Guildhall Guardian: Thamesian #1 (Thamesians) (5 page)

This kiss had me intoxicated by its softness.

  "What was that?" I asked, completely entranced.

  "Well Ms. Di Terzi" he said, his fingers lost in my hair, stroking my scalp so gently I felt tingles of arousal "I had to kiss your mouth shut."

IV

  Gioia plump lips parted and he resisted the urge to kiss her again.  Her eyes were very bright, an azure blue, and he felt the raucous of her pulse, a tremor spreading to her whole body while he brushed her hair.

Roydon had indulged to this mortal little whim, seizing her when he had all the reasons not to. Gioia was invading a part of his mind, it distracted him from lack of wine, he never felt the sensations so sharp, their mouths slowly embraced had revived a pang of need in his loins. 

  "Why don't you bleed?" she asked with a husky voice.

Roydon gestured her to follow him into the Guildhall.

He unlocked the great wooden door, resetting the system at maximum alarm. After all, he was not to forget than the Guild was under attack.

*

So he had kissed me in order to put my panick to a stop. How generous of him.

It didn't not satisfy my curiosity though. I was pretty sure that no man, not even the trained soldiers, could take a shot like that and not even lose a great amount of blood. No human could decently like Roydon had!

It's a no-no, don't even go there Gioia. Not into supernatural fantasies territory again. Not after believing something had moved and was ready to come out of a tombstone.

Wanting England to be the stuff of Gothic novels is no good reason for making all that up.  Definitely not!

Roydon lead me into the very room I had had my first peak of him.

He took off his blazer quickly and threw it over an armchair.

  "Have a seat, Ms Di Terzi, please."

The room was super comfy, something in between a study and a library and a conference room.  I reluctantly sat.

  "Quite the eventful night, isn't it?" he said, staring right at me.

I was sure that my lips would forever keep a memory of him. My body would forever remember Roydon Thamesian: my hands his chin and shoulders, hair his fingertips, my skin his eyes, every little part of me wore the Thamesian mark.

  "And you are?" I asked, determined to throw him out of balance.

"Roydon Thamesian, why, don't you remember?" he responded with a smile.

"Stop the mindgames. I mean, who, what, are you?"

I must admit I was a little reckless there, gambling everything at once for a chance to gain some insight.

"And don't think about kissing me again into silence". Please, please kiss me again.

Roydon was sitting like a real Englishman, legs crossed, hands carefully joined and elegantly poised. His left arm was sligthly lax, he must have felt the hurt.

  "What happened tonight was an unlikely occurence, even for me. I should have insisted for you to go home and handled the matter alone. It's a shame that your visit of the gallery was so short. Drink this it will do you good."

He poured me a glass of iced tea.

He was texting, his hands nervously typing super fast.  He stopped and faced me again.

  "I am Ms. Di Terzi, the Guildhall's guardian. That's what I truly am."

"I suppose you don't mean you are the concierge of this place."

"I am its true keeper. I have been for seven centuries now.

I am pretty much immortal."

Okaaay. Obviously this job had swallowed his sanity.

"Mr Thamesian" I tried to stop him from going on.

This beautiful, magnetic man deserved better than this.

He stood up and in the blink of an eye, he was all over me.

*

  "You will go back home, your little house in St-John's road is safe, and you will sleep. Gioia you won't remember much of anything. You had a delightful evening in the gallery.  Maybe you had too much champagne and you have to work tomorrow so you took your leave. And the kiss, oh Ms. Di Terzi, I wish I could let you keep it but I can't."

She opened her mouth to protest but she was already trapped by the amber hypnotism of his eyes.  She went limp.

Roydon kissed her cheek.  He had begun to unfold and reveal himself to a human, complete rubbish, he had seen the incredulity and the pity in her eyes. 

As much as he had wanted to open up himself, Roydon had to face it, she was not meant to know.  Lovely Gioia.

Joy was engraved in her name.

He removed her high heels, enough for the evening.

He Roydon Thamesian, picked up the mortal woman in his arms, careful not to wake her up.

He vowed to let her go.

*

   I felt...weak and kind of hangover. I was in Roydon's car but it was Tennys, his bodyguard, driving.

  "Are you allright, Ma'am?" he asked.

  "Wow, I'm sorry, I must have been very tired to fall asleep like that. I never sleep in cars."

He smiled.

  "Don't worry about that. You must rest if you're working tomorrow.Mr Thamesian has asked me not to wake you up. "

Strange. I did not remember taking off my shoes. I didn't remember a lot of things in fact. I had a clear memory of Roydon showing me the tapestry, of drinking champagne, of his hand brushing my fingers and then poof, nothing.

And I had a very good memory. It was one of my main weak spots, yes I said weak because a good memory is cool but a very good, exhaustive memory is like a curse. I did well with the paintings and all the exams in Art History, but I was constantly plagued by details, however insignificant, and trust me no one likes to remember the aftermath of a hangover, even more when you have found your goody two shoes boyfriend fucking a random girl at an Erasmus party, when you can remember every detail of the scene, down to the scent of the room and the moles on their naked bodies.

Wow, I digressed a lot here.

And I didn't remember my evening with Roydon.

The guy was becoming shadier every chance I got to know him.

It had started in a blur and it went on with a black out.

*

Brand finally picked up the call, his voice moody and Londonian. He had been working of course.

  "I'm in the middle of something crucial Roydon, what's the fuss?"

  "You didn't read the text, did you?"

There was a loud thumping noise in the background. That would be music.

  "What? Oh, I was in a meeting and then had to get back to the club where the service is really poor, I've been working to fix that for ages, but you know it never gets done...''

  ''I have been attacked."

  "Elaborate attacked."

Brand must had found a better spot, his voice was clear and sharp suddenly.

  "Went to check on the wine lorry after your guy indications. It was crashed in a field near Warwick Castle. Driver had been emptied of all his blood."

  "And?" asked Brand impatiently.

  "I was shot just before getting back to my car.  By a platinum arrow, in the upper arm. That's ridiculous but the weapon is spot on."

  "Well, that's a very simpleminded ambush" said Brand "One wants you to know that you're the moving target, brother."

*

  In the morning I nearly did not make it to work, then I remembered (at least I seemed able to still remember some things) that it was Friday, thanks God!

With only one day before the weekend, I found the strength to drag myself out of bed, find a correct outfit and dash off to the office.

I had a bad headache.  When I tried my usual path, I couldn't find it again, couldn't find a way to the Guildhall, I went straight through the city centre, after the theatre and the fountain and the University buildings. No Medieval Quarter for my debilitating memory.

Well this date, if I could call that a date, with Roydon Thamesian had been a real success. If only I had some nice moment to sink my teeth in and enjoy for the rest of my celibate life. Haha gottcha, you thought you were going out with the most attractive,mysterious man of the city, no the country for I was stuck here until I had enough money to visit Britain, but it was all smoke and oblivion. 

Well at least I had this very vivid recollection  of a medieval artefact. No one could ever take you away from me, cherished Bayeux tapestry, I thought cynically.

I was at my desk, sorting papers. Okay two piles: boring/very boring.  There was also annoying as hell but it was rarer.

At eleven I went to the bathroom and when I checked myself in the mirror, I spotted a faint red trace on the side of my face.Of course my colleagues were too British and polite to warn me with a personal remark.

Didn't look like lipstick.

I remembered that I went to work without washing my face from the evening before.

I touched the spot. It was dark and dry.  I dabbed it with water and it became bright, freshly red.

Blood!

Where did it come from?

My head pounded with the migraine. I steadied myself on the sink. Allright, it happened that I became kind of paranoid when sick but not to the point of hallucinating blood on my face.

Remember, Gioia, remember, for God's sake, I urged myself.

It came back in piercing flashes.

  "This is Heritage night especially for you, Ms. Di Terzi" with Roydon's teasing smile.

My head buzzed and my vision swam with the downpour of images. It was almost unbearable.

The big shadow of a castle dented in the night.

  "Why were you so anxious to leave your country?"

It hurt!

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

Did I really accuse him of that? Was I having a total break down?

No, no, stop it!

He carried me running faster than any human ever could.

A swish noise speared the night. Roydon being shot by a steely arrow and not reacting:

He only had been concerned about my safety, driving with a weapon in his arm!

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

I was crouched on the bathroom's floor, fighting the waves of dizziness while the relentless flashes went on.

I heard Roydon's beautiful voice as a voice over of the events. That was scary sick.

  "Just a small incident" 

  "Ms. Di Terzi, calm down."

THE KISS. OMG, we kissed. Like a very vivid dream I felt it now again on my lips with its inebriating taste.

The best kiss of my life so far.

  "I had to kiss your mouth shut."

  "Why don't you bleed?"  I had asked, still under the spell.

  "Have a seat, Ms Di Terzi, please."

  "Stop the mindgames. I mean, who, what, are you?"

That one was a good one, almost playing the bad cop there when I had tried to corner him.

  "I am Ms. Di Terzi, the Guildhall's guardian. That's what I truly am."

Wait, what?

I knew what was coming next, I had it on the tip of my tongue.

Something impossible, something crazy...

  "I am pretty much immortal."

It all stopped after that. There was nothing more.

Immortal.  The grave ajar.

Roydon Thamesian was a vampire.

I remained a little longer than expected in the office bathroom. Hiding in a stale.

My colleagues must have thought I suffered with a problematic bladder or worse.

Truth was I couldn't stand up without shaking until the beginning of the afternoon.

*

  "St George's men's club, couldn't you just come directly at the Guildhall? "

The backroom of St George small Church on the other side of the city, how funny was Brand to hide among the small reunion of male practitioners who had come to read or play cards.

Brand was smoking a cigarette. "I quite like the place, plain old-fashioned is not so bad from time to time."

Roydon poured himself a glass of gin.

   "So early?" smirked his brother. " God, if you wanted me to visit more often you should have asked instead of having a contract on your head. Though I should warn you that more than twice a week in this city is unbearable for me."

    "Don't say the G word, Brand.What's bothering me is that a hunter would not spill blood, even less drink it. Yet the arrow clearly points out to one of them if I daresay."

    "A vamp or an hybrid could have changed side. The probability is low but it exists.  So third's the charm. You will be considered very daft if you don't get the warning this time."

    "The timing is most bizarre. Why now?"