Page 21 of The Black Rider
here were plenty of evil things created by man: War, mass genocide, racism, Teletubbies. Reading the emails between Doctor X and my father made me really see how evil and stupid man could be. My father was the Antichrist. Satan was dear old dad. I could try to excuse his behavior by saying it was in his blood, but it was in mine too, and I wasn’t going around trying to unleash Hell on earth.
Doctor X had no excuse. I didn’t know his proper name, but if he were on my softball team, we would have nicknamed him Dumbass Supreme and booted him off the team. He had to be smart if he could create the Rage Mutation, but sometimes intelligent people didn’t have a single lick of common sense.
He could have been creating a cure for cancer or AIDS. Instead, he got with my father and created a supplement to turn people into zombies. And then when the majority of the world was the walking dead, and war broke out, he didn’t want an out even then.He stayed.
He had no problems with me being put in a medically induced coma so he could do the same thing all over again with the people who didn’t turn. How stupid could you get? Did he really think he would be safe after that? I’m sure my father didn’t tell him he was bringing Armageddon, but I wasdyingto know what story was given that Doctor X thought he would be safe from his own creation.
I’d gathered that much from the emails. I wasn’t the only person who ended up in that lab. Doctor X took blood samples from those who worked there, and a few survivors were kidnapped and tested. Doctor X and my father knew what Leif knew. Everyone who didn’t turn had either avoided the supplement, or they had the same blood type as me.
They still had enough of the original formula they used to turn everyone, but it was useless against people with my blood type. Isaiah didn’t want to use it again, anyway. It would have been almost impossible to do that many water drops with no military.
No, Doctor X was trying to tweak the formula so that no one had an immunity to it, which is why he was a dumbass. Not evenhewould be immune to it. If he thought my father had any loyalty to him for creating bioweapons and would keep him somewhere he wouldn’t turn too when he was done with him, he had to be the dumbest mad scientist who created zombies with Nephilim and demon blood ever to live.
“Leif? Can you change someone’s blood type?”
“No, or they wouldn’t be so desperate for certain blood types when things go wrong at hospitals.”
“That’s what he was trying to do. He wanted another Rage Mutation, but he wanted to target everyone, even with my blood type.”
“It’s still not possible, Ariel. I can break down the Rage Mutation to you. I’ve studied it. He isolated the regenerative properties of your blood. They flood the pituitary gland of the Rage Heads and keep them animated. That’s why you have to get them in the head. The reason they are strong and fast moving comes from your blood. All the nasty stuff, the blood-red eyes, and eating human flesh comes from Patient Q. He got lucky through trial and error, finding the right components to isolate and put into his formula. He may have gotten lucky, but it doesn’t change the fact that he can’t do the impossible with your blood.”
“Um, hello, zombies.”
“A freak mutation caused by isolating components of angel and demon blood. Doctor X most likely got lucky. Your DNA and Patient Q’s DNA wouldn’t have looked like anything he’d ever seen before.”
“The apocalypse is because a mad scientist got lucky with some unearthly ingredients?”
“Oh, he had some help. Every Antichrist we send back to Hell gives a full report to Satan on where things went wrong. When a new Antichrist is born, they always know they are different. They do cruel things to other children and animals. From what we’ve gathered, Satan can pay them a visit in their teens and fill their minds they have a great destiny. They are given instructions and details where their predecessor went wrong.
“They have planned this for a long time. Satan hasn’t created a new Antichrist in a long time. They used to pop up all the time. Isaiah probably summoned daddy a few times to get help for his pet scientist, but what they were trying to do is not an exact science. It’s never been done before. They probably weren’t counting on the blood type immunity.
“No one, angel or demon, can change a blood type. I’m sure you’ll find later in the notes they abandoned that and just tried to make a different formula. I doubt they got anywhere. Satan would have gotten fed up. He would have wanted you dead and for Isaiah to just wait it out for him to return. This is the closest he’s ever gotten to returning to Earth. He’s probably pissed he can only come when Isaiah summons him, and he won’t because he wants to do it his way. Satan can’t control his little crotch dropping because he knows he’s gotten further than his previous brothers, and he’s gotten arrogant.”
“So, how are we going to end this?”
“We can’t tonight. I still need to study your blood more. Take a break, Ariel. You’ve been reading those emails all night. We need to eat dinner, and you need to sleep. Remember, you were in a coma for a long time, and you lived rough on the road. You can’t save the world unless you take care of yourself first.”
I shut the laptop and pouted. I knew he was right, but after reading those emails and knowing something worse could be coming, I wanted to end this yesterday.
Chapter 18
L
eif brought me to the front doors instead of back to his apartments. I had no idea what he was doing until I realized Aeron wasn’t back yet. I’d been so engrossed with that laptop, I hadn’t even thought about him being outside these walls. I was a pretty shitty online girlfriend, though if there was anyone you could probably let outside these walls without freaking your shit out, it was the Horseman of Death.
I saw Aeron walking towards the building with a bunch of soldiers, and I ran to hug him. I stopped dead in my tracks and decided against that hug when I got close enough to smell him. It looked like he got up close and personal with the walking dead. All I could see was the whites of his eyes and his teeth when he grinned at me. The rest of him was covered in black blood. The fucker looked pretty damned proud of himself.
“You reek,” I pointed out. “You have Rage Head in your hair.”
“We found a nest a few towns over. They must have made their way in a few days ago and were headed straight for San Quintin. We wiped every single one of those red-eyed mother fuckers out.”
Leif came up to my side and wrinkled his nose.
“What did you do, roll around in them?”
“It was Rage Head Whack a Mole, and they outnumbered us. We all got a little on us.”
“That’s not just a little blood spatter, Aeron. You aren’t setting foot in my building until you take a shower,” Leif fussed.
