Authors: Christine Warren
Frankly, Ella almost scared him. And that slippery hint of emotion made him want to turn tail and run, something a Guardian could never do. So he continued to push her away at every turn, even as her importance to him and his mission continued to grow.
When he was quiet, he swore he could hear Fate laughing at him.
“Hey, I didn’t do anything,” she protested, glaring at him. He was growing used to the expression. “I was minding my own business when you jumped off a pedestal, scared the ever-living crap out of me, then grabbed me, flew me twenty blocks without so much as a seatbelt, and broke into my damned apartment. None of this was my fault.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, managing to look both sullen and adorable. Also amusing, if the cough Parsons used to disguise a laugh was anything to go by.
“I see,” the Warden managed after clearing his throat. “I mean, I think I understand the facts as you’ve explained them, but I’m not sure I can offer any explanation of them. As far as I am aware, only a Warden has ever been able to wake a Guardian, and it’s been that way since the first summoning. I seem to recall tales of one or two instances when extreme emergency caused a Guardian to awake, but those were times when one of the Seven escaped its prison without warning. The echo of the tear caused in this reality woke them. I didn’t think anything less than that could manage it.”
Kees frowned. He had thought the same, but here he was, walking, talking, breathing. And lusting after a human woman. Clearly, something odd was going on here.
“I looked for evidence of amdemon after I woke,” he said. “I found nothing. Not one of the Seven, not even a powerful fiend. I would never have abandoned duty if I had. Even now, I would be locked in battle.”
“Of course,” Parsons acknowledged. “I never thought otherwise, but still I cannot account for your awakening.”
Not precisely what Kees wanted to hear. He gestured toward Ella. “My instincts tell me it has to do with the woman, but I cannot pinpoint why, or how. All I know is that she was present when I woke. Her distress at being attacked penetrated my slumber, and when she drew close, I could sense the magic in her. Ella must be the key.”
His key bared her even little teeth at him. “Like I said, I don’t appreciate you talking about me like I’m not here, big guy, so cut it out.”
He ignored her, or pretended to, which was the best he’d been able to manage since she fell asleep in his arms. “Could it have something to do with her untapped potential as a Warden?”
Parsons pursed his lips and stared at her. “I don’t think so. It is not the first time an uneducated recruit has been discovered under a Guardian’s nose. Certainly such things are rare, but they are not unprecedented. Are you certain you do not come from a Warden family, Ella?”
She denied that firmly. “No way. My parents were both scientists, my mom a teacher and my dad a university researcher. They didn’t even believe magic existed.” Her expression took on a wry cast. “Neither did I, until Kees explained it to me. I didn’t know what that stuff was inside me, but magic wasn’t one of my three guesses.”
“Hm. And you never had any training? How old are you, if you don’t mind a truly old man asking.”
“I don’t mind. I’m twenty-seven. And no, no training. Can’t train in something you think is entirely fictional, right? Well, unless you count memorizing lines out of Harry Potter.”
Parsons chuckled. “Unfortunately not, though I always fancied trying to duplicate that Puking Pastilles recipe for real.” He looked back at Kees. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any answers. Perhaps if I had time to get to know both of you, something might pop out at me, but currently, I’m as baffled as either of you.”
“That makes things more difficult. If we don’t know how I was woken, we can’t replicate the process to wake the others, which means we need to find more Wardens to do the deed.”
“If they even agree,” Parsons said. “I would be willing to try, especially knowing one of you is already awake, but the deaths have shaken most of the survivors to the core. Many begin to give up hope, and without the protection of a Guardian, the idea of approaching a Guardian has become unthinkable.”
“Catch-22,” Ella murmured.
“Exactly.”
Kees snarled his displeasure. “We have no choice. If what you said is true, then all of this has merely been a way of setting the stage so that the
nocturnis
can unleash the Seven uncontested. That cannot happen. The Guardians must prevent it; therefore, the Guardians must rise.”
“No one is saying anything different,” Ella said, “but we still have to locate the six sleeping Guardians, and then we have to locate enough Wardens to set their alarm clocks.”
His jaw clenched as Kees considered the problem. He had hoped that finding this Warden would lead him to a Guild already gathered and moving toward rebuilding. He had never considered the mages might be hiding, running scared from the very threat they had been founded to help work against. He had trouble grasping the idea of it. Guardians never ran. They fought until they won, and if someone fell in battle, his comrades took over until a new Guardian was summoned. They never considered anything less than meeting the enemy head-on and battling to the bitter end.
He had to remind himself once again that talented mages or no, in the end, the Wardens were only human. They could be killed, like his Ella.
The thought cut him short and he shoved it roughly aside. He could protect his little human. Even if he needed her to help him continue the search for more Wardens and more Guardians, she could come to little harm sitting before her computer machine. He would just have to ensure that she stayed there, safely out of danger, while he destroyed any and every threat to her and the world she lived in. Even if he had to do it alone, so be it. A motivated Guardian could accomplish impressive things.
“Do you think I might be able to wake another Guardian, even though I’m not a Warden?”
Ella’s voice came out hesitant but strong, and it chilled Kees straight to the bone.
“I mean, I’m not saying that I know for sure I had anything to do with Kees waking up, because I have no idea if I did,” she continued, “but I’d be willing to try again. I mean, this is some serious sh—er, stuff going on, and I don’t think I can just sit by and watch some psychos try to end the world if I could help stop them.”
“Absolutely not,” Kees bellowed.
“That’s an interesting question,” Parsons said, eyeing her with consideration. “Since we don’t know for certain what happened to wake him, I don’t know if it would be wise to rely on lightning striking twice, if you take my meaning. As I said, I’m willing to make the attempt myself.”
Relief coursed through Kees. No, not relief. Of course not relief. He merely wanted to rely on known rather than unknown methods of waking his brothers. His feel—his
thoughts
had nothing to do with the little human’s safety or lack thereof. Nothing.
“We still need to locate a Guardian to wake,” Kees said, trying to draw the attention away from Ella. “Even if we have a Warden who can perform the call.”
“I might have an encouraging bit of news there,” Alan said. “I don’t want anyone getting too excited, because nothing is certain yet, but I’ve been following a particular line of inquiry, and I think it might be leading me back to Canada, but the other side of the country. There’s a
chance,
” he stressed the uncertain word, “that another Guardian might have been acquired by a museum in or around Montreal. I don’t have the details yet, but it’s still a place to begin looking.”
“But that’s great!”
Kees heard the excitement in Ella’s voice and paused. Somehow it appeared that his small human had taken his mission to heart as her own. When had that happened? And why had it happened? After the distance he’d tried over and over to create between them, she should want nothing to do with helping him. Actually, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d relished his pain. Would she never stop surprising him?
“No, it’s awesome,” she continued when neither man spoke. “I have a friend—well, an acquaintance really—from college who works in Montreal. We weren’t terribly close, but we worked together on a couple of projects and we always got along. I’m sure I could call her and get her help. If we think a Guardian could be in a museum around there, Fil would be the perfect person to find out.”
“Why is that?” Parsons asked. “Is she magically talented as well?”
“No.” Ella frowned. “I don’t think so. Not that I know of, anyway, but I know she didn’t freak out at finding out I might be … I dunno, psychic or something, which is what I settled on as the best explanation before I met Kees.” She didn’t bother to glance at him. “Either way, she’s at least open-minded. And better than that, she’s in the arts community in Montreal, so they know her name at all the museums. She’s an art restorer.”
“A human female art restorer named Phil,” Kees repeated flatly. “And she can help us.”
“
A,
I don’t see what her sex has to do with anything. I’m female, and I’m helping,” she snapped. “
B,
Fil is a nickname. Her real name is Felicity Shaltis, and she’s one of the top restorers in Eastern Canada, so she not only knows the museums and visits regularly, she has access behind the scenes, too. That’s important, because if for some reason the Guardian was there but not on display, she could still find out by checking the storage and prep areas that are off-limits to regular visitors.”
Parsons looked across the table at Kees and raised his brows. “That does sound promising, Guardian.”
Reluctantly, Kees had to agree. “You can contact her when we return to Vancouver, but tell her only what we are looking for—a statue similar in look to mine. She does not need to know why.”
Ella rolled her eyes. “Trust me, I wouldn’t even begin to try telling her more than that. I want her to help us, not call the police and report that I need to be taken in for a mental health check. I’ve been living with all this for a week now, and I still have moments where I doubt my own sanity.”
Parsons cleared his throat. “Guardian, are you certain it’s wise for Ella to return to Vancouver with you? I know you want to be in the city in case your waking did have something to do with a threat to that area, but Ella clearly requires further training in the use of her magic. I would be glad to offer that to her and watch out for her safety while she was here.”
The idea froze Kees in place. It had merit. After all, just moments ago he had been thinking up ways to keep her safe and out of the way of the upcoming battle. Not only would leaving her with Parsons accomplish the goal of keeping her out of the line of fire should the
nocturnis
attempt to harm him, but further training would improve her abilities to defend herself. It would also make her another Warden in the end, and if what Parsons had told them was true, they would need all the Wardens they could find, even if they had to train new ones to increase their ranks. Yes, such training would take time, but if all-out war with the Order did erupt, every Warden would have a role to play.
So why did every fiber of his being protest the idea of Ella leaving his side for so much as an instant?
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ella protested even as Kees opened his mouth, unsure exactly what he would say. “I might be lacking in training, but I had none of it when I woke Kees, if that’s what happened, so I don’t think that has anything to do with it. Also, sorry to disappoint everyone who does the demon-fighting thing for a living, but I still have a job that expects me to show up the day after tomorrow. Not being independently wealthy, I need to do that if I want to keep getting paychecks. And believe me, I do.”
Parsons immediately looked contrite. “I’m sorry, I should have thought, especially since you drove all the way down here, and gas prices are so high. For a recruit, which I think we can safely say you are, since your talent is obvious, the Guild would normally provide a stipend for your living expenses. Full Wardens draw salaries. Now, though”—he made a face—“the accounts remain and are set up to be managed automatically by accountants, but adding your name would only draw you to the attention of the Order. It wouldn’t be wise.”
“No, anonymity is her greatest protection at the moment.” The last thing Kees wanted was the
nocturnis
to turn their attention to his human. “You may continue your work for the time being, maintain your normal routine. Once the Order is defeated and the Guild is back on its feet, we can take care of any financial issues.”
“Um, hello.” The little female punched him in the shoulder. It didn’t hurt, of course, but the violence surprised him. “Stop making decisions for me, you big jerk. I’ll work because I want to work, I’ll return to Vancouver because that’s where I live, and if you think that just because you’re used to Wardens being your servants I’m going to lean over and kiss your ass, I’ll drop trou right now and you can kiss mine.”
That time, Parsons could not contain his laughter. It burst out like pellets from a BB gun. Kees glared until the old man got himself under control, but Parsons couldn’t completely suppress his grin.
“Like I said.” The Warden shrugged, his lips twitching. “She’s feisty.”
Kees snarled an insult in the old language of his kind. Parsons just laughed.
“If you can’t stay here, there are some things I would like to give you,” the older man told his guests. “Independent study is not a route the Guild normally encourages recruits to take, but these are special circumstances, and you already have a Guardian who can help with your training. I have some volumes I can give you to teach you the fundamentals of spellcasting, including some rudimentary spells you might find useful. Basic wards, protection spells, things like that. You can take them with you to Vancouver and practice what and when you can.”
“Thank you,” Ella said, her tone conveying both surprise and pleasure. “That would be hugely helpful, I’m sure. Kees has been a good teacher, but there are times I think it would help if he’d had personal experience with spells.”