Guardian's Joy #3 (31 page)

Hope didn’t look strong and confident now.
She looked lost and hurt. It appeared that one of JJ’s newfound
idols had feet of clay. Instead of disappointment, JJ found it
strangely comforting to know she wasn’t alone. She glanced at
Grace, who was watching Hope with eyes filled with concern. JJ
wondered what secrets and fears lurked in Grace’s heart.

“She’s ashamed and afraid,” JJ said quietly.
She hoped Faith understood this breach of confidence. This needed
to be said and Faith had no voice. If JJ was going to have to leave
this place, she wanted to leave something good behind.

“You saw what she’d become. You all did. You
can’t help yourselves. You see her as a victim. I know what
happened to her, but I wasn’t an eye witness. Those few minutes on
the street don’t count, so it’s easier for me to see her as a
survivor. I recognize her strength. I didn’t know the pretty girl
she was, so I don’t pity the loss. I see the scarred girl she is
and I only see a friend.

“She knows you blame yourself for what
happened to her. She hates that. What’s worse, though, is she
believes it was her fault. She’s afraid if she leaves here, she’ll
make the same mistakes she made before. She’s afraid she’ll end up
in the hands of a demon.”

“It wasn’t Faith’s fault!” Hope cried out and
began to weep.

“Of course it wasn’t her fault, sweetie.”
Grace began kneading Hope’s shoulders while Manon grabbed the box
of tissues from the counter. They both were teary eyed.

“It wasn’t your fault either, Hope.” JJ shut
her own burning eyes and swallowed what she was feeling, burying it
deep. “I don’t know much about demons,” she told Hope, “But I know
about humans that are every bit as evil and I know they leave
behind more victims than the legal ones.

“You and Faith need to talk, really talk and
you need to watch and listen. You need to stop treating her like an
injured child and start treating her like a recovering adult. She
loves you, you know, loves you more than anything and she’s so
happy you’ve found Nico. That’s why she won’t live with you.” JJ
tried to suppress her embarrassed laugh. “She wants you and Nico to
be free to ah… express your passion? and thinks her being there
would um… suppress it.”

Hope’s face flamed red and Grace let out a
truly unladylike snort before she laughed. Manon, who was usually
more circumspect when it came to sex, chuckled before she
spoke.

“So, Faith is much more aware than we
supposed.”

“Have I really been that awful?” Hope asked
bleakly. She looked from Manon to Grace.

Manon shrugged noncommittally, but Grace gave
a slight nod. “Sorry, sweetie.”

They were all a little surprised when JJ came
to Hope’s defense. “You gave her what she needed, Hope. She needed
to be sheltered, pampered and protected. You made it so she didn’t
have to think. She only had to heal.” She tapped her head. “You
gave her the chance to hide out for a while.” JJ went to the light
switch on the wall and flipped it down. “That’s how Faith described
it. Lights out.” She flipped it up. “This is where she is now. We
need different things when we’re in the dark than we do in the
light. Faith needed what you gave her. Without it, she never would
have been able to find the light again. Now, she needs something
else.”

Hope sniffed, nodded and tried to smile. “I’m
glad she has you. I was jealous, you know. I felt like you were
taking my place.”

JJ felt the truth in Hope’s words. “I
couldn’t take your place,” she said, speaking her own truth, “But
thanks for the compliment.”

“Okay.” Grace dusted off her hands and began
collecting glasses and plates. “Now that we’re all huggy-kissy
again, we need to get back to the reason for this pow-wow.” She
swept her hand out to the door and bowed. “Ladies, shall we adjourn
to Manon’s parlor?”

JJ followed the others, though she didn’t see
the need to leave the cozy kitchen. It was merely changing one
comfortable location for another.

Like the woman herself, Manon’s parlor was a
combination of old fashioned elegance and modern comfort. The
furniture was deep cushioned and comfy. JJ could picture kicking
off her boots and snuggling down for a snooze before the fire,
surrounded by the sparkle of old crystal and silver.

Now that the minor kitchen drama was over, JJ
was ready to kick back and listen. Let the others talk. She’d
already done more than her share. She was surprised, therefore,
when Manon motioned to the ottoman in front of where the
Frenchwoman sat. It was almost close enough for their knees to
touch.

“It will be easier if you are relaxed,” Manon
told her. “Clear your mind. I will wait until you are ready to
begin.”

“Begin?” JJ looked around the room at the
warm fire burning in the grate and the candles shedding their soft
light over mantle and table. Hope was curled in a chair by the fire
looking a little sad, but she smiled encouragingly. Grace sat in
the other fireside chair with her hands folded in her lap and
looking… guilty.

Manon followed JJ’s gaze and settled it on
Grace. “JJ did not request this, did she?”

Chapter 30

Nardo still wasn’t sure why Joy was so upset.
Sure, it would have been nice to tell her about what he’d found
before going to breakfast, but the time available for that had been
taken up by other things. Thinking of those other things made him
hard all over again. He shifted in his chair and moved it closer to
the table.

It wasn’t like a discussion with Joy would
have changed the outcome. They still would have told the others,
the same questions would have been asked and the results would have
been the same. The exception, of course, was that they weren’t
going to the Sanctuary tonight, but tomorrow night. He didn’t get
it.

He thought about asking his Liege Lord to
explain it, but while an expert in all things deadly, Canaan was as
clueless as Nardo when it came to the nuances of a woman’s mind.
Why, just the other waking, the man had commented, pleasantly
enough, that he thought he detected a bit of a pouch to Grace’s
belly. She promptly accused him of calling her fat, burst into
tears and fled the room. He and the other men had sat in stunned
silence until Hope entered. Upon hearing the story, she threw up
her hands, hissed “Men!” in a way that said more about their lack
of intelligence than their gender, and ran off to comfort Grace.
The men were left as baffled as they were before, which, Nardo
thought, was also typical of women.

They spoke in cryptic symbols and allegories.
They couldn’t seem to say what they thought in clear and concise
language. When he’d asked Joy to explain what was wrong, she’d told
him something about demons. As far as he knew, no one had mentioned
demons.

“Would you rather be ambushed by a demon
jumping you as you turned the corner,” she’d asked him, “Or have
someone tell you there’s a demon around the corner, better get your
weapons out?”

She was standing there with her arms folded
under her breasts. It was very hard to concentrate with those
luscious little apples bobbing in emphasis to her words. Joy
thought they were too small and insignificant. Nardo saw them as
sweet little treats she kept hidden from everyone but him.

JJ wasn’t happy when he snapped his eyes away
from her chest long enough to grin and ask her to repeat the
question.

“You’re not listening!”

“No, I’m not,” he admitted. “Why don’t we go
to my rooms where we can talk about it some more?”

She tried not to react, but he caught a ghost
of a smile tilt at the corners of her mouth. “Sex is not the
solution to every argument.”

“That’s a pretty broad statement,” he told
her. “I think we should test the theory and keep a tally of the
results.”

At that point, she’d thrown up her hands much
the way Hope and Grace did and said she was going to Manon’s where
people thought with their heads instead of their dicks.

Canaan cleared his throat and Nardo realized
it wasn’t the first time when the others laughed.

“You ready?” Canaan asked after removing his
tongue from his cheek.

Nardo nodded. He’d spent most of the night at
his terminal researching. Since Joy had abandoned him, he’d decided
it was a good time to get some work done.

“Our security friend,” Canaan nodded toward
the garage where the freezers were located, “has a teardrop. He
could have been one of us.”

“So why wasn’t he, boss? If he wanted that
kind of life, we’re a helluva a lot better than some security
firm.”

“While I appreciate the sentiment, Col, not
everyone sees us in the same light as you do.”

“Why join anything? Isn’t that the point of
being an Indie? They don’t join.”

Broadbent spoke up. “Many Independents don’t
like the options available to them, Dov. They are searching, as we
all are, for a place in society that meets their needs. I recently
read a treatise on the subject.” Because of the number of groans,
he changed his course. “The gist of which leads me to believe our
boy may have found something outside the norm i.e. a sanctuary or
enclave or even the Guardians. I believe he has found a raison
d’etre, a cause, if you will.”

“I think you’re right.”

“What else is new,” Dov grumbled. “Now will
someone translate so I can understand why he’s right?”

Nardo flashed a picture of the coin onto the
screen. “Once I got a name from Nico, I contacted some academic
friends of my parents and from them I got some names of other
academics who might have some information. I told them it was for a
video game and that probably turned a few of them off, but I didn’t
want any rumors started. One of them emailed me back. Seems he’s a
fan.

“Turns out, there’s not much out there and
what there is, is pretty sketchy. They take their name from a myth.
According to legend, the Nonveniae were like us except they didn’t
believe we’d done anything to repent. They thought we had the
superiority and therefore the right to rule the earth. If you
believe the myth, one of the first duties of the Guardians wasn’t
to kill demons, but to eliminate the Nonveniae.”

“So we wiped them out, right?” Dov couldn’t
believe the Guardians could fail at anything.

Nardo shrugged. “Maybe, probably, if they
ever existed at all. This is mythology, not history.”

“I remember,” Otto murmured from his end of
the War Room table. He smiled. “I remember my mother threatening me
with the Nonveniae. They would sneak in and steal naughty little
boys, turn them and force them to serve in their vampire army. The
story terrified me, though not enough to mend my naughty ways.”

“Shit.” Col looked around the table. “Is that
what you think these guys are doing? Creating an army?”

“They can try, but I don’t see how they can
control a dozen vampires, never mind an army.” Canaan ran his hand
through his hair. “What else you got?” he asked Nardo.

“About every century or so, some guy shows
up, claiming to be a descendant of the originals and the
brotherhood makes a comeback. I’ll bet what Nico remembers was the
last upsurge. What we’ve got is the newest one. The coins are their
membership cards.”

“Why haven’t we heard about them before?” Dov
wanted to know, “Why’d they teach us all that useless crap in
school instead if important stuff like this?”

“I doubt if they considered small,
centennially recurring groups of dissidents ‘important stuff’.
Crackpots seldom leave their footprints in history.” Broadbent
smiled benignly.

“Yeah, well, a vampire army is gonna leave
one helluva footprint.”

“Dov, anyone can create a vampire.
Controlling one is another story. Look at Otto.” Canaan pointed to
his old friend. “You’ve never seen him in a full blood rage, but
you’ve seen enough. When the thirst is on him, can you reason with
him? Can you picture him following orders?”

“No,” Dov reluctantly admitted.

“No, and yet he’s the most reasonable and
honorable man I know. If Otto can’t reach some level of control
when the thirst is on him, it can’t be done.”

“Unless this is a different breed of
vampire,” Otto said quietly.

*****

Where in hell is TS015? Dr. Gregory ad Fenton
spent his nights asking that question of anyone he thought might
have the answer; the psychologist who studied him and the guards
who worked most closely with him. Where would he go? What would he
do?

He spent his days dreaming of the havoc such
a creature could wreak without the drugs and demon blood necessary
to keep him sane and manageable. How long could TS015 hold out
before the blood rage overtook him? Salvador insisted the subject
was dead, but without a body, how could they be sure?

Ideally, the Guardians would have killed the
creature and immediately cremated the remains. The whole thing
could be attributed to a rogue vampire from the Independent
community, quickly dispatched. Only there’d been no word from the
Guardians that such an action had been taken, no announcement that
the threat had been neutralized with human society none the wiser.
Ordinarily, they would request the use of the crematorium in
Moonlight Sanctuary, yet Maximillian had heard nothing, or so he
claimed.

He wouldn’t be surprised if the Director was
withholding this vital information, purposely tormenting him with
the unknown as punishment. Maximillian blamed him for everything
when none of it was his responsibility.

“If you value your position as a leader in
research,” he’d hissed, “You’ll fix this problem or you may find
you’re the solution. I can make sure that when this fiend is found,
its name will be ad Fenton. Do I make myself clear?”

Angry and humiliated, Gregory could only nod
and flee. How dare the Director treat him with such disrespect? His
family had been renowned members of the scientific community for
generations. His own genetic and fertility research could be the
salvation of the Race.