Guardian's Joy #3 (2 page)

“Canaan got a call from the Director of the
Moonlight Sanctuary Association. Seems they’re having trouble
keeping some of the youngbloods on the rez. They’ve been coming
into town, hitting the clubs, partying. You know the drill. Same
thing you and Col do.”

Dov made a rude gesture near his crotch and
wiggled his eyebrows. “I got needs, bro, and nobody says we’re
supposed to be monks. Those guys on the rez got my sympathy. You
ever been to one of those dances out there?”

“My family and yours don’t run in the same
circles, Dov. I’m not likely to get an invitation to Moonlight
Sanctuary.”

“Consider yourself lucky. It’s like 1955.
Canaan makes us go a few times a year ‘cause he promised Mom he’d
make sure we were introduced to ‘decent women’. Then he goes and
bonds to Grace.” Dov raised his hands in defense. “Who’s number one
in my book, but probably at the bottom of the Councils, but he
still makes us go to the damn cotillions. Gracie, the big traitor,
backs him up.”

“You’re an adult. You can say no.” Nardo gave
him a sidelong glance and snickered, “Or are you afraid?”

“Of Canaan and Grace? Nah.” Dov waved them
off with his hand. “But my mom? Be afraid. Be very afraid.” He
shuddered in mock fear.

Nardo wondered what it would be like to have
a mother who still cared. The twins’ mother called at least once a
week, wanting a rundown of what was happening in their lives and
giving loads of unwanted advice which mostly went in one ear and
out the other, but they knew she loved them and they loved her,
too.

His own parents had done their requisite
twenty years and cut him loose. He hadn’t heard from his father in
years. On the rare occasions when he called his mother, their
conversation was stilted and polite until Nardo asked after his
younger half-brother. She could prattle on for hours about the
scientific genius she’d borne to the man who replaced Nardo’s
father. Nardo actually liked his brother, who’d gone to school with
the twins, but it irked him that she could describe his brother’s
life in minute detail, yet never asked Nardo about anything. He
shook his head to erase his thoughts and got back to business.

“Apparently, some of these young bar hoppers
are seeking their entertainment in more out of the way places.
We’re supposed to run them down, shake our finger at their naughty
little noses and send them home.”

Dov started to dance, hands held high in the
air and hips gyrating to some unheard beat. For his size, he was
remarkably graceful. “Gotta tell you, buddy, sometimes this job is
ooo-kay. But if we’re going to rave, we’re way over dressed.”

“What?”

“We got too many clothes on. By the time we
find this place, it’s gonna be an oven. Girl’s will be down to
bikini tops or those tiny little strips of cloth.” He demonstrated
with his fingers drawing a narrow band across his chest. “Guys wear
baggy pants or shorts and lose their shirts. We need lights, kandi
necklaces, pacifiers. Half the place will be high on booze or drugs
and the other half’ll be high on the music. Looking like this,
we’re just not going to blend in.”

“And you know so much about this
because…?”

“Dude, did you not hear the part about half
naked women? Damn, Nardo, looking at pictures on the internet just
ain’t the same as looking at the real thing. You need to get out
more.”

“Never mind what I need. What we need is to
find this place, check it out and get on with it. I don’t like
playing babysitter to a bunch of pampered little shits and I like
spying on them even less.”

They found the place within minutes by
following the trail of people coming and going and cornering a
couple of young Paenitentia males along the way. Dov enjoyed
flexing his muscles and scaring the hell out of the young offenders
while Nardo stood to the side trying not to laugh. The older
generations might look down their noses at the Guardians, but the
younger ones were in awe.

They used their white light, a special
Guardian talent, to move swiftly and invisibly past the man at the
door and the two bouncers who stood just inside. Moving away from
the doors and finding a relatively secluded corner, they lost the
light and surveyed the room.

“Holy fucking shit.” Nardo ground his teeth
in frustration. The place was a sea of bodies and they had no idea
how many Sanctuary playboys were in the crowd. The flashing lights
and rapid tempo were taking up residence in his head. He saw an
overturned chair a few feet away and pointed to it.

“Sit,” he said to Dov whose eyes were already
wide and excited. “Stay. And don’t move until I tell you to.”

“Shithead,” the young trainee mumbled, but he
righted the chair and sat as Nardo knew he would.

Starting on his left and moving clockwise,
the Guardian let his eyes trail around the room. The strobes
wreaked havoc with his night vision and he blinked frequently
against the glare until he reached the five o’clock mark of his
circle. A woman stood; waist, shoulders and head above the crowd.
Her spiky white blonde hair sparkled under the lights and her eyes
were bright as they traveled over the crowd. Her tongue slid out
and she moistened her lips so they, too, shimmered in the light.
The crowd parted and Nardo’s breath caught as her totality was
revealed; long, long, long legs encased in black leather and ending
in sturdy boots that did nothing to detract from the slender
sensuality of that lithe form.

Who was she looking for? And why should he
care? Why should she draw his attention? She was attractive in a
room filled with attractive women and yet, she stood out. She was
vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t recall the memory. Maybe Dov was
right and he needed to get out more. Who could forget a face as
beautiful as that?

The impatient tone of Dov’s voice registered
before Nardo realized his name was being called.

“What?” he asked impatiently. He reluctantly
turned away from the woman in black and then mentally slapped his
forehead. Duh! That was why she caught his attention. She was
wearing too many clothes and all of them were black. No wonder she
stood out from the crowd. His mind began to play with the idea of
what she would look like without them.

“Earth to Nardo. Earth to Nardo. Come in
please.” Dov’s nasal radio imitation came in loud and clear.

“What?” Nardo repeated, embarrassed to be
caught dreaming.

Dov grinned and pointed with his thumb.

Col was standing next to his twin with his
arm draped over the shoulders of a young Paenitentia woman who
looked up at him with adoring eyes.

Shit. No one said anything about females.
Nardo nodded to the woman in the way he’d seen Nico do it, a kind
of half bow that showed respect but wouldn’t draw too much
attention.

“Col, can I talk to you for a minute,
privately?” Nardo walked a few feet away with Col at his heels.
“How old is she?”

The Race was pretty liberal when it came to
sex. Once mated, most couples chose to forego sex with others as
part of their contract and among the blood bound, extracurricular
sex was unheard of, but there were no taboos against sex between
unmated consenting adults. The key word here was adult. For
females, the age of maturity was twenty-five and this young woman
looked like she had a few years to go.

“Twenty-one and before you ask, no, I don’t
have any big plans,” was Col’s indignant reply, “Damn, what kind of
guy do you think I am? Dov’s the one that nails anything that
moves. I have standards.” And then he grinned, looking like the
devil’s twin rather than Dov’s. “Besides, now I can tell my mom I
took a nice girl from the Sanctuary out dancing. That should shut
her up for a while.”

So much for standards. “Did you bring her
here?”

“No, she came with her brother and a few
friends. They’re video gamers and big fans of
Demon
Destroyer
, so when I said I knew the guy who wrote it…” Col
shrugged and grinned.

“The guy let you walk off with his little
sister?”

“Yeah, well, that’s your fault. Your
characters give the impression that we’re some kind of knights in
shining armor. All that chivalry shit. And I got to tell you, man,
that may be your deal, but it’s not going to pull in any recruits.
In the new one you need to put in something about our great
‘appetites of the flesh’. Sex it up some. That’ll reel ‘em in.” Col
shrugged and grinned.

“So noted. Now take the lady back to her
brother and tell them to get home. Their head honcho called Canaan
and we’re supposed to clear this place out. Tell them to spread the
word and then you can report back to me.”

“This is my night off,” Col protested
loudly.

“You fuck up, you pay up.” Dov couldn’t
resist aggravating his twin.

“Shut up, asshole.”

“Shithead”

“Lady!” Nardo barked.

“Oh yeah. Sorry honey. Let’s go find your
brother.”

He sent Dov with Col to round up those who
wouldn’t take a polite suggestion and began to search the room
again. He wandered around the edges of the crowd, tapping a
shoulder now and then, telling the recipient of the tap to move
along, playtime was over. And all the while, he searched for the
woman in black. She was gone and if he didn’t believe in order and
discipline, he’d turn his shift over to the twins while he went to
find her. There was something about her that intrigued him.

Chapter 3

JJ saw the two when they first walked in the
door. She’d never seen anything like it and she quickly scanned the
crowd to see if anyone else noticed. No one did.

They were bathed in a halo of light like the
saints and angels in museum paintings. The crowd kept moving in and
out, blocking her line of sight, so she commandeered a chair and
climbed up for a better view. The blonde one, a giant of a man, had
a sweet face that looked gentle and kind combined with the build of
a linebacker. When he took off his jacket, she could see the huge
squares of his pectoral muscles outlined against his white tee. His
broad shouldered body narrowed in that perfect manly vee to hips
supported by thighs the size of tree trunks. It was a face and body
most women would drool over, but it was his companion that made her
mouth and throat go so dry she had to swallow twice before she
could breathe again. Then she blinked her eyes and the light was
gone, but the two men remained and for no reason she could
understand, she was relieved.

Her interest didn’t make sense. He wasn’t her
type at all. She didn’t find ponytails appealing, yet his fell
halfway down his back. She’d always liked a man with a little bulk
to his body, yet he looked tall and a bit skinny, until he took off
his jacket and threw it to his companion who was now sitting in a
chair a few feet away. Good goddess, he was tall, but he wasn’t
skinny. His shoulders were almost as broad as his companion’s and
his arms, left bare by the short sleeves of a faded blue t-shirt
looked roped with steel cable beneath the skin. Even from across
the room, she could see the corded muscles in his neck as he
stretched himself taller to look around the room.

She watched him as he watched the room and
then his eyes landed on her and she almost fell from her perch on
the chair. She was embarrassed to be caught staring. She wouldn’t
want him to think she was looking to hook up. She pretended to look
for someone in the crowd, moving her head slowly back and forth,
but her eyes remained on him.

She tried not to show her surprise when a
matching blonde giant wearing shorts and a tank top joined his
twin. He had his arm around a girl who was too well dressed for a
place like this. She was one of those ‘other’ types JJ’d noticed on
the street and the girl didn’t fit with these men. It was bad boy
attraction, she supposed, though a closer look told her this girl
may have more in common with these men than JJ first realized.

Even at this distance she could sense it.
White light aside, these men were something different, something
other and something more, maybe dangerous. She felt both fear and
excitement shiver down her spine at the thought.

JJ was so engaged in her speculation about
the three that she almost missed the creature she was hunting and
only caught a glimpse from the corner of her eye. It had been
months since she’d seen one and if it was the real thing and not a
figment of her wishful imagination, she needed to find it fast and
kill it.

She was off the chair and heading in the
direction the thing was moving; all thoughts now trained on the
task at hand. She saw it strolling through the crowd to the right,
a man and a beast, two images, one overlapping the other like the
double exposures old time cameras used to take. People moved around
it like it was one of them. They couldn’t see it like she
could.

When she saw her first beast, she thought it
was a trick of the light. Months later, when she saw the second,
she thought she might be going crazy and that scared her more than
the beast. She researched her condition, learned about mental
illness, hallucinations and brain tumors and opted for the tumor.
She signed up for a thorough physical actually hoping that was the
cause. It wasn’t.

More months passed and while she was always
waiting for the symptoms to recur, it seemed the problem, whatever
the cause, was cured. Until one night when she and John were riding
home together after work. That was the night she knew she wasn’t
crazy, the night she’d learned these creatures were real. That was
the night she saw what the beasts could do and learned, too late,
what she could do about it. That was the night that changed her
life.

The beast acted like it was enjoying the
music and the dancing. It moved from group to group laughing at the
flashing buttons, collecting glo sticks and passing them on. JJ
followed, staying far enough back to remain unnoticed. There was
nothing she could do while the thing was indoors and among people.
If she killed it here, the act would be seen as the murder of a
man, a human and not a beast.