Canaan frowned. “Demon.”
“I’m not taking that bet.”
“December 2nd. You already had him on record.”
Nardo sighed and ran his hand over his nose and mouth. “Yeah, but I try not to look at the names. Gives me the creeps, you know.”
Nardo had designed a program to track deaths and disappearances in the city as part of an effort to track the demons that were responsible for some of them. It was their job as Guardians of the Race to track and kill demons. When on patrol, they tracked by smell, but Nardo’s computers had proved useful as well.
“I know. It’s easier if they’re only statistics. So what about the money?”
Nardo’s face brightened. “I jacked into his computer. Want to know his password?”
Canaan laughed. “No, but you’re dying to tell me.”
“Erectile Dysfunction. Ain’t that a hoot? Guy was no dummy. Took me forever to figure it out.” He tried to look modest and failed. “Found a copy of his will. Left everything to a Hope Parsons. Got nothing on her, but if she’s out there, I’ll find her. Just give me some time.”
“Do what you can. I want to know how she’s connected to the demon and his bitch. Manon thinks she’s a Daughter of Man and Grace wants her found. We’ll see.”
*****
“Well, Mr. Smith, what brings you to my humble establishment? Obviously, it isn’t the entertainment or you wouldn’t need to see me. Hmm?” Tyn sat behind a battered oak desk, eying the bartender from Bloodsucker’s with speculative eyes. He liked the man, as much as he could like anyone and the human had proven useful in the recent past.
“Someone was asking about her.” Mr. Smith shoved the photo across the desk and waited for Tyn to pick it up.
Tyn only glanced at the picture. It was enough. He opened the drawer to his right and considered the contents for a moment before he removed a fifty dollar bill.
“Who?” he asked, as he offered the bill to Smith. His other hand remained hidden beneath the desk to hide the emerging claws. His face betrayed nothing of what he felt.
“Some big red headed bitch. Frumpy clothes. No paint. Looked like some old maid from the movies.”
“Did she give a name? Did she say why she was looking for her?” Tyn rubbed his chin the way he’d seen humans do when they were thinking.
“No. She just hung out and got shitfaced. When the crowd started playing with her, some guy took her outside.” He smoothed the fifty flat against the desk and eyed the still open drawer. “Got something else though.” He reached beneath his jacket and removed a woman’s small black bag. “This was on the bar. She left in such a hurry, I didn’t have time to give it back,” he smirked and then frowned when Tyn removed another fifty from the drawer.
Tyn rolled his eyes. “Oh please. No dramatics. You already took whatever money was in the bag. Consider that part of your reward.”
Tyn Damon was fairly new in town, but not unknown and he was dead on about the money in the purse. Smith had heard some stories and he didn’t want to press his luck, so he nodded and smiled his thanks. “A pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Damon. Anything you need in the future, you remember I’m a guy that gets things done.”
“Thank you, Mr. Smith. I’ll try to remember that.” He remembered to hold out his right hand and shake.
Tyn waited until the door closed before he picked up the picture again and studied the face closely. There was no doubt. It was his Beauty, even though the woman in the picture looked so different from the woman he now owned.
His Beauty had short dark hair that glinted red in the light and surrounded her face with curls. This woman’s hair was parted in the middle and pulled tightly away from her face. Even before he took control, his Beauty wore short skirts and skimpy tops. The picture woman wore a long sleeved white shirt with a stupid round collar that was buttoned up to her throat. His Beauty wore what he thought she called make-up, though Smith had called it paint. Still, Smith had been right to take notice. The woman in the picture was Beauty.
Who was looking for her and why? Beauty claimed to be alone in this world and he didn’t think she could lie. He had to find this red headed woman and find out why she wanted Beauty. Maybe he could use the red head in the business. Variety was the spice of life or so he’d heard and he was looking to expand. It would all depend on who she was and what she wanted and who would miss her if she disappeared.
He opened the little leather bag. There wasn’t much in it; a small and very empty nylon wallet, a little square of cloth with lace around the edges and the initials HP sewed in pink thread, a silver cross with the word ‘HOPE’ printed in capital letters and an empty key ring from Kelmar Realty with the number 327 written in marker across the tag. It was a start.
*****
Nico ran his finger over the toe of the shoe. It was a black leather slip-on shoe with a rounded toe and flat heel; a plain shoe, worn by a woman the world might call plain. She wore plain shoes, plain dress and her hair in a plain and tidy bun at the back of her neck, and yet there was nothing plain about the woman those things covered.
She was beautiful in a way that was natural and innocent and pure, a beauty made more intriguing because she wasn’t aware of it. He sensed a heat in her, deeply banked, and he wondered what it would be like to uncover those embers and bring them to fiery life.
Granted, his first impression of her was based on an inebriated version, but perhaps that was why he saw her so clearly. Paenitentia weren’t affected by the drug. They metabolized the alcohol almost as quickly as they drank it, but in humans, the drug tended to dull inhibitions and made them freer with their tongues.
None of this mattered. He would never know what was in her mind or in her heart. He would never taste that creamy skin or bring that body to a flame of passion. She was human and therefore off limits.
Not that the Paenitentia had any strictures against such relationships. As long as the secrets of the Race remained secret, no one cared and many members of the Race had casual, short term relationships with humans of both genders. Anything beyond casual would be too painful. It was too hard to watch someone you cared for age and die in so short a time and there was no acceptable human answer as to why you didn’t age along with them.
There were exceptions, of course. Both his Liege Lord Canaan and the old vampire, Otto, were mated and bound to human women, but Manon and Grace were Daughters of Man and being mated and bound would extend their already long lives.
For someone like him, human women made agreeable bed partners, to mutually enjoy and satisfy, but he knew, first hand, the pain that could come from getting too close to humans or anyone else for that matter, and he wasn’t about to visit those feelings again.
It was best to leave things as they stood. Hope would wonder how she came to be tucked in bed fully clothed. Her missing shoe would remain a mystery. She’d never remember Bloodsucker’s or what had happened there. She’d never remember him.
“Holy shit,” he said aloud. The shoe fell from his hand to land unnoticed at his feet.
If Hope didn’t remember Bloodsucker’s, would she return there? Didn’t she say something about searching a different bar each night? She’d mumbled something about a list. She’d rambled a little where he couldn’t follow so he hadn’t paid attention.
It had been a week since he’d seen her and he needed to see her again. Just to make sure she was all right.
He went downstairs to breakfast. Darkness was falling and he needed to talk to the twins.
*****
Hope threw the pillow to the floor. “Crap,” she muttered and looked over at the potty-mouth jar on the table across the room. “Yes, I said crap and I’ll say it again. Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.” She flung out her hand and pointed at the jar. “And I’m not paying you one red cent.”
The jar flew off the table and crashed to the floor. “Oh all right,” she said, immediately contrite, “You win.” She went to the drawer and pulled out the envelope
she used to hold her money since the loss of her pocketbook and withdrew a single, put it back and removed a five. After the past week, the jar was pretty full and she had to squeeze the bill inside.
“Happy now?” she asked as she set it back in its place. Of course the jar didn’t reply and Hope shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said to no one in particular.
Her temper, born of her sinful nature, was her greatest flaw. She’d been beaten for losing it more times than she could count. It never did any good. She still lost her temper and every time she lost her temper, she lost control and every time she lost control, bad things happened; windows cracked, lamps fell over, potty-mouth jars flew off the table. Her father said it was Satan’s work and would beat her again for letting the devil in. Maybe he was right. She was, after all, her mother’s child.
She was nine when her mother died, old enough to remember the beautiful woman with hair like her own. She remembered laughter and singing and secrets; remembered running, free and unfettered, in the fields behind the house and spinning in circles until they were dizzy. They’d fall to the ground and lie on their backs in the tall grass and find animal shapes in the clouds. When there were no animals left to find, her mother would smile her secret smile and Hope would hold her breath in anticipation.
“Don’t tell your father,” her mother would say and she’d sing pretty songs that they weren’t allowed to sing and wiggle her fingers and make the flowers dance. Hope would giggle with delight. “Now you try,” her mother always said at the end of the wildflower ballet.
Hope would try, concentrating on the flowers and wiggling her fingers just as her mother did, but nothing ever happened. It wasn’t until long after her mother had passed that it did and then only when she was angry and so couldn’t keep it secret. The rest she’d learned later, much later, and her sister needed to know what she’d found.
What reason did she have to be so angry now? He was just a nice man who rescued her from a bad situation. He never said he’d be back and why should he, after the way she’d behaved. Bad enough that he found her drunk in a sleazy bar, but then to throw up! She thought it might have spattered on his shoe. How could she do something so revolting in front of the handsomest man she’d ever seen? He was everything she wasn’t; charming, sophisticated and yes, beautiful. As if that wasn’t enough, he was also taller by a good six inches and strong. He’d carried her as if she weighed no more than a child. She sighed.
Nico. It was a wonderful name. It was the name of a fairy tale prince.
He said she wouldn’t remember, but she did. She remembered everything, every moment she was with him, including the electric tingle he sent through her when he touched her forehead as she fell asleep.
These were sinful thoughts and she knew it; lusting after a man she’d just met and patterning herself after Eve, the source of all sin and man’s fall from Grace. She’d heard the sermons often enough. Still, try as she would, she didn’t feel shameful or repentant. Thinking about Nico made her feel good.
Good or bad, it didn’t make any difference. He wasn’t coming back and she had a job to do. The events of that night at Bloodsucker’s had frightened her and she’d avoided going out ever since. It was time to get back to business. She went to the phone book and crossed the next bar off the list.
Chapter 4
“You want us to do you a favor and you want us to keep it a secret.” Dov was grinning from ear to ear. He rubbed his hands together in a gesture of greed. “This is gonna cost you.”
Nico tried to remain calm and unconcerned. He didn’t want the twins to know how important this was to him. “I had thought, given your new status as adults, I could appeal to you as comrades-in-arms. My mistake. I’ll ask Broadbent.”
“Broadbent left last night to go visit his folks. You could ask Nardo, but it seems to me if you wanted Nardo, you wouldn’t be here with us.”
Col punched his brother in the arm, hard enough to hurt. Ignoring the howl of protest, he said, “Don’t pay any attention to him, Nico. He was born clutching my ass and has been acting like a hole ever since. You were there when I needed you and I know you’re the reason Canaan bought us the motorcycles. We owe you.”
“Jeez, I was only kidding. You guys just aren’t any fun anymore. I mean, well, Nico, you were never much fun but you,” he turned to Col, “My own brother. Oh, never mind. He’s right Nico. We owe you, a lot. What do you need us to do?”
“You owe me nothing. I helped save your life, Col, and Dov saved mine. It’s what Guardians do in the course of battle. You earned the motorcycles. I only suggested the style.”
“And kept Gracie from going ballistic,” added Dov. “We owe you big time for that. So, what do you want us to do?” He looked from one man to the other. “What? I never said I wouldn’t do it. I just thought we might get a night with the ‘vette out of it.”
Nico had recently purchased a classic 1961 Corvette convertible, a Stingray, and the twins were drooling over it.
“Do what I ask, keep your mouths shut and we’ll work something out. But by the Nephilim, if there is one scratch, one tiny ding…”
“It’s a deal,” the twins shouted together.
“What do you want us to do?”
“I want you to return a shoe.”
*****
It was taking a lot longer than he planned. The stupid woman from the rental agency was out of town and the idiots he sent to steal the information from her office tripped the alarm. They barely made it out before the police arrived. His old boss, Abyar, would have ripped the fools to shreds for their incompetence and Tyn felt the urge to do the same, but that wasn’t the way things were done in this world. In the otherworld, might always made right. In this world smart was better. He tamped his anger down.
Tyn was a fourth level demon. Back in the otherworld, that was one step above a common minion. He’d come here in the last earth cycle with a crew of other fourth levels to work for Abyar and a witch woman Abyar claimed as his own. He’d learned a lot from Abyar; how to look like a human, how to act in the human world and how to fuck up a perfectly good plan. This last, Tyn had no intention of repeating. Abyar was too greedy. He attracted the attention of the wrong people. He thought he could make a fortune in this world and the otherworld would be impressed. It all ended in a royal cluster fuck with Tyn as the sole survivor.
He’d survived with a borrowed truck and a load of drugs and enough money to last a very long time, but Tyn wasn’t a demon to rest on his money. He liked to keep busy, so he found this house, found a few girls to staff it and learned how to make a human minion, something he never knew a demon could do. It happened by accident and it opened up a whole new world of possibility.
He’d just acquired the house. The old lady who owned it was more than happy to sell once she saw that suitcase full of cash. She was going to travel, she said, as soon as the papers were signed. Unfortunately, she only traveled as far as the tiny back yard where she was buried along with her travel brochures and her yappy little dog. She was tiny and frail and died quickly, before his hunger was satisfied. Disappointed but undeterred, he decided to hunt and celebrate his good fortune.
Within minutes he found the girl walking alone on the deserted street. She was short and plump and she squealed in terror as he dragged her to the back of a nearby parking lot. It was fear as well as blood that fed him and this girl offered a bounty of both. Unlike so many others of his kind, he always got an extra kick out of playing with his food and this girl was no exception. She was half drained and still conscious when he decided to satisfy his other carnal needs. In his lust and gluttony, he’d forgotten a basic rule of survival: always be aware of your surroundings.
The parking lot was suddenly alive with the voices of twenty or thirty people. The late show from the movie theater across the street was over and its patrons were returning to their cars. Hearing the voices, the girl made a desperate but weak attempt to scream.
“Shut the fuck up,” he hissed
as he drew back his fist to pound her into silence.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Shut the fuck up.” Her eyes glazed with a yellowish film and she stared at him with her mouth tightly shut.
She was the first, three others quickly followed. One of those died later at her weekly feeding when he’d dined too well. He was careful now to take only half of what they had to offer. They were obedient to his every command and in the dimly lit rooms; the customers never notice their vacant yellow eyes.
Beauty was to have been the replacement for number four. He’d watched her for days, followed her from bar to bar and waited for his chance. She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen and he was sure she’d make a tasty treat.
As it turned out, she was so much more. Like the others, she was under his thrall, completely obedient to his commands, yet unlike the others, she could hold a minimal conversation, answer questions when asked and care for herself in ways the others couldn’t. It was Beauty who saw that the others were bathed and fed. Beauty, who combed their hair and made them brush their teeth. More than this, Beauty answered a need in him he hadn’t realized was there. He missed being a demon; missed the scaly skin sliding over rippling muscles, his face long and terrifying, his claws extended and curled. Most humans couldn’t tolerate his demon form. He knew this because he showed himself in true form just before he killed them and the reaction was never good. Beauty, however, could see him as he truly was both in human and demon form and she didn’t flinch from either. Beauty was something special and he kept her to himself.
Not knowing who was looking for her was beginning to annoy him. How hard could it be to steal the records that matched the tag from the purse? Patience. The fools would be better prepared the next time they broke into the office. He’d make sure they were better prepared to face the deadly consequences if they failed.
Guardian's Hope Page 3
