before you were ever born, to make men different. Better. Stronger. At least that was the hope.”
What is he saying, Rubin? Diego asked, shock in his mind.
Rubin considered all the times Luther had managed feats of strength and endurance others far younger could never have done. All the times he survived when he shouldn’t have. Why had he served his country in multiple wars? How had he managed to move his still on his own at his age? To dig out the tunnel to the caves?
How come it had been so easy for Luther to accept Diego’s blood and so difficult for Rubin to put the pieces of his body back together again? Rubin had spent a long time trying to put together muscle and bone that should have matched up easily but instead, had been weirdly different. Working on Luther had really taken a toll on him—the kind of cost to him that happened when he made an exchange not only with a gravely ill patient but with an enhanced GhostWalker.
He should have recognized that Luther was different. Everything about him was slightly different, from his blood cells to his muscle mass and the density of his bones. Looking back over the years, from the time he was a child to the times he had returned, there had always been whispers about the goings-on in the woods surrounding Gunthrie’s property.
There were always stories. Rumors. Old tales of sightings of ghosts, and some even said Gunthrie’s woods were home to the “Hornet Man,” only because several teens trying to sneak up on Luther’s still had reported seeing red eyes and flying creatures landing in the meadow from time to time. The giant bodies were shaped like hornets, and they swore old man Gunthrie went out to the meadow and petted one of them, ducking his head to avoid getting it bitten off. There were weird lights that flashed. Strobes? Helicopters coming in at night? So many years earlier, late at night, when boys were scared and possibly drinking, they might make that mistake. Others were dared to go, and the stories grew. Luther would feed those rumors.
“You saying that, Luther,” Rubin said carefully, “I think that’s exactly what the soldiers who took Jonquille are. They’re just too fast. They aren’t flying from tree to tree, they leap, but it’s so fast, they’re a blur when they move. Even getting a shot at them, they’re already gone. Their clothes blend into their surroundings. They have weapons that can tear up the ground and literally explode trees apart. They have instruments that can move a storm overhead and then feed that storm so they can blast the area with lightning.”
“Why do they want your woman?” Luther persisted. “Tell me about her again.”
Rubin frowned. “I don’t know why they want her. She doesn’t know. She was working at a research facility, studying lightning. That’s how we met. I can only surmise it has something to do with that. At first, we thought they were after me. I occasionally give talks on various theories I have at conferences. We were together, all three of us, and had no idea they had more than a five-man team hunting us. That’s how good they are in the woods.”
“Diego was with you?” Luther was all business now, no longer even trying to put up any kind of a front. He was deadly serious.
“Yes. We had eyes in the sky. You know we’ve hunted with birds. They didn’t spot the others either. Not until we realized Diego was targeted. Then it was no longer our hunt, we had to scramble to stay alive. At the last moment we comprehended the real target was Jonquille, but we couldn’t get to her and she couldn’t get back to us. They put a dart into her and dropped her like a stone. There were so many of them, although Diego killed a couple before they used that blasting weapon on him.”
“How did he get away?” Luther asked. “If they have this great weapon and they’re that fast, how did Diego get away?”
“There was a buildup of energy, almost like before a lightning strike.” Rubin was honest.
“I always look around me for escape routes,” Diego added. “When I knew I might be in trouble, I dove for the nearest crevice and hoped it was deep enough to save me. I got lucky.”
“They control the clouds and try to use lightning,” Luther mused. “She worked researching weather, lightning in particular. Could she have