The Guardians Complete Series 1 Box Set: Contains Mercy, The Ferryman, Crossroads, Witchfinder, Infernum

by Wendy Saunders

  Shit, how the fuck was she going to explain that in front of a whole audience of cops, who already thought she was a deranged killer? Worse, how would she explain it to Theo? He still didn’t know what she was.

  Her heart leapt into her throat as he approached the perimeter and she involuntarily clutched onto Theo’s arm as the furious cop leapt. Suddenly he was yanked back by the two deputies who’d followed him out of the woods. He’d stopped mere inches from the protection line but her heart still hammered in chest.

  ‘What did you do to my brother you fucking bitch?’ He clawed and fought the two officers restraining him, howling like a caged animal. ‘WHY? WHY?’

  His screams tore her heart; no one deserved to lose someone they love like that.

  The Chief stepped forward grasping the sides of his face and whispering something to him over and over again.

  Cameron Walker eventually dropped to his knees, his anger draining out of him as he wept inconsolably. Chief Walcott nodded at the two deputies flanking him and they hauled Cameron to his feet and marched him back towards the squad car which was parked at the end of the road. The Chief turned to look at Olivia one last time and the look he gave her was so filled with venom and contempt she almost flinched.

  Watching to make sure they had definitely gone, Theo drew Olivia back inside and closed the door behind them. She felt numb, hollowed out and running on empty. Theo ran his hands up and down her arms to try and replace some of the warmth that had drained from her body.

  ‘I’m afraid your tea is probably cold by now,’ he murmured soothingly against her temple as he drew her close. ‘I’ll make you another.’

  ‘Do you even know how?’ She looked up at him as the color began to return to her cheeks.

  ‘How hard can it be?’ he smiled.

  ‘Actually, I think I need something stronger.’

  He followed her into the kitchen and watched as she pulled a couple of beers out of the refrigerator, handing one to him. Cracking one open she took a deep swig and rubbed her head in frustration.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  She leaned against the counter, allowing her head to fall back against the cabinet behind her. Blowing out her breath, she found herself staring absently at the ceiling.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘Not really,’ she repeated quietly, ‘but I suppose since you’ve appointed yourself my protector you should at least know what you’ve let yourself in for.’

  Theo moved across the kitchen to stand in front of her. Leaning forward he braced his hands on the counter either side of her, effectively trapping her.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me anything. I would still be here with you, I would still protect you.’ His hand lifted from the counter snaking slowly around under her hair cupping the back of her neck gently as his thumb traced her jaw lightly. ‘I’d still care for you.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ she frowned. ‘You don’t know who I am, you don’t know what I am.’

  ‘Olivia, I know,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve always known.’

  Her insides knotted tightly and she stiffened in his embrace.

  ‘Known what?’

  ‘I’ve watched you since I was a child,’ the corner of his mouth curved. ‘Do you really think I haven’t seen what you are capable of?’

  ‘Be more specific,’ she replied carefully.

  ‘I know you can master fire, I’ve seen you do it,’ his voice was low and hypnotic, weaving a web of intimacy around them.

  ‘I’ve seen you use magic.’ He pulled her closer, pressing their bodies together.

  ‘You don’t see it but you glow,’ his fingers moved from her jaw to trace her cheekbone. ‘It's like looking at pure sunlight.’

  ‘Theo, don’t,’ she whispered, something inside her trembling as she looked into his eyes.

  ‘You’re a witch, aren’t you?’

  ‘How can you ask me that so calmly, doesn’t that bother you? Doesn’t it go against everything you believe in?’

  He shook his head lightly as a hesitant sigh left his lips.

  ‘I will tell you my story if you want to hear it,’ he replied reluctantly, ‘though I fear you will think less of me for it.’

  His hands slid from her face to her shoulders and ran the length of her arms to her hands, where his fingers entwined with hers. Grabbing the two beers from the counter he tugged her gently away from the kitchen back to the room where she seemed most comfortable.

  Olivia curled up into the worn couch tucking her legs under her, pulling her favorite throw over her and snuggling in. She looked across at the fire and it once against flared joyously into flame, bathing her in its warmth and light. She glanced nervously over at Theo who watched the flames before turning his attention back to Olivia.

  ‘I still haven’t figured out how to stop it from doing that,’ she replied ruefully. ‘It’s like it wants to please me.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ he murmured.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he shook his head.

  ‘You know you really don’t have to tell me,’ Olivia absently picked at the label of her beer bottle.

  ‘Yes I do,’ he replied. ‘You need to be able to trust me and you can’t do that if you are constantly questioning my motives. I don’t want you to feel as if you can’t be truthful with me, for fear of my reaction.’

  ‘I guess you might have a point,’ she took a thoughtful sip, ‘and I have to admit I am curious. I specialize in New England history and the witch trials in particular.’

  ‘Then you must already know some of my story,’ he frowned, unsure as to how history would have portrayed him.

  ‘That’s the weird part,’ Olivia answered, ‘you aren’t mentioned at all. The first time I came across your name it was in Hester’s journal. I had to do some serious digging into the court records and the only information I could find was the official notification by the court of your appointment as Witchfinder, along with your brother.’

  At the mention of his family his expression darkened.

  ‘You mentioned in your journal someone named Temperance,’ she tilted her head curiously.

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t read it?’

  ‘I didn’t, I just glanced through the last entry and that was before I met you.’

  ‘She was my younger sister,’ he replied after a moment, and a small smile graced his lips as his eyes became distant, lost in memories.

  ‘Tempy was such a sweet little thing. She was a late child; I was twelve years old when she was born. It was a difficult birth, my mother didn’t survive, and for a while it seemed like Temperance wouldn’t either. She was so tiny, so fragile.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ Olivia murmured.

  ‘She would have been happy to give her life for her child, for any of her children,’ he replied softly. ‘She loved us.’

  Theo moved closer and took a seat on the rug with the fire crackling at his back, taking a pull of his beer as he organized his thoughts.

  ‘Temperance was a sickly child, prone to ailments, but though her body was weak she was full of life and so funny. There was not a day when she did not make Logan and I laugh.’

  ‘You must have loved her very much.’

  ‘We doted on her,’ he smiled, staring at the bottle in his hand, ‘and she ruled us like a little queen.’

  ‘What about your father?’

  ‘My father,’ he frowned, ‘was a difficult man. We owned a farm on the outskirts of Salem village. After my mother died he was never quite the same. He was hard to live with before, but after he was even worse. He liked to find his solace at the bottom of a bottle of strong spirits.’

  ‘So you were left to take care of a baby when you were only twelve years old?’

  ‘She was a good baby, she almost never cried,’ he shrugged. ‘As soon as Logan and I were old enough the run
ning of the farm largely fell to us. Logan always hated it, hated being a farmer. He always wanted something more, something better.’

  ‘But not you?’

  ‘It was my home,’ he smiled. ‘I was content, until Temperance reached her sixth birthday and I realized she had dreams like mine. She would see things before they happened.’

  ‘Precognition,’ Olivia nodded, ‘it’s a very common gift. It can range from having a vague feeling of something good or bad happening, to full visions.’

  ‘You accept it so easily,’ he replied in wonder, ‘but where I came from something like that would mean only one thing, that you were in league with the devil. I taught Temperance to hide her ability from others, as I had learned to hide mine. A fever had gripped Salem; although the worst was still yet to come the accusations of witchcraft were everywhere, and no one was safe. I tried to keep us isolated at the farm so we would not be discovered. But then everything changed, Temperance fell ill with a fever.’

  ‘She died?’ Olivia asked softly.

  Theo nodded, the pain still as fresh as the day it happened.

  ‘Logan changed after that, his grief was so raw so angry. Losing her was like losing our mother all over again. Neither of us were there, we’d had to leave her at home with our father while we went to trade at market. It was late in the year and we were caught in a sudden storm. We were days late and by the time we returned home she was already gone. I blamed myself for leaving her, Logan blamed the world. He’d begun to associate with a young cleric named Nathaniel Boothe. It was he who first suggested to Logan that Temperance’s illness was not of natural causes. Of course Logan didn’t take much convincing. He was looking for someone, or something, to blame for the loss of our sister.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of a Nathaniel Boothe,’ Olivia replied in confusion.

  ‘Then there seems to be several gaps in your history,’ Theo frowned. ‘I never trusted Nathaniel. There was something about him that made me uneasy. He was always there in the background, whispering, always whispering, in someone’s ear, like a snake. He had too much influence over Logan, it was his suggestion that Logan be appointed in the capacity of Witchfinder and he fuelled his rage and his hate at every opportunity. I tried to reach him, but with every day that passed he became less my brother and more a tool of Nathaniel’s righteous campaign against the devil.’

  ‘So how did you end up as a Witchfinder?’

  ‘It was Logan’s idea, or Nathaniel’s, I don’t know which. I thought that if I was with him I could exercise some kind of restraint over him. That maybe, somehow, I could make him see reason. I thought that if I could just reach him, if I could make him deal with his grief...’ Theo shook his head slowly and sighed. ‘The only way he would let me get close to him, was if he believed I shared his convictions, if I took the vow.’

  ‘So you became a Witchfinder?’

  ‘For my sins,’ he replied, with deep regret lacing each word.

  ‘You did it to save your brother.’

  ‘For all the good it did me,’ Theo shook his head miserably. ‘He was too far gone. If it hadn’t been for Nathaniel I might have been able to reach him, but it was almost as if Nathaniel had him in his thrall.’

  ‘What happened Theo?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Terrible things,’ he closed his eyes as if to shut out the horrors he had witnessed. His jaw tensed as he continued, ‘during the time I spent in Salem Town as a Witchfinder, the things I saw, the things I did, I will never forgive myself for. It was then I realized I could not save my brother from himself, but if I was ever going to be able to live with myself I had to walk away. I left Salem and returned to our farm where I remained until the night he sent Bridget and Hester West to be held prisoner in our barn.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘That’s what I asked when they were brought to me. When I asked why they hadn’t been sent to the prison with the other accused, I was told Nathaniel himself wanted to question them. That in itself was strange, Nathaniel never directly involved himself. He preferred to remain in the background, manipulating others. But I just couldn’t understand what they could possibly know. They were children after all and barely as old as Temperance had been. I asked the children outright if they knew what Nathaniel could possibly want with them and Hester told me that they had killed her mother, that Nathaniel wanted something from them and he believed they knew where it was.’

  ‘What was it that he was looking for?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Theo shook his head, ‘but Hester referred to it as Infernum.’

  ‘Infernum?’

  ‘Have you heard of it?’ Theo asked curiously. ‘Do you know what it is?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Olivia’s brow folded in thought, ‘I’ve never heard of it. I mean, Infernum is the Latin word for Hell, but I’ve never heard of it referred to as an object. Maybe there’s something in Hester’s journal. I haven’t finished reading them all yet.’

  ‘So what about you?’ Theo took a pull of his beer which was now flat and warm.

  ‘What about me?’ Olivia repeated with a sigh. ‘Well I’m assuming you’ve heard some gossip about my family. In this town it would be hard not to.’

  ‘I am not interested in gossip,’ he replied, ‘only the truth.’

  ‘We were happy once,’ Olivia stared into the flames. ‘I lived in town with my mother and father, in a little house with a blue front door. I had a dog named Truman. My Nana Alice lived in this house with her twin sister Aunt Evie, we’d come to visit and I’d play in the woods with my dog and Jake and Louisa. My father was a teacher and my mother, well she was just my mom. We were a normal family, at least I thought we were.’

  She shook her head lightly, not wanting to relive the memories that kept churning over and over in her mind like an old film reel. The problem was, that the pictures in her head, and the memories, were distorted, fleeting. She found the more she tried to hold onto them, the more the details kept slipping away. All she could remember was her grandmother dead on the floor in a pool of blood and her father as he sank the knife into her mother’s chest, and then fire... so much fire.

  ‘I woke up as they were fighting, my mom and dad. Their voices carried up the stairs and the noise woke me up. I wasn’t sure what was happening at first; they never raised their voices to me or each other. I was so confused by it that I crept out of bed and snuck down the stairs to see what was happening. Nana was already dead, mom and dad were fighting; there was a knife.’

  ‘He killed her?’ Theo spoke softly.

  She nodded slowly.

  ‘Then he burned the house to the ground and took me and fled.’

  ‘My God,’ Theo breathed.

  ‘We were on the run for days, weeks maybe, I don’t know. My memories are… fragmented.’ She shook her head, ‘anyway the police finally caught up with us in Philadelphia and my dad was arrested.’

  ‘What about you?’ Theo frowned.

  ‘Child services were called in. My only other living relative, my aunt Evie, was asked if she would take custody of me.’

  ‘So you went to live with her?’

  ‘No,’ Olivia replied flatly, ‘she didn’t want me.’

  ‘What?’ Theo answered in shock, ‘but she was your family, it was her duty to care for you.’

  ‘Theo, you can’t make someone care out of duty, besides I wouldn’t have wanted her to. At least she was honest. I knew where I stood and I guess I can understand to a certain extent. I was a constant reminder of everything she’d lost and of the man who had taken it from her.’

  ‘How old were you?’ he demanded.

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘For god’s sake Olivia, you were a child,’ he replied angrily. ‘Don’t give me ‘you understand’. I don’t understand how a woman can blame a child for the sins of her father, she was not worthy of you.’

  ‘Maybe, but it doesn’t change anything.’

  ‘What h
appened after she refused you?’

  ‘I was put into the foster care system.’

  ‘An orphanage?’

  ‘Kind of,’ she shrugged, ‘I bounced back and forth between a few different families but as I got older I knew they got more and more uncomfortable about having me around. So I ended up more or less permanently in a group home, with all the other troubled kids no one wants to adopt.’

  ‘Olivia,’ he struggled to find the right words.

  She shrugged.

  ‘I got over it a long time ago. You can’t blame those people, after all no one wants to adopt the child of a murderer,’ she smiled slowly. ‘It makes people very nervous.’

  ‘How can you smile about it?’

  ‘There’s no point in being bitter because no one wanted me. I realized pretty early on, no one was coming to save me and if I wanted to make something of my life, I was going to have to save myself. So I studied hard; fortunately school was always easy for me and I got into college on a full scholarship.’

  ‘So you’ve always been alone?’

  ‘Not completely,’ she replied, ‘in college I met Mags, Margaret Hale. She was a guest lecturer and we just kind of hit it off. She’s much older than me and she seemed to fill all those spaces that were missing, she became my family. It was her that encouraged me to study the history of witchcraft and then New England history. She also helped me get my first couple of books published. Now I write historical reference books for a living.’

  ‘You’re amazing.’

  ‘No I’m not,’ she replied quietly, ‘I just learned to survive.’

  ‘There are many that would not have done even that.’

  ‘Then I pity them,’ she shrugged. ‘Life is a gift, you have to make the most of it.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ Theo smiled.

  A sudden pounding at the door had Olivia rolling her eyes and yanking the throw off her legs.

  ‘I can’t believe I thought moving here would mean peace and quiet.’