Guardian's Hope

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  The twins decided to spend their time painting their rooms in the newly renovated house next door, but they only finished one wall. They didn’t want to paint. They didn’t want to play video games or shoot pool or work out in the new gym. They couldn’t even work up the enthusiasm to call each other names. They only wanted to get to Grace and Hope and beat the shit out of Smith. Surely there weren’t any rules against that.

  Canaan sat in his office alternating between rage and despair. How could she do something like this? Make him feel like his world was coming apart. When he got his hands on Grace he wanted to throttle her, beat her to within an inch of her life. But wanting and doing were two different things and he knew that once she was in his arms again, he would love her like she’d never been loved before. If he got her back. If they weren’t too late.

  Nico was in the parlor. He leaned with both hands braced against the mantel piece. No fire blazed in the hearth and that was as it should be. No warmth, no light, no comfort. His Hope was gone.

  “Hope?” he called for the thousandth time and for the thousandth time there was no answer. She was too far away. If she could hear him at all. The athame sat in its holder where Hope had agreed to let it reside until she had enough control to wield it. It no longer called to him to hold it and dream of its owner. Instead, it mocked him and his foolish belief that happiness was his for the taking. His Hope was gone.

  Otto and Manon were the only ones who sought their bed in the yellow room that had once been Hope’s. Their lovemaking had been soft and gentle; the comforting coming together that comes with age. They clung together in the aftermath, kissing almost chastely, running their hands over each other’s bodies as if to reassure themselves that their love, at least, would survive intact. Manon ran her fingers lightly over the grey in his hair that was too swiftly taking over what was once a rich brown.

  “I am thinking I should take one of the cars and go to this Smith’s house and spy. I could park on the street and keep watch to make sure they do not leave. If they do, I could follow.”

  “You don’t drive, my sweet.”

  She pouted prettily. The same pout she always used when she wanted something Otto was reluctant to give. “It is what, a twenty minute drive? I can do this, Mon Coeur. Did I not drive your Bentley?”

  “You did, Manon, in 1936. How many cars have you driven since?” He shook his head at her audacity. She was still very much the woman he’d fallen in love with.

  “I’ve had no need. Until I found my cottage here, I always lived in cities. When you were not there, I hired cars.”

  “And you think you can hop in a car and drive it through the city in heavy traffic without any problems. It’s not that easy. You’re not even familiar with the streets.”

  “So, you only object to my driving the car through the city alone. It is settled then. I shall call a car service or a taxi. The driver will take me where I need to go and wait for as long as I need him to. I will pay him very well. I will embrace what Col says are modern times and carry a cell phone with which I will remain in constant contact with you. I will wait and watch. It is all I can do. But if they leave before the sun sets, I will be there to follow. I will stay in the car outside Smith’s and will be in no danger.”

  Otto chuckled and kissed her nose; a nose he’d been kissing for over seventy-five years. “You think I’ll say yes because when you use that little pout, I can’t refuse you anything.”

  “Non, mon amour. I think you will say yes because it is the only thing we can do to give the men some comfort until sunset.”

  Chapter 38

  Grace sat on the floor in the corner of the room, her legs sprawled in front of her with her back supported where the two walls met. Hope also sat on the floor, resting on her hip while the seat of the chair supported her crossed arms and head. They’d been there for hours. Smith was evidently so sure of their compliance and the security of the room, he hadn’t bothered to check. They’d tried to unlock the door using one of Hopes hairpins, but without success. It looked so easy when you saw it on television.

  “Let’s begin again. What do we know?” Hope peered at Grace through the space between the seat and back.

  “We’ve been over this ten times. This isn’t as simple as how much money will Farmer Smith get for his bushels of corn. It’s more like advanced calculus and I’m out of my league.” Grace sighed and stretched her neck until her head touched the wall.

  “There’s got to be something.” The silent waiting was a torment. At least when they were talking, she felt like they might stumble upon a solution. “What about Gore?” She shivered every time she said the name.

  “He’s a big ole scaly assed demon who’s only going to get bigger and scarier if he changes over. His emotions are simple. He’s hungry.”

  “Then what do you know about demons on general.”

  “They feed off blood and fear, make that terror. They can eat and drink and act like regular people, but the demon is always lurking just below the surface. Do you know we can see that and the Guardians can’t? They can only smell demons until they change over to their true form. The demons come through some kind of doorway that can’t be seen from this side. You have to know where it is. I saw one once. It was a mirror. I saw a demon and a witch fall through it. The same demon and witch you saw. They only work at night. I don’t know what sunlight does to them, but it’s probably not good.” She sighed. “I wish I’d asked more questions.”

  “Could you hold it long enough for me to kill it?”

  “I might be able to make him stay still if he was looking me straight in the eyes. We’d still have Smith to contend with and he’d be willful and hard to control.”

  Grace had a talent for mind control. With eye contact, she could influence a person’s will. She sat up straight, suddenly alert. She could feel hope emanating from its namesake and something else.

  “What are you thinking and what are you doing with your hand?”

  Hope looked down at her finger drawing the intricate pattern of swirls on the seat of the chair. “It’s nothing, a nervous habit.”

  “It’s a lot more than that. Can’t you feel it? You’re drawing power.”

  Hope stopped and she could feel the tension in her body begin to ebb. She drew the pattern in the air and her tension built. She repeated the experiment. It happened again. All these years she’d thought of the hand movement as a nervous gesture to relieve tension never realizing it created it. She smiled.

  “Hope?”

  Hope held up her hand in the universal gesture for stop. “I have an idea, a plan. We’re going to need a few minutes to work it through and I’m sorry, Grace, but the hardest part is going to be yours. You’re right about the demon being hungry, but I know what he’s hungry for. You.”

  “Why didn’t you say something before?” Grace looked both repulsed and truly frightened.

  “There didn’t seem to be any point. It would only have made you feel like you’re feeling right now.”

  “So now it’s okay to make me feel like I have worms crawling under my skin?”

  “Because there’s a purpose. I’ll tell you about it in a minute. First, I need to try something else.”

  Hope started drawing her design in the air.

  *****

  Canaan paced back and forth across the kitchen. “We don’t even know that they’re still in the house. He could have moved them anywhere by now. For all we know, they might be…” He couldn’t say the words.

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. There is nothing to lose but a few dollars. The car and driver are on their way. I have my trusty cell phone,” Manon held it up for all to see, “fully charged,” she winked at Col, “I need only run home for my coat and purse. The driver will pick me up in front of my house.”

  “And you’re all right with this,” Canaan appealed to Otto.

  “There’s nothing to object to. Manon won’t be in any danger. She’s not going up to the man’s door. She’ll stay in conta
ct. It’s hours until sunset. It’s the best we can do.”

  “They’re okay. They’re alive and okay,” Nico shouted and everyone jumped. “I can’t hear the words or see where they are, but they’re okay.” He’d forgotten that the others didn’t know about the connection he and Hope shared.

  “We’re all hoping they are,” Otto said gently.

  “No, you don’t understand. I can feel her in my mind. The bridge is there, her side and mine, but the sides aren’t connected. There’s no way across. I can hear her shouting but I can’t hear the words. I only know they’re alive and so far unharmed.”

  Manon threw her arms around him. “This is good news,” she said and to the others who were looking at Nico as if he might be losing his mind, “Listen to him. His information is as trustworthy as mine.”

  Fifteen minutes later the driver pulled up to the curb in front of an elaborately painted Victorian home where a woman was waiting on the porch. The neighborhood was shabby, but there was nothing shabby about the woman. She reeked of money and class. It was only when she got up close that he realized she was much older than he first thought. So far, so good. The older ones tended to tip better. He held the rear door open for her, but she shook her head. She wanted to sit up front. It was her dime and he’d learned a long time ago it didn’t pay to argue with money.

  “What is your name, young man?” she asked when he got behind the wheel.

  “Joseph, ma’am. Where to?”

  She gave him the address. He knew the neighborhood. Not as shabby as this, but not much better.

  “Are we picking someone up or just visiting?” he asked as they pulled away.

  “Neither. We are going to watch.” She smiled at him. “I hope you are a friendly man, Joseph, because for the next few hours, we will have nothing to do but chat with each other and watch. But first, I have a small mission for you.” She laughed. “Don’t look so worried. It is both safe and legal and I tip very well.”

  Joseph double parked the car and ran up to the door as instructed. He knocked and when there was no answer, he knocked again. He kept knocking for several minutes and was just about to quit and tell Manon there was no one there when the door flew open and an angry face appeared.

  “What the fuck do you want?” Smith had lived here for two years and no one had ever knocked on his door. It was getting like fucking Grand Central Station. He glared at the small man dressed in a dull grey uniform with a chauffer’s cap clenched in his hands. “Well?”

  “I beg your pardon, sir. Someone called for a car to pick them up at this address.”

  “Not fucking likely,” Smith said and slammed the door.

  “Excellent,” Manon said when he returned. “We know that he is home. Now find a place to park where we can watch and wait.” She pulled out her phone and called Otto.

  *****

  Smith, with the dog-like Gore in tow, had finally come to check on them and they had learned something new. Damon was coming here to make the exchange. They couldn’t let that happen. They had to be taken to Faith. They altered their plan.

  “Are you ready for this?”

  “No, but I don’t have any better ideas. We can’t wait for Nico and Canaan. If Smith brings Damon here, I may never see Faith. What if he doesn’t bring me back to the same place as Faith? What if he doesn’t keep me at all?” What if he doesn’t want me for anything more than a vengeful meal to torment my sister with? There were too many possibilities. “We have to make an ally of Smith and the only way to do that is to convince him his reward and chance of survival is greater with us.”

  Hope was asking a lot of Grace. She knew it. They’d talked about the possibility of Grace making an escape. She thought she could use her power to break out the window and again to soften Grace’s landing when she jumped from it, but could they do it fast enough for Grace to evade recapture and get to the car? They’d never know because Grace refused to abandon her.

  “You play it just the way we practiced it and it’ll work. You’ll make it work.” Grace sounded so positive. She formed an image in her mind of Hope smiling seductively at Smith.

  Hope couldn’t help but smile. They’d practiced forming a connection. It wasn’t nearly as strong as the one she shared with Nico, but it would suffice.

  “You’re the seductress.” She laughed outright when Grace put her finger in her mouth and pretended to gag. “My job is to put the fear of Hell into Smith.”

  “Just pray the sun keeps shining,” said Grace. She stood and dusted herself off. “Let’s do it.”

  They started banging on the door and yelling at the top of their lungs.

  *****

  “There’s a big Doberman Pincher living out in the yard at the back,” Joseph said a little breathlessly as he climbed back into the driver’s seat. He bent to inspect a three corner tear in his pant leg.

  “Ah, non, mon ami, the big dog did not bite you, did it?” Manon, too, bent to inspect the leg.

  “No, no ma’am, the Doberman didn’t get me. I got that tear from climbing the fence.” He twisted his other leg at an awkward angle to display another, smaller tear. Blood stained the area around it. “It was the little friendly looking white one next door that got me.”

  “You poor man! You have suffered much for my little endeavor. I owe you a great deal.” She rummaged in her purse and triumphantly held aloft a wad of tissues. “Clean your wound as best you can. I will add the price of a new uniform to your fee and any medical expenses, of course.”

  “Thanks Manon, but it was my fault. I’ve been around long enough to know not to trust a dog on its looks.”

  “I insist. This goes beyond anything I have a right to ask.” She hesitated. “Did you see anything?”

  Poor woman. She hadn’t come right out and said what they were doing, probably too embarrassed, but he could see what way the wind was blowing. It wasn’t the first time he’d been hired to follow a cheating husband, though in all the other cases, he sat and waited in the car while the wife did the snooping. Not that he minded.

  Manon was different. She had class, you know, but she talked to him like he was her son or something. She asked him questions and acted like she really wanted to know. After a while, he found himself talking about his wife and how things hadn’t been going so well. She’d given him some practical advice and patted his hand, really concerned about his problems. Imagine that and her with her own marital problems a lot bigger than his. He didn’t want to tell her what he saw, didn’t want to hurt her. She was such a nice lady, a real lady, not just some broad with money. But he somehow got the feeling she wouldn’t like being lied to. She’d rather take it on the chin.

  “Yeah,” he told her reluctantly, “I saw a girl, a young woman, standing by an upstairs window in the back. She didn’t see me,” he assured her, “Looked like she was talking to someone. She had all her clothes on,” he added.

  “Was she dark headed or red?”

  He had two floozies? The cheating bastard! “No, no, it was only the one. You want me to go back? I got a cell phone. I could take some pictures.”

  “No, Joseph, you have done enough.” She pulled out her phone and called Otto. Speaking cryptically, so as not to give too much away to Joseph, she reported that Grace, at least, was alive and unharmed.

  Chapter 39

  For a few minutes, they heard nothing and then the sound of feet pounding up the stairs. They stepped away and quieted when they heard the sound of the key in the lock.

  “What the fuck is all the noise? You want a gag?”

  “I need to use the bathroom.” Hope shifted her weight from foot to foot as if the need was urgent.

  “Well ain’t that too bad. I’ll see if I can find a bucket,” Smith sneered. His nerves were frayed. He wanted Damon to make the pick up here, on his turf where he thought he would be safer without Damon’s posse surrounding him. Damon, the bastard, had refused to come until after dark. The waiting was killing him.

  “Please,” Hope
looked at Smith with pleading eyes, trying to send him a message. With her back turned to Gor, she pointed to Smith and then to herself. She used her thumb to point to the bathroom door and winked. She saw Smith’s eyes become speculative. He wanted to know what she was offering.

  Grace stepped forward and poked him in the chest. He glared into her eyes. She glared right back. “Take her to the bathroom.”

  Smith blinked and shook his head. “Come on.” He grabbed Hope’s arm and pulled her toward the door. Gor immediately took a step to follow.

  “Three’s a crowd,” whispered Hope and gave Smith another wink.

  “There’s barely room for two in that bathroom. We’ll never fit three and neither of us’ll fit through the window. Leave the fucking door open,” Smith poked his chin at Grace, “and you can watch her and the bathroom at the same time.”

  “Yeah, you hunk of scaly beast. We could get to know each other better.” Grace tried to smile invitingly and ran her tongue over her lips. Her whole body shook with fear.

  It was the perfect combination for Gor. He showed his teeth in a mockery of a grin and licked his lips. Grace’s fear was an appetizer and Gor was hungry for more.

  Hope left Grace standing in the protective patch of sunlight and preceded Smith into the bathroom. Before the door was closed, she grabbed the first thing she saw; a dingy toothbrush lying in the sink.

  “Hey!”

  Smith made a grab for her, but she stepped back and dropped the toothbrush between them. Instead of falling to the ground, it began to spin faster and faster. Smith stepped back, eyes on the toothbrush and nothing else. Hope moved her finger and the brush stopped and slowly turned until the head pointed down. Suddenly it shot upward. Dust and bits of plaster fell on Smith and he shut his eyes reflexively to protect them from the debris. When he opened them, the toothbrush was imbedded in the ceiling.

  “Holy shit.” There was caution in his eyes now, but he held his ground. He wondered why the hell she hadn’t killed him when he first answered the door and began to imagine all the other things she could use as weapons.