Guardian's Joy #3

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  JJ struggled to her feet as Nardo ran to her. “Is it dead?”

  “Are you all right?” Nardo began running his hands over her body. Fear and anger made his actions rough. Her jacket and shirt were covered in blood. Was any of it hers? “Take off the jacket. Let me see.”

  She slapped at his hands as he unzipped her coat. “I’m fine.”

  Nardo’s face was still a mask of rage. “Fine? Fine? You could have gotten yourself killed. You had no business here, dammit. I told you to stay put, to call the House.”

  “I called,” JJ snapped back, “And if I’d waited like a good little girl, you’d be dead right now.”

  He spun her around and pushed her toward the end of the street. “I don’t have time for this right now. Go wait out there and flag them down. I still have work to do.” He glanced back at the twitching body of the vampire. “Go now, before he wakes up.”

  “I can help.”

  “No, dammit! I don’t want you here for this.”

  “Hey, did you two lovebirds call for help?” Col came sauntering down the middle of the street. “Whoa Nardo, what’s with the Rage? Back it down a notch, bro. Looks like it’s all over but the mopping up.” It was then he noticed the bodies weren’t demons. “Holy shit. You killed a couple of members.”

  “Yeah.” Nardo struggled to bring himself under control. “We need to take care of things and…”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  Canaan’s arrival forestalled the argument. Nardo settled for a glare which JJ returned. “My lord,” he said.

  “Your lord, my ass. What the hell happened here?” Canaan looked around and raised his hand. “Later. This place will be coming alive anytime now. Let’s get it done.” He withdrew the long blade he carried along his thigh and knelt by Camo II and whispered, “To your beginnings, I commend you.” In one swift motion, he ran the blade across the dead man’s throat. The second stroke severed the head.

  Donuts and coffee filled JJ’s throat. Pride made her swallow it back down. Except when Canaan set the head next to the body, pride wasn’t enough and she turned away and lost it all. She’d seen things as a cop, horrible things, but she’d never seen anything like this. Using the building for support, she stumbled toward Broadbent at the end of the street.

  “I say,” he greeted her with a look of concern, “You look like you’ve hit a bit of a rough patch.”

  “You’re not looking so dapper yourself,” she said more to cover her embarrassment than because it was true. Broadbent had wet spots on his knees and one of his coat sleeves was muddy.

  “Touché,” he laughed. “Col and I had a set-to of our own. It was small and remarkably feisty. Couldn’t get a grip on the little bastard.” He brought out a handkerchief, neatly pressed and folded from an inside pocket and handed it to her wiping at the corner of his mouth with his finger.

  JJ nodded her thanks more embarrassed than before and used the cloth to wipe her face.

  “Nasty business, this. Almost lost it a few times myself,” the professor said sympathetically. He then signaled to Otto who was standing a few feet away leaning against the fender of an older model sedan. “Why don’t you take our JJ home, old son. She looks like she could use bit of pampering and your Manon is just the one to give it. Don’t you think?”

  Otto nodded and quickly opened the passenger door to usher her in.

  “I don’t want to go home,” she told him as she sat in the seat. “I just need a minute to settle my stomach.”

  Otto nodded sympathetically and closed the door. “Killing demons is nasty work,” he said when he slid into the driver’s seat. “Buckle up now.”

  “They weren’t demons. They were men. Well, two of them were.” Without thinking, JJ followed his instruction.

  Otto’s eyebrows shot up. “Humans?”

  “No, Paenitentia.”

  “We don’t kill Paenitentia,” Otto said as if that was the final word on the subject. He started the car.

  “Yeah, well somebody needs to tell them that because they didn’t seem to have a problem with killing us. And it wasn’t because we surprised them. They had suppressors on those weapons. Maybe they weren’t hunting us, but they were prepared to take care of any problems quietly.” It finally dawned on her that they were heading for home even though she’d told him no. Grace was right. They were all chauvinistic barbarians. She sighed. There was no point in arguing. “And then there’s the little matter of their buddy, the vampire.”

  That made the old man’s eyes pop. “Vampire? Did they have him in custody?” Otto didn’t think anyone but an angry mob or a Guardian could bring down a vampire much less hold him captive.

  “They were more like armed escorts. Paramilitary types. Didn’t you see the one out on the street?”

  “There wasn’t anyone on the street.” The retired Guardian grabbed JJ’s forearm. “Did you kill him?” he asked urgently.

  “No. No, he was alive when I left him. He didn’t look like he was going anywhere soon, though.”

  Otto nodded, his relief evident on his lined face. “What about the vampire?”

  JJ wasn’t sure what he meant, so she answered with what was bothering her. “He looked normal when we first saw him on the street,” she began and then she paused, considering. “No. He didn’t look normal. He looked, I don’t know, fuzzy. His face wasn’t clear like the other two.” She shook her head, trying to think of the right words to express what she saw and felt. “Weird,” was the best she could come up with.

  “What do you see when you look at me?”

  “Uncle Otto,” she said before she realized what he meant. She’d forgotten what he was. “I see you, a man, a Paenitentia.”

  “Do I look like him?” he asked and when she shook her head, he concluded, “Then he isn’t a vampire.”

  “Then what the hell was he? He was bigger and stronger than you guys, and while I only have Nardo to judge by, this guy’s fangs looked a lot longer and meaner.”

  “Like these?” Otto mumbled.

  JJ glanced over and let out a startled, “Shit!” and shoved herself up against the car door. “Yeah,” she said nervously, “Just like that.”

  The long incisors retracted. “They’re longer and sharper because of the amount of blood we need. So, this creature is not a vampire and yet he is.”

  “What if he’s a different kind of vampire?” JJ didn’t know enough about these people to say what was possible and what wasn’t.

  “There are no ‘kinds’ of vampires. You either are or you are not.”

  Chapter 26

  “I have seen these before. Much older, but the same coins nevertheless.” Nico frowned and hefted the gold coins in his hand. There were four of them now; two from the apartment, one each from the pockets of the dead. “I have six of them in the vault at the Banque Eduard ad Galliard in Switzerland.”

  “Where are they from?” Nardo asked.

  He was riding behind Nico, who rode shotgun while Canaan drove. He shared the space with two bodies wrapped in plastic tarps and two heads, each contained in their separate plastic bag. They were taking them back to the House. Dawn was just over the horizon and it was too late to bring them anywhere else. He’d reluctantly given Col the keys to JJ’s Mustang and now wondered if that wasn’t a mistake.

  “Kurt and Boris, the Guardians who took me in, left them to me.” He rubbed his thumb over one of the coins, trying to recall the first time he saw them and what he’d been told. “It was a long time ago. I was young and so much happened in so short a time. I didn’t always pay the Guardians the attention I should have.

  “They belonged to a quasi-religious sect of the Paenitentia. They called themselves a brotherhood.” He shook his head and frown lines formed between his eyes as he tried to remember the distant past. “Kurt and Boris destroyed them and felt no guilt for it. I remember I admired their cold bloodedness. I didn’t realize at the time that killing a Paenitentia was a serious offense.” He glanced at the makeshift
body bags. “What did Boris call them? A myth come to life, that was it. The…” he tried a few variations until he said, “Nonveniae. Yes, the Nonveniae.”

  “Never heard of it,” Canaan said. He hit the blinker for the turn onto Hayden Avenue. They were almost home.

  Nico shook his head. “Something else may come, but that’s all I can recall at the moment.” He looked back at Nardo. “Does it help?”

  “It gives me a start. Otto may know something. He’s older than dirt. We’ll ask him first thing.”

  Canaan gave a snort. “Second thing. First thing is helping me explain to Grace why we’re keeping two dead bodies in her freezer.”

  *****

  “What do you mean they disappeared? Tell me again.”

  “Like I said, Test subject 015, sir, and the other guard.” He almost said Conrad instead of the other guard. They weren’t allowed to use names here, which was pretty stupid if you asked him, but he’d already been docked three day’s pay for the same slip and couldn’t afford to lose any more.

  “Dr. ad Fenton,” he said, immediately forgetting the rule, “said 015 was scheduled to feed, so we took him down to the docks.” The truth was they were going to take him to the docks right after they picked up a few things up at Con’s.

  He tried not to mumble, but the broken jaw and smashed cheek made speaking difficult. If his face didn’t feel like he’d been kicked by a mule and if it didn’t need surgery to make it heal properly, he would have disappeared, too. This wasn’t what he’d signed on for. No one ever mentioned fighting Guardians and whatever that Amazon was. He held his hand to his ravaged face and continued the lie he’d rehearsed on the way back to HQ.

  “015 fed just like he was supposed to and he looked okay, happy even, so we took a longer route back, just to give him a little more time outside his cell, you know, get him used to being outside again. We were walking down Baylor Street and bam. There were at least four of them, sir. They came out of nowhere.”

  “015 went vamp. We fired a few rounds and then it was hand to hand. I got hit and thrown to the side. When I came to, they were gone. I reported back here immediately.” He thought it best he didn’t mention running like hell once he was thrown from that little side street. The Guardian was holding his own, but the three of them would have taken him eventually. Once that girl showed up, he knew they were toast. He’d seen firsthand what that Amazon could do!

  Ad Primus knew the guard was lying. If he’d been unconscious, the Guardians would have taken him or killed him like the others. It was obvious the man was a coward, but his cowardice had proven useful. First, for giving him a modicum of information on what happened to the missing guard and subject and second, as an example to the others of what happens to those who betray the cause with their cowardice.

  Salvador motioned with his hand for the two uniformed guards standing at the open door to come forward. “Tell the others I want them assembled in the hall in fifteen minutes.” He turned back to the guard sitting at the table and nodded. “We’ll take care of that jaw in just a few minutes.” He turned away to close and lock the door. “But before we do that, I have a few more questions.”

  *****

  The hot water pounding on her neck and shoulders wasn’t enough to release the tension in her body. Normally, when the adrenalin rush that came with fear and fight subsided, her body wanted to collapse in relief. Normally, she had to force herself to remain alert, to keep her mind and body from dissolving into jelly.

  Not so today. Today her body stood stiff with tension and her mind boiled over with all the reasons Nardo hadn’t shown up. He was busy with House business. He didn’t really mean what he said, at least not as literally as she took it. He was just being kind. He’d offered out of pity. He was angry with her for disobeying his order.

  Well, it was a stupid order and who was he to order her around anyway? They weren’t on patrol. They were partners in an investigation. And hadn’t she saved his ass? They were partners, dammit, and that’s what partners did. Except they weren’t partners. They weren’t anything at all.

  And that was the real problem, wasn’t it. She only wanted Nardo because she was missing John. She missed having a partner she could trust and rely on. No big deal. She’d survived just fine before John. She’d survive just fine again.

  Nardo wasn’t coming and that was that. Get over it and get on with it. She was better off alone.

  Normally, she wouldn’t be having second thoughts about a man, but nothing had been normal since she came to this House of Guardians.

  The door to the en suite bathroom was open and she felt the slight rush of cooler air that told her someone had entered the bedroom. It was probably the women, ready for round two of pet and pamper.

  The first round was a bit overwhelming. When she walked in the door, covered in muck and blood, they swarmed over her, made her feel like a piece of candy dropped next to an ant hill.

  They stripped her of boots and jacket. Grace checked her all over for injury because they didn’t believe her assurance she was fine. Hope brought a cloth to wash her face and hands as if she was a three year old and incapable of doing the job herself. Manon made her hot chocolate which JJ counted as a blessing. The French woman’s coffee was awful and since coming to the House, JJ had acquired a taste for the good stuff.

  She could detect no falsehood in their worried voices. They all cooed over her with more concern than she could handle. As much as JJ appreciated their efforts, it was too much. She finally huffed a great breath of exasperation and snapped, “Enough!”

  Grace backed up with her hands in the air. “Sorry, sorry,” she laughed. “We were worried about you,” she said and shook her head ruefully. “I guess we’re as sexist as the guys, huh? We’ll get better at it.”

  JJ smiled as she remembered that. They weren’t being sexist at all, except in the sense they thought she, as a woman, would put up with their fussing. She’d heard Dov and Col complain about it regularly.

  Not wanting to be caught staring blankly at the tile work, JJ grabbed the can of shave cream, squirted a large dollop onto her palm and smoothed it over her leg. Sliding her foot along the edge of the tub, she stretched her leg out and ran the razor up the inside from ankle to thigh. She hoped to present a picture of a woman enjoying a leisurely shower. No worries, nothing to fuss over. By the time she finished the first leg and braced her other along the edge of the tub, she knew no one was coming in. It was then she really did relax. Breathing a sigh of relief, she bent at the waist and spread the cream upward from her ankle. Her relaxation was short lived, however, when she heard a very male groan behind her. JJ froze mid-stroke.

  “No, don’t stop.” Nardo’s voice was husky and raw as he stared at the silhouette through the frosted glass of the shower doors. There was a design of roses twining through the opaqueness, each bud and blossom clear and transparent. It gave him a tantalizing glimpse of the perfect woman’s form behind the doors. A long swirling vine of flesh and flowers followed the curve of her arched back down over the gentle swell of her ass. A rose in full bloom defined her breast, its center framing the darker rose of her nipple. He never would have dreamed that watching a woman shave her legs could be so erotic.

  He stripped off his jeans, the only item remaining from the trail of clothing he’d left behind beginning at her bedroom door. She didn’t move when he opened one glass panel and entered the bath. He stood behind her, bending his body as hers was bent, curling his body around her. His hands slid slowly along her arms; one hand to be braced against the wall, fingers overlapping in reality as once he’d imagined them around a bloody handprint on his jacket. The other slid over the hand holding the razor still poised below her knee.

  “Here,” he whispered against her cheek, “Let me help.” Embracing her hand, he drew it and the razor up to where leg met torso and then he bent them both to draw another clean line from her ankle up over her knee to her thigh and then bent to do it again.

  “You don
’t have to do this.” She moved with him, but stiffly.

  “Ah, Joy,” he whispered and chuckled softly, “Do you know what pleasure this brings me? Do you know how beautiful you are?”

  At last she moved of her own accord. She tried to straighten against him. “Don’t say that. I’m not.”

  From some other woman, it would have been a coy plea for further compliments, followed by a shy giggle. Not so with this woman. Nardo felt the tremble in her body when she said it. She thought he voiced some meaningless pick-up line like the twins tossed out in every bar they visited. This doubt of hers needed to be squelched.

  He straightened with her and wrapped his free arm around her waist. He took the razor from her hand and placed it carefully in the tiled nook that held her shampoo.

  “I’ll never lie to you, Joy, about anything.” He gripped her tighter when she tried to pull away and stroked the fingers that once held the razor along her cheek and chin. “You are beautiful to me.” He brought the hand to her breast and gently molding it, felt her nipple harden beneath his palm. “This,” he paused, “is beautiful to me.” The hand at her waist slid down along her thigh, savoring its silky smoothness and smiling at the flicker of movement in the muscle as his fingers passed. “This,” he paused again, “is beautiful to me.” Both hands moved, one up, one down, until they met at the juncture of her legs where they pressed her back against him. He felt her release the breath she’d been holding. “This,” and again, a pause, “is beautiful to me. You are my Joy and I find you more beautiful than any woman I have ever known. That’s not going to change, so you may as well get used to it and stop denying it, because I don’t want to waste my time giving you this speech every time I say it.” He laughed wickedly. “Not when I could be spending that time showing you how beautiful I think this body is.”

  When she heard his voice, she froze, unable to process the fact that he was here when she’d already convinced herself he wouldn’t be. And then he climbed into the tub behind her and wrapped his body around hers.