Broken

by Zara Novak

  There was no body inside.

  Instead there was a tiny golden amulet, right in the middle of the stone casket’s base. It was the Halo Amulet, the lost artifact that I had predicted!

  “My God it’s actually there,” Harkin said, sounding amazed for the first time since arriving at the museum.

  “It’s… it’s amazing!” Juniper marveled. I smiled at her. She was right. Doctor Turner and Barry were cheering. I was flying through clouds. This was huge.

  “And it’s mine,” Harkin said. He moved forward then, lurching to grab the golden amulet before he stopped all of a sudden and clutched the side of his head. “Argh!”

  “Harkin?” Doctor Turner asked.

  Harkin suddenly spun around and stumbled away from the sarcophagus. When he looked back, I saw his nose was bleeding. He still clutched his head, looking like he was in great pain.

  “I can’t—” he said. “I can’t—”

  I don’t know what compelled me then, but I decided I could. I leaned into the open sarcophagus and picked up the delicate golden amulet, holding it by the chain and lifting it into the air so everyone could see it. Then something entirely unexpected happened.

  The green stone at the center of the amulet started glowing.

  “Oh my!” Doctor Turner shouted. “What an interesting development!”

  I stared into the green stone, bewitched by its luminescent beauty. Then I heard a click on my left and saw Harkin had ripped off his hazmat suit. He was holding a pistol, and it was pointing right at me.

  “All right. Show’s over folks,” Harkin said as he wiped the back of his hand across his bloody lip. “The amulet belongs to me. Hand it over Doctor Stone.”

  2

  Hunter

  She should have been a case like any other, but as soon as I saw her picture, I knew that I was thoroughly fucked.

  “Doctor Rachel Stone?” I asked Davian as I skimmed the page containing her details.

  “A doctor of archaeology and history,” Davian clarified, as if it made any difference. His voice was gravelled and worn.

  Commander Davian was large and broad, all muscle, like me. His black hair was short and spiky. His everyday outfit consisted of cargo pants, a white vest and suspenders, like some juiced-up marine from an 80s action film. He smoked a cigar whenever he was stressed, which he did pretty much all the time.

  “We need you to keep an eye on her. Saydra brought it to our attention yesterday morning. Rocky got the details on her late last night.”

  I blew air out my lips and took a sip of blood from my mug. “That’s unusually fast. Why so quick?”

  And why the hell was he putting me in charge of looking after a human?

  Commander Davian shrugged. “You know what Saydra is like. She is the one pulling the strings around here. Apparently, this girl is important, and she’s onto something. As it happens, you’re the one looking after her.”

  I stared at the small photo of a beautiful brunette for a few seconds before shutting the file and throwing it back to Commander Davian. “She’s a human.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not my area. Why have you tasked me with babysitting a human?”

  “Look,” Davian said flatly. “If I had my way, I’d let you run around doing whatever the fuck you want. Swinging your dick through the city and skull fucking demons. I know what you’re into.”

  I laughed.

  Davian had a way with words. If Guardian HQ had an office swear jar it would be over-flowing with dollars from him alone.

  “So why are you bringing me this shit?” I growled.

  “Because Saydra asked for you specifically.” Davian took another huge drag of his cigar.

  I paused. That was highly unusual.

  Saydra was a clairvoyant. She saw visions and relayed them to us. That was the extent of her job. Everything after that was taken care of by Davian.

  “I’m not babysitting a human.”

  “Take it up with Saydra then,” Davian said. He blew out a plume of cigar smoke and turned on his heels before leaving my office.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  I visited Saydra rarely, and when I did it was only to get clarifying details for a job. I was a Guardian, and I worked for the Guardians, a top-secret organization of vampire super-soldiers that may or may not exist.

  We dealt with paranormal troubles mostly, taking care of domestic security issues that fell out the remit of normal government organizations: Hunting demons, taking care of renegade vampire covens, recovering lost artifacts, assassinating dangerous paranormal figures, keeping apocalypse at bay.

  We did a little bit of everything, but we let the humans take care of cats stuck in trees.

  Babysitting a human though?

  That was far below my fucking paygrade, and Saydra, the Guardian’s soothsayer, was going to find someone else to do her shitty job.

  “Hunter!” Rocky said to me as we turned into opposite ends of the hallway at the same time. He was a big son of a bitch too, we all were. Only the most elite vampires could be Guardians.

  Rocky was actually the tech guy, but all staff were trained as agents too. “Did you get that intel on the doctor lady? I had to work fast, so some of it might be sloppy.”

  “Yeah, looks like you slipped up. I found a pretty huge typo; my name is on the case.”

  Rocky just laughed.

  “Ah, you son of a bitch. Don’t tell me you’re turning it down? Saydra wanted you on this specifically.”

  “That’s specifically the problem,” I said as I walked past him.

  Saydra was a weird one. I didn’t really like her, and I avoided talking to her whenever I could. She was a vampire witch, completely blind, and spent most of her time swimming ass-naked in a pool of neon-blue water.

  As I reached her room, I knocked on the door for courtesy, but didn’t wait for an answer before I barged on in.

  Her office was pretty much a pool, with a small elevated platform to the side with an open plan apartment. The room was large and dark apart from the water itself. Bright blue lights were on the pool’s floor, sending reflections of the rippling water onto the dark ceiling above.

  The witch was naked as the day she was born, swimming along the bottom of the pool as she did what was probably her hundredth lap of the morning.

  I kept my eyes off the water, tapping my foot impatiently before she swam back and surfaced at the end closest to me.

  Saydra was an odd looking one. Her appearance changed depending on her mood, but most of the time she had all white hair and all white eyes. I’d seen a lot of crazy shit in my line of work, but she freaked me the fuck out. She freaked most people out.

  That was just her way.

  “Do I need to get you a strap for that pacifier?” she asked me.

  “What pacifier?”

  “The one you’re about to spit out.”

  “I didn’t know you had a sense of humour.”

  “Neither did I. I guess we both learned something today.”

  “Take me off this babysitting case. Give it to Hammer or Ash. They deal with human stuff.”

  “Hammer is in Beijing and Ash is dealing with a hell-gate in Arizona.”

  “Another one?”

  She simply smiled.

  “It’s hot up there, demons like the temperature. Look, I can’t tell Davian to take you off this case.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s yours, she’s yours. I saw it in the vision.”

  “Tell me what this… vision showed you exactly,” I said, gritting my teeth to control my anger.

  “I can’t do that. All I can tell you is that its already begun.”

  “There are plenty of other guardians who could do this job. This is entry level stuff.”

  “Then it shouldn’t be a problem for a guardian of your calibre,” the vampire witch countered.

  “I… why am I even trying to argue with someone that can see the future?”

  “Let me
make a deal with you,” Saydra said, dipping back below the waters momentarily before resurfacing. “Watch the target for one hour, and then I’ll give the case to someone else.”

  “Seriously?”

  She held her hand up like a scout.

  “I swear on my soul. This girl needs around the clock protection and your detail needs to start straight away. Do an hour for me and I’ll get Davian to sort out another agent.”

  I huffed. I was still irritated I even had to deal with this juvenile shit, but an hour wasn’t too much. “One hour, no more, no less. When it’s done, I’m gone. If someone isn’t there to take over, the girl is on her own.”

  Saydra smiled. “Message received. Loud and clear.”

  Most people might wonder how vampires walk about in the day. The answer is with great difficulty. The majority of the vampire population, which isn’t all that large when compared to the ordinary human population, cannot walk in sunlight without immediately bursting into flame.

  Ordinary vampires cannot walk in the sunlight.

  But guardians are not ordinary vampires.

  We are forged.

  Made.

  Created in the fires of combat and science.

  We enter the academy as vampires, we leave as something else.

  We leave as Guardians.

  It takes years to become a guardian, and only the most advanced candidates are considered for the process in the first place. Most die or lose their minds on the gruelling path. Most find their bodies aren’t capable of handling the physical changes and biological stress.

  I must admit there were parts of it that were tough for me, but most of the time it felt no worse than the morning after a night of heavy drinking.

  Commander Davian said I was a freak of nature. A pain sponge that didn’t have any foreseeable limits. When I entered the Forge, which is what the academy is formerly known as, I had some trepidations about what awaited me. There had been plenty of rumours of what the horrifying process involved, but most of them were wrong.

  The real process was for worse than anyone could have anticipated.

  They broke us down and built us back up again. Our minds were shaped on an anvil of martial arts, espionage and strategy. Our bones were broken, and our bodies were receptacles for hundreds of chemical cocktail injections that gave us super strength and speed.

  We entered as boys and expected to leave as men, but we left as something entirely different. Monsters maybe? I don’t know. My own humanity was a long way away from me now.

  I could now walk in the sunlight thanks to my training, and I could do so without instantly bursting into flame. It was still damned uncomfortable, and I still had 90% of my skin covered, but hey, here I was, walking down the street with the rest of the normies.

  With a trench coat, trilby and shades, I looked suspicious as fuck, but it was a small price to pay for walking in the light. Things got a little better when I stepped inside the museum and the natural light diminished.

  I took off my hat and shades and moved through the crowds like a shadow over silk. Most vampires had the ability to control humans, but most of them couldn’t enhance that ability like a guardian could. Like I could.

  With my vampiric power surrounding me like a shield I slipped through the museum undetected. I wasn’t invisible, not by any far stretch of the imagination, but anyone that looked my way would fail to notice me or look past without thinking anything of it.

  It meant I could access restricted areas with little trouble, which was good, because Doctor Rachel Stone worked behind a lot of locked doors.

  I reached the end of a corridor and found myself facing a locked door. A guard stood outside it. He didn’t see me until I talked to him.

  “Let me in slim.”

  “Yes, sir, Doctor Turner, sir. I didn’t see you there. Sorry.”

  The door opened and I made my way inside.

  I didn’t know who ‘Doctor Turner’ was, though I might if I cared to read Rachel’s file. I’d just projected the idea of importance into the mind of the guard, and his eyes had taken care of the rest, making it look like I was this Doctor.

  When I stepped inside the room, I saw the target straight away. She was alone, sitting at a computer, reading a book she had placed on the desk.

  And in that second, I understood why Saydra had assigned the girl to me. Every ounce of my training flew out the window as I saw her.

  She was tall, slim, with long dark hair and gorgeous brown eyes. Her lips were ruby red, her skin was the finest porcelain and…

  I wanted her. Badly.

  Holy fuck.

  I had to turn around and steady my hand against the wall as all the blood in my body went straight to my dick. The room suddenly felt too hot.

  Much too hot.

  Christ. Who was this girl?

  “Excuse me?” a voice said behind me. It was the most angelic sound I’d ever heard. Turning around I saw her staring at me. “Can I help you? Are you looking for someone?”

  Yeah. You

  I’m here to slam you against the wall, rip your clothes off and shove my cock in that tight little pussy.

  Fuck.

  “You can see me?” I said, sounding stupider than I ever had.

  “Uh… yeah? Who are you? Do I need to call security?”

  “No,” I said hastily. “I mean… no. No need for that. Sorry. You just. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman like you before.”

  Her cheeks turned pink. “Do you work here, in the museum? Are you lost?”

  “I’m new. I just started on security. See?” I pulled out an old credit card, but in my mind, I projected the idea of a security pass. She stared at it for a second, her perfect brow creasing in confusion.

  “That’s a credit card for Liberty Bank.”

  “Oh, shit. Is it?” I turned it around and laughed before shoving it back into my pocket. “I must have dropped my pass down the hall. I should go find it now.”

  What the fuck was going on? Why didn’t my mind games work on her?

  I started for the door when that angelic voice stopped me again.

  “Wait,” she said. I turned around but avoided her eye. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I had fought demons, conquered evil, vanquished powerful foes and seen the darkest depths this world had to offer, but this woman… she unravelled me.

  “What is it, miss?” I asked. I had to get out of there right now before I did something I’d regret.

  “What’s your name? If you’re going to be working here, then I’d like to put a name to a face. I’m Doctor Rachel Stone.” She held her hand out and I took it, finally looking into those perfect eyes once more.

  As our hands touched it was like all sense of reality went out the window. Intense visuals filled my mind and clouded my judgement. Me on top of her, her on top of me. Two bodies naked and twining, lost in the darkness of chaotic pleasure and rasping. Her perfect breasts, her tight pussy opening around my thick cock.

  I pulled my hand away as soon as we touched, gasping at the visions. She drew her arm back just as quickly and I knew she had seen the same thing. The most amazing scent filled my nostrils then and I knew she wanted me too.

  “What the fuck…” she whispered to herself, wondering if I had seen the same the visions too.

  “My name is Hunter,” I said, saying anything to distract her from what had just happened. “Garen Hunter, but everyone calls me Hunter.”

  “You don’t work security…” she said, saying the words quietly to herself, that perfect brow of hers furrowing over long lashes. “Do you?”

  “Not in the capacity you’re thinking,” I said with a cryptic smile. I had to get a do-over on this. I’d fucked things up completely. The girl had seen me here and now she had my name. Maybe Saydra had given me this rookie job because she knew I was going to fuck it up like a rookie.

  “You must have a strong mind,” I continued, stealing the tempo of the conversation before she could respond. She ha
d already managed to spot me despite my cloaking, and she hadn’t fallen for my trick with the credit card. To be impervious to the mind control of a guardian, it suggested that Doctor Rachel Stone was a very unique individual.

  She was human though.

  I still had the upper edge.

  “Mind?” she asked, her focus sticking on the word that I had used as an anchor. As soon as she repeated it, I knew I had her in my grasp.

  “I’m sorry to do this Rachel,” I said with much regret. “But you need to forget this encounter.”

  “Why?” she said, her eyes were now glassy, and she spoke as though in a daze.

  “Next time we meet, you won’t see me. Is that clear?”

  She nodded absently. “But… touch.”

  I clenched my jaw and breathed out before turning to go. Touch? That’s all I wanted to god damn do. My whole body was screaming at me to get back in there and claim her. Was she my mate? I didn’t even have to ask myself.

  No fucking doubt.

  Saydra could play her fucking games. I would watch the girl. I would keep her safe.

  I couldn’t get close though.

  I might do something I end up regretting.

  The rest of the week had been pure hell. I’d gone straight back to Saydra and told her I’d take the job. The smug look on her face was the last thing I saw before I booked it out of Guardian HQ and huddled down for a week of surveillance.

  Garen Hunter wasn’t the type of guy to take a job like this, but I knew now why Saydra had given it to me. Doctor Rachel Stone wasn’t an ordinary human, not to me anyway.

  She was my mate.

  If I had my way, I’d scoop her up, run for the mountains and get out of there as fast as possible. With a week alone I could claim my mate’s body as much as I wanted. And I wanted to.

  Badly.

  But I had to stay focused. I had to make sure she stayed safe.

  All I had to do was spend seven days in the shadows, staying close enough to make sure she was safe without her noticing me.