Chapter 21

Dr. Jacobs drove right by a no trespassing sign to get to the old limestone quarry where Mom and Dad had spotted the raptor.

In the middle of the bench seat, I ping-ponged between her and Pine as we bounced along a dirt road made for bulldozers. Doing my best to keep my phone up to my ear, I told Mom, “We’re here.”

“I see you,” she said.

I scanned the quarry for a sign of her car. A dust devil swirled across the wide, flat clearing. This place looked like a desert, except it was covered in rows of white stone blocks the size of refrigerators. Past the huge, rectangular chunks of rock, the ground dropped off into a pit with a perfectly straight edge, like somebody had dug it out in Minecraft.

I spotted the 4Runner parked along the path, maybe two football fields away.

Mom knelt behind the car with the rifle propped up on the hood, aiming at something off to the right side of the road in the direction of the drop-off. Dad stood beside her, shading his eyes with his hand.

“Stop where you are.” Mom whispered into the phone. “Don’t scare it off.”

“Pull over,” I told Dr. Jacobs.

“Stay by the truck,” Mom said. “Your job is to contain this dinosaur. That’s it.”

“I know.” It only took us fifteen minutes to get here, but she’d spent every second of that ride reminding me to stay out of the action. “I’m on cleanup.”

We slowed and parked on the shoulder. All three of us leaned forward to stare out the windshield.

I traced an invisible line from the barrel of Mom’s rifle to the same area she and Dad seemed to be watching. But I didn’t see anything.

Pine pointed.

And then, in the long shadows, I caught a rust-colored flash darting between stone blocks. I only saw it for a second. But what I saw looked like a roadrunner. The biggest roadrunner I’d ever seen. Bigger than a Great Dane.  

Dr. Jacobs reached across my lap to pop open the glove compartment. She pulled out a pair of hunting binoculars, put them up to her eyes, and adjusted the focus.

“Holy smokes,” she whispered.

After what felt like forever, she passed them to me.

And when I found the dinosaur, right by the cliffs, a tingle crackled down my back.

The raptor’s sleek body was covered in fox-red feathers. Where I expected skinny arms, full, white-tipped wings covered its hooked claws. Those same white feathers ran down the edges of its long, sweeping tail, fanning out at the tip.

It lifted its orange head, staring into the distance with electric-yellow, mascara-striped eyes. It sniffed the air with a black snout and raised a set of ears. No—not ears. Feather tufts. Like an owl’s.

That thing could claw my eyeballs out. But when I saw the wind ruffle its coat, all I could think was how soft it looked. If I could grab two big handfuls of that fluff and smoosh my face in it, that would be the comfiest final second of my life.

The raptor looked back down and scratched at a deep scoop in the gravel with black, scaley feet, careful to keep its iconic killing claw lifted off the ground. Then it dropped to its belly and ruffled its feathers, nestling into the pit.

“What is it doing?” I whispered.

It got back up and circled the hole, tipping its head to inspect its work.

“It almost looks like . . . ” Dr. Jacobs shut her mouth, like maybe she wasn’t ready to say her guess out loud.

The feathers around the raptor’s throat fluffed up, and it let out a long, lonesome warble that echoed through the empty quarry. The sad sound, like a wailing ghost, raised every hair on my body. Whoever it was calling was a hundred million years away.

“Cee.” Dad’s voice came over the phone. “Can you summon it from where you are?”

“I think so.” I set the binoculars on the dash and passed my phone to Dr. Jacobs.

Quietly, carefully, we popped the truck doors open and climbed out.

I lifted my guitar case out of the back of the pickup, unsnapped the latches, and looped the guitar strap over my shoulder. “Ready when you are.”

“Do you have a shot?” Dr. Jacobs asked Mom. After a long moment, she glanced at me and nodded. “We’re ready.”

I tucked my guitar tight against my body and focused on the flame-orange speck in the distance.

A gunshot cracked off. The sound rang around the quarry.

The raptor dropped. But his body was still whole.

Mom stood, pumped the rifle lever, and took another shot. No hesitation.

This time, the raptor disintegrated. Poof. And immediately, soulshine was in the air.

Deinonychus’s song was already in my fingers. I just followed it, a cayenne-hot lick of Lynyrd Skynyrd sound. The raptor’s soulshine tangled around the very first bar and wound up tight, tying itself off nice and neat next to the other dinosaurs sleeping in my chest.

Record time. I slung my guitar around my back and threw my hands into the air. “Got him.”

Dr. Jacobs whipped her hat off. “We got him,” she hollered across the quarry.

Way over by the 4Runner, Dad honked the horn and whooped, and Mom jumped up and waved.

I ran to them, guitar bouncing on my back. Dr. Jacobs and Pine followed. And we all met in the middle near the edge of the cliff, right over where the raptor dropped.

Dad grabbed me around the waist and lifted me up like I’d just won a softball game. “You did so good!”

I drummed my hands on his chest. “Too easy.” When my feet touched the ground, I spun to face Mom and raised my hand for her to gimme five. “Call of Duty, up high.”

She sighed through a smile like it was her first breath of the day and clapped her hand to mine. “Nicely done, Baby.” But then she looked toward Dr. Jacobs, who had stooped to inspect the pit the raptor had been digging. “What was that thing doing out here?”

Dr. Jacobs traced her fingers across the rim of the bowl-shaped hole. “It’s a scrape nest.”

Dad tipped his head. “A nest?”                                                                                

Dr. Jacobs scratched her neck. “I wonder . . .” She trailed off again.

It didn’t match, Pine said in my head.

I turned to face him. “What are you talking about?”

The feather. He always looked soldier-serious, but right now he was a whole military funeral. It didn’t match.

I pictured the cloud-white feather striped with caramel-brown bars—the one I gave him the morning we left for Dallas. Then I put it up against the phoenix-orange raptor. He was right. “You don’t think—?”

In the corner of my vision, a shadow shifted.

My body responded before I could even think, slamming the pause button. I froze on the spot.

I was standing in broad daylight, surrounded by people. But my insides flooded with heart-withering fear. Fear I’d only ever felt when I was completely alone in the deepest dark.

Slowly, I turned to look.

A second raptor crouched behind a block of limestone, pinning me with golden eyes.

She had the same devil horn tufts on her head as the first raptor, but she was way bulkier. And her huge, hawkish body was slicked in white-and-brown striped feathers.

My stomach plunged like the Tower of Terror.

So that’s who the raptor was calling.

Deinonychus lunged toward me, flashing curved teeth.

I gasped, but before I could make a sound—

 Pine slammed into her side and tackled her. They skidded to a stop on the edge of the drop-off.

Our circle shattered. Everybody screamed and shouted as Pine held the raptor down with his knee and sucker punched her one, two, three times in a row, pounding her into the dirt.

A pair of strong arms locked around my waist and my feet came off the ground. Dad. Hauling me away from the fight.

Deinonychus kicked, catching Pine’s shirt with her scythe claw.

He flinched.

In that half-second, she twisted out from under him and grappled him in her wing claws.

She and Pine rolled and scuffled in a swirl of dust and tail feathers. And before anybody could step in—

They slipped over the edge of the cliff.

“Pine!” I struggled out of Dad’s arms and broke free.

Everyone rushed after me to the ledge, except Mom, who ran the opposite direction—for the gun.

Twenty feet below, at the bottom of the cliff, the raptor hunched over Pine, digging her claws into his chest, thumping her wings to pin him down.

Pine held her fanged jaws open with bare hands, roaring like he wanted to rip her head in half.

I teetered on the edge of the drop-off, searching for a way down. “I’m coming.”

But Dad grabbed me by the shoulder. “Cee. You’ll hurt yourself.”

Shoot. He was right. None of us could jump down there without breaking our legs—and then we’d have more problems. Problems my magic couldn’t solve.

But this wasn’t a fight Pine could win. He needed to tap out.

I spoke straight into his head. I’m taking you back.

All I got back was psychic yelling to match the out-loud yelling.

I yanked the rope of soulshine that connected us like a life preserver, straining to pull him to safety.

But it caught.

Was he seriously resisting me? Now?

Pine. I gave another tug, but I might as well have been trying to drag a Texas longhorn. Let go.

No. His silent voice screamed in my head. Finish it. Grit spilled from where the raptor’s teeth cut into his hands. He was falling apart.

Dr. Jacobs cussed. “I’m not watching this poor kid die twice.” She ran for her truck and waved Dad along. “Come on.”

Dad glanced between me and her. Pointed at me. “Don’t move.”

They ran for the Dodge, jumped in, and peeled out, kicking up a dust trail down a side road that sloped around the pit—probably leading to the bottom of the quarry.

 I snapped my head over my shoulder to look for Mom. But the 4Runner was so far away. She had only just reached the rifle.

Pine needed help now. And I was a mage with only one trick up my sleeve.

It would have to do.

I swung my guitar around front, threw my hand back for the first strum, and called out the meanest dinosaur I could think of.

Sarsaparilla’s Spanish theme echoed around the quarry.

The bull exploded out of the side of the cliff like a powder keg, blasting away stones and throwing a white cloud of powdered chalk. Down in the pit, Sarsaparilla reared up on his back legs and bellowed.

Deinonychus leapt off Pine, lashing her tail.

I clapped my hands over my eyes, shutting everything out so I could focus, and pushed my mind into Sarsaparilla’s body.

His extra widescreen vision unrolled in my head. A wave of hot rage rose from the furnace in his belly and rolled over his muscles. He puffed like a locomotive and sprang off his powerful back legs, surging full steam ahead.

I grabbed for control before he could go completely off the rails and swung him in a wide path around Pine.

The raptor slicked her owl ears flat against her head and darted toward us. She juked to the side. Pounced.

Her teeth clamped down on Sarsaparilla’s soft throat. Her talons sank into his ribs, broke through his scales, and dug into the meat of his body until the little links of magic holding his physical form together started snapping like thread. Her claws ground into the hard limestone he was really made of.

She hung off Sarsaparilla, shaking her head to tear away a chunk of him.

A thunderbolt boomed through the bull—the urge to buck and run.

But I had a better idea. Not one he’d like, but one that would get us out alive.

I channeled all my willpower into one leg and jerked his front paw out from under him.

Timber.

Sarsaparilla fell on the raptor like a cartoon piano, smashing her under his tonnage. We both felt the crunch. And when he rolled back onto his feet, he limped away shedding shards of rock from his wounds—but he was free.

I pulled out of his mind like coming up for air and tugged on his soulshine. “Come back.”

Sarsaparilla unraveled in a clatter of stone chunks.

I grabbed the neck of my guitar, ready to capture the raptor’s soulshine before it floated away. She had to be completely wrecked.

But when I looked down, I saw her lying on the ground. Crumpled—but whole.

My heart dropped. “No way.”

The raptor scrambled to her feet like a wet cat and zipped away toward the distant tree line.

I didn’t even notice Mom was by my side until I heard the rifle lever go chung-chik.

Without warning, she fired a shot after Deinonychus.

I winced and covered my ears. The bang of the gunshot nearly knocked me back.

A miss.

She flipped the lever. Aimed. Shot.

Another miss.

The raptor vanished in the brush.

Mom waited with the gun against her shoulder, almost like she expected Deinonychus to pop back out. After a long moment, she lowered the rifle and gave me a quick glance up and down. “You okay?”

“I’m okay.” I was more worried about Pine. He was still lying at the bottom of the pit, flopped flat on his back.

Dr. Jacob’s truck appeared at the bottom of the quarry. She pulled up near Pine and she and Dad jumped out to look him over.

I held my breath. I couldn’t quite tell how messed up he was from the top of the cliff, but I noticed he was having a hard time holding himself upright.

Dad and Dr. Jacobs lifted him by the arms, helped him over to the pickup, and laid him out in the truck bed. Dad stayed with him in the back while Dr. Jacobs drove them up to meet us on the main road.

When they pulled close and stopped the car, I leapt up on the tailgate and crawled up beside him.

Pine stared up at me, breathing hard. His shirt was ripped, and he held his side like maybe he was covering a cut.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He managed to cough up a laugh. I’m dead.

“You know what I mean.”

Mom came up behind me and sat on the gate. She put her hand on Pine’s ankle to make sure she had his attention. “You saved my daughter.” She blinked mist out of her eyes. “Thank you.”

Pine gave her a single, respectful nod. Like wrestling a real-world dragon was all in a day’s work. But then his focus dropped to the rifle in her lap, and he looked at me. Did she kill it?

I shook my head.

He groaned and thunked his head on the floor of the pickup bed.

Mom took a breath, and I could see an apology brewing. But after an awkward, choked second, she sighed, rested her hand on the rifle, and looked away.

Dr. Jacobs stepped out of the driver’s side and slammed the door. She folded her arms on the rim of the truck bed and leaned to look down at Pine. “How’s the hero?”

“Show Cee the damage.” Dad rested his hand on Pine’s shoulder. “She might be able to help.”

Pine took a breath like he had to work up the strength, then braced his free arm on one of the wheel wells. With Dad’s help, he managed to sit up.

A few pebbles dropped out from under his shredded shirt. He took his hand away from his stomach, revealing a deep gouge in his side. But instead of a bloody mess, he was leaking gravel from our driveway.

“Oh my gosh.” I scooped the rocks back up and shoveled them back into the gash, but the edges of the hole just crumbled more. “Oh no.” I took my hands back and held them in the air before I made things worse. “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged like it was no big deal. It doesn’t hurt. It’s just missing. But I noticed his fingers trembling. Maybe he wasn’t in pain, but he seemed pretty darn rattled.

“Can you do anything for him?” Dad asked. He was the doctor, but I was the mage. And Pine was a magic guy with a magic problem.

“I don’t know.” I fumbled for my guitar. “Maybe.” I plucked out a few waterfalls of Pine’s rolling river song.

Lucky for us he hadn’t lost a hearing aid in the scuffle, so the music worked its magic, and the hole began to close. But it was slow, slow going. I must’ve looped through the song three times, and that gash was only about an inch smaller.

“How you feelin’, cowboy?” Dr. Jacobs asked.

Pine frowned. Hungry.

That one word hit me like a baseball bat. “Hello.” I cut the music. “He needs more stuff.”

Dad squinted. “What kind of stuff?”

“You know, stuff to make up his body.” Pine was only part soulshine. The rest of him was made of solid material. And he’d lost so much of his original driveway gravel. “He needs to eat.”

“Cheeseburgers are made of stuff,” Dr. Jacobs suggested.

Pine perked at the word cheese. Pepperoni pizza had made an impression.

Dr. Jacobs laughed and spun her keyring on her finger. “The hero wants Dairy Queen.”

“I’ll buy as much fast food as you can handle, little man.” Mom slid off the tailgate. “And I promise, first chance I get, I’ll shoot that raptor.”