The mummified giant’s eyes opened as blood filled its mouth.
***
Colonel Mark Kenslir was unsure how to break this to Josie. He’d been able to stall for several minutes, putting Janie Winters in the back of his SUV, and making sure the unconscious woman was comfortable. But he could feel the glare coming from Josie as she watched him.
“Well?”
“I have agents on the way—they’ll take your mother into protective custody,” Kenslir said, turning to face Josie. Across the street, Agent Keegan and Victor were finishing up with the crime scene techs and local police.
“You know what I mean. Why did my mother call you Robert?”
Kenslir didn’t want to lie to the girl. She was too smart for that.
“That was my father’s name,” Josie continued. She was standing there, watching Kenslir, arms folded across her chest. “Why would she call you that? Why would she faint? Do you know my mother?”
“No, I have never met her before.”
“Then what was that all about?”
Kenslir noticed the air coming from Josie’s mouth was visible—frosted as though it were winter.
“It’s complicated.”
“Well, uncomplicate it for me,” Josie insisted.
“Get in the truck,” Kenslir said.
“No. I’m not going anywhere until you explain this. Something isn’t right.”
“Get in the truck,” Kenslir insisted, then dropped his voice to a whisper. “This is classified.”
“You tell me right now!” Josie said, her voice loud. Victor looked over from across the street wondering if everything was okay.
Kenslir stepped around so his back was to the postcog and Victor couldn’t see Josie. “Your father was my clone.”
“Your what?”
“My clone,” Kenslir said. He momentarily wondered if lying would have sounded more plausible.
“My father was born in 1964—they didn’t have cloning technology back then.”
“We did,” Kenslir said.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Look, I just learned about this last week, myself,” Kenslir said. He was still angry about that. “Apparently, there was an attempt to clone me after my accident. They wanted to make more soldiers with my abilities.”
“My father was a firefighter, not a superhero.”
“It didn’t work. He didn’t have any special abilities at birth, so he was put in foster care, and eventually adopted.”
Josie considered this for a moment, then an idea struck her. She climbed into the back of the SUV and pulled a small locket off her mother’s neck. She climbed back out of the SUV and held the locket up for Kenslir to see.
“My mother has worn this locket since the day I was born,” Josie said.
Josie opened the locket and looked at the picture inside. “I’ll be damned.”
Janie Winters and her newborn baby were there, in a tiny black and white photo in the locket, the baby being held by its proud father, Robert Winters. The clone of Mark Kenslir. They were nearly identical.
It all made sense now. When she had met first met Mark Kenslir, he had seemed so familiar. She felt safe around him. Now she knew why—because he reminded her of a father she hadn’t seen since she was two years old.
“This is ridiculous,” Josie said, snapping the locket shut. “You just happened to find me?”
“You found me,” Kenslir corrected. “In the desert. Dead. Remember?”
“How is that possible?” Josie shook the locket at Kenslir. “How is this possible?”
“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Kenslir answered, shrugging.
“So, what, you’re my uncle?”
“Genetically speaking, it’d be more like your grandfather. Robert was grown from the egg of a donor, with all of her genetic traits made recessive, and all of mine-”
Josie suddenly winced, then doubled over, dropping the locket and grabbing at her temples. Kenslir quickly grabbed the girl’s arm, to keep her from hitting the pavement.
Victor and Keegan had noticed the commotion. They rushed across the street, watching Josie with concern.
“What’s wrong with your partner?” Keegan asked.
Josie slowly recovered, shaking off Kenslir’s help. “I’m fine.”
Keegan looked at Kenslir then at Josie, who was clearly mad about something. “You two need some time alone?”
“No,” Josie said. She turned to Kenslir. “It’s working.”
“What’s working?” Keegan asked.
Kenslir ignored Keegan. “Which way?”
Josie pointed Northwest. “There. But I can’t be sure how far.”
Victor put a hand out to steady Josie, touching her shoulder lightly. He recoiled from the touch, his face showing great surprise.
“She knows where he is!”
“Who?” Keegan demanded. “She knows where who is? Somebody tell me what the hell is going on!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
His name was Tezcahtlip, and he was a giant among men. Standing over five cubits tall, the giant with red hair was a terror among mortal men, towering over them. In combat, no mortal man could defeat him—not with obsidian blades or even great spears tipped with bronze.
Unfortunately for Tezcahtlip, he was not a giant among giants.
At just over five cubits tall, Tezcahtlip was small for a giant. Most of his brethren were eight cubits high. Or larger. They bullied Tezcahtlip and treated him like a child, or worse, a woman.
Tezcahtlip blamed his brother. His twin brother, Ketzkahtel. Tezcahtlip firmly believed sharing their mother’s womb had robbed him of the chance to be born larger and more powerful.
Tezcahtlip hated Ketzkahtel, and tormented him daily. But the two giants had only each other. They stayed together, living in the human slave village of their mother. Until the day they made their startling discovery. The day they killed their father.
The first giants had been the offspring of the Creator’s children, the Fallen, and human women. These giants then went on to take humans as brides as well, or to breed with female giants. But occasionally, one of the Fallen returned to the land and took a human as their bride once more.
The twins’ father returned. The brothers watched as their father assumed the shape of a human, attempting to seduce one of their sisters. The Fallen were exceedingly wicked like that.
Tezcahtlip and Ketzkahtel had lived amongst the human slaves their whole lives, shunned as they were by the other giants. In the human village, they lived like kings, with no responsibilities, and as much food and as many women as they desired.
When the brothers saw their Fallen father among them, reduced to the form of a human, they decided to attack, even though they knew that no giant would have dared try something like this. The Fallen were not to be trifled with.
Hiding outside their half-sister’s hut, the brothers waited until their father was unprepared to defend himself. Bursting through a mudwall, the brothers set upon their father, smashing into him with clubs studded with obsidian shards. They savagely beat the human body, rending off strips of flesh and shattering bones.
As their father shed his mortal form, changing into a creature more adept at killing giants, the brothers pressed their attack. They tore into the dragon form with their teeth and hands. They tore strips of flesh from it and drank its blood while it was still living.
Perhaps their Fallen father was weakened by the sneak attack. Perhaps the brothers, working together, were more powerful than they had imagined. For whatever reason, they succeeded in killing the Fallen. Something no giant had ever succeeded in doing.
To celebrate, the brothers consumed the body of the dragon their father had turned into before his death. They drank its blood, chewed its flesh and sucked the marrow from its bones. Finally, they split its heart and shared it as well.
From that moment on, the brothers Tezcahtlip and Ketzkahtel were never the same. Devouring the flesh and blood and heart o
f their father gave them power. Great power. They hungered for more.
First, the brothers consumed the village populated by their half brothers and sisters, their cousins and all the other humans that had ever shown them even the slightest measure of kindness. They ate them whole.
And they discovered something.
Every mortal they consumed filled them with more than meat. They gained memories from their prey. And strength. Even more surprising, they gained the ability to transform their bodies—to make themselves twins of those they had consumed.
The brothers conspired. If they could make themselves stronger by consuming humans, how strong would they be if they consumed other creatures?
They journeyed out into the wilderness, searching out the most terrifying of beasts—those that even the giants were reluctant to fight alone. Their first kill was a dragon. A true dragon, hatched from an egg, and not one of the Fallen wearing the form of a dragon.
Ketzkahtel claimed the beast’s heart for himself. With it came the dragon’s power and form.
After several more creatures fell before them and filled their stomachs with meat and their bodies with power, the brothers decided it was time to fight the giants that had mocked them and treated them so cruelly. They ambushed and killed three separate giants in one day.
Despite being drunk with the power taken from their giant brethren, Ketzkahtel expressed a desire to head east. He reasoned with Tezcahtlip, suggesting that even with their new abilities, they were still outnumbered. If the other giants rose in number against them, they would fall, just as the dragon had fallen at their hands.
Tezcahtlip mocked his smaller brother, calling him a coward. Ketzkahtel responded angrily, but would not raise his hand against his brother. Instead, he transformed into a dragon and flew away, to the east, and the island nations of humans in the great sea.
Tezcahtlip was left alone in the marshes of the wilderness. He vowed to rule over all the giants in the land, consuming them one by one.
Three weeks later, Tezcahtlip found himself surrounded by his giant brethren.
The shapechanging giant fought with the stolen strength of a dozen giants, scores of humans and even more animals. But it was not enough. Spears driven by massive arms pierced his body repeatedly. Even able to heal his wounds with his supernatural power, Tezcahtlip could not prevail.
The outnumbered giant shapeshifter was eventually defeated.
Awakening in the vault he had been buried in was a surprise to Tezcahtlip. He was awakened by the blood and lifeforce of a human, fed to him as he lay rotting slowly in his stone crypt.
Tezcahtlip mustered what little strength he could and reformed his jaws. He ground the heart in his mouth to pulp. Another was gently pushed into his mouth as his lips and tongue slowly regenerated from their desiccated state.
Tezcahtlip’s flesh began to fill out slowly as he chewed another heart. His eyes swelled in their sockets, slowly coming into focus. He saw an unearthly light in his burial chamber, saw the ceiling made of massive beams overhead. Then he saw his brother standing over him.
“Eat,” Ketzkahtel said, feeding Tezcahtlip another heart. The giant sat up in his sarcophagus, taking the heart from his brother and shoving it into his mouth. His limbs were growing stronger now-, his muscles bulging and swelling back to their former glory. His red hair, dried from the millennia in the tomb, was brightening.
Tezcahtlip looked at the pile of bodies beside his sarcophagus, their hearts ripped out. He recognized the chamber he was in as a burial chamber originally intended for a giant king, but turned instead into his eternal prison.
Tezcahtlip laughed and accepted another heart from his brother. Perhaps he would be a king yet.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Josie Winters didn’t know what to say. But she knew she had better come up with something fast. Her mother was starting to wake up.
Josie, Colonel Kenslir, Janie Winters and two men in black suits were in a small lounge-like office in a hangar at Luke Air Force Base. Her mom was laying on a couch, while Kenslir and Josie watched her from some chairs.
“I can’t lie to her,” Josie said, looking over at Colonel Kenslir, her face showing her panic.
“I’ll do the talking.”
Janie Winters finally awoke, he eyes opening slowly. She sat up, rubbing her temples, then looked over at Josie. Then at the man sitting beside her.
Robert. Her husband, Robert Winters. He looked just like him. Almost.
“Mrs. Winters?” Kenslir said. “Are you alright?”
“Who are you?” Janie could see the differences now. The stranger with her daughter was bigger—taller and filled out with muscles like a steroided wrestler. He had an out of date flattop. His eyes were a weird black-green. And his nose wasn’t broken. Robert had a broken nose, from playing football in college.
Kenslir extended his hand. “Colonel Mark Kenslir, United States Army.”
Janie Winters looked at the hand but wouldn’t touch it. She looked over at Josie, who avoided her mother’s stare by looking at the floor.
“What’s going on here? Why is my daughter dressed like this? Where are we?”
Kenslir withdrew his hand and smiled, trying to be pleasant. “You’re going to go into protective custody. Your daughter is assisting us in an investigation and her outfit is so she’ll blend in. We’re at Luke Air Force Base.”
Josie looked up, at Kenslir. “Protective custody?”
“Yes, the murderer who killed the Kanes may come after your mother next. To ensure her safety, we’re going to move her to a remote location until he can be apprehended.”
“Why do you look like my dead husband?”
Kenslir smiled again. It just didn’t seem natural to Josie. “I understand your husband was adopted? Well, I come from a large family. I had six older brothers and two sisters. My father also had six older brothers, and I have more cousins than I could name. I’d wager that your husband and I share a common ancestor.”
Josie looked back down at the floor again, ashamed. The Colonel wasn’t technically lying, but it just wasn’t right. She understood why they couldn’t tell her mother, but it bothered her.
Janie Winters narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Why’d you track my daughter down?”
“I didn’t. It was random coincidence that we met.”
Janie Winters folded her arms over her chest and leaned in, giving Kenslir a deadly glare. “You expect me to believe that? That dumb luck brought you into our lives and you just happen to look exactly like my dead husband?”
“Mom! It’s the truth!” Josie couldn’t stand this.
“Ma’am, the Lord works in mysterious ways.”
Janie sat back on the couch, looking back and forth between Kenslir and Josie. “Why is the Army looking for a killer?”
“He’s killed Army personnel.” Kenslir was impressed. Mrs. Winters had gotten over the shock at his resemblance to her husband and was asking intelligent questions.
Janie considered Kenslir carefully. As a mom, she felt she had a special gift for telling when people were lying to her—although Josie never did. Kenslir was calm, and stared right back at her. What he was saying couldn’t be true. There had to be more to this—but he sure didn’t seem to be lying.
“So now what?”
Kenslir stood up and gestured to the two men in suits by the door. “These gentlemen are going to escort you to a plane and you’re going to enjoy a very lavish vacation outside of the United States at taxpayer expense, until this is all sorted out.”
“I haven’t packed.”
“You make a list of what you want, and we’ll send someone by your house,” Kenslir said, walking to the door. “Josie, when you’re done with your mother, meet me outside. We have a helicopter waiting for us.”
***
About a half later, Josie joined the Colonel outside, on the tarmac beside a hangar. She was glad her mother was safely on her way to somewhere, and that she’d been able to keep from r
evealing too much during their private conversation. She was sure her mother now suspected her of having joined the CIA and becoming a spy.
“We good?” Kenslir asked.
He was now wearing a bulky, tan and brown combat vest, covered in pouches over his green Department of the Interior shirt. Twin Bowie knives hung from the shoulder harnesses of the vest, over his chest, handles down. On his right thigh hung an OA-93, a cut-down, pistol-like version of the M16. On his left thigh there were multiple banana-shaped magazine pouches for the weapon. Under his left arm a large semi automatic pistol was hung in a shoulder holster. Spare magazines hung under his right arm. His belt was covered in pouches, all filled with spare ammunition and equipment. He also wore a pair of dark combat goggles, pushed up on his forehead
As Josie shook her head affirmatively, Kenslir handed her a tan combat vest.
“Do I have to wear this?” Josie asked, looking at the multi-pocketed body armor. It looked incredibly hot and uncomfortable.
“Yes.”
Two black FBI SUVs drove over, pulling to a stop. The doors all opened and the occupants disembarked. Agent Keegan was still wearing her black business suit. Victor was still wearing his jeans and hooded sweat jacket. Keegan’s six companions wore heavy combat gear—bulky, black body armor, black fatigues and boots, and pistols in thigh-mounted holsters. Goggles were up on their black helmets, and they carried MP5 submachine guns.
Keegan walked over toward Kenslir, looking him up and down. “I’ve got my men, where are yours?”
Kenslir picked up a drum-fed USAS 12 auto shotgun, painted desert camouflage, from the table beside him and slung it over his shoulder. “Just me and Agent Winters.”
“Her?” Keegan asked, watching Josie slipping on her armored vest over the green Department of the Interior polo shirt. Keegan didn’t think much of the very young, very skinny girl.
“She’ll be fine,” Kenslir said. He looked over at the FBI capture team all in black, noting the handcuffs, flex cuffs and taser pistols on their vests. “At least she had the sense to wear the right color. And your guys are packing a little light, aren’t they?”
Brothers in Stone (Stone Soldiers #2) Page 6
