Guardian (17 page)

It hurt already, thinking of him leaving one day. “Then we need to make every moment count.”

Mace dropped his chin to the top of her head. “Exactly.”

She nuzzled deeper, resting her ear against his beating heart, tuning in to his breathing. If she could capture those rhythms, she would. If for no other reason than to remember him for all eternity, to remember what they shared, because she feared one day it would all seem like a dream.

No mortal words could describe the magnificent animals before them. Lying on his stomach in a field with Dr. Richmond stretched beside him, Raven stared in awe while the scent of grass and wild horses filled his nostrils. And the animals were not hard to take in. Like a spotlight poised on a superstar, one large beam of brightness illuminated the nightdarkened corral that sat adjacent to Omega Corporation's laboratory.

Raven and Dr. Richmond inched closer to the thick fence caging twenty-some horses. Belly-crawling like a couple of military snipers, they carefully observed the massive animals. “They are bigger than Clydesdales,” Raven whispered. “I thought Glimmer and Vegan were exaggerating.”

“Who?”

“Oh, some girls I know. They told me there were horses like this around here. I didn’t really believe them.”

“Most folks don’t know about this place.” Richmond’s head turned, and Raven could sense the man was studying him. “I’m surprised you’d heard about them before.”

Raven shrugged, pivoting away from the scrutiny.

“Look at that one.” Richmond pointed, excitedly. “I call her Debra.”

Dragging his eyes from the other giants, Raven cocked a brow. “Debra? You named a beast like that Debra?”

Richmond nodded, rocked on his round belly for a more comfortable position, then pointed again. “She’s something of a pack leader.” He tilted closer to Raven, squinting as if to make out his face more clearly. “If you’ve ever read the Bible, you know that Debra was an Old Testament—”

“Prophetess and judge,” Raven finished.

“My boy, you know the Scripture?” In the disappearing light, Richmond’s teeth glowed.

“A little.” Raven wasn’t interested in a theological discussion. Especially while blades of dry grass poked into his forearms.

“Are you familiar with Revelation?” Richmond asked.

Don’t remind me. When the end of days arrived, it would signal judgment. Like humans, on that great and terrible day, Halflings would be measured by the Throne, their deeds exposed. But while humans were allowed a safety net called salvation—and only those humans who refused the gift would end up in hell—half-angel, half-human beings had nothing to fall back on. With no written word, no contract, no covenant, the eternal fate of all Halflings—living and dead—remained unclear, and there would be no arguing with the heavenly decision. That’s what you get for being an unwilling freak of nature.

When Raven didn’t speak, Richmond continued. “I was not a spiritual man until nineteen and a half years ago when I left Omega’s lab. I’m a man of science. A seeker of fact. But fact and truth are brothers, and the deeper I sought, the more I could see. In Revelation, it speaks of a great battle.”

“Yes.” A cold breeze swept Raven’s body, and the blades of stiff grass brushed against him as if their purpose was to punctuate Richmond’s words.

“There’s a verse that tells us in the battle to end all battles, the blood will run bridle-high to the horses.” Richmond’s face radiated a faint but unnatural yellow hue as he spoke. “Isn’t it strange that with all the technology we’ve acquired, we’re told the blood runs bridle-high? It suggests, of course, that horses will carry the end of days’ army.”

“Maybe the writer of Revelation was just using what he knew to describe something he was seeing in the future. I mean, how could he describe Humvees or tanks?”

Richmond’s mouth pursed. “The same way he described helicopters.”

“What?” But Raven knew.

“In one area, John the Revelator describes giant locusts filling the sky.”

Raven nodded. “Giant locusts. Helicopters.”

“But horses carry the army to the great battle.”

Raven’s gaze slowly left Richmond. “Horses like these.” Magnificent power was manifested in the animals before him. Moments ago he wanted Richmond to shut up so he could enjoy the moment; now he wished he’d never seen the animals, hadn’t been sent on this journey, and didn’t have a working knowledge of Scripture and the implication of giant horses and how they fit into biblical prophecy. It made the future too close, too real.

Too bleak.

“Once they’ve perfected these animals, they’ll breed hundreds of thousands of them. An army, Raven. A literal army.” Trust me, I get it. Raven’s jaw clenched.

Richmond chatted on about Debra the horse, her ill temperament, how she’d seemed to calm in weeks past, and numerous other details Raven tried to focus on, instead of the doomsday direction his thoughts veered toward.

“Why would she suddenly be calmer?” Raven asked. Might as well keep up the pretense I’m listening.

“Part of the beauty of the project before it went sideways was that personality traits from calm animals could be introduced into violent animals, controlling their temperament.”

“The same way you were splicing DNA in your basement to make the snake able to reproduce at cooler temperatures?”

“Nothing escapes you, my boy. Once the gene sequences are altered, the animals can be controlled by simple injection.”

For some reason Raven thought of Will and Zero arguing on the boat about human DNA. Both had different opinions on what would happen if that DNA was introduced into a Halfling specimen, how the angelic nature could eclipse certain human qualities. But Raven couldn’t yet see how the two issues were related. Best to keep digging. “So, it’s like flipping a switch?”

“Precisely,” Richmond confirmed. “I created the technology nearly twenty years ago, but it was primitive at best. You had to inject the subject daily to obtain the desired effect. Now, they inject to calm the animals, so the subject remains in that dormant state until a new injection is administered. Days, weeks, even months.”

“Aren’t you a sneaky professor, spying on their every move?” Raven turned to focus on the doctor. “Basically, you’re telling me they are Jekyll and Hyding them?”

“I never would have thought to put it in those terms, but yes.”

Raven shook his head. “That’s some scary stuff, Dr. Richmond.”

The man lowered his eyes. “I’m so ashamed of my part in this.”

Raven forced a smile. “You couldn’t have known.”

The reassurance clearly fell on deaf ears. “I just wish I could undo it all.”

“Wait,” Raven said. “Back up. Did you say Debra is the pack leader?”

Richmond scooted his elbows closer together and reached for the binoculars. “Yes.”

“Horses aren’t pack animals. Dogs, wolves, hyenas, even large felines, yes. But horses? Sorry, Dr. Richmond.”

“My dear boy, have you ever seen horses like these? Listen to me. They are capable of more than I ever imagined. They think intelligently, they process information, and I’m telling you …” He shook the binoculars at the animal. “Debra is the pack leader.”

Muscles knotted along Raven’s spine as his wings went on alert, tingling like goose bumps after a cold swim.

The dark, massive animal looked more like a bronze statue than a living creature. Her upper body rippled with the thick muscle of a work horse, one used to pulling a plow through untamed ground. But her rear half was sleek and slim as if bred for distance running.

The wind changed, lifting Raven’s bangs.

Debra dragged her massive head from the ground, then she stood in the center of the field while a thick layer of fog curled around her hooves. Tipping back slightly, she sniffed the air. Her chest expanded. A heartbeat later, her gaze leveled on them.

Raven held his breath. “She knows we’re here,” he whispered, awe seeping through him.

Every muscle of her body tensed. She whinnied a warning in their direction.

“Look, look.” Now it was Raven who pointed toward her.

Richmond lifted the binoculars.

“She looks like a predator.” Ears up, nose to the air, head tilted, her tail swished a couple times as if releasing her aggravation.

“Yes, yes she does.” Richmond stood from the ground and waved a clear, plastic zipper bag at the animal.

Raven grabbed Richmond’s shirt and tugged. “What are you doing?” he hissed, eyes shooting from the horse to the doctor who refused to be bullied.

Giant hooves pounded the ground as Debra drew near. Richmond waved a dismissive hand. “It’s fine, son. She loves a treat.” He shook the bag again. “And who brings you treats?” he cooed. “That’s right, come on.” He slipped his hand into the bag and withdrew a handful of sugar cubes and pieces of hard candy. “The way to a horse’s heart is with sugar.”

Apparently Debra and Vine have a lot in common. Far beyond the fence was the entrance to the lab. Raven stood and shot a quick glance, sensed no threat, and relaxed enough to enjoy the creature’s approach. When a giant head reached around him to get the sugar, Raven’s mouth curved. He hadn’t meant to plaster the goofy grin across his face, but he couldn’t help himself. Few things in this world stopped him cold. Few things offered this kind of excitement: snowboarding, scuba diving, and apparently having a giant horse nibble sugar cubes inches from his face. Yep, that was one he’d keep to himself.

When the candy disappeared, so did Debra. “Cool,” Raven said.

“They are cool.” Dr. Richmond sampled the word, trying it on for size. It didn’t fit.

“What is this place?” Raven asked. He’d let Richmond talk in riddles, but now it was time to ascertain what he knew about Omega. Stars twinkled above, sending distant SOS messages, or maybe warning messages not to push the doctor too far. Raven had never been much for heaven’s subtlety.

“This is a laboratory, Raven. Much of it’s underground, and I sometimes wish the earth would swallow the entire thing.”

“Genetic alterations, obviously,” Raven said. When headlights flashed on a distant hillside, both men dropped to the ground.

“True and worse.” Richmond’s face troubled. Suddenly, he looked old, worn out from too many regrets and too many questions.

“What did they do to these horses exactly?” What did they do to you?

“The short version is they mutated them.” His face wrinkled under the stress of admission. “But they were hardly normal to begin with.”

“What do you mean?”

Richmond tilted away. “I can’t say. But this”—he waved to the corral—“is all my fault.”

A rock was digging into Raven’s ribs. He ignored it. “How is it your fault?”

“I uncovered the gene sequence that allowed us to introduce mega-steroids without the harmful effects that usually accompany them.” He pressed his hands to his face for a moment. “You must understand my intentions were good. Honorable. If the genes could be manipulated, and specific chemical treatments introduced, we could literally obliterate many terminal diseases. Cancer, for one. The body fights to protect the cancer, mutating its own cells.”

“So you suppress that, introduce chemo treatments, and end the cycle.”

“Yes. When I discovered the lab’s intention, I ran. Literally, I ran.”

Raven shrugged. “You went sixty miles, doc.”

He nodded. “I admit, fear overtook me. I couldn’t look guilty, or they’d come after me.”

“Guilty of what?”

“Destroying what I’d poured my life into creating.”

“You did that?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, I didn’t retrieve everything.” He pointed to the lab. “Information was autosaved to a main computer system. I had no way to breach the security. But I removed what I could, and with a small, contained fire, slowed their progress and covered my tracks. The, uh, explosion wasn’t intentional.” He winced. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you the specimen they planned on testing next.”

“I’d believe anything at this point.”

“No, and I won’t utter it. It still makes me ill to think about.” He rubbed a hand across his nearly bald head. “It nearly killed us, my wife and me. We feared for our very lives. She was pregnant at the time but she lost the baby. It happened almost twenty years ago, and my wife still has nightmares. We thought they’d kill us in our sleep.”

“No, doc. Men with this much power don’t wait until you’re asleep. They do it in broad daylight.” When one of the horses reared back on powerful legs, Raven shook his head. “Why did you share all this with me?”

“Because my heart tells me you’re the key.”

Raven frowned. “The key to what?”

“Their salvation.”

When a far-off gate slid open, the horses galloped for the fence line, creating enough dust to cloak their movements. The ground shook at the thundering of solid hooves. “I don’t know what I can do,” Raven said.

“Just do what you can.”

“One condition.” Raven met his gaze squarely.

“Any thing.”

“Draw me a layout of that lab.”

In eight days Raven had fallen into a routine. Visit Richmond in the evenings, eavesdrop on scientists’ conversations during the day, and stay in the barn at night. He and Debra had even become friends.