Guardian

by Heather Burch

  Whoa! Enough with the sappy crap. Richmond had answers and Raven needed them. End of story.

  Tonight, the good doctor seemed unusually excited.

  “Can I trust you with a secret?” Dr. Richmond asked over reading glasses that magnified his cheeks and made the clogged pores even more visible.

  Finally. “Sure.” Raven shrugged, acting interested in the bubbling contents of the beaker. But inside he perked up. This was it.

  “Do you like horses?”

  Raven turned off the Bunsen burner. “Yeah. My uncle has a stretch of land in Europe where he kept horses years ago. It was sort of a remote area, so he’d sell them to people in the village— horses were an easy way to get around, especially in the winter. I always thought they were powerful animals. Pretty cool.”

  Richmond’s face lit. “My boy, I could show you the most magnificent horses alive.”

  Raven slid the beaker aside and gazed at the doctor through slashes of long bangs. “Really?”

  “Yes.” Richmond tugged his glasses off, brow furrowed. He feverishly rubbed them along his shirttail. “I shouldn’t,” he argued with himself. “Then again.” He stepped closer to Raven, halting inches away. “There is something quite unique and … special about you, son.” Richmond searched his face.

  Raven shrunk from the exposure. Special. Not the word most used to describe him.

  “Something within me begs to trust you.” He offered a quick nod. “Yes. That’s what we’ll do.”

  Raven’s brows rose. “What?”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry, sorry.” Dr. Richmond moved briskly around the room gathering a flashlight, an umbrella, a notebook, and binoculars, balancing them all against his chest until he procured a backpack. “I’ll go. Tonight. You’ll accompany me. But you must swear—swear—never to utter a word of what you see.” He pressed a free hand firmly on Raven’s chest. The muscle mass he encountered seemed to shock him. Richmond patted around for several seconds, and Raven could almost see the gears whirring in the guy’s head. Eyes fanned to Raven’s shirt. Patted again. “You are unique indeed. And I think I was meant to share this with you.”

  Yep. You were. And right after we’re done, maybe we’ll take a nice stroll to the special place where everyone gets their own rubber room.

  Mace spread a blanket and held Nikki’s hand while she sat down. The foothills of Germany’s Black Forest anchored their picnic area and the palatial spread of Viennesse rested on a mountaintop just behind them. “It’s really beautiful, isn’t it?” she murmured.

  Mace followed her gaze, taking in the panorama of darkly colored vegetation. “You should see it from above.”

  Nikki lifted a brow. “Is that an offer?”

  That devastating smile appeared on his face. “Just an observation.”

  “Well, either way, you have to show me now.” Nikki scooted around on the blanket, refusing to cringe. Her muscles were still sore from the train incident, but she didn’t want Mace to know. Whenever she groaned, winced, or flinched, his face grew somber and his expression fell into worry. Worst of all, he’d search her with those cerulean eyes. It made her feel guilty for being such a wimp. The Halflings had all been more seriously injured than her; deep cuts and bruises on their hands, arms, and legs while she barely had a scrape, though her body felt like it’d been hit by a truck.

  “What’s wrong?” Mace said, moving closer to her. He slid the contents of the picnic basket to the edge of the blanket. “Here, lean on me.”

  He scooted behind her, and she tilted to rest her back against his chest. Her legs stretched in front of her and his to the side. This time he didn’t see her wince. A gentle breeze feathered over them and Nikki sighed. His chest was warm, and his breath and heartbeat mirrored her own. She released the tension she’d been carrying for days.

  “That’s better,” he whispered, as she let her muscles melt even more.

  But pressures tugged at the edge of her mind and Nikki knew time was running out. “Things are bad, aren’t they?”

  Mace wrapped his arms around her. “I’d say things are pretty good.”

  She chuckled. “I’m not talking about us, Mace. I’m talking about …” She couldn’t believe she was about to say this. “About the world.”

  “It’s a delicate balance between good and evil, a tightrope we all have to walk. But yes, things are getting bad. Titanium shipments meant for wingcuffs can only mean one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The enemy feels like he has enough power on the earth to take over. Stopping Halflings would certainly help his cause. We’re sent by the Throne, and the enemy hates the Throne.”

  “The enemy? You mean—”

  “Yes, Nikki. The hater of men’s souls. The despiser of all that is holy.”

  “Is he after me as well? Is this all part of the reason you were sent to protect me?” She shivered.

  “You don’t need to be afraid. We’re good at what we do. And everyone here seems equally taken with you, so I don’t think any of us will let our guard down.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone likes you. The females, Dash, Sky, and Ocean. Even Will.”

  “Will won’t be happy when he realizes we are … well, we’re …”

  “A couple?”

  She nodded.

  “Will isn’t stupid. He can see how I feel about you. How I’ve felt about you since the very beginning, when you were running through the woods with hell hounds at your feet. Even when you and Krissy went shopping that day—”

  She sucked a breath. “You were there?”

  “Just to keep an eye on you,” he said, smiling down at her.

  “I bet.” She tried to ignore the flush of embarrassment. She’d bought underwear that day.

  “I knew you weren’t safe.”

  “Nothing happened though.”

  “Not until later on your motorcycle, when the weird guy started chasing you in that beat-up SUV.”

  “I still don’t know what he was so mad about.”

  “He was an evil man, Nikki. Evil is drawn to you for some reason.”

  She tilted her head, tucking it beneath his. Securely cradled against him, Nikki closed her eyes.

  “But you’re safe now.”

  Safe. But at what cost? “Mace, if all the Halflings here are busy protecting me, doesn’t that mean there are a lot of other people who aren’t being protected?”

  His muscles tensed.

  “I mean, so much attention for one person? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “That’s the nature of the Kingdom—remember, we were sent to watch over you. It rarely makes sense to the natural mind. But trust me, it’s perfect.”

  “This situation doesn’t seem perfect.”

  “That’s because we’re flawed. The plan, as well as the Creator and Executer of the plan, is perfect, but we aren’t.”

  “Like a broken vase.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that a broken pot can still grow flowers if it’s not too badly damaged. It just leaks more than other pots.”

  “Okay, I can live with that logic. We leak.”

  “Mace, do you think Raven is okay?”

  Mace became silent for several minutes, finally releasing a long sigh tinged with sadness. “He’s out there, but I worry about him being alone. It’s really hard to resist evil on your own. You need a support system. And some need it more than others.”

  “I’m so sorry for breaking up your friendship.”

  He leaned away and looked at her through half-closed lids. “What do you mean?”

  “You and Raven. Since I came along, the two of you have acted like enemies.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s pretty much how we acted before. You just brought it to the surface.”

  “You mean you guys weren’t close?”

  “No. We’re like brothers. Or maybe not brothers, more like brothers-in-arms. You don’t have to like the guy in the foxhole with you as long
as you’re still willing to die for him.”

  “I don’t get it.” The breeze lifted the edge of the blanket, where a line of ants marched toward the basket.

  “It’s the nature of being in a war, I guess. Raven knows I’d lay down my life for him, and he’d do the same for me. But that doesn’t mean we have to like each other’s ethics. I’ve never agreed with how Raven operates. And I’m pretty sure I never will, because it’s destructive.”

  She thought back to the train wreck. “I still can’t believe he left.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s Raven. Not much of a team player.” Mace cupped an arm on her shoulder. “But you, you were quite the team player, Miss I-Can-Open-a-Railcar-Like-a-Can-of-Peas.”

  “I hope that’s not my new nickname. It’s a mouthful.”

  “I’m just saying you were really gutsy.”

  “Yeah, right up to the moment I nearly got myself killed.” She shuddered. Or maybe that had been him; she couldn’t tell. Either way, Mace drew her closer.

  “I’ve never been as scared as I was then, Nikki. I knew I couldn’t hold up the train car myself.”

  “I don’t know how the other Halflings got there so fast. And Raven, he just appeared from out of nowhere.”

  “That’s very Raven as well.”

  She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It had been one of the most horrible days of her life … and she’d had a few bad ones recently.

  “What do we do from here, Mace?” Almost the entire time she’d known him, she’d been aware it was an act of rebellion for a Halfling to fall in love with a human. And that their mutual feelings put Mace on very dangerous ground where eternity was concerned. In a strange twist, practically losing each other had sealed their fate. Or doomed it.

  “Nikki, I don’t know what the future holds.”

  She swallowed past the dry lump in her throat. “You could be taken away, couldn’t you, when this journey ends?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gone. As quickly as you appeared?”

  He nodded. But that gesture said something else too. She realized Mace had finally stopped pushing her into some role he wanted her to fill. On the boat he’d been almost unbearable. Now, he practically couldn’t get enough of her just the way she was. Almost like … like he knew their time was running out.

  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.

  Chapter 13

  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.