Guardian's Patience, page 29
part #5 of Guardians of the Race Series
He wasn’t afraid of being wounded. The sight of his own blood bothered him not at all, but this was a new jacket and his tailor had met Broadbent’s specifications perfectly. He rather liked the fit. Muscles pumped, broadened and defined by battle rage, the jacket’s pleats expanded, too. He should have known better than to wear it tonight, but Patience seemed comforted by the leather lined knife sheaths at the forearms as well as the longer one across his back.
Having dispatched his first opponent after a close call at the jacket’s banded cuff, Broadbent decided to batter his next opponent into such a position as to end his life without stain or tear. To that end, the kitchen was now littered with the dust and clothing of three demons, an assortment of broken chairs, and a table on its side with two of its legs torn off. One of those legs was currently in his hand, raised to strike the oncoming demon.
While one part of his mind observed that this nasty fellow’s body seemed too large for its head, another part of his mind computed the distance to engagement. Table leg raised and ready, Broadbent was balanced solidly on his feet to meet the charge, when the creature’s tail whipped out.
Unlike the Guardian, the demon failed to take stock of its surrounding and the tail wedged against a wooden cabinet, the spikes at the end puncturing the wood. This threw the beast’s trajectory off as its lunge turned into a nose dive.
Broadbent’s table leg struck the demon’s back. His sword slipped under the scales to slice, but not kill. He was caught across the hips, the demon’s weight and momentum forcing him back. Broadbent was prepared to use the wall for leverage, but there was no wall at his back. Glass cracked and shattered. Wooden muntins splintered under the weight of Guardian and demon. The meeting rails gave way.
Broadbent and the demon went sailing through the window.
Chapter 28
Grace’s scream brought the other women running from the house where they found her curled on the ground at the foot of the steps. Alice’s carrier was clutched in her arms and she was sobbing into it.
“Sebastian. Sebastian. They’ve taken Sebastian.”
Manon’s frightened gasp followed. “Otto,” she cried, “Mon coeur.” She ran to her fallen mate.
Otto’s back bled from a dozen gouges made by the demon’s claws. He moaned as Manon tried to lift him into her arms.
Hope helped Manon get Otto to his feet while Pinkie did what she could for mother and child. Grace kept one arm wrapped around her middle, holding Sebastian’s blue blanket. Her shallow gasps gave evidence of broken ribs, but she wouldn’t relinquish her hold on Alice, so Pinkie lifted the carrier with her.
In one corner of the room at the back of the house was what they all referred to as Grace’s clinic. It was where she treated their injuries and where they now treated hers. It was there the story was told through her sobs; her mistaking the car, the sudden attack, Otto’s transformation and defense, the missing Sebastian.
“There had to be another demon,” Hope said, “But why not finish what they started?” Her hand went to her mouth when she realized what the outcome of that typical demon scenario would be.
“They wanted the children, not the feeding,” Pinkie stated bluntly and she was terrified she knew who perpetrated the attack. Abyar and his witch would hurt her through the ones she loved and hurt these people for giving her asylum. “We’ve got to call the men.” She rose from Grace’s side to go for the phone.
Hope’s strangled voice stopped her. “We can’t. Their phones will be off and I’ve been calling and calling for Nico. He’s closed the bridge. No distractions. No one ever thought we’d be in danger here.” She started to weep.
In the past, each time Pinkie felt Abyar closing in, when she knew time was of the essence, something in her mind had clicked over to a kind of automatic pilot that set aside her panic and told her what had to be done. Hope’s assertion that they were on their own, flipped the switch. Pinkie’s mind clicked over. She reached for Sebastian’s blanket.
“I need it,” she said rudely when Grace wouldn’t give it up.
“Why?” It was Hope who asked.
“I’m going to find Sebastian and I need the blanket to do it. We need to move as quickly as possible.”
She yanked the blanket from Grace’s grasp and strode from the room, knowing an angry Hope would follow. Once the heavy kitchen door closed behind them, Pinkie took a deep breath and spoke quickly.
“If that demon was Abyar then he won’t return to a house that’s under attack. He won’t lay Sebastian down while he fights for his minions. Abyar doesn’t fight unless he’s cornered or he can stab you in the back. He lets lesser demons do his fighting for him. You don’t survive in the Otherworld by being brave. You survive by being smart. Crazy, but smart. Abyar’ll run. He’ll hide. And you’ll never see that baby again. If Canaan does catch up with him, Abyar’ll kill Sebastian just to see the look on Canaan’s face as his son dies. Even if he dies in the process, Abyar’d consider that a win. Either way, you lose.”
While she spoke, she rummaged through the kitchen drawers in search of scissors or a small knife. She found a small paring knife in the sink. From there, she moved through the kitchen and out to the flight of stairs that led to the underground garage beneath the building next door. It was where they’d stored the things from her shop. She used the knife to slit the tape used to keep the boxes closed.
“What are you planning to do?” Hope started lifting boxes from the pile for Pinkie to open. “What are we looking for?”
“My crystal ball,” Pinkie answered the easier question first. “I need to be sure Abyar’s a part of this. Otherwise I’m wasting time we don’t have.”
“But if it is Abyar, what can you do that the Guardians can’t?” Hope no longer sounded hostile. She wanted to understand.
“I can bargain. I can offer him a trade.” Pinkie tore open another box. “Gotcha!” she cried as she lifted the ball from the smaller box. “No more questions. I need to concentrate.”
She crossed her legs and sat before the crystal ball on the floor. Her hands were shaking as she used the baby’s blanket to polish the top. She tried to focus her concentration on where the little boy might be, but her fear of what she might see kept getting in the way. The ball had never shown her anything good.
The packing papers that they’d tossed to the floor rustled with movement and the little tabby cat emerged. As if it were an everyday occurrence, the cat climbed over Pinkie’s knee and settled into her lap.
“Thank you,” Pinkie whispered to the familiar, “Oh, thank you.” The cat began to purr.
With one hand on the ball and one on the cat, Pinkie focused again. The mists within the ball immediately swirled into a picture and as she feared, it was one she didn’t want to see; Abyar, mid-change with a three-talon claw raised; the witch from the shop holding the baby carrier; and the back of a man wearing that silly bush jacket that offered him no protection at all.
Pinkie choked back her anguish and the ball blinked out. It was what she’d always known, but refused to see. Abyar would always kill what she loved. She sniffed back threatened tears and squared her shoulders. This time he wouldn’t win. This time it was she who would have her revenge. This time she would condemn her own soul to hell for it, but Abyar wouldn’t win.
She jumped when the cat sank its claws into her ankle. Hope stood beside her, staring at the crystal ball.
“What did you see?” she whispered as if afraid the ball might be listening.
“He’s alive,” Pinkie whispered back only because she thought she heard another voice whispering close by. Then she heard it again and she froze.
“Patience Penelope Persephone Pendergast.”
When Hope opened her mouth to speak, Pinkie cut her off with her hand and pointed to a place for her to stand out of the line of sight.
A faint green glow emanated from the box from which she’d retrieved the crystal ball and in which JJ had packed the things she’d taken off the walls of the shop. JJ must have packed it while Pinkie picked up what was salvageable from the floor. In the excitement over the twins’ birth, Pinkie hadn’t bothered to check. If she had, she would have made JJ leave the mirror in the basement of the shop. Now, it was exactly where she needed it.
Blood wasn’t needed for this. All she needed to do was answer his call. Nevertheless, Pinkie pricked her finger with the sharp little knife and let the blood drip to the floor. Abyar would feel the power released from her blood and he would find it hard to resist. That’s how addictions worked and for Abyar, the call of power and revenge would be more than he could resist. She pulled the mirror from the box and peeled the wrapping away.
“Abyar Adoriedes Mendeliadum,” she called and allowed another drop of blood to fall to the floor where she’d placed the mirror. “Abyar Adoriedes Mendeliadum. I know your name as you know mine. Patience Penelope Persephone Pendergast calls you to the mirror.” Another drop fell to the floor and she closed her eyes to keep the pain of calling his name from making its way into her voice. She squeezed her fingertip and felt the blood well. She called his name again. “Abyar Adoriedes Mendeliadum, I know you’re there. Answer me. Please,” she added in a pleading voice. He’d always responded well to begging and this time she didn’t have to fake it. She would do whatever she needed to get the baby back. If she could get there in time, maybe neither child nor Guardian had to die.
The mirror began to shimmer with a darker green. Pinkie waited, hoping to hear the voice she’d once hoped to never hear again.
“Well, hello Penny Peepers,” Abyar called through the glass in a sing-song voice, “How nice of you to answer my call. I knew you would eventually. Like I always say, blood calls to blood, you know. You see how patient I’ve been? Have you missed me? Have those big, bad Guardians been giving you a hard time? Did they find out who you really are?”
Pinkie closed her eyes and turned her head into her shoulder to muffle her pained response. She nodded, pretending it was the admission that was painful.
“They did, but what I am is what you want, what you’ve always wanted. The question is how much are you willing to bargain for it?”
“Oh, now, Penny Peeper, why should I bargain with you? As I recall, you’ve already broken one blood oath.”
“A forced blood oath is no oath at all. You made me share my blood with you.”
There was no answer from the mirror. She waited until she could stand it no longer. “I want to make that oath real this time. I offer myself freely.”
“What did you offer them?” His voice was a snarl.
She knew he meant the Guardians. “Nothing! One of their own was injured protecting me when you sent your lowlife goons down my alley. I couldn’t tell them about the mirror. I wouldn’t tell them about you.”
“When was this?” His voice sounded tight and over controlled.
She gave him the date. “You know when it was and what does it matter?” She sounded petulant. Abyar understood petulance. “I want to come home, Abyar. Do you want to bargain for your Penny Peepers or not?”
Again, the long silence before he spoke. “What are you offering?”
Pinkie swallowed hard. “Me.” The clock was ticking. She had to move this along. “I don’t want to do this anymore, Abyar. I’m tired of running, and tired of missing you. I’m tired of pretending to be what I’m not. You don’t know what it’s been like, fighting my need for you day after day,” she flattered. “I want to come home, but a very clever demon once told me to never give anything away without bargaining for something in return. I’m giving myself to you, Abyar, along with the power of my magic, to be blood bound for eternity. I think I deserve something in return.”
“What is it you want?”
“The baby.”
“The baby?” he asked cautiously.
Pinkie saw the calculating look in his eyes. He was weighing the value of the child against her value. If he thought too long, she might lose.
“His blood is worth a fortune,” she reasoned in a harsher tone, “but he’s a baby. How much bloodletting do you think he’ll survive? Dead blood is worth nothing. Me? Well, you know I can survive. I’ve got years and years left and my power has grown, Abyar, grown beyond my expectations.”
Pinkie took the knife and ran it along the pad at the base of her thumb. She winced at the pain, but made sure the cut was deep enough to allow the blood to flow freely. She filled her palm with it.
“Can you feel it?” she asked, “Can you imagine what I can do with the blood of others?” She desperately searched for something that would tip the scales in her favor and hit upon Abyar’s vanity. “Transmogrification, Abyar. With the right tools and enough blood, I can change you into the man you want to be. Cary Grant? Paul Newman? Or how about Tom Cruise? You won’t ever have to waste your power holding your form again. And we can live in whichever world you choose,” she said, sweetening the pot yet again.
“Let me think about it.”
She couldn’t let that happen. She stamped her foot, though she wasn’t sure in a mirror that small he would understand the petulant gesture. “Fine. Take the damn baby and have fun in the Otherworld. That’s where you’ll be living until it dies or unless you’re willing to trust its tender care to someone else while you’re gone. You can’t drag it back and forth, you know. Take it from me, brats don’t travel well.”
And then she added what she hoped was the icing on the cake. “Please, Master,” she whined and begged, “Make the bargain and let me come home.”
“First, tell me why this baby means so much.”
She was surprised he hadn’t asked that first. “Because I’ve already sold it,” she snapped. “I’ve already struck the bargain.”
There was a moment’s silence and then he laughed. “Ah, Penny Peepers, you’re more like me than you know. How much are we getting for it?”
And that was when she knew she had him. She gave him a figure she thought would impress.
“Blood oath with the promise to complete the blood binding.”
“Done and done.” Pinkie turned her hand and let the blood spill from her palm to the floor. In doing so, she’d won the child and lost her soul.
He told her where to find him.
“Transmogrification?” Hope asked when the green shimmer left the mirror and Pinkie turned away. “Can you really change someone’s looks permanently?”
“Of course not,” Pinkie snapped, though in truth, she’d thought about it a time or two. Not for humans or demons, but for the sorry looking cats in the alley. The trouble was, she’d need to sacrifice one to save another and she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Who was she to say which one’s life was worth less? “I bargained with what he wants most.”
“You made a blood oath,” Hope said cautiously and Pinkie smiled.
“A blood oath is only good until one party dies. I can kill him, Hope, and I’m going to.” She neglected to add that it would take her own life to do it. “Now, I need to get moving. Go upstairs and tell them I’ve gone to get Sebastian back.”
She pulled her little scooter out from where the twins had stashed it in the corner. She wheeled it out the side door because she didn’t know the code to open the big garage door. She started it and chugged up the side path, but when she turned into the alley, Hope was standing in her way.
Her arms were folded over her chest and she had a stubborn look on her face. “I’m going with you,” she said.
“Hop on,” Pinkie told her and watched as Hope gathered her long denim skirt up above her knees and climbed onto the little pink scooter.
“I thought you’d argue,” Hope said as she settled awkwardly on the seat.
“No time to waste,” Pinkie told her, fully intending to use the fifteen minute ride to think of a way to get the woman off.
~*~
Abyar Adoriedes Mendeliadum was a happy demon. He’d just made a bargain he couldn’t lose. You couldn’t return what you didn’t possess. Even if this mystery baby showed up, it wasn’t his when the bargain was made, so he wasn’t obligated to return it. Penny Peeper wasn’t as smart as she thought she was. She should have asked for proof.
She, on the other hand, had to deliver. She owned everything she bargained with. As for the other bargain she’d made? He’d see she found time to work off the loss. He considered it a part of his revenge. If that baby of hers showed up, he’d get what he could out of that, too. Prices in the Otherworld had gone way up in recent years and he was sure he could get a better deal.
The Fates had aligned the moon and the stars to give Abyar Adoriedes Mendeliadum everything he’d ever dreamed of. He would have his revenge on the snip of a girl who thought she could get away. He’d have two bloodbound servants to play with and use. He would have wealth and power and best of all, he would never, ever have to return to the Otherworld again. Finally, after all these centuries of scheming, he would get what he so richly deserved.
With a grin that showed every pearly white tooth in his mouth, he opened the channel in the mirror and called to his partner on the other side. Someone had to open the mirror for passage and he didn’t trust his Penny Peepers to get the job done. The clever little witch was much too eager to strike the bargain. She needed to learn subtlety.
She needed a reminder that he was much too clever and wise to be outsmarted a second time by a mere chit of a girl. He would have to discover what her real motive was, but he could do it at his leisure in the Otherworld.
The voice from below brought him back to the room and mirror. That voice was as familiar as flies on a dead man’s carcass. Andi was calling to Poynter.
Chapter 29
“Hold fire!” Broadbent had the presence of mind to yell as he and the demon fell from the window.
His call was almost too late. JJ’s blue fire lashed out, striking the ground a foot from his head. He and the demon hit the ground with a bone crushing thud. His short sword flew from his hand. The impact drove the air from his lungs. His head exploded with pain. Knees bent, his feet struggled for purchase and finding it, Broadbent forced his lower body upward and rolled to the side to dislodge the stunned creature whose weight pinned him to the ground.
