Guardian

by Heather Burch

  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.

  But this night was anything but routine.

  When Raven heard human footsteps approaching the stall, he rose to his feet from where he’d been sitting on a mound of hay. His hand slipped into his front pocket and seized the pocketknife. He liked the feel of metal in his hand, warmed by his own body heat and ready to strike. He rarely carried a knife. Metal objects didn’t travel well in the midplane, which was one reason Glimmer was the only Halfling who carried a weapon. Raven liked to think of her as Tinkerbelle with claws.

  But Glimmer wasn’t there. Neither were Mace, Vine, or Nikki. He was alone. No other Halflings and no obligation to return home. They all thought he was dead, smashed in the train car. Even if he died tonight, no one would care.

  With a smooth movement, his thumb slid the blade open. It was one of those expensive pocketknives carried by true knife enthusiasts and lawyers with more money than sense. If you don’t know what you’re doin’, you could end up with the stiletto blade stuck through your own flesh.

  But Raven knew his way around most—if not all—weapons. Just because Halflings didn’t usually carry weapons didn’t mean they couldn’t wield them. Being a half-angel also had its perks. Stealth, for one. Raven silently slipped behind the barn intruder.

  Hmm. Funny I’d think the guard was an intruder, seeing as I’m the one who isn’t supposed to be here. But hiding out and gathering intel on Omega by splitting his time between Richmond, the laboratory, and the barn of mutant horses had made him a bit territorial. The barn was his domain now, and uninvited guests would be terminated upon contact.

  He leapt forward and grabbed the guard, placing the blade carefully at his throat. “I could have had you, Cordelle,” Raven whispered into the guard’s ear.

  Adam Cordelle released the air he’d sucked up. “Don’t scare me like that, Raven. It’s not funny.”

  Sweat from the guard’s face dripped onto Raven’s arm. The guy was shaking. Good.

  Raven released the thirtyish man. Cordelle promptly spun around off balance to face his opponent. Unsteady and perspiring, he dragged a breath, probably trying to slow his racing heart.

 
; Raven chuckled and examined the knife.

  “Where’d you get that? You didn’t have it when I found you sleeping in here.” Cordelle’s voice rang like an angry parent who’d caught their kid with a hand in the cookie jar.

  Raven cringed. He’d let Cordelle find him because he needed an ally. No one, absolutely no one snuck up on him. Well, he supposed Winter had on the boat. But that didn’t count. He’d been distracted by Nikki.

  Cordelle pointed a surprisingly chubby finger. With such a wiry build, the fat fingers didn’t fit. “Stealing is wrong, Raven. I’m not helping you get back on your feet so that you can return to a life of crime.” Cordelle had presumed Raven was a dropout living on the streets, and Raven was happy to keep up the act. “When I found you eight days ago, I told you I’d keep quiet about your being here if you promised to choose a better path for your life.” Daddy Cordelle turned away from Raven and straightened some papers on the desk, where surveillance cameras offered various snapshots of the corral and the barn interior. “Everybody needs a hand up sometimes. I’ll help you all I can, but not so you can go back to being a vagrant.”

  Raven put his hand to his heart. “A vagrant? Man, that hurts.”

  Cordelle’s chubby hands fisted and landed on his thin waist. “That’s what you are,” he said with a nod and a sad flash in his eyes. “If you continue on the path you’re on, at least. Wouldn’t you like to change things?”

  Raven’s thoughts flew to Nikki. He remembered closing her in the circle of his wings, holding her while she fed the dolphin. Her smile, her long hair floating behind them ... He swallowed the bitter memory. “Yeah. I’d like to change a lot of things.”

  “Good, because I talked to my cousin down at Fort Smith. He thinks he can get you a job at the chicken plant. It’s not a pretty job, but it pays good and it’s a lot better than hitchhiking your way to California.” Another assumption Cordelle had made. Another one Raven didn’t bother to correct. Seriously, what was he supposed to tell the guy? I’m no transient; I’m here gathering information about your employer and trying to figure out a way to rescue these horses. No, that admission probably wouldn’t fly. What he couldn’t figure out was how a mildmannered guy like Cordelle had wound up working for scum like the Omega types. Must be somebody’s brother-in-law.

  Cordelle continued his monologue with excitement. “I’d have taken a job there myself, but my brother-in-law insisted I come to work for this company—he’s been here a couple years and they treat him good. This is a state-of-the-art facility, you know? Doing big important things here, we are.”

  Right. So big and so important. He could tell Cordelle was oblivious to what Omega did or didn’t do. Just another monkey swallowing propaganda about the infamous all-important work.

  “And the wife didn’t want to move away from the fam.”

  Uh-huh. Raven’s powers of intuition scared even him sometimes. He faded out of the conversation as Cordelle droned on about being an active member of society. Blah, blah, blah. Who cared?

  Raven cared about the society of one: himself. At least he had until Nikki. She’d changed him—both destroyed and remade him. There was a soul beneath his flesh. It had been a cold and shriveled empty place until she ignited it. Now it burned, and the awakened fire might kill him—if, of course, he wasn’t already dead.

  “Did you just say you’re already dead?” Cordelle leaned forward and examined him with round little eyes that resembled two chunks of coal stuck in a snowman. Hands to the hips, again. “Raven, never ever say that. You aren’t dead.”

  He really had to stop mumbling his thoughts. Of course, Cordelle was right. Raven was very much physically alive. For now. But spiritually, he didn’t know how long he’d last without the support of the other Halflings—a difficult thing for him to admit, even to himself, but facts were facts. Raven had always teetered between the light and the dark side, but he’d had Will to help keep his head above the proverbial drowning pool. How long would he last on his own? Did it matter?

  He’d died a hero’s death as far as they knew. Saving Nikki. Giving Mace time to pull her from under the train car. He’d always thought he’d go out in a blaze of glory. And so he had.

  Besides, he didn’t have to stay alone. There were other Halflings he could hook up with. The problem was they weren’t in the same place as Nikki.

  And so the questioned remained. Live or die? The more he considered it, the better dead sounded.

  Chapter 14

  Nikki stood on a patch of grass by a creek in the Rhine Valley, deciding how to best destroy the hell hound facing her. All around, vineyards stretched in zigzag patterns crossing the hilly terrain. It was beautiful. Later, she’d take time to examine the intricate details that reminded her of the cornrow braids she’d seen women wearing on a beach in Mexico. Back when life was simple and she had parents and was a normal teenager instead of a Seer who couldn’t seem to master her vocation.

  “You gonna daydream the day away? We are here for a purpose, or did you forget?” Dash said. He leaned his weight against a tree by the river, one foot cocked in front of the other and arms crossed casually.

  Nikki knew why she was there. Will had said her martial arts skills could use a little improvement, since fighting hounds from the pit, as well as demons, was a tad different than human opponents at karate tournaments. She’d killed a hound before. But that was in a fit of rage, and she’d almost fallen apart in the aftermath of the deed. Now she needed to understand the hounds’ attack and her best defense. After all, evil was drawn to her.

  Focus. Her muscles still ached, but her body had healed from the train accident. But as she took her fighter’s pose, her thoughts went to Raven, the training he’d done with her. And that only reminded her of his recent sacrifice. While he probably wasn’t dead, he hadn’t returned, so it was a sacrifice all the same. She considered the strange turn of events that led to his disappearance, how she drove him away with her kneejerk reaction when she thought Mace had been smashed by the careening train. She wouldn’t forget the hurt that settled in Raven’s midnight eyes. Ever.

  And yet … he’d returned to save her.

  “You sure you’re up to this?” Vine asked. He stood opposite Dash.

  She looked over at Vine’s kind smile, which lit a face surrounded by yards of silky hair any girl would kill for. His body language hinted his readiness to fight. Dash’s read cool confidence, almost boredom. His hair, unruly clumps of sunbleached blond over darker brown, contrasted Vine’s. Messy freedom versus silky-smooth control.

  Freedom . The name Raven had given her.

  The hound snarled, exposing fangs and demanding her attention. “I’m good,” Nikki assured Vine with a nod, and was instantly glad that Ocean, Sky, and especially Dash had decided to stay at Viennesse. Who else but Dash and Vine could she have convinced to do this? She may not be the sharpest tool in the drawer—who lures a hell hound for practice?—but she knew when she could win a fight and when it was time to cut and run. Maybe Raven knew when it was time to cut and run too.

  Vine stayed in a ready stance. Dash rolled his eyes and slid down the tree trunk to sit. His nonchalance made Nikki that much more alert. If she did get into trouble, she hoped Dash could get to her in time.

  When the hell hound took a step closer, Nikki lunged, trying to gain the edge. She caught it by the throat and clamped her arm around its neck. Growls rumbled against her skin and jaws snapped, slinging spit as it tried to sink its teeth into her. With a grunt, she slung the thing to the ground. Her foot slipped on her discarded sketchpad, and pain from the train wreck wound jolted from her ankle to her knee. She ignored it. “I’d forgotten how strong they are.”

  “They have a way of reminding you.” Dash stood now that the fight had begun.

  “How about the smell?” Vine asked, laughter in his voice. “Did you forget that?”

  “No,” Nikki said, brushing a hand across her forehead. “I remember that vividly.”

  “Road kill
in a locker room,” Vine added.

  “Worse.” Much worse. Hell hounds oozed the stench of death. Understandable since they came from the pit and carried the remnant smells of their home, a disgusting potpourri of rotten potatoes, rancid meat, and the copper bite of blood. She’d be fine to never smell one again. As the hound jumped toward her, she knew that was a hopeless prayer.

  Black matted fur filled her vision. From the corner of her eye she saw Vine ready for a rescue. “No,” she hollered at him. “I can do it.” But just as the words escaped her mouth, the pinching pain of razor teeth clamped onto her arm. The canine fangs sank deep into her flesh, and she screamed, though she tried to channel the pain into a defensive escape. She punched the creature’s neck, but it held firm to her arm, tearing the flesh further. She positioned her other hand to strike its windpipe, and was about to attack when something flashed from above. An instant later the hound was catapulted from her in such a rush that for a moment she thought her arm might rip from the socket and go with the sailing creature. The beast landed in a heap. And Mace landed on top of it.

  As soon as the hound stopped kicking, he spun to face her, fire in his eyes. “What’s going on here?”

  “Lesson’s over,” Dash mumbled. He stiffened when Mace began moving toward him, fists rising to chest level. Dash held up a hand to stop Mace’s advance. “We had her back.”

  Mace shoved Dash’s hand aside with enough power that the boy’s body jolted from his arm to his head. “Really? When were you going to step in? When the hound ripped her arm off?”

  “I didn’t need anyone to step in!” Nikki took a few steps toward Mace but sank to the ground, suddenly dizzy.

  Mace’s eyes widened, prompting Nikki to glance down. Her sleeve was wet, red, and shiny. Blood ran between her fingers where she’d clamped her hand over the wound.

  He ran to her and dropped to his knees to examine the injury.