The Blood Horse

Sleek. Strong. The col­or of mahogany.

Rachel Lutz lift­ed the stat­ue of the horse up off the flea mar­ket vendor’s table. The statue’s weight sur­prised her. Much lighter than she had expect­ed. Was it hol­low? she thought.

Most­ly, she was attract­ed to the look on the animal’s face—the flared nos­trils, the deter­mi­na­tion in its eyes. She turned it over, search­ing for a manufacturer’s mark, a sym­bol, a date…

But there was noth­ing. In fact, the crafts­man­ship appeared seamless.

Rachel checked the wood­en box it had been sit­ting on. It was the type of box that might con­tain cig­ars; only this one was lined with red satin, an exact impres­sion of the horse pressed into it. Under­neath where the stat­ue lay was a card. The card read: Blood Horse.

“Blood Horse?” Rachel said aloud.

The ven­dor laughed. He put the mag­a­zine he was read­ing aside and stood. “It means thor­ough­bred. A horse with cham­pi­on blood­lines. For you, thir­ty dollars.”

Rachel stared at the horse’s face again. There was some­thing about its look of brazen con­fi­dence that she appre­ci­at­ed. “I’ll give you twen­ty.” she said. She opened her purse and pulled out a fresh bill.

The ven­dor eyed the cash. “It’s yours,” he said.

“What’s yours?”

Rob Mur­phy, Rachel’s plus one, laid his hands on her shoul­ders and squeezed. She turned and showed him the statue.

“Anoth­er knick­knack?” he said.

“It’s a blood horse.”

“A blood what?”

“It will look nice on our bookshelf.”

The ven­dor placed the horse back into its wood­en box and hand­ed it to Rachel. “You have a nice day.”

Rob held his tongue as he and Rachel con­tin­ued along the row of tables.

“What?” Rachel said.

“Noth­ing. I just thought we were try­ing to… you know… buy neces­si­ties. Because I saw a real­ly cool-look­ing Ger­man beer stein I wouldn’t mind adding to my collection.”

“We are. It’s just… I don’t know… it was say­ing take me home.”

“Yeah, that beer stein was say­ing, ‘Take me home,’ too. But did I lis­ten? No. That’s because I’m still look­ing for… neces­si­ties.”

“Sor­ry, babe. Next week will be your turn to be impulsive.”

Rob shook his head. “I hope you and your bloody horse will be very hap­py together.”

She rapped him on the shoul­der. “It’s a blood horse. A thor­ough­bred. Like me.” 

#

 Back at the apart­ment, Rachel posi­tioned the horse on top of the book­case just so. Because of its height—no more than eight inch­es from hoof to mane—she used the gift box to ele­vate it above the oth­er keep­sakes on the shelf. The gift box, with its rough sur­face and tar­nished brass hinges, pro­vid­ed just the right bal­ance of col­or and design.

“Everything’s a dec­o­rat­ing project for you, isn’t it?”

Rob sat on the couch, his feet on the cof­fee table, a lap­top rest­ing on his thighs. The remains of a ham grinder lunch sat nearby.

“Not every­thing,” Rachel said. “Some things are beyond my help.” She cast a glance in his direction.

“Oh. You mean me, right?” Rob put his com­put­er aside and joined her at the book­shelf. He stood behind her and she leaned against him. “You real­ly have a thing for that stud, don’t you?”

Rachel con­tin­ued to stare at the stat­ue. It stared back. Proud. Majestic.

Rob nuz­zled against her neck. “Want to horse around?”

Rachel felt a fris­son of plea­sure race through her. She turned to face Rob and they kissed. The kiss grew more pas­sion­ate. Rachel felt her body flush. She sud­den­ly want­ed him to be inside of her.

She pushed him to the floor and quick­ly removed her shorts and panties, kick­ing them aside. Rob was a phys­i­cal ther­a­pist and kept him­self in good shape. For Rachel, his physique was one of his most attrac­tive qual­i­ties. That and his need to please.

Rob lay back on the car­pet. He had bare­ly unzipped his fly when she yanked down his jeans and mount­ed him, grind­ing her hips against his grow­ing erec­tion. She had nev­er felt so wet.

“God, Rach, what’s got­ten into you?”

“Just lay back and enjoy the ride,” she said.

Rob knew not to say anoth­er word. He reached up to remove her blouse, but she leaned back, sup­port­ing her­self by hold­ing his ankles. She arched her back and let her hips ride him high­er and deep­er. She closed her eyes and con­cen­trat­ed on the orgasm that was quick­ly gal­lop­ing toward the fin­ish line. She opened her eyes and stared at the blood horse.

It stared back. Fierce. Angry. All-consuming.

After­wards, Rob told her he had nev­er before heard her cry out so loud­ly dur­ing sex. He didn’t tell her about the scratch­es on his ankles from her fin­ger­nails dig­ging in like spurs.

#

That night, Rachel woke with her heart pound­ing. She had heard a rum­bling through the apart­ment like a mild earth­quake, fol­lowed by what sound­ed like a horse’s bray. Rob was asleep beside her. Out­side, the night was still.

It was just a dream.

She got up any­way. She need­ed to go to the bath­room. As she sat on the toi­let, the rever­ber­a­tions of the dream still echo­ing in her head, she felt a sud­den cramp in her abdomen. She looked down between her legs and saw the toi­let water had turned red with blood.

#

The fol­low­ing day should have been like any oth­er Mon­day. The begin­ning of anoth­er work­week at L & L Inte­ri­or Design. But some­thing had changed. Rachel just didn’t feel like herself.

Josh greet­ed her with a wave and a smile. “Morn­ing, Boss.”

Rachel waved her lat­te and pro­vid­ed what could have been inter­pret­ed as a smile in response but was actu­al­ly a gri­mace. She head­ed straight to her office. The men­stru­al cramps had stayed with her through the night and had left her grumpy and sleep-deprived.

Josh appeared in her door­way. “You’ve got a ten o’clock with the almighty Peter Black­burn. This is it… I can feel it.” He clapped his hands together.

Rachel was sud­den­ly aware her busi­ness part­ner was miss­ing. “Carolyn’s not here?”

Josh made a sad face. “Her daughter’s sick. She left a mes­sage on the answer­ing service.”

L & L Inte­ri­or Design spe­cial­ized in high-end busi­ness and home ren­o­va­tion and décor. The com­pa­ny employed three peo­ple: Rachel; Rachel’s good friend and busi­ness part­ner, Car­olyn Lewis; and Josh, a flam­boy­ant art stu­dent, who was hired as a secretary. 

Rachel called Car­olyn on the phone imme­di­ate­ly, her thoughts in a pan­ic. How was she going to meet with Black­burn alone? Did Car­olyn for­get? Was she pur­pose­ly try­ing to sab­o­tage the busi­ness? As she wait­ed for Car­olyn to pick up, Rachel heard the pound­ing of hooves in her ears. It echoed and throbbed, grow­ing loud­er with each pass­ing sec­ond. She squeezed her eyes shut, mas­sag­ing her temple.

When she opened her eyes, the sound went away. She sud­den­ly saw every­thing much clear­er. She hung up the phone.

She didn’t need Car­olyn. She didn’t need any­one. She spent the next hour prep­ping for the meet­ing with Black­burn. When she exit­ed L & L on her way to the meet­ing, she was ready.

#

“Con­grat­u­la­tions, babe,” Rob said for the umpteenth time. He got up from the couch and hoist­ed his third glass of cham­pagne to the ceil­ing. The apart­ment smelled of scent­ed can­dles and grilled steak.

Black­burn had loved Rachel’s ideas for the new down­town revi­tal­iza­tion project. It was now all a mat­ter of dot­ting the i’s and cross­ing the t’s.

“And to think I owe it all to this guy,” said Rachel. She stood at the book­case and ran her fin­gers along the blood horse’s back. She sucked in her breath as a scin­til­la of elec­tric­i­ty raced up her arm and raised the hairs on her neck. She stared at the stat­ue. In the can­dle­light, she could have sworn she saw the horse’s flank rip­ple in reac­tion to her touch.

Rob laughed. “For a minute there, I thought you meant that statue.”

She con­tin­ued to stare at it. “I do. I mean… Maybe it’s just coin­ci­dence but ever since I got this thing,” she turned to face Rob, “I feel like I can rule the world.”

Rob laughed again.

She stared at him. “What’s so funny?”

“Noth­ing. You’re just so sexy when you speak of world domination.”

“Don’t patron­ize me.”

“I’m not.” Rob was still smil­ing. “I think it’s cute.”

“Cute? You think want­i­ng to suc­ceed in life is cute? You think putting your all into your life’s ambi­tion, strug­gling to keep it alive and mov­ing while the peo­ple around you do their unbri­dled best to tram­ple it under­foot, is cute?”

Rob stopped smil­ing. His face now wore a look of concern.

“It’s bad enough every day the news shows us how quick­ly our dreams can die, how evil claims the good, and there are no sec­ond chances. There’s only one way to win at this race and that is to get to the fin­ish line first, no regrets, no apolo­gies, just go, go, go, and don’t ever look back…”

Rachel’s words hung in the air like a mobile with razor sharp edges.

Rob reached out and took her hand. “All I meant is I’m with you, babe, every step of the way.” He held his drink up. “Top of the world, here we come.”

Rachel eyed him for a moment, gaug­ing his sin­cer­i­ty. Dur­ing her rant she felt her nos­trils widen­ing, stretch­ing to intake air as she rushed to make her point. She didn’t know what was wrong with her, or even if it was wrong. All she knew was how she felt: strong, unstop­pable, a force to be reck­oned with.

She raised her drink toward Rob as a peace offer­ing and they touched glass­es. She downed the remain­der of the cham­pagne. The blood horse not only filled her with uncom­pro­mis­ing con­fi­dence, it made her horny as hell. “Come here,” she said.

Rob wast­ed no time putting his glass aside. He wrapped his arms around her. They kissed. His hands set­tled on her rump and he squeezed her cheeks. She respond­ed in kind, grip­ping his firm buttocks.

“C’mon,” she said, steer­ing him toward the bedroom.

They pulled at each other’s clothes as they backed into the bed­room door, gig­gling as it hit the wall with a hol­low thud. They nev­er broke con­tact as they fell onto the bed, the door left ajar. Can­dle­light seeped in from the liv­ing room, just enough for them to see. Both bed­spread and top sheet were quick­ly stripped as clothes were shed and con­tact became more skin on skin. Rob sucked on her breasts; Rachel caressed his mus­cu­lar arms and chest and stroked his man­hood. When he was ready to enter her, she gen­tly pushed him away, nudg­ing him fur­ther south until his head was poised between her legs. Rob buried his nose in her pubis, his tongue cir­cling her clit. He probed her out­er lips. Rachel gasped with delight.

In the liv­ing room, the can­dles flick­ered. The blood horse stood with­in view. When Rachel glanced in the horse’s direc­tion, the horse appeared to turn its head toward her. She gasped again.

“Sor­ry, babe, I can’t help myself. You’re so damn wet…”

“Don’t stop.” She pushed his face back onto her and lay back, watch­ing the horse in the dis­tance watch­ing her.

After­wards, Rachel tip­toed into the bath­room only to be hor­ri­fied at her reflec­tion in the mir­ror. Her mouth and neck were coat­ed with dried blood. When she returned to the bed­room and turned on the light it looked like a crime scene. Rob lay doz­ing, half-cov­ered by the sheet, his face smudged with red. The wet spot on the mat­tress was a dark maroon stain. There were smears and fin­ger­prints on the pil­low­cas­es. Hor­ri­fied, at first, but there was some­thing about the blood that was strange­ly erotic.

When Rob at last opened his eyes and saw what she saw, he scram­bled off the bed. The two of them laughed. Then they show­ered. Then they changed the sheets. And the pillowcases.

#

“You did what?”

Car­olyn Lewis stood in Rachel’s office, and con­front­ed her about the solo meet­ing with Black­burn. Rachel sat calm­ly, con­fi­dent­ly behind her desk. “Yes, I met with him. He gave us the job. We meet with their lawyers on Wednes­day to ink the deal. I think that’s some­thing to cheer about. Or am I miss­ing something?”

Car­olyn frowned. “We’re part­ners, Rachel, we’re sup­posed to dis­cuss these mat­ters jointly.”

“You weren’t here. I had to make an exec­u­tive decision.”

“You could have called me.”

“Would you have dropped every­thing and rushed in to meet with Blackburn?”

“My daugh­ter had a tem­per­a­ture of a hun­dred and three! What was I sup­posed to do? I spent four hours in the emer­gency room. Of course, I couldn’t leave. But my cell was on. We could have talked about it.”

“Talked about it? I want this busi­ness to grow. If you’re con­tent to just sit back and play mom­my while we miss a once-in-a-life­time oppor­tu­ni­ty, then I’m not so sure we should be part­ners anymore.”

Carolyn’s mouth opened and noth­ing came out. She shook her head. “Rachel, we’ve known each oth­er a long time. Where is this com­ing from?”

Rachel’s voice remained steady; her eyes nev­er wavered. “Car­olyn, I under­stand that you want to keep this busi­ness small and man­age­able. You have a fam­i­ly now. It’s hard. Your pri­or­i­ties have changed. I under­stand, real­ly. But if this com­pa­ny is going to get to the next lev­el, we all have to make sac­ri­fices. We’re going to that meet­ing on Wednes­day and we’re sign­ing those contracts.”

Car­olyn didn’t know what to say. She was too upset, and con­fused, and didn’t know why. She turned on her heels and left the office.

Rachel sat back, pleased with her­self, ener­gized by her new­found author­i­ty. She rat­tled her fin­gers on her desk­top, her nails pro­duc­ing a minia­ture gal­lop­ing sound. She repeat­ed the action over and over. It calmed her while she day­dreamed, think­ing of new and excit­ing ways to expand the busi­ness… with or with­out Carolyn.

#

That evening, when Rachel arrived home, Rob greet­ed her at the door with a kiss.

“Why so late?”

“I had to stop at the mar­ket.” Rachel placed a small bag of gro­ceries on the kitchen island and head­ed for the bed­room to change. She paused in the liv­ing room and ran her fin­gers along the smooth sur­face of the blood horse’s back.

“Steaks, again?” said Rob from the kitchen.

“I’m starv­ing,” she replied. “Make me a pas­ta salad?”

Rob put the water on and warmed up the grill on the island. When Rachel came back into the kitchen, she wore box­er briefs and one of Rob’s dress shirts, which was but­toned only in the mid­dle, reveal­ing the soft down of her navel. Rob took one look at her and said, “I was going to sug­gest we go out tonight, but even the wait­ress­es at Hoot­ers would have a hard time com­pet­ing with that look.”

She leaned into him and plant­ed a kiss on his mouth. “Sor­ry about last night.”

“Oh, that. From now on we make love with the lights on, okay?”

She smiled. “I’ll make the steaks.”

She tore open the paper that was wrapped around the two slabs of meat. Blood trick­led down the sides of the cuts. Again, she felt that flush. She stared at the meat… at its veined tex­ture… the blood. Her mouth flood­ed with sali­va. She reached for a knife. Any thoughts as to what she was about to do next were drowned out by the sound of her own pulse throb­bing in her ears. She cut a slice from one of the steaks the size of a stick of gum and slipped it into her mouth. Cold and wet, she let the meat sit on the back of her tongue before swal­low­ing it. The fla­vor of blood raced around her tongue. She went back for more.

“Rach? What are you doing?”

Rob’s voice yanked her to a sud­den halt. She stared at him, anoth­er piece of meat poised at the entrance of her mouth. The look on his face was both sick­ened and concerned.

Rachel dropped the piece, which land­ed with a wet slap on the gran­ite counter, and ran from the kitchen. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She spent the next half hour in the bath­room vomiting.

That night she went to bed with­out eat­ing. Rob joined her lat­er and cud­dled next to her before falling off to sleep. But in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing, she awoke. Once again there were echoes rum­bling through the apart­ment. She slipped out of bed.

In the liv­ing room, the horse stat­ue glowed with a red­dish aura. She approached it and stood beside it. She stroked it with her fin­ger­tips, her breath­ing grow­ing heavy. Her heart thud­ded in her chest in a slow, steady gal­lop. She felt her nip­ples hard­en. She lift­ed the stat­ue and let it nuz­zle against her cheek. A low-lev­el cur­rent elec­tri­fied her skin. She unbut­toned Rob’s shirt and touched the stat­ue to her breasts. Her heart pound­ed; her loins ached. She slid the stat­ue fur­ther down until the horse’s muz­zle nudged against her swollen clit. Wave after wave of delight rip­pled through her body. Her legs grew weak and she pulled the horse away for fear of col­laps­ing. She returned the stat­ue to the book­case and entered the kitchen.

She opened the refrig­er­a­tor, unwrapped the uneat­en steak, and sank her teeth into it. She had nev­er tast­ed any­thing so invig­o­rat­ing. She had nev­er felt such hunger.

#

The fol­low­ing day, Car­olyn invit­ed Rachel out to lunch as a peace offer­ing. As they wait­ed for their meal, Car­olyn was the first to speak.

“I’m sor­ry I over­re­act­ed the oth­er day. You’re right—my mind is prob­a­bly not where it should be. And I agree with your assess­ment. We should be grow­ing the com­pa­ny. I feel one of us should be in charge of that. After yes­ter­day, I real­ized who that should be. By the way, I like your hair like that.”

Rachel had decid­ed that morn­ing to wear her hair cinched into a pony­tail. She stared at Car­olyn. She felt even more empow­ered by Carolyn’s acqui­es­cence. And a bit dis­gust­ed. Rachel had expect­ed more of a fight from her good friend. But it looked like Carolyn’s fam­i­ly life had indeed soft­ened her resolve, made her weak.

“And how is the fam­i­ly?” Rachel asked.

Carolyn’s eyes bright­ened. She talked for the next half hour about her daughter’s first words, her first cray­on draw­ing, her first big bad boo-boo, and, oh, how won­der­ful her hus­band was for being there every step of the way. All the while Rachel smiled and nod­ded, laugh­ing inside as she pic­tured her­self stomp­ing on Carolyn’s face with her three-inch heels.

#

The meet­ing with Peter Blackburn’s lawyers went off with­out a hitch. Every­one shook hands on a long and pros­per­ous part­ner­ship. After the meet­ing, Rachel met with a lawyer of her own. She drew up con­tracts that would both dis­solve L & L’s part­ner­ship and pro­vide Car­olyn with a gen­er­ous buyout

#

Rachel cried out and shut­tered. Moments lat­er, she lay next to Rob glis­ten­ing with sweat.

Rob laughed. “You’re try­ing to kill me, right?”

Rachel tip­toed her fin­gers across his stom­ach and down to his groin.

“C’mon, Rach, I love you, but three times is my lim­it. Enough already.”

She reared up off the pil­low. “I’ll tell you when it’s enough.” She gripped his flac­cid penis and began mas­sag­ing it.

Rob pushed her hand away. “C’mon, quit it.” When she per­sist­ed, he pulled away from her and sat on the edge of the bed. He let out an exhaust­ed sigh.

“Did I do some­thing wrong?”

Rob turned his head but not enough to look at her. “No, it’s just that you’re stay­ing lat­er and lat­er at the office now. And when you final­ly do come home it’s just ‘Hi, hon­ey, let’s fuck.’”

“And your com­plaint is?”

“Remem­ber when we used to meet on the Sixth Street Bridge? We’d walk over to Sammie’s and have hot pas­tra­mi sand­wich­es and cream sodas togeth­er. Remem­ber promis­ing our­selves that if we moved in togeth­er noth­ing would change? We don’t even go to the flea mar­ket any­more. And then there’s this.”

“What do you mean this?”

Rob shrugged. “I don’t know… it’s like when we’re mak­ing love it’s not me you’re mak­ing love to. There’s some­thing between us. A dis­tance that wasn’t there before.”

Rachel crawled over to him and wrapped her arms around his chest. “I’m sor­ry, babe. You don’t know how stressed I’ve been. The Down­town Revi­tal­iza­tion Project is a once in a life­time oppor­tu­ni­ty. I don’t want to screw it up.”

“Have you hired any­one to replace Carolyn?”

“No.”

“Then I can’t help you.”

“Yes, you can.” She rest­ed her chin on his shoul­der and whis­pered into his ear, “I know what you like.” She gen­tly swayed her body from side to side, trac­ing lines with her hard­ened nip­ples on his back. Rob cleared his throat.

“I know what you’re try­ing to do,” he said.

“Can you fault a girl for trying?”

At last, he turned and pinned her to the bed. “Okay, but this time I’m on top.”

He entered her with ease. Rachel gazed over his shoul­der into the dark­ened liv­ing room. The blood horse glowed like all the times before. It turned its head to watch, its eyes like two hot coals. Along with the pis­ton-like thrusts of Rob’s man­hood, she felt hoof beats gal­lop­ing fast and furi­ous inside of her.

#

That night, Rob awoke to the mewl­ing sounds of new­born kit­tens. He felt for Rachel in the dark and real­ized she was miss­ing from the bed. He checked the clock. It was after three. He got up.

A glow came from the liv­ing room. He stood in the bed­room door­way dis­be­liev­ing what he saw.

Rachel lay on the car­pet near the book­case, her body undu­lat­ing, mouth open, issu­ing soft groans of plea­sure. The horse stat­ue was bal­anced on her stom­ach. As Rachel arched her back, the horse appeared to move, first rac­ing up to her chest, then back down until it dis­ap­peared between her legs. It appeared to move on its own.

Rob gasped. That’s when the stat­ue fell to the car­pet and Rachel rolled over onto all fours, her eyes filled with fire. Her lips peeled back. She brayed.

Rob recoiled, hit­ting his head hard on the door­jamb, knock­ing him­self out. The next thing he remem­bered was Rachel wak­ing him from what she said was a bad dream. He want­ed bad­ly to believe that was all it was. But the knot on the back of his head told otherwise.

#

Now that Car­olyn was gone, L & L Inte­ri­or Design was much qui­eter, dark­er. Josh had tried his best to bright­en things up with col­or­ful light­ing and busier art­work, but Rachel kept the over­all theme subdued—except for her office, which was well lit and closed off like an island.

“I’m leav­ing now,” said Josh.

Rachel bare­ly heard him. She was too involved with her sketch­es. Pan­els of faux-Vic­to­ri­an store­fronts were laid out before her. She looked up. Josh stood in the door­way. “Got a minute?” she said. “I want you to take a look at these.”

Josh smiled and hur­ried to her side. He tossed his knit scarf over his shoul­der as he leaned over. “Oh, these look fab­u­lous. I’m get­ting chills just think­ing about our city look­ing like this.” He paused. “Except…”

“Except what?”

Josh cocked his head to one side. “The col­or.” He glanced at her col­lec­tion of pen­cils. All were unused except for one. “Do you usu­al­ly sketch in red?”

Rachel stared at the pan­els. She hadn’t real­ized it but Josh was right. Her sketch­es looked like she had sketched the entire after­noon bathed in the red­dish glow of a dark­room light.

“It’s okay.” Josh put a hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged his hand off and glared at him. “Of course it’s okay. You were leaving?”

Josh exit­ed with­out say­ing anoth­er word.

Rachel worked for anoth­er two hours, the slow steady gal­lop inside of her final­ly can­ter­ing to a stop. She checked the time.

She stood and stretched.

Out­side, the day had slipped into night: street lamps, light traf­fic, the bus­tle of rush hour long since passed. She pulled on her coat, grabbed her bag and locked up.

The park­ing garage was just around the cor­ner; in between was a dark alley that used to give her pause. Not anymore. 

The cool Octo­ber air invig­o­rat­ed her. Her heels hit the side­walk like the clap of a Clydes­dale. As she passed the alley, she heard a voice call out to her.

“Miss? Can you spare a dollar?”

She stopped. The streets were vir­tu­al­ly empty.

The voice called again. “Help a poor hun­gry soul?” A home­less man sat with his back against the alley wall, his card­board belong­ings heaped around him.

Rachel walked over to the man—into the stench of his being—and, with­out a word, she raised her heels. The beg­gar did his best to fend off her attack, but he was weak and not in a good posi­tion to defend him­self. He slid to the sick-smelling pave­ment and curled into a ball, shout­ing “Lady, please, don’t kill me!” Rachel stared down at his blood­ied head. She raised her foot, her nos­trils flar­ing, ready to put this pathet­ic excuse for humanity—this epit­o­me of wast­ed existence—out of its mis­ery, when she sensed some­thing wrong. A sub­tle dis­rup­tion in the con­nec­tion between her and her totem.

She hur­ried off, leav­ing the bum to pon­der why God had cho­sen not to take him at that moment. She rushed home to find the blood horse miss­ing. She brayed angri­ly. Rob had tak­en it. She could smell his scent. She left the apart­ment fol­low­ing his trail.

#

Rachel pulled up to the Sixth Street Bridge and got out. Rob was there, hold­ing the horse stat­ue in his hands, cradling it as if dis­be­liev­ing it could ever cause any­one harm. When he saw Rachel, he held the stat­ue over the bridge’s railing.

“Stop!” Rachel cried. “Rob… please.”

“Rachel, you should have nev­er bought this thing.”

“You don’t under­stand. It called to me. It needs me. I need it.”

“It called to you?” Rob laughed. “If it called to you, it was call­ing for all the wrong rea­sons. Look at you. Look what you’ve become. Do you real­ly think we’re bet­ter off today than when this thing entered our lives?”

“Give it to me! It’s mine! It called to me, not you! You were just along for the ride.” Rachel inched closer.

“Well, the ride stops here.” Rob let the stat­ue fall.

Rachel ran to the railing…

…and tum­bled over it. She felt her world turn upside down, and then some­thing latched onto her wrist. Her body slammed against the side of the bridge. Rob had a hold of her.

“Let go of me!” she screamed.

“No—you let go. It doesn’t care for you. Not like I do.”

Rachel stared at the riv­er below. The cold dark water rushed past, the blood horse some­where under­neath. She looked up at Rob and saw only hor­ror on his face. He was pathet­ic, she thought. Just as pathet­ic as the bum in the alley she near­ly stomped to death. She didn’t know why she was even with him. The blood horse under­stood her; it knew her desires more inti­mate­ly than any lover could pos­si­bly fathom.

“Help me, Rob, save me,” she said. It took every­thing in her pow­er to keep from smil­ing. When Rob reached down with his oth­er arm, she opened her mouth and sank her teeth into the back of his hand. She laughed as he let go. Rob watched her hit the water and dis­ap­pear beneath its dark current. 

As he wait­ed for Rachel to sur­face, there came a roil­ing in the riv­er below. A large shad­ow appeared beneath the water’s sur­face and swam away down­stream. At first, Rob thought it was Rachel being swept along the swift cur­rent, but it was too big a shape to be human. It resem­bled more the out­line of a gal­lop­ing horse. 

A res­cue crew found Rachel’s life­less body a half-mile down riv­er. Although Rob blamed him­self for what had hap­pened, eye­wit­ness accounts proved oth­er­wise and no charges were filed. The drown­ing was ruled accidental.

#

One week lat­er, Hen­ry Willis, a man down on his luck for the bet­ter part of the last decade, walked along the river­bank. He was head­ed to the pawn­shop with his sack full of odds and ends, when he spot­ted some­thing near the water’s edge. At first, he thought it was a child’s plas­tic toy, its col­or bleached by the water. But when he leaned clos­er, he noticed it was a stat­ue. A stat­ue of a horse.

He lift­ed it up out of the muck. He washed it in the cold water, gave it a quick shake, and put it in his sack. He con­tin­ued on. When he reached the pawn­shop and began plac­ing his items on the counter, he was sur­prised to see that the horse stat­ue was now a dif­fer­ent col­or. It was red, a deep bur­gundy, the col­or of wine. When the deal­er reached for it, for some unknown rea­son Hen­ry couldn’t bear to part with it. In fact, the horse filled Hen­ry with a strange sense of urgency, like he had some­thing to do. A mis­sion to accom­plish. A des­tiny to ful­fill. It was the first time in his life he felt he could do any­thing, be any­one. Maybe God did have a plan for him after all… after his brush with death in an alley a week ear­li­er at the hands—or, more accu­rate­ly, heels—of a crazy woman.

“Not for sale,” he told the deal­er, tuck­ing the stat­ue under his arm.

For Hen­ry, after a life­time of false starts, it felt like the race had final­ly begun.