Guardian's Hope (37 page)

“And you think you can hop in a car and drive
it through the city in heavy traffic without any problems. It’s not
that easy. You’re not even familiar with the streets.”

“So, you only object to my driving the car
through the city alone. It is settled then. I shall call a car
service or a taxi. The driver will take me where I need to go and
wait for as long as I need him to. I will pay him very well. I will
embrace what Col says are modern times and carry a cell phone with
which I will remain in constant contact with you. I will wait and
watch. It is all I can do. But if they leave before the sun sets, I
will be there to follow. I will stay in the car outside Smith’s and
will be in no danger.”

Otto chuckled and kissed her nose; a nose
he’d been kissing for over seventy-five years. “You think I’ll say
yes because when you use that little pout, I can’t refuse you
anything.”

“Non, mon amour. I think you will say yes
because it is the only thing we can do to give the men some comfort
until sunset.”

Chapter 38

Grace sat on the floor in the corner of the
room, her legs sprawled in front of her with her back supported
where the two walls met. Hope also sat on the floor, resting on her
hip while the seat of the chair supported her crossed arms and
head. They’d been there for hours. Smith was evidently so sure of
their compliance and the security of the room, he hadn’t bothered
to check. They’d tried to unlock the door using one of Hopes
hairpins, but without success. It looked so easy when you saw it on
television.

“Let’s begin again. What do we know?” Hope
peered at Grace through the space between the seat and back.

“We’ve been over this ten times. This isn’t
as simple as how much money will Farmer Smith get for his bushels
of corn. It’s more like advanced calculus and I’m out of my
league.” Grace sighed and stretched her neck until her head touched
the wall.

“There’s got to be something.” The silent
waiting was a torment. At least when they were talking, she felt
like they might stumble upon a solution. “What about Gore?” She
shivered every time she said the name.

“He’s a big ole scaly assed demon who’s only
going to get bigger and scarier if he changes over. His emotions
are simple. He’s hungry.”

“Then what do you know about demons on
general.”

“They feed off blood and fear, make that
terror. They can eat and drink and act like regular people, but the
demon is always lurking just below the surface. Do you know we can
see that and the Guardians can’t? They can only smell demons until
they change over to their true form. The demons come through some
kind of doorway that can’t be seen from this side. You have to know
where it is. I saw one once. It was a mirror. I saw a demon and a
witch fall through it. The same demon and witch you saw. They only
work at night. I don’t know what sunlight does to them, but it’s
probably not good.” She sighed. “I wish I’d asked more
questions.”

“Could you hold it long enough for me to kill
it?”

“I might be able to make him stay still if he
was looking me straight in the eyes. We’d still have Smith to
contend with and he’d be willful and hard to control.”

Grace had a talent for mind control. With eye
contact, she could influence a person’s will. She sat up straight,
suddenly alert. She could feel hope emanating from its namesake and
something else.

“What are you thinking and what are you doing
with your hand?”

Hope looked down at her finger drawing the
intricate pattern of swirls on the seat of the chair. “It’s
nothing, a nervous habit.”

“It’s a lot more than that. Can’t you feel
it? You’re drawing power.”

Hope stopped and she could feel the tension
in her body begin to ebb. She drew the pattern in the air and her
tension built. She repeated the experiment. It happened again. All
these years she’d thought of the hand movement as a nervous gesture
to relieve tension never realizing it created it. She smiled.

“Hope?”

Hope held up her hand in the universal
gesture for stop. “I have an idea, a plan. We’re going to need a
few minutes to work it through and I’m sorry, Grace, but the
hardest part is going to be yours. You’re right about the demon
being hungry, but I know what he’s hungry for. You.”

“Why didn’t you say something before?” Grace
looked both repulsed and truly frightened.

“There didn’t seem to be any point. It would
only have made you feel like you’re feeling right now.”

“So now it’s okay to make me feel like I have
worms crawling under my skin?”

“Because there’s a purpose. I’ll tell you
about it in a minute. First, I need to try something else.”

Hope started drawing her design in the
air.

*****

Canaan paced back and forth across the
kitchen. “We don’t even know that they’re still in the house. He
could have moved them anywhere by now. For all we know, they might
be…” He couldn’t say the words.

“Perhaps, perhaps not. There is nothing to
lose but a few dollars. The car and driver are on their way. I have
my trusty cell phone,” Manon held it up for all to see, “fully
charged,” she winked at Col, “I need only run home for my coat and
purse. The driver will pick me up in front of my house.”

“And you’re all right with this,” Canaan
appealed to Otto.

“There’s nothing to object to. Manon won’t be
in any danger. She’s not going up to the man’s door. She’ll stay in
contact. It’s hours until sunset. It’s the best we can do.”

“They’re okay. They’re alive and okay,” Nico
shouted and everyone jumped. “I can’t hear the words or see where
they are, but they’re okay.” He’d forgotten that the others didn’t
know about the connection he and Hope shared.

“We’re all hoping they are,” Otto said
gently.

“No, you don’t understand. I can feel her in
my mind. The bridge is there, her side and mine, but the sides
aren’t connected. There’s no way across. I can hear her shouting
but I can’t hear the words. I only know they’re alive and so far
unharmed.”

Manon threw her arms around him. “This is
good news,” she said and to the others who were looking at Nico as
if he might be losing his mind, “Listen to him. His information is
as trustworthy as mine.”

Fifteen minutes later the driver pulled up to
the curb in front of an elaborately painted Victorian home where a
woman was waiting on the porch. The neighborhood was shabby, but
there was nothing shabby about the woman. She reeked of money and
class. It was only when she got up close that he realized she was
much older than he first thought. So far, so good. The older ones
tended to tip better. He held the rear door open for her, but she
shook her head. She wanted to sit up front. It was her dime and
he’d learned a long time ago it didn’t pay to argue with money.

“What is your name, young man?” she asked
when he got behind the wheel.

“Joseph, ma’am. Where to?”

She gave him the address. He knew the
neighborhood. Not as shabby as this, but not much better.

“Are we picking someone up or just visiting?”
he asked as they pulled away.

“Neither. We are going to watch.” She smiled
at him. “I hope you are a friendly man, Joseph, because for the
next few hours, we will have nothing to do but chat with each other
and watch. But first, I have a small mission for you.” She laughed.
“Don’t look so worried. It is both safe and legal and I tip very
well.”

Joseph double parked the car and ran up to
the door as instructed. He knocked and when there was no answer, he
knocked again. He kept knocking for several minutes and was just
about to quit and tell Manon there was no one there when the door
flew open and an angry face appeared.

“What the fuck do you want?” Smith had lived
here for two years and no one had ever knocked on his door. It was
getting like fucking Grand Central Station. He glared at the small
man dressed in a dull grey uniform with a chauffer’s cap clenched
in his hands. “Well?”

“I beg your pardon, sir. Someone called for a
car to pick them up at this address.”

“Not fucking likely,” Smith said and slammed
the door.

“Excellent,” Manon said when he returned. “We
know that he is home. Now find a place to park where we can watch
and wait.” She pulled out her phone and called Otto.

*****

Smith, with the dog-like Gore in tow, had
finally come to check on them and they had learned something new.
Damon was coming here to make the exchange. They couldn’t let that
happen. They had to be taken to Faith. They altered their plan.

“Are you ready for this?”

“No, but I don’t have any better ideas. We
can’t wait for Nico and Canaan. If Smith brings Damon here, I may
never see Faith. What if he doesn’t bring me back to the same place
as Faith? What if he doesn’t keep me at all?” What if he doesn’t
want me for anything more than a vengeful meal to torment my sister
with? There were too many possibilities. “We have to make an ally
of Smith and the only way to do that is to convince him his reward
and chance of survival is greater with us.”

Hope was asking a lot of Grace. She knew it.
They’d talked about the possibility of Grace making an escape. She
thought she could use her power to break out the window and again
to soften Grace’s landing when she jumped from it, but could they
do it fast enough for Grace to evade recapture and get to the car?
They’d never know because Grace refused to abandon her.

“You play it just the way we practiced it and
it’ll work. You’ll make it work.” Grace sounded so positive. She
formed an image in her mind of Hope smiling seductively at
Smith.

Hope couldn’t help but smile. They’d
practiced forming a connection. It wasn’t nearly as strong as the
one she shared with Nico, but it would suffice.

“You’re the seductress.” She laughed outright
when Grace put her finger in her mouth and pretended to gag. “My
job is to put the fear of Hell into Smith.”

“Just pray the sun keeps shining,” said
Grace. She stood and dusted herself off. “Let’s do it.”

They started banging on the door and yelling
at the top of their lungs.

*****

“There’s a big Doberman Pincher living out in
the yard at the back,” Joseph said a little breathlessly as he
climbed back into the driver’s seat. He bent to inspect a three
corner tear in his pant leg.

“Ah, non, mon ami, the big dog did not bite
you, did it?” Manon, too, bent to inspect the leg.

“No, no ma’am, the Doberman didn’t get me. I
got that tear from climbing the fence.” He twisted his other leg at
an awkward angle to display another, smaller tear. Blood stained
the area around it. “It was the little friendly looking white one
next door that got me.”

“You poor man! You have suffered much for my
little endeavor. I owe you a great deal.” She rummaged in her purse
and triumphantly held aloft a wad of tissues. “Clean your wound as
best you can. I will add the price of a new uniform to your fee and
any medical expenses, of course.”

“Thanks Manon, but it was my fault. I’ve been
around long enough to know not to trust a dog on its looks.”

“I insist. This goes beyond anything I have a
right to ask.” She hesitated. “Did you see anything?”

Poor woman. She hadn’t come right out and
said what they were doing, probably too embarrassed, but he could
see what way the wind was blowing. It wasn’t the first time he’d
been hired to follow a cheating husband, though in all the other
cases, he sat and waited in the car while the wife did the
snooping. Not that he minded.

Manon was different. She had class, you know,
but she talked to him like he was her son or something. She asked
him questions and acted like she really wanted to know. After a
while, he found himself talking about his wife and how things
hadn’t been going so well. She’d given him some practical advice
and patted his hand, really concerned about his problems. Imagine
that and her with her own marital problems a lot bigger than his.
He didn’t want to tell her what he saw, didn’t want to hurt her.
She was such a nice lady, a real lady, not just some broad with
money. But he somehow got the feeling she wouldn’t like being lied
to. She’d rather take it on the chin.

“Yeah,” he told her reluctantly, “I saw a
girl, a young woman, standing by an upstairs window in the back.
She didn’t see me,” he assured her, “Looked like she was talking to
someone. She had all her clothes on,” he added.

“Was she dark headed or red?”

He had two floozies? The cheating bastard!
“No, no, it was only the one. You want me to go back? I got a cell
phone. I could take some pictures.”

“No, Joseph, you have done enough.” She
pulled out her phone and called Otto. Speaking cryptically, so as
not to give too much away to Joseph, she reported that Grace, at
least, was alive and unharmed.

Chapter 39

For a few minutes, they heard nothing and
then the sound of feet pounding up the stairs. They stepped away
and quieted when they heard the sound of the key in the lock.

“What the fuck is all the noise? You want a
gag?”

“I need to use the bathroom.” Hope shifted
her weight from foot to foot as if the need was urgent.

“Well ain’t that too bad. I’ll see if I can
find a bucket,” Smith sneered. His nerves were frayed. He wanted
Damon to make the pick up here, on his turf where he thought he
would be safer without Damon’s posse surrounding him. Damon, the
bastard, had refused to come until after dark. The waiting was
killing him.

“Please,” Hope looked at Smith with pleading
eyes, trying to send him a message. With her back turned to Gor,
she pointed to Smith and then to herself. She used her thumb to
point to the bathroom door and winked. She saw Smith’s eyes become
speculative. He wanted to know what she was offering.