My Girlfriend is a Vampire Ch. 03

I placed my hands out in front of me, creating an artificial barrier between Katherine and I and said, "No, they're not! They have no idea who killed their assassins! There were no witnesses around when I hacked those creatures to death! I can think of at least a half-a-dozen beings in Chicago with the skills to do what I did!"

"It's just a matter of time," Katherine said direly, "Groups like the ordo sicariorum always seem to have a way of finding these things out."

"Wait, they do?"

"Kelsey, this place is warded. And there were no witnesses. We should be safe here."

"And what happens if you're not?" Katherine asked, "What happens if they still manage to track you down?"

_____________

I told Katherine that I had a plan, but I didn't tell her what it was. She disapproves of the entire Raith household, and she'd have a cow if she knew I was allowing Lara Raith to help me plan my next move. She doesn't even want me associating with Lara Raith. If she knew I was allowing her to come up with a plan to deal with the ordo sicariorum, she'd throw a conniption fit.

Lara told me to meet her in person at her family's home just north of town. She was unwilling to discuss her plan over the phone, so I left Kelsey at my home in Logan Square, retrieved my car and headed north to see Lara.

Lara's family home isn't anything like mine. My home in the Logan Square section of Chicago is a nice, clean, well-lit place where a small number of people could live comfortably. Lara's home is a massive estate, where two-hundred or more aristocrats could live a life of ostentatious wealth and indulgence.

Typically when I visited the Raith Estate, household servants would send their apologies and explain that Lara wasn't immediately available to see me. She'd done this to me so many times, I'd gotten to know a dozen of her servants by name.

This time, Lara made her way out onto the grounds before I was even at the main entrance of her family home. I raised an eyebrow at that. It was unlike her to be so prompt in greeting me.

"Good afternoon, inamorata," Lara greeted me and then she sauntered over, her hips rolling gracefully as she covered the distance between us.

"Good afternoon, my sexy vampire," and I looked my girlfriend up and down. Normally Lara dressed in a black minidress or an elegant evening gown, however, this afternoon, she had gone for formal. This time she was wearing a silk business suit. It looked far more expensive than the suit I was wearing, and it was professionally tailored to accentuate her slender waist and her impressive breasts.

"Did you grow taller since the last time we met?" Lara inquired as she grew closer and the look in her eyes went from self-confident and seductive to confused.

"It's a metamorphosis thing," I explained, "I've become a warrior-angel."

"I'm sorry, Hannah, you've become a what?"

"It's complicated," I said, "and I'm still working out all the details myself, but yeah, I've grown about six inches since the last time you saw me."

"And this metamorphosis," Lara asked, looking at me with intensely inquisitive eyes, "has it had any debilitating side-effects?"

I gave her question some serious consideration. Honestly, my desire to be some sort of heroic guardian of the people of Chicago might be seen by some people as a debilitating side-effect. I had never wanted to protect the people of Chicago before. It was only in the past couple of days that that desire came up, just shortly before I grew wings and became six inches taller.

"Nope," I said, "no negative side-effects. The only changes so far are positive ones."

Okay, that wasn't so much a lie, as a somewhat biased opinion.

I was getting some sort of passionate, tingly thrill from being heroic and doing battle with the forces of evil. It was more dangerous than the quiet lifestyle that I usually embraced, however, there was something of a delicious and intense emotional rush that came with it. Despite the extra danger that came with it, I decided that I liked being the Guardian of Chicago.

"Very good," Lara said, seemingly satisfied with my answer, "are you ready to hear my ideas on how to overcome your current difficulties with the ordo sicariorum?"

Lara was smart, capable and self-confident. I was loathed to admit it, but she was better at making important decisions than I was.

"That's why I'm here," I responded, "Tell me what your plan is. If I didn't value your opinion, I wouldn't have asked for your help in the first place."

Lara's tone became even more soothing than before and she said, "My family already had contacts in the ordo sicariorum, so I reached out to one of them. It turns out that the teenage female you're protecting is something of a celebrity, and the leader of their organization requested to speak to me directly. He requested that I share any information that I have with him."

"Lara, you didn't," I exclaimed, "Are you trying to get me killed?"

Lara shook her head in a way that made soft waves of long blue-black hair sway briefly across her face in a way that looked stylish and feminine.

"Hannah darling," she said softly, "I have invested a great deal of time and planning, trying to make you stronger and more resilient. Why would I make such a significant investment in you, only to kill you off now?"

I didn't have any answer to that, and I only shrugged in response.

"There was very little that I could tell him," Lara explained, "You knew far more about the situation than I did. However, it seems that he has something that you want. You have something that he wants. Therefore, I arranged for a meeting between the two of you. He has sworn an oath that while he is under my roof, no harm will come to you."

"What? He's here?"

"He is, inamorata, however, he will not harm you. He has given his word. There exists a truce for as long as he is here."

_____________

Theodore Rochau was an ordinary-looking man. My first impression of him was that he was a middle-aged Caucasian male of unimpressive height. He was approximately 5'7" and he had a serious receding hairline. His suit and tie looked to be inexpensive. He had a large bodyguard named Brähmer, who totally overshadowed him. Brähmer was about 6'7" and his shoulders are at least three feet wide. He towered over his boss, and almost made Rochau seem insignificant.

My second impression of Rochau was that he seemed to be studying me.

Rochau steepled his fingers and looked at me over the top of them. At first, the man looked bored and passive, but then I got a closer look at his eyes.

There was a look of vast intellect and probing curiosity in those eyes. My initial impression has been that Rochau was approximately forty to forty-five years of age, however those eyes told a different story. There was a probing intellect in those eyes that seemed to announce a man of great age. This was a man who had seen a great deal of history and learned a great number of practical lessons during that time. I'd known vampires who were over two-hundred years old with eyes like that.

"Ah, Miss Higgins," Rochau said, with the air of casual indifference, "I am told that you have involved yourself in Kelsey Porter's affairs."

Lara had entered the room with me. She was officially there to act as an impartial mediator. Lara was my girlfriend, so she wasn't truly impartial, but Rochau didn't need to know that.

"Kelsey Porter is under my protection," I announced, unnerved by his calm behavior, "I am the guardian of Chicago, and three predators came into my town to hunt her down and kill her. I can't predators to come into my city and hunt my people."

The first time I claimed to be the guardian of Chicago, the words sounded foreign and unexpected coming out of my mouth, however, I was getting used to them. I like the sound of them. Something about calling myself the guardian of Chicago sounded right and fitting. It felt like I was predestined to claim that title.

"Dear me," Rochau replied without any emotion etched onto his face, "I was unaware that you had any interest in protecting the people of this city."

"I do," I said defiantly, "This is my city."

"Interesting," Rochau said in an impassive tone of voice, "I've had to travel to Chicago a dozen times in the past twenty years. I've spent a considerable amount of time in your city, and yet I've never heard of you before today."

His statement caught me off guard. It was a title I had just given myself the day before. I could tell him that of course, however, it would make my claim sound a lot less impressive if I admitted I had only been Chicago's guardian for less than twenty-four hours.

"I'm not in it for the publicity," I said, trying for cryptic, rather than explaining myself.

"Indeed, you are not," Rochau agreed, "You seem to hide from it. There is no record of you before 1995. You have no school records, no military records, no prison record and before 1996, you filed no tax returns. Before Hannah Higgins arrived in Chicago, she's a ghost, she doesn't exist."

Damn this man! He had never even heard of me before today, and yet he somehow managed to research my past and discover that I had created a false identity for myself and that I had no prior experience at being a protector of the people. I suddenly felt like I was Jeff Gannon in a room full of reporters, and they all realized I was using a false name and had no journalism experience whatsoever.

I looked into Rochau's eyes again and decided that there was no point in lying. This guy wasn't fishing for information. He already had all the information he wanted. Although I was at my wit's end trying to figure out how he found out so much about me so quickly.

"Mister Rochau, perhaps you should tell Miss Higgins what you hope to gain from this meeting," Lara suggested.

I was grateful for Lara's intercession. Rochau's ability to learn so much about me so quickly had left me feeling numb and paralyzed. How did he do that anyway? Did he have an entire team of investigators working for him?

"Excellent idea," Rochau replied, suddenly smiling brightly, "I would like for Kelsey Porter to become an agent in my employ. As the young lady is currently under the protection of Miss Higgins, I am certain that she could arrange a meeting."

"Wait, what?" I asked, "You want Kelsey to be one of your assassins?"

"Nothing so nefarious as that," Rochau replied calmly, "Miss Porter has certain paranormal abilities. She has used them in the past to help the Memphis Police Department. I would like her to use those abilities to help me."

Kelsey had paranormal abilities? Kelsey had never mentioned that to me. She had spent the night in my home and never once mentioned any sort of supernatural skills or talents.

The shock must have shown on my face, as Rochau's next words were, "Ah, she never told you."

"What sort of abilities does she have?" I finally asked, when I found my voice again.

"Our young Miss Porter is an exceptional tracker. According to my sources, she doesn't need hair or blood or fingernail clippings to track them. No one has ever seen anything like it before. With such phenomenal abilities, it is only a matter of time before someone snaps her up. It is my intention to place her in my employ before anyone else does."

"So, if you wanted to hire her, why did you send those assassins after her?"

"Ah, Pallas and her sisters were never assassins," Rochau said, "They were a retrieval squad. We've used them in the past to pick up people that we wished to speak with."

"All they were supposed to do was pick Kelsey up? They seemed awfully hostile to me."

"They had very poor social skills," Rochau conceded.

"One of them stuck a sword in me," I added.

"And they were prone to fits of ill temper."

"If all you wanted was to offer Kelsey a job, why didn't you send a normal human to meet up with Kelsey? One that doesn't stick swords in people?"

"Pallas and her sisters had a talent for retrieving people. They never quit until the job was completed, and they never asked for much in the way of financial compensation. In their own way, they were quite trustworthy."

"Trustworthy?" I spat, "One of them stabbed me in the back and perforated one of my lungs!"

"An injury from which you appear to have recovered from admirably," Rochau responded with annoying calm, "and, obsessing over Pallas and her sisters is hardly productive, not when there are far more relevant topics for us to be discussing."

I was outraged at the cavalier way Rochau reacted to the news that one of his henchmen had stabbed me, but when I glanced over at Lara, her face was equally composed and she added, "This isn't a productive area of discussion."

Lara wanted to help me, while still pretending to be impartial. I took the hint and backed off the subject of the wicked bird-women who had tried to kill me.

"Quite right," I said, trying to be cooperate with Lara's intentions, "What shall we talk about then?"

"Let us talk about Kelsey Porter," Rochau suggested coolly.

"Yes," I agreed, "Let's talk about her."

"I want her to come work for me."

"I don't think that would be in her best interests."

"It would be financially beneficial. She would be well compensated for her work. And as you insist on being the girl's official protector, we would keep you informed about all her assignments, just so that you can be certain that she's not in any physical danger."

I was stunned at how smoothly this was going. A few hours earlier I was certain that I was going to have to go to war with an ancient order of assassins. Now, I was in discussions with their leader about Kelsey going to work for them.

And I was thinking it might be a good idea.

I'd have to talk it over with Kelsey of course, however, if she really did have this kickass paranormal tracking ability, somebody would end up hiring her to use it before too long. A resource that valuable wouldn't go untapped for very long.

"Listen, Rochau," I said, "I'll talk to Kelsey, but I'm not going to force her to work for you against her will."

"Of course not," Rochau said with that self-possessed smugness of his.

"I mean it," I insisted, "Kelsey is an innocent, young woman. She's not a cold, heartless mercenary. Getting her to work for an ancient order of assassins could be a hard-sell. And if she doesn't want to do it, I'm not going to force her to do it. Nobody is going to force her to do it."

I was expecting Rochau to erupt into anger or threats, but he just gave me a long, intense look, as if he were studying the lines on my face for future reference. The silence stretched on wearily and became horrifically annoying.

"Miss Raith," Rochau said when he finally broke his silence, "would you be a dear and wait outside? I would very much like to speak to Miss Higgins alone."

Lara gave me a brief look, but I just shrugged.

"I'll be fine," I said, "After all, he's sworn an oath. And Rochau isn't an oath-breaker."

My bet on Rochau was that he was about as old as Lara, and the old ones took oaths seriously. I've met plenty of ancients who had no problems with arson, murder, rape, necrophilia and even genocide, however, they always drew the line at oath-breaking. That was the one taboo they didn't want to mess with.

Brähmer was given orders to leave the room as well. I swear, that guy was about as big and bulky as a bulldozer, but he exited the room without making a sound. I didn't like the idea of somebody that huge moving so silently. It left me with the disturbing idea that he could sneak up on me when my back was turned.

When it was just the two of us in the room, the silence seemed deafening. I knew there was more to Rochau than met the eye, and his silent gaze seemed even more disturbing when it was just Rochau and I at the table.

"So, Rochau," I said, breaking the uncomfortable silence, "we're alone now. What was so sensitive that you couldn't say it in front of your bodyguard and an impartial arbiter?"

Rochau's piercing eyes gazed at me across the table and he replied, "Before I tell you, I need you to swear upon your power that you will not share this information with anyone."

"Seriously?" I exclaimed, "Not even Kelsey?"

"Not even her," Rochau replied dryly, "Information is power, and the wrong sort of information in the wrong ear can destroy armies. I will not share, unless I can be certain that you can be trusted to be discrete."

I hated this bit. In some ways, oaths bound gods even more than they bound mortals. Gods and not so much beings of flesh and blood than they are beings of magic and belief. Once a god gives their word, the same forces that give us form and shape and power, also forces us to abide by our word. It's one of the most frustrating things about godhood.

"I swear upon my power," I said grudgingly, "I will not share this information with anyone, not unless I get your approval beforehand."

Rochau considered my words for a few seconds and then replied, "Very well. That seems acceptable."

"I am not the heartless predator that you seem to believe me to be," Rochau said, "Much of what my organization does, we do as part of a much larger plan that you would find appealing. Since I have taken control of the order, we have consistently taken contracts against the more dangerous and disruptive members of society, warlocks, necromancers, vampires and other insidious evils. I think that most of the work that we do would prove to be quite satisfying to your personal sense of right and wrong."

"Seriously?" I said, "That's your big secret? For that, you had to send Lara and the big guy out of the room?"

"Apparently, you do not appreciate the gravity of what I have just told you," Rochau said patiently, "I have a certain reputation to uphold. I have assassins and mercenaries who believe me to be ruthless and cold-hearted. If it were to be known that I have certain altruistic motives, they would think me weak, and would challenge me for leadership."

I took a few seconds to think it over and realized that he was probably right. Quite often power and stability were more about perception than it was about guns or brute force. If people perceived a nation as being weak, the risks of them being invaded went way up. If people perceived a nation as being overwhelmingly-powerful, it would scare away potential predators, and they'd never have to worry about defending their borders.

"Okay, that makes sense," I admitted, "still, a master-assassin with altruistic motives? That sounds far-fetched."

"I'm sure that it does, however, it is the truth."

"And, of course, you just expect me to take your word for that."

"You want some assurance of my sincerity?"

"Very much so."

Rochau paused, seemed to consider his words carefully and then responded, "A few years back, there was a serial killer in Chicago. The media had taken to calling him the Lincoln Park Predator. Do you recall?"

"Of course," I responded, "It was a big deal. He mostly targeted kids. Parents all over Chicago were scared shitless that one of their kids could be his next victim."

Rochau nodded in agreement and continued.

"My people were hired very early on to find and dispatch this Lincoln Park Predator. My people had no difficulty dispatching him. Finding him was the only difficult part. If we had Kelsey working for us, we could have stopped him before he murdered his last six victims."

"Now, hold on," I snapped defensively, "Even if- "

But Rochau cut me off and continued, "It turns out that the Lincoln Park Predator was a Panikmachen. Are you familiar with these creatures?"