Keep the eye on the prize.
Two wolves charged the fence and reared up on hind feet, their front ones on the wire way too close to Rory’s head. Their vicious growls caused her to jerk away.
Kaia lunged at them and body-slammed the fence. “Stop it! Behave!”
The wolves leapt back and regarded Kaia with glittering eyes.
“I’m the boss of you now and you’ll do as I say.”
“I thought you were going to try to reason with them,” Rory said.
“Wolves understand the alpha dynamic. Besides, I’m using my mind to get inside theirs.”
“Hmm. Alpha on, sweetie.”
“You will back off and let us in,” Kaia told the wolves.
Stunningly, they grew quiet and moved away.
“Hurry Rory. Don’t know how long I can do this.”
As Rory started cutting again, she glanced over her shoulder at the mayhem. Dark silhouettes wrestled. Some seemed to leap and kick gracefully in slow motion, like wicked-looking dancers. Behind the wall of music, the feral sounds that filtered through weren’t only those of the resident wild animals. There were definitely more than five in the enemy gang. Bo had gathered allies since his last encounter with Zane and the Goth Girls.
A fresh spurt of blood landed on Rory, and a disembodied head rolled into her. Jezebel? She whipped a cell phone from her pocket and shined its light, relieved to see the head of a stranger.
“Pearl!” Bo yelled, his voice laced with anguish.
Pearl. Bo’s girlfriend. Rory had heard about her. Score one for our team.
Kaia scooped up the head and, with unexpected pitching skill, threw it over the high fence beyond the wolves, whose number had increased. It served to distract them.
Rory hastily finished cutting an opening big enough for them to crawl through. They made it inside and were just a few feet in when someone slammed them to the ground. Rory rolled away from the enemy vamp, and Kaia came up swinging the tire iron at him. He staggered for just a moment, before advancing once again.
Rory dropped everything and grabbed the silver stake from her hair. Jumping to her feet, she advanced and aimed the point at his face, plunging it into his eye. Screaming, he yanked it out and grabbed for her. She ducked and twisted, but he managed to rip her hoodie and sink his teeth in her shoulder. Hot pain blinded her vision. She rammed her knee up between his legs and found her target. He gasped, which allowed her to pull away.
Kaia came at him again with the tire iron, and he ducked, then butted her in the stomach with his head. She went sprawling, but before Rory could go to her aid, wolves attacked him. A lot of wolves. Blood rained, shrieks split the night, flesh ripped, and the girls scrambled away from the mayhem.
Retrieving her phone and bolt cutters, Rory’s light swept the enclosure looking for any sign of Joy. Her mind reached out, searching for the voice she had earlier heard, but couldn’t find it. However, she felt the terror and—like an intense magnet pulling on her—moved in its direction.
“Can you sense her?” Kaia asked. “My mind is still working on the wolves. I don’t dare let go.”
“This way,” Rory said.
Through the fog still hugging the ground, Rory’s light landed on a small wire cage—like a dog crate—in the middle of the compound. Joy sat inside, her eyes wide, her expression full of horror. Rory flashed the light onto her own face. “It’s us, sweetie. Here to take you home.”
Joy extended her arms toward them and began to cry.
Rory cut off the cage’s padlock, and Kaia carried Joy as they stumbled back through the pen toward the opening. When they passed the wolves—now chowing down on their kill—one wolf raised its eyes and growled. Kaia issued a sharp, “Ah, ah, ah,” and with a grunt, it returned its attention to the body.
When they emerged from the wolf pen, the sight that greeted them tore into Rory’s gut. In the glare of the truck headlights, Zane lay in a puddle of blood and Jinx knelt at his side. In the eerie silence, no other live vamps besides their own were in sight. They must have won, but at what cost?
Zane! Overcome by panic, Rory ran to him. In the surreal, nightmarish moment, her eyes fell on his overturned cowboy hat lying a few feet from his body. Once beige, it now glistened red. Blood pumped through the fingers Jinx clamped to his neck. Blood pumped. That was a good thing, right? If it pumped, his heart still worked.
Zane’s eyes flickered open. He glanced at Joy and Rory, whispered “Thank God,” and passed out.
Jinx looked up, and her frantic eyes fell on Joy.
Kaia patted the girl’s back. “She’s good.”
Relief washed over Jinx’s face, and she turned her attention back to Zane. She ripped his shirt to make a bandage and wrapped the wound. “We need to get him back to our place. He needs blood. We’ve got a lot there.”
Rory extended her wrist. “He can have some of mine now.”
Jinx stood and cupped Rory’s cheek, then glanced at her bleeding shoulder wound. “It looks like you need to keep what you have.”
“Did you guys kill Bo?” Rory asked.
Jinx shook her head. “Half his gang bit the dust, though.”
“So, he’ll still be gunning for Zane and those he loves.” It wasn’t a question; Rory knew the answer.
Jinx picked Zane up and loaded him into the bed of the pickup. Rory grabbed his hat and clutched it to her chest. Jade dragged a big, metal supply cabinet over to block the hole in the wolf enclosure, and Jasmine collected the bloody machetes. Jezebel slid behind the wheel while everyone else managed to haul their beaten, wounded, and gore-coated bodies into the truck. Making only a rolling stop so Jasmine could jump out to retrieve the Batmobile, they took Joy home.
CHAPTER SIX
* * *
“Should Team Badass have a battle cry?” Raven asked.
We sat around my kitchen table eating cheese omelets and sliced tomatoes for breakfast.
Dominic pointed his fork at her. “Yell, ‘For Narnia!’ It will probably make your opponents laugh, hence distracting them and providing you with a great tactical advantage. It’ll also add more fire to your fight because if you lose, well, Narnia loses. Nobody wants to be the reason Narnia loses.”
Raven and I burst out in welcome laughter.
I leaned over to kiss him. “Your wit is one of the many reasons I love you so much.”
“What’s a Narnia?” Lailah asked.
“A world accessible only through a mystical wardrobe where magic, mythical beings and talking animals abound,” Dominic said.
Lailah nodded. “Ah, I think I know the place.”
“I’m sure you do,” he said.
I rubbed my aching neck. Yesterday had been spent learning to fall and roll like Captain Kirk. “You do realize that I’ll need to know how to defend myself when my stomach’s the size of Texas?”
“Your best defense will be situational awareness,” Lailah said. “All of you need to fine tune your senses. It’s natural for Sasha, but the rest of you must work at sensing danger.”
I blinked. “How do I do that?”
“Awareness is a choice. Work at becoming consciously aware of what’s normal in your environments so you’ll know when something changes. If you do it enough, there’s a part of your brain that will start doing it for you. But you have to listen for the warning bells your subconscious sends you and so need to avoid being distracted.”
“Ever?” Raven asked. “How could we never be distracted?”
“Don’t play with your telephone so much, or listen to music through that wire attached to it, or watch the television. Life’s no longer about your entertainment. It’s about your survival,” Lailah said.
“But—”
“It is one thing to study war and another thing to live the warrior’s life,” Lailah told her.
“Since I’ve become human I’ve noticed that I can sense the air pressure change when someone comes into the room,” Dominic said. “I know when somebody’s looking at m
e—sometimes I even feel who it is. Is that normal for humans, or is it because I was an angel?”
“That’s normal,” I said. “It happens to me.”
Lailah nodded. “Everything is vibration in different forms. The mind is a receiver. Train your mind.”
I patted my baby bump. I’d do whatever was necessary to keep her safe.
“How is Spooky Baby baking?” Raven asked.
“She’s rising fast,” I said.
“Your Professor Greenberg is coming over today,” Lailah said.
I shook my head. “What? You didn’t tell me the Caretakers had reached him.”
“I just found out.” She looked at me. “Just now. While we’ve been talking.”
“Right.” Good. Maybe I would finally get some answers.
After breakfast, Lailah and Sasha disappeared together for an angelic confab, Dominic took Hallie out back to romp with her in the snow, and Raven and I did the dishes. Through the window above the sink, we watched Dominic and Hallie play together.
Raven whistled. “Damn but Farmer D is looking fine in those jeans.”
I did like Dominic’s style: tight jeans, fitted denim shirts worn with the top couple buttons open, blue jean jacket. He made farmers—and denim—sexy.
“How did you feel, making an angel fall?” Raven asked.
I bristled. “He didn’t fall. He resigned.”
“You know what I mean,” Raven said.
“Honestly, I felt scared. Scared I’d end up hurting him, and it would all be on me.”
“Have you decided? You know, between him and Zane.” Raven gestured to my belly.
I shook my head. “I can’t even think about it now.”
“Zane said he’d be back if and when there was a cure for vampirism, right?”
I nodded.
“If you end up choosing Zane, can I have D?”
Gifted at reading faces, I checked hers to see if she was kidding. Despite her grin, I could tell she wasn’t. Now that was a totally unexpected revelation. I shrugged. “It’s up to Nicky.”
“Why do you love him?
“Why do you?”
She dropped a plate, and it smashed onto the floor into a dozen pieces. “What?”
I raised my eyebrows and waited.
She took a deep breath. “Because he’s the kindest person I’ve ever known. Confident. Intelligent. Fearless.”
I nodded. “That’s why I love him, too. With all my heart. He makes me happy.”
“What about Zane?”
Zane? In his presence—even at the very thought of him—every cell in my body came alive, and my soul caught fire. “I love Zane in a different way. It’s hard to explain.”
She looked at me. “I’m sorry I feel the way I do.”
“Don’t be. I trust you to respect what Nicky and I have.”
However, seeing the look of longing in her eyes, for the first time I wasn’t entirely sure that trust was well-placed.
“You didn’t notice me,” Lailah whispered from right behind us.
It was my turn to drop a plate. “Dammit, Lailah. How are we supposed to sense an angel popping in on us?”
“I didn’t pop in. I entered through the front door and walked right up to you.”
So much for situational awareness.
She gave us an impish grin and waved her hand. “Carry on.”
* * *
Professor Saul Greenberg had been a physics professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder before the pandemic. Afterward, he came to my small hometown high school to teach. That seemed weird to me at the time, but the world had changed so much by then that many things didn’t make sense.
From the beginning, he seemed to know about my previous life as Hope, my connection to the Caretakers, and all my secrets. The last time I saw him was the night of little Belle Starr’s death—the night I also found out I was pregnant. He told me not to let anyone know the truth about Genesis’ conception, especially my sister and the scientists she worked with. He said if they found out, Genesis would become a lab experiment. Professor Greenberg was also the first one to let me know that my daughter had a special destiny. I never got a chance to ask him to explain.
He arrived around noon with a companion, an obstetrician he introduced as Dr. Helen Walsh. The professor looked just like I remembered him: quirky in his colorful golf cap and suspenders, shaggy hair, and tweed jacket with the requisite professorial leather elbow patches. His warm smile and gentle manner hadn’t changed either. Dr. Walsh was fortyish, casually dressed, and had an easy-going way about her.
I asked for privacy, so Lailah had taken everyone on a hike to build stamina. The only one who seemed thrilled about that was Hallie.
With the last of my powdered cocoa and sugar reserves, I made the three of us steaming mugs of hot chocolate and we sat in the living room by the warmth of the wood stove.
“You look good, Glory,” Professor Greenberg said. “You’re letting your hair grow. And it’s a new color.”
I grinned. “The longer hair is a hat tip to me as Hope. She, I, she was heroic. The red hair is kinda tied in to my brief stint as an honorary Goth Girl—they’re as gutsy as it gets. I’m reimagining myself. Trying to figure out a way to deal with everything.”
“You’re heroic Glory. You don’t need to imagine yourself as someone else.”
I didn’t feel heroic. Weren’t heroes supposed to be fearless? I certainly wasn’t. “Not so much.”
He cocked his head. “How is your pregnancy going?”
“Strangely.”
“Have you seen an obstetrician?” Dr. Walsh asked.
“No, the professor told me not to let anyone know the truth about Genesis and I’m not sure what an exam is going to reveal.”
“I’ll examine you if you’ll allow it,” the doctor said. “My practice is in Boulder, but I’m willing to come here for home visits to see you through this.”
Relief flooded me. I’d been feeling terribly lost and frightened. “Yes. Thank you.” I looked at Professor Greenberg. “So, where did you go? Honestly, I felt abandoned. You dropped the big baby bomb and just disappeared.”
He held his hands out in a gesture of supplication. “I’m so sorry, Glory. I’ve been on the other side of the world working with scientists affiliated with the Caretakers. We’ve been devising a plan to counter a new doomsday scenario the NWO scientists have initiated. I had arranged for Helen to check on you, but all manner of things conspired to make that not happen. I was incommunicado until the Caretakers reached out to me.”
I looked at Dr. Walsh. “What kept you from checking on me?”
“To protect you, I didn’t want to contact you via phone or email—I assumed yours might be monitored and didn’t want to alert anyone to your pregnancy. I decided the best thing would be to drive over from Boulder, but every time I headed this way something strange would happen and I’d end up in Fort Collins or Denver with huge lapses in memory.” The doctor’s laugh was nervous. “I’d claim alien abduction except I side with the scientists who believe that aliens have no use for humanity. I mean, why would they? As a whole, we’re a horrible lot. If we were an alien experiment, we failed.”
“Not yet,” I said. “We haven’t failed yet.”
She looked at me with surprise and seemed to relax. “You’re absolutely right.”
“So, what? If not alien abduction, what?”
The doctor shook her head. “No idea, unless I’m ill. When you hear what Saul has to tell you, it might explain a lot.”
I looked at him. “To start with, can you please tell me how and why this body is pregnant? I’ve been told the baby is Zane’s. But I, Glory, never had sex with Zane. Well, with anybody. Zane and Hope’s baby, Jeremiah, was born in the eighteen hundreds.”
Professor Greenberg sat silently for a few moments. Finally, he said, “The higher powers of the universe rarely interfere with what goes on in this world. They allow events to unfold according to the free will of
all its inhabitants—human and otherwise. However, the human race is on the verge of genocide and a blessing was bestowed upon us in the person of Genesis.” He looked at me with an intensity I’d never seen in him before—which was saying a lot. “When Plan A, the pan-plague, failed to kill off most of the population as expected, the NWO triggered Plan B. All the chess pieces for that have been in place for years, but it’s riskier than the previous one and was their plan of last resort.” He paused again, his manner hesitant.
Anxiety bit me in the stomach. “Just spit it out.”
“For decades now, human DNA has been modified through GMO foods, tainted drinking water, toxic vaccines, chemicals released in the air, and so forth. That all sounds very random, but actually it’s been quite systematic. Humanity as a whole has been infected with a genetic mutation that is now being triggered via electromagnetic frequencies. People are falling ill as we speak; within a year....” His voice died off miserably. After a moment, he said, “Well, it will pretty much accomplish what the pandemic failed to do. Statistically, there’s a segment of the population who’ll survive, but they have other scenarios in motion to handle that. Their ultimate plan is that only humans who live in protected environments, such as the underground facility you were taken to in Arizona, will make it through.”
“So, there are more complexes like Wonderland around the world?”
“Yes, and only those chosen by the New World Order live there. They will be the survivors.”
“How do Gen and I figure into all of this?”
“During your time travel event you conceived her outside of normal time and space, and in that dimension neither you nor Zane had contaminated DNA. So, your child’s DNA is pure and unadulterated. It can be used to reprogram the DNA of the human race.”
I was frazzled and completely lost. “How?”
“It’s complicated. Basically, we extract a perfect DNA strand from Genesis, sequence it, subtract necessary DNA variance coding, and create a virus—or phage—that includes the perfect genetic code. Then we code for necessary enzymes, the terminator gene, viral reproduction, and etcetera. Test. Mass produce, and then deploy the virus all over the world. If done perfectly, it’ll only take about twenty-four hours from then for us to all celebrate with the biggest bottle of champagne ever.” He tried for a smile, but failed.
Genesis (The Legend of Glory Book 3) Page 7