Hard to Handle Page 4

  What else might have changed between the collective knowledge she had inherited upon her awaking and her waking itself? Did these siblings have anything to do with it? Had they simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or had fate somehow put them in her path for a larger purpose?

  Her lengthy pause must have registered with Maeve as a reluctance to answer the question, because the human woman pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes.

  “Before now, I would have sworn on the graves of all my grannies that not a creature on earth could outstubborn my darling brother, and yet here you stand, just to prove me wrong.” She moved her hands to her hips and maneuvered herself to place both Ash and her brother in her field of vision. “I was trying to be polite about this whole mess, and to give the both of you the chance to come to a graceful agreement, but it seems you’re each too pigheaded for anyone’s good. So I’ll just come out with it.”

  She shifted her glance between the two figures before her as if weighing the quality of their attention. “I’ve seen something very disturbing in the last few days,” she told them. “Something big and dark and very, very unpleasant is coming our way, but that has me not half so scared as knowing that whatever is headed for us is only a small part of something far worse.” Her expression softened, looking less angry and more haunted for an instant, before she lifted her chin and forged ahead. “There is a very bad future in store, not just for us, but for the entire world, Michael, something I can’t even look at straight on, and I can’t quite find words to tell you how much that frightens me.”

  Ash felt a rush of awareness jolt through her. Perhaps fate really had played a hand in this meeting. A wise Guardian never ignored the words of a woman of power. “You have true magic, then. You see the future?”

  Maeve pulled a face. “I see a future. Sometimes more than one, but I can’t tell you for certain which will come to pass, or even if any of them will. I see possibilities, but the future changes a thousand times before it’s written in stone. A lot of decisions still need to be made before that happens.”

  The first of them seemed to rest on Ash’s shoulders. Should she follow the path dictated by tradition and strike off on her own to find her Warden and fight her battle unassisted? Or should she explore the new trail that stretched before her, one that would place two humans at her side, at least for the moment?

  She expected the decision to be more difficult. Guardians always kept to tradition. They all came from the same place, followed the same rules, and fought the same battles. All the knowledge she had inherited upon her summoning told her this. The collective history of the Guardians stretched itself out in her mind and she could see century upon century of her brethren, like an army carved from a single block of stone. Their faces might look different, their forms vary in size or shape, but inside, they were all the same.

  And then she looked a little bit closer and she saw one other important detail—all the Guardians who came before her, from the first seven ever summoned to the one whose place she had taken this very night—every single one of those warriors had been male.

  Which meant that something significant had already changed. Perhaps this was fate’s way of telling her that this new battle would not be won by following the old paths. Perhaps it was time for Ash to try something new.

  Blinking to clear her thoughts, Ash looked back at Maeve’s expectant face and nodded once. “Let us go, then, and you can tell me what exactly it is that you have seen. Perhaps together we will find the answers I need.”

  And perhaps she would find the strength not to copy Maeve’s blows to the back of her brother’s head, though based on the way he muttered, “Bollocks,” under his breath at Ash’s last statement, she harbored some serious doubts.

  Chapter Three

  Drum felt the gargoyle’s glare burning into the back of his skull, but he pretended to be oblivious. Partly to protect himself from another of Maeve’s surprisingly vicious whacks, but mostly because it seemed to drive the creature crazy.

  Did that make him petty?

  Given how little he cared, the answer to that question seemed moot.

  He unlocked the rear door to the pub with as much disdain as one could pack into the motion of turning a key and swinging open a slab of wood, which wasn’t much. Since Maeve brushed past him to enter with no sign of violence, he doubted she had even noticed.

  His sister chose the table right in front of the bar and made herself comfortable. She didn’t bother to look at him as she said, “Guinness, please.”

  He scowled. “It’s after hours, Maeve. The pub is closed.”

  “Well, since I don’t intend to pay for it, you won’t see any trouble for it, will you?” She gave him a supercilious look and waved one hand toward the bar. “I’m sure Ash could use something, as well. It has been rather a trying night.”

  Drum bit back a few choice words, ones that would have his mother brandishing a spoon, and opened the pass-through with a touch of extra force. He grabbed three glasses and started to build the pints. While the first pour settled, he splashed out two fingers of Jameson and threw them back. He’d damned well earned it.

  He could feel the gargoyle watching him, a prickling against his skin that kept him on edge. His reaction to her was almost as unsettling. He felt so damned aware of her, of her presence, her attention. He knew exactly where she stood, when she sat, of her fingers tapping restlessly against the scarred tabletop.

  It had to be fear, the natural wariness of any living thing that finds itself in the presence of an apex predator. Because she was that, no doubt about it. With muscles and fangs and talons, this creature had been designed to hunt and kill.

  Of course, he found that a little difficult to remember when he looked at her now.

  The change in her appearance had almost knocked him back on his arse, and seeing it happen before his very eyes almost set him to swooning like some Victorian female. One minute he had seen the monster, and the next a vision out of any man’s fantasy. He wasn’t entirely sure his head had stopped spinning, and after just one shot it wasn’t like he could blame the whiskey.

  Drum hadn’t had time to reconcile himself to the monster walking and talking in front of them, and just as quickly he found himself confronted by a dream. He’d had a moment of panic that she’d plucked her appearance straight out of his head, but that had to be impossible. Right?

  She was gorgeous. He was man enough to admit it, and terrified enough to curse the truth of it.

  First off, she was tall, as long and straight as a runway model. For a man well over six feet, who had lived his life surrounded by petite females, the importance of that couldn’t be overstated. The idea of looking at, of kissing, a woman without getting a crick in his neck or kink in his back was more than appealing. And she wasn’t tiny, either. If any woman deserved to be called an Amazon, it was her. She looked strong, her torso and limbs thick, not with fat but with muscle, the kind that came from work, not from working out.

  Her body curved in a way that made a man’s hands itch, with full breasts and round hips. It sent his mind wandering to how she might use that strength in bed, those thighs hugging and hips lifting, and that just made him mutter another curse under his breath.

  Keeping his eyes on her face didn’t help. Beauty he might have ignored, dismissing it as rank deception, but her face was interesting. Even her human visage looked carved from stone, not because it was hard and frozen, but because the lines were clean and sharp. She retained the high cheekbones and exotic eyes, but her skin had turned the color of rich cream and looked just as silky soft. A smattering of freckles could have been a dusting of nutmeg across the narrow bridge of her nose.

  He tried very hard to ignore her lips, which were pink and full, and formed a perfect Cupid’s bow. An appropriate analogy, he acknowledged, given how they drew tight every time she looked at him, as if ready to unleash an arrow in his direction. He ignored that, or tried to, as he finished the pints and carried t
hem over to the table.

  Maeve didn’t even acknowledge him, occupied instead with shrugging out of her jacket and draping it over the back of her chair. “You said you made that coat of yours. I don’t suppose you could whip one up for me?”

  Ash looked surprised, then mildly confused. “No.”

  “So, it isn’t like magic, then?”

  The confusion remained. “Not the way you mean. I didn’t create anything. It is part of this form.”

  “Oh. Can you do magic, though?”

  Ash shook her head. Drum lifted his glass to his lips. It kept him from reaching out and tucking a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. She wore the dark length of it in a loose braid, but long pieces of fringe kept falling in her eyes and teasing her cheeks. Of course, if he had given in to his urge, he got the feeling she would have taken his hand off at the wrist. Knowing that helped a wee bit.

  “My kind is nearly immune to magic,” the woman said, “and we cannot wield it. We leave that to the Guild.”

  “And that raises a very important point,” Drum said, staring at her. “What exactly are you?”

  “Drum!”

  He ignored his sister’s gasp of outrage and kept his gaze level.

  The woman—the creature, he reminded himself—had no trouble meeting his eyes. “I told you before. I am a Guardian.”

  “You say that as if it should mean something.”

  “It means more than you can fathom, human.” Her eyes narrowed on him. “It means that your world still exists. That you still live. I believe I would call that ‘something.’”

  Maeve rolled her eyes. “Michael, drink your Guinness. Maybe if your mouth is full of stout, you won’t be able to fill it with your foot.” She turned to Ash. “Forgive our ignorance, but as Inigo Montoya said, ‘You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.’ Guardian, in this case.”

  Drum saw the woman’s eyes spark with impatience before she wrestled it back. For some reason, she seemed to respond to Maeve. He only seemed to irritate her.

  She wrapped long fingers around her pint glass, but didn’t drink. “I must remind myself that you are not with the Guild. My mind tells me that I should have met my Warden the instant I was summoned. Something here is very wrong.”

  “Maybe if you tell us what it is, we can help.”

  Drum muffled his snort in the head of his beer. To hear his sharp-tongued little sister sounding as soft and compassionate as Mother Teresa was one for the books. If it were just the two of them having this conversation, he’d already be bleeding from a thousand tiny wounds. But with the monster, she was all sweetness and light.

  “I am a Guardian,” Ash repeated. “We were created by the founders of the Guild to battle against the Seven Demons of the Darkness. We are all that stops those abominations from joining together and destroying this world. It has been so for longer than you humans can remember, thousands of years.”

  Maeve’s eyes opened wide, and even Drum swallowed a little harder. “How many of you are there?”

  “Seven.”

  “Wow. If those demons you mentioned can really destroy the entire world, don’t you think you would rather outnumber them?”

  “We began as seven, and we will end as seven. There has never been a need for more.” She frowned. “Though I sense that this time, things are … different.”

  Different. That was one way to describe Drum’s world at the moment. Not the one he would have chosen, mind you. But then he remembered his mother’s spoon.

  “Okay,” Maeve said, dabbing at the foam that clung to the corner of her mouth. “I really want to ask you what ‘different’ means, but I think that first you had better explain this ‘Guild’ business. You’ve mentioned them more than a bit.”

  “The Guild summoned us into being. When they call upon us, we answer, and we fight until the Darkness withdraws. Then they return us to sleep. While we rest, they watch the Order, and alert us when a new threat arises.”

  Something about her words bothered Drum. No, he realized, not her words. Her tone. It was flat, even. Almost blank. She spoke with no emotion whatsoever, and that niggled at him. People didn’t discuss their purpose in life without displaying some sort of feeling about it. But then again, she wasn’t a person, was she? If he wanted proof, the fact that she still hadn’t touched her Guinness offered plenty.

  Maeve had drained half of hers, but now she pushed it away and leaned her elbows on the table, clearly fascinated by Ash’s story. “And they can do magic, you said? Like, the casting-spells kind of magic?”

  Ash’s expression softened with a glint of humor. “You have said that you can see the future, and yet you doubt the existence of magic?”

  “Of course not. I’ve just never seen it.”

  Drum didn’t think he had done anything, but Ash turned to him and raised a brow. “And you, Michael Drummond? I believe you doubt me.”

  He scowled at her. Actually, it wasn’t really at her; he just scowled. “Just ‘Drum.’ And it’s nothing to do with you. I just see a difference between having the Sight and pulling rabbits out of hats.”

  “I do not recall that I am wearing a hat.”

  Maeve poked him. “Michael, behave.”

  Ash glanced between them. “Why did she call you Michael?”

  “It is the name Mother gave him, but when he was twelve, he decided Drum sounded cooler. And then he went and named this place after himself. Thought he was very clever, I’m sure.” Maeve shook her head, grinning. “Silly git.”

  “This place?”

  Mischief glinted in his sister’s eye. “The pub is called the Skin and Bone. As in a drumskin, and a bone is what people used to use to play the bodhrán. A traditional Irish drum.” She shook her head. “Punny bastard.”

  Instead of rising to the bait, Drum drained his pint and slapped the empty glass back onto the table. It hadn’t been his idea to bring Ash back to his pub, and now Maeve was going to turn it into an opportunity to harass him? She could have done that at their mother’s house, in front of a warm fire and without the presence of what he wished had stayed a mythical creature.

  “I understand.” Said creature nodded. “It is humorous, a nickname joined to a play on words. I understand humans enjoy such things.”

  “What is it that you enjoy?” Maeve asked, pointing her chin toward Ash’s untouched drink. “Clearly, it isn’t Guinness. Do you fancy something else?”

  Drum let out a growl. “For fuck’s sake, Maeve, I let you drag her here for answers, not so you could host a bloody céilidh. She doesn’t need a damned drink.”

  Before his sister could tear into him, Ash nodded. “I do not. What I require is to know how you can lend me the aid that you promised.”

  “I promised you nothing,” Drum snapped.

  Ash leveled him with a stare. “And I expect nothing of one such as you.”

  “Such as me?” he bellowed. “And what the bloody hell do you mean by that?”

  Maeve placed a hand on his shoulder. “I guess she’s referring to your manners, Michael. You’ve hardly made Ma proud with displays like this. Why don’t you have another drink? If that’s what it takes to calm you down.”

  “I’m perfectly calm,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “No, you’re perfectly horrid. Now, settle. Down.”

  His little sister wasn’t physically strong enough to keep him in his seat, but the pressure on his shoulder at least reminded him to breathe. He did that, but it took several deep inhalations to get a firm grip on his temper. The gargoyle seemed to possess a talent for rousing it.

  Maeve watched him for moment, as if expecting him to break his glass against the edge of the table and go after Ash with the jagged shards. The idea barely occurred to him.

  Really.

  Finally satisfied, she turned back to Ash. “I do think we can help you. In fact, I think we’re meant to. I told you that I see more than one future until things are settled, but the only ones I see
that don’t go up in flames include all of us.”

  Drum slumped into his chair. And wasn’t that just a kick in the pants?

  * * *

  Ash kept a tight grip on her impatience. Instinct battered at her, telling her to hunt, to search, to fight, the way her kind was meant to. It didn’t understand strategy, and understood even less that something in this world was very wrong.

  She had told the humans the truth of her kind. She was one of seven Guardians, each one summoned from the ether whenever the Darkness threatened the world of humans. Usually, a Guardian fought until his foe was vanquished, and then his personal Warden returned him to his stone state to wait until he was needed again. Each of the seven was essentially immortal, sleeping and rising in an endless cycle until the end of time.

  That did not, however, mean that a Guardian could not be destroyed. Although immune to magic, possessing skin almost as difficult to cut as true stone, and able to heal physical wounds with amazing speed, in theory a Guardian could be killed by destroying its body. Over time, enemies had realized that the only practical way to achieve this was to attack the Guardian’s sleeping form. Break the statue into pieces, and the Guardian within ceased to exist. A new one would have to be summoned to maintain their numbers.

  That was how Ash had come to be. The Guardian she replaced had slept among the chapel’s spires for hundreds of years. When it had crashed to the ground, the old warrior had been destroyed and Ash took his place, inheriting both his duties and his knowledge. The continuity insured that there would always be seven, but there were two things wrong with Ash’s summoning: one, no one had summoned her; she had appeared without a Warden’s call, which should be impossible. And two, Ash was female. The first female. Ever.

  She should not exist.