Of Lithuanian descent, Porzig was a sorcerer. Not as powerful as Femagick had been, but sufficiently skilled to warrant his own cell and constant isolation. A cell Tezcahtlip calmly opened with keys he’d taken from a petrified guard.

Even with his senses dulled by medication, Porzig realized something was amiss when Tezcahtlip entered the cell in a uniform dripping blood. The tribal tattoos covering Porzig’s face almost concealed the surprise he showed.

Allan Porzig wasn’t a criminal—at least not in his own mind. He simply refused to recognize the authority of the United States government. Which meant he didn’t pay taxes. Or allow Marshal’s to serve him papers on his property. He was the master of his own domain. Or at least, he had been.

Locked in Alcatraz for some twenty years, the sorcerer patiently drew arcane symbols on the walls of his cell, waiting for the one day some power might come into his life. His magic relied exclusively on fey power, drawn from the Earth itself. Unfortunately, Alcatraz, built on a rocky island in the San Francisco Bay, was nowhere near any fey power.

Tezcahtlip began walking toward Porzig. The inmate immediately recognized the power inside the shapeshifter, pouring from his aura. The sorcerer slowly began to trace a symbol in the air—a symbol that he would use to draw some of that power into himself.

Tezcahtlip extended a hand toward the inmate. Porzig’s body suddenly jerked. He heard the sounds of his own bones breaking as tremendous force crushed in on him from every direction. His body compressed to nearly half its normal size as Tezcahtlip squeezed the life out of him, telekinetically.

Porzig’s heart stopped as it was compressed. He would have exhaled a death rattle, but the telekinetic grip was too powerful. He simply died. Then his body exploded.

Pulled apart from multiple directions, the inmate’s body erupted, his bones flying out in every which way in a cloud of tissue and blood. As the cloud of flesh settled, only his heart remained—floating in the air exactly where it had been a moment before, surrounded by his body.

The heart flew across the room, into Tezcahtlip’s outstretched hand. The giant lifted it to his lips and took a large bite.

CHAPTER SIX

Chadwick Phillips had missed Argon Tower’s cafeteria. Not because it was the best he’d ever eaten in. Truth be told, in the old days it had been pretty awful, nothing like it was now. He had missed it because for almost twenty years it had been home. A place he had eaten three meals a day between missions, talking with his fellow super soldiers.

Like Chadwick, the cafeteria was new now. It looked almost nothing like it had back in 1989 at his retirement dinner. It had been modernized, with new chairs, tables, TVs, floor tiles and even light fixtures. The food was amazingly good. The best he’d ever tasted. But maybe that was because his taste buds were new again.

The rejuvenated electrokinetic was devouring a large plate of spaghetti, sitting by a window on the east wall of the cafeteria. Even the view at the window had changed, with development along the coast that hadn’t been there so long ago. In the old days the Florida coast here was nothing more than dense mangroves.

“Mind if we join you?” Jimmy asked. Josie was beside him. They both carried trays with burgers, fries and ice cream on them.

“Sure,” Chadwick said around another mouthful of delicious spaghetti. He had to hand it to Mark, when General Black was in charge, the food had never been this good.

Josie sat across from Chadwick, with Jimmy next to her. They both seemed surprised at the volume of spaghetti this new Colonel had clearly put on his plate.

“Jimmy and Josie, right?” Chadwick asked. He wiped his mouth then took a sip of wine. Excellent wine.

“Yep,” Jimmy said, picking up his own cheeseburger. He sniffed at it, drawing in a long breath.

“Jimmy really likes burgers,” Josie said.

“I’m more of a spaghetti man, myself. This is even better than I used to get growing up. And my grandma came over from Italy.”

“You’re Italian?” Jimmy said after taking a large bite of the burger. Grease dribbled down his chin, but he didn’t care.

“My mother’s family,” Phillips said.

Josie began to eat her fries, but with far less gusto than the two men at her table.

“So you and the Colonel worked together?” Josie asked.

“Yeah, for about twenty years,” Phillips said. “Until I retired.” He wolfed down another fork full of spaghetti.

“Hey,” Jimmy said. “Make sure you hit the can before tonight—the whole time I was petrified I felt like I needed to take a dump.”

“Jimmy!” Josie said, shocked at her best friend’s crudeness.

Phillips grinned. “Mark already told me about that—being stuck however you are at petrification.”

“What was he like? Back then?” Josie asked.

“Who, Mark?” Chadwick wiped his mouth on a napkin and leaned back. As good as the food was, as good as it was to eat it with his own teeth again, he was getting full. “Just like he is now. He hasn’t changed a bit.”

Josie shook her head. “No, I know that. I mean, personality-wise. Was he always so... grumpy?”

“I think serious is a better description,” Phillips said. He sipped some wine as he considered. “We saw a lot of combat back then. A lot of horrible things. It tends to make you serious.”

“Grumpy,” Jimmy said. He had already finished his burger. “He’s grumpy. All the time.”

Josie gave Jimmy a glare, wondering if he still had a touch of animosity for the Colonel.

“Was he ever happy?” she asked.

“Why so interested?” Chadwick asked.

“I... just want to get to know him better.”

“Are you his kid?”

Josie was shocked at the question. “No!”

Jimmy looked back and forth between Phillips and Josie. “What are you guys talking about?”

Josie looked down, unsure how Jimmy was going to take this. “I’m his granddaughter—sort of.”

“What?” Jimmy was stunned.

“You look just like him,” Chadwick said.

Jimmy didn’t see it at all. Josie was beautiful. Colonel Kenslir was... grim. “How can you be his granddaughter? How long have you known?”

“Remember my dad was adopted?” Josie said to Jimmy. “Apparently, he was a clone of the Colonel’s.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jimmy said.

“What’s ridiculous?” Pam Keegan asked. She had walked up to the table, carrying a tray with a salad and a bottle of water on it.

Phillips looked the petite blonde up and down. Instead of a nurse’s uniform, she now wore a floral-print dress that showed off her curves. And she had amazing curves.

“Please, join us,” Chadwick said, standing up and pulling a chair out.

Keegan sat her tray down and extended a hand. “Pam Keegan.”

“I know, we’ve met,” Phillips said, shaking her hand. He could smell her perfume.

Keegan stared closely at Phillips. “Sparky? From the nursing home?”

“He’s been in the Fountain, Pam,” Josie said.

Keegan sat down, followed by Phillips. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her.

“You’re going to be petrified?” Keegan asked. She looked Phillips up and down.

“Well,” Phillips said. “Not for a few hours yet.”

“He’s one of the Colonel’s old war buddies,” Jimmy said. He was working on his milk shake now.

“Really?” Keegan was very interested. “Tell me more.”

“Hang on,” Jimmy said. “I wanna know more about you being the Colonel’s granddaughter.”

Keegan was genuinely surprised. She looked over at Josie. “Me too.”

Chadwick chimed in. “Makes sense—the Army was always looking for a way to duplicate what happened to him. But they could never find another negapath.”

“Excuse me?” Keegan asked. “A what?”

Chadwick grinned. “Pretty stupid-sounding, right? Those nerds in the sixties always had to come up with some kind of goofy name for everything. They called Mark a negapath. He cancels out—negates— psionics and magic. That’s why he wasn’t fully petrified in ‘62.”

“Yeah, but how is he Josie’s grandpa?” Jimmy had stopped eating.

“They cloned him,” Phillips said. “No big deal. They did that a lot back then. Kids with their new toys.”

“You mean the government can clone people?” Josie asked, shocked.

“Yeah, sort of,” Chadwick answered. “It’s not true cloning, like in the movies. They just suppress all the genes passed on by the mother, and hope the genes from the father go active like they want.”

“So there could be more than one of the Colonel out there?!” Jimmy really didn’t like that idea.

“Nah,” Chadwick said, picking up his wine. “The cloning stuff pretty much died out in the seventies. If they had succeeded, we’d have gotten the clones in the Black Sabers.”

“Black Sabers?” Keegan asked.

“The Detachment,” Josie explained. “That’s the unit’s unofficial name.”

She turned back to Phillips. “So my father was a failed experiment?”

“That’s a harsh way to look at it. He just didn’t have any powers. So they put him up for adoption.”

“Why didn’t they kill him?” Jimmy asked. He was, after all, a huge conspiracy theory buff.

Josie couldn’t believe what Jimmy had just asked. She, Keegan and Phillips gave him looks of disgust.

“Kid,” Phillips said, “This is America. We don’t treat people like that.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

There was only one place left on Alcatraz a parahuman could be. Tezcahtlip had cleared all the special holding cells, and petrified most of the male staff. The females he’d killed.

He paused at the door to the infirmary, and inhaled deeply. His new, enhanced senses revealed only two occupants. A man and a woman.

Tezcahtlip entered the infirmary. It was a long room with two rows of ten beds each. Each bed had its own curtain, but all were pulled back. At the far end of the room, there was a door to a back room. One of the beds held an inmate, hooked to an IV drip.

From the memories of the guards he had consumed, Tezcahtlip knew the drip was part of a regularly weekly administration of the suppressive drugs the inmates were given. He also knew that the inmate on the bed was very special. He could fly.

Tezcahtlip could fly, but it required him to shed his own form and turn into a dragon. The dragon his twin brother had favored. But this human, he could fly without any wings. That was a power that could come in very handy.

Tezcahtlip began walking to the inmate’s bed. He unbuttoned the guard’s jacket he wore and dropped it to the floor. The blood-soaked garment landed with a wet sound, blood splattering out of it.

The inmate, Paul Raven, lay unmoving, sedated.

Tezcahtlip looked around the room. He could smell the female, but could not see her. She was probably in the back office.

Raven sat up in his bed—lifted by Tezcahtlip’s telekinetic manipulation. He loved this new power. The petty criminal he had acquired it from had used it to open locks, manipulating pins and tumblers. He lacked the power to use the ability for much else.

Tezcahtlip had considerably more lifeforce to draw from. A nearly limitless draw of power to use with the telekinesis. Still, he liked to do things the old fashioned way as well.

The shapeshifter rammed his hand into the sedated inmate’s stomach, puncturing the flesh in a spray of blood. Then he reached up, under the ribs, pushing his hand through the flesh with no effort, until he felt the beating heart. He wrapped his fingers around the organ then jerked it out.

Raven’s body twitched once, then fell back onto the gurney, his blood spilling out of the massive hole in his chest.

Tezcahtlip had just sunk his teeth into the still-warm heart when he heard a woman’s voice.

“Hey, that was my lunch!”

The shapeshifter swallowed the bite of heart in his mouth and turned to look at the woman. She was standing in the doorway leading to the back office in the Infirmary. She had on a Doctor’s lab coat, slacks and a loose green blouse. Long, wavy red hair hung down, past her shoulders and she had piercing brown eyes. She was above average height and had an athletic figure.

Tezcahtlip immediately recognized the doctor from the guards’ memories he now had. Doctor Laura Olson, Alcatraz’ chief pharmacist. The woman responsible for keeping all the inmates under control.

And very possibly the last person alive on Alcatraz.

Tezcahtlip dropped Paul Raven’s heart then shed his human form. His bloody clothes split and tore as he swelled to his immense nine foot height. The tattered clothing fell off his body, and he stepped out of the shoes his six-toed feet had just erupted from.

Doctor Olson looked down at Tezcahtlip’s exposed groin and laughed. “I see not everything about you is giant-sized.”

Tezcahtlip glared at the impertinent woman and balled his six-fingered hands into tight fists. He was would rip this woman limb from limb then consume her heart. After he taught her some manners.

The giant charged forward, hands in front of him, ready to grab the red head.

Doctor Olson stood her ground until the last possible second—then she kicked the charging giant right between his bare legs.

The impact was terrific. Far greater than the giant had expected. The blow crushed his genitals and lifted him into the air. His back struck the ceiling eleven feet off the floor. Then gravity kicked in and he crashed back down.

The giant did not remain down for long. His shapeshifting powers quickly repaired the damage to his groin as he sprang to his feet. He moved with blinding speed and backhanded the red haired doctor, knocking her down. She fell to her knees.

“Impertinent woman!” Tezcahtlip roared in anger. He grabbed the woman’s hair to lift her off the floor by her long, red tresses.

Doctor Olson looked up at the giant and hissed, her mouth wide, revealing inch long fangs.

Doctor Olson sprang forward with inhuman speed, tackling the giant around the waist. With little effort, she slammed the giant onto his back, then drove her hand into his exposed groin. Inch long, claw-like nails had sprung from the Doctor’s fingertips. They shredded the flesh of the giant’s groin, causing him to bellow in surprise and pain.

Olson then scrambled forward, across the giant’s prone body and drove both hands toward his face, ready to shred the flesh there with her nails as well.

Tezcahtlip, despite the agonizing pain in his loins, grabbed the Doctor’s wrists and threw her over his head. He rolled onto his feet as she struck the door leading into the infirmary.

Olson rebounded off the door and landed gracefully on her feet. Then she slapped at a large red button beside the door.

An alarm immediately sounded in the room, and across the island.

Tezcahtlip extended a hand and curled his fingers as though crushing something.

Olson was lifted from the floor, her bones cracking as telekinetic force wrapped around her body. She struggled against the invisible force holding her, but even her strength was no match for it.

Then she was pulled across the room towards the red-haired giant.

“Vampire,” Tezcahtlip said, leaning down to peer at Dr. Olson’s face. She snarled at him and bared her fangs. Despite the intense pressure being applied to her torso, she managed to draw in a breath.

“Eunuch,” she hissed out.

Tezcahtlip smiled—an evil smile. Then he reached up with his free hand and calmly pulled first one, then the other of Doctor Olson’s fangs from her mouth.

The Doctor managed to resist screaming—mainly because the telekinetic grip on her whole body made breathing so difficult.

“The humans who’s memories I’ve taken think your kind don’t exist,” Tezcahtlip said. He reached out and ripped Doctor Olson’s blouse open. Her broken ribs bulged beneath the skin under her bare breasts. “I am pleased to learn they were wrong.”

The giant punched forward, into Olson’s stomach. His hand, held flat and knife-like pierced her flesh, then worked its way up to her heart. His six fingers encircled the rapidly-beating organ.

“Curious, I thought your kind were dead—or is that undead?” Tezcahtlip said, then ripped the heart free.

He immediately released his telekinetic grip on the vampire, letting her body fall limply to the floor. Then he took a bite of her still-pumping heart. It tasted different from a human’s. More animal-like in flavor. And it was filled with power.

Tezcahtlip began to devour the heart, taking more and more bites, chewing them quickly. When he had the heart two-thirds consumed he popped the last of it into his mouth and chewed it slowly between his double-rows of teeth, savoring it.

“I was saving that for someone special,” Dr. Olson said.

Tezcahtlip was startled by the red head’s sudden appearance. She had leapt up from the floor, rising to his height. Then she had driven her long-nailed fingers into both his eyes.

The giant screamed in pain again and staggered backwards as the vampire ripped his eyes out. Then he heard glass breaking and felt a breeze blow into the room.

In five long seconds, Tezcahtlip reformed his eyes. He looked around the room, but the vampire was gone. A broken window showed the path she had taken—straight down to the rocky shore of the island, some four stories below.