Guardian's Joy #3 (43 page)

Nardo rolled to his feet, knives ready, and
sliced through the wrist of the nearest uniform. The man screamed
and his gun clattered to the floor. With his heightened senses, he
felt the bullet fly past his cheek. Without a second’s thought, his
eyes followed the path from which it came and his hand followed.
His knife sliced along a trajectory to the right of the bullet’s
and lodged in the shooter’s heart. This man only grunted before he
fell.

Canaan’s shout of warning rose over the
confusion. Nardo followed his liege lord’s gaze to the far and
darkest corner of the room. In the dim light, he could see the
darkened outlines of cells and the shaded forms within and knew
instantly what Canaan’s shout was for. A guard was unlocking the
cells.

The guard threw open door after door. “Kill
them!” he screamed, but the sharp coppery smell that pervaded the
room took the caged creatures beyond following orders. Blood called
louder than man.

Incensed, the creatures saw no threat, only
victims. They lunged, attacking the guards who were closest,
throwing the men to the ground and tearing at their throats. Nardo
recognized them right away as kin to the creature he’d fought
before. More animalistic than that one, perhaps, but they would no
doubt have the same strength and agility.

“Vampire!” he shouted as he slid the long
blade from the harness at his back and continued the movement
overhead and down into an attacking vampire’s neck.

A quick survey of the room showed Canaan
wading into a tangle of bodies and Nico tossing a guard behind him
and attacking the vampire beyond. Broadbent came charging through
the door with the twins on his heels. The odds were now in the
Guardian’s favor and the battle would be over in minutes.

“I thought there’d be guards,” Hope
mused.

The two women had moved to the front seat
where they had access to the heater if they became too cold and the
radio if they became too bored which JJ figured would be in another
two minutes.

“There were,” she answered, keeping her voice
calm and casual. She pointed to the shadowy lumps partially covered
with snow. “Two down by the bay door, one by the back exit. There
was probably one on the roof, too.” She reached for the radio.

It wasn’t boredom, though she tried for
Hope’s sake to pretend it was. It was straight up, gut twisting
anxiety. She’d let her partner go into an unknown situation and she
wasn’t there to back him up. She closed her eyes. “
He’s not
John
,” she reminded herself. “
He knows what he’s up
against
.”

Aaron Tippin was singing about being afraid
of nothing but losing you and the lyrics were too close to home. JJ
switched the radio off.

“Who knew Nico was a country fan,” she said,
but it didn’t come out as flip as she wanted it to.

“You really love him, don’t you.” It wasn’t a
question.

JJ nodded, unable to say the words aloud.

Hope nodded. “That’s good. Nico was a little
worried at first. For Nardo.” She laid a reassuring hand on JJ’s
shoulder. “Because he fell so hard, so fast. It would have been
devastating if you didn’t feel the same way and since you were
unconscious…” She snickered a little as she told as she told JJ of
the night the twins brought her home. “I think he would have blood
bonded with you then and there.” The laughter stopped and she
suddenly looked worried. “You’ll mate with him, won’t you?”

This time it was a question and when JJ’s
head bobbed once, Hope asked, “And would you choose a blood
bond?”

JJ stared out through the windshield. A blood
bond was for life and as a Daughter of Man, once bound, her life
would be very, very long. She thought about what Hope said she felt
for Nico and their bond and she thought about how she felt when she
was being drawn through the mirror. She opened her mouth to reply,
saw headlights flash on a van parked across the lot and said
instead, “We’ve got company. Call Canaan.”

Chapter 43

The guard stood with the door open, staring
back into the room with frightened eyes. Shouts and cries of anger
and panic carried down the hall. The sounds of mayhem triggered a
frenzied response in the vampires under his watch. In an instant,
chaos erupted.

Doctor ad Fenton waved his arms and screamed
at the guard. “Close the door! Close the door!” and to the other,
“The prod, the prod! Stop them! Stop them!”

The second guard raised the wand, but had no
time to trigger the release of the electrical shock. The shorter of
the two vampires grabbed the hand holding the prod and twisted. The
guard screamed as the bone cracked and the prod fell to the floor,
but it wasn’t enough for the enraged vampire. He lifted the man as
if he weighed nothing and threw him into the counter that separated
the small living room from the kitchenette.

Terrified and unable to move from his place
behind the chair, Maximillian looked to ad Fenton for direction. He
found none. The doctor dangled in the air, lifted off his feet by
the iron hand gripping his throat. The vampire shook him like a dog
with a rat and then brought the thrashing body to his mouth and bit
down on the spot where ad Fenton’s neck met his shoulder and began
to drink. The doctor’s legs stiffened and relaxed.

Maximillian felt a hand grip his shoulder and
screamed.

“Stop screaming and run, you fool.”

Salvador ad Primus didn’t wait to see if his
orders were obeyed. He opened the door behind him and charged
through the bedroom to the door on the far wall. He opened it
cautiously and peered out into an empty hall. The shouting and
screaming was coming from the right. Ad Primus turned left and
sprinted down the passageway that would take him to the loading
dock. He could hear Maximillian running behind him. The man’s
pleading kept time with his footsteps.

“Oh God, no. Oh God, no.”

Salvador curled his lip at the disloyalty.
God had nothing to do with this. It was those damned Guardians who
were attacking these facilities. Who else could it be? He’d wanted
to eliminate them earlier, but foolishly listened to that idiot
Director with his promises of financial ruin and disgrace. Look
where non-violence had gotten them.

The situation had turned into one giant
cluster fuck and his only goal now was to survive it and begin
again. The girl was still out there and if the rumor was true,
Canaan’s bitch would be whelping another one just like her. He
could lay low, make plans and salvage something from this fiasco.
He needed to stay in the High Lord’s good graces if he ever wanted
to replace him. And why shouldn’t he be the one to replace the High
Lord when the old man finally succumbed to the disease that riddled
his body. No one knew what it was, but it was Salvador’s belief
that it began the day that Joy-bitch lit the old man up like a
Christmas tree.

The cries from the far end of the building
had ceased. He was running out of time. Salvador stopped at the bay
door to listen. Hearing nothing, he cracked it open. No one was
there. The only sound was from directly behind him, so close he
could feel the man’s spittle on his neck. The Director’s pleadings
had turned to incoherent whimpers.

“Shut the fuck up,” Salvador hissed. What had
possessed him to bring this incompetent asshole along? What purpose
did it serve?

The loading bay was empty and the door to the
outside stood open. A quick detour to the small office yielded a
set of keys. He had only to click the button to see which vehicle
they belonged to. They walked out into the night.

Salvador heard the sound of pounding feet at
the same moment the Director screamed. One of the vampires was
hurtling toward them, his face and shirtfront covered in blood. The
Captain suddenly knew what purpose the Director served. With all
his might, he shoved the screaming man into the vampire’s path,
turned and sprinted toward the awaiting van.

Hope nodded her head at the voice on the
phone and turned to JJ. “Canaan’s sending one of the men. We’re
supposed to stay… JJ!”

JJ wasn’t listening. She was out of the car
and moving toward the approaching men. She couldn’t see their
faces, but the way the one in front moved was instantly familiar.
Hadn’t she seen his shadowy form a hundred times over moving
through the darkness of the basement where she’d been kept in that
cage?

It was the High Lord’s Second and she wasn’t
going to cower in the front seat of a car while he made good his
escape. He had made her life hell when she was a defenseless girl.
Well, she was a woman now and no longer defenseless. It was time
she took her revenge.

She only paused a moment when she saw the
vampire emerge from the black hole of the doorway and saw the
coward sacrifice his companion to the snarling creature. She stood
in front of the van he was aiming for. Blue fire crackled at her
fingertips.

“Remember me?” she said and sent a streak of
blue fire toward the center of his chest.

He anticipated the move and dove to the side,
rolled and threw out his arm. It was a move she’d seen too many
times in the gym while practicing with the twins only this time the
knife was real and not a wooden prop. She fell to one knee and
ducked low. The knife clattered against the hood of the van.

He didn’t wait to see if his knife made its
mark. He lunged as she rose which was what Dov always did when they
sparred and why she always managed to take the young Guardian off
his feet. She shrank down, head tucked, as if overwhelmed by the
coming attack and at the last moment lifted up, using the force of
her back and legs and his own forward motion to carry him over her
back and flip him to the pavement behind her.

It was such a simple maneuver that she wanted
to laugh, but she was no fool and this was no game. As with Dov,
she would only catch him off guard once and she would be no match
in a prolonged fight. She could almost hear Nardo yelling at her to
get in and out quick. Her opponent had already snapped to his feet
when the blue fire struck him.

“Fucking bitch,” he snarled as the
electricity coursed through his body. A grimace of pain bared his
fangs and his body began to convulse.

“Damn right,” she said. She kept the fire
flowing until her hand began to shake, then swiped his knife from
where it had fallen and staked him through the heart. She stooped
beside him and watched the light fade from his eyes and smiled
without humor. “Remember me to your friends in hell.”

She was so intent on watching her nightmare
fade away, JJ failed to hear any movement behind her and she heard
Hope’s cries of warning as only vague noise made by someone far
away. It was Nardo’s voice that finally broke through.

“Down! Down! Under the car! Dammit, Joy, get
down!”

She tried to turn, to find him in the dark,
but the movement came with a wave of vertigo and, exhausted by the
expenditure of energy, she swayed and collapsed to her knees. Her
knees hit ad Primus’ leg and she slid-fell off of him and rolled
onto her side. It was that which saved her.

The vampire fell headlong onto ad Primus’
body and, enticed by the warm rich blood that covered the Second’s
chest, the creature began to feed.

JJ rolled onto her back and carefully inched
her way under the van. It was a tight fit and with every inch
gained, she was sure the monster would look up from his meal and
drag her out into the open. She couldn’t fight him. She had nothing
left.

She heard the pounding of boots and the roar
of her name like a battle cry. Nardo’s boots came into view and
then disappeared. The van shook with the impact of bodies crashing
against it. She heard the crash of steel on steel and saw the point
of a sword slide under the van where, caught on the running board,
it stopped inches from her nose. The vampire’s head hit the
pavement with a thud, landing on its side, vacant black eyes
staring into hers. A cry rose up, a keening wail, a soul deep howl
of pain, her name.

“Joy!”

“I’m here.”

He cried her name again and this time his
voice sounded reedy and thin. JJ waited until he paused for breath
and tried again. “I’m here, Nardo, I’m here, next to you, where I
belong.”

Chapter 44

Nardo smoothly maneuvered the SUV around the
truck in front of them, avoiding the spray of salt and sand
shooting out from the back. More snow was predicted and the trucks
were already out on the roads though once away from the city, they
were few and far between. For now, though, the sky was clear and
the stars sparkled bright. He’d left the interstate behind and was
heading north following a two lane road to Perryville.

“Are we almost there?” JJ asked for the
fiftieth time.

“I’m not telling, so quit asking,” Nardo
answered as he had the other forty-nine times. “You’re not going to
wear me down.” He slowed the Escalade to maneuver through a series
of icy curves. “A guy might think you weren’t enjoying his
company.”

They’d been riding for hours and she was, in
fact, enjoying his company. She’d been afraid, at first. What if
they couldn’t find anything to talk about outside of work? She
needn’t have worried. They’d talked about anything and everything
and even the stretches of silence between the conversations were
comfortable. The only thing they’d skirted around was the fact that
they were engaged.

Three nights ago, she went in to dinner, one
of Grace’s dress-up-and-play-nice affairs, and found the whole
House grinning at her like a coven of cats surrounding a barrel of
cream.

JJ thought it was going to be a victory
celebration and she grinned right back. She had a lot to celebrate.
Lord Canaan had accepted her as a member of his House and had even
offered her his knife to take ad Primus’ heart to prevent the
bastard’s turning.