Guardian's Hope (27 page)

Nico held her to him so tightly she could
barely draw breath but she offered no protest. She kissed his eyes
and cheeks and lips. She kissed the boy that once was and the man
he’d become. She whispered as if to the child.

“As much as my heart bleeds for him, that
poor child is gone, Nico. Let him go and rest in peace. You’re the
man that replaced that child, the man I love. You’re good and kind
and noble. You’re a Guardian of the Race, an honorable member of
the Paenitentia. You’ve served your penance for almost a hundred
years. It’s enough. Let the boy and the anger go, my love, let it
all go.”

His breathing became easier and his face
softened. This woman, this gift, embodied everything decent,
virtuous and pure. Her absolution was like a summer rain that
cleansed the dust and filth from the earth and left the fresh scent
of ozone in its wake. That God forgave him his sins, he could only
pray. That she forgave him was everything. She was his Hope.

“Are you all right now?” she asked softly and
when he nodded, she smiled. “Good, because my ribs are about to
crack. No, don’t let me go, just ease up a little.” She curled up
beside him with her head on his shoulder. “There. This is nice.
We’ll lie here holding each other while you tell me the rest.”

“There isn’t that much to tell. After a time,
I hated my life. No. That’s not true. I had no life, no family, no
friends. All I had was fighting and I’d grown to hate it. I hated
me. I was prowling the streets and alleys one night when I came
upon a beast, a demon, though I didn’t know it then. It was
attacking a woman, a street whore, in an alley. I was too late to
save the woman, but I slaughtered the beast. I thought, ‘This
monster is me, my future. It’s only a matter of time.’ I couldn’t
face that. I couldn’t let myself become that. It was common
knowledge that my kind couldn’t survive on hallowed ground. I took
myself off to the nearest church. I doused myself with holy water,
tore the cross from the altar and threw myself upon it. I cried out
to God that my life was his to take.” Nico laughed and there was
real humor in the sound. “I thought he took me up on my offer. I
was surrounded by awful power. A magnificent light passed through
me and the pain in my heart was excruciating and beautiful at the
same time. I fainted. The priest, a good man who knew of us and
kept our secret, found me there and sent for Boris and Kurt. When I
awoke, I found myself with this.” He laid his hand over the lilies
and skull on his chest. “It all came at once, the lilies, the skull
and my tears. The rest, as they say, is history. Those two
Guardians were the best of our kind. They took me in and taught me
everything I know.”

There was such sadness in his voice that her
heart broke for him again. The only image in his mind was
blackness. She’d shared this painful journey with him and knew she
had to share its end.

“What happened to them?” she asked in the
softest of whispers.

“I killed them. One begged me, the other
fought me, but I killed them both just the same.”

“They were turned, weren’t they?” She could
barely speak the words.

Nico nodded. “War came and with war comes
demons. They thrive on it and they were everywhere. Kurt was turned
first and he begged me not to leave him to Boris. He was afraid
Boris wouldn’t be able to do what needed to be done. Kurt was the
quieter of the two, the gentlest, but in the end, he was the
bravest. Boris was gone a month later.”

At first she couldn’t speak; the ache in her
heart was too great. Nico’s grief was palpable. His body had turned
cold. She molded her body to his and rested her hand on his chest,
covering the symbol of his calling. They lay there for long moments
as still as the long dead Boris and Kurt. His body warmed and his
breathing became soft and steady. She thought he might have fallen
asleep.

“What happened then, my love? What did you
do?” she asked though she expected no answer.

There was a hitch in his breath and then a
deep sigh. “I did what I have always done. I survived.”

Chapter 27

Beauty had to eat. Some inner force insisted
upon it. She was already dead inside and the dead required no
nourishment. Yet the compulsion was there and so she ate whatever
was put in front of her. She had no idea what she ate. She tasted
nothing. She put the pieces in her mouth, chewed, swallowed and
stopped when the plate was empty.

She bathed and took care of her personal
hygiene because she’d been told to. She never looked in the mirror
because she didn’t recognize the woman looking back. The woman in
the mirror wasn’t Hope. When her mind was clear enough to think,
even a little, she thought the creature in the mirror might be
Beauty, but she wasn’t sure.

For a long time she prayed to find the Hope
she thought she was deep inside; the Hope who was strong, resilient
and enduring. That Hope was getting harder and harder to find.

She straightened her shoulders and lifted her
head. She put what she hoped was an interested look on her face.
The devil was talking and would become angry if she didn’t pay
attention.

“So,” Tyn said from his human form, “What do
you think we should do about Smith? He’s hanging around too much,
asking too many questions and I don’t like the way he follows
you.”

“What you decide is what we’ll do,” she
answered as expected. “I don’t talk to Smith. You ordered me not
to.”

Tyn smiled. This was the Beauty he wanted,
obedient, compliant. He should reward her for pleasing him.

“You’ve been a good girl,” he said
pleasantly, “Go take care of your minionettes and then clean
yourself and change into something pretty. Fix your hair. Put on
your paint. I’m taking you out for a night on the town. Make sure
you cover the scar.”

Beauty smiled woodenly and nodded her thanks.
She hurried upstairs to her charges, ignoring the guard outside the
dining room door and the one at the front entrance. The girls were
the reason for her compliance with the devil’s wishes. If she
didn’t obey, he kept her from them. Caring for them was both her
salvation and her downfall. Without them she would surely die and
suffer the tortures of Hell. The thought terrified her more than
Tyn and the things he made her do. Hell would be worse than this
prison on earth.

She told the guard in the hallway to bring
food and he obeyed. He was a demon like Tyn, as were the others,
and they lived in the cellar of the old house. They never touched
her and always did as she bid them, but by the covetous looks in
their eyes as they followed her every move, she knew that if
anything happened to Tyn, she was doomed. There were eight of them
now.

The girls were gathered in one room. They sat
with hands wringing in their laps or pacing with short jerky steps
back and forth across the room, staring at nothing, recognizing no
one, like zombies and yet they always gathered together when the
business was closed even though they each had quarters of their
own. Beauty’s mind seemed to clear somewhat in their presence.

They were the innocents in this prison. They
had done nothing to deserve this fate. They would be used and
abused and then they would die and there was nothing she could do
to save them. She could only bathe their battered bodies, comb
their dulling hair and treat their injuries with what few supplies
their master allowed. Once, when the fog in her mind had lifted
sufficiently, she wondered why she bothered to keep them alive. For
them, death would be a blessing. But when one died, someone else
was captured as a replacement. Keeping these tortured souls alive
saved another young woman from sharing their fate. Either way, her
soul was blackened.

Jeri, number thirteen, was fading fast. It
was only a matter of days. While Tyn no longer fed from them
regularly, the damage was done. Their fate was sealed with death.
Her fate was to care for them and to watch them die. No matter how
fogged her mind became, she would remember their names.

When she reached her room and closed the door
behind her, she raised the heels of her palms to either side of her
head and struck three hard blows. Sometimes the pain helped to
clear her mind. Tyn was taking her outside of the prison. There was
something she needed to do. She concentrated as hard as she was
able and forced more of the fog from her mind. Every time Tyn took
her beyond the confines of her prison, she did something. She
almost fainted from the effort. There was something she needed to
do. What was it?

She was lining her eyes in the heavy black
kohl that Tyn preferred when she remembered. The pencil in her hand
triggered the thought. She pulled the old cookbook out from beneath
the mattress, shook out the pen hidden in the spine and tore out
three pages. She forced her mind to form the words even though it
went against the demon’s command. Long training and practice made
her hand and fingers move. Three times she wrote.

Help me - Hope

*****

Heavy grey clouds covered the sky as far as
the eye could see and the rain that fell in a slow and steady
drizzle showed no signs of stopping. There was still an hour until
sunset, but Nico felt it was safe for travelling. He was settling
their bill in the office and Hope had just settled into the
passenger seat to wait when a blue and white police car pulled into
the lot and stopped behind the ‘vette. Sam Tolbert got out wearing
his police windbreaker under a clear plastic poncho and his wide
brimmed hat was cover in plastic as well. The rain didn’t seem to
bother him as he strolled to over to Hope’s window. She rolled it
down at his approach.

“Leaving us so soon?” he asked with a
friendly smile, but Hope knew he wanted answers to other
questions.

“Yes, sir,” Hope answered politely. “We got
what we came for. The poor girl you found wasn’t my sister. Thanks
to your recommendation, we had a lovely dinner at the Madison Lodge
and now we’re ready to head home.”

“Thought you might be staying for the
revival.”

“No,” she said cautiously, “I have no
interest in what the preacher might have to say.”

“Then why is he so interested in you?”

“Why is who so interested?” Nico stood on the
other side of the car. They both answered at the same time.

“The preacher.”

“My father.”

“He’s your father?” Sam asked, but it was
more than a simple question.

“Yes, sir. My sister and I grew up in his
church and in his house. My sister left home some years ago,
myself, some months. Our being here at the same time is strictly a
coincidence. I came to search for my sister, not him.”

“That’s not the way he tells it.”

“What difference does it make and why is it
your business?” Nico’s voice was hard and unfriendly. The constant
drizzle was beginning to soak his hair, yet he didn’t take his
place behind the wheel.

“Take it easy, son,” Sam said looking over
the roof at Nico. “It’s my business because it’s my town.
Everything that happens in it and everyone who passes through is my
business.”

“Nico, it’s all right. Sam doesn’t want to
hurt me.” She sent him pictures of the meadow and moonlight. “How
does he tell it, Sam?”

“He says you use your shared name to cause
trouble. He says you’re trying to extort money from him to keep you
from claiming kinship and spreading filthy lies. He wants me to
pick you up on solicitation, prostitution or as he puts it, your
ungodly woman’s ways.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Nico said
through gritted teeth. He started around the car.

“Nico!”

“I never said I agreed to it,” Sam laughed,
“I’ve got no grounds to make an arrest though I might have if I’d
followed you up to lover’s leap. Couples don’t usually go up there
just to enjoy the view.” He laughed again at Hope’s pained and
embarrassed look. “Now, see there, that’s exactly why I believe her
and not the preacher. She can’t lie, can’t cover her tracks. The
other morning when she came to see me, her heart was on her sleeve.
She was nervous, but not because she was faking. I’ve been doing
this job for a long time now and I’ve always had a pretty good feel
for people.” He looked at Nico meaningfully. “You got yourself a
good woman here. You better take good care of her.” He looked back
at Hope, pointed his thumb at Nico and winked. “Him, I’m not so
sure of. He needs somebody to keep an eye on him.” Sam’s face
became solemn. “That preacher, your father? I don’t see much good
in him though there’s nothing I can do about it. He’s not breaking
any law and if some people want to believe that drivel he preaches
about demons and witches and Eve being the cause of it all, well,
there’s nothing I can do about that either except tell those people
they’re damn fools.

“The only thing I can do is warn you and
believe me, I don’t take pleasure in telling a girl something like
this about her father. That preacher hates you. I could see it in
his eyes. He wants to see you hurt. I’m glad you’re going tonight.
It’ll save my ears from being chewed on by George Harmon, our
mayor. Seems the old jackass is a big fan. He and that preacher
won’t have any cause for a fight with me if you’re not in town. You
drive safe, now, and when you get home, you watch your back.”

“Thank you, Sam. Your kindness is most
welcome,” said Hope and offered him her hand.

“Hmpf. Those are the same words he uses,
except when you say them, you sound like you mean it. You’re
welcome.”

Nico met Sam at the door to the cruiser and
held out his right hand. “My apologies and my thanks.”

When Nico would have naturally drawn back his
hand from the shake, Sam held on and covered their right hands with
his left.

“Some men,” he said, looking Nico in the eye,
“Some men preach about fighting the devil and his demons. Other men
do the real fighting. You be careful out there, son.” He let go of
Nico’s hand. “You ever need something I can provide, you call and
I’ll see that you get it.”