Guardian (Hidden Book 6)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  Her gaze hardened. “I find him, and you take him to be punished?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what about me? What happens to me then?”

  I took a breath. This was the part I would have to explain to my Queen. I had a feeling she would not be entirely happy with me. And I could not, for the life of me, understand why I was doing it, only that it felt right. There was just an overwhelming sense of knowing. I have learned several things in my lifetime, and listening to that feeling is one of the reasons I am alive and able to look at myself in the mirror. I had the same feeling the day I met Mollis, when I came to collect the soul of one of her friends. I had it the night I stayed with her after her mate died. And I had it the day I battled my sisters saving the shifter. I would not stop listening to it now.

  “That will be up to you. If you feel ready to go, I can take you for your final judgment as well, ensuring that you are judged quickly. Or, if you decide you want to continue helping me, you can do that, as long as we have my Queen’s blessing for you to do so.” I paused. “There were twenty-seven souls that escaped with you all together. I’ve now found three. We have twenty-four more to find and return to the Nether, including the monster who tortured you.”

  “I would very much appreciate the opportunity to avenge myself,” she said quietly, her eyes glinting.

  “Then you shall have it,” I said.

  “Thank you, Guardian,” she said softly, her gaze still holding mine. “I am yours.”

  I nodded. “You should not have any trouble contacting me when you find him. We will discuss it more when we are ready to leave.”

  “Very good. I am looking forward to this.”

  I smiled a little. “I am sure you are.” I turned my gaze to Quinn, who was still watching me. “And what am I supposed to do with you, Connolly?”

  He smiled again. “Put me to work, lass. We’ll try to figure one another out along the way.”

  I looked away. I met Mary’s eyes.

  “My name is Eunomia,” I finally said. “If you betray me, your punishment will be never-ending and terrible. I have friends in high places, and I am adept at causing pain myself.”

  “I do not doubt it. And when I said I am yours, I meant it,” Mary said.

  “I believe you. I am not sure about you, however,” I said, turning back to Quinn.

  “That makes two of us,” he said.

  “I think you should stay where I can easily find you.”

  “Can I fight and capture souls?”

  “Of course,” I answered.

  “Then that sounds just fine to me.”

  I sat with the two souls for a while, and eventually Mary wandered off and settled further away, her eyes still on the mountains in the distance. Quinn sat, mostly silent, and mostly watching me.

  “She does that often. Stares at those mountains,” he explained. “Her memories haunt her. Nightmares plague her. She spends a lot of time closed in on herself.”

  I nodded, and we sat in silence for a few moments longer. “You are not like any other soul I have come across,” I finally said.

  “How so?”

  “Besides the fact that my Lady knows nothing of your existence, and the fact that I knew almost nothing about you until you told me about yourself… you feel different. Aberration.”

  “You really have a way with people,” he said, a wry grin on his lips.

  I found myself smiling a bit as well. “It was not an insult, necessarily. Your energy is odd. You feel both alive and dead. If that makes any sense,” I added.

  “None at all,” he answered, and I laughed. He joined me. We were silent for a few moments. “If we’re sharing aberrations, I should tell you that I do not usually flaunt my presence to your kind. I do not know why they don’t see me, but I have been waiting for my luck to run out in that regard. I do not know why I sit here, knowing you can see me, and knowing what you are supposed to be doing with me.” He paused again. “There are others,” he said finally.

  “Others? Of me?”

  He shook his head. “Others your kind cannot see. I wonder if you will be able to see them.”

  I clasped my hands around my knees, rested my chin on them. “Where?”

  “I know of some here in Ireland, though a few claim to have come from Britain and that they saw more there. I’m not sure if that was true or not,” he said with a shrug.

  “If you exist here, it is entirely probable there are others like you in other places,” I said.

  He took a breath he likely did not need. Old habits die hard. “They will be drawn to you, as I was. Do not be surprised if they begin seeking you out.”

  I studied him, and he bore it patiently.

  “I am going to take a wild guess and say you arrived in Ireland the day before yesterday,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “That is when I started feeling the need to find… something. And when you arrived looking for Mary, I realized the compulsion was gone. Your arrival was what I was waiting for.”

  He must have detected some disbelief in my countenance, because he shook his head and smiled. “You are as confused by it as I am, lass.”

  “Why now? I have existed a long time, and you have been dead for decades. So why now?”

  He shrugged. “You are here now. Have you been on this land in the last forty years?”

  I shook my head. “The last time I was here was a little over three hundred years ago.”

  “And England?”

  “Nearly as long,” I said quietly. “I worked mostly on mainland Europe and Asia. Occasionally in North America.” I looked up into the sky, clouds passing across a deep blue sky. “Why now? Why here?”

  “I do not know… What should I call you?” he asked.

  “Eunomia is fine. Lass, as you have been, is fine,” I said.

  “It feels like I should be bowing to you.”

  I laughed then and shook my head. “While that is not an unheard of response for men to have to me, it is not necessary.”

  He let out a loud guffaw. “That is not what I meant, though I do indeed see it. I’m saying: I am the one following you. I am telling you now I want to fight for you. This feels like the entire reason I am still here. I can’t walk around calling you ‘lass.’”

  “Then call me by my name. It is enough.”

  He shook his head. “I hope I’m not making a mistake.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “I am not afraid of facing my final judgment, understand,” he said, eyes meeting mine. “I just am not ready to stop doing this. I’m not ready to stop making sure those who are trying to escape judgment are forced to face it.”

  “By escaping your own judgment,” I said with a smile.

  “There must be a reason the crows and your kind haven’t been able to see me. There must be a reason I am drawn to follow you now.”

  “That remains to be seen,” I said. “But you claim you will help me and for now that is enough. I fear this task my Lady has set for me is more dangerous than I at first believed.”

  “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” he said slowly. “Maybe this is one of them.”

  Pointing out that we likely did not believe in the same god seemed pointless, so I merely smiled. “Gods do love their mystery,” I finally said.

  He seemed to catch the general direction of my thoughts and smiled. “It’s no surprise to me that the god I’ve worshipped my whole life is not exactly what I believed He was. And, who knows? Maybe He was. Maybe the gods you know are not the only ones after all.”

  I shook my head. “I have been here for thousands of years. There has never been an inkling of any others. And be grateful for that, because the ones I know for the most part care nothing for human suffering.”

  He smiled. “We will agree to disagree. Though I don’t doubt your gods are dangerous. You don’t exactly seem the peaceful type yourself.”

  “No?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.

  “No. Shall I t
ry to guess how many weapons you currently have on your person?”

  I smiled. “Go ahead.”

  He studied me.

  “I am guessing four. Two strapped to your chest or back maybe. Two more in your boots,” he said, glancing at my legs.

  “So close,” I said.

  “How off was I?”

  “Very close.”

  “Care to share details?”

  “Not a chance.”

  He laughed, shaking his head. I glanced toward where Mary sat. “I will have to take her to the U.S. Her target will likely be in Florida. And then I have a friend I have to transport back to his home.” A friend who I was looking forward to seeing more of, which was stupid and ridiculous. “Can I trust you to stay where I tell you to until I return?”

  “You can. I have no idea why, but I know I have no desire to wander now. I would suspect witchcraft on your part, except that I don’t believe that works on the dead.”

  “Well, there are necromancers,” I said. “But they use the actual body.”

  He gave a mock quiver, and I rolled my eyes.

  “I will be where you tell me to be.”

  “So obedient,” I murmured.

  “Let’s not push it, shall we?” he said in a mild tone, and I smiled. “Let’s keep that between us, eh? I do have my manhood to think of.”

  “Is that even a thing ghosts are concerned with?”

  “This one is. Yes.”

  The sky was beginning to darken just a bit, the mountains like a row of uneven teeth at the edge of the earth. I met his gaze. “Be careful. I can see you… who knows? Maybe something has changed. Maybe now others can see you as well.”

  “I will be. I always am,” he said, standing up. I moved to get up, and he held out a hand to help me. I set my hand in his, my hand almost ridiculously small in comparison. He pulled a little, and I unfolded my legs, standing up in one smooth motion.

  “I will see you soon,” I said.

  “Looking forward to it,” he said with a nod.

  I grimaced. “You’ll likely see me do this often, so you may as well see it now. I’m going to leave.”

  He watched, and I met his eyes, then focused on rematerializing back at my room in the inn. And I was relieved to leave him and all of the questions he raised behind.

  Chapter Nine

  I had intended to go back to the inn, but I did not feel ready to deal with Brennan just yet. I was not entirely happy to have him with me, not because I disliked him of course, but because he confused me. And that is not a feeling I am overly fond of.

  I decided that looking for Lethe was a better use of my time and energy than waiting around for Brennan to be ready to go with me to find her. And if I sat alone too long, it would give me far too much time to sit and worry about the appearance of Quinn Connolly and the mystery of his existence in my world. It would give me too much time to second-guess the decision I’d made. I still believed it was the right one. I just wished I understood why I was so sure about that.

  I rematerialized myself to a rocky bluff overlooking the coast. This was an area Lethe had always loved, and I could see why. The choppy waters below, the cool, ceaseless wind, the passage of wispy clouds overhead. It was the perfect place for a goddess who dealt in impermanence. The goddess of forgetfulness. She was not responsible for general forgetfulness, such as forgetting where one had left their car keys. The forgetfulness she caused was a gift to those she bestowed it upon. Traumatic incidents, heartbreaking memories. She could make you feel better, could make it possible for you to keep your sanity in the face of terrible experiences, simply by making you forget. The memories were still there, but the person she helped would not be able to recall them.

  Unfortunately for humanity, she had mostly become a hermit the past several hundred years, keeping to this windy bluff in Ireland. Perhaps she had her own memories she wished she could forget.

  I was unsurprised to find her sitting, legs crossed, on a large boulder, looking out over the sea. Her long silver hair flowed around her, tossed by the breeze. Her clear eyes, which reminded me of crystals and were disconcerting to look at, even for me, were open, staring out at nothing. I knew she could feel me there.

  “Lethe,” I said, and she acknowledged me with a slight nod. I went and sat beside her on the boulder. “The view here is lovely.”

  “It never changes,” she said, and her words reminded me of what Brennan had said of Detroit.

  “And is that a comfort or an irritant?” I asked her.

  “Sometimes it is both. Mostly, it simply is.”

  I did not respond. “Angelia is missing,” I finally said.

  She did not react, merely blinked and continued looking out over the water.

  “Eros said you were likely the last one to see her and Penthus. Is there anything you can tell me?”

  “I like Angelia,” she said after a moment.

  “As do I,” I said, watching her.

  “It never changes,” she said again, and I glanced out at the water.

  “No, I suppose it does not. Did Angelia say anything to you about where she was going next? Or if she was all right? If anyone was bothering her?”

  “She asked me to forget,” she said.

  I blinked, surprised. I had never heard of an immortal asking for that. Though when I thought about it, weren’t there many, many things I would rather not remember? “Anything in particular?”

  “I cannot remember,” Lethe said, and I furrowed my brow.

  “You cannot remember what she asked you to forget?”

  “Who?”

  “Angelia,” I said.

  “I like Angelia,” she said, and I suppressed an irritated sigh. It had been centuries since I’d had to deal with Lethe. I had forgotten how frustrating it could be.

  “I like Angelia, too. Do you remember what she asked you to make her forget?”

  “She was here.”

  “Yes.”

  “It never changes.”

  I rubbed my hands over my face, longing for something to hit. “No, it doesn’t. Did Angelia say anything to you about where she was going?”

  “I like Angelia.”

  I sat in silence for several minutes, trying to figure out a way to get her out of this loop she was in. “I like Angelia,” I said.

  “She was here,” Lethe said. “Asked me to help her forget.”

  “Forget what?” I asked, hopeful.

  “Love. Wants to forget about it. I refused.”

  “You did not make her forget?”

  “No.”

  “Did she say where she was going?” I pressed.

  “She was here,” Lethe said, and I tried not to groan.

  “Yes, she was.”

  “It never changes.”

  I sighed. “I know.”

  After a few more minutes, I gave up and walked away, down the hill, across a nearby meadow. I hoped walking would help me get rid of the irritation I felt after dealing with Lethe. And then I thought about how Brennan would have been amused by the entire thing, and I shook my head. I really should have brought him with me.

  My mind wandered as I walked, and it was several moments before I realized that I felt the energy of more than one soul nearby. I looked around and, to my right, three souls stood, watching me. Women. One wore a long gray dress, much like the one Mary wore, from the same time period. One wore a simple brown skirt that reached to her ankles, a dark blue shawl thrown over her shoulders. The third looked as if she had died maybe in the early twentieth century. Two blonds, one redhead. Their eyes were on me.

  And a quick scan told me my Goddess knew nothing about them. They were not on my list.

  “It is you,” the redhead said. As one, the three of them sank to their knees, and one of the blonds said. “Finally. We are yours.”

  I shook my head, blew out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, and used one of Mollis’s favorite words:

  “Fuck.”

  I stood there for
several long moments, wishing fruitlessly that they did not exist, yet there they stood. I gestured, somewhat irritably, that they should stand, and the women did.

  I studied them. The tallest, the blond in the long gray dress, was named Claire. Dead for nearly two hundred years. Murdered. The redhead who looked like the most newly-dead of the three had died in 1998. Murdered. Her name was Erin. The other blond had died in the early 1900s and her name was Cathleen. Also murdered.

  A pattern was beginning to show itself among my mystery souls. All of them, these three plus Quinn, now, had been murdered. No quiet drifting away into an endless goodnight among them. They’d had their lives cut short violently, painfully.

  It still did not explain why my Queen did not know about them, why I knew nothing about them upon seeing them, but, given time, their pasts, their lives, their deaths, became clear.

  It did not explain why they’d apparently been looking for me.

  “How did you know to find me here?” I asked them quietly.

  “I dae na know,” Claire said, a strong accent coloring her words. “I sensed ye and followed it. Met up wi’ these two along the way. They looked for ye as well.”

  The other two nodded, still watching me.

  “And what is it you expect from me?”

  “Only that you’ll let us help you,” Erin said softly. “We… On the way here, we all realized that we were all overlooked by your kind, by the crows that came later. We’ve seen them, but they do not see us. And each of us, for whatever reason, found that we started holding souls for your kind to claim. And we were never seen.”

  “And then a few days ago, we each felt the urge to come this way. It was as if you called us,” Cathleen said.

  “I surely did not call you,” I said beneath my breath.

  “Something about ye did,” Claire argued. “We’re here.”

  “And you can see us,” Erin added. “Those others like you couldn’t.”

  I rubbed my temples. One thing at a time. I had to get back to Brennan. Really, what I had to do was get the shifter and the way he drove me insane as far away from me as I could for a while. It was not something I could afford to be distracted by now, at any rate.