WarriorsApprentice (11 page)

“You try to get some sleep. I’ll finish up here and go and
get us something to eat.” He looked at the floor again. “That is if you think
you can eat with him here.”

Tybor didn’t look in the human’s direction. “I need to
recover and to do that I need to eat. So do you. If one dead body is the worst
we have to cope with we’ll be getting off lightly.” He turned onto his
uninjured side. “I need to rest if I’m to help you dispose of the body tonight.
Keep watch.”

His breathing changed almost instantly and Huon knew he
slept. Huon’s hand stilled on the wall. Tybor trusted him to protect him while his
guard was down, to get him food and to organize for the disposal of the human’s
body. His trust would not be misplaced. Huon would protect him, whatever it
took.

When two hours had passed with no sign of any disturbance—no
visitors, no police—Huon let his vigil relax a little. He gathered up some
money and hurried out to get food and something to clean up Tybor’s blood and
to remove the soot and charring from the walls. His earlier efforts had done
nothing more than smear the mess and ruin the towel.

He had a feeling Tybor was going to need lots of fluids and
while bottled water would be good, he added fruit juice to his purchases.
Bread, olives, cheese and sausage joined them and he threw in some chocolate as
well. He wasn’t sure why, it just seemed like a good idea. He passed over the
wine. Tybor may have shown a marked preference for the ruby-red Valpolicella
but with less blood than usual pulsing through his veins Huon didn’t want to
risk coping with a drunken Tybor.

The tide had obviously turned, because the awful stench of
earlier in the day had gone to be replaced by the smell of salt water—slightly
fishy, slightly oily, but clean and pure compared to the odor of rotten garbage
and mud.

He returned to find Tybor awake and they shared the food,
Huon making sure Tybor ate more and drank more than he did.

The light in the room faded to evening as they finished the
meal. Tybor had not said much other than brief thanks for the food.

Now he pushed away the scraps and turned to face Huon. “The
attack today. That would never have happened if I hadn’t come here. Instead of
helping you, I’ve put you in more danger.”

Huon frowned. “How? None of this was your fault.”

“Yes. It was. That man knew exactly what I am. I just don’t
know how he knew where to find me.”

Huon felt his face heat. He forced himself to meet Tybor’s
gaze. “I do. He followed us.”

Tybor’s head snapped up. “How do you know that?”

His cheeks burned even hotter. “When we were walking here
from Judie’s this morning I bumped into him. He was so busy staring at you he
didn’t see me.”

Tybor blew out a breath of air. “Why didn’t you tell me?
Didn’t you think it was unusual for someone to be so interested in me?”

Huon figured he’d burst into flame any minute. “Not really.
I mean. Well, look at you. Anyone would be impressed. Judie Scanlon saw you and
fell at your feet and I think you’re…”

“You think I’m…what?”

Huon clenched his fists. “You said to ignore it. This thing
between us. So I’m not going to tell you I think you’re good looking. Handsome.
Beautiful.” The last was said on a soft rush of air and Huon got to his feet,
pushing his chair back. “It’s dark. I’m going to steal a gondola.”

Tybor remained seated but a flush stained his skin. “You
can’t do it now. It’s
passeggiata
.”

“What?”

“Evening stroll. The streets will be crowded. You’ll have to
wait a couple of hours.”

Yeah, sure
, Huon thought. Wait here, in this tiny,
one-bed room, pretending he didn’t feel his chest tighten and his pulse quicken
every time he looked at Tybor, pretending he hadn’t just admitted how
attractive he found the man, pretending he didn’t know that Tybor would never
admit to
this
weakness.

“I’ll wait. But not here. You don’t need me to nursemaid you
anymore. I’ll be back when I have the gondola, then we can get rid of this,” he
pointed at the blanket, “and I can get back to doing what I was supposed to be
doing. You can go home or whatever.”

The last thing he heard as he walked out of the door was
Tybor’s voice. “I’m not going home. Not alone.”

* * * * *

Judie Scanlon had to get her mind on her work. Yesterday,
Brian Hopewood had been out of town and most of the men who worked there had
taken advantage of the break and not come in. When Brian had arrived back in
the office at around two p.m. today, he’d thrown her the latest weapon he’d
taken for testing and snapped out a report about a malfunction. He expected her
to work on it until late, to be there as long as it took her to find the
problem and fix it.

He’d been his usual curt, distant self. Brian Hopewood never
seemed to have any awareness that she was an individual who might have other
plans. He expected her to be at his beck and call at all hours. It was one of
the reasons her quarters were in the building.

She would have liked to have had other plans for tonight,
but neither Ty Borland nor Huon Green had contacted her. She thought that Huon,
if left to his own devices, might have wanted to see her again, but he seemed
to be influenced by the enigmatic and unpredictable older man. Although Ty had
come back and apologized for his abrupt departure, she felt tense and confused,
as if she had failed to give him what he wanted, even though he’d made it clear
he desired no more than physical release.

Maybe they’d already left Venice. How would she know? She
sighed. Even if they
had
wanted to see her she would have had to put
them off for as long as Brian wanted her to work.

She pressed a button and called up a wiring diagram on her
computer. Her fingers flew as she dismantled the weapon, constantly comparing
the reality with the schematic. Brian had approached her when she’d been doing
post-graduate study at a university in Australia and offered her an excellent
salary, a chance to travel and the opportunity to work designing advanced
electronic devices. The job had been too good to pass up.

Since coming to work for him in Venice, Judie had made a
discovery. Brian Hopewood was insane. He believed demons roamed the world,
seeking out humans and converting them to the cause of evil. And he spent large
amounts of the fortune he’d inherited from his parents, and their parents
before them, searching for information about demons, gathering like-minded
souls together and making plans to capture and destroy the enemy.

There seemed to be any number of people who, for enough
money, would indulge Brian’s obsession, feeding him the information he wanted
no matter how ridiculous it seemed. Worse, some of these people actually
believed all this rubbish.

Perhaps the most shameful thing of all was that she, knowing
now how deluded Brian was, kept on accepting the money he paid her. She took his
crazy ideas and rough diagrams and turned them into devices he believed were
weapons and traps to capture these demons.

He’d taken the latest batch of weapons away to assess them.
She hadn’t asked exactly how he conducted the tests, real demons being
suspiciously unavailable, she imagined. Still, however he did it, he seemed to
have found a flaw and it was her responsibility to fix it.

She studied the diagram again and picked up a soldering
iron. The weapons conceived in Hopewood’s mind might not bring down any demons,
but once she brought them into production they emitted electric pulses at the
varying frequencies he demanded. As long as they did that, Hopewood seemed
satisfied. She applied a dab of solder and reconnected a loose wire. As soon as
the solder had cooled, she reassembled the weapon and pressed the trigger. The
blue light she’d put in just so Hopewood would have something to look at lit up.
She felt the soft, vibrating hum that indicated that waves of electrons were
pulsing out of it. The pointless device was functional once more.

She had just pressed the shut-down button on her computer
when her intercom buzzed.

“I need you.”

She sighed and stood up. What now?

At Brian Hopewood’s open door, she waited for him to
acknowledge her presence and invite her in. He knew she was there. He’d sent
for her. The man liked his little power-plays.

After a few minutes he looked up. “Have you finished? Does
it work properly now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.”

He picked up his phone and tapped his finger against it.
“Did Abraham Lewis happen to mention to you that he’d be out of touch today? Or
that he was having trouble with his phone?”

“No, sir. But I wouldn’t necessarily expect him to tell me.
He might have told one of the other men.”

Hopewood pursed his lips. “I’ve rung all the others and none
of them has seen him. I’ve called a meeting. They should be here soon.”

He picked up an ancient book lying open on the table. Judie
winced. She might think most of the stuff contained in the book was fantasy,
but she had great respect for anything of that age and beauty. Hopewood treated
it like a day-old newspaper.

When the other five team members were gathered around the
desk in the main office, Hopewood strolled in and took his place at the head,
sitting with his hands steepled together and his face grave.

“Abraham Lewis is missing and I am very much afraid he has
fallen victim to a demon.”

Judie resisted the impulse to roll her eyes. Sure he had. If
Hopewood had said Lewis had come to his senses and quit, or fallen victim to a
mugger, or that he’d taken off for a little fun time with a woman, she might
have been able to believe it. If you discounted his obsession, Abraham Lewis
was quite good looking, with a fit, toned body. Pity he kept it that way to
help him fight imaginary demons.

“Sir,” Dawson, another man said. “How would a demon know to
target Lewis? They don’t just go around killing people at random, do they?”

“I recruited the five of you,” Hopewood said, looking
around, “from information from your social networks. You displayed an interest
in the supernatural and you all have military backgrounds. When you agreed to
join the Gatekeepers, you agreed to come to Venice to train.” He drew a deep
breath. “I had not planned to brief you on this information yet, but Lewis’
disappearance has forced it upon me. Abraham Lewis and I have made raids on
demon strongholds.”

The gasps from the five men around the table drowned out
Judie’s intake of breath. The man was delusional. She listened, stunned, as he
continued. “With the weapons we devised, Abraham and I were able to destroy
entire populations.” He paused and looked around. “The range and effectiveness
have been greatly increased.”

Judie shuddered. This was the first time she’d heard
Hopewood’s intended purpose for her devices. The man was not only delusional,
he was frightening.

“You will soon get an opportunity to use these weapons,” Hopewood
continued. “Demons emit their own subtle electrical impulses and, again with Ms.
Scanlon’s assistance, we’ve developed a sensor that allows us to detect their
presence. Abraham Lewis was testing one of these devices when he disappeared.”

Murmurs broke out among the five men seated around the
table.

Hopewood held up a hand to silence them. “Ms. Scanlon will
equip each of you with a sensor and a weapon as soon as she can put them
together. You will then be able to hunt down the demons with complete accuracy
and infallibility. In the meantime, I want you out on the streets, looking at
anyone and everyone. Demons look human but they are not used to the surface
world and their actions may give them away.”

“Oh, now, wait a minute,” Judie protested. “If Abraham Lewis
is missing, call the police.”

“The police would not be able to find Abraham Lewis when a
demon has finished with him,” Hopewood said, his tone dismissive and
condescending. “His remains will be nothing more than an ethereal pile of ashes
drifting on the foul miasma of hell, as weightless and insubstantial as a
flame.”

* * * * *

“This human weighs a ton,” Huon panted.

“Shut up.” Tybor whispered. “It’s late and it’s dark but
that doesn’t mean you have to announce to all and sundry that we’re disposing
of a body.”

“If we could have loaded it into a car or van, it wouldn’t
be a problem.”

Tybor grunted. “If you’d found a gondola closer to the hotel
it wouldn’t be a problem, either.”

“I thought I
was
close. All the smaller canals look
the same to me.”

Tybor took a firmer grip on the blanket-covered body. If it
killed him he wasn’t going to admit just how exhausted he was and how much the
weight seemed to be increasing.

“Our hotel is right next to a bridge. You could have noticed
that.”

“The boat I found is tied up
right next to a bridge
.”
Huon sounded defensive. “It just happened to be the wrong damn bridge.” He
hitched the body up higher. “And before you say it, there wasn’t any point
trying to move it again to get closer to the hotel. We don’t want to be seen on
the Grand Canal, even at this time of night. It will be hard enough trying to
find a way out to the lagoon. The whole place is a decaying, waterlogged maze.”

In spite of his weariness, Tybor laughed. “This is one of
the most beautiful cities in the world. You don’t seem to have the right level
of appreciation for it.”

“I might appreciate it a bit more if it weren’t populated by
people who leap out of nowhere to try to kill us and who then have to be
disposed of by night through streets that have so many steps you can’t even
chuck the body in a wheelbarrow to get it to where it needs to be.”

“Once we get onto the water, we’re set.”

“I won’t be set until we’ve got rid of Hopewood and headed
for home.” Huon looked around at the beautiful old buildings. “They say this
place is slowly sinking into the lagoon. As far as I’m concerned, the sooner
the better.”