Kill The Mother Kill The Child

Chapter Two: The Guardians

Screaming, Screaming, Screaming.

And yet she was beautiful. Beautiful even with all the blood. Blood from slashing, ripping, tearing. The fiend made no sound, but would only sigh, while the beautiful girl was - screaming, screaming, screaming.

Liam Warden awoke with a start. That dream - again. He had not had that dream for more than ten years, and now, it had come to him again; every night for a week.

He swung his feet over the edge of the bed and stiff armed the sagging mattress to prop himself in a sitting position. He could hear his dad in the kitchen of the small apartment. Liam glanced at the clock on the nightstand next to his bed: eleven o'clock at night. Had to be at work in an hour.

He rose from the bed and made his way to the bathroom before stepping into the kitchen.

"Had that dream again didn't you." It was a statement not a question.

"Yeah." Liam flopped into a chair at one end of a small table pushed against the wall. The dinning room was really part of the kitchen. There was barely room for a table and two chairs. "Just wish I knew what it was about. I can't even really see what eh girl looks like."

Liam's father, Xavier Warden, nodded. He was beating milk into a dozen eggs, getting ready to scramble their breakfast. Father and son worked graveyard shift together cleaning a large office building downtown. It wasn't the only work they shared.

Fifteen years before when the dream had first come to Liam, he had run crying to his father's bedroom. Xavier had comforted his ten year old son and put him back to bed. But when the same dream had plagued his son every night for a week, he realized it was time to tell him the truth.

"You're a Guardian, Lee."

"What's a Guardian?"

A wry smile had crossed his father's face as he answered. "I suppose most people would say it's a curse." He shook his head and paused a moment before he continued. "But the fact is, being a Guardian is a very important job. I started my training as a Guardian when I was eleven, almost twelve. You're a little young, but it isn't me - or any other man - who decides when a Guardian begins his work."

Liam's father fell silent and the two of them sat motionless for a full minute before Liam spoke. "What kind of training does a Guardian do, dad?"

That question was answered in great detail over the next ten years. The first thing Liam learned was that a Guardian began the actual work of his calling once he reached twenty years of age. However, the time leading up to that day was filled with physical, mental and spiritual exercise designed to produce someone capable of great acts of violence while possessing the heart of a saint.

The day after their conversation, Liam's father took him to a gym where he joined a boxing club. He found he had a natural aptitude, quick hands and a solid punch. He also learned to wrestle, his athleticism enabling him to place third in state in his weight class during an unusually long stay in one town during his high school years. Later it was mixed martial arts that filled his free time. At one point it seemed to Liam that all he did was run, jump rope, do push ups, sit ups and chin ups and compete in some form of organized combat. And that is all he did - except read and memorize.

Liam learned that the mental aspect of his preparation was designed to do three things; impress upon him who he worked for, develop a foundational philosophy of life and teach him about his enemies. His textbooks were the Holy Bible and the Warden Guardian Bible. The first was easily had, since it was the best selling book of all time. The second was a limited edition, with only one copy in existence.