“Then there’s nothing else? About the kids or the compound?”
“Nada. For nearly twenty years he’s been off the radar. Forgotten except for textbooks and old articles.” There was the explosive pop of a soft drink can being opened and then a long slurp. “But with what was in that room we saw there, he couldn’t have been up to anything good. And that’s above and beyond kidnapping kids.”
“Was there anything in the news?” Saul had made the 911 call the night we’d broken in, but I hadn’t heard anything on the radio over the following days regarding captive children held in a walled compound.
“Not a thing. Not a damn word. And if that doesn’t scream government connections out the ass, I don’t know what does. I even sent one of my people out there to take a casual look. It’s still locked up, but the guards are gone. I’m betting everyone else is too. They’ve pulled up stakes.”
And taken the children with them. I had my brother back, but there had to be more than thirty families out there whose sons and daughters and brothers and sisters were still missing—worse than missing. While I wished we’d been able to take more of them with us, I realized it might not have been so simple. The thought of that tiny porcelain Wendy on the loose in public was bone-chilling. As she skipped down the sidewalk, her fair hair floating behind her like spider silk, her huge eyes would be wax doll empty as people collapsed in showers of blood all about her. Wendy was a victim, I knew that, but was she a salvageable one?
I didn’t think she was. I really didn’t. But some would be like Michael or Peter. Some could be saved. But without the help of the authorities, I couldn’t guess how a large-scale operation like that could be pulled off—not now at any rate, but I wouldn’t forget those kids, and I didn’t think Saul would either. “Keep your ears open, Saul. Just in case. Okay?”
He promised he would, then hung up. Damn, I’d forgotten to ask if he knew how Jericho had lost his hand. The information probably wouldn’t be useful, but you never knew.
“What did you find out?”
Damp hair neatly combed, Michael was sitting cross-legged on the other bed opposite me. Skin pink, eyes bright, he was apparently healthy as a horse. Yeah, a horse whose racing was done in healing, not on the track. Scrubbing both hands across my face, I filled him in on what Saul had told me. That Jericho was involved in genetics wasn’t news, but the chimera aspect was. I mentioned the stronger, faster, and smarter, keeping the accelerated healing to myself. I wanted to discuss that separately.
Michael was a chimera; that couldn’t be avoided. The question was whether he had been born one or whether genetic manipulation had taken place after he was kidnapped. Saul had mentioned a chimera could be found by way of a blood test. If Michael was a natural chimera like Jericho, that information could’ve been obtained surreptitiously from the hospital where Lukas was born or from his pediatrician. I had a hard time buying that natural chimeras had always been among us and no one had noticed their so-called superhuman qualities. Maybe Jericho had been the first of his kind, a new breed of chimera. And it wasn’t that far a jump to believe Jericho could have used his knowledge of genetics to somehow force other normal chimeras into the same mutation. That had led to the creation of the accelerated healing and fatal talent for cellular destruction, although so far Jericho hadn’t shown any signs of the latter. That must have been an “improvement” that he stumbled upon during the process. He’d made something amazing and frightening, half wonderful and half dire. He was a cruel god, Jericho.
“Smarter,” Michael mused. “Yes, I can see that.”
“Uh huh, I’m sure you do.” As for stronger, he had seemed stronger than a kid his age should be when he dragged me to safety across the parking lot, but not freakishly so. I stood and felt my joints howl from the drug-heavy sleep of the night. “I’m going to grab a shower, Einstein. Try not to formulate any theories while I’m gone.”
“Just as well. I’m not sure that any theory could explain you.”
Smart-ass kid.
The hot water eventually loosened up my muscles enough that I was able to gingerly wash my hair. But first I simply stood there, head hanging while I leaned with my hands against the mustard yellow tile. The water poured over me and whirled down the slow-working drain. It was hypnotic . . . liquid glass spinning in lazy rotations until it was swallowed from sight. It wasn’t as soothing as it should’ve been. Jericho was still out there. I’d hoped the son of a bitch had died there on the asphalt, in midmaniacal laugh. But now . . . I was less optimistic. Even with Michael’s chip gone, I didn’t like the idea of Jericho’s still trolling the waters looking for us. It might take him longer to find us, but it was by no means impossible. It could be done.