Primal Basilisk

  Big Bad Basilisks Book 2

  Terry Bolryder

  Copyright © 2021 by Terry Bolryder

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Sample of Onyx Dragon

  Also by Terry Bolryder

  1

  Morgan Seward stared out at the endless Texas desert before her as a cool autumn breeze blew by. The scent of dried scrub brush and fallen leaves mixed with dust and other arid aromas, a reminder that winter would be here soon and the rain with it.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to shield herself from the chill while she waited for the school bus to return. Behind her, the store sat idly, waiting for customers. But there was no rush.

  Another quiet day in Heller’s Rest, though it was known by a very different name among the locals.

  The Crater.

  She looked over her shoulder at the small town that was her home. Rising above the aged oaks and little houses, a line of squat mountains surrounded Heller’s Rest in a nearly complete semicircle, funneling out to the only road that led out of town, where Morgan now stood.

  Sometimes it really did look like the town had been built into the center of a crater. Though, that didn’t explain how there could be so much greenery when all that existed outside the protective circle of mountains for miles was uninhabitable dry land.

  She should be back by now. Morgan worried while checking her phone yet again.

  Keeping herself busy so worry wouldn’t overtake her thoughts, Morgan continued to peer around, following the black asphalt of Main Street as it extended into the desert.

  And then she saw something she almost didn’t believe.

  A half mile or so down the road, she spotted a man just… standing there. All alone.

  How odd.

  She couldn’t see much at this distance, only that he was quite tall with broad shoulders that tapered down to trim hips. From what she saw, he wore a green flannel shirt and blue jeans, and he seemed to be utterly occupied with something unknown as he stood like a sentinel, waiting for something too. Though what, Morgan could only guess.

  Maybe she should call the police. Or someone?

  But her thoughts were interrupted by the chugging of a diesel engine, and a moment later, an old yellow school bus rounded the corner, carrying with it the most precious cargo in the world.

  Her daughter, Grace.

  Morgan let out a pent-up breath, still wondering what the man out there was up to, but her worries quickly faded as the bus stopped and her daughter hopped out.

  She was looking as tall as ever these days, particularly for ten, and Grace adjusted her glasses on her face as Morgan came up to wrap her arms around her daughter in a hug.

  “How was your day, sweetie?” Morgan asked while the bus driver waved, then pulled away toward the next destination.

  “Okay. Miss Michaels gave us a quiz today. Everyone hated it.”

  “Really? What was it on?” Just the thundering of Morgan’s heart seemed to calm the second Grace was back home, safe, and she put an arm around Grace’s shoulders as they made their way back toward the store.

  “Long division. I hate math, but I think I did okay…” Grace’s words trailed off as she looked to her right out toward the desert, and her walking slowed to a halt. “Huh, he’s still out there,” she said cryptically.

  “Who?” Morgan looked up and realized Grace was talking about the huge man. Another breeze blew through the town, ruffling the man’s thick dark-brown hair. And when he turned slightly, she could make out that he had a full dark beard as well. “He has?”

  “Yeah. He was there this morning too. What’s he waiting for?” Grace murmured, oddly fixated on it.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll ask Mr. Thompson to go out and see what it’s all about. But first, let’s get you inside, and you can tell me more about your—”

  But Morgan’s words were cut off by a loud, low rumble, and the ground beneath her seemed to vibrate with some sort of force. At first, she thought it was an earthquake, and she pulled Grace closer to her, heart racing with worry.

  Earthquakes didn’t happen in this part of Texas. At least not to her knowledge.

  Well, if it was an earthquake, at least they were outside where it was safe.

  But as the rumbling got closer, it seemed to be moving… toward them? And with it, she could hear faraway cracking sounds like rock being split asunder some interminable distance away. But muffled like it was underground.

  For reasons she couldn’t quite discern, Morgan looked out toward the man standing beyond the entrance to the Crater.

  Whatever was happening, the man seemed on edge as well. The casual, folded-arm stance he’d been in a second ago was gone, replaced by a taut, almost primal sort of rigidity, his fists clenched, his posture that of someone ready to fight at any moment.

  And was he… looking up? At what?

  She didn’t have time to guess as the dry red and brown earth a mile away from her and Grace exploded upward as though someone had planted tons of dynamite in the ground and set it off just for fun.

  Huge boulders and rubble spewed up from the ground like a fountain, but the man didn’t flinch even an inch as rocks flew past him and splattered onto the ground.

  But what emerged from the thick fog of dirt and dust was the last thing she would have ever expected.

  There was a low screech, so loud it was almost deafening, and in the next instant, a huge creature emerged from the cloud, filling Morgan’s heart with terror and wonder at what the heck was going on.

  It looked like a dragon, the kind Grace had shown Morgan in her fantasy books. Only, instead of four legs and wings on its back, its two front arms were its wings, and as it took a step forward, the ground thudded with its heavy weight.

  It was several stories high and covered completely with rocky scales. Its face, which was surrounded in a halo of sharp spikes, had two bright-green eyes in the center, reptilian and evil-looking, and its mouth was full of terrible teeth that showed when it screeched again.

  “It’s a wyvern!” Grace exclaimed while Morgan just watched in terror. How could her daughter be curious at a time like this?

  Morgan’s mind raced. Should they run inside? No, that thing would level their home in seconds if it came their way. They should get in the car. But where could they go? The only major road out of town was currently occupied by a huge, rocky dragon… thing, and it didn’t seem like the type of creature that would merely ask a few riddles then allow passage.

  More like it would eat first and ask questions later.

  Morgan’s feet remained locked in place. Meanwhile, the man standing out in the distance, who looked pitifully small next to the huge creature, had the audacity to step toward the monster. And despite the distance, she could hear him calling out to it, and she saw him raise a fist in the air, shaking it while the creature just looked down in bewilderment.

  She fumbled for her keys in her pocket, then remembered they were still on the counter inside the store as she continued to watch.

  Her eyes almost couldn’t comprehend what she saw next.

  The man, if that was what he really was, suddenly disappeared. Or rather, shifted upward and outward and larger in every direction in a matter of milliseconds until the strange person was now a humongous, even-larger creature himself, standing on four huge legs and stretching so high into the sky she almost had to crane her neck to look up at him.

  From this angle, she couldn’t see its face. But between its rocky back, thick scales that looked like huge slabs of stone, and humongous blue and black spikes that protruded up from its back and down along a thick, destructive-looking tail, all Morgan could imagine was how easily this… thing could level the whole town in minutes, her and Grace included.

  Now there were two huge beasts standing outside of the Crater.

  Maybe the kooks in town were right, and the end of the world was really happening, right here and right now.

  “Awesome!” Grace squealed, utterly oblivious to the precariousness of their situation.

  Though, if Morgan had had a penchant for fantasy novels and mythology herself, she supposed she might have found this interesting in some horrible, death-defying way.

  Morgan moved to make for the store when another deafening roar, followed by a crashing sound, nearly knocked her off her feet. She and Grace swayed as the very earth seemed to move beneath them, but thankfully, they stayed up.

  When she looked back at the wyvern thing and… whatever the man standing out there had changed into, she saw them facing off with each other, huge jaws snapping, claws and talons flashing in the late afternoon
haze.

  All Morgan could do was clutch her precious daughter close and hope for the best.

  With surprising agility, the wyvern leaped off the ground, aiming straight for the larger, tougher-looking monster. But before it could reach its intended target, the other beast raised one front leg and slashed its scary talons downward, catching the wyvern in the shoulders. Even at this distance, she could hear a horrific slicing sound as a cascade of black liquid splattered through the air and onto the dusty earth.

  In retaliation, the wyvern (though Morgan wasn’t sure if it was even called that) reared up on its hind legs and began to snap its jaws, aiming for the neck. But the man-turned-monster just charged forward, using its huge mass like a battering ram to throw the wyvern backward, throwing up even more clouds of dust that began to obscure the fight between the two titanic creatures.

  “Yeah, get him!” Grace cheered, though Morgan wasn’t entirely sure who they were even supposed to be rooting for in this situation.

  She supposed the one who’d been guarding the entrance to town a minute ago.

  Somewhere distant, a police siren sounded, but what could any normal person do in the face of such utterly destructive power?

  The wyvern rolled over from its back and snarled, and Morgan could see its green eyes flare with rage as it appraised the larger, seemingly fearless opponent.

  Then its slitted irises glanced toward Morgan, and pure horror filled her being as it licked its lips with a long forked tongue.

  Oh no.

  It charged immediately, making for Morgan and her daughter and galloping past the mountainous monster as it headed straight on a crash course for her family’s utter demise.

  Was this the end?

  Morgan picked up Grace and ran for the store, heart feeling as if it would explode out of her chest at any moment, just as another low bellow rent the air.

  “Look, he’s got it!” Grace said, pointing past Morgan’s shoulder.

  Morgan looked just in time to see the bigger creature’s huge jaws snap down on the wyvern’s tail, stopping it mid-charge.

  Everything seemed to freeze for an instant as she saw the creature’s face. It had two huge horns and a craggy head that looked not terribly unlike the dragons she’d seen in Grace’s fantasy movies, only larger and scarier.

  And in the center of its face, two sapphire-blue eyes seemed to glow with ferocity and utter calm for a split second.

  Then, like a cat yanking a mouse backward by the tail, the monster pulled the wyvern backward, away from the direction of town, and its form disappeared into the billowing dust and rubble that was getting thicker by the second.

  Morgan just kept running for the store. In the seconds before she finally reached the door, monstrous crashing sounds continued to thunder from inside the dust cloud, making the windows of the store rattle.

  Her legs were so shaky she almost slipped on the top step. Then, with one final burst of energy, she got through the front door and slammed it behind her.

  Not that they were even safe here.

  But to her shock, the pounding, thudding sounds were starting to die down. And when she looked out at the desert, the thick clouds were starting to dissipate, the earth-shattering action quickly abating.

  Until, finally, there was nothing.

  Outside the store, several neighbors had emerged from up the street and were talking to each other, but she couldn’t hear what they said over the banging of her pulse in her eardrums.

  Grace’s eyes remained glued toward the west. And when Morgan finally set her down, Grace walked up to the windows that opened out in the direction the fighting had been happening, squinting as if she could see through the thick haze.

  Morgan ran behind the counter and got her keys. Then she picked up the store phone, realized she didn’t even know who she would call, slammed it down on the receiver, and ran toward Grace to get her in the car.

  Though, now that the fighting was over, where were they even going?

  “Mom, it’s him again,” Grace said, interrupting her thoughts while pointing at something through the window that Morgan couldn’t even see yet.

  Morgan came up to her daughter and watched with rapt attention.

  A moment later, a figure emerged, even farther away now than it had been a minute ago when Morgan had first seen it.

  But even at this distance, the shape was unmistakable.

  It was the same man, only dustier now. And as he casually strode back toward his spot where he’d been standing earlier, he brushed his hands off like everything that had just happened was all in a day’s work for him.

  “See, look, he won. We’re safe now,” Grace said with all the assurance only a child could possibly have after witnessing something so unbelievable.

  “I wouldn’t say safe is the right word,” Morgan said, exhaling shakily.

  “We should go thank him!” Grace exclaimed suddenly, making for the door, but Morgan stopped her daughter before she could get even more silly ideas.

  After all, they didn’t know who he was. Or even what he was.

  Basilisk. The word suddenly came to Morgan’s mind, though she wasn’t sure where she’d even heard it before.

  Probably one of Grace’s books.

  “But he risked his life for us. He saved our house. He saved the whole town,” Grace insisted.

  “We don’t even know who he is. Or if he was even the thing that saved us.”

  “Of course he was. You saw him change too, didn’t you?”

  Morgan couldn’t really say what she’d just seen. Only that her world, which was already getting stranger with each passing month, felt like it had just been turned upside down.

  “I don’t want you going anywhere near him. For now, go upstairs and watch some TV while I mind the store, okay?”

  “But what if another monster appears, and that guy has to fight it? I wanna see it!”

  “Let’s both hope we never see something like that ever again in our lives.” She pulled Grace in for another hug, kissed her on the forehead, then motioned toward the steps behind the front counter that led up toward their home on the second floor of the store.

  “Okay,” Grace said sullenly. She looked longingly out at the man standing all by himself on the side of the road again, then trudged up the stairs.

  As soon as Morgan heard the door at the top open then close, signaling Grace was safely inside, Morgan turned once more toward the desert as she folded her arms.

  Suddenly, she remembered a rumor she’d heard about shifter enforcers sending people (not just people, monsters of some sort) into Heller’s Rest. All because of the stupid legend that was supposedly going to be coming true within the next week.

  Someone had said the word “basilisk” along with the mention of another town on the other side of Texas, a Lawson’s or Paulsen’s Creek or something along those lines.

  Was the man outside one of those basilisk things?

  Morgan was still dealing with the fact that shifters, people who could turn into huge wolves or bears or even worse, were starting to come out to society at large. In fact, their longtime neighbors, the Bookers, had told her in private that they were wolf shifters.

  She had no problems with wolves, though. And the Bookers were good, trustworthy people.

  But humongous monsters that made mountains seem small by comparison? Creatures that shook the earth with every step?

  That was something else altogether.

  Morgan continued to stare out at the man as more tumbleweeds rolled past him, and she felt something tug inside her heart, something she hadn’t felt in so long she thought that part of her had died.

  She really should go out there and thank him, she supposed.

  Instead, she turned on the porch lights and went back to stocking shelves like she’d been doing a few minutes ago. Before all of this mayhem that had come and gone faster than a cloudburst over the desert in spring.

  Basilisk or not, legend or not, Morgan’s priority was her daughter and keeping the store that gave them their very livelihood running.