Guardian's Joy #3 (20 page)

“How do you find them?” Surely they had a
better way than she did. She wasn’t planning to stay with these
people and she wanted to learn as much as she could.

“Sniff ‘em out,” Dov told her. “We can get a
whiff from about a quarter mile away, but the closer you get, the
harder it gets. If they’ve been in the area for a while, the smell
is all over the place so it’s hard to find the exact location. We
can’t see them until they release their human cover, which is
usually right before or after an attack, although some of them are
dumb enough to think if they can’t see you, you can’t see
them.”

“I can see them, but I have to track them by
sight. They don’t smell any different to me until I get up close.”
Something she preferred not to do.

“Yeah. You got real close to the one Nardo
killed a couple weeks back.” Col had had a few close calls
himself.

JJ stopped and waited until the twins
realized it. “I killed that demon.” The nerve of that bastard
taking credit for her kill.

“Nope.” Dov was definite. “Nardo did it.” He
laughed and wiggled his fingers. “Though he did say you zapped its
ass a good one. Made his job easy.”

“I don’t know what he told you, but I killed
that demon. I’ve done it before.”

Col shook his head. “Maybe so, but not that
one. We saw him take the heart and it was still going strong.”

“What do you mean take the heart?” She was
almost afraid to ask.

“Ah, you know, take the heart. Rip it out. Or
do you usually take the head.”

“Of course she takes the head.” Dov looked at
his brother as if Col was stupid. “She’s not strong enough to punch
through the chest wall.”

“I don’t do either.” The thought of it made
her cringe. “I electrocute them.”

“And do they shrivel up into a pile of dust?”
Dov had seen one burn once, but Canaan still had to take the heart
or it would have healed.

“No,” JJ said, growing concerned. “They just
fell down dead and I got the hell out.”

Col put his hand on her shoulder and said
sympathetically, “Then you didn’t kill it. Sorry. They regenerate
if you don’t take the heart or the head.”

“Yeah,” Dov agreed, “If you left a dead demon
lying around, it probably would have been in the papers or on the
news. Doesn’t mean your zappy fingers aren’t useful, though. I tell
you what, we see one tonight, you can zap it and one of us’ll kill
it. We’ll share the credit.”

“Unlike Nardo,” she muttered.

“Hey, he didn’t say he killed it,” Dov
defended his friend. “We did. He said you cooked it.”

It didn’t make her feel any better. She
thought she’d hunted and killed four demons, five if you counted
the one that got John. When in reality, she hadn’t done anything at
all.

“Aw, come on. You’re not going to cry, are
you? We couldn’t kill them when we first started either. Canaan had
to do it.”

“I’m not going to cry,” she snapped. She’d
save the pity party for later when she was alone.

“All righty then. Now that we’ve got that out
of the way…” Dov grinned and brushed his hands together to dust the
subject off. “How do you feel about ole Nardo crushin’ on ya?”

“None of your damn business, that’s how.” JJ
laughed so they could see she took no offence, but the truth was
she couldn’t have told them even if she wanted to. She wasn’t
sure.

Nardo made her feel things no other man ever
had. She shook her head. No, that wasn’t true. No man had made her
feel those things as an adult, but she’d felt some of them before.
It was some time in her forgotten past.

“I told you not to ask, you jackass.” Col
shoved his twin, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make JJ
wince.

“Hey! It’s okay. You can ask whatever you
want. Doesn’t mean I have to answer. Where are we headed next?” she
asked more to change the subject than because she wanted to
know.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I could use
a burger and a beer,” Col suggested. “There’s a place five blocks
over where we could take a lady.”

A lady? JJ almost argued the point, but she
quickly reconsidered. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d
been referred to as a lady, wasn’t sure there was a last time.

“You guys drink on the job?” she asked
instead.

“Why not?” Dov asked, looking confused.

“Because she’s human, dorkwad.” Col turned to
JJ and smiled. “Alcohol doesn’t affect us like it does you. We’d
have to drink a helluva lot to get high. It’s our metabolism or
something. Sorry, wasn’t thinking. We can find a coffee shop.”

“No, that’s okay. A burger sounds great as
long as it comes with fries. You guys get your beer. I’ll get
something else.”

“You like deep fried pickles?” Dov asked.

“Sure do.” She liked these guys. Both of them
had sparred with her in the gym, had teased her when she fumbled
and complimented her when she scored a hit. Neither had complained
when Canaan said she could tag along.

“There’s a place over on Delaney that does a
whole deep fried plate; pickles, cheese, mushrooms, potatoes and
salami and your choice of Oreos or Twinkies to finish it off. They
call it the Heart Attack.”

“My kind of meal,” she laughed.

“Col, I think I’m falling in love. So tell me
JJ, how do you feel about getting dressed up for dinner?”

“I don’t know. Most of the time, I unwrap
take-out and eat it hanging over the sink.”

“Oh, yeah.” Col gave his twin a playful shot
in the shoulder that would have knocked any other man off his feet.
“I think we found us a keeper.”

Chapter
20

Nardo was laid back in the chair casually
pretending to watch television when the three returned. He’d spent
the night on patrol with Nico and told him Canaan’s concerns about
trust.

“I know no more about JJ’s story than you,
but I do know something about trust, or more correctly, the lack of
it. When Kurt and Boris took me in, I should have loved them for
it. And what is love but profound trust. In love, I only knew
betrayal. You can’t wash away years with a single act of
kindness.”

“But they taught you to trust them, didn’t
they? How do you do that, Nico? How do you teach someone to
trust?”

Nico had offered a smile at that. “They beat
it into me.” He laughed outright when Nardo stopped and stared. “In
training, they would make me lose my temper. I’d been fighting for
years. My temper was my weapon. But it was humans I fought, not
Guardians. With them, my temper was my flaw and they took advantage
which infuriated me further. They’d push me. ‘Why are you so angry?
Why? Why? Why?’

Nico wasn’t smiling now. “One day, they
pushed me far enough and I told them.” He shook his head. “How much
hate I had in me then.”

“What did they do then?”

“Kurt held me pinned to the floor until I ran
out of profanity and then Boris brought me cookies, a rare treat in
that House. They were good cookies, too. Made with black walnuts
and honey.” Nico told it as if it were no big deal.

“That’s all? Didn’t you talk about it?”
Surely there was more. While Nardo didn’t know the whole story, he
knew Nico’s childhood had been a horror. He’d seen the evidence in
Nico’s scars.

Nico shrugged. “It was a long time ago and
they were men. This touchy-feely business is a modern
convention.”

Nardo thought about their conversation and
wondered if he could apply a modern version of Kurt and Boris’
methods. The tricky part would be when and how to initiate it.

He found his opportunity twenty minutes later
when the twins and Joy strolled in, laughing. He wanted to shout,
“Where the hell have you been?” but he kept his cool. His hands
were crossed over his stomach and his legs were stretched out, his
bare feet crossed at the ankles. He only glanced up as they entered
through the side door, gave them a one finger salute and turned
back to the TV. He might have pulled it off if he’d paid more
attention to the programing.

“Are you ordering the black and white or the
neutral and white?” Dov asked with a shitty grin.

“What are you talking about?” Nardo asked,
completely at a loss.

Col started to laugh. He poked his chin at
the infomercial. “For your perkier boobs. He wants to know what set
you’re ordering.”

“Very funny.” Nardo looked at Joy. Her face
was reddened from the cold, but she looked happy. More than happy.
She looked radiant. “You see some action?” he asked.

“Not us. JJ,” Dov answered. “You should have
seen her. Talk about kickin’ butt and takin’ names.” He slapped and
punched the air, spun and elbowed an imaginary opponent and
finished with a roundhouse kick. “Wham bam, she’s one helluva
ma’am. You should have seen her, Nardo. Okay, the guy was a little
drunk, but he was big. I thought she was going to make him eat his
tail pipe.”

Nardo wasn’t smiling. “She was supposed to
observe, not get involved. Why didn’t you tell her to stand down as
you were ordered?”

“Cause it wasn’t a demon, Sir By-The-Book. It
was just some lame ass biker dude hitting on some sweet little
thing who wasn’t interested. The poor kid was crying and Col was
ready to hammer the guy. JJ thought the dude might take it better
if she approached him all nicey-nice instead of us pounding on him.
So we stayed back and let her do her thing.”

“She goes all good cop,” Col took over the
story. “Excuse me, Sir, can we talk for a minute?” he mimicked.
“Guy didn’t wanna talk. He turns and takes a swing hard enough to
take her head off. She ducks and wham!” He shrugged. “Well, Dov
already showed you that part. But man, you should have seen it. Way
cool.”

“Where were you two when all this was going
on?” Nardo stood and rolled his shoulders.

“Hey. We were right there, man, not twenty
feet away. If he’d connected, we would have been on him.” Dov gave
his brother a worried look.

“I wasn’t in any danger,” JJ objected, but
Nardo ignored her.

“So you would have been there after he took
her head off,” he said to Col. “And of course when it was over, you
thumped the biker and the girl. Right?” The look they gave each
other told him they hadn’t.

Nardo let his breath out slowly. “You two go
find Lord Canaan and tell him what happened. See if he thinks
putting a recruit in a dangerous situation was way cool. And while
you’re at it, ask Grace how long it takes human bones to heal.
You,” he pointed to JJ, “To the gym.”

JJ’s jaw clenched and her chin came up. Being
out on patrol with the twins had been fun. With their jokes and
gossip and easy acceptance, they’d made her feel like one of the
guys, like she belonged. On the force, with the exception of John,
she had fellow officers and if the need arose, they would back her
up as she would them, but she never quite fit in. She’d never felt
the camaraderie she’d felt tonight. For a little while, JJ felt as
if she had come home.

And now Nardo was trying to spoil it. She
started to tell him just what she thought, but the twin’s sudden
silence and slumped shoulders brought her up short. In any
organization, there were rules and it was evident they’d broken
some.

“Hang in there, JJ.” Dov gave her a
supportive bump to the shoulder with his fist before he and his
brother headed for the kitchen.

“If they’re going to be reprimanded, then I
should be too,” she said. They’d all known the biker wasn’t going
to listen to reason.

“Yes, you should, but for a different reason.
Now go get changed and I’ll meet you in the gym.” He walked off
toward the hallway that led to the second building. “You’ve got ten
minutes.”

Nardo’s anger poked something sharp into her
throat, but she sniffed it back. Taking her comeuppance from Canaan
was one thing, but being put in her place by this guy wasn’t going
to cut it. Who did he think he was? “Listen, pal, you can’t tell
me…”

He whirled on her. “Oh but I can. You want to
be a recruit? You need a trainer. I’ve been assigned. If you don’t
like it, take it up with Lord Canaan.”

JJ clenched her fists and gritted her teeth
so hard her head shook. He knew damn well she couldn’t take it up
with Canaan. “Oooph!” She huffed because she couldn’t think of
anything else to say. And then she did something so weak and
girlish she embarrassed herself. She stamped her foot.

Nardo only made it worse when he laughed.
“Eight minutes,” he said.

She was there with two minutes to spare and
by the look on her face and the way she held her body, she was
ready to rumble. Shoulders back, head held high; a warrior queen.
She strode into the gym like she owned it. She looked directly into
his eyes, daring him to give her something she couldn’t take. She
was magnificent in her anger and yet it was that very anger that
worried him.

Nardo sat, cross legged, on the thick blue
wrestling mat. He motioned for her to take a seat across from
him.

JJ stood with her hands on her hips. “I’d
rather just get this over with.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re not in
charge.” Nardo smiled inwardly when he saw her flinch. “Sit.”

JJ flopped to the mat, mimicked his crossed
legs and folded her arms across her chest.

“When humans first came upon the earth,”
Nardo began. He’d heard the story so many times, he almost chanted
it. “God sent a sect of his children, angels as it were, to
instruct those humans in righteousness and according to
Paenitentian belief these children, these sons of God were seduced
by the Daughters of Man. In their beguilement they taught these
Daughters of Man the arts of magic and witchcraft to please them
and to entice the women to take them as husbands and in the
fullness of time the women bore forth the Nephilim, giants who were
known as heroes and renowned for their strength and prowess and
huge appetites for all things of pleasure.