Guinea Pig (32 page)

“That's a lie!”

Partly it was fear that made Will scream the accusation at Persial. Fear that the Fallen might be right. But partly it was because he knew that he was wrong. He had to be wrong. Family could never be a burden. They were your rock. The thing that helped you most. Even with everything he'd already endured, they were his rock. His safe harbour. They were his family and theirs was the home he could go to and shelter in when things became too much for him.

“Then you choose to let them suffer seeing you every day, understanding nothing of what you have become except that you're a freak. And you choose to be nothing more than that freak. A miserable human rather than our brother. You choose to deny yourself your proper future. Is that truly love? Or selfishness and cowardice masquerading as it?”

Persial's words bit hard, and Will truly didn't want to hear them. But he didn't have a choice. He also knew that he couldn't let go of his family. No matter how bad things were, in the end they were still family. You could never walk away from those you love.

Finally Will knew what to do and he started to walk to them, wondering what would happen when he reached them. What they would say. What they would think. But barely had he taken the first step then he was stopped. Persial stopped him by the simple expedient of stepping in front of him.

“You're making a mistake.”

“No you are.”

Will suddenly realised that this was important to the Fallen angel even if he didn't understand why. He guessed he was probably making the wrong choice as far as Persial was concerned. But then the fallen angel was talking about greatness and freedom. He didn't seem to understand that family and loved ones were the greatest part of that.

“I choose my family.”

And that Will thought, had to be his answer, always. But it wasn't what Persial wanted to hear, and he all but growled at him as his face twisted up into something very ugly.

“Then if you can't do what's right simply because it's right, try doing it to save their lives. Humans can't know about you. It would tell them about us, and we don't want that.”

“What?” Save their lives? Suddenly Will was worried. More than worried when he suddenly realised that his family were standing there with several fallen, all of whom had their hands on their shoulders. They were restraining them.

“We won't allow this. Ever. Your people are primitive but capable of building some terrible weapons. Weapons that could even threaten us as they destroy your world. More importantly they have the ear of the Father. And if they knew of you they would call to him. He might act. He might get upset for what a few of our brothers and sisters have done. He might limit us. Let them go.”

“But -.”

“Let them go and we will let them live.” Finally Persial came out with his threat and Will knew him for the fallen angel he was. But it didn't matter when he was threatening his family.

“Leave them alone.”

“I've already said we will – if you let them go home and never contact them again.” The fallen angel sounded more than certain. He sounded like a man determined to carry out his threat. But that didn't matter when just behind him Will could see the other fallen suddenly drawing huge shining swords from out of nowhere. He knew why.

“No!” Will screamed in terror as he saw them raise their swords high in the air.

“Yes!” Persial was suddenly holding him, his hands digging like steel claws into his shoulders. “Say goodbye to them and they live.”

“But -.”

“The father.”

Persial gave the order and Will screamed. He saw the sword rising in the Fallen's arms and he knew what would come next. He knew it would come down and his father would be dead, and he couldn't allow it. He threw Persial aside somehow and ran for the Fallen, moving faster than he'd ever moved before, covering the distance between them in the blink of an eye. And then he smashed into the sword wielding Fallen even while reaching out to block the sword. It was a bruising impact and Will felt the pain across his entire body. But it didn't matter. Not when the fallen angel went flying, sword and all and he knew his father was safe. But only for a moment. The others came rushing for him. Will took them out an instant later, hitting them as hard and as fast as he knew how, desperate to keep them away from his loved ones. And somehow he seemed to do it. The Fallen went flying every time he hit them, and none of them managed to bring their terrible weapons down. It surprised him but he suddenly realised that he knew how to fight. And that his new form was as powerful as theirs.

They were safe. But only for a few more seconds. More of the Fallen were rushing for them, and he knew they were planning on slaughtering his family. He knew too that they would succeed. They were fast and powerful, they were armed, and worst of all they were ready for him. His first attack had succeeded because of desperation and the suddenness with which he'd struck. He wouldn't be so lucky again. That wasn't fair. But regardless he couldn't allow the Fallen to win.

He took them on, meeting them half way and punching and smashing at them as powerfully as he could. And somehow he sent many of them flying away from him and his family. His fists and feet and even his wings were smashing into them like pile drivers. And for a moment he even had hope he would succeed. That he would send them packing. But there were so many of them, and they were too powerful. He knocked them away and they fell down. But they kept getting back up. And when they did they charged him again, driving him back. Trying to go around him to slaughter his family, and he found himself losing ground as he desperately faced them. Soon he was all the way back where he had been, protecting them with everything he had. They struck and struck at his family and all he could do was try to stand between them, shielding them with his body as he kept batting them away.

It wasn't enough. The shining swords might have missed his family but they didn't miss him. Instead they cut deeply into him, tearing into his flesh, burning him, tearing him apart in ways he couldn't fully understand. He screamed in pain and rage and somewhere behind him Persial cried out in triumph thinking he was winning. But still there was nothing to be done except continue doing what he was doing. So Will spread his wings wide hoping they would act as some sort of shield for his family, and kept fighting. Taking blows and tears and stab wounds but knocking back as many as he could. Screaming his desperation and fury. And trying not to hear the terrified screams of his family.

Feathers were flying and blood was spraying everywhere. It was running down his arms and legs, pooling around his feet, but it didn't matter. He had to protect his family. And though the pain was terrible it was nothing to him. The physical didn't matter. Only the terror of what they would do to his loved ones mattered, the terror he heard in their screams, and he kept fighting. He had to save them.

Then one of the Fallen managed to strike him deep in the stomach with a blade, and he felt weakness. Terrible weakness. The sword had sliced all the way through and cut something vital. But it didn't matter. He had no strength on one side of his body. That didn't matter either. Nothing mattered except his family. So Will used what he had, smashing the Fallen with his good fist on his good side and sending him flying. But even as he flew away another took his place and another sword found him, slicing half a wing off and hurting him as terribly as he had ever known.

“Yes! Fight!”

Persial screamed as though he was winning some great victory and Will knew that the battle was almost over already. There was little he could do. But he had to do it. When his family were behind him, defenceless and screaming in terror, he had no choice. So he stood his ground, spread what remained of his wings out wide and defended those he loved with all he had left.

Another fallen angel went flying, injured from his blow, and then a sword struck him in the thigh, severing something vital. Will crashed down on one leg, wondering if this was the end, but knowing it couldn't be. His family weren't safe. He had to save them. So somehow he smashed another of the Fallen in the knee with every ounce of his strength and heard something crunch under his blow.

The Fallen screamed in pain and fell forward, and Will grabbed him by the shoulder. Then he swung him, his body so light in his hands, straight into the faces of the other attackers. It knocked them aside, and he knew another moment of hope. Until another sword tore a gaping wound through his chest.

He couldn't breathe. Something had gone wrong with his lungs, and blackness was taking him. A terrible blackness in which he could see nothing and hear only one thing – the terrified screams of his family. That could not be.

Will pitched forward, unable to help himself, and instantly felt another blade run all the way through his back. And he knew there was nothing he could do. He was dying. There was only one thing left to try.

“Please!” He cried out to the heavens, to anyone who could hear him, begging them to do the one thing that mattered. To save his family.

And someone heard him. Someone chuckled warmly at him.

He didn't know who. He didn't know what. But he knew one thing as he finally let the light leave him. It was all going to be all right.

Chapter Thirty Nine.

“What the Hell!”

One moment he'd been dying, things had been going black, and the next Will was standing in a well lit building, and he didn't know when or how it had happened. He didn't understand it at all.

He was alive – and he knew he shouldn't be. He could still remember the pain of those swords cutting into him. Instinctively Will's hands went to his wounds, hunting for the damage and strangely finding none. No wounds, no pain, no evidence that he had ever been hurt at all. How could that be? And then there was the next question – where was he? This wasn't the cabin in the woods. It was a building, a marble floored foyer. In fact he suddenly realised, it was a foyer he knew.

William felt a sense of unreality wash over him as he looked around to see that he was standing in the clinic waiting room. The Fairview Institute and Clinic. The very same clinic that only a couple of months before had fallen into a gigantic hole in the ground. Yet suddenly it was there and he was standing in it as if nothing had happened. Staring at the same reception desk and probably the same receptionist. Reading the same signs. 

Reading the same signs?! Will suddenly discovered he was once more able to read. Could nothing have happened? Could it all have been some horrible dream?

It hadn't been a dream. He knew that the instant he raised his hands to his face and saw the gold. And as he felt his wings flexing a little. Wings that were strangely intact again after being severed. All of which left him more than a little confused. No one was staring at him and yet he had huge feathered wings and gold skin? He was standing in a clinic that had been destroyed months ago and yet no one looked dead. But then as if to add more confusion he could understand the words coming out of his mouth again. They were in English. He could speak as well as read.

“Oh crap!”

“That will be enough of the language thank you very much young man!”

Will turned around to see Elia standing right beside him with a huge grin plastered all over her face.

“Elia?”

“Well I suppose I should be grateful you remember my name. You humans are so fragile. I was worried that your mind might have turned to cabbage!” She was joking, sort of. But he still had no clue what was happening. Least of all when she suddenly gathered him up in a hug and tried to squeeze the life out of him.

“I don't understand. Am I dead? My family?”

“And that's the first intelligent thing you've said in months!” She giggled a little bit. “Your family's perfectly fine and you're alive and well. But you do look a little peaky.”

“Come on, let’s take a walk in the garden. Before people start calling for the doctors because there's a crazy man in the room. You've still got an hour before your procedure.”

And to make sure he understood what she meant she grabbed his arm and started walking him out of the waiting room. No one paid them the slightest bit of attention. An angel and a winged man. Somehow they simply didn't seem to notice. Not even when he had to duck a little to get his wings under the top of the self-opening doorway.

“Procedure?” The word jumped out at him, not least because it was one he had heard before. What seemed like a lifetime ago. “As in the one where Doctor Millen stuck that stuff in me?”

“That's the one.”

She got him through the huge sliding doors and out into the open air while he tried to take in what she was saying. And one thing did, sort of. This was the moment when he could say no, refuse the shot and walk away. And everything would be right with the world. Except for the fact that he had wings of course. Which didn't make a lot of sense.

“So this is the choice? The chance to stop everything from going wrong? A do over? If I don't have the injection things go back to how they should have been?”

But how could that happen when he was already standing there fully transformed? Even if he had rediscovered how to read again. He was so confused.

“William Raphael Simons, you will go through with the procedure and there will be not another word spoken on the matter. Do you hear me?” Suddenly the school teacher was back, and he knew he'd said something wrong. But he didn't know what. It had all seemed almost logical to him. Go back in time and undo the mistakes. They did it in films, why not in real life?

“But -.”

“You've already made the choice, and despite your limitations done quite well. My disobedient brothers and sisters are fuming. They really thought they had you by the way. That you would give in to your fear and anger. And besides, how could you undo what's already been done? Or had you forgotten these.” She slapped him on a wing.

“You will go, you will have the shot, spend some time in the hospital and then return to your normal life as if nothing has changed. And nothing will change. Doctor Millen will believe the experiment was a failure and will then fall into a mild depression. But he will recover from it in time a better man and once more a doctor. And everyone else will be as they were. But our disobedient brothers and sisters will still be annoyed with you so I'd stay clear of them for a bit.”

“Oh!”

Will didn't understand but he guessed that was all part of her game. And she was playing with him – just a little. Elia liked playing games. So he followed meekly as she led him around the side of the building and into the patients' garden. He said nothing either as she stepped over the keep off the grass sign which he could also read, walked to where the citrus trees were overloaded with produce and plucked him a lemon. He decided not to mention the sign. There were things that mattered and things that didn't. Just then his ability to read didn't matter so much.

“So we go back into the past, change nothing and yet everything works out better?”

“We haven't gone back into the past!” Elia snorted at him in amusement. “Why would you think that? This is just a bit of a reset. Things have been repaired. Everyone and everything has been put back as it was. Or most of it. That which has to be as it was is as it was, and those that don't have to be as they were aren't.”

“Oh!”

Will realised he was repeating himself like an idiot, but he didn't quite know what to say. So Elia finally showed him a little mercy.

“Look the city has been repaired, the dead returned to life, memories have been erased and as far as nearly everyone knows, nothing happened. Life for your people will carry on exactly as it was and no one will be any the wiser. Or not much anyway. With a couple of exceptions of course.”

Will raised his eyebrows in question.

“You of course, and the mad fake doctor Adams who's even now being taken away again by our brothers to live in isolation for the rest of his life. He did dare to harm one of our family after all. We don't like that and sometimes even we Walkers get involved in human matters.” And then she grabbed him and hugged him again before he could think to ask any more questions.

It was a while before he could talk. “People don't seem to see my wings?”

“Why would they? Did you want them to see them? Besides they don't see mine either. Or had you forgotten?”

Will didn't answer her. He knew there was no answer he could give that was going to be right. Besides, what she said made sense he supposed. In a way. But he'd have to think things through to be sure.

Will bit into his lemon and swallowed the succulent flesh as he tried to think of what to ask next. There were simply so many questions. And then he realised that he had been talking. He understood not just what he meant, but the words coming out of his mouth. He could read and he could talk.

“I can read?”

“I should hope so! It would be a shame to have wasted all that time and effort getting an education and not be able to read!”

He could see the amusement in Elia's eyes, and knew he would get nothing much more from her for a bit. She was far too busy enjoying herself to want to explain. And he guessed that would extend to other things like why no one seemed to notice that he wasn't really human any more. Or for that matter how he could seem to be wearing a T shirt while he had wings. Did it have extra sleeves in the back?

And then there was the other matter that had upset him so greatly as the transformation had continued. “I … uh … you know that I lost my … uh … I wasn't a man.” It was funny how awkward he felt saying it. The more so when she began laughing again.

“All is again as it should be. You think the father wants you to be alone for the rest of your life? And where would the other little winged humans come from?”

Elia laughed some more and he was in no doubt that she was enjoying his discomfort – just a little. So he tried to return to the less personal questions. And the questions that were probably more important.

“You said I've made my choice?”

Which didn't make sense since he didn't remember choosing anything at all.

“And you did well.”

“But I don't remember choosing anything. Not to go with the Fallen or the Choir. I would have gone with the Fallen as they had my family. But I didn't have the chance. They were killing them. I had to save them.”

“And that was what you did so brilliantly!” She laughed a little more, and he suspected she was enjoying his confusion. He took another bite of the lemon as he tried to make sense of her words, and eventually she relented.

“Humans – why so literal? The choice wasn't what to do. It wasn't like picking something from a menu. Your choice was who you are. And who you are is someone who does as he was created to do.”

“But I chose to save my family.”

“Exactly! You chose to be the man for whom nothing was more important than love. You were true to yourself. True to the Father's vision for you. There was never a flicker of doubt. The Fallen tried to steer you aside. Tempting you with dreams of glory, ambition. You didn't see those dreams. They tried to make you doubt in your family's love. But your faith in them held firm. They tried frightening you.  Tried to make you angry, to slip into an uncontrollable rage in which you would murder. They failed again.”

“All the way along it's been the same. You love and you protect those you love. You protect those you like, those you barely know and even those who have done you wrong. You are as you were created to be. And when you had the chance to see another path you didn't take it.”

“What other path?”

“You could have chosen violence. To strike back in fury at those who hurt you. Who threatened your loved ones. You could have folded and given in to despair. You could have run away. Instead you simply defended them as best you could.”

“But I couldn't do that!”

“Precisely! There was never a thought of anger or hatred. Only the need to protect your loved ones.”

She announced it as though it was proof of something. But it wasn't proof of anything as far as he could see. Was it? Or was it the old tale of the scorpion and the frog being played out in some bizarre way? Elia must have seen the confusion on his face.

“Do you know how I first knew that you had to be saved?”

Will shook his head.

“It was when we were running out of this place as it was collapsing. We were flung together and you tried to save me. You were scared, running and panicking. You didn't know me. But without a thought you tried to save me. Others would have let fear control them. They wouldn't have grabbed me. They might not even have thought of me. But you saw me in your fear, and you acted. Your instincts betrayed you from the beginning.”

Will wanted to say something. He felt uncomfortable being spoken about as though he was something more than he was. But he knew Elia would hear none of it. So he asked something else. “And the Fallen?”

“Fuming. Persial's upset of course. But he can use the grief. He's always been too proud of his words and not proud enough of the truth. He thought he was winning as you fought. He thought you had chosen the path of anger and violence. That you had given in to the sweetness of rage. But he was wrong. There was not rage, only desperation. You protected your loved ones and nothing more.”