Chapter 93: Right Above Us

The rex charged again and drove its body into the Hornscale Beast before the other could get its feet under it. The floor buckled. A deep grinding noise ran the building as the two of them hit another structural wall.

"Get away from there!" Elena said, instinct, as if the things on the screen could hear her.

The rex did not slow. It slammed its head into the Hornscale Beast again. The impact drove both of them through the damaged section, and the floor above gave under the combined weight. Concrete slabs fell from the third floor. The rex forced its way through the collapsing structure, dragging the Hornscale Beast into the wreck as the Museum started to come apart around them.

A second later the light screen tilted hard. The image swung and showed the eastern wall splitting down the middle. Then the wall went. The sound was deafening. Concrete, steel, shattered glass poured out of the eastern side. Dust billowed and swallowed the lower floors in a thick grey cloud. The screen jumped. Ethan reached for it on instinct, knowing he could not steady a thing.

"They’re destroying the entire building!" Elena shouted.

Another impact. The rex’s body surged through the collapsing floors between the third and sixth levels. Beams snapped. Upper floors folded into the hall. The Hornscale Beast was pinned under a mountain of debris. Its cries went on for a few seconds, then the next crash drowned them. The image died. The screen went black.

For a moment nobody spoke. Ethan stared at the empty display, jaw set. The Space was buried under the Museum. Whatever happened outside could decide whether they ever got out, and a building coming down on their hiding place was the last thing they needed. He still did not know if the rex’s arrival had lifted the spatial restriction. He could not test it now. Not while the Museum was falling on them.

The tremors kept coming. Each new impact walked through the Space and pulled the women closer together. Nina clung to Debbie and buried her face in her mother’s chest. Debbie stroked her hair and whispered things she did not entirely believe. Ethan stayed by the screen. He needed the image back. He needed to know what had happened to the Hornscale Beast, and whether the thing that had just woken would leave them a way out.

Several bad seconds passed. Then the screen flickered. A distorted image, only broken concrete and twisted steel. The view shifted, slow. Through the dust he saw the rex standing on the ruins. Dark golden scales stained with black blood. One enormous jaw clamped around the Hornscale Beast’s leg, lifting the injured creature partway off the ground. The Hornscale Beast was barely moving. Battered almost past recognition. Broken tail dragging the rubble. Every struggle only seemed to spend what it had left.

The rex lowered its head. The jaws tightened. The Hornscale Beast’s skull was right in front of the teeth. One bite would end it. Something changed in the Hornscale Beast’s eyes anyway. Hurt, half-dead, a flicker of determination stayed. The air around its body began to twist.

Ethan leaned in. "Spatial energy?"

The fluctuations intensified, spreading across the ruined lobby. Loose stones lifted. Dust began circling the Hornscale Beast in a tight spiral. It was using the last of what it had. The rex seemed to notice, and it was already too late. A spatial wave erupted from the Hornscale Beast. For a brief instant the world around the rex froze. Enormous jaws stopped. One foreclaw hung over the rubble. The muscles in its legs locked.

Space Imprisonment. It lasted only a moment. A moment was enough. With a desperate surge, the Hornscale Beast tore free and dragged its broken body across the ruins. Clumsy. Painful. It stumbled over concrete and scraped its injured side on a fallen beam, and it did not stop. It forced a gap in the collapsed eastern wall and disappeared into the dust beyond the Museum.

A second later the rex broke free. It threw its head back and roared, and the sound shook the buildings around them. Its claws tore the rubble as it turned toward the opening its prey had used. Ethan expected a chase. Instead the rex stayed where it was. The blue flames followed the retreating path for several seconds. Then it turned away. It had decided the wounded thing was no longer worth the effort. Or it had something else on its mind.

It stood motionless in the ruins and looked around. Every other mutated animal in the area had already fled. The creatures that had gathered for the strange energy in the Museum had vanished almost as soon as the rex came up. None of them had wanted to test the new predator. Whatever had drawn them seemed to have changed, or gone. Ethan could not tell which. He could only watch as the rex raised its massive head. The blue gaze swept the ruined buildings. Then it released a low, rumbling growl that carried far past the Museum.

Several streets away, Max Cole lowered his binoculars. His face had lost nearly all its color. He had watched the whole fight from a residential roof, and even at that distance the gap between the two monsters had been obvious. The Hornscale Beast, which had looked nearly untouchable when it first appeared, had been reduced to a broken bleeding thing in minutes. The rex had not even looked like it was working.

Max had survived by building a group, gathering weapons, and learning how to spend other people’s abilities. He understood strength. He understood when a fight was not worth taking. This was one of those times.

"Everyone, we’re leaving." Sharp enough to shut the men behind him up.

One of them glanced toward the Museum. "Boss, what about the energy source? We came all this way for it."

Max turned on him. "You want to go over there and ask that thing for it?"

The man went quiet. Max did not wait for another question. "Move. Now. The farther we get from this place, the better."

Blaze stayed at the edge of the roof, staring at the distant ruins. His mechanical arm trembled slightly. He had seen strong mutants. None of them had made him feel as small as the rex. Even the Wind ability he had worked for would mean nothing against a creature that had shrugged off the Hornscale Beast’s attack. He turned away. For once he did not argue. The group left the roof and took the stairwell. Nobody wanted to be the next thing that caught the rex’s eye.

Inside the Space, Ethan let out a slow breath. At least the Hornscale Beast had gotten clear. One less threat on top of them, and its leaving might mean the spatial restriction was thinning. He opened the system. Time Stop still had twenty minutes on the cooldown. Twenty minutes. On a normal day that was nothing. With a monster that could crush a building sitting somewhere above their heads, every minute cost.

"Once the cooldown ends, I’ll try teleportation again," he told them. "If I can lock the anchor in the hidden air-raid shelter, we should be able to leave."

Hope came back into their faces. Nobody celebrated. They had already learned the apocalypse could turn a clean exit into a death sentence without warning. Still, a chance to leave the Museum was better than none. Debbie adjusted Nina in her arms and nodded. Aria looked at the screen.

"Do you think the rex will leave?"

"I don’t know." He did not dress it up. "The Hornscale Beast was why we couldn’t use space. Now that it’s gone, we might have a window. That thing is another problem." He glanced at the panel. "Until I confirm teleportation works, nobody should assume we’re safe."

The women traded worried looks. Then the image on the screen shifted. The rex was still there. Instead of following the Hornscale Beast or wandering off, it had moved toward the section of rubble directly above the Survival Space. It lowered its massive body. Then it lay down. Thick legs folded under it. The long tail settled across the broken concrete. The ground shook under the weight.

For several seconds Ethan only stared. He had to be joking. The monster had just taken a Museum apart fighting the Hornscale Beast, and now it had decided to rest. Directly above their hiding place.

He dragged a hand down his face. "You’re kidding me."

Elena studied the image. "It might be sleeping."

"That’s supposed to help?"

She did not answer. Ethan looked at the massive shape sprawled across the ruins, blue flames dimmed but not out, black blood drying on the golden scales. Whether it was sleeping, resting, or simply sitting on the one door they had left, the result was the same. Twenty minutes on the cooldown. A Quasi-King that had just made the Hornscale Beast run, lying on the rubble over their heads. And no way to know, until the timer ended, whether the seal had finally let go.