Paleo

by Yvonne Navarro

  Well, something had moved into that space.

  We will go to the school, Kevin.

  It was a . . . presence in his mind, constant and inescapable, a shadow that had blasted through the dubious and far-too-fragile barrier of his skin, blood and bone on some kind of sub-DNA level. And it had happened so damned fast—or at least it seemed that way. Trying to look back on it, Kevin knew that realistically time had flowed at a normal, logical pace, the same way it always did in the everyday world. He was the one who had lost his grip on reality and his position in the universe, and while that hold might have started to decline with Daniel’s first suggestion about using Nuriel’s incantation on Wednesday evening, things hadn’t really gone into full slip-and-slide mode until he and Daniel had revitalized the three Tyrannosaurus Rex eggs yesterday.

  What were the clichés? The blink of an eye, the turning of a key . . . or the millisecond that it took for one person to make a life-altering decision. That single, stupidly blurted sentence of his to Daniel—

  “I have more eggs.”

  —had changed everything.

  Where had it gone wrong, really wrong? Beyond the fact that Daniel had gotten involved with something unnatural and incomprehensible, where had he hit the point of no return, that oh-so-critical instant? Kevin thought he had to be the one to take the credit for that, with those damned eggs of his. A second, stunning success with the incantation, and then . . .

  Disaster.

  There was no other word for it. Three beautiful, healthy T. Rex hatchlings, safely contained within the metal cage that Daniel had carefully set up—a cage that became immediately too small and far too weak as they watched, hour by hour, the infant dinosaurs grow at an abnormal and terrifying rate. And Daniel hadn’t helped matters by feeding the babies a constant diet of white mice. Thinking back on it, Kevin thought he could recall seeing Daniel occasionally get that same vaguely dreamy expression on his face that Kevin no doubt now had on his own during the times that the thing inside his head began to speak. Daniel had probably been hearing his own version of the voice for days, perhaps since the initial time he’d used the incantation from Gibor Nuriel’s notebook to coax into existence the first living dinosaur hatchling the world had seen in uncounted millennia.

  As for Daniel himself . . . Kevin wanted to remember how it had happened, or why, but his efforts were futile. Surrounding Daniel’s death were too many blank spots for him to navigate, as if the essence that permeated his brain had gone in there with a can of black paint and sprayed blinding spots on the things it did not wish him to see. What was left was the fragmented image of Daniel with big holes in it, the stained glass window that represented the young man’s life but which now had hundreds of missing sections. Did he really remember Daniel intentionally opening the door to the overcrowded cage? After that, Kevin recalled rushes of red and the sense of something unaccountably growing right before his eyes as he cowered in a corner in the lab. After that . . . well, he just had no idea.

  The back of Sunnydale High School, a janitorial entrance by the boiler room and a general supply area, suddenly appeared in front of him and the thing that was quietly, dangerously keeping pace with him. Was this what his life had come to? Back entrances, blood, and hiding. But no . . . the thing that lived inside him, the force that guided him, had promised otherwise in a cooing, seductive voice.

  Look at what you will gain by following my instructions. Fame, freedom from this nothing little town and a return to your beloved city, a spectacular career . . . everything you want so badly.

  And so he had obeyed, even though he didn’t always remember exactly how he did the things the voice wanted, or why it wanted him to do them to begin with. Like now. Somehow he had made a path through the shadows of twilight in Sunnydale for himself and the three hundred-plus pound tyrannosaur that had seemingly exploded from a hatchling that Kevin had actually thought was “cute” when he’d first seen it fight free of its splintered shell. Admittedly any idea as to how the things the voice continued to promise would actually come about had vanished, but he was still lucid enough to wonder what he was supposed to do at the high school library, or why it would want him to take the young dinosaur there in the first place.

  That is not your concern. All you need do is obey.

  And so he did, because he must, even though in his soul he thought that the voice was probably lying to him. Had it promised Daniel—the now dead Daniel—these same things? Still, resistance was unthinkable. Whatever possessed Kevin now was strong and unstoppable, and his single, pathetic attempt at disobedience had resulted in a screaming inside his skull that made him want to rip his eyes out to stop the pain and the noise. Perhaps, he thought foggily, if he just gave it whatever it wanted, it would be done with him and simply go away.

  And for some reason not shared with Kevin, it wanted to be in the Sunnydale High School library.

  So be it. Kevin checked the janitorial door and found it unlocked, then pushed it wide so that the dinosaur could follow him into the building, like an absurdly oversize pet without a leash. Inside was a hallway, a lot darker and grubbier than the bright California decor so prevalent in the remainder of the school. In Chicago, school buildings were locked up tight after school hours, and the grounds were closed, the better to keepout loiterers, drug dealers and to discourage considerably less desirable behavior. Apparently they had no such concerns in this sunny southern California town.

  It seemed like it only took seconds to get the T. Rex out of there and into the main system of halls. Thankfully there was no one around. A good thing, since he didn’t have clue one how he’d explain or deal with a surprise visitor, but he had a very good idea how the dinosaur would. A few turns, a couple of dead ends, and he ended up standing with the beast in front of the main entrance on the end of the building that he was pretty sure housed the library. The fact was, Kevin wasn’t that good at finding his way around the building yet and it looked like starting at this entrance, the one he used every morning, was going to be the only way he’d be able to locate it.

  The library! the voice inside his head thundered.

  “R–right,” he said shakily. Kevin got his bearings and took two steps forward, then a man came around the corner at a juncture midway down the hall. The teenager instantly recognized the glasses and tweed jacket look, a countenance that reminded him a lot of his dad: Mr. Giles, the school librarian.

  Their eyes met and they both froze, then the older man’s gaze cut to the hulking form of the adolescent Tyrannosaurus Rex standing nearly beside him. An entire range of emotions flashed across the librarian’s face—fear, dismay, regret—but oddly enough, he didn’t seem surprised.

  “Kevin Sanderson, I presume,” he said. He didn’t come any closer.

  Kevin nodded, then suddenly he didn’t know what to say. Yeah, that’s me, and hey, wouldja look at what I made! just didn’t ring right. How had Mr. Giles known who he was?

  “I’d like you to move away from the dinosaur,” Giles said before Kevin could think of an answer to that. “I don’t believe it’s safe.”

  Safe? Kevin frowned. Of course it wasn’t safe. Look at what one of its siblings had done to Daniel. That was its nest mate, right? The one that didn’t escape last night? Or was it this one . . . or a pair of them, working together? He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. There was something in his memory about one going with him and the other staying behind at the museum to deal with some problem there, another exit through a maintenance area and then coming over here, but it was all jumbled up, mixed with intermittent flashes of Daniel and blood, plus . . . pain? Yeah, he’d gotten hurt or something, scratched or knocked aside by one of the hatchlings when Daniel had opened the door on the cage and the dinosaurs inside had broken it apart in their frenzy to be free. There was a gouge, not too awfully deep but enough to bleed, on his left forearm. Or was this injury from the bizarre set of horns growing out of the T. Rex’s skull, protuberances that had nothing to do with the skelet
al structure of this species of dinosaur? Had it pushed him somehow, nudged him in the direction in which it wanted him to go? Be that as it may, Kevin had gotten blood all over his stuff before he’d emptied the backpack and—

  “Oh, no,” he said and held up his pack, his thoughts suddenly clearing up. “Look. I have dinosaur eggs— Stegosaurus, actually. We have to hatch them.”

  But the librarian shook his head. “No, Kevin,” he said. He seemed to be enunciating his words very carefully, as if he were speaking to someone he thought couldn’t quite get the meaning of something vitally important. “Believe me, that’s the last thing we must do.”

  Kevin frowned. “But why—”

  The T. Rex beside him suddenly roared. Kevin dropped the backpack to the floor and clapped his hands over his ears as he sank into a cringe under the onslaught of enraged sound right next to his eardrums. Then the voice that had been inside his head for what seemed like centuries, was simply . . . gone. No warning, no explanation. Kevin had just enough time to feel a great sense of loneliness as the thing that was supposed to guide him to his destiny pulled out and abandoned him—

  —before the young tyrannosaur closed its teeth across his neck and upper body.

  “I think we need to get back to the library right away,” Willow told Buffy as they quickly made their way out of the museum. “I found out major stuff last night, and since you and Oz only tangled with one of the dinosaurs, the last one might be on its way back to the school. Where’s the van?”

  Between the still heavy cloud cover and the waning afternoon, the side alley was in the dark for the moment. Still, she saw her boyfriend point toward the street just beyond the front of the building, where they could see the bubble lights of several police cars flashing. It wouldn’t be long before the whole place was investigated. “Parked across the street,” Oz said. “ Conveniently located between two police cars.”

  “Looks like Oz’s Public Transportation System just went off-limits,” Xander said.

  Buffy scowled. “Then we use old-fashioned foot power. The library is good, but we need to be somewhere— any where—else before the cops find the bodies of the guards and the dead dinosaur.”

  As Buffy led the way, Xander, Willow, and Oz fell in step behind her. Oz was only a shape beside Willow as they moved through the darkness, but she sensed his confusion even before he touched her arm. “You said the last T. Rex might head for the school. Why would it do that?”

  “Maybe to get to the other one,” Buffy suggested, and Willow had to hand it to her friend—she was definitely thinking along demon lines. “Remember you said you thought the one in the alley was trying to get somewhere?”

  “Yeah,” Oz said. “It did feel that way.”

  “Exactly,” Willow said. “It—”

  “—wants to do this mind-meld thing,” Xander jumped in. “Like the Vulcans in Star Trek!” They turned the corner and thankfully left the museum, with its growing infection of visiting law enforcement, behind.

  “Somehow I don’t think it’s going to be very Vulcan-like,” Willow said. “The way we figure it, it’s a dragon demon from the underworld, really ugly and really huge, that has to find four hosts that kind of look like itself to put its spirits into.”

  “Possession,” Buffy said promptly. “But what then? Try to free the other ones so they can cause chaos and destruction?” She shook her head in disgust. “How typical.”

  “Not quite,” Xander told her. “Four hosts— dinosaurs—then they all get to one place so they can do the mind dance thing all over again, the other three with the first one. See, it seems that the power behind El Numero Uno is too big for one little body, so he can only get out in pieces. But then he can put all of those pieces together.”

  “It’s the greed thing,” Willow said a little breathlessly. “Bigger, better . . . hungrier.” Almost everyone here was a little bit taller and longer-legged than Willow, and while they seemed to be moving at a comfortable trot, once again she found herself doing the extra effort duty. Only a couple more blocks to go. “If it gets itself all into one form, then it’s free to go into munchmode.”

  “So even though we’ve now killed two of them,” Oz said, “you’re saying it can try again?”

  Scowling, Buffy jerked to a stop. “Wait a minute. This means if we kill one, its spirit still bounces back and forth between the demon in the underworld and an egg somewhere up here, like, forever?”

  She wanted to get back to the library and Giles, but Willow was still grateful for a chance to catch her breath. “No. The . . . displaced spirit goes back into that first host, where it waits for the chance to . . .” She frowned. “I don’t know—hatch again, I suppose. The only way to win is to kill the other three hosts, then destroy the original one.”

  “Got it,” Oz said. “Because now it’s kind of a container for all four spirits at once.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So that kills it,” Buffy said, starting to move again.

  “Oh, no. This is the Hellmouth. Nothing around here ever seems to really die.” Willow looked meaningfully at Buffy. “It just goes back to sleep for another sixty years.”

  “We won the battle, but not the war,” Oz said.

  “Great,” Buffy muttered. “I get to fight this thing again when I’m nearly eighty years old.”

  “If you live that long,” Xander said offhandedly.

  “Xander!” Willow exclaimed.

  “What?” He frowned, then realization set in. “Oh . . . Hey, I didn’t mean—”

  “That’s all right,” Buffy interrupted with dripping sweetness. “It gives me something to look forward to.”

  “Well,” Xander began, “Personally, I—”

  “Let’s plan birthday celebrations later,” Willow interrupted. “Right now, Giles is alone in the library with that . . . thing.” Her eyes suddenly widened. “Oh no! It’s got three demon spirits inside it! I hope the cage in the library can hold it.”

  This put a little more zip into their steps. Now they could see the school kitty-corner across the street. Not much farther, and in the grayness of the afternoon, the windows to the library glowed softly behind drawn blinds. Crossing the street, the group finally broke into a run.

  “There’s still one thing that bothers me,” Buffy said, her words jerking with each fast step. “How does it get the egg to host it or whatever to begin with?”

  “A ritual,” Xander told her. “So if you’re right about this Kevin guy, he’ll be the one to perform it.”

  “Yeah,” Willow agreed as they finally reached the outside steps and headed up. Just ahead of her, Oz gave the double doors a push, then yanked himself upright instead of taking a step. Willow looked past her boyfriend and saw Kevin Sanderson lying on the floor in an amazingly bright puddle of blood. There was a big part of his body that was too mangled for her to comprehend—maybe even gone —but there was no mistaking the blond ponytail and the gold hoop still glittering in his left ear. His brown eyes were open and staring, as though he was surprised that something he’d loved so much had actually killed him.

  “Or,” Xander said as he stepped up behind them and saw what had brought Willow and Oz to a standstill, “the demon will find a way to use someone else.”

  And farther down the hall, muffled by the closed doors to the library, they heard Giles cry out just before something unseen roared.

  Then . . . silence.

  Chapter 14

  “GILES!” BUFFY YELLED, BUT SHE AND THE OTHERS hadn’t taken ten steps before the third of the Tyrannosaurus Rex siblings lumbered into view from the corridor that led to Giles and the library. Everything—human and otherwise—froze.

  Buffy didn’t know if a dinosaur could look startled, but this one certainly did. Once separated, the demon spirits apparently existed completely independent of one another, and obviously the one controlling this hatchling had been confident its brother or sister would put her and Oz out of the picture.

  “Guess it just
isn’t your lucky day,” she muttered beneath her breath. From the library, Giles shouted again, then she heard the Timimus screech wildly. Damn, in the wake of the toothy monsters they’d been dealing with, she’d forgotten all about that thing. It was also the “oldest” of the dinosaurs. Just how big had it grown, and more importantly, what was it doing to Giles? Maybe her own luck wasn’t that hot either.

  And now here was this razor-mouthed killing machine, at least seven feet tall and with several hundred pounds of muscle, standing between a weaponless her— and why was that always happening?—and the library. To make everything really go weird, the thing about the horns that Oz had mentioned in the museum had been all too true, and it seemed that each successive dino-sibling was looking more like Papa Demon; in fact, this one had pointed, very un-dinosaurlike eight-inch horns sprouting from the bony ridges over its eyes. Like a purebred T. Rex wouldn’t have been hard enough to kill.

  “Buffy,” Willow said urgently. “Giles is in there alone!”

  She didn’t want to leave her friends, but she couldn’t let Giles down, either. “I’ll distract it,” she said in a low voice. “Get it to chase me away from the library. You guys act like you’re going with me, then cut back and help Giles.”

  “I’m going with Buffy,” Oz said, never taking his gaze off the T. Rex swaying from side to side several yards away. It looked huge and dangerous, like it was evaluating them and might go from poised to charging at any second. “When you get to the library, remember you can’t kill the Timimus until this one’s dead. Jump the gun and we could be in deep trouble.”