Canaan nodded as if he understood. “You can go.” He looked at Nardo. “As an observer.” And back to JJ. “This time of year, you’re not likely to see much demon action, but if you do, you follow Dov’s lead. If he says stand down, you stand down. Because if you don’t, you’ll answer to me.” He gave his mate a significant look. “And being a DOM won’t save her.”
Nardo waited until after the meal to ask his questions when JJ and the twins were gone and while he was waiting for Nico, his partner tonight. Canaan answered before Nardo had a chance to ask.
“You won’t ever be her partner on patrol, son. You’d be distracted watching out for her and that would be dangerous for you both.” He threw his arm around Grace and pulled her to him while he motioned for the younger Guardian to take a seat. “It’s not the same as watching your partner’s back. Believe me, I know. If I had my way, Grace would spend all her time in this kitchen.”
“Or in his bed,” she giggled. “But I can’t do that. I like taking care of my family, but I like renovating houses, too. Big boy here hates it when I’m out alone during the day with all those big, scary workmen.” She playfully nudged Canaan in the ribs. “Nico hates it when Hope goes off alone, but she’d be miserable keeping his house and cooking his meals and it’s more important to him that she’s happy. JJ was a police officer. That’s a tough job and she was good at it. Give her a chance to be good at this, too.”
“I get it. I get it,” Nardo grumbled, “But whether I’m with her or not won’t make a difference. I’m still going to worry.”
“Poor baby,” said Grace, but she didn’t look the least bit sympathetic. “Join the club. You think we women don’t worry every time you guys walk out that door. We try not to think about it and we’ve learned to live with it. You will, too.” She put her hand on Nardo’s shoulder. “JJ needs this. The girl is wound like a spring. The only time she relaxes is when she’s with Faith and Hope will tell you she’s always wondering what our motives are. Dov and Col will make her laugh. No pressure.”
“I don’t pressure her,” Nardo mumbled and couldn’t see the humor when Grace laughed.
“Your being in the room puts pressure on her. She’s interested, Nardo, and it scares her. She wants to stay here and that scares her, too.”
“I’m not sure I like this either, son, but Grace is right. If JJ can handle herself in the field, she could be an asset. What I’m concerned about is her lack of trust and it will be up to you to teach her. You’ll be in charge of her training. She’s has some martial arts, but she’s not fast enough and other than handguns, she knows nothing about weapons. You want to keep her safe? You train her hard.”
*****
“So this is it, huh?” It wasn’t much different than being a cop waking a beat except the beat was larger and these guys walked a whole lot faster.
“Yep,” Col nodded. “Nardo’s pinpointed some areas that see more action than others, so we overlap the patrols in those areas. We know they use gates to cross over, but the gates aren’t permanent so there’s no way to shut them down. We’re not sure how they open them or how they choose the place. Manon says it’s possible to open one from this side which is what happened awhile back, but only a witch who’d turned to the Dark would do it.”
“How do you find them?” Surely they had a better way than she did. She wasn’t planning to stay with these people and she wanted to learn as much as she could.
“Sniff ‘em out,” Dov told her. “We can get a whiff from about a quarter mile away, but the closer you get, the harder it gets. If they’ve been in the area for a while, the smell is all over the place so it’s hard to find the exact location. We can’t see them until they release their human cover, which is usually right before or after an attack, although some of them are dumb enough to think if they can’t see you, you can’t see them.”
“I can see them, but I have to track them by sight. They don’t smell any different to me until I get up close.” Something she preferred not to do.
“Yeah. You got real close to the one Nardo killed a couple weeks back.” Col had had a few close calls himself.
JJ stopped and waited until the twins realized it. “I killed that demon.” The nerve of that bastard taking credit for her kill.
“Nope.” Dov was definite. “Nardo did it.” He laughed and wiggled his fingers. “Though he did say you zapped its ass a good one. Made his job easy.”
“I don’t know what he told you, but I killed that demon. I’ve done it before.”
Col shook his head. “Maybe so, but not that one. We saw him take the heart and it was still going strong.”
“What do you mean take the heart?” She was almost afraid to ask.
“Ah, you know, take the heart. Rip it out. Or do you usually take the head.”
“Of course she takes the head.” Dov looked at his brother as if Col was stupid. “She’s not strong enough to punch through the chest wall.”
“I don’t do either.” The thought of it made her cringe. “I electrocute them.”
“And do they shrivel up into a pile of dust?” Dov had seen one burn once, but Canaan still had to take the heart or it would have healed.
“No,” JJ said, growing concerned. “They just fell down dead and I got the hell out.”
Col put his hand on her shoulder and said sympathetically, “Then you didn’t kill it. Sorry. They regenerate if you don’t take the heart or the head.”
“Yeah,” Dov agreed, “If you left a dead demon lying around, it probably would have been in the papers or on the news. Doesn’t mean your zappy fingers aren’t useful, though. I tell you what, we see one tonight, you can zap it and one of us’ll kill it. We’ll share the credit.”
“Unlike Nardo,” she muttered.
“Hey, he didn’t say he killed it,” Dov defended his friend. “We did. He said you cooked it.”
It didn’t make her feel any better. She thought she’d hunted and killed four demons, five if you counted the one that got John. When in reality, she hadn’t done anything at all.
“Aw, come on. You’re not going to cry, are you? We couldn’t kill them when we first started either. Canaan had to do it.”
“I’m not going to cry,” she snapped. She’d save the pity party for later when she was alone.
“All righty then. Now that we’ve got that out of the way…” Dov grinned and brushed his hands together to dust the subject off. “How do you feel about ole Nardo crushin’ on ya?”
“None of your damn business, that’s how.” JJ laughed so they could see she took no offence, but the truth was she couldn’t have told them even if she wanted to. She wasn’t sure.
Nardo made her feel things no other man ever had. She shook her head. No, that wasn’t true. No man had made her feel those things as an adult, but she’d felt some of them before. It was some time in her forgotten past.
“I told you not to ask, you jackass.” Col shoved his twin, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make JJ wince.
“Hey! It’s okay. You can ask whatever you want. Doesn’t mean I have to answer. Where are we headed next?” she asked more to change the subject than because she wanted to know.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I could use a burger and a beer,” Col suggested. “There’s a place five blocks over where we could take a lady.”
A lady? JJ almost argued the point, but she quickly reconsidered. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been referred to as a lady, wasn’t sure there was a last time.
“You guys drink on the job?” she asked instead.
“Why not?” Dov asked, looking confused.
“Because she’s human, dorkwad.” Col turned to JJ and smiled. “Alcohol doesn’t affect us like it does you. We’d have to drink a helluva lot to get high. It’s our metabolism or something. Sorry, wasn’t thinking. We can find a coffee shop.”
“No, that’s okay. A burger sounds great as long as it comes with fries. You guys get your beer. I’ll get something el
se.”
“You like deep fried pickles?” Dov asked.
“Sure do.” She liked these guys. Both of them had sparred with her in the gym, had teased her when she fumbled and complimented her when she scored a hit. Neither had complained when Canaan said she could tag along.
“There’s a place over on Delaney that does a whole deep fried plate; pickles, cheese, mushrooms, potatoes and salami and your choice of Oreos or Twinkies to finish it off. They call it the Heart Attack.”
“My kind of meal,” she laughed.
“Col, I think I’m falling in love. So tell me JJ, how do you feel about getting dressed up for dinner?”
“I don’t know. Most of the time, I unwrap take-out and eat it hanging over the sink.”
“Oh, yeah.” Col gave his twin a playful shot in the shoulder that would have knocked any other man off his feet. “I think we found us a keeper.”
Chapter 20
Nardo was laid back in the chair casually pretending to watch television when the three returned. He’d spent the night on patrol with Nico and told him Canaan’s concerns about trust.
“I know no more about JJ’s story than you, but I do know something about trust, or more correctly, the lack of it. When Kurt and Boris took me in, I should have loved them for it. And what is love but profound trust. In love, I only knew betrayal. You can’t wash away years with a single act of kindness.”
“But they taught you to trust them, didn’t they? How do you do that, Nico? How do you teach someone to trust?”
Nico had offered a smile at that. “They beat it into me.” He laughed outright when Nardo stopped and stared. “In training, they would make me lose my temper. I’d been fighting for years. My temper was my weapon. But it was humans I fought, not Guardians. With them, my temper was my flaw and they took advantage which infuriated me further. They’d push me. ‘Why are you so angry? Why? Why? Why?’
Nico wasn’t smiling now. “One day, they pushed me far enough and I told them.” He shook his head. “How much hate I had in me then.”
“What did they do then?”
“Kurt held me pinned to the floor until I ran out of profanity and then Boris brought me cookies, a rare treat in that House. They were good cookies, too. Made with black walnuts and honey.” Nico told it as if it were no big deal.
“That’s all? Didn’t you talk about it?” Surely there was more. While Nardo didn’t know the whole story, he knew Nico’s childhood had been a horror. He’d seen the evidence in Nico’s scars.
Nico shrugged. “It was a long time ago and they were men. This touchy-feely business is a modern convention.”
Nardo thought about their conversation and wondered if he could apply a modern version of Kurt and Boris’ methods. The tricky part would be when and how to initiate it.
He found his opportunity twenty minutes later when the twins and Joy strolled in, laughing. He wanted to shout, “Where the hell have you been?” but he kept his cool. His hands were crossed over his stomach and his legs were stretched out, his bare feet crossed at the ankles. He only glanced up as they entered through the side door, gave them a one finger salute and turned back to the TV. He might have pulled it off if he’d paid more attention to the programing.
“Are you ordering the black and white or the neutral and white?” Dov asked with a shitty grin.
“What are you talking about?” Nardo asked, completely at a loss.
Col started to laugh. He poked his chin at the infomercial. “For your perkier boobs. He wants to know what set you’re ordering.”
“Very funny.” Nardo looked at Joy. Her face was reddened from the cold, but she looked happy. More than happy. She looked radiant. “You see some action?” he asked.
“Not us. JJ,” Dov answered. “You should have seen her. Talk about kickin’ butt and takin’ names.” He slapped and punched the air, spun and elbowed an imaginary opponent and finished with a roundhouse kick. “Wham bam, she’s one helluva ma’am. You should have seen her, Nardo. Okay, the guy was a little drunk, but he was big. I thought she was going to make him eat his tail pipe.”
Nardo wasn’t smiling. “She was supposed to observe, not get involved. Why didn’t you tell her to stand down as you were ordered?”
“Cause it wasn’t a demon, Sir By-The-Book. It was just some lame ass biker dude hitting on some sweet little thing who wasn’t interested. The poor kid was crying and Col was ready to hammer the guy. JJ thought the dude might take it better if she approached him all nicey-nice instead of us pounding on him. So we stayed back and let her do her thing.”
“She goes all good cop,” Col took over the story. “Excuse me, Sir, can we talk for a minute?” he mimicked. “Guy didn’t wanna talk. He turns and takes a swing hard enough to take her head off. She ducks and wham!” He shrugged. “Well, Dov already showed you that part. But man, you should have seen it. Way cool.”
“Where were you two when all this was going on?” Nardo stood and rolled his shoulders.
“Hey. We were right there, man, not twenty feet away. If he’d connected, we would have been on him.” Dov gave his brother a worried look.
“I wasn’t in any danger,” JJ objected, but Nardo ignored her.
“So you would have been there after he took her head off,” he said to Col. “And of course when it was over, you thumped the biker and the girl. Right?” The look they gave each other told him they hadn’t.
Nardo let his breath out slowly. “You two go find Lord Canaan and tell him what happened. See if he thinks putting a recruit in a dangerous situation was way cool. And while you’re at it, ask Grace how long it takes human bones to heal. You,” he pointed to JJ, “To the gym.”
JJ’s jaw clenched and her chin came up. Being out on patrol with the twins had been fun. With their jokes and gossip and easy acceptance, they’d made her feel like one of the guys, like she belonged. On the force, with the exception of John, she had fellow officers and if the need arose, they would back her up as she would them, but she never quite fit in. She’d never felt the camaraderie she’d felt tonight. For a little while, JJ felt as if she had come home.
And now Nardo was trying to spoil it. She started to tell him just what she thought, but the twin’s sudden silence and slumped shoulders brought her up short. In any organization, there were rules and it was evident they’d broken some.
“Hang in there, JJ.” Dov gave her a supportive bump to the shoulder with his fist before he and his brother headed for the kitchen.
“If they’re going to be reprimanded, then I should be too,” she said. They’d all known the biker wasn’t going to listen to reason.
“Yes, you should, but for a different reason. Now go get changed and I’ll meet you in the gym.” He walked off toward the hallway that led to the second building. “You’ve got ten minutes.”
Nardo’s anger poked something sharp into her throat, but she sniffed it back. Taking her comeuppance from Canaan was one thing, but being put in her place by this guy wasn’t going to cut it. Who did he think he was? “Listen, pal, you can’t tell me…”
He whirled on her. “Oh but I can. You want to be a recruit? You need a trainer. I’ve been assigned. If you don’t like it, take it up with Lord Canaan.”
JJ clenched her fists and gritted her teeth so hard her head shook. He knew damn well she couldn’t take it up with Canaan. “Oooph!” She huffed because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. And then she did something so weak and girlish she embarrassed herself. She stamped her foot.
Nardo only made it worse when he laughed. “Eight minutes,” he said.
She was there with two minutes to spare and by the look on her face and the way she held her body, she was ready to rumble. Shoulders back, head held high; a warrior queen. She strode into the gym like she owned it. She looked directly into his eyes, daring him to give her something she couldn’t take. She was magnificent in her anger and yet it was that very anger that worried him.
Nardo sat, cross legged, on
the thick blue wrestling mat. He motioned for her to take a seat across from him.
JJ stood with her hands on her hips. “I’d rather just get this over with.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re not in charge.” Nardo smiled inwardly when he saw her flinch. “Sit.”
JJ flopped to the mat, mimicked his crossed legs and folded her arms across her chest.
“When humans first came upon the earth,” Nardo began. He’d heard the story so many times, he almost chanted it. “God sent a sect of his children, angels as it were, to instruct those humans in righteousness and according to Paenitentian belief these children, these sons of God were seduced by the Daughters of Man. In their beguilement they taught these Daughters of Man the arts of magic and witchcraft to please them and to entice the women to take them as husbands and in the fullness of time the women bore forth the Nephilim, giants who were known as heroes and renowned for their strength and prowess and huge appetites for all things of pleasure.
“Time passed and the Nephilim lost their way. They abused their gifts, used their size and strength to make war for their own advancement and eventually began to feed on the blood and lives of humans. Over the centuries they forgot the strictures of their fathers. God was not pleased and he set a curse upon their kind. He sent his angel Gabriel to make war on them and The Great Flood to annihilate those that remained. Still, a few survived and those few saw the error of their ways. They couldn’t change what they were, but they could change the way they lived. Thus the Paenitentia were born. The Penitents. The Race. They refused to take the blood of humans and in atonement for past sins, pledged to protect mankind from the ravaging of those demons that escape through the portals from the otherworld that was created when God closed the Gates of Heaven. They have lived among and yet apart from their human cousins for centuries, forbidden the light of day.”
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