Brothers in Stone (Stone Soldiers #2)

by Martin, C. E.

  ***

  They had moved some distance, walking through the cold water. Keegan was shivering now, and was pressed up tight against Josie’s side, clutching her arm. Josie was glad she had on her bodysuit—for the warmth and so she wouldn’t feel Keegan’s skin against hers.

  “We’ve got to be close,” Keegan said. Her teeth almost clattered as she talked.

  “I think it’s just a little farther,” Josie said. “Hang in there.”

  ***

  Atlas, Victor and Jimmy were crouched by the door to the stairs leading up to the roof. They couldn’t hear anything, probably due to the noise coming from all the heating and cooling vents and fans on the twentieth floor.

  “Why isn’t he coming in?” Jimmy asked. He was ready to try out his new body on the shapeshifter that killed his parents.

  “He’s got the high ground,” Atlas said, clutching his axe. “He has the tactical advantage.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Victor asked. “There’s three of us! Didn’t the Colonel kill that thing once before—by himself?”

  Atlas and Jimmy exchanged quick glances. Despite their stone bodies, each was remembering how the shapeshifter had already killed them once before as well.

  ***

  Mark Kenslir crept along the corridor leading to the Fountain Chamber. He held a military tomahawk in each hand, ready to chop the shapeshifter into as many tiny pieces as it took to finally kill it.

  He wished he had one more stone soldier as his back up. He hoped Atlas and the boys were enough to settle things with the dragon.

  Kenslir slipped quietly around the door, careful not to make a sound. He immediately saw the many dead bodies, their stomachs and chests ripped open. Then he saw Medusa fall to the floor, dead, her heart ripped out.

  Standing with his back to the door, the hairy Tezcahtlip was eating something.

  Kenslir reared back his right arm, twisting the tomahawk around so the blade was backwards. Then he threw the tomahawk with all his might.

  The weapon spun end over end through the air, silently, before burying the long spike behind the blade into the back of Tezcahtlip’s head.

  The giant stopped his chewing when the weapon struck him. He felt the metal spike, meant for punching through helmets, pierce his skull and rupture his brain. For a brief moment, he was dumbfounded. He dropped the partially-consumed gorgon heart.

  Tezcahtlip’s brain swelled back together, around the tomahawk’s spike. He calmly reached up behind him and pulled the weapon free from the back of his head then turned around.

  Antaean. It had to be him. Large, bulging with muscles, and with green-black eyes. Just as his brother had described the annoying human.

  And he had just thrown another tomahawk.

  As fast as he was, Tezcahtlip was not fast enough. The weapon spun end over end, moving at well over a hundred miles per hour across the chamber. It slammed into the giant’s chest, the long metal spike splintering a rib then puncturing his left ventricle. The pain was excruciating.

  Tezcahtlip dropped to his knees, gasping.

  Kenslir followed up by drawing both .45 caliber M1911 pistols from his belt holsters. He fired the weapons, first one, then the other, alternating his fire, sending a volley of slugs into Tezcahtlip’s face. Lead shattered the giant’s nose, his lips, his teeth and popped both his eyeballs.

  The giant felt two bullets dance around inside his skull, liquefying his brains as they fragmented into slivers of lead. The giant fell over onto his side.

  Kenslir quickly ejected his spent magazines then reloaded each pistol and reholstered them. He crossed the Fountain Chamber slowly, cautiously, circling the Fountain.

  When he reached the giant, Kenslir prodded the shapeshifter’s body with one boot, pushing against its shoulder.

  Tezcahtlip’s eyes sprang open and the giant attacked. His hand snatched out and grabbed Kenslir by the ankle and pulled the Colonel off his feet. As Kenslir fell, the shapeshifter was on him, crawling up Kenslir and chopping at him savagely with the tomahawk he’d pulled from the back of his head.

  The black steel blade of the weapon punched into Kenslir, cracking his bones and cutting deep gashes in his skin and muscles. His shirt was cut in multiple places as the giant struck him again and again.

  He ignored the pain and sat up, driving his forehead into the giant’s nose. Bone splintered and blood flew out as Tezcahtlip’s nose was crushed flat and his cheekbones splintered. The pain was unbelievable and the giant leapt backwards, off Kenslir.

  The Colonel leapt to his feet, his wounds already healing under his slashed shirt. Tezcahtlip too was regenerating his face.

  Kenslir lunged forward, snapping out his right foot and catching Tezcahtlip in the sternum. The blow exploded the giant’s ribcage, sending shards of bone into his heart. Again, the pain was so terrific the giant nearly fainted.

  Kenslir spun in place, rotating clockwise and ducking as Tezcahtlip clumsily tried to grab him with both hands. Kenslir ducked beneath both six fingered hands and snapped out his right arm. The back of his fist smashed into the giant’s side, directly over his right kidney. The organ burst inside the giant’s body.

  Amidst the agonizing pain, Tezcahtlip suddenly remembered his brother’s warning—not to engage this Antaean person in hand-to-hand combat. Tezcahtlip had laughed at the warning, sure that no human, no matter how strong he was, could overcome a giant.

  But Ketzkahtel was right. In the thousands and thousands of years the giants had lain asleep in their crypts, the humans had mastered unarmed fighting. The man called Antaean was such a master. And he was possibly stronger than a giant, and able to heal any injury. No giant was a match for him.

  Kenslir followed up his hammer blow to the shapeshifter’s kidney with an open-handed palm strike to the giant’s throat with his left hand. The blow was strong enough to shatter the vertebrae in the back of the giant’s neck—after crushing his larynx and windpipe. Without his shapeshifting powers, the blow would have killed Tezcahtlip.

  Kenslir squeezed his hand with vice-like force and jerked backwards, tearing out a handful of flesh. But Tezcahtlip was transforming again. The gaping wound in his neck, deep enough that bone showed, was only open for a split second. Then it swelled shut, filling with flesh and orange-brown fur.

  The giant had turned into his massive sabertooth form again.

  Kenslir had fought tiger’s before—in Southeast Asia. On his many missions into the deep jungle to rescue American POWs, he had come across the beasts several times. Despite their massive size, their vicious claws and powerful jaws, the cats had been no match for the then-Major. He had regretfully killed them all with his bare hands.

  But the tigers of Southeast Asia were only around four hundred pounds in weight. And only slightly larger than Mark Kenslir. The Colonel knew that the largest tiger on record had barely topped eight hundred pounds, and had been about eleven feet in length.

  The sabertooth now facing him was larger. Far larger. It stood nearly six feet tall at the shoulders—if it had been down on all fours. Instead, the shapeshifter was reared up, on his hind legs, putting him well over twelve feet tall. His limbs and body were thicker than any cat. Kenslir guessed him to be almost two thousand pounds in weight, near the record for a polar bear.

  Kenslir would have been worried. Except that he’d killed polar bears with just his hands as well. This was just another big pussycat, and he’d kill it too.

  The sabertooth slammed down on top of Kenslir, front paws sinking three-inch claws deep into his flesh. The gaping jaw of the creature snapped down on his head, the foot-long fangs scraping along the back of his head. His chin was laying on the creature’s tongue.

  Inside the sabertooth’s mouth, Kenslir smiled. He had the beast now.

  The Colonel flattened his hands and drove them into either side of the beast, behind its front legs. His fingertips pushed through fur, hide and muscle, jamming between and spreading gigantic ribs apart. He plunged his arms dee
p into the beast’s sides, to the elbows. His fingertips speared into the shapeshifter’s feline lungs.

  The sabertooth abruptly let go of Kenslir’s head, trying to rear back. The pain in its sides was unbearable.

  But the shapeshifter couldn’t back away. Kenslir was reaching deep inside it, his arms between the sabertooth’s ribs, his hands squeezing and crushing the beast’s lungs.

  Kenslir tucked his feet up under the sabertooth’s body and pushed while simultaneously pulling his arms free. The huge cat was flung, ragdoll-like through the air, twisting and contorting before landing heavily on its back.

  Kenslir leapt to his feet then threw down the two lungs he held in each hand.

  The last time Tezcahtlip had felt pain like this was right before he’d been killed millennia ago by the other giants. They too had torn out his internal organs, while he was still alive, then bound him in chains as he lost consciousness. It had been an excruciatingly painful death.

  The shapeshifter quickly shrank back to his hairy giant form, regenerating his lungs. He rolled onto his feet and stood, shakily. He was glad he and his brother had eaten all those humans on the busses between Louisiana and Florida. He was going to need all those lifeforces.

  Kenslir appeared unharmed. The deep cuts in the back of his head had already closed up and healed. The punctures in his chest were gray splotches even now turning back to flesh. He appeared unharmed, and rested.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” the Colonel taunted.

  If he hadn’t been fathered by a demon, Tezcahtlip would surely think the human-like being before him was one. He suspected a demon would be no match for the man called Antaean either. Tezcahtlip knew he had only one option at this point. He needed to run.

  The giant sprang to his left, diving for the body of Medusa, where it lay by the pool.

  Kenslir leapt toward the giant, pouncing on the shapeshifter’s back just as Tezcahtlip pushed the dead gorgon into the water.

  The Colonel wrapped his hands around the shapeshifter’s head, gripping him under the chin. He tucked his knees in, placing them between the giant’s shoulder blades. He began to pull.

  Tezcahtlip panicked. His spine was breaking under the inhuman strength of his green-eyed foe. He could literally hear his spine cracking and feel ligaments tearing. The pain was blinding.

  Tezcahtlip immediately transformed again, this time shrinking into the form of Dr. Parker.

  Kenslir’s hands slipped off the slender jaw of the woman now coated in a sheen of perspiration. The Colonel had been pulling so hard, he fell backwards with the sudden release of his grip.

  Tezcahtlip rolled onto his back and leapt to his feet. He hoped the Colonel would hesitate, as so many humans did, at the site of a naked, helpless woman before him.

  The hope was short lived.

  A Bowie knife streaked through the air, puncturing Tezcahtlip’s left breast, splitting his ribs and puncturing his heart. The knife buried itself to the hilt, the tip of the blade cracking ribs in the shapeshifter’s back.

  The shapeshifter was paralyzed with pain.

  Suddenly, the pain vanished as the knife was pulled free. Tezcahtlip heard a hissing and looked to his left as his healing powers knitted his flesh and bones back together.

  Medusa had arisen from the pool and was once more in her grotesque, cursed form. She had pulled the knife from Tezcahtlip’s chest, possibly in some kind of sisterly act. The gorgon’s eyes glowed bright yellow as she hissed at Kenslir, holding his huge Bowie knife in one hand like a small sword.

  Kenslir now glowed bright green, particularly around his face. But he remained unchanged. He could not be petrified. Tezcahtlip had known that, but the gorgon didn’t. She was astonished.

  And it was time for Tezcahtlip to leave.

  The giant turned and sprinted around the Fountain, dropping to all fours and turning back into his sabertooth form once more. Behind him, he could hear Kenslir charging at Medusa.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Finally, the women had reached the dock. Somehow, the water seemed a little warmer here. The dock, like the tunnel, was in pitch blackness. They hugged the wall, heading toward where they remembered the ladder to be.

  A great crashing sound came from the deck area. The sound of something hitting and bending metal. Josie quickly doused the light on her phone and froze. Keegan managed to somehow press up against her more.

  Light spilled onto the dock as the double metal security doors leading into Argon Tower were torn off their hinges. The doors clanged onto the deck, pushed out of their frame by the huge form of the sabertooth.

  Keegan gasped.

  Thankfully, the cat didn’t hear this, and bounded out, onto the dock. It ran to the edge and leaped, changing into the red-haired, furry giant Tezcahtlip just before splashing into the water.

  Josie and Keegan pressed back against the rock wall of the dock. The rough hewn rock scraped at Keegan’s bare buttocks painfully.

  Josie moved to the left, trying to slide along the wall as the giant reached the doors leading to the canal lock. He began beating his huge six-fingered fists against the metal, creating loud booms as the metal began to deform.

  “Where are we going?” Keegan hissed, moving around in front of Josie. She couldn’t take the rock grinding against her backside for one more step. She hoped she wouldn’t end up with unsightly scars on her posterior.

  “We’ve got to get to the dock,” Josie whispered. She didn’t like Keegan’s naked rear pressed up against her. “Stop putting your butt on me!”

  Keegan turned around, and now pressed her ample chest against Josie. Her forehead was barely to Josie’s chin. “Shh! He’ll hear us!”

  The giant didn’t hear them, though. He continued to beat on the doors. They were emitting creaks and high pitched shrieks now as the metal started to split under the constant hammering.

  They finally reached the ladder to the dock. Keegan turned around and climbed up quickly. Josie had to wait longer than she wanted to avoid having Keegan’s thong in her face. Then she too scampered up onto the dock.

  Keegan was crouched low, walking sideways, towards the doors and the light spilling into the dock, watching the giant, who’s hairy back was to them. Josie started to follow her, then stopped.

  “C’mon!” Keegan mouthed, waving frantically for Josie.

  “No,” Josie said. Then she stood up straight. “He’ll get away.” She walked toward the edge of the dock, passing into the light coming from the doorway.

  Tezcahtlip paused when shadows flickered in the light spilling into the cavern. He turned around and saw the women on the raised deck area.

  Keegan was terrified. The giant was massive, the water barely topping his knees. Even with the thick fur covering his body, Keegan could see inhuman muscles that stood out like thick ropes under skin covered with coppery hair. His fists were dripping blood—battered from the pummeling he had unleashed on the doors to the canal.

  Tezcahtlip was baffled. There were two human women on the dock. One was very small, and appeared to be naked. The other was taller, thinner, and wearing some kind of black bodysuit. She was standing at the edge of the dock watching him.

  Tezcahtlip frowned. Was this the best the humans could offer? A naked woman and a skinny girl? He would rip out their hearts and take what little energy their tiny bodies offered. He should have just enough time for that while Antaean fought Medusa.

  The giant began to walk forward. Then stopped.

  All around him, the water was suddenly colder. Much colder. Vapors began to rise from the water. The air was chilling now as well. Frost began to form in the thick red hair all over his body.

  Tezcahtlip wanted the women even more now—one of them clearly possessed some kind of power. Maybe he could use it against the demon-man Antaean.

  Keegan ran up beside Josie. “What are you doing? We’ve got to get out of here!”

  Josie ignored Keegan and kept concentrating on the giant. Frost was spreading ov
er his body and his footsteps were slowing as the water thickened around him. “We can’t let him get away.”

  Keegan could feel the chill in the air now as well. Once again, she wished she hadn’t worn her microkini. After this, she might just burn it.

  Tezcahtlip could no longer feel his legs and feet. Then he could no longer move them. He looked down and saw that the water around his legs had solidified. Worse, the ice forming in his body hair was thickening as it spread out. His fur was almost entirely encrusted with the thick frost.

  Tezcahtlip reached down with his left hand, about to smash at the ice. But he couldn’t feel his body at all. His arm was locking into place and he could feel the weight of ice forming all over his chest and back.

  Keegan was watching the giant, and Josie. She noticed the girl’s nose had started to bleed. That wasn’t a good sign.

  “Josie! You’ve got him!”

  Josie ignored Keegan. Her face was twisted in pain but she kept concentrating. The ice covering the giant was now almost an inch thick on his chest and his face was almost completely covered in a thin frost.

  Keegan knew the nose bleed was a bad sign. She had to stop Josie, but the girl was so concentrated. She grabbed Josie’s sleeve and tugged on it. “Josie!”

  Still, Josie continued freezing the giant. Tezcahtlip was now covered in ice, even his face. A thick shell of ice clung to him, swelled up from the water. A skin of ice lay on top of the dock’s pool, spreading out from the giant in a circle twenty feet across and spreading rapidly.

  Josie’s other nostril started to bleed. Keegan had to do something.

  The petite blonde slapped Josie in the face. Hard.

  The blow turned Josie’s head and left a hand print on her cheek. She immediately snapped out of her trance. “What the hell was that for?!”

  Keegan grabbed Josie’s arm and pulled. “We’ve got to go. Now!”

  Josie felt blood drip from her nose into her mouth. She reached up and felt the blood. “Did you do that?”