 
MYTHICAL

(STONE SOLDIERS #1)

C.E. Martin

Copyright 2013 by C.E. Martin

Smashwords Edition

Cover Art: C.E. Martin

Editor: Karen Martin

www.StoneSoldiers.info

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events are purely fictional and not based on any real event. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is an amazing coincidence and nothing more.

Dedicated to God and my Family
STONE SOLDIERS: The Series

Mythical

Brothers in Stone

Blood and Stone

Shades of War

Black Knight Down (Coming Soon)

Armageddon Z (Coming Soon)

PROLOGUE

As the enormous, six-fingered hand plunged into his chest, Scott Sutton screamed like a little girl. His shrill, ear-splitting wail of pure terror finally ended when the giant's hand wrenched his heart out of his chest- past splintered ribs and torn flesh the giant had reached through as easily as a normal person might reach through a wet paper towel.

Scott's dying body toppled sideways to the rough sand of the Arizona desert, his life flashing back before his eyes. There was the long career of working his way up the corporate ladder, lying to so many people to achieve his goals. There was his married life, and the day to day grind of going to work. There was the recent trip west to an executive training class that really was just the cover for a quick trip to Mexico where he and his partner-in-crime loaded up on drugs then flew them back into the United States. There was the fireball he'd seen in the desert, then a mid-air collision with something that forced him to land his small airplane. Then the giant, reaching into his chest.

Then there was only darkness.

Not far away, still seated in the fixed-wing, single-engine airplane Scott had been piloting moments ago, Margaret Hicks finally started screaming. She clawed at her seatbelt for several seconds with one hand and opening her co-pilot's door with the other.

Standing in the desert, blood running down its arm, the six-fingered giant watched her impassively as it took a bite out of Scott's still-warm heart.

Margaret continued to scream, finally undoing her belt and falling out of the plane. She was in full shriek mode now- no longer aware she was even screaming, just pausing for breath and starting back up again every few seconds. She clawed at the sand and crawled away from the plane as fast as she could.

She was a good thirty feet from the plane, scampering along on all fours like a crab, when something large passed over her head. Wind pushed down on her- the down blast from large wings.

It landed with ground-shaking force not far from Margaret. She stopped crawling- and screaming- and looked slowly up.

The dragon was red as blood- covered in glistening, metallic scales. Its head was the size of a horse and it had four legs- each ending with large taloned feet. Broad leathery wings stretched out on either side of its back- their wingspan greater than that of Scott's plane. As she watched, the wings slowly tucked in, folding up.

Margaret began to skitter backwards now, away from the monster barely illuminated under a half moon.

The creature reared up on its hind legs, then seemed to shrink. Red scales faded, turning tan like the desert. They absorbed into the creature's skin. The front legs shortened, turning into massive, muscled arms ending in six-fingered hands. The rear legs also turned more human-looking, forming into mighty, tree-trunk legs with six-toed feet that supported a giant well over eight feet tall.

The monstrous figure strode forward, toward Margaret- the last remnant of its long, dragon tail shrinking away into its backside.

"No, no!" Margaret screamed. All the way on the flight from Mexico she had fretted over the precious load of marijuana she and Scott had been smuggling into Arizona. Then they'd been forced down by a mid-air collision with the dragon-giant creature. Now all Margaret cared about was her life.

The bare feet of the naked giant strode over to Margaret, then a massive hand grabbed her by the short hair on her head and lifted her off the ground. Margaret screamed again and clawed at the arm holding her- but her nails might as well have been digging at stone. The giant's arm was bulging with corded muscles beneath skin from which sprouted wiry, black hair.

The giant smiled at Margaret, revealing a double row of teeth in his mouth. "Hush, Margaret. You're being too noisy."

That stopped her screaming. The monster knew her name. Which was impossible.

The giant looked her up and down, taking in her skinny, vegetarian's body and her manly haircut. Finally, it made its mind up about what to do with Margaret.

A six-fingered hand smashed through Margaret's chest- exploding her ribcage and parting her flesh. Blood geysered out of her and then the hand reached up, inside her, fingers wrapping around her heart.
CHAPTER ONE

Somewhere in the Arizona desert, miles from any road or water, there was a boat.

This boat was charred and cracked, melted, burned- a black blight on the pristine sands, the ash from the fire that had consumed it spreading out to form a black circle, thirty feet in diameter. The boat sat in silence, undiscovered, for days.

Until a group of motorcycle riders stumbled across it.

Five riders, racing through the desert, weaving in and out, jumping slight rises. Ahead of the riders, the desert sands stretched out for miles for their enjoyment. Behind them, the riders left behind not only their camp, but twelve years of education. This was their summer vacation, before they would all go out into the world, to college, to jobs, to begin their new lives.

The leader of the pack, Carlos, topped a rise at full speed. Beneath his helmet he grinned, wondering if any of the others would catch him.

Carlos suddenly lost his grin. He let off the throttle and slammed on his brakes. A great black spot lay in the desert ahead of him. Charred remnants of something large.

Behind Carlos, the other riders approached. They all saw the same great stain on the desert and slid to a stop beside their friend.

Carlos looked around at his friends. None of them were doing anything more than looking at the burnt remains down the slope from them. He would have to be the first.

Carlos nodded to his friends then took off for the wreckage.

The bikers rolled cautiously down the slope toward the burnt wreckage. As they got closer they could make out the shape of whatever it had been. It looked vaguely boat-like and it had been consumed in a great fire.

The bikers stopped a dozen feet from the edge of the burnt wreckage. No smoldering ashes, no embers. The thirty foot wide circle of ash smelled of burnt plastic. One by one, the riders stepped off their motorcycles and removed their helmets.

Three jocks and one nerd. That's how they were described at school. Had been described. Before they graduated. The extreme bikers and their mechanic friend, the sickly-looking Jimmy Kane.

The fifth rider was markedly different. Long black hair spilled out of her helmet as she took it off. Her name was Josie Winters.

It wasn't easy being the only girl in a group of guys. Even if she was a tomboy who almost never wore makeup and was arguably the best rider in the group. She was still the girl and the guys never let her forget it. Still, when they all went their separate ways in a few months, Josie would miss them.

Jimmy and the other boys began to walk slowly around the edges of the wreckage, hesitant to step on the out of place ashes.

Josie walked boldly into the blackened sands. Something had caught her eye.

Sure enough, the wreckage was that of a boat. A twenty-five-foot-long runabout, designed for pulling water skiers. Mainly fiberglass. Most of it was melted now, revealing an aluminum frame and railings. And large twin diesel engines.

And a corpse.

The body of a man lay in the wreckage. At least Josie thought it was a man. Shriveled and blackened by fire, it was hard to be sure.

Josie moved in closer. Yes, it was definitely a man. A very tall man, with thin limbs. And a gaping hole in his chest.

"This is messed up," Kendall said, breaking the silence. Like the other boys, Kendall stood on the edge of the burned wreckage, leaning forward to try and see what Josie stood in front of.

Josie crouched down, moving around the corpse. Now she could also see part of the man's head was missing. A gaping wound above his left eyebrow. Nearly half the skull was removed.

Carlos finally stepped forward onto the ashes and debris. "What's a speedboat doing out here? Are we even near any water?"

Josie ignored her friends and stared at the burnt corpse. The man was leaning back against the boat, his shirt and one boot burnt off. Around his neck something gleamed in the sun. A gold necklace, covered in ash and soot. Hanging from the chain was a fish symbol. A Christian fish, like Josie had seen countless times on the trunk lids and bumpers of cars around town.

Another boy, Logan, walked up behind Josie. The other boys followed him. They stood in a semi-circle behind her, looking over her shoulder at the burnt body.

"Is that a hole in his chest?" Logan asked. He had just noticed the gaping, hand-sized hole, under the corpse's sternum.

Jimmy, the group's slimmest member, poked at the burnt debris by the corpse. As ash moved, sun glinted off something metal.

"I think this is a gun!" Jimmy announced.

"How did he get here?" Josie wondered aloud. She squatted down in front of the corpse, staring at the blackened face. Despite the fact she was so close to a corpse, Josie didn't feel frightened.

Another of the boys, Kendall, looked around at the sky. The sun was starting to set.

"It's starting to get dark. We need to head back," Kendall said.

The other boys looked around as well. Low on the horizon they could see the full moon, just beginning its rise into the sky.

The boys all nodded to each other and turned from the boat wreck then started back to their motorcycles. Josie didn't notice them leave. She was transfixed by the thin, burnt corpse. Even in death, the face seemed peaceful. Maybe even friendly.

A sudden splash of water on her cheek startled Josie. She looked up as more drops began to fall. Rain.

Josie finally looked away from the corpse. The guys were all back at their bikes, putting their helmets back on.

Jimmy held out her helmet. "C'mon, Josie!"

Kendall, his helmet visor flipped up, looked over at his friend Logan. "I thought the forecast was for clear skies?"

The rain was coming steady now. Big drops fell everywhere- including on the burnt corpse. Josie watched as the water began to wash away ash and soot, revealing gray beneath.

Josie leaned in closer. The man was made of stone.

Josie was confused. A statue, dressed in pants, looking so life-like. In the middle of nowhere, in the melted remains of a boat. It made no sense.

Suddenly, the stone man's hand twitched.

Josie nearly fell over as she jerked back. Had she just seen what she thought she'd seen?

"Let's go!" Jimmy yelled from the bikes.

A couple of the guys were already starting their motorcycles. The rainfall was starting to get heavy. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Josie gave the burnt stone body one more look. It remained motionless, more and more ash and soot washing off. Josie finally shook her head and stood up. She jogged over to her bike, where Jimmy handed her helmet over. Once her helmet was on, Josie and Jimmy started their motorcycles in unison. They were the last two riders to carefully drive away.

***

The rain continued for some time, as the sun descended and the moon climbed into the sky. Nearly a flash flood, the rain had washed all the ash and soot off the stone corpse in a very short time.

Water began to pool on the ground around the stone man. And in the cavity of his head. The stone man's gaping wound begin to fill. First with water, then with stone.

Stone expanded up, like a sponge in the man's head and chest wounds. In seconds, the wounds had filled in. The man's stone chest was whole, his head a bald, smooth surface with no sign it had ever been broken apart.

The stone man was now just a shirtless, gaunt figure. Well over six feet tall, with thin limbs and sunken cheeks. A silent figure of stone with one boot and black, cargo pocket pants.

As suddenly as it began, the rain stopped.

Pooled water began to soak into the sand. Drops on the stone man's skin trickled down his head and chest. Droplets began to fall from his chin. Then they stopped. The water clung to the stone surfaces of the man, defying gravity. Then it began to soak into the stone. The stone man changed from a wet, dark gray to a light, dry gray- every droplet of water absorbed into his statue-like body. The gray then faded, turning to tanned skin.

The stone man suddenly sat up- his mouth opening wide and gasping for air.

CHAPTER TWO

After a long, wet, treacherous ride, Josie and her friends had made it back to their campsite. Which consisted of two large 4x4 trucks with extended cabs, a trailer for some of the motorcycles and five tents.

The teens changed out of wet clothes, trading riding jackets for dry t-shirts. They gathered around a campfire to eat a light meal of energy bars and overly-caffeinated drinks. They were glad the flash storm had stopped so suddenly.

The teens sat around the campfire, quietly eating, no one wanting to discuss their discovery.

Jimmy was first to finally break the silence. "Do we report this?"

"Report what?" Logan asked around a mouthful of energy bar.

Carlos elbowed his friend. "The boat- that corpse, stupid."

Josie wasn't eating, she was staring into the fire. She couldn't get the image of the burned, stone man out of her mind. "I don't think it was a corpse."

Kendall gave her a confused look. "What?"

"The rain was washing the ashes off. It was stone underneath," Josie said, finally looking up from the fire.

Kendall laughed at the absurdity of it. "A statue. In the desert?"

"Wearing clothes?" Carlos added.

"That makes no sense, Josie," Logan said.

Josie knew her friends wouldn't listen. They had been frightened to even approach the burnt boat. She took a long drink from her water bottle and remained quiet.

Her lifelong friend since kindergarten, Jimmy knew something was wrong. "What is it, Josie?"

"I- I don't know." Josie didn't want to say more.

Carlos laughed. "I think the girl is scared! Never seen that before!"

Logan laughed nervously. "Yeah, Josie, you're more of a man than Carlos is!"

Carlos frowned indignantly. "Hey!"

Jimmy watched Josie carefully. He knew there was more to this. "What is it, Josie?"

They guys would think she was crazy, but Josie knew what she had seen.

Josie laughed nervously. "I could have sworn it moved," she finally said, shaking her head from side to side. She looked up at her friends, as if to dare them to say anything.

Logan laughed and threw an empty water bottle across the fire toward Josie. "Get outta here!"

Carlos chimed in next. "Man, I knew it! She's trying to screw with us!"

Kendall watched Josie carefully. Her steely gaze was tinged with a bit of fear. He'd never seen that before. It made Kendall feel uncomfortable. He stood up.

"Nice try, Josie. You had me going for a sec," Kendall said. He started to walk away from the fire- headed toward his tent. He kept his back to his friends, so they wouldn't see he was a bit scared now himself.

"Big day in the Canyons tomorrow, losers. Hit the sack," Kendall said, hoping he would be able to sleep now.

Logan moved a little closer toward Josie, a big grin on his face. "You know, Josie, if you're scared, I could keep you company tonight."

Jimmy, on the other side of Josie, glared at Logan. He was more than tired of all the flirting Logan did with Josie. All the other guys had figured out Josie wasn't interested in them, why did Logan have to keep pushing it?

Josie frowned at Logan and threw her water bottle into his lap.

Logan held up his hands and stood up. This side of Josie he'd seen before- her angry face. He wisely remained quiet and walked off to his own tent. Carlos likewise stood up and left in awkward silence.

Only Jimmy and Josie remained by the fire.

Jimmy watched his best friend closely for several seconds as she stared into the fire. Finally, he stood up and offered a hand to Josie.

"You sure you're all right?" he said.

Josie hated that she had let herself get spooked in front of the guys. Once again, she'd become the girl of the group. She climbed to her feet and batted Jimmy's hand away.

"Fine," Josie snapped. Angry at herself, she stomped off to her tent.

***

In the midst of the boat wreckage, the formerly-stone man leaned back, breathing slowly in the night air. He finally opened his eyes- strange, almost black, dark-green eyes.

The man looked around him. At his clothes, the melted boat wreck, his one boot. He leaned forward and put his hands down. With great effort he lifted himself up. No sooner was he on his feet than he collapsed to his knees.

The man knelt in the sand for a few moments, catching his breath. He looked at the sand and wreckage around him. A military knife lay on the ground, the handle melted. The man pushed the knife aside and tried to stand again.

This time, the man was able to stay on his feet. But he had to hold his pants up with his right hand. They were loose and baggy- several sizes too large.

The man looked up at the moon, and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. He slowly began to feel better.

The man opened his eyes and looked around him. Sighting a nearby rise in the sand, he started walking toward it.

Once he topped the rise, the man began to turn in a slow circle, eyeing the dark desert. In the distance, a tiny, orange glow could be seen. The man's jaw set with determination. He began to walk forward, toward the distant campfire.

CHAPTER THREE

Several hours later, the stone man reached the distant fire he had seen. What had been a strong fire was now a barely-glowing collection of ash.

The man staggered, forcing himself to walk. His legs were sore, his throat dry. Despite his fatigue, he had forced his body on, toward the cluster of tents, trucks and motorcycles illuminated by the full moon.

The man plodded into the camp, past tents filled with sleeping teenagers. He looked around, panting lightly from the exertion of his long walk.

A small, metal can lay on the ground near a tent. The man carefully picked it up. Liquid sloshed in the can. Not much- maybe only a few drops.

The man held the can to his lips and tilted his head back, trying to drain the precious moisture out. The man made a face as he tasted the liquid. He looked at the can in the moonlight. His eyes refused to focus on the slender, tall can. Past the can, he saw something else. A cooler.

The man dropped the can and moved slowly toward the cooler. It was large, plastic. Cool to the touch. He opened the cooler. He could smell the water inside. He heard the gentle clatter of ice floating in water, bumping against the plastic sides. He saw the many bottles inside the cooler.

The man reached into the cooler and drew out an icy-cold bottle of water. The plastic bottle flexed in the man's hand and he seemed taken aback. He examined the bottle as though it were some kind of alien thing. Then he grabbed the cap with his teeth and twisted it off.

The cold water went down his throat quickly. The man relaxed as he drained the bottle.

One was not enough, though. The man dropped the bottle and reached down for another. Again, he opened it with his teeth and drained out the cold water.

The man was starting to feel better. His vision was no longer blurred. He reached for another bottle of water. As he pulled it out, the other bottles shifted and thumped loudly against the sides of the cooler.

***

Josie awoke with a start in her tent. For her, that meant a sharp inhalation of air, and her eyes wide open. She had always been able to wake from the soundest sleep completely and immediately.

Her step-father told her it was the fireman coming out in her. Josie's father had been a fireman, before he died when she was very young. But it was not a career she wanted. Putting out fires was dangerous- as her father had proven, with his life.

Josie lay unmoving in her tent, listening. She wondered briefly if she had dreamt about her father again. She'd been dreaming about him a lot lately. Something she hadn't done since she was very young.

The more she thought about it, the odder it became. Dreaming about her father dying in a fire, then actually finding the remnants of a large fire in the desert and a dead man in the ashes. It was a strange coincidence.

Josie closed her eyes, hoping she could dream about something else. Then she heard a noise again. A plastic noise.

Josie's eyes opened. She listened intently. The night desert was quiet and still. Except for plastic bottles bobbing in half-melted ice in the cooler.

Silence again. Then the sound of plastic. This time she recognized it- an empty water bottle falling against another. One of the guys must be thirsty.

Again, Josie heard sloshing in the cooler as another bottle came out. There was a short pause, then an empty bottle falling.

How thirsty were they? How many of them were up? Why weren't they talking?

The hair on the back of Josie's neck was up. She just instinctively knew something was wrong.

Josie quietly sat up in her tent and folded back her sleeping bag. She had slept in her motocross pants and a large t-shirt. She carefully reached for her boots and slipped them on.

Whoever was up was still drinking. Picking up full bottles from the cooler, then dropping empty ones.

Josie crawled slowly to her tent flap and began to unzip it. She could see a shape- a guy in the center of the campsite. He was standing by the cooler, drinking from a bottle.

She eased out of her tent.

As Josie climbed from her tent, she realized this was a stranger- not one of the guys. He was too tall. Then she realized he was bald and shirtless. He wore black pants, and one boot. Around the man's feet lay almost a dozen empty water bottles. He held another in his left hand, and drank from one in his right.

Framed by the moon, the man's features were hard to make out. But he appeared to be in his 30s. He had smooth skin- especially on his bald head. Josie watched as he drained another water bottle.

Was she seeing things? The man's arm seemed to be swelling. As he drank from the bottle, she watched as his arms and chest were getting larger. Not swollen from drinking too much liquid, but more muscular.

Josie was suddenly scared. Then she noticed a gleam of gold around the man's neck- a chain. And hanging from the chain, a gold, Christian fish pendant.

It was the burnt, stone man from the boat wreck.

The man dropped the empty bottle from his right hand and started to raise the bottle in his left to his lips. He stopped, turning his head toward Josie. Black-green eyes calmly regarded her.

The man put the bottle to his lips and began to drink.

As Josie watched, hair began to sprout over the man's eyes. Eyebrows she hadn't realized were missing suddenly reappeared- thick and black. On his head, hair began to grow- jet black in color.

The man dropped the empty bottle from his left hand and waved. "Good evening," he said calmly.

The hair on the man's head grew only a short length, into a very precise, military-style flattop, then stopped growing. It looked as though it had been freshly cut.

Josie screamed loudly. "Guys!"

Carlos, Kendall, Jimmy and Logan all started in their tents- kicking off blankets and being generally disoriented. They struggled to put boots on and stumble out of their tents.

The green-eyed man calmly pulled two more bottles of water from the now nearly-empty cooler and began to drink one.

Kendall was first out of the tents- dressed in a t-shirt and jockey shorts, hopping on one booted foot as he tried to pull on another.

"What is-?" Kendall started to demand. He stopped when he saw the overly muscled, shirtless, green-eyed man calmly drinking water.

The stranger dropped an empty bottle and nodded a greeting toward Kendall. "Evening. I think I owe you some water."

Carlos was next out of his tent, rubbing sleep from his eyes and wearing a long, over-sized t-shirt like it was a nightgown.

"What the hell?!" Carlos demanded.

As Logan and Jimmy spilled from their tents, the stranger began drinking water from another bottle.

Jimmy looked around, not knowing what to do. Like Logan, he had slept in his boots, pants and t-shirt because he was afraid of the rattlesnakes and scorpions in the desert.

Josie watched her puzzled friends as they looked at her then the stranger, then back to her again.

Josie sighed. "It's him. The guy from the boat wreck!"

The guys all gave Josie dumbfounded looks.

Josie pointed to her own neck. "The necklace!"

Five sets of tired eyes looked toward the stranger's neck as he finished another water bottle. His muscles rippled in the moonlight and his gold necklace glinted against his tanned skin.

Jimmy suddenly charged forward. "Get him!" he yelled. It was the bravest, and possibly stupidest, thing he had ever done in his life.

The stranger stepped calmly aside letting Jimmy charge past him. Jimmy immediately tripped over the many empty water bottles and fell onto his face in the sand.

The stranger dropped his last empty water bottle on the ground. "Hey, I'm sorry, but I really needed that water."

Logan wasn't about to stand there slack-jawed. He stepped forward and threw a roundhouse punch at the bulging, gigantic stranger.

The stranger snapped a hand up, almost not looking and caught the punch. With his other hand he pushed against Logan's chest.

Logan suddenly flew backwards, nearly a dozen feet, collapsing a tent and landing with a heavy thud.

The stranger seemed genuinely surprised. He looked at his arm, then his chest. It was as though he had just discovered how overly-muscled he really was.

Kendall didn't care how big the stranger was. He whipped out a knife from his back pocket, popping it open with his thumb.

"Stay back, man!" he nearly yelled. "I mean it!"

The stranger regarded Kendall with an eerie calmness. He raised his hands submissively.

"Calm down, son," the black-haired water thief said calmly.

From behind the stranger, Jimmy had sprung back up. He charged again, ducking his head and tackling the much larger man- if by tackling one meant grabbing him around the waist and not budging him one inch.

Jimmy rebounded off the shirtless stranger, falling backwards to land roughly on his own bottom.

The stranger turned to face Jimmy, a curious look on his face. He then extended a hand, as if to help the teen up.

Kendall saw the stranger reaching for his friend and panicked. With skill born of countless years of practice, he flipped his knife up in the air, then caught it by the tip of the blade. With a flick of his wrist and arm, he threw the knife at the large stranger. The blade sank deep into the man's back.

The stranger turned around quickly. Now he had an angry look on his face.

Josie nearly gasped. Not at the knife sticking out of the stranger's back, but at the nickel-plated revolver Carlos had produced from somewhere. He held it in shaking hands, pointed at the stranger.

"Freeze!" Carlos demanded, his voice cracking.

The stranger became calm again. He started to raise his hands.

Blam! Carlos fired the revolver in fear.

Almost immediately, the stranger slapped his forehead with his right hand, as if squashing a mosquito.

"Ow!" The stranger declared. He pulled his hand away slowly, revealing a minor wound, that only seeped a small amount of blood.

The stranger lowered his hand, then opened it slowly. In his palm were the fragments of a bullet, and some blood. He was very surprised as the blood in his hand soaked into his palm and vanished.

As Josie, Carlos and the others watched, the blood on the man's forehead retreated back into his skin as well. His head wound slowly closed up, leaving behind only a faint, gray bruise.

"That doesn't seem normal," the stranger remarked, dumping the bullet fragments from his hand.

Carlos panicked- then fired his pistol five more times.

Even with shaking hands and white knuckles, Carlos couldn't miss at this range. His shots all hit the stranger's bare chest. The bullets struck the dense flesh, tearing skin open but not managing to go more than a half-inch deep. Some fragments fell back out of the wounds after the firing stopped.

The stranger looked down at his chest. Again, what little blood had escaped his skin seeped back inside the stranger. The flesh of the gunshot wounds pushed back out, dislodging bullet fragments and healing over.

The stranger looked back at Carlos. "I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop doing that."

CHAPTER FOUR

After shooting the water-guzzling stranger in their camp, Carlos had decided on a different course of action. Running away.

It wasn't that Carlos was a chicken. He didn't consider himself afraid of most anything. But this wasn't most anything. This was a bullet-proof man that had come back from the dead.

That was definitely something to be scared of.

Carlos felt better about his decision to run away when he looked out from behind the rock he had chosen as his hiding place and saw his friends all doing the same thing. Everybody had run away.

Except Josie. And Logan.

Carlos wasn't surprised. Josie never really seemed to be afraid of anything. And Logan had been thrown through the air like a rag doll. He probably was in no condition to run.

Now Carlos felt bad. Not bad enough to come out from behind his rock, but bad.

***

Josie was amazed.

Not because the stranger was still standing after being shot six times, but because of what was happening to him now. His wounds were healing.

The head wound- which wasn't very deep at all- had closed up. Josie had watched the blood on the wound soak back into the stranger's head. Like he was a sponge. What she had first thought was a bruise she now realized was something else. A splotch of gray that faded back to flesh color.

The chest wounds were different. Josie watched in fascination as the wounds swelled up from inside the stranger. Bullet fragments were slowly pushed out. What little blood had trickled down from the wounds soaked back into the stranger's skin. Again, the wounds healed and turned stone-colored then back to flesh-colored.

The stranger seemed surprised too. He had been staring at bullet fragments from his chest, held in the palm of his hand. Then he looked down and watched his chest wounds silently heal.

He looked confused.

"What are you?" Josie finally asked, breaking the silence.

The stranger looked up at the sky, at the stars, for several seconds. Then he turned his strange black-green eyes to Josie.

"An American," he said. "And judging from these stars, you are too?"

Josie's throat felt dry. "Yes, Yes... No- I mean, how-?"

The stranger dropped the metal bullet fragments from his hand and pointed to his chest. "How'd I do this? No idea."

"Who are you?" Josie asked, taking a slow step forward. It all seemed so surreal.

The stranger watched her closely. "I'm Mark. Mark Kenslir," he finally said, extending his right hand.

Josie looked at the large hand for a second then reluctantly shook it. Despite his freakish strength and bulging muscles, the stranger's grip was gentle. Firm, but not vice-like as she had worried it might be. The stranger's hand was dry and smooth- and warm. At least he wasn't a zombie.

"Are you sure?" Josie asked as she slid her hand away.

"To be honest," the stranger, Mark, smiled, "I had to think about that."

The stranger looked around the camp as he continued to speak. "When I first walked in here, I wasn't sure who I was, or where I was."

"You're in Arizona," Josie said. This was getting stranger and stranger.

Mark looked at Josie again with his strange green-black eyes. "What's your name, kid?"

Josie had never seen eyes like the stranger's. Hazel eyes were green and brown. The stranger's were green and black, with the green being a deep, emerald hue.

"Josephine Winters- Josie. My friends call me Josie."

The stranger smiled warmly. "Pleased to meet you, Josie."

Josie couldn't help but smile back. Even though she knew she should be afraid, that she shouldn't be talking to this odd man, she felt perfectly safe.

"Speaking of your friends- you think they're coming back?" Mark asked, looking around.

Josie looked around. She hadn't realized all the guys had fled the area. Well, almost all of them. Logan was laying on a collapsed tent, where Mark had thrown him.

"I don't-" she started to say.

The stone man, Mark, pointed a thumb over his shoulder, at Logan. "Let's check on that one."

Mark turned and walked to the flattened tent Logan was laying in. He knelt carefully beside Logan.

Logan was lying in the tent, trying not to make noise, but holding his side. He had come down hard, and he was sure his ribs were broken. When he saw the stone man approaching, he panicked. His eyes went wide and he held his hands up defensively.

Mark smiled genuinely. "Relax sport, I'm not going to hurt you."

Despite the fact this was the guy that had just thrown him through the air with no apparent effort, Logan relaxed and lowered his hands. He noticed Josie was standing next to the stranger, and didn't appear frightened at all.

Mark gently probed Logan's side, expertly feeling the ribs and not applying too much pressure. Logan winced but didn't cry out in pain.

Mark stood up and faced Josie. "I don't think anything's broken- maybe just bruised. We ought to wrap the ribs... you have any first aid kits?"

Josie was relieved. She turned and cupped her hands to her mouth and began to call out for her friends. "Guys! Guys- we need your help! Logan's hurt!"

After several seconds, nothing happened. Josie was about to try again when the guys started to come back, tip-toeing around the tents cautiously.

Jimmy was first to walk over. He eyed the stranger, Mark, with great suspicion.

"Is he okay?" Jimmy asked, trying to see around Mark.

Mark nodded an affirmative. "He will be."

Carlos and Kendall walked over, standing close to Josie. Kendall too was suspicious. Carlos was intrigued.

"Are you a super hero?" Carlos asked, excitedly.

Oh, great, Kendall thought to himself. Here we go.

"A what?" the stranger asked.

Carlos was confused. "A superhero... You know, cape, tights, super-powers."

"I don't do tights. Or capes," Mark responded. "What do you mean by super-powers?"

Kendall couldn't believe he was going to join this conversation. "Oh, I don't know- like throwing people twenty feet through the air."

"Or being bullet-proof," Jimmy added.

"Do you even realize you have a knife sticking out of your back?" Carlos asked.

Mark twisted his head around and tried to look behind him. Sure enough, Kendall's knife was still lodged firmly in his back, above his shoulder blade, the point maybe two inches deep. He reached back and was just able to pull the knife free.

Mark wiped the blade on his pants, cleaning off his blood. He folded the knife and then offered it back to Kendall. "Good throw."

Kendall gulped and sheepishly accepted the knife. "Sorry."

He shoved the knife into his pants pocket.

"Don't worry, we're jake," Mark said calmly.

"Jake? I thought you said your name was Mark?" Josie asked, confused.

Mark frowned. "Jake. Okay... groovy?"

Mark eyed the kids carefully, for the first time really taking in their off-road motocross clothes. Their haircuts. Even their pop up tents.

"So you aren't a superhero," Carlos said, disappointedly.

Mark shook his head from side to side. "I'm still not clear on what a superhero is. Have you seen super-powers before?"

"Yeah," Josie said. "All the time. On TV."

Mark was shocked. "On TV?" The last show he could remember watching was about cowboys.

"Seriously, man," Carlos asked, not ready to give up, "What's your stage name?"

Dawn was just starting to break. Mark could see a lot better now. He scrutinized the two kingcab pickups in the camp. They were strangely shaped, with off-road tires. Nothing like the trucks he remembered.

Josie leaned back a bit, looking at the cut on Mark's back. She noticed it wasn't bleeding.

Mark pointed to the one of the trucks. "What year is that truck?"

Kendall looked around at his dark blue, dusty, Dodge 4x4 kingcab his dad had bought him. "It's a 2005."

Mark was surprised but kept his face straight. "Did you buy it new?"

"You're trying to figure out what year this is," Jimmy said in surprise.

Josie stepped behind Mark and grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler- one of only a few left. She uncapped it and started pouring water on the wound as the conversation continued.

"Jimmy, that is ridiculous," Josie declared.

Mark sighed. Smart kid, he thought.

"You got me, kid," Mark finally said. "So what year is it?"

Josie almost dropped the water bottle. Carlos and Kendall stepped around Mark, watching Josie pouring water on the cut.

"Uh, it's 2013," Jimmy said. He suddenly didn't think he was so clever anymore.

"Really?" Mark was surprised.

Carlos leaned close to Josie and whispered. "What are you doing?"

Carlos' eyes widened as the wound Josie was pouring water over turned gray and began to close itself. Once closed the wound turned back to the same tanned flesh tone as the rest of Mark's skin.

Mark turned around to face Josie. She stopped pouring the water, nearly dropping the bottle again.

Kendall was helping Logan up- he held as much of Logan's weight as he could while Logan held his left arm in close to his bruised ribs.

"I need to get to a phone," Mark said.

Carlos shrugged and reached into a pocket and pulled out a slim flip phone and offered it to Mark. "Here, use mine."

Mark looked at the small device, cocking his left eyebrow.

"I was thinking more of a payphone," Mark said, wondering what the thing in Carlos' hand was.

Josie pushed Carlos' hand away. "I don't think we'd get a signal out here anyway, Mist- Mark."

Carlos shrugged and put his phone away.

"I think you need to get more help than a payphone has to offer," Josie added.

"What do you mean?" Mark asked.

Josie swallowed nervously. "When we found you... You had a... head wound..."

"Found me?" Mark asked.

"She means in the desert," Carlos said. "By that burnt-up boat."

Mark looked from Carlos to Josie. "You were there?"

Josie looked down for a moment, embarrassed. "Yeah, we came across the boat and saw you th-"

"And you just left me there?" Mark asked, incredulously.

"You weren't exactly moving, dude," Carlos remarked.

Confusion showed on Mark's face. He looked from teen to teen. What kind of people are these? he wondered. Who would leave an injured man in the desert to die?

"You were stone," Josie tried to explain. She had to admit, leaving someone stranded in the desert was pretty bad. Even if they did look like they were dead.

"Stoned?" Mark laughed at the absurdity of that. "I don't think so."

"Not stoned," Josie corrected. "Stone. Rock."

Kendall frowned. He didn't like where this really weird conversation was going. "Like a statue."

Mark crossed his arms over his chest. "That doesn't make any sense at all. Are you sure you kids aren't stoned?"

Josie stepped close and put her fingertips gently on Mark's bare chest, just below his sternum. His flesh was warm, but hard. Harder than any muscles she'd ever touched. Unnaturally hard.

"Mist- Mark, you had a big hole in your chest. And half your head was missing," Josie said.

Jimmy did not like Josie touching all over the shirtless man with the bulging muscles.

"And he was all burnt up," Jimmy added. "Covered in ash." Josie was taking this way too calmly.

"Yeah, man, why weren't your pants burnt up too?" Carlos asked.

Mark stepped away from Josie, looking down at his black, cargo-pocket pants. He ran a hand over the fire-retardant material.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't remember ever seeing this kind of material before."

Josie was alarmed. First the stranger had problems with his name. Then he didn't know what year it was. Now he didn't even recognize his own clothing. Super-powers or not, coming back from the dead didn't seem to be going so well for the shirtless man.

"Okay, so your name is Mark," Josie said, calmly. "What else do you remember?"

Mark looked up at the girl. She could tell by the look in his eyes there was a problem.

"Not much," Mark finally said, evasively.

"Maybe when you grew your head back, your memories didn't all come back with it?" Carlos suggested.

Kendall thought that sounded reasonable. "That makes sense- if he regenerated tissue, the neural patterns left by experiences wouldn't be there."

Everyone turned to Kendall with puzzled looks.

Kendall was suddenly embarrassed. "I am going to school this fall for pre-Med, if you guys remember."

Josie turned back to Mark. "Do you have any ID on you? Maybe something to jar your memory? What about that necklace?"

Mark looked down and held up a hand to touch the necklace. He covered it defensively. "I- someone close gave this to me..."

Every instinct told Jimmy they should run away, get in their trucks and leave this strange, stone man in the desert. But like always, Jimmy reluctantly followed Josie's lead.

"Did you check your pockets?" Jimmy asked.

Mark gave Jimmy a skeptical look. He may not remember much, but he remembered waking up in the remains of the melted boat. Anything that hot would have burnt up anything in his pockets- even if the pants themselves were heat-resistant.

"He's right," Josie agreed. "If your pants survived that fire, who knows?"

Mark shrugged and went to reach into his right pocket. His fingers stopped against plastic. Melted plastic- the pocket was fused shut. He pushed against the plastic, ripping it. The ripping plastic sound gave way to the sound of ripping velcro- the pants had a velcro closure. Mark's hand slid in.

"I'll be damned," he said aloud. "Velcro."

The pocket felt odd- lined with some kind of strange material, different from the pants. He felt around- there was a lump of something papery.

Mark pulled the object out- it was a wad of money. He fanned the bills out- several thousand-dollar bills, hundred-dollar bills, and even half-a-dozen twenties. There was close to four thousand dollars.

"Looks like just cash," Mark said, holding the money up for the teens to see. "A lot of it."

Mark peeled a hundred off of the wad of bills and offered it to Kendall. "Here's for all that water I drank."

Kendall was shocked, but snatched out his hand and grabbed at the bill.

Carlos' eyes were bugging out as he looked at the wad of cash. "Dude- what's with all the Benjamins?"

Benjamins? Mark thought to himself. He looked at the money and saw the image of Benjamin Franklin on the one-hundreds. Oh, more modern slang.

"When I was in Korea," Mark said, some of his memory returning, "I always carried a wad of cash with me when I went out into the field. Just in case something came up."

"When were you in Korea?" Josie asked.

Mark frowned. He hesitated to answer- no telling what these kids were going to think. He thought it was crazy himself.

"I got there in 1952 and stayed for a few years. The war," he answered. He remembered every detail of it. Like it was only a few years ago- not more than sixty.

The teens all looked shocked. The super-powered stranger looked like he was in his 30s. For him to have fought in Korea would mean he was born long before their parents- maybe even their grandparents. Yet here he stood, not a wrinkle on him.

"You don't look that old," Jimmy said, echoing what the others were thinking.

"I was thinking the same thing," Mark admitted.

If the man could come back from the dead, could heal any wound and was strong enough to throw people around like they were footballs, being from 1952 didn't strike Josie as being all that weird.

Josie reached over and took the one-hundred out of Kendall's hand.

"Hey!" Kendall said.

Josie looked close at the bill. It was a modern one-hundred, printed in 2011.

Kendall snatched the bill back from Josie.

"That's a 2011 bill," Josie said, ignoring Kendall. "You didn't get that in 1952."

"What do you remember after the war?" Josie asked.

Mark sighed. "I remember dying. In 1962."

CHAPTER FIVE

Mark Kenslir remembered dying only too well. The day of his death had come so unexpectedly. March 20, 1962- the day before his thirty-fourth birthday.

Seated in a chair outside the door to the bathroom of his small, shared apartment, Mark had been reading the newspaper while his new wife had been getting ready for work.

In those days, Mark wore green Army fatigues, clean and pressed. His boots were polished to a perfect shine.

The door opened and Maria finally came out, brushing her long, wavy, black hair. As always, she wore slacks, turtleneck and lab coat. Doctor Guerrero was as fetching as the day Mark had been assigned to protect her.

The Army should have seen it coming- locking a genius female scientist up in a secret lab, with a military intelligence officer as her twenty-four-hour-a-day, sole companion was bound to lead to complications. In this case, romantic complications.

Maria smiled at Mark as she brushed her hair. "Ready to go back to work?"

Maria was always excited about work. Until Mark had been assigned to her, it had been a passion that consumed her every waking minute.

Mark folded his newspaper and tucked it under his arm. He stood up, almost subconsciously running a thumb over his new wedding band. It still felt strange to wear a ring. Mark looked down at his new, slightly-older wife.

"Tired of me already?" he asked.

Maria laughed and handed Mark her hairbrush. She then turned and headed towards the apartment's tiny kitchenette. Mark hurried to keep up with her.

"That was a great honeymoon," Maria said, sitting at their tiny table. "I still can't believe you got them to let me out."

Maria hadn't had a vacation, hadn't walked outside the facility, in years. She'd remember her honeymoon vacation for a long time.

Maria picked up a piece of toast from the table, while Mark sat down across from her. He set her hairbrush and his newspaper in one of two remaining empty chairs.

"Until they find someone else like me, I'm pretty indispensable," Mark said. "I tend to get what I want."

"Oh, is that how you got me?" Maria teased.

Mark sputtered, embarrassed, unable to think of what to say. As he remembered it, it was the other way around.

Maria quickly changed the subject- putting a small box on the table she had pulled from a pocket of her lab coat.

"What's this?" Mark asked.

"My wedding present to you," Maria said.

Mark picked up the small box, very surprised. He opened it- inside was a gold necklace, with a small, gold Christian fish pendant on it.

"How'd you get this?" Mark asked. Maria hadn't been more than fifteen feet away from him since the day they met.

"You mean, how'd I get this when we're never apart?" Maria corrected, smiling mischievously. "I have lab assistants, remember?

"Put it on," Maria directed.

Mark pulled the necklace from its box and slipped it over his head. He tucked it under his shirt to stay within uniform regulations.

"Why the fish?" he asked.

"I know how much you like the story of the bread and the fish," Maria said.

"Thanks- I like it," Mark said, smiling at his wife.

"I fig-" Maria started to say. She was interrupted by the ringing of a red phone, on a stand by the front door to the apartment. A red phone that was never supposed to ring.

Maria and Mark exchanged worried glances, then Mark all but ran for the phone.

"Kenslir," Mark said into the phone pressed against his ear.

Mark listened intently to the person on the other end for several moments. His face became grim.

"I understand. I'll inform Dr. Guerrero," Mark finally said.

He hung up the phone and turned to face Maria.

"There's been an accident in the lab," he said sternly. "Someone dropped the basilisk eye into the Fountain."

All the color drained from Maria's face at the implication of that statement. Of all the accidents that could happen on this project, this was at the top of the her list of the worst possible.

"Is anyone hurt?" Maria asked, standing up from her chair.

"It fully regenerated," Mark said solemnly. "At least three people were petrified before they lost communication with the chamber."

Mark hesitated. "It's sealed in now."

Maria moved away from the breakfast table and all but sprinted for the door. Those were her people down there.

Mark grabbed her by the arm as she headed for the door.

"We've got to get down there!" Maria declared.

"We can't."

Maria couldn't understand- of all the people in the building, Mark was the one who could go down to the lab now. Why was he hesitating?

"Mark, those are my people down there! I can't just stay here!"

Mark shook his head from side to side slowly. "Protocol says we keep it locked in until nightfall. Then it's problem solved."

"You have a protocol for someone dropping my basilisk eye in the Fountain and the whole creature regenerating?" Maria demanded.

"It's the Army," Mark answered. "We have protocols for everything."

Maria struggled to get free of her husband's grip. "I need that eye, Mark," she pleaded. "I'm so close to figuring out how it works!

"If we lose that eye, we can't get another one," she added.

Mark considered his wife's plea. He considered just how much time and how many resources had been put into the project. Reluctantly, he released his wife's arm. She was right.

"So you want me to go kill it and cut out its eye?" Mark asked. He dreaded the answer, but knew what it would be.

"It was done once before," Maria reminded him.

"What if I get petrified?" Mark asked. Not that he really worried about that. It was the fangs and teeth part that bothered him.

"That werewolf bite a few years ago didn't affect you," Maria said calmly. "A lizard staring you in the eye shouldn't either."

Mark sighed. This was a test of his abilities he didn't really want to take. But his wife was right. He turned and walked to a nearby closet door and opened it. Inside was his cache of emergency gear. Pistols, rifles, submachine guns. Grenades, explosives, web gear. Everything he might need to fight his way to the surface in any circumstance. Except maybe this one.

Mark turned to his wife once more. "Fine, but you have to stay here. I'll know you'll be safe here."

Maria walked up to Mark and his gun closet. She reached past her husband and selected an M870, .12 gauge shotgun.

"The safest place is right next to you, dear," she said.

***

Many floors below Mark and Maria's apartment, in the bowels of the Project, there was a long basement hallway. This hallway was nearly one hundred feet-long- lined with heavy blast doors that looked as though they could withstand most conventional munitions.

The hallway itself was plain- a drop panel ceiling with fluorescent lights and vents, hanging over a simple tiled floor. At one end of the hallway, there was a large freight elevator- also with heavy, steel doors.

An eerie stillness was in the hallway. Only the hum of the lights could be heard.

The freight elevator doors suddenly opened.

Mark was now carrying a Thompson submachine gun, and wearing a belt supporting a .45 semi auto pistol and a number of canister-shaped grenades. Maria was still in her lab coat, clutching her shotgun with anxiety.

They both covered the area of the hallway with their guns- but it was still clear. Nothing could escape the chamber and its heavy blast door.

Maria nodded at the ceiling. "Watch where you shoot- there are pipes running overhead with natural gas in them."

She knew she didn't need to say that- she'd seen Mark firing on the range. He was a crack shot. The comment was more for herself. She wished she'd spent more time at the range herself.

Mark reached across to a handset hung up in the elevator. He pressed it to his ear as it connected to the Project's main control room.

"Open it," he ordered.

The control room didn't like this plan. They were still trying to reach Command for authorization. But everyone knew this was the only chance the people in the lab had.

Midway down the hall, the chamber's heavy blast door popped open a few inches. Hidden hydraulics took over, slowly swinging the door outwards. Faint wisps of steam and the acrid smell of electrical fires wafted out of the chamber.

The door swung to its half-open position and stopped.

Mark and Maria took a tentative step forward, out of the elevator. They held their weapons at hip-height, side by side.

From beyond the blast door came a strange skittering noise. Claws. Claws on tile. The basilisk suddenly darted out from behind the door.

It was a hideous creature. Nearly twelve feet long, with a vaguely reptilian head, surrounded by a boney plate with spikes- like a dinosaur. Beyond its head the creature had a bright plumage of feathers down to its shoulders. Like its shimmering scales, the feathers were blood red.

A purple, forked tongue darted in and out of the lizard's mouth as it tasted the air. It immediately tasted the scent of the two humans. It hissed and turned to face Mark and Maria.

"Don't shoot its eyes!" Maria reminded Mark.

Mark already had his Thompson up, held tight against his shoulder, lining his sights up. He fired a quick burst at the side of the basilisk facing him.

The .45 caliber rounds slammed into the beast's scales, directly behind its front legs. A perfect kill shot, directly over the heart. Except the rounds ricocheted off the scales.

Mark looked over at his wife, worry on his face. "You didn't tell me it was bulletproof."

The basilisk felt the impact of the bullets. It roared in anger then turned toward the far end of hall and Mark and Maria.

Maria stepped forward, lifting her shotgun to her shoulder as her husband had taught her. "You aren't using a big enough gun!"

Maria aimed and fired her shotgun as the basilisk began running toward them. The massive deer slug went wide, missing the charging basilisk and tearing a chunk out of the wall.

Mark decided this was a bad plan and it was time to change it. He threw down his Thompson.

"Sorry, dear," he said, shoving his wife back into the elevator while he watched the approaching basilisk.

Mark quickly pulled an incendiary grenade off his belt, glad the creature couldn't run that fast.

Maria nearly fell down in the elevator, but quickly recovered. Her eyes widened in horror at the sight of the grenade in Mark's hand.

"Mark! No!" she yelled.

Mark pulled the pin on the grenade in his hand then gave it an underhanded toss forward.

The basilisk skidded to a halt, perplexed by the approaching canister. Then it opened its mouth and swallowed the grenade. A second later, it spit the grenade back out.

"Oh, crap," Mark said as the grenade bounced and rolled across the floor, back toward him.

Only a dozen feet away from Mark, the grenade detonated- releasing a cloud of fire and molten metal. A split-second after that, a second detonation erupted- the gas lines overhead exploding.

***

When Mark's ears stopped ringing and his vision cleared, he found himself under a large concrete beam. Fire burned in the hallway and most of the lights were out. Mark tried to get up, but the debris covering his chest and legs wouldn't budge. All he could do was turn his head enough to look into the elevator.

Maria was standing up in the elevator- blood trickling down her face from a scalp wound while the left sleeve of her lab coat burned. Maria hastily began to remove the jacket.

Mark suddenly realized that the debris covering him wasn't just crushing him beneath its weight- the debris was on fire. Mark struggled against the burning debris. He began to feel the heat from the flames.

Maria finally got her labcoat off and threw it down. She had to hold on to the open doors of the elevator to stay standing. Suddenly, she spied Mark, pinned under the flaming debris.

"Mark!" Maria screamed. She turned and lunged for the fire extinguisher in the elevator.

Mark began to scream. He was in agonizing pain- the fire had finally reached his flesh.

Maria ripped the fire extinguisher from the wall and fumbled with the safety pin while her husband slowly burned to death.

Maria turned back to Mark, swinging the fire extinguisher around. Her flesh began to turn gray in color, and her movements slowed until she remained frozen in place.

The last image Mark saw before the flames engulfed his head was of his wife turning to stone.

CHAPTER SIX

After Mark's bombshell revelation about his death in 1962, the confused teens decided it was time to go. Logan was hurt, and needed to go to a doctor. Kendall was only too willing to take him. Carlos had reluctantly agreed to go along.

Josie volunteered herself and Jimmy to help their new, amnesiac friend out- by taking him back to the burnt-up boat. And while he wouldn't elaborate on his death in 1962, Mark agreed it was a good idea to return to the boat wreck.

Tents were taken down and the camp packed up. The teens all dressed for the day- ditching their off-road riding gear in favor of shorts and t-shirts, with sneakers or sandals. Then they started putting their motorcycles away.

Carlos, now in plaid Bermuda shorts, bright green flips flops and a white t-shirt, struggled to put his motorcycle on the trailer behind Kendall's truck with two other bikes.

Kendall and Logan were at the back of Kendall's truck- now wearing tan shorts, sneakers, and matching t-shirts bearing their school's logo, the Aztecs. Kendall was wrapping Logan's ribs with duct tape, over his shirt.

Mark watched the work quietly. He'd ditched his one boot, and stood barefoot in the sand, in only his combat pants. The hot sun beat down on his tan skin and his fish pendant necklace.

And he wasn't even sweating in the heat. That really irritated Jimmy, now wearing sneakers, khaki pants and an untucked, gray, short-sleeve shirt. Jimmy was sweating profusely as he tried to push his motorcycle up a short ramp, into the back of his own Ford kingcab truck

"So you remember burning to death in 1962. But nothing since?" Josie asked from the bed of the truck.

Josie too had changed. She now wore short, blue jean shorts, a bright, pink t-shirt and leather sandals. Her hair was back in a long pony tail. She'd also put on makeup, which made her look remarkably different.

"There are some definite gaps," Mark answered.

"But it is starting to come back?"

Mark walked over to the struggling Jimmy and put a hand on his shoulder. Jimmy stopped his efforts, then watched in horror as Mark lifted the motorcycle with one hand. He carried the bike around to the side of the truck and lifted it up and over, and into the bed.

"Yes," Mark said to Josie, as he stepped back.

Josie steadied the motorcycle and began to fasten it in place with tie down straps.

Jimmy glared at Mark. "I could have done that."

"You're welcome," Mark replied, turning to go get Josie's motorcycle.

Jimmy noticed Josie was watching Mark closely. No doubt checking out his bulging muscles.

"Can we get this guy some clothes?" Jimmy demanded.

Mark looked questioningly at Jimmy.

Josie turned to Kendall's truck and shouted over at Carlos. "Carlos! You have any more of those nightgowns of yours?"

Carlos had just gotten his motorcycle onto the trailer along with Kendall and Logan's. His face twisted up in indignation and he almost stamped a foot on the ground.

"They're not nightgowns!" Carlos snapped back.

Carlos stomped around the trailer, to the cab of the truck. He opened the door and began rummaging around in his duffel bag on the back seat. He pulled out a black t-shirt and stormed over to Mark with it.

"Here!" Carlos said, offering the shirt to Mark. "It's a Two-X, it should fit you just fine."

Mark accepted the shirt and started to put it on. "Thanks."

Despite the big-man's size, the shirt barely fit. It clung to Mark like it was painted on.

Mark looked down at the front of the shirt and the letters K-E-$-H-A.

"I don't get it," Mark said, looking back to Carlos.

"Kesha, man!" Carlos exclaimed. "She's a famous musician."

On the back of Kendall's truck, Logan started to laugh- which caused him pain that made him wince. "Carlos is in love with her."

Mark frowned. "No- I mean, why do you have such big shirts?"

Kendall and Logan laughed. Jimmy frowned while he struggled to get Josie's motorcycle up into the truck.

"I like to wear loose clothes when I sleep," a perturbed Carlos replied.

Jimmy finally managed to get Josie's motorcycle up into the truck. Josie, trying not to snicker at Carlos' and Mark's conversation, began to lash it down.

From his perch on the rear of Kendall's truck, Logan decided to join in. "How come you don't put your hair up in curlers, too?"

Carlos turned to glare at Logan. His face was turning red- partly from anger, partly from embarrassment.

Josie decided it was time to drop it, before Carlos and Logan came to blows. She jumped down out of the bed of the truck.

"I guess we're all ready, then," Josie said, stepping in front of Carlos so he couldn't glare at Logan.

Jimmy finished closing up the tailgate of his truck.

Mark turned to look off into the morning desert. "It's that way, right?"

"Yep," Josie said, still watching Carlos.

Carlos finally stopped his fuming and walked around Josie, headed toward Kendall's truck. Mark followed Carlos.

Kendall helped Logan down, then helped him into the truck. Carlos also got in, riding in back, while Logan rode shotgun.

While Josie watched her friends, and Mark, Jimmy stepped up beside her.

"Why are we helping him?" Jimmy asked.

"Because he needs our help," Josie responded. "We can't just leave him out in the desert."

"I don't trust him," Jimmy pouted. "And when did you start helping people?"

Josie realized that was very true- she'd never been much of a people-person. She had a handful of friends and that was it. She couldn't explain why, but she felt compelled to help this Mark Kenslir- whoever he really was.

Beside Kendall's truck, Mark held out two thousand-dollar bills to Logan.

"Sorry I shot down your summer vacation, boys," he said.

Logan eyed Mark suspiciously but took the money.

"Sorry about the ribs, kid," Mark added.

Logan shrugged, but said nothing. He was in too much pain to argue. And he was still just a little afraid of the now-generous stranger.

From the back seat, Carlos chimed in. "Hope you get your memory back, mister."

Mark stepped back from the truck. "Thanks."

Mark turned and walked away from the truck, back towards Josie and Jimmy. When he was out of earshot, Kendall and Logan turned around to glare at Carlos.

"Hope you get your memory back," Kendall mockingly said. "Why didn't you ask for his autograph, too?"

"He could still be a superhero," Carlos said defensively. "Maybe he just forgot."

Logan, despite the pain it caused him, reached over the seat and punched Carlos in the arm. "He could be a super villain, too, dumbass."

Carlos rubbed his arm but said nothing.

"We're just going to leave them out here with that freak?" Logan asked Kendall. He was genuinely worried about Josie. And maybe even Jimmy.

"Josie can handle herself," Kendall said. "But no, we're going to go find some cops and report this."

Back at Jimmy's truck, Mark climbed into the cab, sitting in the front passenger seat. Josie slid over, next to Jimmy, who was driving.

"Ready to go see if any of those memories come back?" she asked enthusiastically.

Mark pointed ahead. "Let's split."

***

The drive to the boat took longer than Jimmy wanted. It was an uncomfortable, slow ride over the desert sand. His truck couldn't navigate as well as his motorcycle had.

Any other time, Jimmy would have loved having Josie pressed up against him, every bump and jump of the truck making her unintentionally rub against him.

Unfortunately, he had realized that every time Josie bumped into him, she was also bumping into this Mark stranger. With his bulging muscles and tan skin. It made Jimmy wish for a paved road.

As they neared the boat wreck, Mark finally broke the silence.

"Are you sure your friends will be all right?"

Josie smiled. "They're big boys, they can find their way back home on their own."

There she was, smiling at him again, Jimmy thought to himself. Dammit.

"They'd rather take their chances with the desert than you, anyways," Jimmy almost growled.

Mark leaned around Josie to look at the driving teen. This kid needed an attitude adjustment. And a haircut.

Jimmy pressed on the brake and brought his truck to a smooth stop on the edge of the wreckage.

"Here we are," Jimmy announced, putting the truck in park.

The trio quickly exited the truck. Jimmy immediately noticed Josie got out on Mark's side. Despite the fact this was easier than trying to slide around the steering wheel, Jimmy was jealous. Again.

The boat was clearly burnt. And broken. What had once been a long, sleek, twenty-five foot runabout, designed for hauling water skiers, was now just a mass of twisted metal and melted fiberglass and plastic. Sitting in the middle of a large black stain on the desert.

The trio walked around in the wreckage, poking at unrecognizable chunks with their boots. Or, in Mark's case, his bare feet.

"What's the nearest body of water to here?" Mark asked as he continued his inspection.

"Pick a direction- there's no water for twenty miles or more," Josie answered.

Jimmy had been wondering about that too. Mark and his whole coming-back-from-the-dead thing was pretty weird. But a boat in the middle of the desert- miles from any water- that was strange as well.

Amidst the soot and ash from what must have been a raging fire, Josie saw an odd shape on the ground next to the broken, burnt boat. Almost as big as a softball, oblong. She reached down and picked it up. It was heavy, and hard, like a stone.

Jimmy leaned in, trying to see what Josie had found. "Whatcha got?"

Mark stepped over to join them just as Josie turned the item over in her hand for a better look. All three immediately recognized what she held.

A human heart- made of stone. Complete with the stubs of stone arteries sticking out from it.

"That looks like a human heart," Mark commented.

Thank you, Mr. Obvious, Jimmy thought to himself.

Mark reached out a finger and touched the heart. As soon as he contacted the burnt stone, a faint, green glow emanated from around his fingertip. The glow began to spread out over the heart. As it did so, the stone turned to flesh.

Josie gasped. She dropped the heart as it turned from stone to squishy flesh. Even its weight had changed. As it fell, the heart quickly turned back to stone, landing with a thud in the sand.

Jimmy was amazed. "How'd you do that?"

Mark was frowning. "It's a little ability I have- to nullify magic and other supernatural things."

"Magic?" Josie said dubiously. She was finally able to tear her gaze away from the once-more stone heart.

"What? You don't believe in magic?" Mark asked.

"I've never seen any," Josie replied, although she wondered if she might just have.

"So, you can come back from the dead, you're bullet-proof, super strong and you can nullify magic?" Jimmy asked. And you're a bulging muscle man with bronze skin, Jimmy thought to himself. I can't compete with that.

Mark was looking back at the wreckage now, as he spoke. "Yes- but it used to be I didn't have to touch things... I could just walk near them and shut them down."

Mark started to walk away from the two baffled teens. He headed for the spot he remembered waking up in the burnt wreckage. Crouching down, he picked around in the ashes. He found buckles and rivets- remnants of military belts and web straps. A harness of some type that had supported a lot of gear.

Josie and Jimmy stood quietly, side by side, watching Mark. Jimmy leaned in close, trying to whisper.

"Why are we here?" he asked.

Josie was fascinated. "Seeing where he died might jog his memory."

"That's not what I meant," Jimmy said. "Why are we out here, in the middle of nowhere,

helping this guy?

"And don't give me that he needs help, stuff, either," he added.

Josie turned to face her friend. Concern showed on her face. "What's wrong with you, Jimmy?"

It just wasn't like Jimmy to be like this. He was the one always telling her she should get out more. That she should be more willing to help others. Wasn't that what she was trying to do now?

"I don't trust this guy," Jimmy said.

"Well, I do," Josie replied. She trusted Mark. She didn't know why, but she didn't feel in any danger.

Beneath the ashes and debris from the harness he had clearly once worn, Mark found other items. A gigantic, semi-automatic pistol, its handgrips melted off, the metal blackened. Brass casings, thicker than bananas- grenades? He finally found a knife in the debris.

A Kabar. He recognized it immediately.

He'd carried that same knife in Korea. The leather-disks that had made up the handle were dried and burnt, but it was the same knife he'd always tucked into a boot sheath. His last backup. His lucky knife.

Mark picked the knife out of the ashes and dusted it off.

Jimmy wasn't willing to let the conversation with Josie end there. "This is because of your dad, right?"

Josie looked at Jimmy as though he were an escapee from a mental institution. "My dad? What are you talking about?"

"Your dad died fighting a fire, you meet this guy- who died in a fire." It made sense to Jimmy. Josie had been haunted by nightmares about her father being burnt alive for years. Even though she'd only been two when it happened.

"Died in a fire?" Josie asked, a little angry at the suggestion. "Do you realize how crazy you sound? He's standing right there."

Josie pointed to Mark to emphasize the point.

Mark stood up, sliding the old Kabar knife into his left pocket. He turned to face the kids.

Josie was glad to change the subject. "Find anything?"

"Straps, belts, holsters," Mark said. "I was loaded for bear."

"You were hunting?" Jimmy asked. This Mark guy talked weird.

Mark considered for a moment before speaking. "I think so. In a manner of speaking."

"What were you hunting?" Josie asked. It just kept getting more and more interesting.

"I can't remember," Mark admitted. "I don't remember this boat either."

Jimmy was reaching the limits of his patience. This week was supposed to be his big chance to finally tell Josie how he felt about her, before she went away to college in the fall. He'd wanted to say something since they were little kids, and he knew that this was his last chance. Then Mark had come along.

"Well, what did you do, after the war, but before you remember dying in 1962?" Jimmy asked, a little condescendingly.

"I was a soldier. I fought," Mark answered matter-of-factly.

"Fought what?" Jimmy asked before Josie could.

"Communists mostly," Mark responded. He was clearly being evasive again.

Josie was a little perturbed herself. "We can't help you if you keep a bunch of secrets from us."

Mark considered that for a moment. His memory might stop at 1962, but what he did remember from before then was too much for these kids.

"It's classified," he said. "Or it was. Who knows anymore? We sure didn't have people using abilities in public, back in '62."

Josie took a step forward, toward Mark. "Look, whatever secrets you had, I think we've learned enough to know more. Or we can't help you."

"Procedure would be for me to report in," Mark stubbornly said. He could tell the girl was sincere. He briefly considered telling her more.

"Report in to where?" Jimmy asked, folding his arms across his chest. Why couldn't they just drop this guy somewhere and get on with their summer vacation?

"Good question," Mark said. He hadn't thought of that. "I clearly haven't been operating out of the same place I did in '62. And I clearly haven't been asleep since '62 either.

"I just can't seem to remember from '62 to now."

Josie walked up to Mark, her eyes pleading and sincere. "See. You need our help. Your memories are coming back, right?"

"Slowly," Mark agreed.

Josie smiled. "So you just need somewhere to stay for awhile. To rest."

Jimmy didn't like where this was going. "Josie..."

Mark thought about it for a moment. "Maybe."

Josie clapped her hands once. "Great. My mom and I live alone. We have a big house- you can stay with us."

Jimmy's jaw dropped. "Josie! I don't think that's a good idea!"

Jimmy was horrified. This wasn't a stray dog they were talking about. It was an arguably-human being, with super-human strength and amnesia. What if he turned out to be a homicidal killer?

Josie turned to look at Jimmy. She gave him a withering glare that made him look down at the ground like he was in trouble.

"You want to just drop the amnesiac off in the middle of nowhere?" she demanded.

Jimmy sighed. He knew he was beaten. "No."

A new idea occurred to Jimmy. He didn't want to offer, but at least it would keep Mark away from Josie. "He can stay with me."

Mark was genuinely surprised. Jimmy had made it crystal clear he didn't like him. Now Jimmy was offering him a place to stay.

Josie grinned even wider and turned back to Mark. She put a hand on his arm. "Great! Jimmy's folks are in Europe on vacation- we can have the house all to ourselves!"

"We?" Jimmy asked in shock. That was not the plan. He wanted to get Josie away from this Mark guy. Where she wasn't in any danger, and she couldn't ogle him any further.

Josie stepped around beside Mark, facing back across at Jimmy. "Hey, I found him! And you know I like a good mystery."

Mark looked from Josie to Jimmy. "I don't know if that's a good idea. I don't want to put you kids in any danger."

"What danger?" Josie asked, looking up at him.

Mark had no choice. He was going to have share more than he wanted. "I was hunting something. It's still alive."

"How do you know?" Jimmy asked, hoping Mark could talk some sense into Josie and they'd finally be rid of the stranger. "I thought you couldn't remember anything since 1962."

"I remember dying," Mark said. "Again."

"What killed you?" Josie asked. It wasn't quite the progress she'd hoped for, but it was a start.

"That I don't remember," Mark admitted. "It's like a dream I can't quite recall. But, I remember that whoever it was, they ripped my heart out."

Mark pointed to the stone heart Josie had dropped.

"That's it there."
CHAPTER SEVEN

Kendall had been serious about going to the police. He had taken the drive to the highway then driven straight to the nearest town and its small police station.

At first, they'd been met with skepticism and laughter. But when they described Mark, the Deputy took interest. He'd pulled down a WANTED poster hanging in the station and shown it to the boys. It was the stranger from the boat wreck who barely remembered his name.

The boys were quickly moved to an interrogation room. There they waited for nearly an hour, all seated next to each other, on one side of the table. A man in a black suit, with sunglasses and an ear piece, had come in and started silently watching over them.

"Well, this was a good idea," Carlos said sarcastically. He wondered why the suited man just stood there, staring at them.

"Shut up, Carlos," Kendall said. He tried to avoid looking at the man in the suit.

"He's right," Logan whispered. "We should have just kept our mouths shut."

"And leave Jimmy and Josie with that weirdo, alone in the des-" Kendall responded. He was interrupted by the door to the interrogation room opening.

Another Fed in a bad suit. A tall, black man with a shaved head, also wearing sunglasses.

The second agent walked to the table and sat down across from Carlos, Kendall and Logan.

"So, where do you boys think your friends are now?" the agent asked.

"Out in the desert..." Carlos blurted out.

The agent reached under his jacket and pulled out a 5x7 photo. He laid it on the table and slid it across for the boys to see. It had a picture of Mark Kenslir on it.

"Is this the man you and your friends met?" The agent asked.

"That's him," Kendall confirmed.

"What can you tell me about the man?"

Carlos shrugged. "He was super-strong... He picked up a motorcycle with one hand!"

"Was he alone? What did he talk about?" the agent asked. He was emotionless, robotic in his manner.

Kendall was getting suspicious. If this Mark Kenslir was a fugitive, why weren't they headed out right now looking for him. Why all these questions?

"Why?" Kendall asked. "Is he dangerous?"

The agent took off his sunglasses, folded them and set them on the table. His brown eyes seemed to bore into the teens' souls as he looked them over, one by one.

"Please answer the question," the agent said. "What did the man talk about?"

"He couldn't remem-" Carlos was interrupted by Logan jabbing him in the ribs with an elbow.

Logan was with Kendall. Something wasn't right. "Who wants to know?"

The agent gave a smile. Not a warm, friendly smile. More of a I'm-going-to-skin-you-alive smile. It sent chills down the teens' backs.

Before they could think any more about the agent, or Mark Kenslir, the teens suddenly sat up as straight as possible in their chairs. They became stiff, as though being electrocuted. Their eyes rolled up in their heads.

The teens sat this way, rigid, for several seconds while the agent watched them.

Several seconds later, the teens went slack- falling forward, their heads hitting the table. They were unconscious.

The agent reached into his jacket again and extracted a small cell phone. He dialed his superiors and held the phone to his head. Headquarters was quick to answer.

"He's alive," the agent announced. "And he doesn't remember a thing."

***

The ride out of the desert had gone slowly. Josie had tried a few more times to ask Mark about his deaths. He remained tight lipped- repeating only that he'd died in an explosion in 1962, and that his most recent death had come after his heart had been ripped out.

Mark wasn't much of a talker.

Josie had tried changing tactics. She asked Mark about his early life- where he was from, if he had family.

Mark had again been reluctant to speak, but Josie wore him down.

Born in 1928, Mark was the son of a Titanic survivor. His father, Thomas, had been a small child, the youngest of seven boys and two girls, who had emigrated from Scotland on the Titanic. The family had originally come from Germany, centuries before. Thomas was the only one to survive the Atlantic crossing.

Adopted by a family in Canada, Thomas grew up and became a member of the Northwest Mounted Police. In Western Canada, he'd met Mark's mother, Mary. The couple moved to the United States in the 1920s, where they too had a number of children. Mark was the youngest of seven boys.

When World War II broke out, Mark was too young to fight- but watched as his older brothers went off to fight. Two didn't make it back.

Mark himself was later accepted into West Point, and graduated in 1950. A couple of years later, he saw action in Korea. And that's about where Mark decided to clam up. Josie imagined he'd seen some horrible stuff in the war.

Jimmy was glad Mark had stopped talking. Josie had taken far too much interest in him.

Once out of the desert, the trio had hit the highway headed home. The first small town- little more than a gas station and a dozen other buildings- Josie made Jimmy pull over.

Jimmy pulled up to the gas pumps to refuel. Once again, Jimmy got out on the driver's side, while Josie followed Mark out the front passenger door. Josie led Mark around to the pumps. He seemed fascinated by the design.

Josie held her hand out to Mark. "I need some cash."

"For?" Mark asked.

Josie pointed to his bare feet. "You need shoes."

Mark looked down at his feet. He could feel the pavement was hot, very hot. But it didn't hurt. Even small rocks on the asphalt didn't bother him. That was a far cry from how his feet had been after those cold years in Korea when he nearly lost several toes to frost bite.

"Surprisingly, my feet don't hurt," he told Josie.

"Yeah, well we need gas," Jimmy added. "And I'm hungry. So pay up."

Josie glared at Jimmy. She couldn't understand why he so obviously didn't like Mark. Which was doubly weird considering Jimmy normally liked everyone. Except maybe Logan.

Jimmy shrugged. "Hey, he ruined our summer vacation too."

"Jimmy!" Josie said, shocked. This was so out of character for him.

"It's okay," Mark said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out several twenty-dollar bills and offered them to Josie.

Josie plucked the money from his hand. "That'll do fine."

Josie then turned and started walking to the gas station.

"Try to behave while I'm gone, boys," she called back over her shoulder.

Jimmy started pumping gas into his truck. He and Mark just stood there for several moments, in awkward silence.

"Tell me more about these super-heroes," Mark finally asked.

Jimmy wasn't the expert on the subject that Carlos was, but he decided to give it a try. Even if he still didn't like Mark. Talking was better than staring at each other in silence.

The first really super hero, had been a man who called himself the Sentinel of Liberty. Hailing from California, the Sentinel had been capable of flying, lifting cars over his head and appeared impervious to injury. He made his appearance in 1971 as all the astrology, new age types were trying to deal with a new decade and the Vietnam war.

The Sentinel started off flashy- a garish costume and stopping a bank robber in downtown Los Angeles. The media had been all over his sudden appearance. And he kept them busy.

Only a month or two later, more superheroes began coming out of the woodwork. The public was skeptical at first, but the New Agers claimed this was all a result of the Age of Aquarius and that the world had held mystery and magic for thousands of years.

The public bought it- with the help of Hollywood.

By the 1980s, superheroes were selling toys and lunch boxes. Everyone talked about them. But their crime fighting was waning. Lots of local jurisdictions, California included, didn't want citizens- even those with super powers- taking the law into their own hands.

Congress got involved. There were debates on whether or not super powers should be regulated. It was revealed to the public that there were also super villains- people who used their abilities for crime. Hollywood was accused of covering this up to keep raking in the money.

By 1990, the super heroes had become a passing fad. Some stuck to show business- headlining in Vegas, making documentaries and even half-hour children's shows. Some formed philanthropic organizations. Some retreated to private communes or went overseas in search of fortune.

Genepeace was founded- a band of misfit, reject superheroes that protested on behalf of the xenosapiens as they called themselves- claiming they were discriminated against and treated differently. The government, who called them parahumans, ignored the protests and the publicity.

Until 1995 when it all finally came to an end. A band of protesters with links to Genepeace managed to seize control of a nuclear submarine. The Sentinel responded and was allegedly killed rescuing the crew. Two weeks later, he reappeared in Los Angeles.

News reports showed the first super hero on a rampage, fighting law enforcement and destroying portions of the city. A military helicopter gunship had to come in to drive him away. The government later reported he had died.

That pretty much ended the whole superhero thing. Those few left with paranormal abilities stayed in show business, fled the country or just disappeared.

"How many vanished?" Mark asked. He and Jimmy were now sitting on the lowered tailgate of the truck, waiting for Josie. The whole submarine thing sounded very familiar.

"At least thirty," Jimmy said. "I think. I wasn't even born yet. Rumors on the internet are that the government rounded a bunch of them up and executed them."

"What's an internet?" Mark asked. It sounded familiar, but he was still trying to process this whole caped, costumed thing.

Josie finally emerged from the gas station. She carried a couple of plastic bags over to the truck. Josie dug in one bag and pulled out a pair of black flip flops and handed them to Mark.

Mark looked at the foam rubber and plastic shoes with disdain. "Sandals?"

"You're lucky they even had any that big," Josie said.

While Mark tried the shoes on, she rummaged in her other plastic bag. She gave Jimmy some beef jerky and a bottle of water.

Josie had attracted some attention though. Two dirty locals. They were walking up to Jimmy's truck, talking to each other and watching Josie.

Cletus and Pete were dressed like rednecks. Plaid shirts with the sleeves torn off. Dirty, ragged blue jeans and cowboy boots. They wore ball caps- Cletus' with "Caterpillar" on the front, Pete's with "MOPAR". The sweaty men were covered in razor stubble, with long, dirty hair down to their shoulders.

They walked right up behind Josie with big grins. Cletus looked Josie up and down. Twice.

"Who-wee! Look what we got here!" Cletus said appreciatively, elbowing Pete.

Pete leered. "You're mighty fine, missy! What's your name?"

Josie rolled her eyes, then turned around to face the locals. She gave them a withering glare.

"Can I help you with something?" She asked coldly.

Pete took his hat off long enough to wipe sweat off his brow. He grinned evilly and winked at his pal, Cletus.

"I sure hope so, baby. I need lots of help," Pete said.

Guys like this they had plenty of in 1962. Mark stepped down off the truck- even over their stench, he could smell these two were trouble.

Cletus and Pete seemed to notice Mark and Jimmy for the first time. Jimmy didn't impress them- a skinny nerd wearing nerdy clothes. Mark on the other hand... the locals were baffled by the flip flops, obviously military cargo-pocket fatigues and the KE$HA t-shirt. And the precise flattop hair cut.

"Well, hello, Sarge," Cletus mocked. "You just get back from the war?"

Josie worried where this might be going. She hoped she could prevent that. She held her hand up, towards the locals.

"Trust me fellas, you don't want any of this," she said.

Cletus suddenly grabbed Josie around the waist and pulled her in close. His sweat soaked through her shirt and he reeked of body odor and stale beer.

"You're right, girly. I want all of it!" Cletus declared through a mouth full of teeth Josie suspected hadn't seen a toothbrush in years.

Josie responded accordingly. She drove her knee up into Cletus' groin as hard as she could.

Cletus immediately let go. He also stepped back a few steps, doubled over, holding his privates. He felt like throwing up, and his vision swirled a little.

Pete didn't like that. Nobody treated his best pal like that. Especially some scrawny, little city girl. No matter how good she looked.

Pete balled his fists and took a step toward Josie, his face showing his anger.

Mark stepped in, calmly reaching out with both hands open, intercepting Pete. With little effort, he pushed against Pete's chest.

The small shove sent Pete flying. Nearly twenty feet, like he'd been hit by a car.

Pete hit the ground hard, tumbling end over end, his hat and one boot coming off. He rolled several more feet before he came to a stop.

Cletus, still doubled over, couldn't tell what had happened. His vision had cleared and he saw Pete hit the ground behind him. Holding his groin, he staggered over to his friend.

Mark touched Josie lightly on the shoulder. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Josie responded. She was trying to brush the invisible filth of Cletus off of her. He was disgusting and made her feel dirtier than several days in the desert without a shower had.

Jimmy was just shocked. He'd wanted to say something, to do something. But like always, he'd been too scared. Then Mark had taken one step, and pushed with less visible effort than it took to open a door. And now the local was trying to pick himself up from the ground.

If Jimmy didn't like Mark, he'd think that was pretty darned cool.

Cletus and Pete, meanwhile, had come to a different conclusion. They were too stupid to realize just how strong Mark was. He just looked like some steroided jerk who needed an ass whoopin'.

They staggered over to the front of the gas station's store. There were supplies stacked out front-including a big barrel, full of various tools.

The duo grabbed at the wood handles and each pulled out a weapon. Cletus had an axe. Pete had a garden hoe.

The two dirty men looked at each other, then at Cletus' axe, then at Pete's hoe.

Pete threw the hoe down on the ground and reached back into the barrel. This time he pulled out an axe as well. They gripped their weapons tightly and turned to face Josie, Jimmy and Mark.

Mark turned to Josie and Jimmy. "Get in the truck. I'll handle this."

Jimmy nodded affirmatively as Mark started walking over toward Cletus and Pete. He seemed very calm for someone about to get in a fight.

As Mark approached a surprised Cletus and Pete, he asked them something strange. "You guys know where I can get some pancakes?"

Cletus and Pete exchanged puzzled looks.

"Mister, we're gonna pancake your face!" Cletus snapped.

Mark stood only a few steps short of the dirty duo. "C'mon- lumberjacks always know where the best pancakes are. You are lumberjacks, right?"

"Lumber-?!" Pete was partly enraged, partly confused. His solution was to attack.

Pete stepped forward, swinging his axe up and over in a big arc he aimed right for Mark's head.

Mark reacted quickly. Very quickly. He snapped his hands out, held flat, and caught the axe head between his palms.

For Pete, it was like hitting a rock. He felt the force of the blow reverberate up the handle, and into his wrists.

Mark followed up with a quick jerk to the right. He snapped the axe head right off the handle with relative ease.

Pete and Cletus were astonished. Pete just stood there, slack-jawed, not sure what to do next.

Not Cletus. He still had an axe that worked. He reared his back, over his shoulder, as if it were a baseball bat. He was going to take this guy's head off.

Before Cletus could even start his swing, Mark pivoted slightly on his right foot and his left leg shot out. The ball of his left foot smashed into Cletus stomach- right over the gigantic belt buckle he had under his untucked shirt. The impact doubled Cletus over and sent him hurling backwards.

Like a sweaty missile, Cletus smashed into and through the large plate glass window of the store.

Mark calmly pitched the axe head in his hands aside and turned back to Pete.

Pete looked back at the store and its broken window with Cletus' feet sticking out. Where Cletus had been standing just a second ago, there was now just his hat and axe.

"Are we done here?" Mark asked.

Pete was furious. And he still had a big stick. Pete grabbed the broken axe handle in both hands- one on either end. He'd choke the gigantic freak with it.

As Pete stepped forward, Mark shot out a quick jabbing punch. His knuckles struck the axe handle with terrific speed, snapping it in half. The punch then continued on, square into Pete's mouth and nose. Teeth and cartilage crunched, and Pete was knocked off his feet.

People from the gas station and surrounding buildings were starting to come outside. They saw Pete, unconscious, laying on the ground at Mark's feet. Several reached for cellphones in their pockets.

Mark reached into his pocket and pulled out his last two thousand-dollar bills. He dropped them on the unconscious Pete.

"Make sure you get that window fixed," he said loud enough for the other locals to hear.

Mark then turned and walked back to Jimmy's truck. Josie and Jimmy were already getting back inside.

"We should probably go," Mark said as he slid back into the truck.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Across the country, the report of Mark's brief skirmish with Pete and Cletus was being analyzed.

A joint-command headquarters buzzed with activity. The large room held at least thirty soldiers, airmen and sailors, feverishly working at computer consoles. Large, seventy-two inch monitors hung on the walls of the command post, displaying information from around the world.

On the rear wall hung a large military crest: a half-red, half-green Special Forces shield, bisected by an upward-pointing black sword. Surrounding the crest were the words "DETACHMENT 1039" and the logo "POTESTAS ET SCIENTIA".

Major Bill Campbell watched over the room with concern on his face. He wore his Army dress uniform, which was covered in decorations, awards and badges. Military Intelligence badges were pinned to his collar, while his shoulder bore the Ranger and Special Forces tabs.

A Sergeant in camouflage ACU uniform approached Campbell, holding a tablet computer.

"Another sighting, sir!" Sgt. Brown announced, holding out the tablet.

Campbell took the tablet and read over it.

"Another local police report in Arizona," Sgt. Brown explained. "Two locals thrown around like rag dolls- injuries that seem out of the ordinary. Report specifically mentions their attacker punched through a wooden axe handle like it was paper."

It had to be him, Campbell thought to himself.

"Did we scout it?" Campbell asked.

"Yes, sir, I had a Ghost Walker check it out. Small town, nothing remarkable.

"Except it's less than 50 miles from the Target site."

Campbell looked up from the tablet, surprised. Why was he still in the area?

"There's still been no contact?" Campbell asked. "How do we know this isn't some random Titan?"

"Witness descriptions were pretty clear," Sgt. Brown replied. "How many people still wear a flattop these days- and have black-green eyes?"

Campbell agreed it had to be Kenslir. "Where'd he go?"

Sgt. Brown explained that Kenslir had left with two teenagers, according to witnesses. No one had gotten a license plate number, but the off-road 4x4 truck had two motorcycles tied down in the back. It would only be a matter of time before it was located.

Campbell was shocked that Kenslir would be with kids. Even if he did have amnesia, as the other teens had reported, why would he be hanging out with kids? Civilian kids? He had no relatives as far as Campbell knew.

Campbell hated it, but they were going to need help. It was just too big an area for Detachment 1039's remaining field operatives.

"Call up the FBI. Get some units to that area. We need to contain and assess," Campbell ordered.

Sgt. Brown saluted. "Yes, sir."

***

After several hours of driving, Jimmy and Josie were almost home. But first, Josie wanted to stop by the mall.

"Why are we stopping here? I thought we were going to Jimmy's?" Mark asked as they pulled into the mall's busy parking lot.

The sun was low on the horizon. It would be night in a couple of hours.

"Hey, I've been driving for hours and I'm starving," Jimmy said. "I'm going in.

"And do you really want to keep wearing those flip flops?" he added.

Jimmy didn't wait for an answer. He switched off the motor and got out.

Josie slid across the seat behind Jimmy, exiting on his side of the truck. Jimmy was very surprised by this.

"C'mon- you've got to eat," Josie said. "And you really do need some new clothes."

Mark sighed, and got out of the truck. He wanted to get back to the business of remembering, but he admitted to himself the flip flops were driving him crazy.

***

A short time after Mark and the teens entered the Mall, a police car began searching the parking lot. It rolled to a stop behind Jimmy's parked truck.

Officer Raymond Lee confirmed the vehicle description with dispatch.

"Standby, 532," the dispatcher advised.

Lee waited patiently, eyeing the empty, parked truck. It was very dusty.

The dispatcher finally came back. "532, our instructions are to remain in the area but do not make contact."

That made no sense. "Is this the fugitive vehicle or not, dispatch?"

"Feds are coming in, to secure the scene, 532," the dispatcher advised. "We're to standby but make no contact."

"10-4, Dispatch." Lee responded. "532, 10-8."

Feds. They always did things so differently.

***

In the busy mall, Mark had surprisingly blended in, drawing only occasional glances. Josie got far more attention, in her leather jacket, short-shorts and sandals.

Josie knew the mall layout well. She led Mark and Jimmy directly to a men's Big & Tall clothing store.

"What size are you?" Josie asked Mark.

"I don't remember," Mark replied. He did remember he hated shopping.

Josie took a short sleeve shirt down off a rack and held it up to Mark.

"I think this 3X Tall looks about right," she said.

Jimmy felt awkward, standing around with nothing to do. He too hated shopping- something Josie was always making him do. Two of his least favorite things, Mark and the mall, combined in one trip. Great.

Mark felt at the thin fabric of the shirt. It was silky and delicate feeling.

"I prefer cotton," Mark said unhappily.

"Okay," Josie said, putting the shirt back. This was going to be difficult.

Josie suddenly had an idea. If Mark was really born in 1928, he would probably dress like her grandpa. She swiftly went around the store, picking out several shirts, some pants and finally a pair of white tennis shoes. Not that her grandpa would wear sneakers. But it turned out those were the only shoes large enough for Mark. It seemed he wore a size fourteen. Wide.

Mark went into a dressing room to try on the clothes Josie had selected.

Once more, Jimmy wanted to question what they were doing. He stood close to Josie while they waited outside the dressing rooms.

"Josie, we need to really rethink this," Jimmy said.

"Rethink what?" Josie asked. Jimmy wasn't exactly the best shopper- surely he wasn't talking about her choice of clothes.

"Helping this guy," Jimmy explained. "Did you see what he did to those rednecks?"

Josie sighed. Jimmy was at it again. "He was protecting me."

"I think he has anger issues," Jimmy suggested. It was all he could come up with. Even he thought it was weak. Those two idiots had definitely deserved the thrashing they got.

"Why are you so against helping him?" Josie asked.

Jimmy briefly considered telling Josie how he felt about her. But he just couldn't do it. "I just don't want to see you get hurt."

Josie missed the meaning of Jimmy's statement. "He's fine. Really."

"I think you like him," Jimmy said, spelling it out for her. Oh, did he hope he was wrong.

Josie was taken aback by Jimmy's accusation. "That is so gross! He's old enough to be my dad!"

Josie felt her cheeks flushing in embarrassment. She had to admit Mark was attractive. But that was not why she was helping him.

"I think you mean your great grand-dad," Jimmy corrected.

"I trust him, Jimmy," Josie explained. "I can't explain it, but I feel perfectly safe around him.

"He's not going to hurt us."

"Great. You do like him," Jimmy said. He felt sick to his stomach. How could he compete with a super hero?

Before Josie could respond, Mark stepped out of the dressing room.

Josie had picked him out a dark green, cotton, polo shirt and tan cargo-pocket pants. He'd selected his own underwear and socks, and Josie wondered if he'd chosen boxers or briefs. The new clothes were a great improvement.

"Feel better now?" Josie asked.

Mark looked down at his clothes and shifted his weight back and forth in the tennis shoes. They were leather, with air soles and arch supports. Nothing like the canvas high tops he'd worn in the '50s.

"I'd prefer boots," Mark said.

Mark's old pants were folded up and put in a bag, and Josie picked him out an extra pair of pants and two more shirts. She made him go get an extra couple of pairs of socks and underwear, pointing out he didn't know how long it'd be before his memory recovered and could go home. Wherever that might be.

The trio took all of the clothes to the front register where a young girl with several piercings in her nose, ears and lip rang them up.

Mark could hardly break his gaze from all the studs and loops in the girl's face, as she folded all the clothes and put them in the bag with his old pants.

"Letting your kids pick out some new clothes?" the clerk asked when she gave Mark his change back. He was running low on cash now. Just a few hundred dollars remaining.

"Something like that," Mark said.

"Finally," Jimmy said. "Can we go get something to eat now?"

CHAPTER NINE

The Mall's food court was bustling with activity- most of it younger people in their teens and twenties.

Mark at first was amazed by the number of restaurants available. But the longer he stood there, it started to seem familiar. Not this particular food court, but the idea. His memory was indeed returning.

While Josie and Jimmy went off to get dinner, Mark purchased a newspaper and sat down to read it. The front page was filled with depressing news. A war in the middle east. Rampant crime. And the current President embroiled in some kind of scandal involving a mistress.

Not much different from a newspaper in 1962.

Across the food court, Jimmy and Josie balanced their trays carefully as they walked back to Mark. They had purchased a lot of food. Five orders of fries. Several burgers. Two orders of chicken strips and three chicken sandwiches. And three thirty-two ounce soft drinks.

"What if he doesn't like any of this?" Jimmy asked.

"He's bound to like something," Josie said.

"Did we get enough?"

Josie frowned at Jimmy. "You have seen him, right? I'm pretty sure he could eat all of this."

The duo finally reached Mark's table- a square plastic thing with two pairs of seats on either side of the table. Josie slid in next to Mark- much to Jimmy's dismay. Jimmy glumly sat across from Josie.

Mark folded his paper and set it down on the table.

"Anything ring a bell?" Josie asked, setting a burger, a chicken sandwich and fries in front of Mark.

"Lots of them. But it's all still hazy," Mark said, eyeing the food suspiciously.

Josie helped Jimmy set out the rest of the food. She gave herself a set of chicken strips while Jimmy opted for a burger.

Josie pushed the fries closer to Mark. "You've had french fries before, right?"

"Yes," Mark said, frowning. "We had french fries in 1962. And hamburgers."

Jimmy pushed an order of chicken strips in front of Mark. "You didn't have chicken nuggets. They came out in the eighties."

Josie laughed as she chewed on a piece of chicken herself. "Jimmy is a fast-food historian... Among other things."

Mark eyed the deep fried chunks in their small, paper container suspiciously. He poked at them with his finger. They looked like fried chicken. But with no bones. "I'm not really hungry. I'd just like some water."

"I think you're in shock," Josie said. "You know, waking up in the 21st century. You need to eat something."

"We've established I've been here before," Mark reminded her. "In the present."

Josie ate a fry. "Yeah- but you don't remember. It's like you get to discover things all over again."

"Like who tried to kill you," Jimmy pointed out.

Josie frowned at Jimmy, and picked up Mark's drink. She moved it toward his face, trying to get him to try it. "I got you a Coke. I know those were big back then."

Mark reluctantly took the drink and gave it a sip. He immediately made a face at the taste. "This is not how I remember it tasting."

"Right!" Jimmy said, snapping his fingers. "They used to put sugar in coke."

Jimmy then started unwrapping his burger.

"What do they put in it now?" Mark asked, a little worried.

Jimmy was about to take a bite of his burger, but stopped. "Corn syrup- it's cheaper. Oh, and they've changed the formula a few times over the years."

Mark set down the drink as Jimmy took a large bite out of his burger. Mark clasped his hands together and tucked his chin down.

Jimmy and Josie immediately stopped chewing their own food.

"What's wrong?" Jimmy asked around a mouthful of food.

Mark looked up, first at Josie and Jimmy, noticing they were already eating.

"People don't say a blessing anymore?" Mark asked, surprised.

Josie almost choked on her food. "Not at the Mall!"

Mark frowned, and looked back down. Closing his eyes, he mumbled a quick blessing to himself.

Jimmy and Josie looked at each other, completely baffled.

Mark finally picked up a chicken strip and tried it. It tasted like fried chicken. Sort of.

Josie finished a mouthful of food and took a drink. "So what was familiar in the paper?"

Mark finished his taste of the chicken. He picked up a napkin and wiped his mouth. "Something about the Vice President coming to Arizona rang a bell."

"What? Why's the V-P coming here?" Josie asked.

Jimmy kept eating, wolfing down his burger, then starting on his fries.

"Taking his family on a vacation, apparently. To get away from some scandal," Mark responded.

Jimmy gulped down his fries excitedly. "That scandal is something! I mean, you get re-elected, then everyone finds out you were cheating on your sick wife... The President is a terrible person."

Josie rolled her eyes. Politics was one of Jimmy's favorite subjects. It bored her to death.

"Oh, come on, Jimmy. All politicians do stuff like that," she said. They'd sure had this conversation before.

Jimmy gave her a smug look. "I bet Ronald Reagan didn't."

Mark was about to try a french fry and stopped. "Reagan?"

Even though he didn't like Mark, Jimmy was more than happy to talk about politics. "Right! Ronald Reagan, the actor from California.. Get this- he was President back in the 1980s!

"Bet you didn't see that coming in 1962."

Mark thought for a moment. "I think I remember meeting him in the Oval Office once... in the 1980s."

Jimmy was impressed.

"Great! See, your memories are coming back!" Josie said quickly, before Jimmy could bombard Mark with questions about the White House. She really needed to take him to Washington some time.

Mark knew there was something there- about the current Vice President. If only he could recall it. "Let's stick to more modern times for now."

"Okay..." Josie shrugged.

Jimmy pouted and resumed eating his fries.

"What can you tell me about the VP?" Mark asked Jimmy. "Anything special about him?"

Josie answered. "Other than it looks like he'll be President Hill in a few months?"

"Other than-" Mark started to say. He then seemed to drift off, looking past Josie at something.

Josie and Jimmy turned and looked across the food court, wondering what Mark was gazing at. It was a dragon. A plastic dragon, hanging over the cash register of a Chinese takeout place on the food court. Glowing red, with yellow eyes.

Something about it was so very familiar to Mark. If only... The memories came flooding back. Mark's face suddenly became very serious. He was wasting time sitting here in a mall.

Jimmy felt a little chill go up his spine. Mark's normally pleasant, laid back eyes seemed angry now. Like he wanted to kill someone. It frightened Jimmy.

"What?" Jimmy asked. He wasn't sure he wanted the answer.

Mark shifted his gaze back to Jimmy then Josie. He rubbed his eyes briefly as if he had a headache. His angry glare was gone, without Josie ever having noticed it.

"What is it? You okay?" she asked, putting a hand on Mark's shoulder in concern.

"Had a flash," Mark said, sitting up straight. He suddenly seemed older, stiffer. "My memory's coming back.

"I remember why I was in Arizona."

Josie rubbed Mark on the back, between the shoulder blades. "That's great!"

Jimmy wasn't sure which bothered him more- Mark's scary going-to-kill-you look or Josie rubbing all over him. Before Jimmy could decide, he felt a buzzing in his pocket. His phone was ringing.

Jimmy reached into his pocket and pulled out his iPhone. An incoming call from an unknown party.

"Hello?" Jimmy said after he put the phone to his ear.

"Uh, yes," Jimmy said into the phone. "He is."

Perplexed, Jimmy extended the phone to Mark. "It's for you...?"

Mark raised an eyebrow, surprised. "Pardon?"

Jimmy laughed nervously. "It's some guy. He says he needs to talk to you- the big guy with the flattop."

Mark looked at the slim cell phone, wondering how it worked.

Josie grabbed the phone and switched it to speaker mode, then laid it on the table.

"Hello?" A voice on the other end said. "Antaean, are you there?"

Josie looked to Mark, mouthing the word An-tay-ann questioningly.

Mark shrugged. The word did sound familiar. Very familiar. In fact, he was sure he'd heard it countless times. It suddenly came back to him. He was Antaean. It was his call sign.

"Yes, I'm here. Who is this?"

"This is Major Campbell...." the voice said. "Are we on speaker phone?"

Mark nodded his head affirmatively, "If that's what this is called- then yes."

"I think we need to talk in private, sir."

"You can talk in front of my friends," Mark said. "Besides, I don't really know how this phone of theirs works."

"I don't think they have clearance for this, Colonel," Major Campbell said in frustration.

Mark was surprised, and looked at Jimmy and Josie. "I've been promoted."

"Sir, I have to insist-" Campbell started to say.

Mark cut him off. "Okay, so I'm a Colonel and you're a Major. So I guess I can ORDER you to start talking, right?"

"Uh, well, technically," Campbell said, not sure how to take that. "What is your mission status, Colonel?"

"Confused."

There was a long pause on the other end while Campbell tried to pick his words.

"I think you need to come in, Colonel," Campbell finally suggested.

"To where?" Mark asked. He dimly remembered being a Colonel, but not getting promoted. He remembered his call sign, but not really when he got it. The past week was coming back, but there was still a large gap from 1962 to then.

"HQ. We need to debrief you," Campbell explained.

"What if I want answers first?" Mark asked.

"I can't do that over an unsecured line, sir. And not in front of civilians."

"And why I should you trust you?" Mark asked.

"Sir, time is critical in this matter," Campbell said. "You've got to come in."

Mark did not like not getting answers when he asked for them. "I haven't got to do anything."

"Sir, let's not let this get out of hand," Campbell pleaded. "There are a lot of innocent civilians there- including your companions."

Mark had heard enough. He turned to Josie. "How do you hang this up?"

Josie grabbed the phone and ended the call. "What is it?" she asked Mark, handing the phone back to Jimmy.

Mark was definitely in a different mood. It reminded Josie of right before he'd kicked the redneck through the window back at that gas station. He just gave off a don't-mess-with-me vibe.

Mark sipped his drink, staring straight ahead, past Jimmy, seemingly at nothing.

"Stay calm," Mark said. He set his drink down slowly.

Mark's eyes glanced at Josie quickly, then went straight back ahead. "We're surrounded. I can handle it."

Jimmy turned his head around, looking quickly one way then the other. Josie was more calm, but also looked around. For the first time, she noticed at least a dozen men in dark suits, scattered around the food court at tables, watching them.

"What's going on?" Josie asked.

Mark looked over at her slowly. "They must want me to come in, really, really bad."

"So why don't you, already?" Jimmy asked. He was scared, and it showed.

Before Mark could answer, Jimmy suddenly jerked in his seat. He sat up straight, back stiff. His eyes rolled up in his head. Then, just as quickly as it happened, Jimmy relaxed. His eyes normal again, he looked calmly at Mark. There was no trace of fear in his face or voice.

"Colonel, may we speak in private?" Jimmy said precisely. He was speaking differently, as if he were another person, but with Jimmy's voice.

Josie didn't like it. "Wha-?"

It was Mark's turn to put a hand on Josie's shoulder, to calm her. "Telepath," he explained.

"Right?" he asked Jimmy.

"Yes, sir," Jimmy answered. "Have the girl go with our men, please."

Mark was angry. This was absolutely against protocol. "I don't think so.

"Isn't it still illegal to do this- take over someone's mind like that?"

Jimmy seemed confused for a moment. "I don't know what you mean..."

"I was there when the Yalu Accord was signed," Mark said. "It's against the Geneva Convention to take over a noncombatant's mind against their will."

Jimmy gave a wide smile- not like anything Josie had ever seen him do before. It was a thin, wide, evil smile. Like a crazy person might give- right before they killed you.

"That was a long time ago, Colonel," Jimmy said. "We've changed the rules a bit. And I wouldn't say this is entirely against his will."

Mark wanted to punch the telepath right in the face. But that would just hurt Jimmy.

"Oh?" Mark asked instead.

Josie was in full-blown panic mode. She started digging in the pockets of her jacket, looking for something, while looking back and forth at the black-suited men around them.

"This one doesn't like you that much. He thinks you're stealing his girl," the possessed-Jimmy explained.

Josie looked up suddenly, her hands still in her pockets. She was shocked. "His girl?"

It all suddenly made sense. Jimmy had been her best friend since kindergarten- the son of her mom's best friend. Josie had grown up almost part of Jimmy's family after her dad died. A family that had watched her many a times over the years, while her mother struggled to recover from the loss of Josie's dad.

Jimmy was like a brother to her. And he thought she was interested in Mark- as a boyfriend.

Josie turned to Mark. "Can he hear me?"

Mark shrugged. "Yes. Probably."

Josie leaned forward, her voice dropping to almost a whisper. "Jimmy, we've been best friends since kindergarten- but I am not your girlfriend.

"And I do not like him that way," she added, pointing a thumb at Mark.

"No offense," she hastily told Mark.

"None taken," Mark said. Jealousy sure explained Jimmy's behavior toward him.

The telepath controlling Jimmy nearly laughed. He took a perverse joy in revealing things like this when he took over people's minds and bodies. It was a perk of the job.

"Colonel Kenslir, you are ordered to report to Headquarters," he said. "These men are here to assist you in getting there."

Josie finally pulled her other hand free from her pocket and held up a small black-plastic object.

"What's that?" Mark asked.

Josie squeezed the trigger on her stun gun, causing electricity to arc between the contact points. "Fifty thousand volts of protection. A stun gun."

Mark was surprised- at the size of the device and that a random teenage girl would have one. "We didn't have those in 1962."

Mark suddenly reached out with his right hand, grabbing the mind controlled-Jimmy's right hand. As he grabbed the hand in an iron grip, a faint green glow shimmered where their hands touched.

"Colonel!" Jimmy said, clearly worried.

Mark held up his hand, open, toward Josie. He didn't know what she had been planning on doing with that stungun, but he had an idea on how to use it. Josie placed the stun gun in his palm.

"What are you doing with something like this?" Mark asked.

"Hello?" Josie said. "I was spending a week in the desert with four boys."

Mark shrugged- that did make a lot of sense. Then he looked back to the squirming Jimmy, who was unsuccessfully trying to pull his hand free of Mark's herculean grip.

Mark held the stun gun up, halfway between himself and Jimmy, so the telepath would be sure to see it.

"Call me on the phone next time," Mark said angrily. He then touched the stun gun to Jimmy's forehead and activated it.

Jimmy's body jumped and spasmed as the electricity from the stun gun raced through it. The pain was excruciating for Jimmy and the telepath. Mark seemed unphased- despite his grip on Jimmy's hand.

The brief touch of the stun gun had its desired effect. Jimmy's eyes rolled up in his head and he fell face forward, unconscious. Mark caught Jimmy's face with one hand, then lowered his head gently to the table.

The other people on the food court had noticed the commotion. It was hard to miss someone being stunned. People had stopped eating and were grabbing for shopping bags and purses and getting up from their tables.

The agents surrounding Josie and Mark were also getting up from their tables.

Mark calmly handed the stungun back to Josie, then reached over and grabbed the top of Jimmy's head, like he was palming a basketball. Again, there was the flare of ghostly green light around Mark's hand. Then it faded out.

Mark released his grip and leaned back.

"What was that?" Josie asked as she stuffed the stun gun back in a jacket pocket.

"Call it an exorcism," Mark said. "I had to break the connection or when Jimmy woke back up, we'd still have our backseat walker with us."

The black suited agents in the food court had all stood up by now. Several were talking into microphones up their left sleeves, while others reached under their jackets for weapons.

Mark looked all around for the telepath that had controlled Jimmy. He wasn't one of the nearby suits, or he'd be passed out on the floor. Mark reckoned the telepath was in a store nearby, in civilian clothes. Or maybe laying on the roof, next to a skylight. Telepaths had a very limited range.

The people on the food court had seen enough. There was a near stampede as the food court cleared out. In under a minute, it was just Josie, Mark, an unconscious Jimmy and twelve men in black.

Mark popped a couple more chicken tenders in his mouth, then finished his drink. The agents kept their distance, unsure what to do next. Josie also was wondering what to do. She gripped her stungun, in her jacket pocket, nervously.

Mark calmly wiped his mouth with a napkin.

The agents finally decided to move in. They formed a large circle around Mark and Josie's table. They all had their hands under their jackets now, gripping their holstered pistols. The closest agent was at least fifteen feet away. His name was Steve Cooper.

Mark placed his hands on the table, palms down, and turned to regard Agent Cooper. He spoke slowly, and calmly. The last thing he wanted was for gunfire that could injure Josie or the unconscious Jimmy.

"I'm going to stand up," Mark told the scared agent. "Let's not go crazy, shall we?"

Agent Cooper swallowed and nodded an affirmative to the agents around him. This was not the day he'd had in mind when he got up this morning. But instead of working a routine bank robbery from last week, Cooper and his fellow agents had gotten a priority call and found themselves in the local mall.

Mark, then Josie, stood up slowly. Mark stepped slowly around the table and picked up Jimmy by the belt and one arm. With no effort, Mark slung the unconscious teen over one shoulder like a sack of laundry, with Jimmy's head behind him.

Mark turned to Cooper again.

"Sir..." Cooper started to say. Parahumans were way out of Cooper's experience. He'd had the necessary training, but he really didn't want to put it to the test.

"My friends and I are going to walk out of here," Mark said calmly. "Unless you want me to literally put a foot up your ass, you and your chauffeur friends are going to step aside."

Agent Cooper gulped in fear and raised his left hand up to his mouth. He whispered into his microphone. "He wants to leave."

Mark gave Agent Cooper the same terrifying stare Jimmy had glimpsed earlier. "Do I really need to repeat myself?"

Mark took one step toward Cooper.

All the agents started in fear, each taking a step back and nearly drawing their pistols. It was their commander talking to them in their ear pieces that kept them from firing wildly in fear.

Agent Cooper nodded his head affirmatively. He was very relieved the agent in charge had told him and his peers to stand down and let the strange, flat-topped man leave in peace.

"Yes, sir," Cooper said respectfully, and stepped aside.

The other agents all relaxed a bit and took their hands out from under their jackets. They were collectively relieved as well. From what little they'd been briefed, their handguns wouldn't have been of much use anyway.

Mark turned to Josie. "C'mon, let's blow this popsicle stand."

Josie stepped up beside Mark, falling into step with him as he started walking past Cooper.

"They're just letting us leave?" she asked incredulously.

Mark gave Cooper one last glance. "Nobody likes spending a month in traction."

CHAPTER TEN

A side exit provided Mark and Josie a way to slip out of the mall without having to push through the mass of people wondering what was happening on the food court. Those inquisitive crowds and mall security would likely keep the agents inside busy for some time.

Mark and Josie walked quickly toward where they had parked. Mark carried Jimmy over his shoulder, while Josie carried Mark's shopping bag of clothes. As they crossed over from mall sidewalk to parking lot, Josie dug in Jimmy's pockets for the keys. She located them, then dropped them.

Mark stopped and turned to watch her pick the keys back up. Josie was very nervous.

Josie realized Mark was watching her. "Those guys were terrified of you."

"Apparently, I'm a bad ass," Mark answered.

Josie didn't find that funny. Or reassuring. "Should I be afraid of you?"

"Only if you try and hug me," Mark said, turning and walking toward the truck again.

A small metal cylinder bounced onto the ground at his feet, interrupting any further conversation. It was a teargas canister, pumping out a thick cloud of gas.

Several more canisters started hitting the ground around Mark and Josie in rapid succession. In seconds, they were enveloped in a thick cloud of dense, white smoke.

For Josie, it was surprisingly painful. She'd seen teargas on TV, in movies, but the reality of it was worse than she could have imagined. Her eyes, nose and throat were on fire. She couldn't see and was having trouble breathing. Her eyes watered uncontrollably. She even had difficulty coughing.

Two men in SWAT-style uniforms, with FBI stenciled on the back, stepped out from concealment behind some nearby parked cars. They had on helmets, gas masks and were dressed all in black. They approached the teargas cloud with taser pistols drawn and at the ready.

The agents could hear coughing coming from the cloud. They stepped in cautiously, expecting to find Mark and Josie on the ground, incapacitated. In the dense smoke, they could make out the shape of Josie, on one knee, hand covering her mouth, her body convulsing as she coughed and gasped for air.

Standing next to her was the dark silhouette of their target. Unmoving. The agents stepped closer and fired their tasers.

The small darts from the tasers struck Mark in the chest. Electricity immediately began pulsing down the darts' trailing wires.

Mark reached up and tore the darts free with his left hand while he held Jimmy with his right. Then he stepped up to the agents. He struck one on the top of the helmet, hopefully only hard enough to knock the man unconscious. The agent went down. Hard.

Mark turned to the other agent, who was trying to aim his taser for another shot. Mark smacked the weapon out of the agent's hand, then punched him in the stomach. The agent doubled over, the wind knocked out of him.

Mark reached out and pulled at the agent's gas mask. Off it came, dislodging the agent's helmet as well. The agent couldn't help but inhale a lungful of the thick gas. He promptly passed out from the sheer pain.

Mark turned to Josie and slipped the gasmask over her head. She grabbed at it and pushed it tight against her face. Mark tugged at the straps, trying to tighten it. Balancing Jimmy on his shoulder while adjusting a gas mask was surprisingly difficult.

Outside the cloud of teargas, which was just beginning to dissipate, a third agent stepped into view. He too held a taser at the ready. But as he had heard the sounds of a struggle, heard the unmistakable sound of the tasers firing, then bodies hitting the ground, he decided to wait outside the smoke cloud.

Mark and Josie finally emerged. Mark appeared unaffected by the smoke. He held onto Josie's arm, holding her up, while she clutched at the gasmask with one hand, still coughing under it, and dragged Mark's mall shopping bag along with her other hand.

Mark glared at the new agent. The gas hurt. But more importantly, the gas had hurt Josie.

Special Agent Bennett fired his taser. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew it wouldn't work. But maybe it would slow the target down enough for Bennett's partner to get here.

Again, twin darts struck Mark's chest, and the taser started its pop-pop-pop as it discharged electricity into him.

Mark released his grip on Josie, who sank to her knees. Stepping forward quickly, with the unconscious Jimmy still on his shoulder, Mark closed the distance to the last agent. Then he grabbed the taser. And the Agent's hand.

Special Agent Bennett had never put his hand in a vice, or had a car drive over his foot. But he imagined this is what it must feel like to do so. He was in terrible, terrible pain as his hand, and the taser, were being crushed in Mark's grip. The taser cracked and popped as it broke into several plastic pieces. Bennet was sure the bones in his hand were doing the same.

Bennett dropped to his knees in pain.

Mark released his grip on Bennett's mangled hand and grabbed the agent's gas mask. With a jerk, he ripped the mask off the agent's head, tearing the silicone straps that held it on.

Mark then leaned in and exhaled a lungful of teargas into the agent's face, slowly.

Bennett had been holding back the tears as his hand was crushed, broken in at least ten places. But the teargas couldn't be resisted. His eyes welled up, burned. His nose and mouth burned. He couldn't help but breath in deeply. His chest was now on fire.

Bennett dropped to all fours, coughing and hacking, and growing faint from pain and the lack of breathable air.

Mark turned to Josie and helped her back to her feet. Somehow, she still clutched Jimmy's keys in the same hand that held Mark's shopping bag. Mark led Josie the thirty feet down the aisle of parked cars to Jimmy's truck. He took the keys from her and unlocked the driver's door.

"Get in," Mark told her. He then opened the rear door and carefully laid Jimmy down on the back seat.

Josie stood by the open front door of the truck and pulled the gas mask off her head. Her eyes were red and burning. Tears streaked down her cheeks, along with most of her eye makeup. Her vision was blurry. She groped for a bottle of water she remembered Jimmy putting in the door pocket.

"I guess you aren't so scary after all," Josie said. She had found the bottle. She quickly unscrewed the cap and began pouring water into her eyes.

Before Mark could respond, a loop of steel cable dropped down on him, seemingly from above. The loop immediately tightened, pinning his arms, just above the elbows, to his sides. The cable began to glow faintly green where it touched him.

"This doesn't look goo-" Mark started to say. He was suddenly jerked off his feet before he could finish.

Mark fell hard, onto his back, then began sliding backward, pulled by the steel cable. As he was pulled out from between Jimmy's truck and the car parked next to it, he suddenly flexed his arms, snapping the steel lasso around him. He rolled over quickly and sprang to his feet. And stopped. He had just seen his attacker.

Standing across the parking lot lane from Jimmy's truck, on top of a parked car, was a woman all in black. She wore thigh-high, black leather riding boots. And black leather pants. She wore a loose, white silk blouse and a long, black leather jacket.

The woman had thick, black hair, held up in a something like a beehive design, with long, thick curls coming down, plastered to her pale skin, around her face. Thick makeup around her eyes gave them a sunken look. She reeled in the steel cable with hands that ended in two-inch long, lacquered, black nails.

"Oh, good grief. What are you supposed to be?" Mark asked.

The woman in black dropped her steel cable and pulled a short, polished, ebony cane from her jacket. It was topped with a baseball-sized, ruby-like stone that glowed red.

"You may call me Femagick!" the woman announced.

Mark almost laughed. He'd seen this type of parahuman many times before. A sorceress. They were always flashy and dressing in garish costumes.

"Are you supposed to be a superhero?" he asked, knowing she wasn't. Adepts hated to be questioned or mocked.

Femagick frowned. She couldn't believe the target didn't know who she was. Fifteen years fighting crime, then another ten on the Strip as a headliner. Everybody knew who she was. She had marketing people to make sure of that.

"I used to be. Now I'm the FBI's bounty hunter," Femagick said.

Mark turned around and started to walk away. "Pleased to meet you, but I'm busy right –" he started to say.

His statement was interrupted by a bright red, six-foot-diameter ball of fire Femagick launched at his back from her cane. The fireball wrapped around Mark, burning his shirt and hair, and even singeing the back of Jimmy's truck. Where the fire touched Mark, a bright green light flared.

Mark turned slowly around after the fireball quickly burnt itself out. The back of his shirt was melted and smoldering, his skin showing through in several places. His hair was gone from the top of his head to the back of his neck, but his skin was unburned.

"I don't get paid if I don't bring you in," Femagick explained. And she was all about the money.

Femagick suddenly extended her cane at Mark again- this time unleashing a stream of red fire, like a flamethrower, at him.

The flames hit Mark square in the chest, swirling around him for a second. Green light flared again where the flames touched his skin. His shirt was burnt the rest of the way off, the ashes of it falling down as the stream of fire went out.

Mark again appeared unharmed by the mystic flames. He casually brushed ash off his bare chest.

"You're going to be difficult aren't you?" he asked.

Femagick was enraged. First the target didn't know who she was, now he resisted some of her most powerful, most used, magic. Well, enough with the routine stuff. She'd get creative. And indirect.

Femagick held her cane at eye level in her right hand. With her left she made mystic gestures in the air.

From under the car she stood on, a crack appeared in the asphalt. It raced out, spreading as it did so. An area of maybe three feet across formed as the crack split and turned, forming a large circle that then cracked and broke apart. The cracks inside the circle formed hundreds of quarter-sized chunks of loose asphalt.

Femagick gestured again and the pieces of broken asphalt rose slowly in the air. They began to grow bright red then burst into flame.

Josie watched all this from the cab of the truck, leaning over the back seat and watching out the rear window. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Femagick gestured again and the hundreds of small, gooey, burning asphalt pieces raced forward, peppering Mark, Jimmy's truck, and the cars parked on either side of it. The molten, burning asphalt stuck to Mark, burning his skin.

Mark briefly wiped at the hot asphalt chunks clinging to his forehead, cheek, chin, neck, chest and arms. As he brushed them off, burns were revealed on his skin.

"What's next?" he asked. "The kitchen sink?"

Femagick was so mad she could scream. The past ten captures her name and reputation alone were enough to ensure surrender. And now this bulging, over-steroided ape was talking to her like she was a child having a tantrum. She'd have to dig deep for this one.

Femagick gestured again.

The parking lot rumbled. The ground shook slowly. Then a stream of water shot up into the air from the patch of ground she had already damaged.

Femagick gestured again- this time causing the water to freeze in place, a ten foot high pillar of ice. Her left hand balled into a fist, then she suddenly extended her fingers.

The ice pillar exploded in a cloud of ice shards. The shards then hung in the air, defying gravity. Hundreds of shards, each four inches long.

Mark quickly threw his left arm up over his face and ducked his head as Femagick sent the cloud of ice shards streaking his way. The ice sliced into his skin in thirty to forty places. Lancing into his arms, his chest, his stomach. The remaining shards in the cloud passed over his head or smashed against Jimmy's truck and the cars parked on either side of it.

Mark looked up when it was over. He lowered his arm, then with his right hand casually broke a piece of ice off from where it was sticking out of his chest. He popped the piece in his mouth and started to chew it.

"Refreshing," Mark said.

Femagick was stunned. Then amazed. The many ice shards sticking out of the target began to fall off him, as though they were melting. Then she could see that the portion of the ice that had penetrated his skin had simply been absorbed into his body. All the wounds that should have been bleeding were closing up, turning gray. Then they faded back to his tanned flesh tone.

His burns from the asphalt debris were now gone as well. The hair had regrown on his head. Aside from no shirt, he appeared unharmed.

Femagick grabbed her cane with both hands now. The ruby glowed brightly, extending red light over the cane, then Femagick, like an aura. The red light then faded rapidly, with only Femagick's eyes glowing red as she absorbed all the mystic energy.

Mark swallowed his ice snack. "Now what?"

Fire and Ice had failed Femagick. It was time to get her hands dirty. She held the cane high, over her head. Femagick then jumped into the air, at least fifteen feet, straight up. She twirled and somersaulted, arcing around and landing with gymnastic precision directly in front of Mark.

Mark was just opening his mouth for another sarcastic remark when Femagick swung her cane with all her might- striking him in the jaw.

Green light flashed from the impact as Mark was staggered a bit to the side and his head turned by the blow.

He had felt that blow. He straightened, facing the witch and again opening his mouth to speak. Again, Femagick struck him- this time on the other side of his face.

Mark reached up and felt at the corner of his mouth. When he pulled his hand away, there was a trickle of blood. It quickly absorbed into the skin of his fingertips and vanished.

Femagick stood almost toe-to-toe with Mark, glaring at him- mentally daring him to speak anything but words of surrender.

"I'm normally against hitting a woman," Mark said. "But I'm really reconsid-"

Femagick lunged forward, swinging her foot up and directly into Mark's groin with all the mystic force she could muster. Again, green light flared as Mark's inherent ability to negate magic encountered Femagick's self-enchantment of super-human strength.

The impact of the kick caused Mark to grunt out. Behind him, in the truck, Josie winced at the terrific impact.

Mark resisted the urge to double over. Instead, he backhanded Femagick.

The blow sounded like a boxer striking a side of beef. Femagick went flying backwards with terrific force. But instead of smashing into the cars on the other side of the lane, Femagick again twisted and turned- grabbing at the ground and ending up in a gentle cartwheel that brought her back to her feet.

Mark held his hands up, and started walking toward Femagick.

"I really don't want to hit a girl..." he said.

Femagick almost growled in anger as she charged forward. She reared back with both hands on her magical cane, ready to bash Mark's head in with the large, mystical ruby. When she got within range, Femagick brought the blow down with all her force, physical and mystical.

Mark caught the cane with his left hand. His hand began to glow green where he held the cane. With a quick tug, he pulled the cane free from Femagick's grip. He then stepped back and held the cane high, up over his head.

Femagick also stepped back, shock and disbelief on her face. She had to look at her empty hands then at the cane Mark held over her head. It was inconceivable.

"You can have this back when you start behaving better," Mark said. His patience was just about exhausted.

Femagick had never in her entire life even been half as mad as she was now. Decades of study of the mystic arts were forgotten and a primal scream welled up in her lungs. Her vision swirled as her blood pressure reached dangerous levels.

Femagick raised her hands and charged forward, intent on scratching Mark's eyes out with her long nails.

Mark snapped out a light jab with his right fist, connecting with Femagick's face. It jerked her head back, and stopped her charge with a flare of green light. She staggered backwards several steps then fell onto her butt in an undignified sprawl on the pavement. Blood began to trickle out of her nose.

Mark lowered the cane in his left hand, transferring his grip so he held it by either end. Then he slammed it down over a raised knee, cracking it in half. With the slightest of throws, he sent the two pieces vanishing in opposite directions.

Mark stormed over to Femagick, who was dabbing at the blood trickling out of both nostrils.

"Lady, you are a royal pain in the ass," Mark said.

He roughly grabbed the still-stunned sorceress by the collar of her expensive leather jacket. Then he began dragging her across the parking lot, toward the three teargassed agents.

Agent Bennett, after he had recovered from the teargas, had checked on his unconscious comrades, then sat down to watch Femagick finish off the target. He had sat there, slack jawed, holding his shattered hand when Mark dropped Femagick to the pavement with a light jab.

Bennett became alarmed when he saw Mark dragging Femagick over toward him. He held up his good hand, as if to shield himself.

Femagick began to kick and punch, trying to free herself from Mark's grip as she came back to her senses. She struggled as she was being dragged across the pavement, but her arms were caught in the leather jacket and she couldn't squirm free.

"I surrender!" Bennett said hastily.

Mark held out his left hand, open. "Give me your 'cuffs."

Bennett shook his head affirmatively and scrambled to get his two pair of handcuffs from the pouches on his belt. He nearly jumped to his feet, then handed them over.

Mark picked Femagick up with his right hand and slung her around, onto her feet, facing Bennett, then pushed her right into the FBI agent. Her incoherent ramblings, possibly in Latin, gave way to heated protest as the two ended up face-to-face.

"You can't treat me this way! I am-" Femagick started to say.

Mark grabbed a wrist and put a pair of handcuffs on her. Then he looped her arm around Bennett and cuffed Femagick's wrist to her other wrist- locking her in a hug with the injured agent.

"You disgusting, man!" Femagick began.

Mark ignored her and grabbed Bennett's wrists, similarly locking his arms around Femagick. Bennett thought he was going to pass out from the pain as his crushed hand was jostled around.

"How dare you treat me like this!" Femagick sputtered, turning her head, so she was cheek to cheek with Bennett but still able to hurl insults and saliva at Mark.

"You're lucky I don't put you over my knee," Mark said. Then he walked away.

"Over your-?! You arrogant bastard!" Femagick yelled. Her spittle went all over Bennett's face. She jostled and shuffled her feet, forcing him to turn in place so she could aim further insult at Mark as he walked away.

"I am Femagick!" she screamed. "How dare you address me like that, you- you, caveman!"

Mark held up a hand and waved goodbye.

Femagick continued to yell insults, but Mark had stopped listening. He walked up to the side of Jimmy's truck and got in on the driver's side. Josie handed him the keys. Mark closed the driver's door and started the engine.

Josie reached into the shopping bag and got out another polo shirt from the mall. It was a dark blue one.

"You and shirts don't seem to get along," she said, handing Mark the shirt.

He laid the shirt over his lap, put the truck in reverse and began backing out of the space.

"Believe in magic now?" Mark asked Josie.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

At Detachment 1039's Command Center, Major Campbell felt like he was getting an ulcer.

The FBI was having a fit. Their best capture team was down with multiple injuries. Their contract sorceress Femagick was screaming lawsuit and threatening to go to the media. The FBI's telepath was in a coma.

And Colonel Kenslir was still out there.

Now, Campbell was getting yelled at on the phone by his superiors.

"He has amnesia," Campbell explained to the General on the other end. The very unhappy General that had co-opted the FBI's capture team and now had to answer to some Senators on the Oversight Committee.

"No, we don't know why," Campbell admitted. It made no sense. Kenslir was supposed to be able to recover from any wound. He'd had whole limbs blown off before. How could he possibly have amnesia?

Campbell was given a long lecture on the cost of the current debacle. Not just in FBI manpower, but in making sure the media didn't become aware of the situation.

"I told you we couldn't stop him," Campbell said in frustration. He regretted it the moment it escaped his lips.

Major Campbell had to move the phone away from his ear at this point. He regretted the privilege to speak freely his former commander had granted him. It had gotten him into a bad habit that might just land him in the stockade if this situation didn't get turned around fast.

The General on the other end finally eased off on his tirade. Then he said something scarier- there was a debate going on about whether or not to use lethal force to stop Kenslir. The problem was, no one could come up with a lethal force that didn't also involve the chance of killing the teenagers he was now traveling with.

"My recommendation is that we follow him- at a safe distance- and see what happens," Campbell said.

The General didn't find that a helpful suggestion. He began yelling again.

"Yes- I know our Target is still out there. I have the ghost walkers scouring the region," Campbell finally said when it was his turn to talk again.

He had caught a lot of flack for that earlier as well. SOCOM's Command Center had just about sent armed men over to lock him up when he cut off their ghost walker support. It was only when he mentioned the name of the General now screaming at him that SOCOM had backed off.

"Yes, I'm aware of that," Campbell said. The General had just reminded him of the importance of the original mission. The mission Kenslir had failed to complete.

"Is that wise? Given what little we know of the Target? Can't we call off the trip?" Campbell asked.

The General reminded Campbell that Majors, even those at the 1039th, didn't make decisions like that, or question them. They supported decisions and were expected to produce results. Or they would be replaced.

"Yes, sir," Campbell said. He knew now it was only a matter of time before he got fired, arrested or both.

Major Campbell hung up the phone and reached for some antacids. He'd stocked up on them, putting several rolls in his pockets when this had all gone south. Major Campbell popped three antacid tablets in his mouth and crunched on them, before turning to an Airman seated nearby.

"Get me patched into that truck, pronto!" Campbell barked at the Airman.

***

Jimmy was driving through the desert in his truck once more. Josie was seated beside him, wearing a bright sundress. She was laughing at something funny he'd just said.

He couldn't remember what.

They were driving on a long highway, speeding toward Arizona. They had to get there quick.

And this suit was really itchy.

Suit?

Jimmy glanced down, and realized he was wearing a black suit, white shirt and tie. Which was odd, considering he had never owned a suit.

When he looked back up at the road, Jimmy realized he wasn't looking across the hood of his truck anymore. It was the hood of some sedan. He was driving a four door.

Jimmy turned to Josie to ask what was going on.

Josie was no longer wearing her sundress. She was now wearing a suit just like Jimmy's. And dark sunglasses. She had her hair cut short, and pinned up. Instead of a tie, she wore a loose, white silk blouse.

Josie was saying something. Something about Mark Kenslir. About recovering him.

"I don't care how strong they say this guy is," Josie remarked. "We can take him down just like any other. What I want to know is why the military wants him so bad."

Jimmy shook his head. This didn't make any sense.

Now Josie was wearing a bikini. And her hair was once again long. She smelled like flowers.

Josie smiled at Jimmy, and leaned back in her seat. She seemed very relaxed.

Jimmy noticed there were hands on her shoulders. Massaging her neck and shoulders. Large, tanned hands.

Jimmy turned his head and saw Mark sitting in the back seat. He was once again shirtless.

"Hey, sport," Mark said, reaching down and picking up a bottle of suntan lotion.

Jimmy realized he was standing on sand. They were all on a beach. Josie was sitting on a blanket while Mark rubbed lotion on her back.

"Jimmy," Josie said. "Jimmy? Are you alright?"

Jimmy didn't know what to think. He was no longer in the black suit. He was wearing baggy swim trunks. His skin was sunburned and he was even skinnier than he remembered.

The sunburn seemed to be increasing in intensity. Smoke was coming off Jimmy's arms and legs. The smoke burned his nostrils and made him cough. Jimmy started to panic and tried to put the smoke out by slapping at his arms and legs.

"Jimmy," Josie said.

Jimmy suddenly looked back up. Josie was pointing a pistol at him.

"I'm not your girl, Jimmy," Josie said. Then she shot him.

***

Jimmy awoke with a start. His eyes, throat and nose were burning. He sat up suddenly, wondering where he was.

"Jimmy?" Josie's voice calmed Jimmy. He finally realized where he was.

Jimmy was on the back seat of his truck. He'd been laying down, his head in Josie's lap. Mark, now wearing a dark blue shirt, was driving in the front seat.

"He awake?" Mark asked from the front seat. He kept his eyes on the road, glancing up to the rearview mirror occasionally.

"Yeah," Jimmy croaked. His throat hurt really bad. Did stunguns do that to you?

Josie reached around Jimmy and handed him a bottle of water.

"Just relax, Jimmy," she said, pulling him back.

Jimmy leaned back against Josie and drank the water.

"Where are we? What happened?" Jimmy asked between drinks.

"We had some complications after we left the mall," Mark said. "You feeling alright?

"I can't believe you stunned me!" Jimmy blurted out. As the burning in his throat died out, he realized he had a massive headache.

"Would you have rather I let that brain jockey keep riding you?" Mark asked. He again glanced into the rearview mirror as he talked to Jimmy and Josie.

Outside the truck it was night. They were on a highway.

"No. But, man, that hurt!" Jimmy said. He was fully awake now. He remembered the whole terrible ordeal. The telepath taking him over and trying to convince Colonel Kenslir to return to base. The telepath telling them Josie was his girl.

Jimmy felt embarrassed suddenly. Then angry. That was not how he wanted Josie to find out how he felt about her.

"Trust me, he'll feel it a lot longer than you," Mark said. "He should be out of commission for a couple of days."

Good, Jimmy thought. He didn't think he was going to be able to look Josie in the eye for days. Especially since she'd made it so clear how she felt. God, he was such an idiot.

"I can't believe the government has a telepath- and a sorceress," Josie said. "Those guys were Feds, right?"

Sorceress? Jimmy thought. What did I miss?

"They weren't suit salesmen," Mark said.

"So why didn't you just go with them?" Jimmy asked. He'd been wondering that the whole time the telepath was controlling him like a puppet.

"Because I don't know if I can trust them."

"Because you can't remember everything?" Josie asked.

"No, because I remember the important parts." Mark waited a moment, then spoke again. "This is your chance to go home- but I'll need to keep your truck for awhile, if you don't mind."

"Why aren't they coming after us?" Josie asked. She eased Jimmy back down into her lap and started rubbing his temples.

Jimmy closed his eyes. He was embarrassed to look at her. But also a little confused. What was going on here? Why was she being so nice?

"They're tracking us from orbit. Or maybe with a ghost walker."

"Ghost walker?" Jimmy asked, keeping his eyes closed.

"Astral Projection is the technical term," Mark said. "Couple that with a telepathic handler and you have a spy that can circle the globe and relay real-time information."

Jimmy panicked at the mention of a telepath. He sat up suddenly and began looking out the windows. Josie did the same thing. They could see nothing but darkness surrounding the truck.

"You can't see them," Mark said. "Not unless you've got a touch of clairvoyance yourself."

Jimmy didn't know what clairvoyance was, but he relaxed a little. He was ready to lay back down in Josie's lap, but she was leaning forward, her arms on the back of the seat, listening to Mark.

"Why didn't they just take your mind over? Why'd they have to give me the headache?" Jimmy asked.

"I'm immune to telepathy."

"How convenient," Jimmy responded. "Anything you can't do?"

"So now what, Mark?" Josie asked.

"Well, I remember my mission. Mostly," Mark said. Something about the way he said it worried Jimmy.

"And who killed you?" Josie asked.

"That too. Sort of.

"But I don't think you want to know."

Okay, now Jimmy was really worried. That definitely didn't sound good. If he ever saw Carlos again, he was going to kick him right in the butt for talking Josie into that motocross trip to the desert.

"Oh, c'mon! We're fugitives now!" Josie said. "You've got to tell us!"

Fugitives? Jimmy panicked. It wasn't bad enough he'd been taken over by a telepath, tasered and his deepest, most secret feelings about Josie revealed. Now he was a fugitive as well? How was he going to explain this to his parents?

"That guy on the phone made it sound like we'd disappear if we knew too much," Jimmy said. He had suddenly realized that there were worse things than merely being on the run.

"Jimmy!" Josie said.

"Hey, I watch TV, I read the blogs- I know what happens when you cross the men in black..."

Mark interrupted. "No one's going to disappear you kids."

"How can you be so sure? " Josie asked.

"Because I'm that Campbell guy's boss. Amnesia or not, I'm in charge."

"Wha-?" Jimmy asked. This was making no sense.

"I'll keep it simple for you. My team and I were hunting a shapeshifter."

Jimmy immediately was struck by the whole team thing. He pictured multiple Marks. All flexing and posturing and distracting Josie.

"Shapeshifter?" Josie asked.

"Team? What team?" Jimmy asked.

Mark had decided. It was time to tell these kids what was going on.

"I started hunting parahuman threats, for the military, back in the 50s, fresh out of West Point," he started. "I've worked with other parahumans over the years.

"A couple of weeks ago, my team and I tracked a shapeshifter here to Arizona."

"Here?" Josie asked. "What's it doing here? Where'd it come from?"

"We don't know where it came from. We think- thought- it was in Arizona to assume the Vice President's identity. We tracked it to a hotel in the desert. Not too far from where you found me."

"How would it take over the Vice President's identity?" Jimmy asked.

"It rips the hearts out of living subjects and consumes them, then takes their form."

"That's disgusting!" Jimmy said.

"It tried to eat your heart?" Josie asked, remembering the stone heart in the desert.

"Yes. After my team and I failed to stop it."

"What happened?" Josie asked.

"First it killed my men, then it killed me."

CHAPTER TWELVE

It had started with an ocean exploration vessel, the Lady Jane Franklin, being found adrift near Miami. The Coast Guard boarded the vessel to find all thirty passengers and crew dead. With their hearts ripped out and missing.

Over the next two weeks, several more, similar murders were reported by the FBI- from Florida to Arizona. A string of twenty-three more bodies, all with their hearts ripped out, but with no connection to each other. The work of an apparently-random serial killer.

Then the FBI had brought in a specialist. A parahuman, with the ability to postcognitively see events by touching items- or corpses. What he reported from his investigation terrified the Postcog and had the FBI seeking military assistance.

A shapeshifter was to blame for the deaths. The Postcog had relived the death of the many victims over and over again. Each time, a new face doing the killing. Normally the face of one of the previous victims.

The shapeshifter was murdering people, then assuming the identities of his victims.

The trail led to Arizona. Facial recognition software searched for the many deceased, and finally found one, staying in a hotel in the desert, uncomfortably close to where the Vice President was scheduled to be spending a vacation with his family.

Ordinarily, the FBI had capture teams for situations like this. Contractors hired for their own paranormal abilities, coupled with human support agents. But a shapeshifter was something different. Something that hadn't been seen before.

There had been the mystics, with their spells to create the illusions of shapechange. There were the various were-creatures that could turn from a man, or woman, into an animal or something in between. But this was something different. A being capable of taking the identity of a victim- of many, many victims.

The military had people trained for that sort of heavy duty response. So the FBI passed the case on to them.

Within twenty-four hours, Colonel Mark Kenslir and his squad found themselves in Arizona, sneaking up on a remote, roadside motel.

It was a simple, one story, long, rectangular building, with an office on one end, and rooms stretching to the other end, built back to back. Some rooms faced the road that ran through the small cluster of buildings making up the very small town of Freedmont.

Across the street from the motel, a row of buildings sat dark. A diner, a souvenir shop and a small convenience store. All were closed at 2:00 AM when the team arrived silently on foot. They had parachuted into the area two miles away, then moved in on foot for maximum stealth.

Satellite reconnaissance showed twenty people staying in the motel. Weary travelers just wanting somewhere to stay. Noncombatants who had to be removed from the situation.

The team had a telepath attached to them, call sign Echo. He was dressed as a vagrant and sent in to remove the noncombatants, while Colonel Kenslir and his four man squad surrounded the motel and waited.

Echo shambled up to the motel, staggering along, feigning intoxication as he reached out telepathically to those sleeping inside.

It was an easy process. Seize control of the sleepers' minds, plant a command for them to get out of bed and walk across the street. It was something like inducing sleepwalking, and the weary travelers would never remember it had happened.

One by one, the sleepers quietly sat up in their beds and proceeded out of their rooms and across the street. Where Colonel Kenslir waited for them at the diner.

Kenslir wore black combat pants and boots. His shirt was skin-tight, black- made of a material similar to what standard troops wore. A garment designed for maximum comfort, able to wick away sweat- not that he ever really sweated. The shirt bore a name tag over his right breast: ANTAEAN.

Over his shirt and pants, Kenslir wore a dozen different straps and belts, supporting a variety of weapons and gear. A large submachine gun hung on his right thigh. Ammo pouches were on his left thigh. A huge, semi-automatic magnum hung under his left armpit, just above his belt. More ammo pouches hung under his right armpit. On his belt, grenades and more ammo pouches were aplenty.

But Kenslir liked reliable, ammunition-less weapons as well. Like the twin, twelve-inch Bowie knives hanging on his chest, handles-down, supported by his combat harness. And on his back were two simple iron rods- each twenty-inches long and nearly an inch in diameter. Heavy, but as useful as any hammer, baton or any other crushing weapon ever designed.

Kenslir supplemented all this equipment with his main weapon. A modified M82A1, semi-automatic, anti-vehicular sniper rifle, firing .50 caliber rounds that were capable of penetrating armor plate or engine blocks. Instead of the small ten-round magazine conventional forces used with the heavy rifle, Kenslir had a special drum magazine over a foot in diameter holding a hundred rounds.

The Colonel watched the mesmerized travelers come across the street one by one through large, goggle-sized, wraparound sunglasses. The glasses was equipped with a heads up display, earpieces and microphone so he could stay in contact with his team. The tactical targeting visor also provided night vision and real-time satellite feeds.

After the first few travelers had gone into the diner, sat down at tables then laid their heads down and resumed sleeping, Kenslir leapt onto the roof of the building. He was careful to land as light as possible. With all his gear, and his own immense weight, he tried to avoid property damage whenever possible.

Kenslir set up his massive rifle to cover the room the target was staying in and waited. Echo was nearly done with his removal operation.

For Echo, the whole thing was a little unnerving. He wasn't used to field work. As rare as telepaths were, he was used to being in an office, with subjects brought to him for memory retrieval. The few times he'd left a secure facility, he'd been under the close supervision and protection of at least a dozen armed men.

Echo also wasn't sure about his new commander. It was unnerving for a telepath to meet someone who's mind could not be read. Truth was something Echo had grown up with- no one being able to hide their thoughts, or lies, from him. He wondered just what the Colonel really thought of him and this mission. And whether he had been given all the details.

When Echo had been awakened in the middle of the night, he had seen the fear in his regular handler's mind. The intel on the target was disturbing. Echo absolutely understood the importance of stopping the creature and whatever plan it had in place.

So, after a long flight, a terrifying High Altitude, Low Opening parachute drop into the Arizona desert, and then a very undignified ride through the desert on the back of the much faster-running super soldiers, Echo found himself dressed in smelly clothes, standing outside a sleazy motel room door.

Echo reached out to the sleeping traveler inside.

Ted Marshall was a middle-aged salesman from Oklahoma, on his way back from a convention in Las Vegas. His dreams were filled with nightmares about paying his mortgage and supporting his family.

Echo carefully eased Marshall out of bed. He was glad this one was wearing clothes. The salesman wore boxer shorts and a dirty white t-shirt. And at least a quart of sweat. Echo had not enjoyed dressing the last man.

Echo steered Marshall out of the room. Marshall robotically closed the door to his room then walked across the pavement parking lot of the Motel, toward the street. Along the way, his bare feet stepped on small bits of gravel. They'd be sore in the morning.

Marshall crossed the dark street with no difficulty, then entered the diner.

Inside, the other travelers were all sleeping- seated at tables, their arms crossed, their heads laid down. They were a varied selection of Americans. An elderly woman in a nightgown. A large-chested, Hispanic, twenty-something woman in a thin negligee. A grungy-haired, blonde twenty-year-old man in tattered jeans.

They'd all ended up at this particular motel, exhausted after a day of whatever life had thrown at them. And all were now sleeping a deep, deep slumber in the diner, courtesy of Echo.

The telepath opened his eyes. He reached up to his earpiece to signal the Colonel. It struck him how odd it was that a telepath should even have to use a radio. But then, he couldn't exactly telepathically communicate with the Colonel.

"All clear- that was the last one," Echo whispered. The earpiece picked up his words and transmitted them in burst form- a split-second digital transmission.

Across the street, Colonel Kenslir whispered a reply into the wire-thin metal microphone boom coming down from his tactical visor.

"Move to safe distance," he directed.

Echo nodded, and carefully walked away from the room, staggering, but not too much, back across the parking lot. It took him at least three minutes, but he was finally off the lot. He then circled around, crossed the street, passed down an alley, and finally entered through the back exit of the Diner.

There, Echo hid in the kitchen, watching over his sleeping charges. He still thought the best plan would have been for him to just seize control of the shapeshifter, telepathically, then let the soldiers capture it.

The Colonel had absolutely forbidden that plan. He had tersely pointed out to Echo that all telepathic connections created a two-way bridge of information, and if something went wrong, they simply could not have this shapeshifter running around the country with operational knowledge of the Detachment.

From his rooftop perch, Kenslir looked through the scope on his rifle. Thermal imaging showed the target still in bed, sleeping.

"Knock, knock, squad," Kenslir directed into his radio.

Like wraiths, the other four members of the squad emerged from hiding.

Each wore a uniform similar to the Colonel's, with the same augmented-reality tactical visors. Their choice of weapons differed slightly from the Colonel. They each carried a large, belted-ammunition machine gun, and only one large pistol held in holsters on their right thighs. They carried far more grenades than the Colonel as well. And only one Bowie knife each, hung on their chest harnesses.

And all four of the men were made of stone.

The United States military had spent years trying to develop a super soldier for any situation. In the 1960s, Kenslir had worked with a variety of parahumans with different abilities. But with few exceptions, they'd all been mortal. They could be, and sometimes were, killed in combat.

It was Kenslir's own wife that had started the project in 1960. Her plan was simple- find a way to petrify a human being into a living, moving, thing of gray stone. A soldier who didn't need to eat, to drink, to even breathe. Who wouldn't get tired. Who was bulletproof. And who would be far stronger than normal men.

Kenslir's current squad was the culmination of that research started fifty years ago. And for the past three years, the squad had gathered an impressive mission completion rating under Kenslir's careful direction.

A shapeshifter would be child's play.

First, from his concealment behind a parked car, came Atlas. A former Navy Seal, with no family, Atlas had been selected for his combat skills and extensive training. He had developed into Kenslir's second-in-command in the field and was a very apt soldier.

Atlas moved in quietly, drum-fed machinegun held tight against his shoulder, ready to fire. With his hairless, granite-colored head, Atlas embodied the mythical Titan he was named for.

Cronus was the second soldier out. Cronus had left a promising career in Marine Recon to become part of America's most elite. Like Atlas, Cronus and the whole squad appeared to be moving, bald statues. Because hair didn't hold up well when petrified.

Cronus approached from a different direction, covering the far end of the motel by the office.

From behind a dumpster at the far end of the motel, Perses advanced. Perses had been recruited from Delta Force. He was the only member of the squad to have been reluctant to become petrified. Perses was smart like that- he wasn't planning on staying a soldier forever.

Behind the motel, the final stone soldier emerged from the brush. His name tag identified him as HYPERION. A knee injury had removed him from Air Force pararescue training. But his record prior to that, and his unmarried, no-family status had brought him into the program. Fixing his knee injury had been all part of the petrification process.

Atlas hesitated just outside the door to the target's room. The tactical visor superimposed the thermal image of the sleeping form into his field of vision. The visor also displayed ambient air temperature, compass heading, barometric pressure and a variety of other information about the world in real time.

Atlas glanced to his right, then left, to ensure Cronus and Perses were in position, only twenty-feet away.

"In position?" Atlas asked into the radio.

Hyperion had just stopped in front of the door to a room on the back of the motel, directly adjacent to the target's room. The door, two sheets of drywall and some 2x4s were all that separated him from the target.

"Ready," Hyperion answered.

Atlas stepped forward, kicking the door so that it exploded inward, in a spray of splinters.

The target was awake immediately, sitting up in bed. It wore the form of red-haired, skinny woman. Atlas didn't know it, but she had been a drug addict on the streets of Oklahoma. A high school dropout who had run away from uncaring parents, hoping she could make it to Hollywood and become a star.

Instead, she'd had her heart ripped out.

Atlas fired his 7.62mm, M240 machinegun directly into the surprised shapeshifter. Each individual round of the weapon was designed to be able to kill a man, or woman. The bullets could penetrate concrete blocks. They moved at nearly two-thousand, six-hundred feet per second. The M240 could fire nine-hundred of these bullets per minute.

Across the street, Colonel Kenslir watched through his thermal vision scope. The flare from the muzzle of the M240 was a large, white ball of heat. The body of the target jumped and twitched as small streams of heat, the 7.62mm bullets, tore into it.

Atlas stopped firing after only five seconds. All seventy-five of his fired shots had found their target.

The redhead from Oklahoma was a splattered mess, her blood and most of her internal organs painted on the wall of the motel behind her bed. Her face was frozen in place with a mix of surprise and pain. The blankets and sheets that had covered her body were bloody and shredded.

Scratch one murdering fiend.

Atlas lowered his rifle. "Target down."

Across the street, Kenslir leaned back from his scope. Relieved, but a little worried. This had gone far too easy, even for his stone soldiers.

Inside the motel room, Atlas suddenly came to the same conclusion.

Despite being a pulped mess, the redhead from Oklahoma sprang out of her bed. The leap from her horizontal, reclined position was instantaneous and brought her on top of Atlas in a split second.

Atlas, despite being a nearly-indestructible mass of living stone, was frightened by the sudden movement. As the gory redhead landed on his chest, he stepped back.

The shapeshifter immediately changed- abandoning the shredded form of the teenage drug addict for a lanky, blonde-haired, clean cut boy from Idaho. He'd come to Arizona seeking work.

Despite being rail thin, and a good head shorter than Atlas, the blonde shapeshifter smacked the M240 out of Atlas' surprised hands with ease.

Atlas recovered from his momentary shock and reached down for the pistol on his right thigh. The shapeshifter was faster, catching his wrist with its left hand. Then the shapeshifter grabbed the stone soldier by his various straps and harnesses and threw him across the room and into the wall.

In the motel parking lot, the wall beside the door to the shapeshifter's room exploded as Atlas was hurled through it. The stone soldier sailed a good ten feet through the air before hitting the ground and rolling several times to a stop.

Perses, Cronus and Kenslir were all surprised. The Colonel grabbed up his rifle and looked through the scope. In the motel room, the shapeshifter casually picked up a t-shirt from the nightstand and slipped it on. Then he stepped into a pair of shoes, and walked toward the exit.

Atlas was back on his feet now. His hand snaked down for the pistol on his leg. The holster was empty.

The shapeshifter emerged from the hole in the wall. He wore blue jeans, tennis shoes and his fresh t-shirt. He twirled a large, over-under, double-barreled pistol around his right index finger by its oversized trigger guard.

"Lose something?" the shapeshifter taunted. Despite having just been killed, and now facing three soldiers made of living stone, the shapeshifter was extremely calm.

Atlas reached up for the Bowie knife hanging from his combat harness. If shooting didn't work, maybe beheading would.

The blonde from Idaho extended his seized-pistol toward Atlas and fired a single shot.

After the stone soldiers had been made, the question had come up on what to equip them with. Their inhuman strength and stone physiques made them lethal to normal people, but the stone soldiers weren't made for fighting normal people. They were made for fighting paranormal people. Fists might not be enough.

Heavy weapons designed for use mounted on vehicles had been an early choice. But they were unwieldy, and overly-large, even if the stone soldiers could carry them around with no effort. What had been needed were small, hand-held weapons, easily aimed even in confined places, but which had the stopping power to take out armored vehicles, if necessary.

Enter the M79 grenade launcher- a rifle capable of firing grenades at the enemy from safe distances and used extensively during the Vietnam War. Originally made with a shoulder stock and a long barrel for accuracy, the gun lobbed 40mm grenades, one shot at a time.

Adding another barrel on top of the breechloading weapon had been a design improvement borrowed from skeet shooting shotguns. And the lobbed grenades were replaced with more lethal rounds that didn't need to travel a safe distance before arming and exploding. The barrels were shortened and the shoulder stock replaced with a pistol grip.

Atlas remembered this all in the split second it took for the baseball-sized projectile from his own pistol to slam into him with the force of a cannon shot. The hard, armor-piercing round flattened against the dense stone of his chest, then its shaped-charge core detonated.

Atlas exploded as well- his granite-like body not so indestructible after all. Large, stone pieces flew out in all directions- Atlas' uniform and gear blown apart by the shot as well. Only his boots and the legs of his pants remained where he had been standing.

The shapeshifter was surprised by the dust and stone pieces. He lowered the pistol and walked over to the pile of debris. He picked a piece up and examined it, sniffing at the piece, then pitching it aside.

Cronus and Perses were amazed. They had been briefed they weren't truly indestructible. That they had to avoid certain things, like direct cannon fire or anti-tank rockets. But they had survived so much. To watch one of their own, cut down by his own pistol, with such relative ease... it was shocking.

But they were professionals. Cronus and Perses snapped out of it and unleashed their machine guns on the shapeshifter. Simultaneously, Hyperion crashed through the rear room of the motel, smashing through the wall into the shapeshifter's room. He too began firing his machine gun, riddling the shapeshifter with rounds.

For every second of time passing, the shapeshifter was being slammed with forty-five bullets from three directions. Bullets that tore through his body, bursting organs and shattering bones.

But he was a shapeshifter. As soon as organs popped or bones snapped, they swelled back together. It was like trying to hold back a wall of water with machine gun fire. Forty-five bullets per second just weren't enough.

The stone soldiers did not realize this. They just kept firing to make sure the target died. Their two-hundred-round drums of ammunition provided thirteen seconds of continuous fire. Thirteen long seconds.

When the firing stopped, the shredded body of the shapeshifter, torn by the constant stream of lead almost faster than it could repair itself, hung in the air for but a moment. Then it dropped to the ground, as if the machine guns had been suspending it.

Hyperion was now standing in the shapeshifter's room. He and the other two soldiers dropped their empty drums, and pulled fresh ones from the mini packs on their backs. They began the slow process of reloading while the shapeshifter's body lay broken, shredded and oozing on the ground.

The shapeshifter suddenly sat up. He extended his arm and fired the other barrel of his stolen pistol. Again, the terrible grenade pistol boomed, sending its armor-piercing, shaped-charge round out. This time into the surprised head of Cronus.

Where before Atlas' body had been reduced to large chunks, Cronus' head all but vaporized- blown into a cloud of sand-like grit. His clothes and gear were blown off the body nearly to the waist. The windows of a car parked nearby shattered from the shock wave.

Cronus' body dropped the M240 it was holding, then it slowly toppled over and smashed onto the pavement, a headless, shirtless statue.

The shapeshifter dropped the pistol he was holding as he sprang to his feet. As he moved, his body rapidly transformed again, this time into an older man, in his late 50s, with thinning hair and a large stomach- a truck driver from Missouri who'd taken in one hitchhiker too many. Beneath the shredded t-shirt, the new body was fresh and undamaged.

Hyperion was quicker than the shapeshifter. He too dropped his empty machine gun as he lunged forward. He quick-drew his own Bowie knife as he looped an arm around the shapeshifter's neck. As he jerked back on the neck, he jammed the knife into the creature's back. Cold steel cleaved ribs and muscle, then a lung, then severed more ribs before the tip erupted from the shapeshifter's chest.

Perses, meanwhile, was stepping backwards, quickly away from Hyperion and the shapeshifter. He kept his cool and continued to methodically reload. Once he had positioned the end of the belted ammo fed out from the new drum, he slapped down the cover of the machinegun, worked the bolt and took aim.

Again, the shapeshifter began to be riddled by bullets. But this time, Perses was firing from the hip. His shots were not as accurate as before. His hail of lead ripped into the truck driver, passing through and glancing off Hyperion's stone body harmlessly.

Perses corrected his aim, concentrating his fire on the shapeshifter's head. The stream of bullets reduced first the face, then the head of the shapeshifter to broken pulp in only a few seconds. Perses fired for two more seconds after that, his bullets harmlessly passing through a mush of flesh and bone before ricocheting off Hyperion's face.

Knowing his ammo was nearly gone, Perses dropped his machine gun.

"That's for Atlas and Cronus, you scumbag," he said.

The limp body of the shapeshifter, held up only by Hyperion's Bowie knife, suddenly came to life. The shattered head swelled and merged back together as the body bulged and transformed again- this time into a blonde-haired woman, thin, with delicate features and short blond hair. She had striking blue eyes. She had been a mother of three.

The mother of three had been on the way to pick her children up from a daycare in New Mexico, when a man had stumbled out in front of her car. After striking the man, she had leapt from her car in a panic to check on him. He was uninjured and ripped out her heart.

As the shapeshifter slipped into the thin form of the house wife, his right hand grabbed back behind him- at the holster on Hyperion's leg. He drew Hyperion's pistol out with blinding speed and aimed it at Perses. As his new, blue eyes finished forming, the shapeshifter fired the pistol into Perses' face.

Like Cronus, Perses' head was no match for the armor-piercing round. It had been designed as a last-ditch weapon, capable of stopping anything. It succeeded. Perses' head exploded, his last thought questioning the intelligence of bringing the grenade pistols into the field after all.

Before the stunned Hyperion could react, the blonde housewife reached up and over her shoulder with her left arm, grabbing Hyperion's head. She twisted quickly, pulling herself off the Bowie knife as she ducked over, pulling Hyperion off his feet. Using her thin hips, the house wife hurled Hyperion over her in a Judo-like move.

Hyperion tumbled through the air, cartwheeling then landing on his back on the top of a dusty sedan. The roof of the car collapsed under the impact and the windows all blew out.

The shapeshifter stood back up, chest covered in blood from the Bowie knife. Then its head exploded.

On the diner rooftop, Colonel Kenslir dropped his rifle. He'd scored a direct hit, but he knew the shapeshifter was only slowed down. Vaulting over the edge of the roof, Kenslir dropped to the pavement and began to sprint towards Hyperion and the still-standing, headless shapeshifter.

Hyperion had recovered, and rolled off the car. He balled his fists, ready to continue the fight.

The headless shapeshifter once again aimed a grenade pistol- the one it had taken from Hyperion. As the pistol leveled, the shapeshifter's neck swelled up, forming yet another new head- that of a thirty-something homeless man with long, scraggly blond hair. The thin body of the housewife likewise changed, matching the head, and again appearing free of any injury.

The grenade pistol boomed again as Kenslir sprinted into the parking lot. He launched himself at the shapeshifter even as Hyperion's head exploded in a spray of grit and sand.

Kenslir's feet crushed into the shapeshifter's chest as the Colonel completed his flying double kick. The impact was sufficient to crush the shapeshifter's rib cage and knock it off its feet and send it flying backwards. The shapeshifter flew right into the side of a parked car with sufficient force to cave the car's door in and shatter all the windows.

Kenslir landed on his feet and reached back over his shoulders for his steel batons. If lead bullets wouldn't stop the shapeshifter, maybe some refined iron would. He charged forward as the shapeshifter climbed back to its feet, its chest caved in.

Again, the shapeshifter changed into a new form to heal its wounds. But this was not a human form. Blue jeans covered in blood and the tattered remnants of the shapeshifter's t-shirt ripped as its body began to expand and stretch. The shapeshifter's shoes started to split and tear, its feet enlarging.

As Kenslir reached the shapeshifter, it had shed its human form for that of a giant. A six-fingered, six-toed, eight foot tall giant with a shaved head, and bulging, rope-like, inhuman muscles.

Colonel Kenslir wasn't impressed. In his long career, he'd seen a lot. Turning into a giant just meant his enemy was a bigger, easier to hit target. He went to work with his batons.

Solid stainless steel, with ridged grips, weighing ten pounds each, the batons were far heavier than their wooden counterparts. A lesser man would have trouble using them for long. For Colonel Kenslir, they were some of his favorite weapons.

The giant reached its arms out, intending to grab the head of this new opponent and crush it. Unlike the previous stone soldiers, this new opponent looked to be of simple flesh and blood. Which meant it would have a heart the shapeshifter could consume.

"Come to me, little human," the giant said- his mouth filled with a double row of teeth. What the shapeshifter didn't count on was Kenslir's speed.

Colonel Kenslir ducked under the arms and began to hammer the giant with dozens of blows, working the batons effortlessly, and rapidly, like drumsticks. Kenslir worked the batons with brutal force, each blow strong enough to shatter bricks. The staccato assault ranged across the giant's chest, on his sides, down to his knee caps and back up to his throat.

The giant was staggered back by the blows. He felt his ribs, his thigh bones, even his internal organs breaking under the assault. This just made him want to consume the black haired attacker's heart more than any other he had yet encountered in this strange land.

The giant slammed his head down, ramming his dense forehead directly into Kenslir's face. The tactical targeting visor, made of dense polycarbonate plastic, tough enough to withstand gunfire, snapped in half. The blow flattened Kenslir's nose and nearly knocked him off his feet. He thought he heard his neck vertebrae fracture.

Kenslir took several steps back. He threw his batons down on either side of him. They smashed into the asphalt, burying their ends three inches deep.

The giant held his ground. He once again shapechanged, but not into a human form- instead his chest bulged and twisted as he repaired his bones and internal organs to restore his giant form.

Kenslir reached up calmly and pulled the broken pieces of the tactical visor off his face and dropped them to the ground. "How many times do I have to kill you?" he asked the giant.

Before the giant could respond, Kenslir sprang forward, kicking off from the ground. His sudden leap carried him up in the air, ten feet over the giant's head. He twisted in mid air, tucked, rolled and landed nimbly on his feet behind the giant, his hands gripping the handles of his twin Bowie knives.

The giant spun around, surprised.

Kenslir drew his knives and thrust them forward in one swift motion. His left-hand knife punctured deep into the giant's side, cleaving a kidney. His right-hand knife punctured deep into the giant's chest, spearing his heart. Or where his heart would have been if he were a human.

Kenslir released his grip on the knives and stepped back. "And that is game, set and —" he started to say.

It was the giant's turn to attack. Despite the incredible pain in his kidney, he struck out, right hand held flat, knifelike. His six fingers struck Kenslir's chest with blinding speed, tearing through fabric and flesh just under Kenslir's sternum.

Kenslir grunted from the impact. He looked down at his chest and saw the giant's arm in his torso, almost to the elbow.

The giant grinned. He had learned long ago to form his heart on the left side of his chest, to avoid the spears, swords, knives and other weapons that had so often been employed against him in this form. But the black haired man with the strange green-black eyes had normal human anatomy. His heart was exactly where it should be.

The giant wrapped his six fingers around the heart and jerked it out of Kenslir's chest.

The giant stepped back, then raised the heart to his chest, opening his mouth. He wondered if he was actually salivating at the thought of all the power the heart held. He was just about to put it into his mouth when he noticed it had changed color. And gotten heavier.

The giant looked closer. The heart had turned gray. Blood no longer dripped out of it. The giant squeezed the heart. It had turned to unyielding stone.

"I'm going to be needing that back," Colonel Kenslir said.

The giant looked up, more surprised that Kenslir was still alive than by the petrified heart in his hand. But there Kenslir was, with a gaping hole in his chest that wasn't even bleeding. And with a large pistol in his hand, aimed right at the giant's face.

Kenslir fired twice, his automag roaring like a miniature cannon. He normally carried the magnum in a shoulder holster, his last backup firearm. One that he was pinpoint accurate with, at distances up to a hundred feet.

Both the giant's eyes exploded as the automag's rounds bored into his skull, then through his brain, before erupting out the back of his head. This didn't kill the giant, but it blinded him. And made him very angry.

The giant staggered back, turning away from Kenslir, who continued firing, aiming his shots at precise pressure points and nerve clusters. The pain was excruciating. It was time for this to finally end.

The shapeshifter's body again began to bulge and distort as he changed form. His skin reddened then grew scales. His feet expanded into gigantic, four-toed paws, tipped with two inch talons. His arms bulged and lengthened, into matching appendages. His neck and head lengthened, while wings grew from his back. A tail emerged from the shapeshifter's back, stretching out into a barbed tip.

In mere seconds, the giant had transformed into a red-scaled, four-legged, winged dragon with a body the size of a large horse, and a fifty foot wingspan. The shapeshifter turned his dragon head toward Kenslir, then swatted him away with his tail.

Without a heart, Kenslir knew he had only a few minutes before oxygen deprivation caused his brain to shut down. He really did need his heart back- and a lot of water. Maybe. He'd never had this happen before. Worse, without a heart, his body was already shutting down. His reaction time was drastically reduced. He couldn't avoid the dragon tail.

The red-scaled tail swept into Kenslir like a falling tree. It cracked his ribs and lifted him off his feet. He felt himself flying through the air a considerable distance. Then he smashed into something.

Kenslir got back to his feet, glancing behind him for just a moment. He'd crashed into a long, sleek boat on a trailer. A trailer connected to a parked truck. Kenslir turned back to face the dragon, realizing he'd dropped his automag into the boat behind him.

The dragon reared back on its hind legs, shrinking down to the form of an elderly, white-haired black man. An elderly man who had been alone on a golf course one morning, playing a few holes before work. The shapeshifter had turned the beloved grandfather and husband into a heartless corpse.

Kenslir had one last firearm left. His right hand dropped down to the holster on his right leg and quick drew his submachine gun. It was an OA-93- a 5.56mm, banana clip-fed weapon based on the Army's venerable M-16 and M-4 rifles. Kenslir carried it for use against hostile, human targets, its small, accurate rounds not being designed for much else. But it was all he had left.

Kenslir squeezed the trigger, sending out a full-auto stream of bullets. He noticed his hand was trembling as he did so. He might not have five minutes left after all.

The hastily aimed shot missed the shapeshifter, riddling the front of the motel many feet behind him. The shapeshifter ignored the gunfire and slowly walked over to Perses' headless body.

Kenslir dropped his empty magazine and drew a fresh one from a pouch on his left leg. With shaking hands, his vision starting to blur, he quickly reloaded.

The shapeshifter reached down and pulled Perses' grenade pistol from its holster. The shapeshifter hadn't been a fan of firearms when he first encountered them, but he had to admit the pistols of these stone men were very impressive.

Kenslir again took aim and fired, this time sending a stream of full-auto fire into the shapeshifter's back.

The shapeshifter ignored the bullets tearing into him and turned toward Kenslir and slowly aimed the double-barreled grenade pistol. Even as three bullets ripped through his left shoulder, the shapeshifter took careful aim with the pistol in his right hand.

"My turn," the shapeshifter said.

As Kenslir was dropping another empty magazine from his machine pistol, the grenade pistol boomed again. Its armor-piercing round streaked across the parking lot- straight into the side of the boat beside Kenslir.

The round detonated, blowing a huge hole through both sides of the boat.

Kenslir glanced at the holes even as he continued reloading.

"Crap," Kenslir said. He'd need a swimming pool of a water and a full moon to survive a hit like that.

Kenslir extended his arm, aiming as carefully as he could with his vision blurry, then fired. Simultaneously, the shapeshifter fired his last shot.

The bullets from Kenslir's machine pistol traveled only slightly faster than the grenade round- a mere three thousand feet per second. The small 5.56mm bullets tore into the top of the shapeshifter's skull, puncturing neatly through flesh and bone and removing the back of his head.

Nearly at the same time, the shapeshifter's grenade round struck Kenslir in the forehead, above his left eyebrow.

Were they just large slugs, Kenslir could have survived the impact easily. His own bones were far harder than a normal man's. But the grenade rounds contained an explosive core, similar to that of a Russian RPG rocket. Molten copper was liquefied in the micro explosion that tore a messy hole in Kenslir's forehead. The molten copper followed the blast wave, into his skull and out the back of his head.

Nearly half of Kenslir's skull was removed in the blast. The round designed to breach walls, stop tanks or bring down small aircraft had torn through brain and stone-hard bone with ridiculous ease.

As Kenslir was knocked backwards, into the boat, he marveled at how little he felt from the injury. He then realized he was laying on his back, looking up at the sky, his head burst open like a melon. It was a unique feeling.

"That's going to leave a mark..." Kenslir said, laughing deliriously. He was rapidly losing consciousness.

The shapeshifter stepped forward, again transforming into his dragon form. He spread his wings and flapped them once as he vaulted into the air. Beating his massive, leathery wings, the shapeshifter quickly gained altitude.

Across the street, Echo emerged from the diner. He had tried to radio for backup, but he wasn't familiar with the transmitters the squad had been using. Now that the dragon had flown away, he was going out to check on the Colonel.

Laid out in the boat, half his skull gone, the Colonel lay still, breathing slowly, his eyes open and staring blankly upward. Echo noticed the large hole in the Colonel's chest. He couldn't believe he was still alive.

"Hang in there, Colonel," Echo said. "I'll take care of-"

A leathery flapping sound seemed to be coming from above. Echo turned and looked up. It was the dragon- flying a slow circle around the area, looking for more soldiers.

He knew the Colonel had told him not to try and make contact, but Echo had no choice. He had a diner full of innocent civilians, and there were no more soldiers. He reached out with his mind.

Something was there, but Echo couldn't quite latch on to it. He squinted, concentrating harder. He pressed his fingers to his temples, mustering all his willpower. But still, a contact remained elusive.

Far above, the dragon noticed Echo on the ground. Dressed in shabby clothes, the telepath didn't seem like much of a threat. But he was standing right next to the fallen soldier with the heart of stone. And he was staring intently at the shapeshifter as he circled.

The shapeshifter made up his mind- he needed more hearts. This one would do.

The shapeshifter tucked his wings in and dove toward the ground. He dropped like a stone through the air, directly toward the straining telepath. At the last possible second, the dragon unfurled its wings, catching the air and landing as lightly as a horse-sized, flying monster could.

Echo didn't flinch, he was too intent on making the psychic connection. His eyes stared blankly while the veins in his forehead bulged. He wondered why he couldn't seize control of the shapeshifter. Unlike the Colonel, the shapeshifter did give off psychic energy. But it was different, more animal-like.

Suddenly, it hit Echo. He could seize control of a human's mind, but the shapeshifter had turned into an animal that while it was mythical, was still an animal, regardless.

The dragon saw the sudden panic in Echo's eyes as the telepath stopped straining. He leaned in close, tasted the fear coming off the human, lingering in the air.

Echo stood defiantly, more scared then he had ever been in his life. He was too afraid to even move.

The dragon suddenly attacked. Its jaws gaped wide, then it chomped down on Echo's head. With a jerk, the telepath was lifted off the ground, torso dangling from the dragon's mouth. The shapeshifter shook the body, back and forth, like a dog with a toy, snapping Echo's neck.

The shapeshifter dropped the corpse to the ground, then pounced on it with both paws, and bit into the chest. He tore and pulled, chewed and sliced. In seconds, he had torn Echo's chest open. Then he plucked the heart out with his teeth and swallowed it whole.

The dragon remained motionless for many seconds, absorbing the heart, the power of the telepath into its own being. Then it turned its head slowly back to Kenslir, laying motionless in the boat.

Once more, the dragon spread its wings and took to the air. At the apex of his flight, the dragon turned and dived, tucking his wings in close. He descended rapidly again, straight toward the boat Kenslir laid in.

Kenslir could just make out the approaching dragon. His vision was now growing dark. He wondered if this time he'd wake up from death. Was his number finally up?

At the last moment, the dragon spread its wings, grabbing the air and pulling up. His four clawed feet grabbed the boat, ripping it free of its trailer as he swept by. The boat firmly in his grasp, the dragon increased his speed and flew out of the town, headed for the desert.

As Kenslir's vision faded, the last thing he saw was the scaled underbelly of the shapeshifter's dragon form.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was dark now, as the trio rode along in Jimmy's truck. Mark still drove, and Josie and Jimmy rode in the back.

Kenslir had left some of the details of his death out- mostly the facts about Detachment 1039, the fact his team had been made of stone soldiers and the use of a telepath to remove civilians from harm's way. The shapeshifter possessing the form of a giant and a dragon he did share.

"It can turn into a Dragon?!" Jimmy asked. He didn't know whether to be scared or amazed. A Dragon! Who knew there even were such things?

"Apparently," Kenslir answered. He kept his eyes on the road, talking to the teens without turning to face them.

"Wait a minute- you said you died in 1962" Josie said, confused. "Now you remember dying just a few days ago?"

"I've died several times over the years," Kenslir said. He could almost remember them all. "It's not a big deal."

"Not a big deal?!" Jimmy said. That clinched it- Mark was crazy. Probably from before he lost half his brain.

"So you remember everything now?" Josie asked. "Your whole life?"

"Not everything," Kenslir answered. "I remember a little bit about my mission, but between 1962 and then is still a bit blurry."

"Why do you remember 1962 so well?" Jimmy asked.

"You always remember your first time," Kenslir said. "Dying, that is."

"How old are you, anyway?" Josie asked.

"I was born in 1928."

"Holy crap!" Jimmy blurted out.

Josie was impressed as well. "You look good for your age."

"I've had some work done," Kenslir said. "A lot of work." As much as he trusted these kids, he wasn't about to give them the details of the stone soldier project.

"Like being able to turn to stone?" Josie asked.

"That was a fortunate accident," Kenslir answered. "And I don't do it on purpose." In fact, Kenslir only turned to stone when he was severely injured or died. Then his other curse kicked in, restoring him, before his innate ability to resist magic restored him to flesh and blood. It was a complicated condition and the kids didn't need to be confused by it now.

"How are you so strong?" Josie asked.

"Vitamins," Kenslir said. Maybe one day he'd tell them more. They were proving to be very resourceful teens. And there were some openings in the team now.

"Let's get back to this dragon guy," Jimmy said. He was sick of hearing Mark impress Josie. "How are you going to fight it without your team?"

"I've got you two," Kenslir said.

"Us?!" Jimmy asked. What could they possibly do? Give the dragon indigestion?

"I can't trust anyone," Kenslir explained. "Shapeshifter, remember? He could be anyone now."

"What are we supposed to do?" Josie asked. She trusted Mark, but this sounded crazy.

"We don't even have any super powers!" Jimmy added.

"It's not always about having powers," Kenslir said. "Anybody can be a hero."

"Says the guy who can come back from the dead." Jimmy said. "Pardon me for being skeptical, but maybe it's because I can't do that."

"So now what?" Josie asked, ignoring Jimmy.

"It's still here. In Arizona."

"How can you know that?" Jimmy asked. Kenslir couldn't even remember most of his life. How could he know anything?

"The Vice President is still here," Kenslir answered.

That made no sense to Josie. "Wouldn't they have called off his visit?"

"Politicians never listen to us.

"I wouldn't be surprised if his security detail wasn't even briefed on the potential threat."

"That's just stupid. Of course they'd tell them," Jimmy insisted.

"My team's operations are very classified."

He was going to say more, but he was interrupted by a tone inside the truck's cab. The OnStar-equipped mirror had activated itself.

"Colonel? Can you hear me?" It was Major Campbell again.

Kenslir looked around, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. He made sure the truck's radio was turned off.

"Is that your cellphone?" Kenslir asked Josie.

"No- they're both in flight mode," Josie answered. She pointed to the rearview mirror. "It's an OnStar system... Like a cell phone in your car. For emergencies."

"Colonel- we need to work this out," Campbell said.

"I'm listening," Kenslir answered. He didn't care for this modern era and radio phones were everywhere. Especially flying phones- whatever that meant.

"Look, I understand you're confused- your memory is partially gone..." Campbell said sympathetically.

"It's coming back," Kenslir responded. He could almost remember what Campbell looked like. And that maybe they had been friends.

"Then you need to come in, sir. Re-assess."

"We should have assessed better before the first attempt," Kenslir said. He couldn't believe he'd walked into such a mess. That was unlike him, and now four good soldiers and one important telepath were dead.

"Sir, how do you plan on stopping the shapeshifter now? Alone?" Campbell asked.

"I'm not alone. I have a new team. And a plan."

"Sir, I don't think that's w-" Campbell started to say.

Kenslir suddenly reached up and tore the rearview mirror free from the windshield. He then threw it out the open window beside him.

"Hey! That's my mirror!" Jimmy said. First his girl, now his truck. Mark Kenslir was ruining his life.

"From this point on, we look forward," Kenslir said, pointing to the road ahead.

"Uh, I appreciate the confidence you put in us," Josie said. "But we are just a couple of kids. We just graduated high school a couple of weeks ago!"

Kenslir didn't like involving the teens, but he had no choice. "It's seen me. It'll recognize me. I need the element of surprise- and that's where you come in."

Jimmy almost fainted. "We're bait?"

"No- messengers. You won't be in any danger."

"You want us to talk to that thing?!" Jimmy asked, surprised. "No way man! I mean, you're lucky to even be alive!"

That confirmed it for Jimmy- Kenslir was clearly out of his regenerated-mind.

"I've always been very lucky," Kenslir said.

"Getting your head blown off, your heart ripped out, then burned to a crisp doesn't sound lucky to me!" Jimmy said.

"My father was a Titanic survivor," Kenslir began. "I was born on the vernal equinox- in a leap year. I had six older brothers, as did my father. And you kids stumbled across me in the desert with a cooler full of water."

"How does that work again?" Josie asked. She'd seen it so many times now, Mark's weird healing-from-water thing was starting to seem normal.

"It's classified."

"I still don't like being bait," Jimmy said, crossing his arms over his chest. What was more disturbing was that Josie seemed to be going along with this crazy idea.

"Relax. You're just going to deliver a message to someone else," Kenslir said. "They're going to be the bait."

"Who?" Josie asked, surprised.

"The Secret Service. That's their job."

***

On a long gravel road, in the middle of nowhere, in the desert country of Arizona, a small car raced along. The road carried the small car up and out of the desert, into the beginnings of Arizona's coniferous forests.

The driver finally slowed the car to a stop and got out.

While he looked like Echo, the driver was in fact the shapeshifter. He was now wearing white Chef's pants and shirt, with white shoes.

The shapeshifter walked to the rear of the small two-door, and opened the trunk. Inside was a body. An Asian chef. The shapeshifter had used his new-found telepathic powers to seize control of the Chef's mind as he drove home from a resort not far from the mountain forests. A resort the Vice President was staying at.

The shapeshifter laughed to himself at the idea. Seize control of a politician- worse a politician who was merely the backup if the real nation's leader were incapacitated? Preposterous.

These modern humans amused the shapeshifter. They imagined their young country to be so powerful in the current world. They didn't know about power. Power was something you could hold in your hands. Something you could eat- right after you ripped it out of a man's chest.

The shapeshifter started to go through the pockets of the deceased Chef. He quickly found what he was looking for- a security pass for the hotel. He'd need that to get in.

The shapeshifter had not come to Arizona to replace a petty bureaucrat. But once he had processed the idea from the mind of the telepath he'd devoured, he decided to give it a try. As a Vice President, maybe even a President, he would have access to all those other, wonderful humans with supernatural abilities living in this era.

And he would tear out their hearts and make their powers his own.

The shapeshifter slipped the ID card's lanyard over his neck, and transformed into a duplicate of the Chef. An outward duplicate. Fueled once more by the life energy of so many humans, the shapeshifter could make a healthier, stronger body for the Chef than the mortal could ever achieved through natural means.

The shapeshifter picked up the body of the Chef from his trunk, careful not to spill any blood from the cavernous wound in the human's chest. He could change his physical form, but clothes needed cleaning.

The shapeshifter carried the body off the road, and into the trees, looking for the perfect place to hide it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

After several hours of driving, Kenslir, Josie and Jimmy reached their destination- not all that far from where they had started out. The Desert Oasis resort- a towering luxury hotel far removed from any city, overlooking a small lake and Arizona's scenic painted desert.

Near the hotel there were a few buildings- a gas station, a small store, and a clothing shop. Just the beginnings of what might one day become a town, all laid out in a neat row across the narrow highway that ran past the hotel.

Jimmy's truck was parked beside the gas station, with Mark and Josie patiently waiting inside it.

Jimmy finally came out of the bathroom and got back in the truck.

"Man, I didn't think I could hold that much longer," Jimmy said. He noticed Josie had moved to the front seat, beside Mark.

"I shouldn't have gotten so much to drink at that last drive thru..." Jimmy added.

Kenslir ignored the chatter. They were at their destination. "Now, you're both clear on this, right?"

Josie looked at Mark, then Jimmy. "Yes- go straight to the first suited agent we see and tell him there's a threat to the Vice President."

"Why do we both have to go?" Jimmy asked. He then glanced over at Josie, and got embarrassed. Surely she didn't think he meant she should go by herself?

"I mean, I could just do this myself," Jimmy hastily added. "No need for Josie to be in any danger."

Kenslir frowned. "You won't be in any danger. As soon as you deliver your message, they're going to spirit you away somewhere safe where they can start questioning you.

"It'll be the safest place to be when it hits the fan."

"And you can't do this yourself because...?" Jimmy asked.

"Because he can't be read by a telepath, Jimmy," Josie said. "They won't know he's telling the truth. He explained that."

Josie briefly wondered if Jimmy hadn't been listening- or if that telepathic takeover of his mind could have resulted in brain damage.

"Right..." Jimmy said, nodding his head slowly. Did that mean that if someone was lying, the Secret Service would just ignore them?

"Kid, I wouldn't send you in there if I thought you'd be in any danger," Kenslir said. "As soon as they start scrambling, the shapeshifter will head out of there. That's how I'll find him. I'll be outside, waiting."

Jimmy thought about the plan for a moment. "Are you sure we aren't bait?"

Kenslir sighed. "Jimmy, you aren't in any danger," he said. "I promise."

***

In the kitchen of the Desert Oasis, the chefs were all working hard, preparing meals not just for the Vice President, his family and support staff, but for all the guests at the hotel.

On particular Chef worked harder than the others. He was an Asian man, in his forties, with thinning hair and a serious face. Or at least, he had been. Before the shapeshifter tore out his heart and assumed his identity.

The shapeshifter was hard at work, slicing chicken for a particular dish. He was confused by the concept of the modern chef, and still wasn't quite able to wrap his head around the years of experience the slain chef had. But then, his food didn't require any more preparation then tearing it out of someone's chest.

Out of the corner of his eye, the shapeshifter noticed a Secret Service agent walking around the kitchen area. The agent was glancing at badges, making sure all the Chefs and cooks were authorized to be there.

Agent Williams came up to the shapeshifter. He glanced at the badge, then the face. Everything matched. He nodded toward the shapeshifter and moved on. Agent Williams quickly finished his sweep of the kitchen and exited through a rear door. Being in the kitchen was making him hungry.

The shapeshifter set down his knife, and his sliced chicken. He walked over to the same exit and left the room.

***

Jimmy and Josie walked into the hotel's lobby and immediately felt out of place.

The lobby was lined with expensive marble floors, and rich, wood-paneled walls. Expensive furniture was everywhere and the lobby just exuded an expensiveness. Even the various reporters and photographers seemed dressed as though they were going to a country club.

Josie was still in her short shorts, her t-shirt and sandals. Jimmy's gray shirt was rumpled and sweaty. His khaki pants were severely wrinkled. They both could use a shower.

The teens stopped and looked around for a Secret Service agent. The wall of the lobby to their right was all check-in desk and employee-only doors. It extended all the way to the back of the hotel, where large windows looked out over a large swimming pool and deck area. The wall to their left was broken up by a small café and elevators.

By the elevators, they spied who they were looking for- two somber men in matching dark suits, guarding one of three elevators.

Josie elbowed Jimmy, then pointed toward the elevators.

"That's got to be them," she said. "C'mon."

Josie wasted no time, and set off directly for the agents. She trusted Mark, and if he said to go straight over, then straight over she'd go.

Jimmy rushed to keep up with his long-legged friend.

At the elevator Special Agent Ehrer and Franks stood quietly, watching over the lobby and making sure no one boarded the elevator reserved for the V-P and his family. Ehrer noticed the quick-walking Josie first. And her nervous companion, Jimmy.

Ehrer looked over to his partner, Franks. He too had noticed the approaching teens. The agents exchanged nods.

Franks stepped out a pace as Josie got near. He held up his hands for her to stop.

"I'm sorry, this elevator is not available," Franks said.

Josie bit her lower lip for a moment. "The Vice President is in danger!" she finally blurted out.

Franks and Ehrer immediately bristled at the statement. Their eyes looked around quickly, searching for any threat. Ehrer immediately lifted his left hand up so he could speak into a microphone.

"That's nothing to kid about, Miss," Franks said at last. He wondered if the dirty teenagers were trying to be funny or stupid. Or both.

"She's not kidding, she-" Jimmy started to say.

Jimmy again went rigid, his eyes glazing over as a telepath took hold of his mind. But as quickly as he was seized, Jimmy was released, his body relaxing to the point he almost fell over.

Josie was staring at Jimmy, wondering how many of these telepathic takeovers he could take.

Ehrer looked over to his partner, and nodded his head in the affirmative. He had just been advised via his radio earpiece that Jimmy had checked out by the Secret Service telepath hidden in the lobby.

"Confirmed- they're telling the truth," Ehrer said. Even he didn't know what the Service's telepath looked like.

Ehrer and Franks suddenly stepped forward and grabbed the teens by the arms- Franks grabbing Josie, Ehrer grabbing Jimmy.

"Miss, you need to come with us," Franks said, leading Josie toward the elevator.

Jimmy's arm hurt from the pressure Ehrer was applying. "Ow!" he said.

He looked down at his arm, where Ehrer had an iron grip on him. "That hurts!" Jimmy said.

Jimmy looked over at Josie. "He specifically said we wouldn't get hurt!"

Special Agent Franks reached out and pressed the call button for the elevator. In his ear, his superior was talking over the radio, telling him to take the two teens directly to the holding area in the basement.

"We're going to go have a talk, kids," Franks said.

"We know," Josie said.

After several uncomfortable seconds, the elevator arrived and the doors opened. Another Agent was inside the elevator. Agent Williams.

Special Agent Franks moved Josie inside the elevator, stepping to the side to make room for Ehrer and Jimmy. They too stepped in quickly.

"Basement," Franks said tersely.

"Yes, sir," Agent Williams said. He seemed puzzled.

The elevator doors closed and the elevator began to descend.

Across the lobby, seated by the front doors, Kenslir put down a magazine he had been holding up, pretending to read. He had followed Jimmy and Josie inside, and watched over them. So far, everything was proceeding to plan. The two teens were safe now.

Beside the elevator, a stairwell door opened and three more suited agents burst out. They fanned out, looking around the lobby. It was only a matter of time until they flushed out the shapeshifter. Kenslir didn't expect the shapeshifter to run, he expected him to fight.

The lead agent pointed for his companions to go either way, one toward the lobby, one toward the pool area behind the hotel.

C'mon, show yourself, Kenslir thought to himself. He was ready for a rematch.

* * *

In the descending elevator, Jimmy looked over at Ehrer and glared at him. "Dude! Do you have to squeeze my arm so hard?"

"When you threaten the Vice President, yes," Ehrer answered, tightening his grip.

Jimmy winced at the pain. "Threat-? We didn't threaten him!"

Agent Williams suddenly looked alarmed. He looked back and forth between Josie and Jimmy.

"You'll have plenty of time to talk later, k-" Franks started to say. He was interrupted by a hand exploding out of his chest, under his sternum. Agent Williams' hand. The agent, or rather, the shapeshifter, had just punched through Franks' back, severing his spinal column.

"What the f-" Ehrer tried to say- blood had sprayed out everywhere in the elevator, including all over Ehrer and Josie. Ehrer was unable to finish his sentence, as the shapeshifter suddenly punched through his face, obliterating his nose and eyes, and reaching into his brain cavity.

Jimmy began to scream, and pressed back against the corner of the elevator, Ehrer's hand still reflexively gripped his arm. "It's him! It's the shapeshifter!"

The shapeshifter pulled his arms free of the dead Secret Service agents and let their bodies slump to the floor of the elevator. He briefly shook blood, brains and gore from his hands. He thought to himself he really should have left the Secret Service radio he took from Williams' corpse turned on.

Josie, meanwhile, had backed away from the shapeshifter, her back pressed against the elevator doors. She felt paralyzing fear and kept looking back and forth from the dead agents to the shapeshifter.

"Very interesting," the shapeshifter said, looking Josie up and down. For a human she wasn't bad.

The shapeshifter turned to Jimmy. His eyes narrowed evilly as he regarded the terrified teen. Jimmy had stopped shrieking and was squatting on the floor of the elevator, clinging to the waist-high rail running around the elevator for dear life.

The shapeshifter suddenly transformed into Echo, the telepath.

Jimmy immediately stiffened, eyes rolling up in his head. His arms and legs twitched and he nearly swallowed his tongue. This telepathic intrusion was more violent than either he had so far endured. No gentle probing of his mind this time, but a brutal ripping apart of his thoughts.

Josie began to edge toward the control panel while the shapeshifter was distracted.

Having taken what he needed, the shapeshifter released Jimmy, who nearly fell over. His eyes burned and he had the worst possible headache he could ever imagine.

The shapeshifter turned back to Josie, and smiled lecherously at her while he transformed back into Agent Williams. "So, the man with the stone heart still lives? And he's outside, waiting for me?"

Josie began to fumble with the elevator buttons, unable to turn her eyes away from the shapeshifter. Her heart was beating so fast she thought it would explode.

The shapeshifter looked briefly at the control panel and the buttons lit up by Josie's fingers. "And where do you think you're going?"

The shapeshifter suddenly lunged at Josie, grabbing her with one hand around the throat. Behind her, the elevator doors suddenly opened.

Jimmy lunged from his position in the corner. He clasped both his hands together into one fist and struck at the shapeshifter with all his might. Right against the back of its head.

The blow staggered the shapeshifter, causing him to lose his grip on Josie. She tumbled backwards out of the elevator, falling down on her butt.

Jimmy dropped to the floor again, this time grabbing the shapeshifter's left leg. Jimmy hugged the leg as tight as he could, ducking his head.

"Run, Josie!" he screamed. "Run!"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Agent Todd and Agent Finch had been dispatched to meet the elevator. Their orders were to take custody of the two teenagers, take them to a holding room, and await the arrival of the detachment's telepath. Standing in the concrete hallway in the hotel's basement, they patiently waited for the elevator.

At long last, the elevator doors opened.

The elevator was a bloody mess- literally. Blood was sprayed all over the interior of the elevator, over the back wall, on the floor, even on the ceiling. And on Agent Williams- particularly his hands and arms.

Clinging to one of his legs was a teenage boy, also lightly sprayed in blood. Behind Williams lay the suited bodies of two agents, in large pools of blood. One looked like Franks, the other's face was gone.

A girl tumbled out of the elevator when the doors opened. She wore short shorts, showing off her long legs that were sprayed with blood. Her t-shirt was likewise sprayed with blood.

Agents Finch and Todd hastily grabbed for their pistols.

Josie fell onto the floor, coming out of her sandals as she did so. She looked up, behind her, and saw the two agents drawing their pistols.

Jimmy screamed at her. "Run, Josie- Run!"

"Freeze!" Agents Todd and Finch screamed, aiming their pistols at the elevator. Josie hoped they weren't talking to her.

The shapeshifter took a step forward, effortlessly dragging Jimmy along where he clung to the shapeshifter's left leg. Agent Williams then transformed, into the older, thinning haired Asian Chef.

"Gentlemen..." the Chef said, smiling warmly.

Finch and Todd had received training during their stint at the Service's Academy on paranormal threats. On werecreatures and wielders of mystic energies. The Service had a simple protocol for dealing with such threats. Shoot first, ask questions later.

Finch and Todd followed their training and began to shoot.

Underneath the bullets and flying brass casings coming out of their pistols, Josie scrambled backwards, on her hands and heels. Once she passed between the agents, she rolled onto her knees and crawled several feet. Finally she was able to get to her bare feet and look around in panic.

Beside Josie there was a door. A stairwell door. She dashed through it.

The shapeshifter meanwhile was jerking and twitching as bullets tore into his torso. He stood there, taking the shots, until the two agents were out of ammunition.

As the agents grabbed for spare pistol magazines under their jackets, the Chef looked up at them and wagged a finger from side to side. Then he changed into a shorter, Hispanic woman with flowing hair and large breasts. A traveler from the dusty motel where the shapeshifter had first encountered Mark Kenslir.

"Is that any way to treat a lady?" the shapeshifter said, smiling as it stepped from the elevator.

***

Colonel Mark Kenslir had a feeling something wasn't right. He got that feeling seconds before the sound of gunfire started in the basement.

In the lobby, the gunfire sounded distant and faint. Most of the people present didn't even acknowledge it, probably assuming it was something outside.

Kenslir knew what it was. He'd been hearing gunfire, in all its forms and volumes, for the past sixty years. He bolted out of his chair and headed straight for one of the agents in the lobby.

As he neared the agent, people began to realize what the gunfire was. They began to panic. In seconds, the lobby was filled with confused people, turning, running around in confusion. Clerks and receptionists dove behind the cover of the front desk.

Kenslir approached the agent closest him- now one of six agents that had come to the lobby after Jimmy and Josie had reported a threat to the Vice President. The agent was oblivious to Kenslir as he pressed a finger to his ear to listen to his radio earpiece.

"Sorry," Kenslir said loudly, startling the agent.

Agent Jones turned quickly. He was confused by the large, friendly-looking man with the flattop. Then he noticed the man's eyes were a strange green-black in color.

Kenslir struck out suddenly- jabbing two fingers into the forehead of the agent. The blow didn't break skin or bone, but sent a shockwave into the agent's head that jarred his brain and knocked him unconscious. Kenslir reached out and caught the falling agent by the belt.

Kenslir pulled the earpiece from the unconscious Jones' ear and tried to stretch it up to his own. The cord was too short. He had to lift the agent off the floor, while bending over to try and get the earpiece into his own ear.

Suddenly, a stairwell door near the elevators burst open. Josie came running out, barefoot, her face white with fear.

The five remaining agents in the lobby all drew their pistols and assumed firing stances. They had all been listening to feverish commands over their earpieces. Something was very wrong in the basement.

As the door behind Josie closed, there was the brief scream of a man dying.

Josie stumbled to a halt as she saw the guns pointed her way. She threw her hands up, her eyes wide. She glanced around the lobby- then saw Mark.

"He's in the basement!" Josie screamed.

As one, the agents turned to see who Josie was speaking to.

Kenslir had just gotten the earpiece in place. Jones was slumped over, held up by the belt like a wet noodle.

The five agents immediately shifted their aim and started firing at Kenslir, thinking their comrade dead.

Kenslir acted quickly, tucking Jones' body behind him with his left hand, while ducking his head and shielding his face with his right arm. Bullets began to slam into Kenslir- hitting his raised arm, his neck, his chest, even his legs. The .40 caliber rounds were meant for stopping people and struck with vicious impact.

Thankfully, Kenslir wasn't a normal person. Most of the rounds flattened against his skin, leaving only bruises or the most superficial of cuts.

As the agents fired, the stairwell door once again opened. Agent Finch emerged, wearing a torn, bloody suit. Blood dripped from his hands.

Finch stood still for a moment, watching the Secret Service emptying their pistols at someone across the lobby. Finch turned his head slowly. He smiled when he saw Josie.

As the agents fired their last few shots and started grabbing for fresh magazines under their jackets, Finch walked up behind Josie and grabbed her by the arms.

"There you are!" Finch said into her ear.

Josie screamed at the top of her lungs.

The fumbling agents, trying to reload while their brains processed that Kenslir was still standing turned at the sound of the scream. They saw Agent Finch, bloody, holding the teenage girl also covered in blood.

Done catching bullets, Kenslir lowered his right arm and dropped the unconscious Jones to the floor. His arm, scalp and various points on his neck and chest were welled up with blood. His shirt was soaked in a dozen places from blood seeping out of his wounds.

Finch looked up at Kenslir. His eyes grew wide with surprise. He immediately shoved Josie aside.

As Kenslir stood there, his wounds began to heal, his blood soaking back into his skin, which was turning gray over the wounds. He looked down at his ruined shirt.

"I was starting to like this shirt," he said aloud.

Finch suddenly twisted and convulsed as he transformed into Echo the telepath. He glared at Kenslir with all his willpower.

Kenslir looked up, watching the shapeshifter.

The shapeshifter realized his mistake and turned his gaze toward the five secret service agents just finishing reloading. All at once, they each spasmed, their eyes rolling up in their heads, and they fell to the floor, unconscious.

"This body has proven very useful," Echo said, looking back to Kenslir. "Colonel."

Josie began to walk slowly toward Mark, sideways, circling away from the shapeshifter. After a few steps, she ran up to Mark and jumped around behind him.

"Memories and powers? Impressive," Kenslir said. "What do you call yourself anyway?"

Echo glared at Kenslir. "Trying to stall, Colonel?"

Kenslir shook his head. "Nope. I just need to know what to put on your tombstone."

Echo began laughing. "My worshipers called me Ketzkahtel."

"Worshipers?"

"Long before your kind came to these shores, I was a God feared by all," the shapeshifter boasted.

"Sorry, but you don't look very scary to me."

"And what of you, Colonel?" Ketzkahtel asked. "This body only knew so much. What are you?"

Kenslir shrugged. "Nothing special. Just the guy that's going to kill you."

Again, Ketzkahtel grinned, amused by the audacity of this Colonel Mark Kenslir.

"And how do you propose to kill me this time, Col-" he said. "Sorry- Antaean. Where are all your guns?"

Kenslir smiled grimly and balled his fists. "Oh, I'm going to do this the old fashioned way.

"I'm going to beat you to death."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The shapeshifter named Ketzkahtel was old, very old. Unfortunately, of his thousands upon thousands of years of life, only forty of them had been spent awake.

Long ago, long before the pyramids, Ketzkahtel had ruled over his lands with an iron fist. A fist that was filled with fresh, beating hearts three times a day.

The shapeshifter had learned early in his life the secrets of the dark arts. How to steal a man's power, his health, even his knowledge, all by devouring his heart. And from every heart he consumed, Ketzkahtel became more powerful.

The humans he ruled over, little more than slaves at first, very quickly began to believe him a god. They began to willingly sacrifice each other to him. They built temples and monuments to him. His food loved him.

Eventually, however, Ketzkahtel's complacency became his undoing. The humans rose up against him when his appetite for power, and hearts, became too great. Even with the souls of hundreds burning within him, he was no match for thousands. They wore him down with spears and stones and flint knives.

But they could not kill him.

Instead, the humans had done far worse- they bound Ketzkahtel in chains, and imprisoned him in a stone sarcophagus. This they placed in his greatest temple, as a warning to any other who dared to rule over them.

Time passed slowly for the imprisoned shapeshifter. Too weak to break free of his bonds or his prison, he spent centuries laying in darkness, listening to the humans. After a century, some came and prayed to him for miracles, having forgotten his evil rule. Others desecrated his temple with their horrible acts against each other. Others mocked him with sacrifices, of all things, human hearts.

Then, they had all vanished. Swept away by some unseen force that had shaken the very earth and left only silence in its wake.

Ketzkahtel lay in silence for many more centuries. Centuries that he felt must surely be turning into millennia. Only the memories of the many, many mortals he had consumed helped him keep his sanity. He lived and relived their lives, over and over, in his mind, as time ticked slowly away.

Then, one day, Ketzkahtel had been freed.

It had started with strange knocking noises that awoke him from his dream state. In the cold, dark confines of his sarcophagus, he was not sure what the sounds were. Tapping. Thumping. Hammering.

Suddenly, his Sarcophagus began to fill with water. Cold sea water, pouring in from all around him. The weight of the water would have crushed him, had the primitive humans of so long ago not already done so.

The lid of the sarcophagus suddenly lifted free, and a bright, white light, unlike any the sun had ever shone down, filled the sarcophagus.

Once his unmoving eyes adjusted, Ketzkahtel could make out the shape of a man. A man wearing bright blue clothing. Form fitting clothing. And the man had a strange, clear crystal over his face. Tubes came out of his mouth, extending to large cylinders on his back.

The man had a companion. They shone light into Ketzkahtel's' sarcophagus from yellow things in their hands.

Ketzkahtel mustered all his strength and reached for the man. Chains eroded by time and the sudden flow of saltwater crumbled. Ketzkahtel was free. And he held the man's mouth tubes with his six-fingered hand.

Ketzkahtel, a shriveled remnant of his former, glorious, eight foot tall self, sat up suddenly in his casket. His flesh hung like rags on his skeleton. His eyes were sunk deep in his massive skull.

The second man dropped his spotlight and swam quickly away. The diver in Ketzkahtel's grasp tried desperately to free himself.

Ketzkahtel struck with his free hand- his boney fingers punching through the diver's wetsuit and skin. Inside the diver's chest, Ketzkahtel felt the warm heart as blood swirled in the water around them both.

Ketzkahtel ripped the heart free from the diver and proceeded to eat it as the diver's companion panicked and headed for the surface, far far above.

Ketzkahtel swam after the second human as he chewed the delicious heart. He felt his limbs swell in size- not to their former glory, but something considerably better than a walking skeleton.

The diver, with his flippers, was faster, and kept his distance from Ketzkahtel. But his rapid ascent came to an abrupt end. Ketzkahtel later would learn that nitrogen narcosis wracked the suddenly-ascending diver's body with pain as he neared the surface, incapacitating him.

Ketzkahtel caught the second diver and ripped his heart out as well. He consumed it in the salt water, again feeling the power flow through his veins.

Ketzkahtel looked around as he broke the surface. Drifting in the ocean current nearby was the Lady Jane Franklin. Research vessel and home to twenty-eight scientists and explorers. All with hearts.

After he had consumed all the humans on the ship, Ketzkahtel sat still for nearly two days, sifting through their memories. The world had changed greatly in the thousands and thousands of years he had been trapped below the surface. Such time had passed that the modern world wasn't even aware of his now-submerged kingdom.

A new land lay not far to the West. A land he had visited many times in his youth. Its geography might have changed, but it was now a land full of millions of humans, all waiting to be sacrificed to Ketzkahtel.

The shapeshifter leapt off the research vessel and transformed into the red-scaled dragon he had slain in his youth. Beating his wings, he soared over the ocean, headed for his new hunting ground. A land called America.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The pool area behind the hotel was now abandoned. Guests of the hotel had fled- some through side exits back into the hotel, some out to the parking lot. Some had even fled across manicured lawns to the beach of the nearby lake. Gunshots tended to clear crowds out.

Tables and chairs, loungers, and large umbrellas lay on their sides, or pushed out of place by the mad stampede. The water in the pool was still and unmoving.

Suddenly, the glass wall separating the hotel's massive lobby from the pool area exploded outwards- shards of glass and Ketzkahtel, still wearing the form of Agent Finch, propelled out onto the concrete deck of the pool.

Ketzkahtel hit the ground hard, and rolled on broken glass. His bones were broken in at least thirty places, and several of his teeth were missing. His skin was cut in dozens of places from broken glass. His suit was just tattered strips of black fabric.

Mark Kenslir walked through the broken window, his wounds fully regenerated. Blood, Ketzkahtel's, was smeared over the knuckles of both his hands.

"Don't go running away," Kenslir said. "I'm not done with you."

Ketzkahtel stood slowly, shedding the spent body of Agent Finch, and transforming into Agent Ehrer. His wounds all healed, he felt better. The human did know how to fight.

In fact, Ketzkahtel thought, reflecting on several tennis shoe hits to his face, the human knew how to fight exceptionally well. These modern era humans had truly mastered unarmed combat. Colonel Kenslir was surely one of their best fighters. When he was done killing him, Ketzkahtel would have to find another such master and consume his heart.

"I look forward to killing you again, human," Ketzkahtel said to Kenslir. He still had plenty of lives left. For all his prowess, he doubted this Antaean had the endurance to beat them all out of him.

Kenslir and Ketzkahtel charged at each other. They collided in a fury of fists- trading punches of terrific force. Ketzkahtel's punches landed with meaty thwacks against Kenslir's dense flesh. Kenslir's punches made crunching sounds as they shattered the shapeshifter's bones.

After a flurry of blows lasting several moments, Kenslir unleashed a boxer's roundhouse, crushing Ketzkahtel's jaw and knocking the shapeshifter off his feet. He flew backwards and landed roughly on the pavement. Again.

Had he not spent centuries, broken and bound in chains, Ketzkahtel might have felt fear at the prospect of much more of the beating he was taking. But the shapeshifter was accustomed to pain.

Ketzkahtel rose to his feet again, several teeth missing, his nose flattened and one eye starting to swell shut. The shapeshifter's body convulsed and twisted, bulging under his skin and tattered suit. His hair turned silver and lengthened. He transformed into a kindly, heavy-set old woman he'd murdered in a bus station in Alabama.

"I think you're burning through all those stolen lives pretty fast, Clyde," Kenslir said.

He stepped in and pivoted on the ball of his left foot, his right foot smashing out, into Ketzkahtel's chest. The sidekick shattered ribs- driving some partially out the shapeshifter's back. The blow lifted the shapeshifter off his feet and sent him flying into the pool.

Ketzkahtel disappeared beneath the water in a large splash.

Josie appeared at the broken window leading out of the hotel. She was stunned by the sheer power and fury of the fight she had been watching. Kenslir had been hammering the shapeshifter with blows any of which she was sure would have killed a normal man immediately and completely.

She wondered if the shapeshifter was finally going to stay down.

Kenslir walked to the edge of the pool. He could just make out the shape of Ketzkahtel laying on the bottom. The water was clouded with blood leaking from the shapeshifter's battered body.

"Marco?" Kenslir asked. Then he jumped down into the shallow, three-foot-deep water.

Ketzkahtel suddenly erupted from the water, rising up to his new, full height of eight feet. Again, he had transformed to his natural form- the six-fingered, six-toed giant. Only the barest shreds of a suit clung to his shoulders, while his slacks were torn and stretched, barely containing him.

Ketzkahtel regarded the black-haired Colonel Kenslir standing in the water before him. He was struck by the irony of one of the largest humans he had ever met, about to be bested by the smallest giant from Ketzkahtel's family.

Kenslir suddenly leapt straight up from the water. He spun in midair, his hips twisting around as his right leg swinging out. His heel struck Ketzkahtel in the side of the jaw, nearly knocking the giant off his feet. The giant felt three teeth break free inside his mouth.

Kenslir splashed back down in the water and pressed his attack. He lunged at the stunned giant, punching with both fists- hammer blows aimed at the giant's stomach and sternum.

Organs ruptured in the giant's torso from the power of the blows. Impossibly, the human had been holding back before. He was even more powerful in the water.

The force of the double punch staggered Ketzkahtel back, several steps. Into deeper water.

Again, Kenslir spun in the water- not slowed at all by the liquid. This time he crushed a sidekick into Ketzkahtel's left hip. The joint exploded inside the giant's body and he nearly toppled as he was pushed back again. He felt his feet slide down the incline of the pool.

Ketzkahtel quickly healed his internal injuries, but kept his true form. He was now standing chest-high in the pool. Kenslir stood on a slightly higher elevation. Their eyes were nearly level with one another.

Kenslir attacked again. He was in his element now. On land, any fatigue he felt was healed quickly. In water, he not only wouldn't ever suffer from fatigue, he could heal any injury in seconds. The giant had made a huge mistake by fighting him in the pool.

Kenslir grabbed the giant's wrists, then rammed his forehead into the giant's surprised face. Where Kenslir's flesh was normally denser than elephant hide, his bones were like stone- unyielding. Kenslir crushed the giant's nose, cracked his skull in six places and dislodged most of the giant's front teeth.

Ketzkahtel would be worried, if he could die. But despite the inhuman beating Kenslir was dishing out, the giant knew from past experience he simply could not die. Beaten, broken, barely recognizable, he had lain wrapped in chains for millennia. And survived it.

Ketzkahtel decided that if he could not outfight the human, perhaps he could drown him.

Ketzkahtel suddenly wrapped his legs around Kenslir and jerked his own body backwards. The two titans toppled backwards, beneath the water.

Josie ran to the edge of the pool, trying to see what had happened. Blood tinged the roiling water as Mark and the giant wrestled beneath the surface. Even though she knew water healed Mark, she worried about what was happening.

"Mark!" Josie called out, worried.

Agent Keen appeared at the broken window, barely able to stand. His head throbbed, and he ached all over. The telepathic assault had rendered him barely able to stand. But he had to see what was going on. He staggered out to the pool side where the girl was standing.

Keen saw the bloody water, splashing and roiling while two dark shapes twisted around in the deep end. "Where'd they go?" He still wasn't sure what was going on or who was fighting.

Under the pool's surface, Ketzkahtel was losing the wrestling match. Impossibly, the six-foot, four-inch human was stronger than he was. The two combatants twisted and turned in the water, straining against each other.

Kenslir tried to headbutt the giant again, but his neck wasn't long enough. Ketzkahtel tried to free himself from Kenslir's bone-crushing grip, but he could not break loose.

Ketzkahtel finally managed to use his greater mass to turn in the water, so Kenslir was on the bottom, his back against the floor of the pool. Ketzkahtel grinned evilly at Kenslir. Then his neck stretched- transforming not into something new, but deforming his natural shape. Like a tentacle, the neck swept out, taking Ketzkahtel's head closer so that he could bite into Kenslir's right arm.

The double row of the giant's teeth took a large chunk out of Kenslir's arm- that promptly turned to stone. Ketzkahtel spit the stone out of his mouth. It sank to the bottom of the pool.

In horror, Ketzkahtel saw Kenslir's arm heal from the bite- gray stone filling in the hole for the missing chunk of flesh, then turning quickly back to flesh. Ketzkahtel suddenly realized his error. Water healed Kenslir.

Ketzkahtel redoubled his efforts to break free, shrinking his neck back to normal size. Then he noticed Kenslir was smiling.

"I can do this all day," Kenslir said, voice distorted as he breathed the water with no difficulty.

Ketzkahtel was now worried. He needed to breathe to have the energy to fight, or use up his stolen life energy. And the human had been correct- he was burning through all the life forces he had taken. Meanwhile, Kenslir was surrounded by the source of his power- thousands upon thousands of gallons of water.

Ketzkahtel worried that Kenslir could win this fight, smashing him to a bloody pulp and imprisoning him once more. Ketzkahtel could not face more millennia in solitude.

Ketzkahtel unwrapped his legs from Kenslir, and tried to kick off the bottom. Kenslir shifted, wrapping his legs around the giant.

"Running out of air?" Kenslir asked.

Ketzkahtel had to try something different. Something bigger. He began to transform again.

The shapeshifter's skin turned red and grew scales. His body swelled to the size of a large horse. His limbs thickened, forming clawed paws at the ends. A great tail and wings sprouted from his back.

Kenslir could not keep his grip on the transforming shapeshifter. He watched Ketzkahtel pull free as the shapeshifter turned once more into the large, red dragon. Its tail and wings swirled the water, the current pushing Kenslir back.

Ketzkahtel turned and swam to the surface. He grabbed the edge of the pool with his claws and pulled himself free. He shook water from his wings and turned around to face the water.

For Josie, standing behind Keen, it was simply unbelievable. She knew Mark had been fighting a shapeshifter. And he had told her and Jimmy about it turning into a dragon and killing him. But to see such a thing in person... she was simply stunned.

Agent Keen was stunned also. Two people had been in the pool, but now a dragon, larger than a passenger van, had emerged. This made no sense.

Keen took aim and began firing his pistol at the dragon.

Ketzkahtel felt the tiny bullets ricocheting off his scales and thick hide. He turned to face Keen and Josie, surprised a mortal would even try to shoot him in this form. Ketzkahtel immediately recognized the young girl behind Keen. Kenslir's companion.

The dragon opened its jaws and drew in a breath. Fire began to swell in its throat. It would roast the girl and the meddling agent, then see how the man of stone and water liked fire. This time he would burn Kenslir until not even ashes remained.

Suddenly, the pool water burst upward as Kenslir leaped out. He had pushed off from the bottom of the pool. He soared out of the pool, punching with his right fist. His blow landed squarely on the dragon's chin, knocking its head to the side.

Ketzkahtel released his throat full of fire- a long stream of flame that completely missed Josie and Keen, instead burning tables and umbrellas pool side.

Kenslir landed on the concrete pool deck beside the dragon and grabbed it by the neck. He tucked his body in close and squeezed with all his might.

Ketzkahtel suddenly felt panicked. He began to thrash his head around, trying to dislodge Kenslir. When this didn't work, the dragon threw himself on his side and began to spin in place like a crocodile.

Kenslir held his grip, looping his other arm around the neck, then both his legs. Tables and chairs went flying as the bucking, convulsing dragon tried to shake Kenslir off.

Josie and Agent Keen quickly dashed away from pool side. They ran up to the side of the hotel, watching the rampage of dragon and super soldier from a safer distance.

In the windows of the hotel, at least a half-dozen reporters began snapping pictures of the fight. Agent Keen's men had recovered now and were trying to push through the spectators to see what was happening outside.

Ketzkahtel was desperate now. He flapped his wings, even beat his own head against the concrete, but Kenslir would not release his grip. It was like a vice on Ketzkahtel's neck, blocking his airway and threatening to crack his vertebrae.

The dragon rolled onto his back, his weight crushing down on Kenslir. The dragon kicked at the air with all four legs as it struggled to break free. Its wings flapped feebly, blowing gusts of wind out that blew the toppled pool furniture further away. The dragon bellowed in rage.

Josie happened to glance to her left and saw a red fire box. Behind the glass door of the box was an axe.

Josie smashed her elbow against the glass, shattering it. She pulled the axe free and turned back to Mark wrestling with the dragon.

Still bucking wildly, rear legs clawing at the air, Ketzkahtel now was trying to scratch Kenslir off with his front paws- like a dog trying to dislodge a tick. The long claws ripped through Kenslir's pants, cut his legs- but he still held his grip.

"Mark!" Josie yelled. She stepped forward, holding the axe by the end of its handle with both hands. Turning in a half circle, she threw the axe, directly toward Kenslir and the dragon.

Kenslir turned his head and saw the axe flying toward him. It bounced on the concrete, sliding toward him. Kenslir released the dragon, and rolled out from under it, toward the axe.

Free of his unwanted rider, Ketzkahtel sprang up, flipping over and landing on all fours. He flared his wings out, and tilted his head back, letting loose a primordial scream of rage.

Kenslir scooped up the axe and turned to face the dragon as it opened its mouth and unleashed a stream of fire at him.

Kenslir swung the axe around, like a baseball bat, the head of the axe turned so the side, not the edge, struck the dragon on the side of the head. The blow was so terrific it almost broke the wooden axe handle. The dragon's head was knocked violently to the side with the crack of steel on bone.

The dragon's head arced around, streaming fire harmlessly away from Kenslir. Several chairs and toppled umbrellas ignited as the stream of flames passed over them. The dragon's head and neck swung around with such force Ketzkahtel found himself looking back, at his own tail.

As the dragon recovered from the blow, his blast of fire expended, Kenslir stepped in close with the axe reared back, over his shoulder. Kenslir struck down with the axe, slamming the cutting edge into the joint where the dragon's left wing connected with its body.

The axe chopped through the leathery, red skin, bone and tendons in one chop. Blood sprayed out as the huge wing of the dragon was severed from its body.

Ketzkahtel screamed in pain, whipping his head around and unleashing another stream of fire- directly into Kenslir's face.

At such close range, the fire was like a burning, hurricane force wind- it pushed Kenslir off his feet and out into the pool. He felt his hair, his skin and even his eyes melt under the terrific heat, then he splashed down into the water, still gripping the axe.

Kenslir touched down on the bottom of the pool- his chest, shoulders, neck and face had already begun healing, turning to stone as they reformed. His vision came back, as his regenerated eyes turned back to flesh.

On the edge of the pool, Ketzkahtel shook with fury and pain. He glanced down at his severed wing, which lay twitching, partially on the concrete patio, partially hanging down limply in the water. Ketzkahtel stepped closer to the edge of the pool, fire swelling in his throat.

Kenslir leaped up from the water, his flesh restored, his hair and eyebrows starting to regenerate. He was once again shirtless, and his Christian fish pendant gleamed in the sunlight. As did the blade of the axe, held over his head.

Kenslir threw the axe, sending it arcing, end over end toward the dragon.

Ketzkahtel unleashed another stream of fire at Kenslir. The plume of flames passed harmlessly over the tumbling axe, then washed over Kenslir who this time squeezed his eyes shut.

The thrown axe emerged from the stream of flame and slammed into Ketzkahtel's forehead, right above and between his dragon eyes. The axe head, designed for chopping through steel doors in an emergency, cleaved skin and bone, burying itself to the handle.

The dragon's flame sputtered out as its eyes rolled up in its head. As the dragon slumped lifeless to the concrete pool patio, Kenslir splashed back down into the water, once again beginning the regeneration of all his burns.

Kenslir swam to the edge of the pool, away from the dragon, closer to Josie. He stood up out of the water, skin regenerated, hair slowly growing again. His pants were bloody and ripped. His legs, now fully regenerated, were covered in just long strips of blood-stained fabric.

Josie ran to the edge of the pool to see if Mark was okay.

Agent Keen stepped away from the wall of the hotel and waved for his men to come out. Five agents tentatively stepped out of the broken window. The five approached the felled dragon slowly, pistols drawn and ready.

Kenslir stood on the submerged steps of the pool, letting his body draw in the water so he could finish his regeneration. His fresh, light skin darkened back to its tan color.

"Are you okay?" Josie asked.

Kenslir held up a finger and turned his head to the side. He spit out a liter of water, his lungs fully regenerated now from the fire he had inadvertently inhaled. His eyebrows and flattop grew back into place.

"I need another shirt," Kenslir said. He stepped up out of the pool, Josie moving out of his way.

By the dragon, Keen and his agents were leaning in close, watching it closely. They had all holstered their weapons. Suddenly, the dragon's eyes opened.

The dragon lifted its head, the axe falling out as it began to quickly shrink back into Ketzkahtel's natural form- the giant.

The panicked agents all leapt back, clawing at their holstered pistols. Ketzkahtel swept his long, six-fingered arms out, knocking the six humans off their feet. Two were knocked into the pool.

Ketzkahtel grabbed Keen, spinning the agent around and pulling him in close, like a human shield. Ketzkahtel quickly shrank down to the form of the telepath Echo and hid behind Keen.

Kenslir stepped around in front of Josie, while Keen's three agents suddenly stiffened and spasmed briefly. All three agents then rose slowly, robotically, to their feet. They drew their pistols and aimed them at Kenslir and Josie.

Kenslir turned around, pushing Josie down to a crouching position and stooped over, shielding her with his body. The agents began to fire their weapons.

Josie could just feel the impact of the bullets as they slammed into Kenslir's back, shaking his body with each hit. But Kenslir remained unmoving, ignoring the hail of bullets tearing into his back.

When the agents had emptied their pistols, Kenslir quickly turned around and began to walk toward them. Josie could see at least twenty wounds in Kenslir's back. Even the back of his head dripped blood. For a moment.

As Kenslir stormed over to the closest of the agents, all of whom were methodically reloading their weapons, Josie could see lead fragments pushing out of the wounds in his back.

As the first agent finished his reload, he extended his arm, aiming the pistol at Kenslir. Before he could fire, Kenslir grabbed the agent with both hands, crushing the agent's gun hand, and lifting him off his feet. Without even slowing his pace, Kenslir threw the agent up and over his shoulder. The agent landed hard at Josie's feet, his gun clattering out of a broken hand and onto the concrete by her feet.

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 behind 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 helicopter 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.

"This is where you work?" Josie asked.

"This is where I live."

At the end of the long tunnel, a tunnel Josie was sure had passed out from underneath the black office building, they stopped at one of the blast doors.

Kenslir held his hand up to a control panel beside the door. He pressed his hand against a glass panel. Light flared as a scanner read his palm print.

"Welcome back, Colonel," a strange, computerized voice announced. It sounded male. Calm, almost soothing, despite its obvious machine inflection.

The heavy door popped open a few inches, then slowly began to cycle open, swinging out on hidden hydraulics. Kenslir led Josie through the door.

Beyond the door, there was a vast chamber, nearly three stories high and over a hundred feet across. It was roughly circular in shape, with concrete and steel walls, and observation booths high above the main floor. Medical equipment, cabinets, and tables were in abundance.

In the middle of the chamber, there was a large pool of water.

Nearly fifty feet across, the pool was glass-still, and surrounded by dull stone. A sort of bridge-like structure crossed the pool. On the bridge were four stainless steel tables, similar to what an operating room might have. Machinery hung over the four tables.

At least a dozen technicians were at work at stations around the room. They were all female, and wore labcoats, with holstered pistols on web-belts around their waists, under their lab coats. They all wore hipwader boots, held up by suspenders like bib overalls.

One of the technicians approached Kenslir and Josie. She had short blonde hair, was middle aged and a little on the heavy side. She had a stern look on her face.

"Colonel, I must object to-" the woman began to say.

"Doctor," Kenslir replied. "You can object, or you can keep your job."

Kenslir stepped out of the way and gently moved Josie over as well. The two guards in the hallway rolled Jimmy's bodybag in on the gurney. They took it over to the pool, where there was a table and steps leading down into the still water.

"The Pentagon hasn't-" the doctor started to protest.

"The Pentagon?" Kenslir asked. "Who's in charge of this facility again?"

The doctor's eyes looked down, away from Kenslir's. "You are, sir."

"Then let's do this."

The guards had positioned the gurney with Jimmy's body bag next to the water's edge. They unzipped the body bag and pulled it down, exposing Jimmy's body.

Josie gasped at the sight of Jimmy. His face was now slack, pale. The blood on his shirt had dried and she could see the gaping chest wound. Tears welled up in her eyes.

The doctor nodded to an assistant and walked over to Jimmy's body. The guards stepped back, turning and saluting the Colonel as they exited the chamber. The huge blast door slowly cycled shut behind them.

"What is this place?" Josie asked.

"Well, I could tell you..."

"But you'd have to kill me?" Josie said, wiping the tears off her cheeks.

"I was thinking of offering you a job," Kenslir said, turning back to watch the doctor and her assistant.

They were struggling to lift Jimmy's body off the table. The doctor held him under the arms, while the assistant held his feet. They carefully carried Jimmy down the steps and into the water.

"A job?" Josie said, surprised. "I'm a teenager! I just graduated high school. What could I do?"

"How about if I throw in a scholarship..." Kenslir was still watching the doctor. "Of course, you'd have to take your classes over the internet. Here."

"Are you serious?" Josie asked.

The doctor and her assistant had lowered Jimmy's body into the water. He was laid out on some kind of metal grating floor about a foot under the surface.

Kenslir pointed back to the pool of water. Josie turned her head. The water was moving around, by the doctor's feet. In a splash of water, Jimmy suddenly sat up, gasping for air.

"Jimmy!" Josie said, astonished.

Jimmy was bewildered. He gasped for breath as he looked around. His skin looked healthy, alive, no longer the pallor of the dead. The doctor and her assistant helped him to his feet.

Josie looked back to Mark, amazed. He nodded for her to go over to Jimmy.

Josie ran to Jimmy. She could see that his chest was healed. She stepped down into the water, and hugged Jimmy.

"Where am I?" Jimmy asked. He leaned back from Josie, looking around the vast chamber, at the lab coated techs and Kenslir.

"What is this place?"

Josie was crying, tears of joy rolling down her cheeks. She grabbed Jimmy by the ears and kissed him.

"I thought you were dead," Josie said between kisses.

"Me too," Jimmy said. He didn't even feel embarrassed by Josie kissing all over him while the techs and Kenslir watched. Jimmy didn't know which was better- being alive or Josie kissing him.

Kenslir walked over toward the pool. He stopped several feet from the edge of the water.

"Don't leave the pool, Jimmy," Kenslir said.

Jimmy was still stunned by the kisses. He just looked blankly at Kenslir.

Josie turned around, grinning broadly. She held onto one of Jimmy's hands tightly.

"Why?" Josie asked.

"It's what's keeping him alive."

Josie looked around, at the stern faces of the doctor and her assistant. Down at the water she and Jimmy were standing in. It was just a pool of water. Clear water. So clear, Josie could see down into it. It was maybe fifty feet deep. Stone walls lined the sides of the vast pool. The bottom was covered in fine sediment.

"I don't understand," Josie said. She was getting that cold chill up her back again. "He's not dead anymore."

"I'm very sorry," Mark said. "But, technically, he still is."

Kenslir turned toward the doctor's assistant and gestured at a small steel box on the nearby table. It had a handle on the top, and one side appeared to be hinged, like a door. It was large enough to hold a basketball.

The technician stepped out of the water and walked over to the table.

"Whaddya mean?" Jimmy asked. He was confused. Very confused. He felt very much alive.

"That shapeshifter ripped your heart out Jimmy," Kenslir said.

The assistant carried the steel box over to him. The Colonel was careful to hold it only by the corners, and the handle.

Josie looked down at Jimmy's chest. She ran her hand over his skin. There was not the faintest mark or scar.

Josie and Jimmy looked to Kenslir with utter confusion.

"The Fountain has only temporarily brought you back," Kenslir said.

"Temporarily?" Jimmy and Josie said in unison. Josie gripped Jimmy's hand tighter.

"I'm sorry, Jimmy. We can't fix you right now. But we might be able to later."

"Fix me?" Jimmy asked, confused. "What're you talking about?"

"Josie, let go of his hand," Kenslir said.

The doctor stepped in and put her hands lightly on Josie's shoulders.

Josie looked at Mark, holding the steel box in front of him. She looked at Jimmy, confused. She looked at the doctor, who nodded slowly to her.

Josie released Jimmy's hand reluctantly.

"What? What's wrong with him?" Josie asked.

"This won't hurt, Jimmy," Kenslir said. He held the box's handle with his right hand, like a lantern. He reached his left hand up to the hinged face of the box. "You'll feel cold. Then it'll be like going to sleep."

"Wait!" Josie said, stepping in front of Jimmy. "There's nothing wrong with him! He's healed!"

Kenslir frowned. "The water is cursed. After midnight it'll take away from Jimmy twice what it's given him."

Jimmy and Josie were utterly confused. It made no sense. If the water gave him life, what could it take away from him twice? He only had one life.

Josie had a sudden revelation. "Fountain? The Fountain of Youth?"

"That's what some people used to call it," Kenslir said. "Turns out, that's not entirely accurate."

The doctor gently touched Josie's shoulders again and walked her over a step, away from Jimmy.

"Jimmy, this is only temporary," Kenslir said, opening the steel box.

Jimmy and Josie looked inside the box. They couldn't help themselves. The doctor closed her eyes and looked away, repulsed by what she saw.

Jimmy's skin began to turn gray. His hair grayed, even his eyes. His smooth skin became rough, pitted. His body stiffened and his breathing stopped. Jimmy was petrified- turned to gray stone.

Josie looked at Jimmy then at her own hands, which remained normal. She couldn't understand. She looked back at the box.

In the steel box there was a head. It too was made of gray stone. The head was vaguely human, but instead of smooth skin had scales, like a snake. Instead of hair, long tendrils, also of stone, hung from its scalp. One eye was missing. The remaining eye was not stone, but flesh. It gave off a weird, yellow glow.

Kenslir closed the box.

Josie looked back at Jimmy, a frozen figure of stone. She ran her hands over his stone body. Even his clothes had been petrified.

Kenslir handed the steel box containing the head of Medusa back to the doctor's assistant. The assistant hurried away with the box, taking it through a door on the other side of the chamber.

"What did you do?" Josie demanded.

"This way the Fountain's curse can't kill him," Kenslir said. He held out a hand to help Josie out of the water.

"I don't-" Josie started to say. "Why wasn't I-?" She ignored Kenslir's hand.

"Medusa's eye only works on men."

"Why?" Josie demanded. She felt tears welling up in her eyes again. She had gotten Jimmy back, now he was a statue.

"We have to wait for the next full moon," Kenslir said. "Then we'll see if Jimmy's ready to enlist."

THANK YOU FOR READING!

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Comments and questions always welcome!

Visit www.StoneSoldiers.info for more info on the series.
THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES...

BROTHERS IN STONE

A second prehistoric shapeshifter is loose in the modern world, joining his resurrected brother in ripping out and consuming the hearts of victims to steal their power, their memories and their form. Colonel Mark Kenslir came back from the dead to defeat one shapeshifter. Can he hope to defeat two, or will he need help from an FBI psychic?

Available now in digital and print editions!

BLOOD AND STONE

The last shapeshifter has survived. After a quick stop at Alcatraz to dine on the hearts of the supernatural and paranormal criminals imprisoned there, the shapeshifter flees to the Yucatan, where it poses as the Mayan blood god Kukulcan in a bid to gather followers and sacrifices. Colonel Kenslir and Detachment 1039 must rush to the aid of America's southern ally and topple the false god before he becomes too powerful. But they'll need help from an unlikely source: Dr. Laura Olson, vampire, and the sole survivor of the Alcatraz attack. And also a woman the Colonel imprisoned nearly forty years ago.

Available now in digital and print editions!

SHADES OF WAR

Someone is raising the spirits of the dead from American battlefields- forming a dark army to attack the living. Detachment 1039 must find a way to stop the spectral forces marching on Washington and their shadowy leader, before the country is plunged into chaos.

Available now!

COMING SOON

(August 2013)

BLACK KNIGHT DOWN

1Orbiting the earth for millennia, a strange, black construct hangs silently in space, its purpose and creators unknown. Governments of the world have feared the implications of the construct and have kept its existence a secret.

When the artificial satellite, code-named Black Knight, comes crashing to down to Earth, the Stone Soldiers must spring into action to keep those responsible from unleashing the horrors it contains _._

BEFORE THE SHAPESHIFTERS,

THE STONE SOLDIERS DEFENDED AMERICA...

Introducing a new series of Prequel Short Stories, revealing the creation and first missions of the Stone Soldiers.

STONE SOLDIER

STONE SOLDIERS: CATCHING FIRE

STONE SOLDIERS: CITY OF BONES

STONE SOLDIERS: SEA OF MONSTERS (July 2013)

