Chapter Eighteen
Mark
I kill the headlights and sit in the stillness, breath fogging the windshield.
The box rests in the passenger seat like a slumbering predator, which, for now, is exactly what it is.
For a moment, I just sit and feel this ancient fossil of power and hunger, a femur from the greatest predator to ever walk the Earth.
As it pulses in my mind, I lick the dried blood from my lips absently.
One guard dead. One bitten and partially eaten.
No one saw my face; no one could. I wasn’t wearing a human one, after all.
I grab the box and ease out of the car. My shirt absorbed some of the blood from the night’s activities, where it still crusts my forearms and face. My jeans are smeared with the stuff, too. I’ll burn them later. With luck, one guard will turn within a few hours.
Spreading my seed, so to speak.
Inside my house, the air is empty with silence.
I move past the entryway, cross through the kitchen, and head down the narrow hallway toward the back rooms. Once in my work room, I set the box down on my desk, then double back to my living room and reach for the remote control; after all, I can smell her.
Yes, the female. God, my senses are crackling these days. Who knew raptors could sniff like a bloodhound?
My security system’s interface flickers onto the TV screen. I’ve been running it on a closed loop. I queue up the night’s footage, skimming through each room in fast-forward, scanning for the movement my phone app flagged earlier.
There. Living room: 1:03 AM.
I slow it down. First, a flicker in the space by the bookcases. A pulse of static electricity, then a small flash. Then pop, a person is standing there as if through magic. Literally appearing out of thin air. A little man, in fact. Not a man. A woman in disguise.
She moves cautiously, precisely. Her hand hovers next to my sacred book. Then she grabs it.
The book of books. My book. She clutches it like it’s burning her fingers, then vanishes again. Gone. I stare at the empty screen.
She was short. Athletic-looking. Dark-haired. Clearly calm under pressure.
I know that face, despite the stupid mustache. It was the woman who’d been here earlier, a week or so ago. The woman claiming to be some kind of private investigator. Samantha Moon, if I recall.
I blink, then chuckle softly to myself. It’s always the short, weird ones.
Twenty minutes later, she reappears in my living room, where she returns my book.
Next, I back out of the feed and pull up a browser window.
It doesn’t take much effort to find her.
I’ve already run a light trace; after all, she’d literally left me her calling card.
She’s a legitimate PI, complete with a valid license, easy enough to look up.
Office in Fullerton. Known for weird cases, according to her website and Yelp reviews.
Most importantly, she had no aura.
I learned to see them as a little boy, taught to me by my filthy grandfather who should have been rotting in jail but had the money to buy his freedom. He taught me to see the colors that surround every living body. Some flicker. Some burn. Some pulse black.
Some have nothing at all.
Blank. Which meant, according to Grandfather, they were immortal, of some kind or another. A vampire, most likely. Something old, surely. Something locked out of heaven.
That makes all this so very interesting, though not yet dangerous.
And wow, she can appear and disappear. Teleportation, perhaps. A rare gift for her kind, if she was a vampire. Non-existent for any other shifter. I certainly couldn’t do that, and neither could my crazy family, though I’d certainly heard rumors that the rare vampire could.
Whoever she is, yes, she’s powerful, but she can’t stop me. Nothing can stop me!
Let the immortal PI try to open my family’s spellbook.
It’s cursed six ways to Sunday. She’ll hear demonic screaming for weeks, and if she tries to use one of the spells, she’s in for a rude awakening; that is, if she even awakens; after all, only my bloodline can unlock the power of the spells. The Nimrod Line. The Elizur family.
I run a hand along the surface of the T-Rex bone, where I’ve placed it on a silk cloth in the center of my desk. Its weight is almost too much for the desk top, which sags beneath it.
The spell requires only a segment of that which once ruled the Earth. This is more than a segment. Should be plenty to complete the spell.
I prep the reagents: black mercury, fire-ash, powdered garnet stone, bone oil, and two drops of my own blood. Once prepped, I arrange the items around the femur, then draw the living sigil in salt and squid ink across the tile floor beneath the desk.
The ancient symbol gleams with potential. Almost there...
I step back, exhaling slowly. Tomorrow night, I complete the rite. It needs a full day to cure, to take hold, so to speak. Black magic can never be rushed. The dark entities must find me again and move through me again, binding the spell to every cell in my body.
Years ago, I stood before my family and the council and performed the complicated ritual to summon demons, a ritual that included me sacrificing a small animal, a ritual that signaled I was ready to take the next step, as my bloodline demands.
If I want access to the trust fund—and I really, really do—I must continue what they started.
.. and that is to create more monsters to feast upon mankind. Upon god’s worthless creations.
Billions of dollars are waiting for me.
Tomorrow, I will become what I always wanted to be, perhaps more than I wanted the money.
The raptor had only been a tester. It was not my true destiny.
I was not locked into the beast, as awesome as it was.
Not unless I went through a full moon transformation, which I hadn’t yet.
No my shifting had been done willingly. No, the raptor was chosen because of convenience.
A new exhibit at Craig Park had brought to me the perfect opportunity.
Once I saw its success, I could upgrade.
Interestingly, both creatures would be available to me.
I only needed to see the creature I wanted to turn into within the single flame.
Raptor? Or T-Rex? The choice was mine. Certainly both would have its uses.
Take tonight. A raptor on a killing spree could break into anywhere at anytime.
.. and go where a giant T-Rex never could.
The possibilities were endless, and so very exciting!
But first, I need to deal with that little thief.
I return upstairs, shrug into a clean shirt, and make myself a protein shake.
I sip slowly, staring out the kitchen window to the darkened street beyond.
It would be easy to wait. To let her snoop a little more. To let her get in close... then pounce.
But no. This needs to be finished.
She touched what is mine, that which is sacred to my family. Does she have any idea how long that book had been on this planet, and its pedigree of owners? She needs to understand there is a price to pay for meddling.
I set the empty glass in the sink. I’ll hunt her down in the morning. Her place of work, perhaps. Let her think she’s safe for now, then I’ll show her what it means to meet a real predator.