by C.E. Martin
The next mind-controlled agent was ready, and stepped in as Kenslir reached him. He began firing his pistol as rapidly as he could, pumping rounds directly into Kenslir’s chest.
Kenslir ignored the bullets tearing through his skin, flattening against his ribs or punching holes in his stomach and intestines. He swatted the agent aside as though he were hitting a mosquito. Bones broke as the agent was sent hurtling over the pool. He splashed down in the deep end.
The third agent was now firing as well. Ketzkahtel maneuvered him into a solid shooting stance, carefully aiming at Kenslir’s face. Bullets began to fly.
Kenslir ignored the first few rounds that tore into his lips, struck his teeth. He lunged forward and let loose an uppercut punch.
The agent caught the punch in his chest- it doubled him over and lifted him off his feet. Kenslir let his fist push against the agent, sending him up and over Ketzkahtel’s head. The agent struck the ground behind the shapeshifter and his hostage, unconscious.
Ketzkahtel smiled nervously.
Suddenly, Keen lifted his pistol. But instead of aiming at Kenslir, the mesmerized agent jammed the pistol into his own mouth.
“Stop! Or I'll kill this man!” Ketzkahtel said with Echo’s voice. He knew these modern humans cared about one another.
Kenslir, now just fifteen feet away from Ketzkahtel stopped. He shoved both hands in the pockets of his tattered pants. His face was already turning back to flesh, the bullet wounds healed.
“Put your hands up!” Ketzkahtel screamed.
Kenslir shrugged, then whipped both hands out with blinding speed. His left hand opened and he released his old, partially-melted Kabar in an underhand throw. The knife streaked across the short gap between them faster than Ketzkahtel could react. It speared directly into Ketzkahtel’s eye, the six-inch blade driving deep into his brain.
Ketzkahtel staggered back, releasing his mental and physical hold on Keen. The freed agent collapsed to the ground, unconscious. In the pool, two of Keen’s men tried to help their fallen comrade Kenslir had batted out of his way.
Ketzkahtel recovered his footing and stood up straight. He reached up and casually pulled the Kabar from his eye.
“Well, played, Colonel,” the shapeshifter said. “But now I have a knife.”
From behind Kenslir, still standing by the fallen Secret Service agent he had thrown there, Josie spoke. “And I have a gun.”
Kenslir turned around and saw Josie holding the fallen agent’s pistol in both hands. She trembled slightly as she tried to aim the pistol at Ketzkahtel.
Ketzkahtel smiled. He transformed from Echo into the shape of Josie’s best friend since kindergarten, Jimmy.
“You wouldn't shoot me, would you?” Jimmy taunted Josie. He stood there, naked- defenseless except for Kenslir’s knife he clutched in one hand.
Kenslir turned back to Ketzkahtel and saw the form he had taken.
Josie’s lips trembled and she tried to hold back tears. She knew too well that if the shapeshifter could take this form it could only mean Jimmy was dead. Jimmy, who had never wanted to go along on this adventure. Who’d secretly had feelings for her all these years.
“That was the wrong body to take,” Kenslir told the shapeshifter.
Josie knew it wasn’t her friend Jimmy looking at her. She squeezed the trigger of the pistol. The shot went wide, ricocheting off an umbrella pole behind and to the right of Ketzkahtel.
The shapeshifter was impressed the human could even try to shoot her friend. Maybe she didn’t know just how much this Jimmy had been in love with her. But enough was enough. Ketzkahtel threw down Kenslir’s Kabar knife.
“Enough!” the shapeshifter yelled. He quickly transformed back to his giant form.
“I will consume you both!”
The transformation continued, the giant’s huge body turning red, swelling, growing scales. His neck stretched as his head swelled and formed the dragon’s head. The giant’s limbs swelled, forming the four legs of the fire-breathing monster. A tail and one wing sprouted from its back.
Kenslir immediately noticed this. The dragon now only had one wing. The other was still laying on the side of the pool.
“So... there are limits to what you can regenerate,” Kenslir told the dragon.
Ketzkahtel glanced over his left shoulder. Of course his wing was still severed. He didn’t have the energy left to completely restore this, his favorite stolen form. But he didn’t need wings. He would burn them both alive, then burn them to ash.
Ketzkahtel turned back to Kenslir and opened his mouth wide, roaring in fury. Kenslir sprinted forward, legs carrying him almost twice as fast as the fastest Olympic runner.
The fire in Ketzkahtel’s throat swelled out, directly toward Kenslir- who dropped to the deck, sliding under the flames. Fire burned off Kenslir’s flattop, passing over him and missing Josie by several feet.
The flames splashed against the windows on the back of the hotel, making the assembled reporters and patrons recoil in fear. But the glass held, blackening under the terrific heat.
Kenslir slid up under the dragon’s front legs. He smashed his right hand into the dragon’s chest, his fingers held flat, knife-like. Kenslir felt scales shatter, flesh part from his blow. He punched through the dragon’s chest and deep into its body.
Ketzkahtel’s stream of fire ended and he threw back his head and screamed in pain. He felt Kenslir’s stone-hard fingers wrap around his dragon heart. No one had ever thought to do this to the shapeshifter before. He felt fear.
Ketzkahtel reared up on his hind legs, trying to get away from Kenslir. But the Colonel held his grip, his arm buried to the elbow in the dragon’s chest. Now standing, he placed his feet on the concrete and ripped his arm back out.
The shapeshifter’s heart was torn free.
Kenslir looked down at the dragon heart, almost as large as a basketball, dripping blood and still beating.
Ketzkahtel staggered back on his hind legs. Then he began to shrink, transforming into his giant form. But instead of being a whole giant, the shapeshifter still had a gaping hole in his chest, blood pouring out.
“Regenerate that,” Kenslir said, noticing the dragon heart had shrunk as well, transforming back into the giant’s heart.
Ketzkahtel staggered back on his feet. He was weak. Shock showed on his face. He could not believe what had just happened. He fell backwards, crashing down on an overturned table. It held him up, in a seated position, his legs sprawled out in front of him.
Kenslir turned away from the giant and hurled the heart into the air. His throw carried it up and away, where it disappeared from sight.
Ketzkahtel started to spit up blood. His legs had grown numb and his vision was getting blurry. He wondered if this was what all his countless thousands of victims had felt like as they died. He extended a bloody hand toward Kenslir, as if for help.
Josie walked up, stepping past Kenslir. She stopped at the giant’s feet and extended her arm, aiming her pistol at the fallen shapeshifter. Her tears had dried up. She looked at the giant coldly, emotionlessly.
Josie began firing her pistol.
The bullets tore into the giant’s chest, punching through his flesh and bone. There was no instant repair of the injuries. Pain flared in his chest.
Josie slowly, methodically, fired, correcting her aim, and walking her shots up the giant’s body. Bullets began to tear into the giant’s neck, then his chin. He felt a round shatter his double row of front teeth, rip through his tongue and into his throat. The pain was excruciating, almost as bad as when he’d been beaten and imprisoned for millennia.
More bullets slammed into the giant. First one up his nose, then one into his eye. Two more rounds hammered into the giant’s skull, shattering bone and pulping his brain. Josie continued to shoot- five more times, before her pistol was empty.
The giant Ketzkahtel lay unmoving, his face a grisly mess, partly spread out on the overturned table be
hind him, along with a great portion of his brains.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
In the aftermath of the fight with the shapeshifter, the hotel had become a hot bed of activity. Military helicopters had flown in, armed troops spilling out and forming a perimeter. Local, State and Federal law enforcement had swarmed over the area, securing the many reporters and witnesses. Ambulances were everywhere, treating minor injuries and checking people for shock.
Kenslir and Josie stood by one such ambulance in front of the hotel. Kenslir now wore a Desert Oasis hotel t-shirt. He was fully regenerated, his out-dated flattop restored and no sign of injury or his battle on him.
Josie was wearing a matching t-shirt. She was getting her arm bandaged- she had cut her elbow in several places breaking the glass to get out the fireaxe for Mark. She would need stitches.
Now that it was over, Josie sat in shock, thinking about the past few days. She couldn’t believe Jimmy was gone. All she could remember was him clinging to the shapeshifter’s leg in the elevator, telling her to run. And she had. She was ashamed of herself.
Kenslir watched the girl closely. He was very impressed with her, but he worried about what she was so deeply thinking about.
Josie glanced up. She saw Mark staring at her. He had that same look of concern her mother often gave her.
“You look better with a shaved head,” Josie said, trying to smile.
“I know. But it just keeps growing back.”
Another black suited agent approached. He leaned in and whispered something in Kenslir’s ear. The Colonel’s face became very grim.
“Stay here,” Kenslir said. “I'll be back in a minute.”
Kenslir turned and walked away with the agent. They walked across the area crowded with emergency vehicles, toward the front entrance of the hotel. There, two paramedics were waiting with a gurney that held a black body bag.
Kenslir opened the bag and looked inside. It was Jimmy’s body.
The teenager’s face was frozen with a look of terror. His gray shirt was bloody, torn open, with a gaping hole in his chest where the shapeshifter had ripped out his heart.
Kenslir closed the body bag and turned to the agent beside him. He began to give the agent instructions.
Josie, her arm now bandaged, watched all this from the back of the ambulance. She couldn’t see who was in the body bag, but cold chills ran up her back.
Josie got up from the ambulance, and walked slowly toward Kenslir and the body bag. Her heart was pounding. Her throat was very dry.
Kenslir turned and saw Josie approaching. He stepped away from the gurney, holding up his hands. “Don’t.”
Josie felt sick to her stomach. “What?” she asked hoarsely. “Is that Jimmy?”
She hoped, she prayed, it wasn’t. Maybe the shapeshifter could take forms without killing people? She tried to step around Kenslir to see for herself.
Kenslir held Josie firmly by the shoulders. He turned and nodded to the agent and paramedics. They began to walk away with the gurney and body bag.
Josie struggled against Kenslir, trying to break free. He held her shoulders, his grip unbreakable, but not painful.
“Jimmy!” Josie yelled, panicked as the body was wheeled away “Jimmy!”
Kenslir wasn’t sure what to say. This wasn’t a soldier to be consoled after the death of a comrade. This was a child- a girl. And she had just lost a loved one.
“Calm down,” Kenslir said softly. This was out of his area of expertise.
Josie struggled again and Kenslir released her. She stepped away from him. Her face was red and tears were again streaming down her cheeks.
“Calm down? Calm down?” Josie said. “Jimmy's dead!”
Josie wanted to be angry- angry at Kenslir, but she was overwhelmed by grief and guilt. Jimmy was dead. It was all her fault for making him come along.
Kenslir considered the sobbing girl for several seconds.
“We may be able to fix that,” he said.
***
Hours later, after the scene of the shapeshifter battle had calmed down, and civilians had been removed, and the helicopters had begun leaving, a coyote came out of the desert.
Small, brown, with mangy fur, the hungry canine trotted along the road that ran past the hotel. It was some thousand feet away from the humans and all their activity. But it knew where it was- it had rummaged through the garbage cans of the hotel many times for scraps.
The coyote sniffed along the edge of the road, looking for food. Its sensitive nose caught a whiff of something and it trotted quickly away, off the road.
The coyote followed the scent. It passed small scrub brushes, its nose going back and forth from sniffing the air, to sniffing the ground. The smell grew stronger.
The coyote finally found the source of the smell- a wet lump, covered in dirt and sand, about the size of a softball. Food.
The coyote pawed at the dirty lump, flipping it over. It was a heart.
The heart beat once, scaring the coyote, who recoiled. But hunger brought it back. It sniffed at the heart, then licked it. Fresh blood.
The coyote bit into the heart. Then it held the heart down with its paws and tore a chunk of flesh off. The flesh was still warm.
The coyote, ravenous as it always was, began to tear the heart apart, gulping down mouthful after mouthful. In just a few moments it had consumed the entire heart.
The coyote sat on its haunches, licking blood off its mouth, then paws. Suddenly, it whimpered.
The coyote leapt to its feet and spun around, biting at its own side. The side bulged. The coyote was in pain now, growling and snapping at its sides as they bulged and heaved, as though something were growing inside it.
The coyote suddenly expanded, hair falling off as its skin turned red and scales began to grow. The small canine expanded rapidly to the size of a horse. Its ratty tail elongated, turning hairless and also growing scales. Wings sprouted from its back and its limbs thickened, sprouting grasping claws.
In seconds, the coyote had turned into a red, four-legged, winged dragon.
The dragon looked over at the hotel over a thousand feet away. Its eyes narrowed angrily.
With a beat of its enormous wings, the dragon leapt up into the sky and flew away.
EPILOGUE
It was a day after the shapeshifter’s slaying, and Josie found herself in a military helicopter, flying over Miami.
After the hotel, Kenslir had escorted her to a black, government SUV. They had ridden together to a small airfield, where a four-engined, private passenger jet awaited. More SUVs arrived, with suited agents loading Jimmy’s body bag, and a much larger one, into the plane’s cargo hold. Josie guessed the larger body was the shapeshifter’s.
Kenslir assured her the giant was truly, finally dead.
After takeoff, the plane had headed east. The crew all wore suits, and were very courteous to Josie. They were deferential to Kenslir. Josie quickly figured out these weren’t the Secret Service or the FBI.
A while after takeoff, a female agent had led Josie to a private room in the back of the plane. There, she was shown a shower and given a dark business suit and matching shoes to wear. It wasn’t a black agent’s suit, but rather something Josie thought her mom would wear to a job interview.
After she cleaned up, Josie went back to the passenger compartment. Kenslir was nowhere to be seen. The female agent assured Josie he was still on the plane, and offered her lunch.
An hour later, Kenslir came back. He was now cleaned up, and wearing a camouflage Army uniform. After checking on Josie, Kenslir moved to the other end of the passenger compartment and began a series of hushed telephone calls.
Hours later, the plane had set down in Florida, at an Air Force base. Jimmy and the giant’s body bags were loaded onto a military helicopter. Kenslir had escorted Josie to the helicopter as well. They sat in silence, watching two armed guards in the helicopter with them, as the helico
pter lifted off.
Josie was worried during all this time. Kenslir had said very little to her. All the military people she had met were nice to her. But she was beginning to feel a little paranoid, like Jimmy would have. No one was telling her much.
She could have asked questions, but she was still puzzling over what Kenslir had said about Jimmy being dead. Could it really be fixed?
The helicopter eventually flew over a large city on the coast just before nightfall. Josie recognized it as Miami- she’d seen it on TV numerous times.
The helicopter circled a lone, black office building, about twenty stories tall, that sat overlooking a bay. They finally landed on the rooftop, where four more armed guards waited.
The guards saluted Kenslir when he stepped off the helicopter. He helped Josie out, leading her to a large freight elevator on one side of the rooftop. The rooftop guards took custody of Jimmy and the giant’s bodies, loading them on gurneys.
Josie, Kenslir, the four guards and the two bodies barely fit in the freight elevator.
As the elevator descended, Josie finally couldn’t keep her curiosity in check anymore.
“I wish you’d tell me where we were going.”
The Colonel smiled at Josie. He was impressed the girl had been able to keep quiet for so long.
“You’ll see.”
The elevator finally stopped, the doors opening on rich marble floors in what looked like an ordinary office building. The two guards with the giant’s body wheeled it out. The doors closed.
“Where are they taking him?” Josie asked.
“For study,” Kenslir said. “We want to see what makes him tick.”
The elevator descended again. Josie watched the floors count down on the panel. They finally stopped at B-3. The doors opened and Kenslir gestured for Josie to step out.
The hallway leading out from the elevator was lined with plain tile. The walls were plain white, and the hallway seemed to have far more fluorescent lights than it needed. The light was almost too bright.
Kenslir stepped out of the elevator and began walking down the hall. Josie hurried to catch up with him. The last two guards wheeled Jimmy’s body out of the elevator and followed them.
As they walked, Josie noticed the doors of the hallway. Heavy blast doors, made of thick steel. They looked like what you’d see in a bunker.