Guardian's Hope (19 page)

“If you read too many of these, you’re going
to be disappointed.”

“Grace isn’t disappointed and she’s read
hundreds of them.” That might have been an exaggeration, but she
wasn’t taking it back. She was still a little miffed that her
innocence was the subject of everyone’s fun. She was getting tired
of it. It must have shown in her face because Nico was immediately
contrite.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I only meant to tease,
not to anger.”

“I know you did,” she sighed, “but you of all
people should know how hard this is for me.” They’d spent a few
more days doing what Col described as making out and each time
Nico’s hands strayed a little farther and each time she felt a
little more breathless and excited, but she knew she wasn’t ready
for the rest. “I haven’t had a lifetime of books and magazines and
television to help prepare me for this and knowing that everyone in
this House is watching and waiting doesn’t make it any easier. And
what do they expect. I’m almost twenty-eight years old and I just
had my first kiss.”

Nico took her hands in his and lifted her to
her feet. “It’s all right, Hope. No one is expecting more than you
can give. Have I complained? Have I made you feel that I’m unhappy
or unsatisfied?”

“No, you haven’t,” she admitted, but she’d
felt the mighty bulge in his trousers pressing up against her thigh
or her rump and if the books were to be believed, the condition
could become quite painful for a man. She wondered if, like the
heroes in the books, he took care of the problem alone in the
shower. She colored at the thought. Nico was holding out his
hand.

“Come,” he said, “It’s a beautiful night.
Let’s get our coats and go for a walk. Isn’t that what courting
couples do? We’ll hold hands and I’ll take you to the park and tell
you of all the plans Manon and Grace have made for it. Maybe you’ll
see what I can’t.”

There were other things to talk about, but
those could wait. It was still early evening and they had plenty of
time. Right now, Hope needed a little courting and reassurance.

In many ways, she was like the girls of his
youth; innocent by today’s standards, yet very aware that their
gifts had value. To win those gifts, there were the rituals of
courtship where young men vied for the attentions of a young lady.
There were stages to courtship; getting to know one another, family
approval, spending time alone out on the porch or under a tree in
the yard and at long last, walking out, where a stroll through the
village or neighborhood declared the young man’s intentions to one
and all. The walks would get longer, kisses would be stolen and
sometimes a bit more.

He and Hope had already skipped around a bit,
the kissing for instance, and they’d certainly satisfied the
meeting under the watchful eyes of family part. Now it was time for
a little stepping out. He wasn’t trying to recreate the ritual only
the mood.

He held out his arm for her and she wrapped
her hand around it almost skipping in her delight.

“Does this count as a date? It’s okay if it’s
not. I’ve never been anywhere with a man so I wouldn’t know a date
if I fell over it.” She laughed at herself. “I’m babbling, I know.
I don’t care.” She held him still while she kissed his cheek and
then continued walking. “That was an apology.”

“And what is this apology for?”

“You’re paying for someone else’s crimes.”
She patted his arm affectionately and explained, “I grew up in a
house where children were seen and not heard. I became my father’s
housekeeper where my opinions were considered worthless and
therefore never asked for. In between teaching thirty two children
and keeping my father’s house, I spent what little free time I had
visiting the old, the sick, and the lonely. I was talked to, talked
at, and talked around. Other than classroom instruction to my group
of five to ten year olds, I never talked at all. Yes, ma’am, no
sir, I’m sorry or I beg your pardon. I could have spent my whole
life never saying anything except those four phrases.”

“And? This would be a bad thing
because…?”

She could hear the laughter in his voice and
knew he was teasing her again. Laughing herself, she kissed his
cheek once more.

“That was me taking my apology back. I’ve
decided you’re paying for your own crimes. This is all your fault.
You brought me here, where people are talking all the time, mostly
at the same time. My mouth has gone wild. I’m suffering from Dov
and Col Syndrome. If it’s in my head, it’s out my mouth.”

Nico stepped in front of her so quickly she
stumbled into him. His arms went around her back, one hand cradling
her head as his mouth came down on hers. Without thinking, her arms
went around his neck and she kissed him back. When she was
thoroughly into the kiss, he broke it off and stepped back.

“That was me curing Dov and Col Syndrome.” He
took her arm and hurried her across Park Street.

“Very funny, Mister.”

They came to a huge rusting arch with iron
vines and leaves twisting up its columns to the words sculpted in
decorative script declaring this to be Hayden Park. Long spears of
iron formed twelve foot gates which were latched and locked with a
large metal box where they joined. The lock box needed an old
fashioned skeleton key to open it; a super-sized one by the look of
the whole and Hope half expected Nico to draw one from his pocket.
Instead, he placed his hand flat against the box. The lock clicked
and the gate creaked open an inch. He pushed the gate wide enough
for them to enter and closed it behind them. Hope heard the lock
fall into place.

Nico chuckled at her surprise. “I can open
simple locks like this one. Canaan is the master. He can pop the
lock on anything.”

There was no way this giant weed choked lot
could be described as a park, though there were signs that someone
had made an effort to clean it up. Off to the right, two piles of
debris were centered at either end of a former basketball court.
One appeared to be a junk pile with twisted metal, broken boards,
chunks of concrete and old tires. The other pile was built of rock,
huge blocks of cut stone, some broken, most whole.

Beyond the courts, Hope saw familiar tall
triangles and crossbars; swing sets like the one that sat in the
school yard back home. Looking more closely, she saw the pathways
had been cleared of the weeds that typically grew through the
cracks in cement. On the left, under the branches of four budding
maple trees, sat six cement picnic tables. Three were scrubbed
clean of the graffiti that marred the others.

“I’m not complaining, mind you. It feels so
good to get out of the house. But this wasn’t exactly what I had in
mind when you said we were going to the park. I had visions of
green grass and flower beds and old ladies walking their dogs.”

“Then you have the same visions as Manon and
Grace. I can’t see it myself. They’ve made improvements, I’ll grant
you. Dov and Col are the labor force. Grace plies them with
promises of meatloaf and chocolate chip cookies. And Otto has
cleared the area of most of the human crime. He’s too old and frail
to fight demons so he’s taken on the job of neighborhood
constable.”

“Too frail? Otto looks in great shape for a
man his age.” Hope strolled to the first clean table to sit. Nico
sat beside her.

“For a human, Otto would be in great shape.
For a Guardian, he’s old and because he’s turned, he’s aging fast.
He’s not strong enough to fight demons anymore.” He looked down at
her and the corner of his mouth twitched. “How old do you think the
old man is?”

Hope laughed and lifted her forefinger in
reprimand. “Oh no you don’t. You think I’ll say sixty-six or seven,
but you’d be wrong. I happen to know how old Manon is and they were
mated over and over before they were bound.”

She was referring to the Paenitentian
practice of mating, where a man and woman pledged to be faithful to
each other and raise any children together for a period of twenty
years from the birth of their last child. According to tradition,
the joining could be renewed as many times as the parties wished
and the obligations to their children couldn’t be severed. Nico
knew it to be nonsense.

Hope now put the finger to her chin. “I’m
going to guess three hundred and seventy five years.”

“Not bad. You’re only a hundred and
thirty-nine years short.”

“How did you do that so fast?” She scribbled
in the air in front of her nose. “Four, carry one, one, carry one…
five hundred and fourteen? No way.”

“Yes indeed, way. I told you we were a long
lived tribe.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “So how old are
you?” Nico looked about thirty-five.

“Younger than Canaan and older than
Broadbent.”

He tried to recapture the sardonic smile, but
she saw the falsehood in it and felt something else in his
thoughts. Her hand reached out and settled atop his, anchoring it
to the tabletop.

“You don’t know, do you? You don’t know how
old you are. Why?”

This wasn’t something he talked about. It was
no one’s business but his own. It was certainly nothing he wanted
to share with this red haired witch he’d known for a little more
than a month. He felt the soothing movement of her thumb, back and
forth across his wrist. She was watching him, waiting. There was no
judgment in her eyes, only gentle question.

“Tell me,” she whispered, never taking her
eyes from his.

“There’s nothing to tell. I was given away as
an infant. I can estimate, but the rights of passage for other boys
of the Race never applied to me, so it’s a rough estimate at best.
It’s not important.”

Hope tenderly placed her hands to either side
of his face and kissed him. “I think it is. To you. You have to
help me though, because I don’t understand. There are probably a
lot of people out there who don’t have an exact date of birth or
don’t know their parents. It’s sad and I can’t imagine what it was
like for you, but Nico, it’s not unusual.”

“It is among the Paenitentia. Not unusual,
unheard of.” He sounded bitter and angry. He rose abruptly and
walked a few feet away, where he raised his right hand above his
shoulder, fingers spread wide, when he heard Hope move to come with
him. “Stay there.”

“You’re changing.” She saw him stiffen. His
shoulders bulged through the jacket. “It’s okay. It’s not like I
haven’t seen it before.”

“The other night. I didn’t think you saw. You
never said.” He tried to bring the rage under control, but his
anger with himself only grew and fed the rage. He was the reason
for her fright. How could she have stayed with him? He heard her
quiet laughter.

“Of course I was frightened. I almost fell
down the stairs. The face, the eyes, the fangs, they startled me.
I’d never seen that before. Grace and Uncle Otto explained it to
me, but I couldn’t picture you looking so fierce. They didn’t
frighten me, because underneath it all, I saw you. I saw you, Nico,
and no matter what you looked like, I could never be afraid of
you.”

“Maybe you should be.”

She was at his back, her hands kneading his
shoulders and neck, filling him with warmth and comfort and the
scent of roses.

“Maybe I should, but I can’t. You make me
feel safe. You make me feel strong.” She wrapped her arms around
his waist and rested her head between his shoulder blades. “I came
to look for my sister out of anger at my father. He’d kept her
letters from me. But when the anger wore off, I was afraid, Nico,
afraid of this strange modern world and all the things I didn’t
understand. Afraid of what I’d find when I located Faith. Lenny
helped, but the fear was always there. I’m not afraid anymore.
Good, bad, or the very worst, when I find Faith I’ll handle it. And
if I falter, you’ll be at my back lending me your strength. There
are things you don’t want me to see or know. Secrets. I understand
that, but you need to understand that those things won’t matter to
me and I’m an expert at living with secrets. Don’t think you can
push me away, Nico. I won’t go.”

He turned in her arms and held her close to
his chest, burying his nose in her hair and breathing in her scent.
“You are a treasure I don’t deserve, my Hope.”

He brought her back to the bench and sat her
down. “There are things you need to hear and things you’ll want to
do. We’ll do them together. I won’t let you go alone.”

He told her what Nardo had found.

Chapter 19

For Hope, the ride north to the little town
of Perryville was an adventure in itself. She no longer allowed
herself to be overwhelmed by her sister’s possible fate and she was
determined to enjoy the here and now of her own life. It was a
strange blend of fluctuating emotions, but she was learning to cope
with the mix.

They left a little after midnight and even
though Nico said it was too cold to put the top down, she insisted
they do it anyway. Wrapped in his long, black leather duster, Nico
wasn’t bothered by the cold and he laughed every time she removed
her gloves and checked his ears for freezing. She was bundled in
her warm winter coat with a woolen scarf wrapped securely around
her head and wrapped snugly beneath her chin. As the little sports
car zoomed down the highway, Hope felt as if she were flying.

There was little traffic on the road and Nico
took the opportunity to see what ‘this little baby’ could do. He
pressed his foot to the floor and the engine roared.

The throb of the engine, the feel of the
vibration beneath her seat and the look of masculine satisfaction
on Nico’s face thrilled Hope and she raised her hands over her head
and shouted her joy. She had never felt so daring. It was
exhilarating until the sound of a siren shrieked through the night
followed by a bar of flashing blue lights. Guiltily, she folded her
hands in her lap and shrank down in her seat.