Guardian (The Protectors Series)

by Nancy Northcott

  Mel took a swallow of lemonade to hide the sudden pang in her soul. These women were welcoming her into their circle. Such warmth was rare in her life.

  “Hey,” Griff called. “We’re ready. Y’all come grab a plate!”

  Mel walked to the grill with the others. In the controlled confusion of people milling around, she found Stefan beside her. When he smiled at her, Mel’s heart lifted.

  “They’ll get the kids set first,” he said, handing her a green stoneware plate. “Then we’ll dive in. You can have chicken, salmon, or steak, medium.”

  “Quite a spread.”

  “Don’t miss Hettie’s red velvet cake. It’s her specialty.”

  “Yum! Red velvet, got it.” She grinned at him.

  Stefan brushed her hair off her cheek. “Thanks for coming.”

  “They’re nice people.”

  “Yeah. So are you.” He slung his free arm around her and kissed her temple.

  For the rest of the evening, he stayed beside her. Conversation eddied and flowed along the table, but Mel focused on Stefan, savoring his forest scent, the brush of his thigh or shoulder against hers, and the intimate smiles he directed at her.

  As Griff and Val cleared the table, Stefan asked, “Ready to sing with me?”

  “Absolutely.” He’d warned her he’d promised to sing “Wheels on the Bus,” “Bingo,” and Brahms’s lullaby for the little ones.

  He fetched his guitar from the barn and perched on the edge of the porch. Mel sat beside him as the familiar melody of “Wheels on the Bus” rippled off his fingers. He played the introduction and announced, “Everybody sings, or the musicians go home.”

  He started the lyrics, and she joined in, picking up the harmony, after the first line. She watched his face and followed his lead. Her alto and his baritone blended as smoothly as ever, and the pleasure of it raised an ache in her heart, an awareness of how much she’d missed making music together.

  Everyone sang along, enthusiasm and affection floating on the music. Stefan moved smoothly into “Bingo,” and then into the famous lullaby.

  The sound died away, everyone applauded each other, and an exodus for the cars began.

  Stefan seemed inclined to linger, so Mel wandered inside, admiring the new kitchen’s oak cabinets, copper stove hood, and green-flecked brown granite countertops on the way to the powder room.

  As she emerged, her cell rang. Dan Burton? At nine thirty? Frowning, she pushed accept. “Hello, Sheriff. Is something wrong?”

  “Mel, I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, but you know we’re stretched thin. Walt Thompson was going to check out Hooker Prairie tonight with Mike Rogers, one of our fill-in deputies. Only Mike caught some bug. He’s sick on his stomach, and I need you to fill in for him.”

  Well, crap. She’d been looking forward to a cozy evening with Stefan. He tugged the screen door open and walked in. Brows rising, he leaned against the counter. He must have overheard. Mel wrinkled her nose at him.

  Good thing he understood about duty. “I’ll be glad to step in, of course, but I’ll need a ride. I’m out with Stefan and don’t have my car.”

  “Where do you need to go?” Stefan asked quietly.

  “Excuse me a minute, Sheriff. Stefan just came in.” Lifting her chin from the phone, she said, “Dan needs me to fill in at Hooker Prairie tonight. Can you drop me?”

  He frowned but nodded. “I could also go along.”

  Mel shook her head at him. “I have my Glock and creds. Where should I meet Thompson?”

  “I’ll have him bring you a department windbreaker and a shotgun. Y’all should meet up at Polly’s Landing. Stefan probably knows where it is.”

  “I’m sure he can find it.” She cut the connection. “Stefan, there’s no need for you to go. Really, I can handle it. Besides, you’re a civilian.”

  Grinning, he set his hands at her waist to draw her close. “I can handle a canoe. We could head out there, see what there is to see, maybe float along. Make out.” He nipped her bottom lip and added, “Besides, you, me, and the wildlife and the stars overhead in seven hundred square miles of wilderness…”

  Mel sighed. “If only.”

  “Yeah. Well, promise me you’ll be careful.” He kissed her, lightly and then more intensely. Mel’s heart tripped. The world spun as she clung to him.

  When the kiss broke, he rested his forehead against hers. He seemed calm, but she could feel the tension in him.

  “It’ll be fine,” she assured him.

  “I know.” He kissed her again, quickly.

  When they walked outside together, Val stood with Will and Griff by the chairs. Val looked from Mel to Stefan. “Can you stay a while?”

  “I wish,” she said. “I’ve been called in to work.”

  “I’m dropping her at Polly’s Landing,” Stefan said. “Then I have some work to do.”

  A look passed between Griff and Stefan but Mel ignored it. They were probably both protective types. She’d get this job done and be back at Cinda’s in time to make Stefan forget he’d ever worried.

  * * *

  Driving away from Polly’s Landing, Stefan tapped the button on his Bluetooth headset. Griff answered, and Stefan told him, “I just dropped Mel. She and Walt Thompson are headed to Hooker Prairie.”

  “I figured. We’re rolling, and Lockwood will back us up. I’ll have to talk fast to explain Will and Lockwood if anything happens, but Burton tends to focus on results more than procedure. We’ll meet you off Loring Road, behind Benson’s Bait Shop. Will says we can reach Hooker Prairie by canoe from there.” Griff paused. “They’ll be fine, Stefan. Mel’s smart and good at her job. So is Thompson. We’ll let them do their recon, and when they leave, we’ll mop up the problem.”

  “Griff, if this goes south…”

  “Valeria and Will and I talked about this, bro. You trust her. So we’ll trust her. But we’re all taking firearms so we don’t give ourselves away to the ghouls’ Mundane allies.”

  “Only your shotgun will actually destroy them.”

  “Yeah, well. You pay your money and take your choice.”

  Stefan’s throat tightened at their loyalty.

  Griff continued, “Maybe the question won’t come up.”

  “Maybe.” Stefan signed off. But if there were ghouls at Hooker Prairie, defeating them without a display of magic was going to be damn near impossible.

  * * *

  Seated on the canoe’s front bench, Mel scanned the darkness ahead. In the rear, Walt Thompson steered, dipping into the water silently, stroking with only the faintest sound. She’d offered to help, but she lacked the experience to paddle as quietly as he did.

  In the daytime, the cypress trees and others along the canoe trail would provide a contrast of red, green, gray, and brown, the colors of leaves, Spanish moss, and bark. At night, their shadowy, amorphous shapes blended seamlessly with the black water. Only the starlight glimmering faintly on the surface allowed her to distinguish it from the trees.

  Stefan had been right about the stars. Millions of them twinkled above. Maybe he and she could come back here to stargaze sometime.

  A faint splash to her left signaled an alligator sliding into the channel.

  Mel squeezed her arm against the Glock in its shoulder rig under her windbreaker. Her earlier research on the swamp indicated that alligators didn’t bother canoes, but if one of the big reptiles decided to experiment, she could cope.

  The canoe swung around another bend in the watery trail, and the faint glow of lamps penetrated the trees ahead. Mel’s heart hammered. She glanced back at Thompson, a faint shape in the darkness. He nodded.

  A wildfire a month ago had cleared much of the undergrowth, so this area had little cover to offer. Another thirty yards, and she could make out figures on the flat, grassy prairie, four, no, five males. Wearing devil masks painted yellow?

  As Thompson had said, the grassland was about fifty or sixty feet wide. Behind it lay a stand of trees, and there were t
rees along the water. Those would be the only cover.

  If Deputy Garner, who was patrolling the area as backup, had to join them, she would come through those trees. Garner could also block the narrow, dirt road leading into the prairie from the highway if anyone tried to escape that way.

  Sound carried over water. Normal conversation should be audible, if not clear, at this range, but only garbled murmurs reached her.

  Thompson turned the canoe toward the shore, pushing the prow onto the ground with powerful strokes. Mel hopped out to pull it farther ashore.

  Per protocol, she always carried a round chambered to avoid the noise of racking the slide. Burton had sent her a 12-gauge, short pump shotgun, the type commonly used for riot control. Mel slid the sling over her shoulder. Thompson also carried a 12-gauge along with his county-issue .40 caliber sidearm. If these were moonshiners or drug runners, they would be heavily armed.

  Together, Mel and Thompson crept through the trees to the prairie’s edge. More men were visible in the clearing now, a dozen, all masked. Could a mask like that have been what Hettie’s friend saw?

  Worse than the masks, though, were the handguns at their hips and the MAC-10 machine pistols two of them carried in shoulder rigs. Mel and Thompson were outgunned. Radioing for backup, once they knew what was happening, would be smarter than taking on this crowd.

  Half a dozen pickup trucks stood near the end of the dirt road across the clearing. Maybe because the spongy ground near the water couldn’t support their weight?

  Another truck arrived, driving twenty yards farther in. It parked, and a trio of masked men climbed out. They walked forward, into the light, and their jaundiced complexions and muddy eyes became visible. Mel’s heart jolted.

  The clearing faded, the interior of a little house filling her vision, and a man like these, but bigger, purple-eyed, advanced on her with a roar. She backpedaled, firing, the bullets bouncing off. Center mass, head shots, nothing connecting. Panic churning in her veins, the bitter, metallic taste of adrenaline in her mouth—

  “Spies,” a hoarse voice shouted. Mel snapped back to the present with that metallic taste on her tongue again.

  The masked men in the clearing drew their weapons, heads moving as though they scanned the area.

  “There,” one of the new arrivals rapped out, pointing.

  He’d pinned the spot where Mel and Thompson crouched. Shit.

  Chapter 18

  Mel leveled her Glock as she backed away, seeking cover, a big cypress, anything. At her side, Thompson had his shotgun trained on the clearing. The men with submachine guns leveled them.

  Oh, crap! She dived for the ground as a fusillade of bullets tore through the vegetation above her. If the shooters lowered their aim, she was dead.

  Thompson gave a wordless cry. As she twisted to look, his body jerked. Blood stained his shoulder and one arm.

  The gunfire stopped. The men started toward the trees, spreading out.

  Mel touched his shoulder. “Walt, can you move?”

  His face tight with pain, he shook his head. But he had two fingers on the radio mic at his injured shoulder. “Go,” he choked. With his good hand, he fumbled for his sidearm.

  “I’ll draw them off.” Mel grabbed his shotgun, useless to him now. If she used all seven rounds in hers, she could switch out without the delay of reloading. She holstered her Glock. Heart in her throat and weapon leveled, she stood.

  “FBI! Freeze,” she shouted. Firing a blast from the shotgun, she dived to the side, behind a big log.

  Bullets tore into it, but she was already scrambling away, pumping the weapon.

  Bullets zinged past her and ripped through the undergrowth. She jumped behind a big tree, knelt, and fired at one of the big guys heading toward Thompson. The blast of 00 Buck staggered him. He fell to one knee, clutching his side, but his gaze stayed on her. He pointed directly at her. But how?

  She scrambled through the trees, but his pointing finger tracked her. Damn it. He looked like the guy she and Stefan had fought in the road, but his eyes were muddy looking, not purple.

  His buddies were moving toward her. Converging. Away from Walt, but she couldn’t evade them forever.

  Mel fired and pumped, fired and pumped as she ran, doubling back toward the canoe.

  Something slammed into her shoulder, knocking her down. Dazed, she rolled to see a devil-mask bringing his weapon to bear. Mel fired. The blast struck him in the chest. As he collapsed, she rolled toward the water. Alligators or no, if she could get under it, swim away…

  Gunfire came from behind her, then a fusillade interspersed with shotgun blasts. What?

  Mel spun in time to see Stefan knock a MAC-10 out of a devil-mask’s hands. He put the guy down with one blow to the forehead. Her skin tingled with the same energy she’d felt at Cinda’s, but stronger.

  “Stefan, how—?” She was glad to see him, but he was in danger now, too.

  “We heard Thompson call for backup.” Stefan caught her hand. “I’m shielding us. Come on, we’ll flank them.”

  “Why don’t you have your sword?”

  “I don’t want them to see me use it.” He tugged her to her feet and led her around the clearing, toward the trucks.

  Mel pulled on his hand. “Back toward the canoe is smarter.”

  He grinned. “I didn’t come alone.”

  From her left, a man shouted, “Deputy Sheriff! Freeze! Drop your weapons!”

  “Griff,” Stefan said.

  The men swung toward the sound of Griff’s voice, unleashing another burst of gunfire, but the three big ones, the ones whose masks looked real, peeled off. Glowing muddy yellow now—glowing?—one charged directly at Mel and Stefan while another dashed toward Griff’s apparent position and the third raced toward Mel’s left.

  “Behind me,” Stefan said.

  “Hell with that.” Mel aimed at the big man. She was not going to miss.

  But somehow, she did. “Fuck, what is wrong with my aim?” She fired again as she and Stefan scrambled right, flanking. Missed. “Dammit!”

  “He’s shielded,” Stefan said.

  This time, the term clicked in her brain.

  Griff shouted again, and then his shotgun boomed. The blast caught one of the big men in the chest. He staggered backward, then fell.

  Mel sighted on a guy with a MAC-10 as he swung toward Griff. Her double-tap nailed him in the temple, and he spun as he fell to the ground. She dropped her empty magazine and smacked another one home, then racked the slide to chamber the round. The crack of a handgun from the trees nailed another devil-mask.

  “Val,” Stefan explained.

  A second shotgun blast roared out, but the big, muddy-eyed guy was almost on them. Mel noted the devil-mask guy at his side and behind him.

  Muddy Eyes blasted a six-inch stream of golden-brown energy out of his hand. Mel gaped.

  Stefan shoved her out of the way and knocked Muddy Eyes’ legs out from under him.

  They were both glowing, Stefan silvery and Muddy Eyes a murky, brownish yellow. Mel blinked, then rubbed her eyes. What the hell?

  His companion aimed at Stefan, jolting her to action. Mel fired twice, nailing him center mass, as Stefan and the big guy grappled.

  Mel wheeled to Stefan but didn’t have a good shot. He and his foe staggered toward the water, exchanging blows. Stefan said something odd and slammed his crossed hands into Muddy Eyes’ chest. The glow surrounding the man faded. He stiffened, then fell.

  “What did you do?” she demanded.

  “Over there!” He ran toward the trucks. Mel followed.

  Four of the devil masks were running for the trucks, heading for the driver’s-side doors. Stefan’s friend Will stepped out from behind the high bed of the nearest one. His movements a blur, he seized the man’s gun hand, forcing it down, and took him out with a blow to the throat and, pivoting, an elbow strike to the face.

  Before the next one could draw a bead, Will was on him, too.

  Wo
w. A librarian who fought like a ninja. Cool. And…baffling.

  The third and fourth men in the group jumped into a blue pickup and cut a sharp U-turn, heading for the road. Will stopped the truck with a shot to the engine block. The two climbed out with their hands raised. He said something, and they knelt.

  Other devil-masks lay in the clearing, and the distant scream of sirens hovered in the night air.

  Val and Griff were still battling devil-masks. Two ran, empty-handed, toward Mel and Stefan.

  Mel jerked her weapon up, but Griff and Val were in her line of fire. She sidestepped, and the nearer of the two attackers lunged at her. She ducked his punch, slammed her own into his left kidney, and kneed him in the gut. An elbow strike to the back of his neck put him down for the count.

  “Clear,” Val called out. She stood in the middle of the open space, Walther at the ready.

  “Clear,” came from Griff, scanning the woods at the prairie’s far side with his shotgun leveled.

  Mel turned to check the man Stefan had dispatched. He was gone. “Stefan.” She grabbed his arm. “Where’s the guy you put down?”

  “Clear,” Will announced from beside the trucks.

  Stefan pulled a flashlight from his back pocket. Holding it out to his side, he found a trail of flattened grasses leading to the water.

  “Looks like a gator got him, dragged him into the water. They hunt at night.”

  She’d read they were nocturnal and liked the water’s edge, but…there it was again, that off vibe. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that what happened, Stefan, really?”

  “It’s a swamp. The guy was dead. Gators will take a free meal as quickly as anything else in the wild.” Turning his head slightly toward his friends, he kept his gaze on hers and called, “Clear.”

  Mel headed back toward the canoe. “We need to check on Thompson.”

  “I checked him on the way in and called for an ambulance. There’s someone with him, but I should check him again.”

  “You were glowing,” she said, keeping her voice down so it wouldn’t carry. “You both were.”

  “Yeah. It’s part of the deal. The energy shielding I mentioned. I shielded the two of us, too. You may have felt the energy.”