The Ancient Breed (37 page)

“How long have these freaks been around?”

“According to our preliminary dating calculations, these bones are only 500 years old. Pretty young for an undiscovered species like this. And from the complete lack of computer data on this particular species, we theorized that it was most likely indigenous to that small region in Florida.

“Nowhere else?”

“As easy as it was to excavate these fossils, it stands to reason that other archeologists would have discovered this species long ago outside the Everglades. Most of Europe is a dig site, if you know what I mean.”

“History’s on their side of the pond.”

“Mostly, yes. Until this species came along.”

Nick studied the next four photos. Bones, bones, and more bones. He found it tedious work, worse than shuffling through a pile of posed family vacation pictures.

“Aren’t there any interesting shots?” he complained.

“Try the next one.”

Nick was disappointed again. More bones, except that the femur was longer than the pygmy species and the skull was a tad smaller. The shapes, however, were strikingly similar. “These don’t look like the same species. Maybe a distant cousin?”

“Those are the bones of your mutant, Jay Walkingman, that were brought to our lab. After an in-depth, genetic analysis, Seth and I determined that your Walkingman cannibal was a subspecies of our new discovery. Part human and part killing machine.”

Nick’s jaw dropped. “You’re implying that Walkingman shared some of your pygmy warrior’s DNA?”

“Bingo - give the man a prize.”

“Walkingman was vicious enough. If it weren’t for . . .” He stopped himself.

Lisa leaned forward, her gaze boring into him. “If it weren’t for what?”

“Nothing.”

“If it weren’t for someone, you’d be dead?” she conjectured.

“Forget it. I can’t talk about it. Let’s get back to the killer species.”

The waitress arrived with their order and sensed the tension between her customers. She rapidly retreated.

Lisa sipped her coffee thoughtfully, her gaze never leaving Nick. Suddenly her eyes widened, and her lips curved into a smile. She had a sudden epiphany. Her hand trembled as she returned the coffee mug to the table.

“No
one
saved your life down in the asylum’s basement, but
something
did,” she ventured with an air of conviction.

Nick shrugged impassively.

“Oh my God, I’ll bet the farm that your savior was none other than the demon guardian. Am I right?”

Nick struggled to remain impassive, but a sudden flicker in his blue eyes betrayed him.

She pointed at his eyes. “I am right! You must’ve made some kind of deal with the demon guardian; otherwise it would have killed you both.”

Nick was amazed at her insight, but he remained stubbornly mum.

“Well?” she prodded.

He shook his head stubbornly.

“Look, this isn’t some damned classified shit we’re dealing with here, Nick. So for godsake, just fess up.”

He exhaled sharply and took a sip of the greasy coffee. “All right, you win. Yes, the demon guardian saved my bacon. It killed Walkingman and carried me out of the asylum where Neo could find me,” he confessed. He was about to sip his coffee again, but opted for the ice water instead.

“Did it communicate with
you
?’

He shook his head. “I did all the talking. I promised it that I’d help free Alick Tobhor,” he answered awkwardly. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was all I could think of on such short notice.”

“I think it was genius,” she exclaimed, pressing his hand between hers. “But the question is, can you live up to your end of the bargain?”

“I hope so. But right now, I need more clues.”

“Maybe these new species will lead us somewhere. Seth and I are returning to Florida next week to explore the construction site in greater detail.”

Nick stiffened. “You’re what?”

The stool people immediately pivoted at his raised voice. He scowled at them, and they reluctantly turned away.

“It’s way too dangerous,” Nick continued. “Don’t you have enough bones to work with, for chrissakes?”

“Look at the last picture,” she returned, doing her best to avoid an argument.

He whistled lightly. “This is a complete skeleton.”

She nodded grimly.

He stared at her thoughtfully for several moments. “This appears too well preserved to be very old.”

“You’re right. Seth and I dated it, and we were shocked to discover that it was only two to five years old.”

Nick was incredulous. “You mean those pygmy killers could be roaming around the Everglades even as we speak?”

“You never can tell.”

“So how is it that no one’s ever reported seeing one?”

“Maybe someone wanted to, but didn’t live long enough.”

“Murdered and missing.” He bit his lip. “I’ll have Crow check out the local missing persons’ reports for the past several years. Maybe we’ll get a lead.”

“Please let me know as soon as you find out anything. It might help us narrow our search pattern.”

“Sure. I need to know where they’re coming from. Do you think that they have something to do with Alick Tobhor?”

“Could be.” She bit into the cold egg, frowned, and pushed the plate away. “Next time, let me pick the restaurant, okay?” she grinned, breaking the solemnity.

One of the raggedy stool people slapped a bill on the counter and hurried from the diner. An alarm sounded in Nick’s mind.

“Wait here,” he whispered, and followed the man outside. Despite the man’s scruffy appearance, there was something familiar about him.
Very familiar
.

44

N

ick rushed outside into the refreshing air and spied the man talking urgently into his cell phone. Suddenly, Nick connected the man’s face to a name:
Tom Squires.
The weak-stomached deputy who assisted him at the asylum. What was he doing out here disguised as a local bum?

Nick stepped cautiously onto the gravel walkway and gripped his holstered Glock. “Hey, Squires,” he shouted. “What’re you doing way out here?”

Instead of replying, Squires broke into a run toward the two-lane highway. Nick sprinted after him, but Squires easily maintained the distance between them. He turned down an access street that led to the interstate. As Nick followed him, he saw a suspicious car parked in the No Stopping zone along the curb. It soon became obvious that the deputy was heading straight for it. Nick’s odds of winning the state lottery were better than intercepting Squires before he reached his objective.

Suddenly, Nick found himself standing directly in the deputy’s path! Somehow Nick’s teleportation powers had kicked into gear without his being aware of it. When the wide-eyed Squires tried to avoid colliding with Nick, he slipped and tumbled violently over the asphalt. Nick pulled his gun and pointed it at the prone deputy.

“On your stomach, hands behind your back, and spread your legs, Squires. You know the drill,” Nick barked, as he knelt to cuff the man’s arms. Out of the corner of his eye, Nick noticed a man standing in the deep shadows beside the parked car. Before he could pivot and confront the new player, Squires’ body burst into a ball of flame. Nick leaped away from the searing heat, and in the split second it took him to regain his balance, both the man and car had vanished!

The reddish-purple conflagration consumed Squires’s body within minutes, and by the time Lisa arrived, the deputy was ash and blistered bone.

Lisa turned away and buried her face in Nick’s chest. “Nick, what happened?”

He quickly described the chase and included his latest episode of teleportation.

Lisa slowly regained her composure. “What if Squires overheard our conversation and passed it on to the person on the other end of the cell phone connection?”

“I’m almost certain that Squires’s cell phone contact was the one who barbequed him and then vanished with the car into thin air,” Nick said, pointing in the direction of the vacant curb.

“What can we do now?” Lisa asked, fear glazing her hazel eyes.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and escorted her back to the diner’s parking lot.

“We can be damned careful, that’s what. I’m assigning a team of
Orion Sector
agents to protect you day and night.” He saw that she was about to object. “You won’t even know they’re there. Trust me. I’ve got the best shadow people in the business.”

“Will I see them in my shower?” she asked sardonically.

“Hell, no. That’ll be my stakeout assignment.”

Lisa pressed her head against his shoulder. “I’d like that.” She paused. “I still think you’re overreacting. I’ll be fine. They don’t want me.”

“You saw that pile of ashes back there, didn’t you? I don’t need your sophisticated, fossil-dating equipment to know that those ashes were alive five minutes ago.”

“I see your point,” she surrendered begrudgingly.

Nick retrieved his sat phone from the Cherokee and ordered the
Orion Sector
crime scene crew into action once again.

“What kind of man could’ve done that to Squires?” Lisa asked after he completed the call.

“Magic,” he sputtered.

“Don’t be too hard on the magic stuff. After all, it helped you catch up with Squires.”

“Don’t remind me.”

The sat phone buzzed, and Nick quickly answered the call. As Lisa watched, his face blanched. After a few grunts, he stuffed the phone into its belt holder.

Lisa threw her arms around his shoulders. “What is it, Nick?”

It took him a full minute to respond; Lisa waited patiently.

“That was my boss, Rance Osborne.” His voice trembled with anger. “The nightmare that Walkingman’s terrorist outfit unleashed upon the world has thrown the European governments into chaos.”

45

C

row squinted into the fog as he turned right at the
Duneden Bed ‘n Breakfast
and drove out of town, his concentration bouncing between the obscured road and his deep feelings for Jill Sandlin like a spirited game of Pong. His attempts to fathom his inexplicable desire for the woman repeatedly met a dead end. He was out of his depth in the love department. After all, he was a computer programmer who was much more adroit with machine codes than human emotions that contradicted that logic. His own father, as well as his late grandfather, had had no difficulty understanding the opposite sex, so why did he? Which ancestral mating gene was he missing?

Crow passed Duneden’s
Come Back Soon!
sign at the town limits. His chest grew heavier with each passing minute of separation. Maybe he ought to turn back and face his fear. Go out on a limb and tell Jill how he felt about her. Damn! He should’ve awakened Jill and spent a glorious night with her; he had never wanted anything so badly in his life. He realized, though, that the morning would have dawned with the light of commitment, and he wasn’t certain he was ready for that. But of course, that was his stoic, independent mind talking, not his heart.

His stomach bubbled like a medicine man’s vile brew as his frustration mounted. What did Jill see in him, anyway? He wasn’t the glamorous Cochise type; in his profession, he was more like a Sitting Bull. Out of shape and temperamental. His closest friends defied death for a living, but he played it safe in a computer lab. He wasn’t exactly the stuff of valiant, lusty braves. And, he was a failure when it came to remembering non-work-related dates like birthdays and anniversaries. No woman in her right mind would ever consider him a prized catch. Would she?

Suddenly a human outline appeared in the headlights, and Crow’s foot instinctively crushed the brake pedal. The Town Car fishtailed wildly, but it couldn’t avoid the pedestrian. His heart leaped to his throat as he listened to the sickening thump of a body colliding with the front bumper. The car’s momentum tossed it onto the hood where it rolled over the windshield and roof. A flailing shadow appeared in the rearview mirror before it sailed off the trunk onto the road.

Crow’s heart battered his ribs as his stomach knotted. His hand instinctively reached for the door release, and it swung open. The interior lights sprang to life and nearly blinded Crow. Without conscious thought, his hand grabbed the door handle and slammed the door shut. Darkness swiftly displaced the harsh light.

He nervously peered into the rearview mirror. The pedestrian rose from the road and advanced toward the driver’s side of the Town Car.

Crow pinched his fingers together, slowed his breathing, and forced his quivering lips to recite the wind-walk chant that Grandfather had tried to teach him a hundred times. His trepidation vanished, as did the car’s interior and the foggy night.

Suddenly, he was floating in a soundless, gray void. In the distance, he heard a familiar voice calling to him. He shouted back to Grandfather.

Seconds later, the accident victim tugged open the Town Car door and found the vehicle empty. After a brief search of the limited hiding places, he kicked the door shut and howled into the night. The chilling wail rode the fog for miles, provoking terror in the surrounding residents. He had failed! Failed to snare that weakling Indian. This was a totally unexpected and unpleasant development. It seemed that Bellamy wasn’t the only
Orion Sector
adversary with magical abilities.

Grant Donovan angrily waved his arms and chanted, and the black sedan vanished. He drifted above the ground to a side door of the mammoth, condemned dairy plant warehouse outside Duneden. He plucked a flashlight from his pocket, entered the dreary monolith, and easily located the tank holding Tobhor’s elixir beneath some displaced floor planks. He patted the large aluminum cylinder delicately. Its contents represented the end of the meddlesome Duneden Wiccans and their feeble magic powers. By this time next week, the elixir would infect the half-breed Duneden residents and alter them into the ancient breed, who would devour the purebloods. It was a diabolically simple plan.

Donovan scowled. The human race. The loathsome half-breeds were genetic trash, a cursed race born from the mating of lusty purebloods and savage Neanderthals. But soon, the entire worthless human race would be extinct. Good riddance!

Suddenly, his finely honed senses detected another presence inside the dairy warehouse, and he switched off his flashlight. He was alone in an ominous, black sea. He scanned the immense area with his destroyer sensory powers; for some curious reason, it appeared as if the darkness to his left was blacker than the rest of the warehouse. His night vision failed to penetrate it.