Chapter Seventeen
Mark
I cut the headlights and roll to a stop in the employee lot behind the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.
The familiar shape of the building with its domes and stone columns, sits etched against the pale glow of the city itself. I know this place like the bones in my own hands. I’ve walked these halls since I was five years old. I know every exhibit, even their seasonal rotations.
I step out of the car, peel off my shoes, my socks, and my pants. I fold my clothing neatly and set them on the back seat, on top of my shoes. My fingers tremble with anticipation.
“Hey!”
The shout is sharp, piercing, and snaps through the air like a whip. A flashlight beam slices across the lot, blinding me for a second.
“What are you doing back here?” The armed guard is young, maybe twenty-two. Lean and nervous. “Hands up, let me see them.”
I don’t move. Just smile.
“You deaf, asshole? I said—”
The rest is lost in the rush of bones grinding and tendons snapping. My spine lengthens, then curves. My hands curl into claws. My skin rips open, sloughing off as leathery skin erupts first across my shoulders, then my arms and thighs. My jaw lengthens. Sharp teeth erupt into place. It’s only my second turning, but it’s still so, so weird, and so cool. And yes, painful as hell. But less so this second time.
The guard screams and runs.
But I’m faster; well,nowI’m faster.
My talons hook into his calf. He goes down in a tumble, flashlight spinning in the air. Before he can cry out again, myjaws clamp onto his shoulder.Crunch.My goal isn’t to kill him. Maybe a bite or two. With luck, they’ll grow back. After all, the stipulation of my trust fund is clear: I must create a successful line of dino-shifters if I’m to inherit my grandfather’s massive bank account. And itismassive. Billions of dollars. My father had been successful in creating shark shifters. Sharks. How weird, and stupid. His line has nearly died out. But I plan on turning two or three dinos a night for months to come. We will become as successful as werewolves, perhaps even more so.
Meanwhile, the bone at his elbow gives way as easily as a chicken wing. Heck, his armlookslike a chicken wing, though his is presently gushing delicious blood. I lap it up. He writhes in pain... and crawls behind a row of trash bins. Already my tainted blood is going to work inside him. With a little luck, he won’t bleed out before the turning begins.
The spell hadn’t been hard to follow and, as I well know, is encoded for my bloodline only. Anyone else who tries the spell would have zero luck. It helps when your family can trace its bloodline to Nimrod himself, a fallen angel only hinted at in the Bible. In fact, Nimrod, as I was taught, was the first real sorcerer earth ever had, infusing all his terrible and powerful fallen angel blood into his own creator spells.
After all, Nimrod had been tasked by Satan himself to create living abominations that could subjugate the very creatures made in God’s image. Those in my bloodline are not human. We are living gods walking among men. As proof, we can create new lifeforms, and I’ve just created my own. I am proof of this.
And soon, I will display before the council my creation:meas evidence. That will be enough to release the billions in funds straight into my bank account. After all, whoever heard of a poor Illuminati? I knew this day would come. And I always knew what I would create: a line of dinosaur shifters. I’ve loved the beasts as far back as I can remember.
Indeed, once the funds are transferred into my bank, I fully intend to kill every last member of that damn council, many of whom abused me growing up. Well, they areallgoing to pay. And not one of them, be they shifter or not, can stop what I have become...
***
The security door near the side loading dock is steel-reinforced and digitally locked.
Except I’m not in the mood for subtlety, and I certainly don’t have the hands for code breaking instead, I launch forward and slam into the heavy door with my full weight. The steel slabs groan, the lock gives, and the reinforced glass panel above it shatters. I step into the dark hallway and inhale deeply alarms go crazy...
So many smells: cleaning products, plaster, dirt and dust. And beneath it all… bones. Old bones, too.
I scrabble down the hallway, claws clicking loudly on the tile. I dodge the cameras that I know are there. I’ve studied the feed patterns for years. Obsessed over them, even. Then again, I don’t really care who sees me, though it has been an unspoken rule that our shifters stay out of the limelight. Either way, no one is going to know it’sme. I’d removed my license plates in an alley before showing up in the Museum’s parking lot.
Anyway, the great Hall of Dinosaurs yawns open before me. I step onto the polished floor and stare up at the centerpiece:Tyrannosaurus Rex, reconstructed from partial remains. Its jaws are open in frozen anger. It’s beautiful. I leap over the velvet rope and circle the pedestal where the real femur is bolted into place. The bone is the real deal and massive, nearly as long as my human form.
I dig my claws into the screws bolted into the protective resin. The screws snap, and the femur comes free. Like a devildog, I hold the massive bone between my teeth. Blood pounds in my ears. Another shout down a dark hallway. A flashlight beam plays over me, along with the words, “Oh, my God.”
Another unlucky fool. This one is older, and he has a taser in his hand. It won’t save him. I pounce before he can aim or scream. He dies fast, no chance for a turning. I don’t have time to savor his death. The bone in my jaws is too important. Got to get out of here. Indeed, I dash back down the corridor, past the broken door, and across the parking lot, where my car awaits. There, I shift back to my human form, bones retreating and mending in reverse. Weak human flesh regrows. My mortal shape folds back around me like a glove.
I’m now cradling the precious femur under my arm. I’m naked, blood-slicked, and grinning. I open the rear door, lift the lid on the wooden box I’d brought. The lining is velvet. Padded. Ready. There, I place the T-Rex bone gently inside, like a holy relic. It veritably hums in my hands.
I shut the box and place it in on the front passenger seat. Then yank on my pants, pull on my shirt, slip on my shoes. As I ease the car onto the empty freeway, the city sprawls before me. Citizens asleep, blissfully unaware that the dinosaurs are back.
They’ll know soon enough. I glance at the box beside me; inside, the king awaits.
