Guardian

by Heather Burch

  “I’m fine, Mace,” she said, but guilt careened into her system when she saw the fear in his expression. It mirrored the look at the train, when he’d thought she’d be crushed. She knew how that felt, and it was awful to purposely put anyone through it. “I’m sorry.”

  His blue eyes scanned every inch of the bite marks and flashed only once to meet her gaze. A volume of words rested inside those blue orbs. A world of hurt hovered on the surface. “Why?” He tore off his shirt and ripped a length of cotton from it to staunch the wound.

  Before she could answer, Mace looked first at Vine, who dropped his head in shame, then at Dash, who merely shrugged.

  “Mace, I have to learn to fight.” Nikki tried to sound gentle, but urgency stained her words. “Hounds and demons are after me. I can’t expect Halflings to babysit me my entire life.”

  “You’re barely well. And why would you have Dash bring you out here?”

  She attempted a smile. “Because you wouldn’t have done it.”

  “I’ll help you learn to fight when the time is right. But there’s no rush. This was a really stupid thing to do, Nikki. You purposely drew a hound into this realm. I thought you were smarter than that.”

  Nikki jerked her arm from him. “In case you didn’t notice, there’s a war going on around us. And I’ve been drafted. So I’m sorry you don’t like the idea of your girl fighting, but you better get used to it. Because I’m not backing down.”

  The muscle in his jaw flexed. “Neither am I.” His chest puffed a little, and she thought he might snap his wings open as a show of alpha-male prowess.

  Those wings were intimidating, but so was her determination. “Then we have a serious problem.” Her voice cracked. Stupid voice, abandoning me in my moment of need.

  “I guess we do,” Mace said through clenched teeth. His words were as forceful as Niagara Falls.

  Dash began to inch a little farther from the two of them. “I am so not getting into this fight.”

  Mace rose from the ground and fisted his hands into Dash’s shirt. “Don’t ever bring her out again.”

  Dash clamped his hands on Mace’s wrist, found the meaty flesh of Mace’s thumb, and twisted. Mace’s grip loosened and gave way. “I don’t care if you are dating her. Don’t ever grab me like that again.”

  Nikki stood and stepped between the two towering halfangels. “Mace, it wasn’t his fault. I told him I was coming whether he tagged along or not. Vine too. Don’t blame them.”

  “Nikki, you’re not ready.”

  A slow burn slid down her body, pooling at her feet and fueling her anger. “And what makes you think you’re the one who should tell me what I am and am not ready for?”

  Mace was obviously incapable of thinking clearly where it involved her, but it was on the verge of becoming a very destructive tendency. He wanted to protect her, which was admirable. Even appreciated. It would be a great quality, in fact, if they lived in a perfect world. But this place was far from perfect, and there were things Mace wouldn’t be able to protect her from. Unspeakable things. Things that were on their way. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did, just like she’d known on the boat something evil was stirring. That premonition had culminated with a train wreck. The thing that scared her now was a sign her biggest battle loomed just beyond the horizon. And as long as she remained with the Halflings, the horizon was never more than a blink away.

  Raven had the computer thing down to a science. Get bits of information about Omega, bounce it around in the ether for a few hours, then send it—untraceable—to Zero. But trying to learn anything from the few scientists roaming the lab was lamer than watching grass grow. They clicked away on their keyboards and stared into their microscopes and discussed everything in some infuriating code, using words like specimen and centrifuge. The code wasn’t intentional—it’s not like they thought someone might be listening—it was simply their jargon. Like Zero, who had his own techie lyrics to a song only other computer geeks could sing. Raven was pretty sharp in the science department, but these clowns took scientific communication to a whole new level. He half expected them to start beeping and making robotic noises. At least that would be entertaining.

  Over the last few days, he had noticed something interesting, at least—there were very few people actually in the lab. If Omega had called in more genetic scientists, where were they?

  He put the thought aside and sent out another installment of Omega information that he’d liberated. It was easy enough to move around the laboratory because the scientists had no reason to be cautious right now, or assume someone was hiding in the vents and exploring the rooms. That said, there was one room Raven wished he’d never discovered; the farthest exam room in the back of the long, narrow building made his blood run cold. It held a cage. A human-sized cage. Empty, but no less freaky.

  Raven erased his fingerprints from the keyboard and returned to the barn in time to meet Cordelle at the beginning of his shift and keep up the homeless teen act. Ah. Life was easy. Boring, but easy.

  He was actually beginning to like Cordelle. A sucker, but a likeable one. Raven lay on a stack of hay, hands behind his head, ankles crossed. Staring up at the barn’s slat roof, he thought about Nikki. What to do? What to do?

  Debra wandered into the barn and blew a puff of hot breath in his face. Yeah, they’d bonded.

  She whinnied in assent.

  “What do you know about love, Debra?” Raven stood and rubbed an open palm over her velvet nose. The horse leaned in closer, shifting her weight from one hoof to the other. She neighed and watched him with those big, round eyes rimmed with feathery lashes.

  Cordelle came around the corner. “If you love someone, you should tell them.”

  Raven stiffened.

  Fat fingers filled Raven’s vision. What was it with this guy and waving those clubbed Mickey Mouse hands around? Put some white gloves on him and he’d be ready to give guided theme park tours. “It’s not that simple, Cordelle.”

  “Love never is, but if it were simple it wouldn’t be worth much.”

  Raven cocked a brow. Philosophies of Love by Adam Cordelle, horse guard extraordinaire. How far can one Halfling sink?

  Okay, one thing was obvious—he had some thinking to do. He’d need peace and quiet to do it, which was not likely to happen here in the barn with Cordelle in one of his “let’s talk about our feelings” moods. So not happening.

  Raven sighed. “I found the knife in the top drawer of the tack room.”

  “The knife from the other night?”

  Raven nodded.

  A wide smile appeared on Cordelle’s face. “You didn’t steal it?”

  “No.”

  Cordelle grabbed Raven’s hand and pumped it up and down. “That’s good. I didn’t want to think all this time and energy I’ve put into you was for nothing.”

  “Well, there’s still plenty of time for me to disappoint you.” Raven took the knife from his pocket, gave it one last long look, then held it out for Cordelle to take.

  “You say you found it in the drawer?”

  “Yeah. Buried under some twine and horse liniment. It was all dusty, but it cleaned up pretty well.”

  “I’ll tell you what. You keep it for a while. But when you’re ready to leave here, for good, promise me you’ll put it back where you found it.”

  Raven’s hand closed on the knife. “I promise.” Something passed between the two of them that Raven couldn’t quite understand. He felt it though. Trust, maybe. Friendship? A bond?

  He needed to get out of there. He needed to think. There was only one place where Raven could think, and it was ten hours away by airplane or two hours away by midplane. And days away by ship. “I’m gonna go for a walk. I probably won’t be back before your shift is over, so I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  “Be careful, Raven.”

  Geez. Do I need to wear a sweater so I don’t catch a cold? Raven tossed the hair out of his eyes. “See ya.”

  As soo
n as he stepped outside, he knew something was happening. Dark and elusive, it waited just beyond reach, something with the power to change the course of this journey, of … Well, life as he knew it. He’d tried not to think of Nikki. But she was tied to this new evil hovering in the distance like smoke from a forest fire. Her purpose was drawing closer at the same time he’d decided that one of the best ways to protect her was to stay away. Anxious to get to the castle ruins, the one place he could actually reflect, Raven sped his steps. He cleared the corner of the barn, then, with one last look to make sure he was alone, spread his wings and leapt.

  “You seem to know him pretty well, Nikki. Would Raven do this?”

  Nikki stared at Zero, then at the computer screen, then at Zero.

  Vegan paced in the corner, her long, flowing hair blanketing her shoulders. “It’s a trap. Set by someone at Omega.”

  “Why would Omega be feeding us information about their business?”

  Vegan stopped. “It’s only bits of information. And you can’t trace where it’s coming from.”

  Zero mashed some keys and pointed to the screen, his silver eyes framed with a frown. “We know next to nothing about Omega’s EMP program. We think they could be working on a weapon of mass destruction, but we don’t know for sure. Why would they give us any information about that? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You’ve got information about what they’re doing with electromagnetic pulses?” Nikki asked.

  “It’s somehow tied to these.” Zero’s long, slender fingers clicked away at the keyboard. “Look. The partial EMP file was sent with this.”

  Nikki and Vegan stepped closer and gazed over his shoulder.

  “Those are military bases,” Vegan mumbled.

  “Yeah. There’s no way Omega would compromise sensitive information like that. Not even if they thought they could somehow trap us—and I don’t really see how they could.”

  “They could be planning anything. Please be careful, Zero.” Vegan slipped a hand onto his shoulder.

  Nikki couldn’t help the eye roll. Not that either of them saw it. They were busy making googly eyes at each other. Why Zero and Vegan didn’t just admit they were a couple, Nikki didn’t know.

  She cleared her throat. “Why wouldn’t Raven just let you know it’s him?”

  “Raven—if he’s alive—wants us to think he’s dead,” Zero said. “He’s never coming back.”

  Nikki’s knees suddenly felt too weak to hold her. While she’d thought the same thing, those words made it too final. The world started to go black.

  “I think she’s going to faint,” Vegan said, but the words were far away, dreamlike.

  Zero’s tone sharpened. “Are you kidding me? Females are pathetic.”

  Immediately, there was a chair behind her knees, and Vegan’s hands were guiding her to sit. Nikki tried to pull in deep breaths, but her lungs weren’t able to accept the fresh air. “If. You said if.” She hadn’t allowed herself to accept that Raven may have actually died in the train car. She simply believed him alive.

  “If he’s snooping around Omega, he’s as good as dead anyway,” Zero grumbled, and Vegan punched him in the shoulder—the same shoulder she’d caressed moments before.

  Nikki shook her head back and forth. “Either way, I killed him, Zero.” Her eyes found his. Saw the flash of understanding that faded as quickly as it appeared.

  “You didn’t kill him, Nikki. Stop with the drama, okay? It’s giving me a headache.” Zero was great with sympathy.

  But this threw a whole new set of problems into her life. She figured Raven had gone because he’d seen her with Mace at the train wreck. Raven knew they were … inseparable.

  She’d thought Raven would eventually return with stories about a multitude of hearts he’d broken in a monthlong binge. But she’d never thought he’d fly right into the lion’s mouth. Alone. If he was at Omega, it seemed he wanted to die.

  Vegan broke the silence. “Where is Raven, if he’s the one sending information?”

  “I don’t know. Not at the castle ruins, that’s for sure. He’d have to be somewhere near one of Omega’s labs. We know of places Omega’s linked to in Arkansas, Nashville—although I don’t know what’s at that one—Chicago, and a really small town in Texas that I haven’t had time to research yet. It only makes sense that he’d be at the lab in Arkansas. I almost guarantee he’s there and sending whatever he can find.”

  “But why would he try to hide from us?” Vegan asked.

  Zero’s gaze fell on Nikki, and it burrowed under her skin. “Maybe he’s tired of games.”

  Chapter 15

  Viennesse was a stone giant. Nikki had always thought castles would be cold, due to all that rock from floor to ceiling, but for the most part it was surprisingly cozy. Decorated with Old World charm, with massive rooms allowing for numerous people. Not that the place was full right now with only nine Halflings, Will, and her sharing the space with a handful of other Halfling males who seemed to live at Viennesse fulltime. Most of them she’d already met.

  On the boat she’d had no privacy. Here, she had plenty. Maybe too much, because she felt strangely alone. The only light she encountered each day was Mace. Nikki went to bed early but, like most nights lately, couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned for an hour then rose, dressed, and slipped from her room to the garage. It was after ten, but Gearhead was still working. She’d met him only a day before, when she’d decided to explore as a way to fill the hours. “Hey, Gearhead.”

  He stretched up from beneath an SUV’s hood and she heard his back pop. Light brown hair dusted with grease splatters framed a surprisingly boyish face. His eyes, as pale blue and vibrant as a summer sky, lit up when he saw her. “Nikki.”

  She frowned. “Was that your back?”

  A half smile sent an endearing slash across his cheek. Under all that grease, Gearhead was a strikingly good-looking guy. Even by Halfling standards—on a scale of one to Abercrombie model, he’d rank pretty high. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  And how old might you be? she wanted to ask. Halflings didn’t really talk about age much. It was sort of irrelevant. From what she could gather, the human side aged at a very slow pace for them, and the angel side didn’t age at all. Basically, on a bad day, one might feel his or her years to some small degree, but still look young forever. Gearhead must have been having one of those bad days. According to Mace, trips through the midplane renewed their youth. Maybe Gearhead was overdue. What was it Mace had told her? Something about youth being renewed like the eagles. Whatever that meant.

  She paused to lean against the Land Rover he’d been swallowed by.

  “Your car?”

  “They all belong to everyone. We have our favorites, though,” he said, brushing at a grease spot on his chin.

  “I’m into bikes more than cars,” Nikki said.

  He inclined his head and motioned for her to follow him. “Come on. I’ll show you the bikes.”

  As they entered a side room he flipped a switch, illuminating the tarp-covered motorcycles. Gearhead vigorously rubbed his hands on a shop towel then grabbed the first tarp and tugged it off. It was a gleaming Harley Davidson. “Wow,” Nikki said, inspecting the custom paint. “Is it brand new?”

  “Nah, it’s about fifteen years old,” he said as he pulled other tarps to reveal their offerings.

  Huh. Apparently, Halflings weren’t the only things that didn’t age here.

  When Nikki noticed a black bird on the side of one of the Harleys, she crossed the garage to examine it. She knelt to inspect the paint.

  “That’s Raven’s.”

  She spied Gearhead over the gas tank. “I thought you said they belonged to everyone.”

  “Yeah.” He scrubbed the back of his head. “I did.”

  “Can I take it for a ride?”

  “No. It’s Raven’s.”

  Okaaaay. “Where are the castle ruins?”

  Gearhead’s gaze faltered for a momen
t, but it was enough that she noticed.

  She threw a leg over the bike. He flinched.

  “I’m just wondering because I’d like to know where they are.” That was the biggest nonexplanation on the planet.

  “Raven’s ruins?”

  She hoped her own eyes didn’t falter as she nodded, grasped the handlebars, and tilted the bike up. “It’s comfortable,” she said, gesturing to the seat.

  “Yeah. Get off it.”

  “If Raven was here, he’d let me take it.”

  Gearhead turned from her. “He’s not here. When he gets back, you can ask him.”

  Nikki tilted the bike back onto its kickstand. “You do believe he’s coming back, right?” Hope that entered her voice and drifted through the cavernous garage. Glancing around, the remaining tarp-covered mounds suddenly looked like freshly dug graves. Each one shaped slightly different, each one representing a life that was no more.

  Gearhead brought her the cover for Raven’s bike. “He’s coming back.” A tiny flicker of a smile soothed her.

  Reverently, she blanketed the bike while Gearhead watched in silence.

  “So, which one can I take?”

  “How about the Kawasaki Ninja?” Gearhead led her to a wall where a row of keys sat at the ready.

  “Yippee. That’ll be a treat,” she deadpanned.

  He scrutinized the key rings until he found one that read KN–05. “Here ya go.”

  She didn’t take the keys he offered, and instead studied the display. “Your secret code? K for Kawasaki, N for Ninja, and the year it was made?”

  “Not much of a secret code. Why are you going to the ruins?”

  She kept her eyes on the various key rings. “I want to help Raven, and I thought if I go there, maybe it’ll give me some inspiration about how to help him.”

  “That’s stupid.”

  She nodded. “I know. So is your secret code.”

  Gearhead busied himself pulling the tarp from the Ninja while Nikki stood by, and told her how to get to the ruins. It was about a forty-five minute ride to the bottom of the hill. At the hilltop were the remnants of a long-dilapidated and abandoned castle. “You’ll have to walk up the mountain to the ruins. It’s too rough for a bike. The road will crumble beneath the tires. Trust me, don’t drive up.”