Smash & Grab: RELIC #1 Read online

  Smash & Grab

  RELIC # 1

  Maz Maddox

  Copyright © 2020 by Maz Maddox

  All rights reserved.

  Content Edited by Raven Max

  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.

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Maz Maddox

  To my dad, who took me to see Jurassic Park in theaters when I was a kid. You also took me to all the annoying dinosaur themed attractions, museums and performances from the time I was five until far into my thirties.

  Thanks, dad.

  Chapter One

  Dalton

  My prey was close.

  The smell of the large mammal was carried on the cool wind that kissed my feathers. Moonlight painted the countryside in silver dust, insects sang along with my nocturnal cousins. In the open field, the tall grass was hard to hide in, but the mammals were too sleepy to notice. They were slow, lumbering things, prone to panic when spooked. Even if they ran, I was much faster.

  They were nothing like the prey from my time. Sure, they made a good meal, but the thrill of the hunt was absent. The only things that put up a decent fight were bulls, so that’s what I went for. Young, strapping slabs of steak that might actually be thrilling to take down.

  Slowly, I stalked closer, keeping my head down and tail level. When I moved, my eyes stayed focused on my target, my head still. I kept my footsteps light, my feather coloring doing a shit job of hiding me in tall, dull grass.

  Closer. Slow and steady.

  I could smell the cow shit littering the field ahead, the musty smell of dried sweat on their hides. Muted, mulling, bored sounds of bovine communication halted as I got close enough to see the sparkle in the dumb creature’s large eyes.

  The bull staggered dramatically and sent a wave of panic through the herd. Hooves pounded the ground as they took off, fleeing together like herd animals do. My target, the big, angry, black bull, lowered its horns and gave a warning charge.

  If I had the ability to laugh in my shifted form, I would have. I puffed out my feathers around my neck, head and arms, and shook my tail as I gave the beast my own form of a roar, which was more of a hissing squawk. We aren’t singers like our bird cousins, and we sure as hell don’t roar like lions.

  Our noises are for our own kind, for communication, warnings, and mating. Not for threatening.

  We have claws and teeth for that. And puffy feathers, of course.

  My display was enough to scare the bull into a run, which I couldn’t resist. Giving chase to prey, no matter how slow, was always at least a little fun. I gained on it right away and pounced, sinking my dominant foot claw into its hide to gain footing. Using my taloned forelimbs, I sank my claws in deep and bit down into its meaty neck.

  It bucked and hollered, thrashing about while trying to stab me with its horns. Without armor plating, thick scales or much else in the ways of defense, my teeth tore through its skin like it was made of paper. Rich, delicious blood pumped from the wound, sending bovine screams of fright through the field. The great animal slowed, exhausted and dying, before finally collapsing down into its shit covered grassy grave.

  While I missed the taste of hadrosaur or even smaller theropods like myself, beef was pretty damn good. The bright red meat of the mammal was warm and succulent, flavored with a lifetime of grass and feed. It was miles away from the stringy meat of animals that fed on ferns and thick, spiny plants from a world millions of years ago.

  But it was good. And filling.

  After I had all I could stomach, I sauntered off to rest with my full belly. As I neared my little nest with my discarded clothing and car keys, I heard the buzzing of my cell in my jeans. I took one last, long breath of the night air and pulled myself back to my much duller human form.

  The world always seemed a bit more muted with human eyes. My sense of smell faded to nothing, sound became a bit more muddy, and God, was I slow.

  Hands were nice though.

  So was sex.

  The emotions were hard to wrangle at first, but after a good twenty years as a human, I was starting to get the hang of them. I really enjoyed being full, happy, and horny. Currently, I was mildly annoyed that my boss man was interrupting my full belly nap time. It was a sacred thing to me. I always napped after I killed and ate something.

  I fished my cell from my pocket, answering it.

  “You better be fucking on fire.” I held the phone to my ear with my shoulder as I tugged on my jeans.

  “We have a location for the Oviraptor fossil,” Montana’s voice was cool and calm, not at all apologetic for his transgressions.

  “Which one?” I knew which one, I just wanted to annoy him. It kinda worked.

  “The one Nat Geo did a spread on last week. It’s being prepped at the Natural History Museum in New York.”

  “And?” I pulled my cigarettes out of the other pocket and took a seat under the thick trunk of the tree. If I wasn’t going to be able to nap, I’d get my after-dinner smoke. He couldn’t take that from me.

  “And De Leon has his sights on it.” Montana’s voice dropped, growing a bit more serious.

  “Oh.” I took a long drag and exhaled through my nose. “That’s not good.”

  “Royal pulled some email correspondence that suggests he plans on getting the specimen from the lab within the next week or two. He tried to purchase it, but the museum shot him down.”

  “Fucking love AMNH.” I cackled. “You know how many guys he’s sending?”

  “The specimen isn’t large, so probably not a lot. But you know how it goes with him. He never does anything small.”

  I hummed in agreement, fighting back a yawn so I could take another pull from my cigarette. This wasn’t the first time I’ve dealt with De Leon and his obsession with fossil collecting. And until Montana gave us the greenlight to just kill the dude, it wasn’t going to be our last.

  “You’re going to have to handle this one on your own, Dalton,” Montana said. “Baha is tracking down a lead in Europe and Yu flew back out to China. Royal is going to keep digging and get you specifics as he gets them.”

  “I can handle it.” I pulled the phone away to yawn.

  “I booked a flight for you in the morning. Don’t,” he cut me off before I could protest. “There’s motion sickness pills in your bag and it’s first class. Drink and relax.”

  “Yes, daddy,” I mumbled, sinking back against the trunk.

  “Don’t call me that. Check in when you get there.”

  I disconnected the call and tossed my phone beside my hip. It was going to be a long, nauseating flight, but at least it was to somewhere fun. After I snag the fossil, I had time to go haunt New York, get in some live music, maybe some dick, and then head home.

  Not bad.

  But first, a nap.

  Chapter Two

  Simon

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come out with us?”

  I rubbed my eyes to try and knock the sand loose. “Yeah, man. I’m good. I want to keep working.”

  I could
hear David’s long sigh of muted disappointment. “Dude, it’s not healthy to spend every night at the lab. You need to air out a bit. You’re kinda starting to smell like a basement.”

  I scoffed into the phone but gave my sweater a sniff. I was starting to smell a little like an underground lair, and not in a good way.

  “I’ll go with you next time, I promise,” I lied. He knew I was lying too, but like a good friend, he just gave an unamused “uh-huh.”

  “You really going to be dusting off an egg all night?”

  “Uh, not just an egg,” I corrected, offended to my core. “It’s the best preserved Oviraptor egg to date. The more sediment I can get off--”

  “The better the x-ray, yeah, buddy. I know.” He sighed again. “You’re not...turtling because of Hannah, right? Because we’re not going to the same bar.”

  “What? No.” I set my tools down and rubbed my eyes again. “No. It’s not that. David, I really just want to keep working on this. There’s a perfect egg under all this junk and I need to get to it. I didn’t spend three months in the Gobi to stop now.”

  “Yeah, you brought three months of fucking sand back, don’t remind me.” It made me happy to hear him laugh. I felt shitty blowing him off again, but I didn’t want to go out and be social. It was never my scene, despite how much he wanted it to be. And how much he needed it to be. My best friend was an extreme extrovert who just happened to be connected to a man who really loves basement labs and rocks.

  “Sorry, David. I’ll really go next time. Give Kate a hug for me.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Seriously, don’t sleep there again. Go home and eat.”

  “I ate after I swam, mom,” I teased. “Go have fun.”

  After a mumbled goodbye, the phone disconnected and I was at peace again. The lab was blessedly quiet this late in the evening, with all the grad students and volunteers gone to live their lives. Each prep table was covered in fossils, plaster jacket remnants, and so much dirt. It smelled like earth and cold air, and the hum of the lights was soothing and maddening all at the same time.

  I placed my headphones back in and turned up the latest episode of I Know Dino podcast to catch up on the latest news in my favorite subject. I had been so deeply rooted in fishing out the egg we had discovered in the Gobi that most other things had fallen away.

  Including the bad first date I had a week ago wherein I bored a lovely woman to tears talking about theropod classification. To be fair, she asked what my book was about when I told her I had been reading before the date. How could I have known she wasn’t as passionately excited about the study of tyrannosaur jaw bones as I was?

  Maybe I did need to get out and be around living things more often. Clearly my social skills weren’t the sharpest and I didn’t mind smelling like a dusty bone basement, so it was no wonder I couldn’t land second dates. I even tried to get set up on a date with this really attractive guy on David’s frisbee golf team and I turned chicken shit at the last minute.

  Now I can’t go to his games anymore.

  My sigh was lost in the sound of the latest news of a fossil in amber discovered in China, along with some new studies on raptor mating rituals being explained. The egg before me was just starting to peek out from the rock I had been chipping at for months. Deep inside the ten pound slab of rock was a perfectly preserved egg that was millions of years old. Not just that, but the first x-rays showed a baby dinosaur hatching from the side. The unfortunate sandstorm that swallowed up the nest flash buried the young thing and preserved it for millions of years.

  It was damn likely that something beyond just the bones survived.

  We dared to dream of the feather impressions inside, or even remains of fossilized soft tissue. And the eggshell was preserved enough that once we were able to get to it, we could likely discover the color it was before it fossilized. Goosebumps rippled over my skin as I felt the smooth eggshell I had been painstakingly uncovering.

  Millions of years ago, long before humans were even a blip on the radar, this egg was on a planet that was almost like an alien world. Giants dominated the earth, sky and sea, flowers were just beginning to take shape and there was more oxygen on the planet than there’s ever been since.

  Just a few more layers to go, and the priceless piece of earth’s history would be revealed.

  As usual, I didn’t stop working until my stomach began screaming at me. My back and shoulders were stiff as I uncoiled from my perch, grunting as my spine crackled and popped like a breakfast cereal. Tugging my earbuds free, I heard voices entering the lab.

  I paused and turned towards the door. It wasn’t any voices I had heard before, and definitely wouldn’t be one of my students this late. Even the more enthusiastic ones didn’t waltz into the museum after nine at night.

  “Hello?” I called out just as the source of the voice came into view. Three men wearing all black carrying a large case paused in their tracks as they saw me. Each one of them was wearing gloves, guns on their hips and serious expressions. My eyes bounced between their weapons, the case and them.

  “...What’s going on?” I was beyond confused why three armed men would be in the lab, considering that the security guards for the museum didn’t even carry weapons.

  One of the men turned to his co-worker, or whatever armed men in black considered themselves, and scowled.

  “You said the lab was empty this time of night.”

  “I was wrong,” the other one replied with a shrug, pulling his gun free. Fear rippled through my stomach like liquid fire as I put my hands up in alarm.

  “Whoa, whoa! I-I don’t have much on me, but you can have my wallet and phone.”

  “Shut up and get on the ground,” the one with the gun ordered. I did as he commanded, because what the hell else was I going to do?

  “He saw our faces,” another one replied.

  “I didn’t see anything,” I added quickly. “I didn’t see a damn thing, I swear to God.”

  “I’ll watch him. Get the asset,” one of them said, I think the first one, but I wasn’t sure since my face was on the floor. Living in New York for so many years, I knew I was bound to get mugged, robbed or something eventually. Not that the city is teeming with crime, but it was a numbers game. However, I didn’t expect it to happen in the fossil lab.

  “Which one is it?” one of the men asked.

  “How the fuck should I know? It all looks like rocks to me,” another added.

  “You.” A boot tapped my ribs. “Which fossil is the raptor?”

  “What?” I turned my head slightly but didn’t dare look their way. “The raptor? Which...which one?”

  “The fucking one in National Geographic!” he snapped.

  “That doesn’t narrow it down!” I barked back, half terrified and half frustrated. “This whole damn place has been in that magazine!”

  A gloved hand reached down and jerked me to my feet by the back of my sweater. I coughed as the fabric bit into my throat and kept my eyes down and palms up. A gun was pointed in my face, making me squeeze my eyes shut and turn my head away in fear, like maybe I could avoid being shot if I couldn’t see the barrel.

  “This one,” the man hissed, harshly tapping the barrel of the gun into my head to get my attention. I ducked from the sharp pain of it and hissed, cracking one eye open to see the phone he was holding up in front of me. It was the cover story of last month’s issue, displaying the x-ray of the Oviraptor egg I had been slaving over.

  Treasures in the Gobi -- New Discovery Promises Perfect Baby Dinosaur.

  “Y-you’re here to steal a fossil?” I blinked, totally dumbfounded. “From a museum?”

  The gun barrel pressed into my cheek, pressing the meat of my face against my molars. I tried to jerk my head away but the grip on the back of my sweater held me still.

  “Which. Fucking. One?” he hissed through his teeth.

  “What the hell would you even do with it? It’s-it’s not even technically ours. It belongs to Mongolia! We’re jus
t preparing it for them!” I tried to reason with him, which was extremely stupid. I knew in my gut it was pointless, but I had to try. Unfortunately, that earned me a punch to the stomach and for me to be thrown into my prep table. The egg I had been working hard on was jostled violently and I grabbed it to keep it stable.

  My gut ached and my lungs burned as I tried to take in some air. The hard metal of the gun was stabbed into my temple, pinning me to the fossil they had no idea was their target.

  “You feel like dying tonight?”

  I tried to respond but I was too busy coughing.

  “Hey,” his co-worker and fellow bastard got his attention, lifting the phone up for him to see.

  “Well, well. Professor Andrews. This is your lucky day.” He pressed the gun harder into my skin, making me grit my teeth. “Seems like our employer wants you to come along with us.”

  “What?” I managed, turning my eyes towards him.

  “That’s you, right?” He tilted his head towards his fellow goon, who lowered his phone down for me to see the display. It was on the digital page of the Nat Geo article with me in the Gobi, all smiles and excitement thanks to the specimen we found.

  The man with the gun to my head kept talking. “You’re the one who’s been working on restoring the fossil, right? Well, our boss was very interested in hiring you to keep working on the fossil. Looks like we went ahead and settled the question for you.”

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” I snapped. “I’m not going with you! And neither is the fossil!”

  The man with the gun to my head snarled at me, his eyes lifting from me to scan the table with the slab of rock he was pinning me too. A slow, cocky smirk appeared on his face as he pulled me up and away from the fossil.