Guardian's Joy #3 (32 page)

It wasn’t his idea to test the preparation
out in the open. There were too many variables. He’d been the one
to argue for more time. Yes, he had proposed that certain
undesirable elements of the Independent population be used, but in
a tightly controlled laboratory setting like the one beneath the
clinic where his original research was done. But no, the Director
insisted the testing be done outside the confines and safety of the
Sanctuary.

And that militaristic martinet, Salvador ad
Primus, only made things worse. He’s the one who insisted they
plunge ahead, turning subject after subject. The addition of demon
blood to the diet was another variable to be dealt with and while
it did seem to speed the process, the resultant complications were
now being laid at Gregory’s door. It wasn’t fair.

As for his success in transforming common
members of the Race into Supermen, he had several possible subjects
that would be ready for presentation at the Sanctuary’s annual
winter ball, announced this year as the Betrothal Ball in honor of
the Director’s mating. It would be the perfect opportunity to
introduce his creations and steal a bit of the Director’s
thunder.

Maximilian ad Doren was nothing but a social
climbing upstart who used his connections with the Nonveniae to
further his own ambitions. Surely the High Lord was aware of this.
If not, he soon would be.

Chapter 31

“JJ, this is your chance to maybe find out. I
have no idea who my father is,” Grace admitted, “And I’ve always
wondered about him. Does he even know I exist?”

Hope shrugged and shook her head sadly. “I’m
ashamed to admit I’m related to my father. He made our life
hell.”

“I’m not either of you. I never had a father
and I sure as hell don’t need the bastard now. He walked out on my
mother when he found out she was pregnant, when he found out she
was a witch.”

“When he realized he’d mated with a Daughter
of Man.” Manon corrected. She nodded her head as if it all made
sense.

“They weren’t mated,” JJ argued, “I know, I
know, no mating, no babies, which pretty much puts paid to the
theory that my father was Paenitentia, because my mother didn’t
have a rose of any sort anywhere on her body. The only tat she had
was a… oh, shit.” JJ put her hand to her forehead. She could feel
the headache coming on, but why? This was a memory from her
childhood and not from the lost years. “She, she had a heart, a
broken heart above her left breast.”

“That covered the rose left from her mating
to your father,” Manon stated the obvious conclusion.

“Then your father must have cared for you in
some way.” Grace was adamant. “There are things about the
Paenitentia that are way different from humans and not just the
fangs and the symbols. There’s something in their DNA that compels
them to care for their children. They don’t all do it well, but
they must do it.”

“It is true,” Manon added, “Fathers must
provide for their young, though they don’t have to be physically
present. I believe it is connected to ancient times when men would
have to hunt or go to war. For mothers, it’s worse.”

“The twins told me their mother got sick when
they went away to school and they were fourteen. You’d think the
poor woman would have been glad to be rid of them,” Hope said with
a laugh and then added for JJ’s benefit, “Paenitentia women can’t
be away from their children for more than a few days without
becoming physically ill, which may be why so few of them work
outside the home.”

“And why the mating contract is so generous.”
Grace poured herself another cup of herbal tea.

“So how did my mother and I get screwed?

Manon blew out a thoughtful breath. “Your
father must have been very young, Cherie, and I believe, with all
the ardor of youth he loved your mother; loved her enough to ignore
the fact that members of the Race cannot mate with humans, not must
not, cannot. Perhaps he thought, with the foolishness of youth,
that some great cosmic exception had been made for him and his
lover.” She shrugged. “Who knows? It is the only excuse I can think
of for such behavior. But he had to know his plans would not meet
with his family’s approval because there was no mating contract.”
She smiled wryly. “This I know from my own experience. A simple
liaison between him and a human would be accepted with a wink,
because no child can be born of such a union.

“He would have known, when your mother became
pregnant, there could only be one reason. Once mated, she could
sleep with a human lover, but she could not bear his child. So, if
she was not Paenitentia and she was not human, she had to be a
Daughter of Man, what you call a witch. If she had not told him
before…” She shook her head and shrugged again. “It still does not
account for his failure to support you. No matter how little he
had, he would have the need to share it. He could not survive
otherwise.”

Hope’s brow was crinkled in thought. “Maybe
he died,” She suggested, “If no one knew about the mating, no one
would bring her the news.”

JJ was distracted, hardly heard the rest of
the debate. None of this fit with what she knew and yet… “We always
had money,” she mused aloud.

“What?” Everyone stopped talking to stare at
her.

“We always had money,” JJ said again, more
emphatically. “I never thought about it when I was a kid. When
you’re a kid you don’t, do you? We never had a lot, but the bills
always got paid and my mother never worked a regular job. She did
readings and later tattoos, but neither would have been enough to
support us. When we moved to the commune, no one had money except…”
She paused and closed her eyes, swallowing hard at the pain that
lanced through her temple.

“My father sent money all those years, didn’t
he? She said he didn’t love us.” Which was true. “She let me
believe he’d forgotten us. Why didn’t she tell me who he was?”

Hope lean forward. “Don’t be angry with her,
JJ, please don’t. Your mother had to have suffered. As long as she
was bound by the mating, she couldn’t form a real connection with
any other man. She knew if you met him, he’d reject you just as she
was rejected. You’re a Daughter of Man.”

None of this made sense and yet it did; the
money, the constant stream of men running through their lives. Did
her mother hope to cover the power of the rose with the broken
heart tattoo?

“She did tell you,” Manon said quietly. “She
told you when she put that tattoo on your shoulder.”

“You touched it, didn’t you? You saw.”

Manon nodded. “When the twins brought you to
us, oui, I touched it. Mais non, I did not see. I told you. Those
years were dark to me also.”

Which is where this conversation began. “If
you can’t see them then what’s the point of this mind-meld thing
you want me to do?”

“I can show you the door. You must open
it.”

“I’ve already tried to open it.” JJ thought
of the blinding headaches that always accompanied her attempts. “I
can’t. What makes you think this time will be any different?”

“This time, you will have the added strength
of your sisters beside you.”

“Speaking of doors,” Grace started to rise,
“There’s someone pounding on yours.”

“Stay there.” Hope ran to the kitchen. They
heard her open the door. “Oh, honey, what are you doing out without
a coat?” and then, “You’re right, you won’t die without one. At
least come in by the fire where it’s warm.”

Hope and Faith entered the parlor, but Faith
ignored the fire and went straight to JJ. She knelt at JJ’s feet
and motioned for Hope to take her place at JJ’s left while Grace
took the right.

“I haven’t said yes yet,” JJ told her and
then she shook her head and smiled wryly. “But you knew I would,
didn’t you.”

Faith rolled her eyes, smiled and wiggled her
fingers in front of JJ’s face. Gold sparkled at the tips.

“She’s here just in case,” Hope laughed. “She
left the house without a coat and came here just in case.”

Faith smiled at her sister and impishly stuck
out her tongue.

How many times had Faith made that same face
at her when they were young? Hope laughed and stroked her sister’s
hair with one hand while she wiped a tear away with the other.
“Welcome home, Faith. It’s good to have you back.”

Faith winked at her sister and looked at JJ
with raised brows.

“Okay, okay, you win. How do we do this?” JJ
looked at Manon.

Faith clapped her hands, rose, and took up
her position behind JJ. She placed her fingers lightly against her
friend’s temples and nodded to the others who each took one of JJ’s
hands in her own.

Manon slid her hand inside the neck of JJ’s
sweater lightly gripping her shoulder skin to skin. The
Frenchwoman’s fingers covered the lily tattoo. “You must relax, ma
petite, and remember these are memories. They may have hurt you
once, but that is past. The only power they have is the power you
give them. You are surrounded by sisters and friends who will see
you through. Close your eyes and think back.”

JJ closed her eyes and slowly let out her
breath. She forced her shoulders to relax along with her tight grip
on the hands holding hers. When the first memories flashed through
her mind, she stiffened in shock and they immediately disappeared.
She heard Manon’s voice as from another room, urging her to relax,
telling her she was safe. JJ tried again.

She could see it all so clearly; the tiny
apartment she shared with her mother, the combination
kitchen/living room with the curtained alcove where she slept and
the two doors leading to her mother’s bedroom and the tiny bath.
There were the strings of shiny beads her mother hung in all the
windows and the brightly colored knitted throws that covered the
shabby furniture.

It was so real in her mind she could almost
hear Mrs. Garrity’s footsteps echoing in the ceiling above and
smell the cookies she baked with such regularity that she and her
apartment always smelled of warm sugar and spicy cinnamon.

She’d been happy here and she wanted to stay
and visit for a while, but this was a memory she could recall at
will, though most days she chose not to. She was here to find the
lost years, the ones that someone made her forget. She needed to
find the door. And suddenly it was there, a huge door looming above
her, the knob so high she could barely reach it. But reach it she
did and as she turned it, the familiar pain began to creep up her
neck and into her head.

A warm, tingling sensation followed it;
Faith’s healing touch. JJ felt Hope and Grace squeeze her hands in
encouragement and using all her strength, she pushed the heavy door
open… And there was her mother, skirts swirling around her ankles,
peasant blouse revealing one shoulder and a colorful scarf wrapped
around her head. She was pulling JJ up a long gravel drive, their
suitcases bumping over the uneven surface.

“
You’re going to be happy here, Joy. There
are women here just like us. They’ll teach you and care for you
when I’m… They’ll see how special you are. Everything happens for a
reason, sweetheart, and this place is the reason you were born.
It’s all been worth it, every minute, because this is the place
where you were destined to be.”

JJ hadn’t understood what her mother was
saying, not then. She often spoke of fate and destiny and the
alignment of the stars. JJ only understood that Joan was happy
again and she hadn’t been happy in a long, long time.

The scene faded away. Was that it? Pain shot
through her head, sharp and stabbing and again she felt the gentle
pressure of Faith’s fingertips bring soothing relief.

A man, sitting in a high backed chair in the
middle of a low platform that was built like a stage at one end of
a large hall. It wasn’t a throne, but it may as well have been with
all the deference he was paid. Her mother even bowed her head and
tugged on JJ’s hand until she did the same.

“
Is this the child?” he asked.

JJ looked up through her lashes. He was an
old man to her child’s eyes, maybe fifty, fifty-five. He had coal
black hair that was graying at the sides and he wore a black shirt,
more like a tunic, with an emblem embroidered over the left breast
where the pocket of a shirt would be. It was a field of lilies
cleaved by a red sword. Black blood dripped from its point.

“
She is who I say she is,” her mother was
saying with her head still bowed. “I swear it.”

JJ didn’t understand that either. She was
Joy Justice. Everyone who knew her could swear to that. Why would
this man think her mother might lie about something so silly?

There was no pain now and as if her brain
recognized the relief, scenes began to tumble past, bombarding her
with memories, flashing by in such rapid succession her stomach
churned. Joan had taken her to a carnival once and the spinning
teacups made her feel just like this. Wait! She no longer called
her mother Joan, but Mama. Her mother wanted the others to
recognize her position as the mother of ‘the one’.

They were happy. JJ was coddled and pampered
as she’d never been before. The other girls sought her out. Her
mother was given the lightest of duties and was courted by a number
of men, but she never took one to her bed.

The scenes slowed and JJ’s head snapped back
with the sudden onslaught of all too familiar pain. She recognized
it now for what it was, a memory too painful to face. Faith’s
fingers kneaded at her temples and stroked up into her hair.

“
It hurts, Mama.”

“
I know, sweetheart, I know, but it’s
something that needs to be done.” Mama wiped JJ’s shoulder with a
soft cloth. “Here, we’ll take a short break, okay? I only have the
center to finish and then a few words and then we’ll be
done.”