Guardian's Hope (28 page)

Nico nodded. “Good friends are hard to
find.”

He closed the door after the Chief and
watched as the squad car drove off. He saluted the departing
vehicle and the man behind the wheel.

When Nico finally got behind the ‘vette’s
wheel, Hope was ready with her handkerchief to wipe his face and
hair.

“I wonder what he really wanted.”

“He wanted to warn you about your father,
don’t you think?” Nico backed the car out and started them on their
way home.

“Yes,” she agreed, “That was part of it, but
there was something else, much more important to him. He wanted
desperately to ask.” She slapped the dashboard with her hand. “I
wish I could read other people as easily as I read you.”

“I’m rather glad you can’t,” said Nico, with
the telltale quirk at the corner of his mouth. “You’re not reading
me very well at the moment either.”

She looked at him and her eyes widened. “You
know! Tell me, tell me right now. No! Wait! Don’t tell me out loud.
Tell me in your head. Use the bridge.”

“I don’t think I can visualize a picture of
it.”

“In the Madison Lodge, I heard you without
words. You heard my reply. Think about it, Nico, and send it across
the bridge. If I hear you, I’ll send something back.”

He looked like he was driving casually along
the road, one hand on the wheel, the other on the gear shift.
Nevertheless, she could feel the bridge between them growing,
expanding.

“Good heavens, Nico,” she cried aloud
forgetting the agreement. “He knows what you are? Did you…?” She
poked her forehead with her finger.

“No, precious,” he laughed, “I didn’t…” He
followed her exampled and poked his forehead. “It wasn’t something
he recently figured out. He’s known about us for a long time.” Nico
told her what happened by the cruiser.

“How do you suppose he knew?”

“If I had to guess, it’s something that was
passed down to him like the priest in Kurt’s village or the one at
St. Stephen’s. There have always been humans who know about us.
They’re rare and the Paenitentia try very hard to keep it that
way.”

He saw the question in her mind and smiled.
This bridge could prove annoying at times, but at least it ran both
ways. He was as privy to her impressions as she was to his.

“I don’t know how he recognized me for what I
am. He said he was good at reading people. Maybe that’s the key to
the mystery. Maybe certain humans have latent psychic powers that
help them see through pretense. It doesn’t matter. Your Sam Tolbert
is a man we can trust. I’m sure of it.”

He looked at her and his mouth broke into a
grin that almost looked boyish. “Why thank you ma’am. I’ve always
thought I was the most perfect man in the whole world. I’m glad you
agree.”

Hope smacked his arm playfully. “That’s it,
Mr. GQ. You have no business snooping in my head. Your head is big
enough. The bridge is coming down.”

“What’s that they say, Hope? What’s good for
the goose is good for the gander?” Nico laughed aloud when Hope
smacked him again.

Chapter 28

Grace asked the question with her eyes and
Hope answered with a meaningful look of her own and colored
slightly. She’d never be able to casually discuss the intimate
details of her relationship with Nico, but there was no need to
deny it existed.

Nico had pulled the car into the underground
garage next door and they entered the Guardian House through the
hidden door in the pantry. Grace was the only one there to greet
them.

“Dov and Col will be happy,” Grace said with
a smile.

“Happy about what?” Nico asked, knowing he’d
missed something that had passed between the two women.

“Happy they won’t have to move all that stuff
back to Hope’s room. I had them move her things to the attic rooms
with you.”

Nico’s face became clouded with anger. “You
had no right, Grace. No right to make such an assumption. No right
to make such a decision without asking Hope, without asking me.
Those rooms are my private domain and I will decide who enters and
who does not. This is a personal matter between Hope and myself and
what we share or don’t share is not for you or anyone else to
question. I won’t have Hope subjected to the sly remarks and
ridicule of Dov and Col…”

“Ah, welcome home,” Broadbent greeted from
the door to the den. “What have the dithering dunderheads done now,
pray tell?”

“None of your business!” Nico snarled and
turned back to Grace with his finger in the air. “And none of yours
either.”

Canaan stood in the other doorway. “Back off,
Guardian. That’s my mate. Watch how you speak.” His shoulders were
hunched and his hands were balled into fists.

Grace ran to Canaan and placed her hands on
his chest. “Stand down, big boy. Nico’s right. I should have
asked,” she said, but she looked hurt.

“It’s all right, Nico. She didn’t mean to
offend. She couldn’t have known we decided against it,” she said.
Her voice was too high and falsely cheerful. “I’ll go take my
things from your rooms and everything will be fine.”

There was a fleeting image of pain as she
fled from the kitchen and Nico heard a distinct sob in his head as
she ran up the stairs.

“Now see what you’ve done,” he snapped as he
pushed past Canaan and Grace to follow Hope.

“Somehow I don’t think it was me,” Grace said
to Canaan, shaking her head. She followed Nico’s thundering
footsteps across the ceiling.

“Mr. Calm, Cool and Collected seems to have
blown his image,” Broadbent observed.

“I know,” said Grace, “I think it’s
sweet.”

“Sweet is not a word I would use in the same
sentence with Nico,” Canaan muttered. His hands were still clenched
at his sides.

“Exactly. That’s how you can tell he loves
her,” Grace explained to her confused mate.

Hope was already stacking the clothing she’d
pulled from the closet onto the end of his bed when Nico arrived.
“Just give me a few minutes and I’ll have these things out of
here.” Her hands shook as she placed another bundle of clothes on
top of the others. The weight of the hangers upset the balance of
the pile and the top half slid to the floor.

“Dammit, dammit, dammit!’ she cried, stamping
her foot in time to her words. The book on the nightstand fell to
the floor and the lamp began to wobble. She pointed irritably at
the lamp and it slammed back into place. Her finger and glare moved
to the potty mouth jar sitting on the table by the window.

“And I’m not paying you a penny. Not one red
cent. I’m through with you. I’ll think what I want and say what I
want.” She pushed past Nico, grabbed the jar and stomped to the
window. When it wouldn’t open, she swore again and threw the jar to
the floor.

Up to this point, Nico could only stare. He’d
never heard Hope swear before. He’d never seen her angry. The
bridge between them was wide open, but he couldn’t decipher the
furious jumble of messages streaming across. He only saw her anger
and hurt. Now he stepped forward and held out his hand.

“Hope, stop. Don’t be angry with Grace. She
didn’t mean to hurt you.”

She rounded on him. “Grace? I’m not angry
with Grace. Grace didn’t hurt me. You did, you, you…” All the names
she’d heard the twins call each other and she couldn’t remember a
one. “Oh!” She stamped her foot again and this time let the lamp
fall to the floor.

“Precious…”

“Don’t you precious me,” she interrupted
indignantly. “I was good enough to have sex with up on that
mountain where all Perryville might have seen us. I was good enough
to unburden your heart to and to share your pain. But I’m not good
enough to share your bed in this House.”

“Hope, I was thinking of you. We can
still…”

“Still what? Sneak? Creep up and down the
halls in the middle of the day and pretend they don’t hear us? You
were only thinking of me,” she said and her voice dripped with
sarcasm. She tapped her temple with her forefinger. “You forgot to
close the bridge. Thinking of me was only part of it. Keeping your
aloof and unemotional image untarnished would be impossible if you
had to admit in front of all and sundry that you loved me.”

Abject misery poured across the bridge. She
crumpled to the floor and buried her face in her hands. Her whole
body shook. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I knew this
could happen. I’m the one who promised that a few days of bliss
with you would bring me a lifetime of contentment and I’m sure it
will as soon as the pain goes away. Oh Nico, I didn’t know it would
hurt so much,” she wailed. “I’m sorry.” Angrily she swiped the
tears from her face with her fingers. “I’m sorry,” she said again,
“I swore I wasn’t going to do this.” She sniffed and tried to
smile. “I don’t know what’s wrong with this House that it makes
women cry. I’ll be all right in a minute, but you need to go away,
Nico. I need some time alone to put this all aside. I’ll get my
things moved and put everything back where it belongs. Okay?” She
closed the bridge between them.

Nico let the hand that he still held out to
her fall to his side. “Hope, I’m not used to this. I’ve never…”

“No.” Hope put her hands over her ears. “I
don’t want to hear it. What’s done is done. I’ll be fine if you
just give me some time. And Nico?” She dropped her hands and
straightened her shoulders. “The others don’t have to know about
this. Let them think we’re mutually agreed. I couldn’t bear their
pity.”

“It’s none of their business. They won’t hear
it from me. I’ll leave you now, Hope, because I know that nothing I
say here will make this right, because saying I’m sorry isn’t
enough.” He clicked his heels and bowed his head formally to her
before he left the room.

Buffy waited at the bottom of the stairs. She
hissed and swatted her claws at his pant leg as he passed.

Nico went directly to Canaan’s office. “My
lord Canaan,” he said formally, “I beg a moment of your time. I
need a leave of absence.”

*****

“So, Professor, have you thought anymore
about taking the leap?”

“The leap? Ah, you mean committing myself the
Guardians. I think about it all the time, my friend. More so since
my visit to the family seat.” He removed the lid from his cup and
took a tentative sip of the steaming liquid. He winced. “We should
have stopped at Louie’s.”

“Why?”

“Because this coffee tastes like swill and
while Louie’s isn’t much better, at least they serve it in a decent
cup.” He took another sip.

Nardo righted a fallen wooden chair, checked
it for sturdiness and brushed off the seat before sitting down.
There were always chairs in the alleys behind restaurants and bars.
Workers brought them out for their smoke breaks and never put them
back. He often wondered how much money these places lost in chair
replacement and how many homes were furnished with the cast
offs.

“I wasn’t asking about the coffee,” he said
when he was seated. He popped the lid from his own cup and spun the
plastic disc across the alley where it landed in an open trash can.
He sipped and waited, knowing the Professor would answer when he
was ready.

“My father sees this as some sort of
rebellion and I have to wonder if he isn’t right. I never liked the
life they offered. Oh, I did enjoy the education I received. It was
superb. But the rest of it? Administering the family estate, taking
my place as an Advisor and eventually, when my father passes, his
seat on the Ruling Council…” Broadbent shuddered. “There’s too much
glad handing involved.” He laughed at himself. “I can face a demon,
but a cocktail party? To spend a morning filled with trite remarks
and innocuous conversation is sheer torture.”

“Must be tough having all that money,” Nardo
mocked without rancor.

“You’d be surprised. You may not have had as
much money as I, but you had choices. Look what you’ve done with
your life, not just becoming a Guardian, the rest of it. What you
do for the House has revolutionized the way we work. You create. If
your game is a success, and I’m sure it will be, you’ll earn your
own money. Mine is inherited. I’ve done nothing to earn it. My life
was planned and settled from the day I was born. It would be easier
if I wasn’t an only child, if there was someone else to take over
the reins.”

“You looking for input?”

“Yes, I am, as a matter of fact.”

“Okay then. It seems pretty damn simple to
me. You like your life here. You hated it there. Your old man has a
lot of years left in him. If you go back now, you’ll be like that
human prince, spending most of your life waiting to take the throne
and in your case; it’s a seat you don’t even want. Take the pledge,
become a Guardian. When the time comes, you can transfer back to
England. You can take over the estate and leave the rest to
somebody who really wants it. No offense, buddy, but we’ve already
got too many Advisors and Councilors that inherited the job but
have no real interest in doing it.”

Broadbent looked at Nardo in surprise. “And
all this time I didn’t think you could figure out anything without
one of one those infernal machines. That’s a capital resolution to
my conundrum.”

Nardo laughed and tapped his head. “Data in,
data out.” He tossed his cup into the same can that received the
lid. “Two points. Come on, break time’s over. We better get back to
walking the beat.”

The area they were patrolling was mostly
residential with three or four floors of apartments sitting above
small, daytime businesses like dry cleaners and hair salons that
served the local community. Scattered throughout, were corner
bodegas, diners and newsstands that were open all night and the
occasional quiet bar serving the locals, but unknown outside the
neighborhood. For the most part it was peaceful and relatively safe
and that made it a target for smarter demons that saw the advantage
of hunting in an area where people weren’t afraid of walking home
in the middle of the night. Even the homeless here were well fed
and non-threatening. Some attacks went unnoticed for weeks. It was
still the city, after all, and no one knew all of their neighbors
and people were always moving in and out. Occasionally, there would
be a ‘tragedy’ and people would become temporarily cautious, but
after a while, the fear would subside and things would go back to
normal.