Guardian's Hope (4 page)

Tyn rolled his eyes. “Oh please. No
dramatics. You already took whatever money was in the bag. Consider
that part of your reward.”

Tyn Damon was fairly new in town, but not
unknown and he was dead on about the money in the purse. Smith had
heard some stories and he didn’t want to press his luck, so he
nodded and smiled his thanks. “A pleasure doing business with you,
Mr. Damon. Anything you need in the future, you remember I’m a guy
that gets things done.”

“Thank you, Mr. Smith. I’ll try to remember
that.” He remembered to hold out his right hand and shake.

Tyn waited until the door closed before he
picked up the picture again and studied the face closely. There was
no doubt. It was his Beauty, even though the woman in the picture
looked so different from the woman he now owned.

His Beauty had short dark hair that glinted
red in the light and surrounded her face with curls. This woman’s
hair was parted in the middle and pulled tightly away from her
face. Even before he took control, his Beauty wore short skirts and
skimpy tops. The picture woman wore a long sleeved white shirt with
a stupid round collar that was buttoned up to her throat. His
Beauty wore what he thought she called make-up, though Smith had
called it paint. Still, Smith had been right to take notice. The
woman in the picture was Beauty.

Who was looking for her and why? Beauty
claimed to be alone in this world and he didn’t think she could
lie. He had to find this red headed woman and find out why she
wanted Beauty. Maybe he could use the red head in the business.
Variety was the spice of life or so he’d heard and he was looking
to expand. It would all depend on who she was and what she wanted
and who would miss her if she disappeared.

He opened the little leather bag. There
wasn’t much in it; a small and very empty nylon wallet, a little
square of cloth with lace around the edges and the initials HP
sewed in pink thread, a silver cross with the word ‘HOPE’ printed
in capital letters and an empty key ring from Kelmar Realty with
the number 327 written in marker across the tag. It was a
start.

*****

Nico ran his finger over the toe of the shoe.
It was a black leather slip-on shoe with a rounded toe and flat
heel; a plain shoe, worn by a woman the world might call plain. She
wore plain shoes, plain dress and her hair in a plain and tidy bun
at the back of her neck, and yet there was nothing plain about the
woman those things covered.

She was beautiful in a way that was natural
and innocent and pure, a beauty made more intriguing because she
wasn’t aware of it. He sensed a heat in her, deeply banked, and he
wondered what it would be like to uncover those embers and bring
them to fiery life.

Granted, his first impression of her was
based on an inebriated version, but perhaps that was why he saw her
so clearly. Paenitentia weren’t affected by the drug. They
metabolized the alcohol almost as quickly as they drank it, but in
humans, the drug tended to dull inhibitions and made them freer
with their tongues.

None of this mattered. He would never know
what was in her mind or in her heart. He would never taste that
creamy skin or bring that body to a flame of passion. She was human
and therefore off limits.

Not that the Paenitentia had any strictures
against such relationships. As long as the secrets of the Race
remained secret, no one cared and many members of the Race had
casual, short term relationships with humans of both genders.
Anything beyond casual would be too painful. It was too hard to
watch someone you cared for age and die in so short a time and
there was no acceptable human answer as to why you didn’t age along
with them.

There were exceptions, of course. Both his
Liege Lord Canaan and the old vampire, Otto, were mated and bound
to human women, but Manon and Grace were Daughters of Man and being
mated and bound would extend their already long lives.

For someone like him, human women made
agreeable bed partners, to mutually enjoy and satisfy, but he knew,
first hand, the pain that could come from getting too close to
humans or anyone else for that matter, and he wasn’t about to visit
those feelings again.

It was best to leave things as they stood.
Hope would wonder how she came to be tucked in bed fully clothed.
Her missing shoe would remain a mystery. She’d never remember
Bloodsucker’s or what had happened there. She’d never remember
him.

“Holy shit,” he said aloud. The shoe fell
from his hand to land unnoticed at his feet.

If Hope didn’t remember Bloodsucker’s, would
she return there? Didn’t she say something about searching a
different bar each night? She’d mumbled something about a list.
She’d rambled a little where he couldn’t follow so he hadn’t paid
attention.

It had been a week since he’d seen her and he
needed to see her again. Just to make sure she was all right.

He went downstairs to breakfast. Darkness was
falling and he needed to talk to the twins.

*****

Hope threw the pillow to the floor. “Crap,”
she muttered and looked over at the potty-mouth jar on the table
across the room. “Yes, I said crap and I’ll say it again. Crap,
crap, crap, crap, crap.” She flung out her hand and pointed at the
jar. “And I’m not paying you one red cent.”

The jar flew off the table and crashed to the
floor. “Oh all right,” she said, immediately contrite, “You win.”
She went to the drawer and pulled out the envelope she used to hold
her money since the loss of her pocketbook and withdrew a single,
put it back and removed a five. After the past week, the jar was
pretty full and she had to squeeze the bill inside.

“Happy now?” she asked as she set it back in
its place. Of course the jar didn’t reply and Hope shook her head.
“I’m sorry,” she said to no one in particular.

Her temper, born of her sinful nature, was
her greatest flaw. She’d been beaten for losing it more times than
she could count. It never did any good. She still lost her temper
and every time she lost her temper, she lost control and every time
she lost control, bad things happened; windows cracked, lamps fell
over, potty-mouth jars flew off the table. Her father said it was
Satan’s work and would beat her again for letting the devil in.
Maybe he was right. She was, after all, her mother’s child.

She was nine when her mother died, old enough
to remember the beautiful woman with hair like her own. She
remembered laughter and singing and secrets; remembered running,
free and unfettered, in the fields behind the house and spinning in
circles until they were dizzy. They’d fall to the ground and lie on
their backs in the tall grass and find animal shapes in the clouds.
When there were no animals left to find, her mother would smile her
secret smile and Hope would hold her breath in anticipation.

“Don’t tell your father,” her mother would
say and she’d sing pretty songs that they weren’t allowed to sing
and wiggle her fingers and make the flowers dance. Hope would
giggle with delight. “Now you try,” her mother always said at the
end of the wildflower ballet.

Hope would try, concentrating on the flowers
and wiggling her fingers just as her mother did, but nothing ever
happened. It wasn’t until long after her mother had passed that it
did and then only when she was angry and so couldn’t keep it
secret. The rest she’d learned later, much later, and her sister
needed to know what she’d found.

What reason did she have to be so angry now?
He was just a nice man who rescued her from a bad situation. He
never said he’d be back and why should he, after the way she’d
behaved. Bad enough that he found her drunk in a sleazy bar, but
then to throw up! She thought it might have spattered on his shoe.
How could she do something so revolting in front of the handsomest
man she’d ever seen? He was everything she wasn’t; charming,
sophisticated and yes, beautiful. As if that wasn’t enough, he was
also taller by a good six inches and strong. He’d carried her as if
she weighed no more than a child. She sighed.

Nico. It was a wonderful name. It was the
name of a fairy tale prince.

He said she wouldn’t remember, but she did.
She remembered everything, every moment she was with him, including
the electric tingle he sent through her when he touched her
forehead as she fell asleep.

These were sinful thoughts and she knew it;
lusting after a man she’d just met and patterning herself after
Eve, the source of all sin and man’s fall from Grace. She’d heard
the sermons often enough. Still, try as she would, she didn’t feel
shameful or repentant. Thinking about Nico made her feel good.

Good or bad, it didn’t make any difference.
He wasn’t coming back and she had a job to do. The events of that
night at Bloodsucker’s had frightened her and she’d avoided going
out ever since. It was time to get back to business. She went to
the phone book and crossed the next bar off the list.

Chapter 4

“You want us to do you a favor and you want
us to keep it a secret.” Dov was grinning from ear to ear. He
rubbed his hands together in a gesture of greed. “This is gonna
cost you.”

Nico tried to remain calm and unconcerned. He
didn’t want the twins to know how important this was to him. “I had
thought, given your new status as adults, I could appeal to you as
comrades-in-arms. My mistake. I’ll ask Broadbent.”

“Broadbent left last night to go visit his
folks. You could ask Nardo, but it seems to me if you wanted Nardo,
you wouldn’t be here with us.”

Col punched his brother in the arm, hard
enough to hurt. Ignoring the howl of protest, he said, “Don’t pay
any attention to him, Nico. He was born clutching my ass and has
been acting like a hole ever since. You were there when I needed
you and I know you’re the reason Canaan bought us the motorcycles.
We owe you.”

“Jeez, I was only kidding. You guys just
aren’t any fun anymore. I mean, well, Nico, you were never much fun
but you,” he turned to Col, “My own brother. Oh, never mind. He’s
right Nico. We owe you, a lot. What do you need us to do?”

“You owe me nothing. I helped save your life,
Col, and Dov saved mine. It’s what Guardians do in the course of
battle. You earned the motorcycles. I only suggested the
style.”

“And kept Gracie from going ballistic,” added
Dov. “We owe you big time for that. So, what do you want us to do?”
He looked from one man to the other. “What? I never said I wouldn’t
do it. I just thought we might get a night with the ‘vette out of
it.”

Nico had recently purchased a classic 1961
Corvette convertible, a Stingray, and the twins were drooling over
it.

“Do what I ask, keep your mouths shut and
we’ll work something out. But by the Nephilim, if there is one
scratch, one tiny ding…”

“It’s a deal,” the twins shouted
together.

“What do you want us to do?”

“I want you to return a shoe.”

*****

It was taking a lot longer than he planned.
The stupid woman from the rental agency was out of town and the
idiots he sent to steal the information from her office tripped the
alarm. They barely made it out before the police arrived. His old
boss, Abyar, would have ripped the fools to shreds for their
incompetence and Tyn felt the urge to do the same, but that wasn’t
the way things were done in this world. In the otherworld, might
always made right. In this world smart was better. He tamped his
anger down.

Tyn was a fourth level demon. Back in the
otherworld, that was one step above a common minion. He’d come here
in the last earth cycle with a crew of other fourth levels to work
for Abyar and a witch woman Abyar claimed as his own. He’d learned
a lot from Abyar; how to look like a human, how to act in the human
world and how to fuck up a perfectly good plan. This last, Tyn had
no intention of repeating. Abyar was too greedy. He attracted the
attention of the wrong people. He thought he could make a fortune
in this world and the otherworld would be impressed. It all ended
in a royal cluster fuck with Tyn as the sole survivor.

He’d survived with a borrowed truck and a
load of drugs and enough money to last a very long time, but Tyn
wasn’t a demon to rest on his money. He liked to keep busy, so he
found this house, found a few girls to staff it and learned how to
make a human minion, something he never knew a demon could do. It
happened by accident and it opened up a whole new world of
possibility.

He’d just acquired the house. The old lady
who owned it was more than happy to sell once she saw that suitcase
full of cash. She was going to travel, she said, as soon as the
papers were signed. Unfortunately, she only traveled as far as the
tiny back yard where she was buried along with her travel brochures
and her yappy little dog. She was tiny and frail and died quickly,
before his hunger was satisfied. Disappointed but undeterred, he
decided to hunt and celebrate his good fortune.

Within minutes he found the girl walking
alone on the deserted street. She was short and plump and she
squealed in terror as he dragged her to the back of a nearby
parking lot. It was fear as well as blood that fed him and this
girl offered a bounty of both. Unlike so many others of his kind,
he always got an extra kick out of playing with his food and this
girl was no exception. She was half drained and still conscious
when he decided to satisfy his other carnal needs. In his lust and
gluttony, he’d forgotten a basic rule of survival: always be aware
of your surroundings.

The parking lot was suddenly alive with the
voices of twenty or thirty people. The late show from the movie
theater across the street was over and its patrons were returning
to their cars. Hearing the voices, the girl made a desperate but
weak attempt to scream.