Guildhall Guardian: Thamesian #1 (Thamesians) (4 page)

  "Yes, very urgent business. Tennys will drive you back home."

She blinked, looking confused, her long chesnut lashes brushing against her cheeks.

  "You're a dark, secretive man, Mr Thamesian." she said softly.

  "I just have to check a missing wine lorry, taking care of the deliveries, hardly mysterious here'' he said.

He trusted Gioia. She was human yet he wished he could share some truth with her.

  "I can come with you" she almost cried out.

*

  Why, oh, why would I ever want to do that? I spoke before even thinking about it and now my picture was forever framed in Roydon's memory with the label: Needy, nosy Italian girl I picked up in a pub, never to repeat again.

"I mean..."I tried to correct myself.

Roydon almond eyes were stuck on me.

"After all, why not? It's only a twenty minutes drive and after I check the shipment we can get back where we're interrupted. Nice idea, Ms. Di Terzi."

Were we interrupted? Doing what?

My heartbeat sped up again.

The line of his shoulders was set and determined, his muscles ripping through his blue blazer. No, wouldn't go there again. Unless someone, namely Roydon, gave me a proof of the contrary, I wouldn't believe there was something physical between this man and me.

He took my arm and said "Let's go, shall we?"

Sigh. I knew I should have kept my sneakers instead of those new, painful black heels.

I was really getting used to the luxury of Roydon's car. He drove faster than the speed limit. Eager to get to the booze? What was up with this Quarter, all they seemed to do was chasing after the damn alcohol!

  "So, you have to solve this for the Olde Pub?" I asked, gathering the missing pieces from my tipsy memories.

Roydon's eyes were steadfast on the road. It was a country road, not the highway.

  "Not only. This is a very...special vintage delivered to the Guildhall too."

  "So, what's the destination?"

This question again. Maybe it was the one and only question I had been asking myself all the time, even before my coming to England.

  "The lorry should be somewhere around Warwick Castle."

  "A castle? Great!"

"This is Heritage night especially for you, Ms. Di Terzi". He said with, was that a smile?

*

They were speeding through the dark English countryside. He had never been fond of this part of the county. Gioia was warm beside him, one strand of her loose hair slightly brushing his forearm.

This woman was more than meet the eye. Roydon had an instinct for it. She was special somehow.

"Why were you so anxious to leave your country?" he finally asked.

"Anxious? What makes you say that?''

Her big blue eyes had pierced him with a defensive stare.

"You work for the City Council , with your qualifications you could be a gallery administrator, in Rome, the city of Art."

Gioia's eyes were stormy grey now. It mesmerized Roydon. She was so human, so volatile, so unlike him.

  "I wanted to come to the UK" she whispered with a smile.

  ''In fact, my grandmother was British, I never knew her but my mother says I look like her."

She brushed the skin of her neck, nervously until it was pink and the seductive motion distracted him from her face.

  "And you know the old cliché. I didn't belong blahblah..."

  "Belonging is fragile" he stated.

He did not want to go into details. But he didn't believe anymore about feeling at home somewhere. He knew the Guildhall like the back of his hand and he liked the inhabitants of the Quarter but above all he was tied by the pact. Brand and his other brother in Scotland had left easily. He couldn't do the same.  Not out of sentimentality.

His home had died with his wife and child, long ago.

He needed the wine ASAP or he was going to lose it.

  "Anyway" she outed him of his thoughts "I am here now and I enjoy every second of it. Okay maybe not at work. And..." She gasped mid-sentence.

The dark outline of Warwick Castle had appeared before them.

He spotted the white lorry crashed against a fence.

  "And here we are Ms. Di Terzi."

*

  "Please stay in the car, I won't be long" he said.

I watched his silhouette gnawed by fog and contoured by in the headlights. He was rapidly walking over to the accidented lorry.

Creepy silence made me uncomfortable and I kept my eyes on Roydon.

I had become jumpy in England, it seems.

I lectured myself. Strictly business, the lorry had left the road, maybe because of bad weather or maybe the driver had sampled some of his shipment.

And I had been the one to tag along secretive, composed yet mercurial Mr Thamesian.  'Belonging is fragile' he had said. As if he would even try. He was a domineering force, no worrying if he fitted or not, at the top of the foodchain, on every level.  Money, knowledge, power and attractiveness. A whole package, Mr Thamesian and he had a knack for probing into the delicate, lightless parts of my life.

Yes my grandmother had been British born somewhere in Devon, but it was not the real reason, far from it.

A few months before my leaving, I had broken up with my boyfriend of five years, cheating,arrogant,competitive bastard who wanted to become a Fine Arts Exbition administrator too. We had applied together in the same programme, for the same jobs and ironically were tie candidates for the internship in Rome.

I couldn't bear the idea of working with him. I applied for the temporary job in England at the last minute, messing up the plans of a lifetime.

Got the job, took off on a plane to London Gatwick, took a train, started working without a second thought. And Roydon Thamesian had the audacity to tell me I could find myself in Rome instead.

Wait...

I never told him anything about Rome!

I stormed out of the car and ran after him. Running in heels is easier than you think once the adrenaline and anger has kicked in.

Roydon was opening the lorry's door.

"You owe me an explanation!" I shouted at yard's distance.

Roydon's face was still and

"Stay where you are, Ms Di Terzi" he said calmly.

What the heck? He was checking something on the driver's side.

I didn't listen to him and approached.

  "How did you know about Rome? You've been spying on me, haven't you?"

Hi, Gioia di Terzi, paranoid date, never to repeat again.

Roydon's eyes scanned the area, as if looking for a possible threat. So I was not the alone in this delusion of danger.

"It's not the moment, can you get back to the car?" he asked with a clipped voice.

*

  Situational recap, Roydon thought, a crashed lorry, shipment missing, driver's throat sliced open.  For the briefest moment, seeing all this blood went to his head.  His frustration was immense. He was craving the wine.

Someone had drunk from the driver and left him as yet another warning to the Guildhall, to Roydon.

And now he had to contain Gioia's anger at being the target of his customary background check. 

He could deduce nothing more from the scene, all evidences had been carefully disposed of, the only signature was the dead body.  It could be anyone from the underworld, a vampire, another hybrid, or a lycan, they were said to be extremely rare these days in Britain but some sightings in Wales and Ireland proved they were not extinct. 

   "You have to answer first" said Gioia ''Why would you spy one someone like me? I'm no part of your world, or the Quarter you control, whatever that is, I am just...me."

   "You intrigue me, Ms. Di Terzi." he admitted. "And I just speculated about the eternal city."

   "Speculated about my application to a Roman museum? That's a hell of an educated guess!"

Roydon's instinct went off the chart. Speeding up he took her hand and took them to his car.

  "What's going on?" she said.

Nothing, he swore that could get her into trouble.

*

  Just like that, he had carried me into the fastest sprint ever witnessed, almost making me fly in the air.

Something big and worrying enough to make Roydon Thamesian run away. Not good at all. I should probably say a prayer. To Filippo Neri the Apostle of Rome , to the Pope also just in case and to my mother who kept putting candels in Church for me to find a good Catholic fiancee and not remain a spinster exiled in the United Kingdom.

A shrill sound and Roydon's cursing. He pressed my hand harder and I winced.

   "Oh.My.God!" I shrieked, finally understanding. "What is that in your arm?"

Would not faint, wearing those damned heels on a countryside's road full of bumps.

Roydon pushed my in the car and I locked the door, battling against nausea and fright.  The silvery arrow had hit him just below the shoulder. Roydon's jaw was taunt and his eyes wide and yellowish.

  'You can't drive, we have to call an ambulance!" I screamed.

"Not necessary, I'm doing exceedingly well. Crouch on your seat, will you?"

Just as I did that, a shower of projectiles hit the car.

I squealed, my hands in fists.

  "Gioia, don't worry my car is bulletproof, should be arrowproof too."

In another context, it would have been nice to hear him call me by my first name.

From then on, I stopped answering and talking at all, my vision slightly blurred with the image of Roydon driving as if nothing had happened, especially not the biggest arrow I had seen in my life stuck in his left arm.

*

  Roydon was positively infuriated.

In regard of the angle and the size of the arrow, the shooter would have been standing somewhere at a far distance. It was professional work.  Precise, smooth, almost silent.  Platinum, double blade arrow, as far as he could judge, sold in the U.S and often used in combat and among the underworld warfare. Would have killed a human, done nothing to a full-blood vampire or a werewolf, it stinged him as the third warning, this had been well calibrated to hurt him but nothing more.

Hunter's way. Only the a hunter would know what weapon to use. A bullet would have been a joke, an arrow was just scratching the surface of agression.

However the card suggested an insider.

In the passenger's seat, Gioia was petrified. Surely heading toward catatonic shock.

Roydon almost felt her distress, he was not used to vulnerability anymore, yet Gioia appealed to his desensitivized heart.

  "Gioia" he said "I would very much appreciate if you said something."

She looked at him as if he was a total stranger, with her big blue innocent eyes.

He had made a mistake bringing her with him. Miscalculated the risks.

  "I certainly owe you an explanation, Ms Di Terzi, as soon as we arrive I'll explain myself.'' He lightly brushed the back of her head, an almost tender gesture.

  "Okay'' she said.

*

"You're not bleeding!'' I cried out. "How is that even possible?"

I had regained most of my senses and anger by the time Roydon was parking the car in the Guildhall backyard. He had jumped out of the vehicle to push a button hidden  in the old walls and the porch of the Guilhall was now hermetically sealed by an iron curtain.

Tennys had ran to check on us, gun in hand. " A problem, Sir?" he asked immediately.

Only me could have grown up peacefully in Italy to fall under the spell of an English mob leader. At least I had been spared the cliches.

  "Just a small incident"  had said Roydon showing the arrow" I would appreciate if you checked the surveillance footage of the Guildhall, say these past four hours."

Then he had simply remover the metallic arrow from his flesh, as one would take off a shard.  Must say Roydon Thamesian had iron nerves.

I expected an hemorrhage. He bled only drops of dark blood, one of which I brushed with my finger.

  "That's not normal, you might be doing an internal bleeding" I said "You have to call a doctor."

I was having a panick attack.

Roydon grabbed me by the shoulders, as if he meant to shake me off.

"Ms. Di Terzi, calm down."

My breathing was out of control. Anxiety fits had been part of my childhood and teenage years and they seemed wont on making a comeback.

  "No, you had a FUCKING arrow, the size of a sword, in your arm!"

Roydon leaned, and I thought he was about to whisper something to calm me when I felt the soft brush of his lips at the corner of my mouth. Damn he was good, the kiss had started so subtle and light but now I reacted and my hand got hold of his chin. His stubble grazed me and Roydon got more involved, his tongue slipped into my mouth and everything flared. He was holding my waist, very gentlemanly as if I were precious.