Burial Ground

V

4:28 p.m.

The stone floor was covered with mounds of fecal material. Galen immediately identified it as raptor feces by look, but certainly not by size. The older droppings had dried and crumbled, presumably the source of the cloud of dust that lingered in the cavern. There were fresh piles on top of the old, the mixture of urine and white urates still runny, the consistency of a partially fried egg, the fecal matter well-formed pellets nearly the size of a dog's.

He knelt before a heap that was perhaps a few days old. It was just dry enough that it no longer glistened with moisture. He lifted it from the rest, set it on a clear section of the ground beside him, and set to work.

"What in the world are you doing?" Leo asked.

"Exactly what it looks like," Galen said, breaking apart the feces with his fingers. "Didn't you ever dissect an owl pellet when you were in school? The point was to determine the diet of the owl. I can remember plucking out mouse bones and trying to reassemble the skeleton. Very fascinating really."

"So you're trying to figure out what it's been eating."

"And so much more." Galen's hands trembled as he sifted through the black matter. He focused solely on the project, and not on the implications of what he already knew to be true. "I could tell right away by the fecund scent that we were dealing with a carnivorous species. The smell of fresh meat processed through an avian digestive system has a distinct aroma, which is way different than the smell of digested carrion. It's like comparing the scent of an eagle's feces to that of a condor. At first glance, the feces appears to have been formed by a species of raptor. However, if you look closely, you can see several crucial distinctions. First of all, size-wise, the pellets are far larger than that of any known bird of prey. Second, the ratio of the chalky white urates to feces is totally out of proportion. Raptor species have a lower ratio than say, pigeons, but even pigeons don't evacuate such a large volume of urates in relation to the total mass."

"What are you getting at?" Colton asked. The beam on his helmet stayed in constant motion along with his eyes in lighthouse fashion. While the man remained outwardly stoic, his nerves manifested in the way he shifted from one foot to the other.

"I'm just stating what I see. We're dealing with a species that doesn't fit the mold of any modern avian. In fact, if I didn't know better, judging exclusively on the basis of the amount of urine and urates as a percentage of volume, I would suspect our subject was reptilian."

"You've already browbeaten us with your speculation, Dr. Russell. Now unless you have anything useful to add---"

Galen gasped. He could barely control his shaking hand well enough to extract his finding from the pellet. Pinching it between his fingertips, he threaded it out of the feces and held it up for the others to see.

It was a clump of thin, dark hair.

Human hair.

Colton took it from him and inspected it while Galen crumbled the remainder of the pellet and spread it out. Something hard and sharp prodded his fingertip. He picked it up and cleared off the foul coating. The base of the small object was blunt and smooth. Four thin prongs extended from the opposite side.

He reflexively dropped it and it tumbled across the granite floor.

The spotlight on his helmet fixed upon it.

"Oh my God," he whimpered.

The silver of the filling reflected the light.

It was a human tooth.

Galen scrambled to his feet and swiped his palms on his pants. If this didn't prove his theory, then nothing would. And right now he didn't even care what they thought. People had been killed here. The evidence was everywhere around them, from the remains in the ossuary and the cavern to those in the feces. The victims had been butchered and consumed, and he knew with complete certainty that there was no modern species of raptor capable of doing that.

He glanced at the fresh piles of feces. They couldn't be more than twenty-four hours old.

They needed to get out of there.

Now.

"Where are you going?" Colton snapped. "Get back here!"

Galen didn't even pause as he ran back toward the tiny tunnel that would eventually lead him back to the outside world. He dove to his belly and wriggled through as fast as he could. His head grazed the rock above, which tilted the helmet so that the beam pointed to the side and barely illuminated his way.

It had been a mistake to come here. The biggest mistake of his life.

His panicked breathing echoed in his ears and tears streamed down his cheeks. The fabric on his knees and elbows ripped. He felt the sting of cuts and abrasions, but he didn't care. If they didn't get far away from this mountain, then that small amount of bleeding would only be the beginning.