"Nor will you be if you cannot take the heart. Do it."
It was his anger at the Liege Lord that gave his fist the strength to punch through the chest cavity and grasp the heart.
Lalo watched, his own Battle Rage subsiding as quickly as it rose. He winced at the sucking sound the extraction made. He also saw the look of wonder turn to elation as Adam held the heart aloft. There was a flare of light and the heart shriveled into dust. Before their eyes, the demons body followed suit.
Adam lowered his hand and looked to Lucien for his approval.
Lucien nodded curtly and began to walk away.
"Sir?" Lalo called after him, "How did we do?"
"How did you do? You looked like small boys in a schoolyard tumble for which you should both be caned and stood in the corner," Lucien told them as he continued to walk away.
"Caned?" Lalo mouthed the word.
Adam shrugged and then he grinned and did a little foot stomping dance. "We killed a demon," he sang in a whisper.
"Only by luck," Lucien called over his shoulder. "Now hurry along."
"And no thanks to you," Adam muttered.
Lucien suddenly stood in front of them, his face hardened in Battle Rage, his fangs lowered and vicious looking. His shirt strained across the powerful bulge of his expanded muscles.
"My job is to train you, not to rescue you from your own stupidity. Stand at attention," he hissed when they fell back from this sudden confrontation. "For weeks you have trained to work together in your assault. Tonight, you went at that demon as individuals with no thought to your partner's plan or welfare. What use is training if you do not pay attention to what you learn?"
"It was our first time," Adam argued.
"First time, hundredth time. Each time could be your last. Why do we train?" Lucien looked at Lalo.
"So we can kill more demons, uh, my Lord?"
"No. We train so we don't get turned."
Chapter 7
A rasping rumble followed by a whistling release of air had Faith's eyes snapping open. She shifted them back and forth, realized she was lying atop a soft and comfortable bed, and fully clothed as if she'd just had a little nap. She sat up and swung her legs over the side and winced as her head blew out and in with a throb of pain. The center of that pain was found in a lump the size of a chicken egg behind her right ear.
The door to her inner mind opened and beckoned her to come in, but she fought the panic down and refused the offer of escape.
She wasn't tied. She wasn't drugged, and one of the two doors was opened an inch, so she wasn't locked in. There was no reason to panic.
Álvaro had hit her because he thought she was an intruder, she reasoned, and the look on the woman's face after she'd seen Faith's said the woman knew it was a mistake. She knew it was Álvaro who hit her because just before the blow, she felt him behind her.
Like her sister and the other women in Canaan's House, she could feel the 'otherness' of the Paenitentia. The Guardian's size and power frightened her, but not their otherness. Though she could see them clearly now, demons gave her a feeling of otherness, too, the kind that made her heart race with a sense of danger. Álvaro's otherness was different, not Paenitentia, nor demon and she realized now that it frightened her only because she didn't know what it was and, as she'd learned to her sorrow, the cost of not knowing could be her life.
The rasping rumble and whistling release sounded again. She had the same feeling of otherness she got from Álvaro. She leapt from the bed, ignoring the throb in her head, and hand to her chest as if she could hold in her pounding heart, turned to face whoever was behind her. She'd been sharing his bed!
She giggled at this second bout of rising panic. Granted, it was tinged with a bit of hysteria, but it was a giggle nonetheless and she took it as another sign that she was growing stronger.
The man in the bed was nothing to be frightened of. He was old. His face was browned and wrinkled to leather from too much wind and sun. A stubble of beard covered his cheeks and chin and long, flowing white mustachios drooped down on either side of his mouth. They fluttered in the breeze of his exhale. His hair was thick and full and the same color as his mustache, at least what she could see of it. The rest was covered by a gauze band that wound around his head and held a thicker pad of gauze tight to his forehead. One cheek looked sunken and badly bruised.
It was then she noticed his arms and hands, lying outside the covers alongside his body. They were the same weather beaten brown as his face and were covered in scrapes and bruises, too. Bloodied knuckles proved his defense had been in vain. Someone had beaten this poor old man.
As she had learned to do when the Guardian's came back injured from a fight, Faith fought her own inner battle to suppress the memories that would drive her back into her inner room. Like them, this poor old soul needed her help.
Crawling across the bed and leaning over him, Faith touched the damaged cheek and closed her eyes. The bones were shattered and she could only imagine how painful that must be.
"Well," she said to herself as she called forth the golden light to her fingertips, "you'll soon find out."
This was something she'd never told the others, not even JJ with whom she shared almost everything else. She was afraid they would make her stop doing the only thing she was good for.
She ran her glowing fingers over the injured cheeks, skimming lightly over the leathery skin since the injury was so close to the surface. She saw the fractured bones in her mind and like pieces of a puzzle, brought them back together, fusing them as she went. The pain from the injury travelled up her arm and into her own cheek which suddenly throbbed with it.
The pain would fade away after an hour or two and as she had learned during her time with Tyn, an hour or two of pain was nothing.
She went to work on the poor man's head. She didn't need to remove the gauze pad to know that this was the more serious injury. The damage went deep. His skull was fractured and the area beneath was bruised. This was something she'd never done before. Because the Guardian's healed so quickly, bruising disappeared within a few hours. This man was old and would heal more slowly. The bruising could do damage that wouldn't ever heal.
She pressed her fingers to the gauze and behind the closed lids, the old man's eyes flickered with the pain. That pain, too, would join the other already growing in her head. As she had with his cheek, she let the golden sparkle from her fingers flow into the wound and heal him from the inside out.
Sitting back on her heels, Faith closed her eyes to give her body time to adjust to the pain. When she opened them again, the old man was staring at her.
"Mi ángelita," he whispered.
"No, no. I'm no angel," Faith laughed as she signed.
"All the better," the old man laughed and with surprising strength and speed, he grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to him and gave her a smacking kiss on the lips.
She pushed herself away and backed off the bed.
"No!" she signed in no uncertain terms.
The old man lay back on his pillow and smiled in satisfaction at the ceiling. "You are an angel. I prayed to God that I would get to kiss an angel before I died." He closed his eyes and sighed. "Now, I will die a happy man."
"You're quite obviously not going to die," she signed.
The old man was still staring up at the ceiling with a satisfied smile on his face.
Faith smacked his toe until he looked at her and signed again, but this time, she left out the anger in her gestures. His silly smile made her smile, too.
"Of course I'm dying," he answered, sitting up again. "I knew it when I struck my head." He waved away her move to protest. "Don't lie to me mi pequeño ángel. It's okay. I die a happy man."
"You are not dying!"
"I must be. How else could I understand a silent woman when I never understood the ones who chatter?"
Faith threw up her hands in frustration and the old man laughed.
"My wife, may she rest in
peace, used to do that, too." The smile left his face and he looked worried. "Do you think she'll know that I kissed an angel? Ah," he put his hands to his head. "She always knew when my eyes wandered. Only eyes. I swear! She would have gutted me for anything more." His face changed again, becoming defiant. "I am an old man now and Consolata has been gone twenty years. A man has the right to some happiness!" he said fiercely. "It has been a long time and what man could resist an angel?"
"I'm not an angel!" Faith told him. "Now go back to sleep. You need your rest."
"Why should I sleep now? Plenty of time for sleep when I'm dead." He winked at her, one dark eye closed, the open one sparkling with mischief.
The wink was what did it. Faith gave it up and laughed. There was no reasoning with the man. He would find out soon enough that he wasn't going to die.
"Then rest. I'll be back," she told him.
"Do you promise?"
"Yes. I promise." She foolishly made a cross over her heart with her first two fingers, a gesture she hadn't made since she was a child.
"Then I will lie here and dream of my angel's return." The old man blew her a kiss.
Faith poked her head out the open door and immediately recognized the hallway through which she'd entered the house. This room was the room where the voices came from when she was in the kitchen.
There were no voices coming from the kitchen now, but there were good smells. Faith's stomach did something it hadn't done since before the bad times. Her stomach growled with hunger.
Following the aroma, Faith wandered down the hall to the door to the kitchen where the creator of those delicious smells stood at the big stove with her back to Faith.
Apparently expecting someone else, the woman began to grumble. Faith didn't understand a word, but the cook's frame of mind was clear. Her grumbling grew to an irritated lecture, punctuated with a long wooden spoon stabbing at the air and Faith was suddenly struck with a twinge of homesickness. How many times had she seen Grace use the same type of gestures and tone when the twins had pushed her too far? And yet, this cook was nothing like Grace in voice or build.
It was the woman from the night before. Older and rounder, much rounder, she was no taller than Faith. A thick salt and pepper braid of hair fell down to her waist where it swung like a pendulum across her back, shifting from hip to hip as her irritation built. Her loose cotton dress was hemmed just above her ankles.
Now in full rant, she stabbed the spoon into the pot as if whatever was cooking needed killing first. She grabbed up a rolling pin and turned, brandishing the long wooden roller like a weapon. Her eyes went so wide Faith was reminded of the cartoon characters the twins were so fond of.
"Ay-e-e-e!" The rolling pin fell to the floor. "Madre de Dios," she prayed over and over while pounding her chest with her fist.
Faith understood that one. She rushed to the woman's side. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she signed, hoping the woman would understand through the look on her face. She grasped the woman's fist to prevent the bruising that would surely come from such pounding.
"I didn’t hear you," the woman explained. "You're as quiet as a ghost. Who are you? Where did you come from?"
Faith understood every word. She stepped back from the curious cook and held her hand out in front of her, staring at her palm. Was the answer to her ability to communicate in her hands?
Everyone at Canaan's House spoke English and it was no surprise when some of the recruits initially acted as if she was deaf because of her mutism. What was surprising was that they understood her. After a week or so, every trainee understood her at least enough for her to get her point across.
Faith constantly studied her American Sign Language DVDs and Hope even found a tutor on-line with whom Faith met regularly on Skype. She was by no means proficient in ASL and because she thought and heard in English, it was still a foreign language to her. It would be impossible for someone without any training to pick up the translation that easily. Still, they understood her and no one could figure out how. Manon thought it was connected to her gifts as a Daughter of Man, similar to Hope's understanding of people's questions and Grace's ability to read emotion.
The answer was there all the time. Her communication with others was brought about by touch! She'd touched them all. The women were first and though they frightened her, the Guardians were next. At JJ's insistence, she'd shaken hands with each and every recruit in an effort to overcome her fear. It had worked, too. Faith only froze now when someone grabbed her unexpectedly.
"Senorita?" the woman's voice called her back from her musing. "Are you all right?"
"What? Oh! Oh yes." The communication problem solved, Faith felt more at ease.
The woman eyed her critically. "No, no you are not. My brother is an idiot to think someone so tiny could be a threat. You come sit." She looked worriedly out the window over the sink. "We have time. I'll get you some ice for your head and some food for your belly and then you must be on your way." She went through a door on the opposite side of the room and came back with a bowl of ice and a towel. "My name is Agdta. This is my kitchen, but this is not my house. You cannot stay here."
Faith started to protest, but Agdta cut her off, clucking over the lump at the back of Faith's head. "It's a lucky thing I yelled. Álvaro would have crushed that pretty skull of yours if I had not. Here, hold that there," she said of the towel wrapped ice. "I'll get you some food."
The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she was ladling something that smelled delicious into a bowl from the pot on the top of the stove.
"No, no. Don't bother. I'm not hungry," Faith protested.
She said it in her mind to see if she could communicate without her hands.
Agdta didn't respond, but Faith wasn't sure if the woman didn't 'hear' or she ignored it.
"Eat," she ordered, pointing at the steaming bowl of meat and vegetables.
She disappeared again into the other room and returned with some fruit and a loaf of bread which she stuffed into a cloth bag after carving a huge hunk off the end and slathering it with butter. She slapped the plate down beside Faith's bowl.
"Who did this to you?" Agdta asked bluntly. "Who starved you and kept you from the sun?"
Faith dropped the spoon. "No one," she said and then she pushed the bowl away. "No one did this to me." But someone did. Panic was rising and she didn't know why.
Agdta's head drew back and she squinted her eyes. Her nose wrinkled as if she smelled something rotten.
"Why do you lie?" She stabbed the table with her finger. "And don't wave those fingers at me. Don't tell me no. Álvaro was wrong. You did not come with those bad men. I know this. You have magic in your fingers. Si! I know this, also. You think I'm stupid?" Agdta threw her hands in the air. "I'm talking to a silent woman. Did you think I wouldn't notice?"
"No, I…"
Faith's hands fluttered to a stop. She what? What could she say? She followed a feeling? Except for that one moment when she discovered the source of her communicative ability, she'd felt nothing but fear and uncertainty. What was she expecting to find here?
Agdta watched the young woman's face as all animation left it. There was no fear, no worry, no upset of any kind. It was as if the owner of the face had gone away and left a pretty, but blank face behind. This child was lost and she needed more than a sack of food and directions to be on her way.
The girl was a pretty thing or had been before something dried her up and turned her into this husk of what she should be. She wasn't a traveler, the name the People called those who came from the south. Beyond her paleness, her skin was too light with a hint of faded freckles across her nose. While Agdta was no expert in this, she thought the blonde curls were real. This girl was running, but from what or who and to where?
Agdta glanced at the window again, judging the time until dawn when the Patron would have to return. There was still time. She slapped the table again.
"Eat," she said sharply. This tiny girl looked like she w
as starving. "To waste good food is a sin and my food is good, I promise you."
The young woman blinked, nodded, and took up her spoon. Agdta waited until half the bowl was gone before she spoke again, this time with a smile.
"There. You eat, you feel better. Look at me," she laughed and patted her ample middle. "I feel good all the time."
The ghost of a smile on the girl's face encouraged her.
"I cannot help you if you don't help me. Who are you? Where did you come from? What brings you here?"
Faith licked her lips and began. "My name is Faith Parsons. I came from Canaan ad Simeon's House of Guardians. I hid in the back of the van where no one would find me."
Agdta tried to keep the surprise from her face. A woman from a House of Guardians? She'd never heard of such a thing. Even she, who'd served the Patron faithfully all these years, had been denied that privilege. She was confined to the kitchen unless the Patron was out or asleep. If a Guardian married or mated, as they called it, he kept his family away from the House. The House was reserved for the Guardians and the men who served them.
But this was good news. The girl would understand the situation here and maybe… Agdta noticed the girl had stopped spooning up her stew and was waiting for some response. She pointed to the bowl.
"Eat, and don't tell me you're full. It's a very small bowl."
Faith glanced at the small amount left in the bowl. "For a Guardian, maybe, but not for me."
"Don't backtalk. Eat, and keep eating while you tell me how you got here and why you have come."
Faith sighed and nodded, took a spoonful of stew and signed while she chewed.
"You're like Grace, Lord Canaan's Lady. She's the family cook and housekeeper, too. She'll stamp her foot and throw things when the boys don't do what they're told. She's a little pushy." Faith shrugged, "Like you."
Another revelation! Agdta had never heard of a Paenitentia woman doing household chores. Some of the women in the town worked in the Paenitentia enclave a few miles away and brought back stories.
Guardian's Faith Page 6