*This book may not be offered or issued for sale without the
permission of the author
***
Dedication
To Gordon L. Hill, Sr.
***
Vision
The
blind illusion of logic bent, Clarity strewn when reason went, Torqued and
bloodied thoughts adrift A truth-entangled genetic rift.
*
So, clear the head and fill the mind As past and
present are left behind, Blow the then and blast the now, History shorn in
a shattered vow.
*
Enter the beasts and demon spawn To manipulate the
naive pawn, Genetic mayhem and twisted schemes Cursed in parabnormal
dreams
*
Where prophecy rules the first is last Death reverts to
life aghast, Insanity reigns - there lies the fault, Only murd'rous mayhem
can force a halt.
*
by N. D.
Hansen-Hill
***
Prologue
The
day was split - overlain with the shuddery thunder of a heavy tread on
sedimentary soils. Soils that
were soft and non-impacted.
Soils that were still
new. He stood there, blind
and deaf to any world but this. His vision was trapped here, while his body
lingered in a world a hundred million years - maybe several hundred
million years - away. Past
experience had warned him not to move. In a place like this it could be deadly.
Because, over the aeons, so many of the land's physical features had changed.
What you see is not
always what you get... He
could only watch, paralysed by his vulnerability, as the monstrous shape came
toward him. His eyes fixed on the long, talon-like claws, the ripping teeth, the
daggerlike spine - almost like a scorpion's stinger - at the end of the tail.
The stinger was what caught and held his eye. He forced himself to focus on it,
as the creature did a series of bounding leaps in his
direction. It can't see
me, he thought, trying to bolster his confidence. But, it didn't do much to
help. Because there was a gleam in the predator's eye now, and Dustin could
swear it was aiming right for
him. The mud slapped with
each heavy step, and now, there was mud flicked in his eyes. Flicked in his eyes
and flecked on his face. Sweat on his skin and terror in his
heart. The mouth opened so
fast, he knew he'd never stand a chance. No hope to outrun it on terrain he
couldn't even see. Not
true. It's because you see too
much... It's not here!
You're not
here! But it didn't help.
He was in a world stinking of methane and sulphur, and rotting meat on
three-inch teeth. Where enormous lizards snapped jaws at man-sized
morsels. And it didn't do him
a damn bit of good to tell himself he wasn't
here. Because he'd never
tested it before. He'd learned not to move, because his own world could kill
him. But he'd never deliberately sought to place himself "somewhere
else". His existence had
never been at risk
before... I can't sit here
and be eaten... The
monster was confused by his stationary pose. It was accustomed to having its
prey flee, squealing. At the very least, it was expecting some evasive
manoeuvre: head bobbing, counterattack, dodges - something any prey with a gram
of intelligence would
do. And, suddenly, it was no
good. "I need out!" he hissed urgently.
"Josh!" It was the
panicky squawk the creature had been waiting for. The eyes widened, and in that
second, Dustin knew it was going to strike. The jaws snapped once, and he wasn't
imagining the saliva. As the head lunged forward in a snake-like strike, he dove
to one side. But the tail
moved even faster. This time,
when the man's mouth opened, it wasn't with shrieks of terror - it was with an
even shriller howl of pain.
***
Chapter
One
"Dusty!"
Someone was shaking him roughly.
Josh.
"Can you hear me?" "Yes, I
can hear you," Dustin replied mechanically. He waved a hand in front of his
face. "His breath was better -" He squinted his eyes open, peering at his
surroundings. Dried, reddish soil. Bright blue - not the sullen overcast of
dinoland. There was a note
of tension in Josh's voice. "Did you see
one?" Dustin wiped his face.
"Could be-e..." He dragged it out, but Josh's sigh made him snigger. Put him
out of his misery. "Nasty things, those Drepanosauruses -" He left it
hanging, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Sweat, and something
else. A gritty something, that stunk of sour
soils. Josh's hand gripped
his shoulder so hard it hurt. "You saw one?!" He twisted him so Dustin
was forced to look at him. "Did it -" At this point Josh swallowed hard, his
voice barely above a whisper. "- did it have a
spine?" "Yeah -"
Dustin said, a little distractedly. He was thinking of the weight behind the
impact. The force of the blow that had left him
stunned. Or stung...
There was a tingle of pain in his leg - like the nerve-jabbing sting of a cold
sore. No way. That's
impossible, he thought, trying to calm the lurch of panic that sent his
heart racing again. I'm an observer. Only an observer. The pounding of his heart
was suddenly matched by a throbbing pulsebeat in his left leg. The throb gave
way to a searing, stabbing jab that shot down between his toes and back up to
just beneath his jaw. "Josh -" he gasped, his eyes widening. He gripped the
front of Josh's shirt with his fist. Dustin's face was white, his teeth
clenched. "Shit,
Dusty!" Josh said worriedly. Was he having a heart attack or something?!
"What's wrong?" Dustin
grimaced, but pushed himself up, so he could look at his left leg. See,
he told himself, an icy wash of relief running through him. All normal.
The relief lasted until the next agonising jolt of pain hit him.This
time, he felt it in his gut,
too. Can't be, he
thought, through chattering teeth. Only in your
imagination... He gripped
his thigh. He sensed Josh's panic, but he could hear his voice only dimly
through a fog. "M-Make it stop!" Dustin grunted, unaware that he was
saying it aloud. "Make
what stop?!" Josh almost yelled at him. "Tell me what's
wrong!" The back of
his pants leg was wet. Must be marsh mud, Dustin thought, confused. He
lifted his fingers to look. The tips were bright with
blood. "What the hell!" Josh
shrieked, hitting the panic button. He forced his voice down a notch. "W-What
have you done now?" He pushed Dusty over on his side - afraid of what he was
going to find. There was
blood soaking through Dustin's jeans. Blood leaching into the arid ground. A lot
of blood. But, it could have been worse - undoubtedly, would have been worse -
if there hadn't been a stopper in the hole.
It was so coated with blood,
that at first he couldn't figure out what it
was. "I-Is it bad?" Dustin
asked. "No," Josh lied. It
was a tooth - or, maybe, a spine.
Josh's mind rejected it.
It can't be... Reason told him he should leave it in, to help control the
bleeding. But something else - some other instinct - told him bleeding wasn't
the worst of Dusty's problems. Better to make it bleed... With a shaking
hand, he grabbed the back of the "tooth" and started to yank it back, out of the
hole. It didn't want to
come. It had gone all the way to the
bone. Josh's gorge rose.
Maybe into the bone
- "Good," Dustin was
saying, and it took Josh a moment to realise he was responding to the "No". It
bothered him that Dusty couldn't feel what he was doing.
Dusty was still talking, but
he didn't sound right. "Josh," he muttered, "feeling a little
weird..." His voice trailed
off. His bloodied hand went limp. Josh swore he could feel it, when Dusty's head
flopped down, onto the soil.
*
"What do
you mean, you 'helped him set it up'?" Ren asked him angrily. "In other words,
you set him up! You know what he's
like!" "I know," Josh
admitted. "But when he heard what I was looking for - so I'd know whether to
push for funding..." His words tapered off, a little dismally. It sounded like
he was making excuses. "You're right, Ren. He knew it, I knew it." He shook his
head, his own eyes glassy. "I didn't know it could touch him like that! Hell, he
didn't know it himself!" "It
shouldn't have," she replied, staring out the window. "It never has before." She
turned, to meet Josh's eyes. "You know how I knew, don't
you?" "The telepathy
thing?" "Don't sound so
dismissive, Mr. Clairvoyant. Of course, it was the 'telepathy thing'." She
rubbed her left leg. "I even felt it when it jabbed him," she
whispered. "Don't tell him,"
Josh warned. She shook her
head. For one who was supposedly "sensitive", Josh could be so dense. "Of course
I won't," she said
impatiently. Josh grinned. "I
get it. Because of the affection
thing." She averted her eyes.
"Ridiculous," she
grumbled. "Hey - at least
you're finally admitting you can read minds," Josh told her
annoyingly. "Hardly. Merely
sympathy pains, brought on by
-" Josh smiled, and put an
arm around her. "- your sympathy for your subject."
She nodded and wiped her
eyes with the back of her
hand. "You know, some day
Dusty will get his mind out of the past, and back into the present where it
belongs." She couldn't
believe she was hearing this from him. Her expression said as
much. "Oh, I'm not saying he
shouldn't visit the past from time to time
-" She
snorted. "- but he doesn't
like it any more than you like 'picking up vibes'. Do you realise I'm the only
one of us with appreciation for my
'gift'?" "Since nobody else
appreciates you," she said with a slight smile, "I guess you have to start
somewhere." She added, "Did you forget Dainler? He 'appreciates' his gift, too -
that's why he has a limo." Ren sounded disgusted.
At the coffee machine, she
turned Josh's way expectantly.
"F7," he
supplied. There was a flicker
of annoyance in her eyes. He
grinned. "I had one earlier," he explained, with mock innocence. "Dainler and I
aren't in the same class. He stops 'em from being buried, and I dig 'em
up." She handed him his
coffee, then punched in her own. "You know," she whispered, with a shiver, and a
glance toward the ICU. "If he doesn't feel better soon, I might give Erik a
call." "Dusty won't like
it." She looked over at him,
her own eyes moist. "Better than having to communicate through Merrie. Besides,
" she added, "if I don't, you can bet Valterzar will."
*
"Hey,
Dusty." Ren put a cool hand on his hot forehead, jerked it back, then, with
trembling fingers, put it back again. So hot. So weak. When she touched
him, she could feel the burning in his veins.
Oh, crap. It was the
signal. She'd halfway hoped it wouldn't be there, because it scared her witless.
It had only happened once before. With her sister. Maggie had fallen from a tree
and was bleeding when Ren had found her. She'd touched her and held her and
cried her eyes out, while Maggie had screamed the whole time to go get Mom. In
the end, it had been Maggie who'd had to run for Mom, and Ren who'd had the
broken arm. Ren had never
spoken of it to anybody, but something had changed that day, between her and her
sister. Maggie was two years older, and wary of a sister who could finish her
sentences. As she grew up, and began to develop that secret life that all teens
have, she'd grown as far away as she could from Ren. And, ever since that day in
the orchard, there'd been a wariness between
them. Dustin's eyes opened,
and he looked at her. "Knew it was you," he murmured. "Must be
psychic." Ren brushed a kiss
across his lips, then took his other hand in hers.
He sighed, and she knew he
was glad to have her
there. If he hadn't been so
dazed, he might have realised what she was doing. Realised how much she might be
risking. Might even have realised why she was willing to risk it.
It was a risk, too.
Josh would be furious, and feel more guilty than he did already; Dainler would
feel violated, as though she'd intruded on his turf; Valterzar would smile and
be pleased that he could add one more note to her file. And Dusty? Would he
carry the same wary flicker in his eyes that Maggie had? Because she'd intruded
far beyond his stray thoughts, and into his blood and
bone? "Kitten?" he murmured,
a trace of alarm in his voice this
time. "It's okay, Dusty," she
whispered, trying to hide the huskiness in her voice. The quaver that might give
away her fear. Because this was Dainler's gift, not hers. She'd always been
afraid to use it. At heart, Erik Dainler was about as sensitive as stone. He
could shunt away all the disease and injury because he never let it touch him.
He never got involved with his clients; never took on their pain or their aches
or their angst. She'd asked him about it once, wanting to know how he could heal
without identifying with his clients' pain. Erik hadn't always been this cold or
distant, so he'd somehow developed this shell; this insouciance. She'd wanted to
know how - needed to know how - because it was a way of protecting herself, in
case anyone got too
close. Like
now. A flicker of
awareness told her Valterzar was getting impatient with the delays. They were
only allowing them in one at a time, and he wanted to "assess" the situation
himself. It was more than that, though. Josh was going nuts out in the waiting
room, which made Valterzar irritable. Josh was blaming himself for this, but he
couldn't produce the spine the doctors had asked for. Because they would never
understand how a spine, that should have been buried for a hundred million years
- that should have become stone long since - could carry fresh toxin. How it
could contain living cells. And antagonistic proteins.
Shit! Kithren
didn't wait any longer. Dustin was unconscious again, and his skin looked waxy.
His breath came in uneven
shudders. "Love you," she
whispered, close against his ear - relieved that he'd never know how she
felt. A thing can be
over-analysed. She ought to know. Science was her
business. Ren closed her
eyes, tightened her grip on his hand, and let his feelings come.
*
The scream
of the monitor brought Josh to his feet. "Oh, shit!" he gasped, wiping
his eyes roughly with his hand. He and Valterzar raced down the hall. They ran
into the IC unit just in time to hear the nurse shout angrily, "What the hell
are you doing?!" It did,
indeed, look like mayhem. Ren was leaning against the bed, one hand tangled in
the cords, wires, and tubing running from Dustin's body. She'd triggered the
alarm, and in that moment, Josh knew she wasn't even aware of doing it.
Awkwardly - too sensitive in her current state to tune out the nurse's
frustration - her hand fluttered to free itself of the
paraphernalia. "Ren!"
Josh yelled. He sensed she was wide open, like a raw wound. Defenceless.
It didn't take much to figure out what she'd done for Dusty. Josh remembered
kidding her about being "too sensitive for her own good". His words came back to
haunt him now, as she turned to look at him. The pain in her eyes made him suck
in a quick breath. Ren,
though, suddenly wasn't breathing at all. She gasped, and there was only a
quick, occluded whine. Her hand went to her throat, and she stumbled away from
the bed. Even now, she didn't want Dustin to see...didn't want him to
know... Fuck it, Ren!
Why? Josh reached for
her, but Valterzar was quicker. He caught her as her knees folded and stretched
her out on the ground. He checked her airway then bellowed, "Get me a trach
kit!" to the nurse. "STAT!" Then he tossed Josh his phone. His teeth
were almost gritted as he ordered, "Punch four. Tell Dainler that if he doesn't
get here soon, the first person he'll have to heal will be himself."
