Reign of Evil

Laws was three rooms over from the central hall. They’d placed him in the Ecology exhibit hall because of its proximity to the only two elevators and two sets of stairs capable of reaching the lower levels where the others were. The idea was not for him to engage any targets but to allow them to descend to where Walker, YaYa, Ian, and Trevor awaited.

But that was before Yank went silent.

Laws moved swiftly through the exhibit, keeping out of the center of the room. He left his QUADEYE off, using the ambient security light, which was enough for him to do pretty much anything but read. When he reached the doorway to the central hall, he took a quick look inside, then brought his head back. He didn’t see anything.

He looked again, this time concentrating on the area where Yank was stationed.

Gone.

Where could he have gone?

Then Laws heard scuffling.

He spun around the corner, his sound-suppressed HK416 sunk into his shoulder and ready to fire. There, at the far end of the gallery, was a man being dragged by two immense dogs. Not just any man, but one clad in black with body armor.

Laws sprinted toward them. The immense dogs were the same he’d seen in the still photos the girl had provided to the media. On the screen they had looked strange, but in person they were truly disturbing, especially the reverse bending elbow of the too-human arms each beast had for its front legs.

Of more immediate concern was that Yank wasn’t moving.

Laws opened fire, catching each hound with half a dozen rounds. He’d taken down chupacabra bigger than these things with less. For good measure, he unloaded the rest of the magazine into them.

They blinked at him, then dropped Yank and sprang toward him. He did the only thing he could think of—he ran. He took a dozen steps and leaped into the air, grabbing the rear right leg of the Apatosaurus skeleton that dominated the center of this part of the central hall. He pulled himself up frantically and found his perch on the skeleton’s back before the creatures were able to follow.

One leaped and failed to find purchase, sliding back to the floor, falling on its back, then twisting to its feet.

The other, however, was able to hang on using the fingers of the human arms. It pulled itself up, where it found its balance on the Apatosaurus’s back.

Laws backed away and began to climb the giant dinosaur’s neck, using the vertebrae as stepping-stones. The display wasn’t meant to hold a man, much less a mythical monster. It creaked and shifted. A low tremble went through the entire skeleton, but it seemed to hold. He climbed as high as the head; then there was nowhere else to climb.

The hound climbed unsteadily after him, using its fingers to pull and hold itself. It snapped twice at him, almost ripping through the fabric of his pants.

Laws let go of the neck and hung from the jawbone of the extinct herbivore. He glanced beneath him and saw the other hound pacing there, occasionally glancing up. Less than six feet away from him stood the other hound on the neck of the dinosaur. It appeared to be getting ready to leap. Or was it just balancing? Laws wasn’t sure, but he was sure he’d ended up in the worst possible position.

Check that.

The creaking increased. Suddenly there was a great crack. One of the backbones fell to the floor.

Both Laws and the hound stared at it.

“Fetch the bone,” he whispered. “Come on, doggy. Fetch.”

Instead of complying, the hound growled.

“Ghost One, this is Ghost Two.” Laws’s words came between grunts of effort as he adjusted his slipping grip on the jaw. “We have two of the hounds here.”

“What’s the status of Ghost Four?”

Laws twisted his head to see where Yank was still lying in a heap. “Unclear.”

“Why is it unclear?” Holmes paused. “What are you doing?”

Laws thought of saying something like just hanging out, but he wasn’t feeling his inner Bruce Willis. Before Laws could respond a series of cracks shot through the great space. The neck of the dinosaur collapsed under his and the hound’s combined weight, sending them crashing to the floor. He fell hard on the other hound.

He lay stunned for a moment, trying to get the Earth, moon, and stars from revolving around his head.

The hound he’d landed on stirred.

The other jumped toward him, snapping.

Laws grabbed his rifle, which had been dangling by its sling, and brought the butt around to intersect with the head of the leaping hound.

It made a strangling noise and tumbled past.

Laws didn’t even look to see how it was doing. He scrambled off the other hound and broken skeleton, found his footing, then took off for Yank. He was more than halfway there before a hound behind him let out a howl. He approached Yank at a dead run, then made a controlled skid as he reached down and grabbed the downed man’s collar. Laws hauled the deadweight down a hall and through a side door. He was just able to pull it closed when a weight slammed against it, slamming it shut.