His answer was stony faced silence.
Returning to the truck, he slammed his fist on the hood, leaving a dent behind from the blow. He felt a fool for being so easily duped. Sitting in the cab, gripping the steering wheel, he was angry enough to rip it from the column. Where would the damned woman go?
His grandfather had told him about Lucien harboring the little Daughter of Man and his first meeting with her had shocked him. His father and grandfather hated these women and blamed them for everything the Paenitentia had suffered. The Daughters of Man were ugly creatures, duplicitous and heartless, and more evil than the demons with whom they consorted.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Faith wasn't anything like the women his grandfather described. She was a pretty little thing with bright eyes and a friendly smile. When she wove her fingers through the air, you could feel her words in your heart. If this was a spell of deception, it was a good one, because it made the people around her smile. Watching her tonight, he'd stood transfixed as she brought the trainee back from the brink of turning. The crowd roaring around her hadn't fazed her in the least. She was undaunted as she went about her work.
During his years of travel, Evrard had come face to face with evil and the little healer wasn't it. He had to find her. Where would she go?
Of course! This time when he smacked the wheel it was with elation. The healer would go where healing was needed most. She would have run to the enclave.
He started the truck and headed for the fastest route to the enclave, the road that would take him past the Hills of the Dead.
*****
With his long sword, Lucien caught the demon in its most vulnerable spot, in the pit beneath its arm where the flesh was soft and the scales were thin. He drove the point home, through the chest and into the heart. The demon fell. Lucien used his foot for leverage, bracing it against the body as he pulled the sword free. He looked around and finding no other demons near, plunged his hand into the chest to capture the heart. Any demon death brought power to the Guardian who caused it. Taking the head would do. When confronted by more than one of the beasts, it was the quickest way to insure they wouldn't resurrect, but nothing compared to the surge of power and elation that coursed through a Guardian's body when he took the heart. It was the drug that fed the Battle Rage.
The Liege Lord heard his trainee's cry of triumph and ran toward the sound. They'd split after their last joint encounter to chase down demons that had run in opposite directions. So far, Lalo had performed well, but he was young and inexperienced and therefore vulnerable to being overwhelmed by his Battle Rage. Under its mindless influence, a Guardian would become a killing machine, unaware of his surroundings, seeing only the next enemy to attack. That total focus on killing left one vulnerable to being killed.
It had happened to Lalo. Lucien saw him at the end of the street, stalking a demon that ducked and wove behind every bush or tree to escape confrontation or to allow the other demon creeping along the building behind Lalo to attack uncontested.
"Lalo! Behind!" Lucien shouted to the boy as he called the white light and raced to the scene.
The dodging demon was suddenly hurled through the air when Álvaro's Kodiak tossed it like a ragdoll into the nearest wall. Holding his short blade out as he ran, Lucien hit the other demon with the full force of his run, through the neck and sending a jolt of pain up through the Liege Lord's arm.
"Stand down, Guardian," he shouted as Lalo raised his ax to the Kodiak and Álvaro raised his paw to the trainee. "Stand down!"
Lalo blinked. He stared at Lucien cautiously walking up to him from behind. He looked at the bear and then at his ax. He blinked again and dropped the ax.
"Oh God, Oh God," Lalo said over and over. He gripped his head with his hands as if that would keep it from exploding.
"You're fine, warrior." Lucien clapped him on the back. "It happens to us all. It's like an overdose. On your next few kills, take the heads not the hearts."
With the aid of the shape-shifters who arrived with Álvaro, the job of hunting down the demons who had spread throughout the enclave became much easier, but no less deadly. One eagle and one big cat were killed while attacking their prey alone. This had always been a problem for the shape-shifters. If their animals didn't normally hunt in a pack, it was difficult to form them into a cohesive fighting unit.
Other than those few on the street when the attack began, the Paenitentia had no warning. There were only ten survivors and it became Lucien's gruesome duty to take the heads of those males who had succumbed to violent first death. He would leave no vampires here.
When it was all over, Lucien went in search of Lalo who had disappeared during the search for survivors. He found him where he was afraid he would, at the home of Batiste ad Gautier. Their housekeeper from the village had been found dead in the street, several doors down.
The door to the house had been locked and bolted and the bloody footprint by the handle proved it was no demon who'd kicked it in. Lucien found Lalo sitting on the floor of the hallway holding Eloise to his chest.
"She loved him and he killed her," he whispered when he saw Lucien in the hall.
Lucien stooped over the boy and the fallen woman. The red splotch of a gunshot wound blossomed at the center of her chest. The bloody pool by the open door showed where she had fallen. Inside the room, Baptiste's headless corpse still sat in his chair. The gun was on the floor where it had fallen from his dying hand. His head was in his lap.
"I had to do it. He shot himself," Lalo said from the floor behind Lucien. "It seemed like a violent death to me."
"You did the right thing, Lalo," Lucien told him as he gently lifted the dead woman from the boy's arms and laid her on the floor.
Eloise had secured the house before going to her mate. Baptiste would have known bullets were no defense against a demon. In his muddled mind, had he forgotten? In his fear, had he shot the first thing that came through his door? Had he taken his own life when he saw what he had done? Or was it planned? Fearing to be overrun as they'd been so many years before, had Baptiste thought to save them both the agony and terror?
Lucien knew which story he believed and which one he would tell Evrard ad Gautier. He had to make sure Lalo understood, but the boy was one step ahead of him.
"What should we tell Evrard?" he asked quietly.
Honest, brave and compassionate, Lalo was going to make a fine Guardian. Lucien felt his heart swell. Lalo had become more than a trainee just as Lucien had become more than a duty-bound trainer. Was this what his father had felt for the men who served with him, this feeling of shared heritage and pride?
He could see Faith's laugh and I-told-you-so look when he told her she was right. His home was more than a House of Guardians. It was becoming a family and he couldn't wait to tell her and see that look on her face.
Chapter 37
"Stop, Vasco, stop!" Faith jumped from the truck and pointed up the hill at the shimmering mist. "There! Don't you see it?"
"Can't see a damn thing but rocks and hills," he said, but he got out of the truck to come and stand beside her.
Vasco didn't have the same fear of this place as others did. As Vigilante, he'd hunted the Hills of the Dead with Lucien, but he'd never liked them. They were too quiet and the moaning of the wind would send chills up his spine. He'd never told that to Lucien and he wasn't about to admit it to the little angel. If the girls were up there, so was whoever had taken them and an old man and a little woman would not be enough to stop him.
"Now you've found it, we can go back and get help," he told her and took her hand to lead her back to the truck.
"No. I have to go now." Faith tried to tug her hand away, but Vasco wouldn't let go. "We have to go now or it will be too late."
Flying up and out of the small opening that formed the mouth of the cave, Mendoza saw the old pickup roll to a stop with the bruja jumping out before the driver could put the vehicle into park. She was pointing up the hill at somet
hing. Fate had finally dealt him the hand he deserved. He was more convinced than ever when old Vasco stepped out beside her.
Two birds with one stone! He could take the girl and take a little revenge on the old man whose family had stolen the Mendoza honor.
Strange and cruel as he sometimes seemed, el Brujo's powers were amazing. He must have known fate would put the girl in Mendoza's way. Mendoza felt renewed hope that his family would be returned to their former glory. He would become the Vigilante and his son would follow. They would no longer be shopkeepers, but men of importance.
Soaring high above, Mendoza circled around behind them. While the two played their tug-of-war, he swept down from behind, hitting them both and knocking them to the ground as he changed to man. A kick to the head took care of the old man. When the girl started to scream, he back handed her hard enough to make her see stars. It was a surefire way to make any woman shut her mouth.
From there, it was simply a matter of carrying the dazed girl up the hill to where the opening was hidden by low shrubs and brush.
The opening turned back on itself not once, but twice. From the outside, the cave looked no more than a few feet wide and deep, barely big enough to shelter a child. Once past the switchbacks, the opening grew high enough for a man to stand. Mendoza dragged the half conscious girl through, not caring about a few bumps and bruises. It was what she deserved. She was the one filling the women's heads with her witch's brew. What were a few bumps and bruises? She was going to die anyway.
Hauling her into the larger room where he usually met with the Brujo, Mendoza dropped her to the floor.
"El Brujo! I have brought you a present," he called out.
El Brujo lifted his mouth from his own small bundle and the girl he was holding groaned. He was surprised she still had any life at all. He let her fall back into the cage and laughed when her cage-mate tried to catch her and they both fell in a heap.
"Consider yourselves lucky," he said to the crying girls. "It could have been you." He rattled the bars of the cage where the demon had been. Nothing remained but a pile of dust.
Faith's healing of the men had covered her in blood. Her leap from the truck had covered her in bruises and dirt. Being dragged through the tunnel had added more and left her clothes torn. Her face was starting to swell.
"You can bring me a rat untouched, but you can't be careful with a girl? How can you expect me to use her when she is half dead?" The brujo's anger was back. He grabbed the sword from its place on the wall and waved it threateningly at Mendoza.
El Brujo's anger was not what Mendoza expected. He sputtered and spit as he tried to explain that her condition wasn't his fault, but el Brujo was having none of it.
"You are worthless, good for nothing but fetching rats and supplies. Only a fool would choose you as a Vigilante. Go! Bring her food and drink from that shithole you call a store. She needs her full strength to do what must be done. And bring me my men!" he shouted as the man ducked back into the cramped entrance he forced them to use.
Faith recognized the voice immediately. It was the brujo, the man who tried to lure her out of the car.
She had been stunned by Mendoza's initial blow, but awareness quickly returned when she was unceremoniously dragged on the ground and battered through the tunnel. Tyn used to drag her, too, and she'd learned it was less painful if she let her body go limp. She kept her eyes closed and played dead.
It was hard enough to maintain while she was being dragged, but when the brujo picked her up, it took all her Tyn training not to scream. He was riddled with a sickness she couldn't name and one she was sure she couldn't cure. Touching him was like touching a rotted out version of herself and it horrified her.
He laid her almost gently on another part of the floor.
"Take care of her," he ordered, "If she dies, so do you."
"Faith?" A soft hand stroked her hair.
"Is he gone?" she asked with her hands and when the whispered voice said yes, Faith opened her eyes.
*****
He almost passed the old truck that was pulled up off the road, but then he noted the figure beside it, hauling himself up to his hands and knees, looked like the old Vigilante, Vasco, and Faith was supposed to be with him. Evrard parked his truck a few yards beyond and ran back.
He helped the old man gain his feet and walked him over to the truck.
"Where's Faith?"
Vasco had both hands on his head as if holding his skull together. He used one hand to wave at the hills. "Up there, I think." His speech was slurred.
Evrard wasn't as surprised as he should have been. He knew there was something up there and he'd been searching for it for days. His father's mind was gone; one minute pretending everything was as it was, the next minute quaking in fear and the minute after that shouting that the ad Gautiers were about to rise again. Through it all he talked of Apollinaire, dead these many years, and what his brother had hidden in these hills. What had his family done?
"She said we had to find the owl, but he found us first." Vasco closed his eyes and opened them again. "Don't look at me like I'm crazy. He shifted to man when he hit us and then he kicked me in the head… I think. Goddamned Mendoza," he muttered.
He started to slide down the side of the truck. Evrard hoisted him back up and reached for the handle of the door. When he was easing Vasco into the seat, the old man's arm shot out and pointed skyward.
"There!"
The Guardian turned just in time to see the big white owl take off.
Vasco grinned and lay back in the seat. "I told you it was an owl." He closed his eyes. "Goddamned Mendoza."
"Wait here," Evrard said as if Vasco might try to come with him. "I'll go get Faith."
Now that he had pinpointed his destination, the trail was easy to follow. A body had been dragged through the dirt. Those drag marks were the only reason he looked further into the shallow cave. Without them, he would have passed it by. Once inside, he had no choice but to crawl on all fours. By the time the tunnel opened enough for him to stand he could see some flickering light ahead. The rank smell of rot was almost overpowering.
Evrard quietly slid his sword from its sheath and, for the first time since he became a Guardian, he wished he had a gun. Monsters weren't always demons.
*****
Mendoza left the cave furious with the brujo and with himself. He'd sacrificed everything for that man with the hope that his family's rightful position would be restored. His stepdaughter was as good as dead. His wife had left him for that circle of hags. Even his son, for whom all this was done, looked at him with fear. This was not what he was promised and he was done with it. No more! He shook his fist at the sky and then his shoulders slumped.
His fury was wasted because it changed nothing. His fear of el Brujo was greater than his anger. Mendoza would do what he was ordered to do and hate himself for it later. He spread his arms and called on the power of his owl. His body shortened and his arms became wings as he leapt for the sky.
With his owl's sight, he saw the two trucks, saw the open door with the light on inside, saw the old man sitting and the new Guardian standing beside him.
Mendoza soared higher and higher and farther away until his flight could not be seen from the trucks and he watched as the Guardian started up the hill, heading straight for the opening of the cave. At first he thought it would serve el Brujo right if the Guardian ran him through with his sword, but then he thought how pleased el Brujo would be if the loyal Hoot came to his rescue. He'd be pleased enough to call the owl Vigilante.
*****
Not knowing the number of Paenitentia within the enclave made the cleanup difficult. Every house had to be gone through again and searched for survivors or dead. The row of bodies laid out by the gates grew; males to the left, females to the right. All were well into their middle ages or elderly. The few survivors were the same. In the old counting house, Meriton ad Gautier's body was found decapitated and laying by the cells in the basement wh
ere the demons were held. How they got there and why he let them go would remain a mystery.
Álvaro pointed to the survivors. "What are you going to do with them?" he asked Lucien.
"Damned if I know," he answered, "Take them back to the hacienda, I guess. Do you think you can round up some help for Agdta in the village? She can't handle all these people alone."
"Don't let her hear you say that," the Vigilante warned and then he laughed. "After what happened in the village tonight, I think my sister will get more help than she needs."
It was the first opportunity Álvaro had to give Lucien a full report. He watched the Patron smile when he described how Faith challenged his knife and how she brought the boy back from the brink of death. He watched that same face harden and the fangs descend as he repeated the things the fools had yelled.
"You can relax," he assured his friend, "Agdta won the battle. Sometimes I think if she'd been born a man, I'd be doing dishes while she was Vigilante."
"Thank God she wasn't." Lucien smiled for the first time since this fiasco began. "I've tasted your cooking."
"God in His wisdom," Álvaro laughed and then he put a supportive hand on Lucien's shoulder. It was a common enough gesture between friends and yet he'd never felt comfortable doing it in the past. "Take them home, Patron. Dawn is coming and they'll need your assurance that all is well."
Chapter 38
While one girl kept watch, Faith did what she could to heal the other. She wanted them strong enough to run if they got the chance, yet didn't want to exhaust herself and thus her supply of energy.
Like the girls at Tyn's, Laura and Rosie were weakened from blood loss and poison, though this poison wasn't from demon. It was from the creature that called himself a brujo. Drawing it into herself through the golden light, Faith felt the rot curdle in her stomach and her body revolted. She vomited something putrid and black.
Guardian's Faith Page 33