Finding Grace: The Guardian Chronicles Book One

Chapter 45. Hurt*

Chapter 45. Hurt by NIN

Leaving Evan and Nathan behind was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I knew they were safer at the farmhouse than anywhere in the city at the moment. After spending a while reinforcing our home and setting up the safeguards we had hoped we would never have to use, we gathered up any weapons we thought might be useful. We had installed the six inch steel window plates to prevent entry through windows, activated the interior door barricades and built up the second story wall where Rafael had broken through. I doubted the structural soundness of the house after the damage he'd been able to make. While we had the exterior walls reinforced with thick concrete and steel beams, for some reason the window had allowed the wall to fail. At this point, it was too late to do more than we had, so I had to just move on, hoping the alarms we set would be a deterrent to any who tried to break in. If that didn't work, we had several vampire maiming booby-traps set that would take off limbs and heads, but it would not necessarily kill one of our kind.

Tourneau and I had no idea what we would come up against when we reached the Enclave. Aristarchus was not taking my calls; likely he was refusing to do so. Trying to mentally organize all the information I had gathered over the years on the situation with Romley, I allowed Tourneau to drive. The Hummer allowed us to bring more weapons and supplies, should we come up against resistance.

I had not been completely honest yet with Evan about my job as a Guardian. I hated my duties, but I also knew I was good at what I did. Damn good. Tourneau and I had been a force to be reckoned with when necessary, but we had gone soft as of late, as we had gotten the rogues well under control. I had always known Romley was trouble, and I could never gain enough evidence to turn him in to the Brethren. Several of them were in his pocket, and I hadn't concretely figured out whom I could trust. What I did know was that Romley routinely used his popularity with the media to draw humans in and would ruin their lives with sex, drugs or alcohol, whichever vice fit the bill, and then he would kill them. He changed his image and name every decade or so, to reinvent his persona, so he had an endless supply of victims. Not only would he kill them, he would convince them to sign over anything of worth they had. Hence, the reason he was so wealthy. Often he ruined the families of his victims as well; sometimes he even killed the entire family.

While the Newborns I had run across recently were definitely not created and educated, as the Council demanded, I was certain Romley was behind their appearance. I had been trying for decades to prove that he was making new vampires against Council sanctions, but he was very good at covering his trail. Each time I attempted to get backing from the Brethren to raid his home, they dismissed my accusations and told me I was overreacting to a stray Newborn. That was when I realized Romley likely had allies on the Brethren Council. The female I had taken in all those weeks ago was my only corroboration. I wondered what they had done with her and what more information she held.

Tourneau pulled the Hummer into the underground parking of the warehouse that hid our headquarters, the Enclave. Immediately I was put on edge when the usual thugs who greeted visitors did not appear.

"Tourneau, do you think this is odd?" I asked my friend very quietly. He simply nodded in response, his eyes darting all around looking for signs of an ambush.

The Hummer rolled quietly to a stop. We sat in silence for a moment, inspecting the familiar, yet sinister surroundings. My phone vibrated against my thigh. Quickly I reached in and silenced it, then pulled it out and powered it off. I did not want it to give us away. By now I realized something was terribly wrong at the Brethren's headquarters. In silent agreement, we both reached over the back of our seats and began pulling various weapons out of the compartments we had stashed them in. For the first time, I appreciated the cavernous space in the back. I buckled on my blessed silver throwing knives, a Ruger P90 semi-automatic with silver ammunition, and a war axe Tourneau had once given me decades ago that he had found in some collector's estate sale. It had become my favorite weapon for meting out rapid carnage; my strength was the only reason such a mundane weapon worked on vampires. I didn't realize how much I missed its comforting weight as I hefted it over my shoulder into its sling.  While I had told Evan none of the mythical stories about vampires were true, I had lied. I just did not want her to have any ammunition against me in our early days. Silver burned and caused vampires to heal as slow as a human. When it embedded into a vampire's flesh, silver began to kill it off with its innate healing powers. The silver was blessed because I still hoped and prayed for God to save me.