(6) Two vampires, a ghoul and a shifter.

"Wake up, we're here," Piers said, shaking Linden's shoulder.

"Here where?" Linden mumbled. The last thing he remembered was staggering, only vaguely awake, from the plane to the waiting limousine.

"Our prison for the foreseeable future," Piers replied, looking innocently at Roderick as he said that.

"If you really want a prison I'm quite certain I can arrange one for you," Roderick muttered. "Perhaps the one under the ruins, if it's survived." He smiled nostalgically. "Now that was one of the better dungeons I've seen in my time if I do say so myself."

"He's kidding, isn't he?" Linden whispered to Piers.

"Knowing him, probably not."

Just then, the chauffeur opened the door, standing at attention while his passengers got out.

"See that our bags are brought in, Malcolm," Roderick ordered before striding up the steps to the main entrance of the manor house. The door opened before he got to it, revealing a butler in full livery.

The man bowed. "Welcome home, Master."

"Thank you, Seward," Roderick replied with a slight nod of his head. Beyond the butler, he could see the rest of his staff lined up at attention. He greeted each of them individually, giving the housekeeper, Mrs. Pope, a hug before introducing her Linden who had never been there before. "He's a good boy," he told her with a chuckle, "He just needs a bit of a firm hand."

Mrs. Pope looked him over with a stern, appraising eye. "I'll see to it that he obeys the rules, Sir." Then she smiled widely at the look of dismay on Linden's face and hugged him. "I was just joshing."

"Whew," Linden said in relief.

"She leaves the disciplining up to me," the tall, burly man standing beside her said.

"Now, Mather, behave. Linden, this is Mr. Pope. He's the stableman and gamekeeper."

As the introductions continued, Linden realized that they were all human and, as far as he could tell at least, none were ghouls. He wondered if they even knew that Roderick and Piers were vampires.

That question was answered immediately after Roderick had dismissed the servants. A young man approached Piers, asking, "Do you need to feed?" The look in his eyes said that he really hoped Piers would say 'Yes'.

"No, I'm fine thank you, Dixon," Piers replied. "Perhaps tomorrow evening." As young man nodded and walked away, Piers shook his head. "He's just a bit—needy, poor boy."   

Linden bit back the comment he wanted to make, that the 'poor boy' wasn't the only one, glancing at Roderick. 'We're all 'poor' boys in that respect,' he thought, getting a nod of agreement from Roderick.

(5) Two vampires, a ghoul and a shifter.

"Rise and shine," Linden said, shaking Piers' shoulder. When the vampire hissed and then rolled over, burying his head under the pillow, Linden stripped the covers off him none too gently. "Get your sorry ass out of bed."

Piers lifted the pillow enough to peer at his ghoul. "What's the rush?" Then he remembered. "Okay, got it. Off to the wilds of nowhere." With a groan, he sat up, looking at Linden. "And you need blood."

Linden nodded, sitting down beside him. "Please."

After biting into his wrist, Piers offered it to Linden, allowing him to drink enough to sate his need before pulling it away. "Feel better now?"

"Much," Linden replied with a smile. "Are you going to hunt before we leave?"

"Probably not. I doubt Rod will give me time to, so I'll use one of the servants. Maybe that cute little gardener."

Linden snorted. "If I were you I'd do it with the butler. Less temptation to get distracted. Either way though you'd better get moving. Time and Roderick wait for no man."

An hour later, his hunger if not his lust sated, Piers strolled downstairs to find Roderick standing in the front hall, tapping his foot impatiently.

"I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to drag you out of bed," Roderick growled.

"Or into yours?" Piers replied wistfully before he could stop himself.

"Don't," Roderick rebuked him, though gently. "Are you ready to go?"

"As much as I can be."

"Good. Now all we need is Linden. What is taking that boy so long?"

"He's probably—"

"Eating," Linden announced, dashing into view, a thick sandwich in one hand, a bottle of juice in the other. "I needed food before facing the plane ride."

"Which you'll sleep through anyway," Piers said, "leaving me having to listen to another of Rod's stories of his misspent youth in Sumer."

"No, tonight I thought I'd regale you with ones about—" Roderick tapped his lip thoughtfully, "The trials and tribulations of an itinerant warrior during the days of the Crusades. Those knights were damned prudish. So let's get moving."

(4) Two vampires, a ghoul and a shifter.

"Linden!" Roderick roared, standing at the bottom of the stairs.

Racing into view, his curly hair bouncing, a grin on his face, Linden said, "You screamed, master,"

"Does nothing faze you?" Roderick shook his head, not certain whether to be angry or amused by Piers' young ghoul.

"After thirty-four years with Piers? No, not a hell of a lot does. So what did you need? It must be important."

Roderick thumbed towards the library. Once inside with the doors closed, he sat in one of the over-stuffed chairs, crossing his leg over his knee, smiling when Linden mimicked him. "Alright, straight to the point. You are to make certain Piers does not leave the estate after I've taken you there and have gone again. It's well guarded and secured but I know my Child."

Linden nodded. "Easier said than done. It's not like I can whup his ass."

"I'm sure you'll figure something out. The second thing I need is for you to do some shopping in the morning." Roderick handed him a list. "Nothing difficult there, as you can see."

Linden scanned it and laughed. "Where did you come up with these names? YouTube?"

"Well—yeah. Not good? I'm really not into the kind of music you two are."

"Next time we go clubbing I'm dragging you along. You'd fit right in." Linden looked him over and nodded. "Anyone would take you for twenty-five at most."

Roderick's eyebrows shot up. "Since that's how old I am, they'd better."

"I know," Linden replied with a laugh. He waved the list. "How bout I pick and choose?"

"Please be my guest. Just don't get carried away." He handed Linden his credit card.

"Oh boy." Linden grinned like a kid in a candy shop. "What was the limit on this again?"

"Get out of here before I turn you over my knee."

Jumping up, Linden wriggled his ass. "Oh would you Daddy, please."

"Out!" Roderick roared, but his laughter belied the angry tone.

(3) Two vampires, a ghoul and a shifter.

"No, no way, no how. I won't."

"Pierson," Roderick said sternly. "You will. I need you to be there."

"Find someone else. The estate is bloody boring. There's nothing to do there but…but read and ride and, and nothing. Making me go there is inhuman."

Roderick snorted. "In case you haven't, noticed in the last hundred plus years you haven't been human."

"You damned well know what I meant. Come on, Rod, have a heart. I'm a city boy. You found me in the slums of New York, and yeah, before you start telling me how lucky I am that you did, I know that, but the city life is in my blood. You want someone at the estate, send Linden."

"Oh he's going, too. In the first place, he can't survive without you and you know it. Secondly, my young friend, you need a keeper and a companion and he'll be both."

"What about you? Aren't you coming, too?"

Roderick shook his head. "I'll visit as much as I can, Piers, but my duties give me little leeway to stay in one place for very long right now."

"What if I stake the King? Then you'll have all the time in the world," Piers grumbled, pouting.

Chuckling in amusement, Roderick gave him a hug. "Spoiled brat, that's what you are."

Piers leaned into the hug, not wanting Roderick to release him. If he had his way, he would spend every moment of every day with his Sire; not because Roderick was his Sire but in spite of it. Piers knew the rules, the edict passed down by the supreme King of the Vampires to all of the regional kings, and from them down to all of their subjects. 'No Sire is to have a relationship with any of their Children other than that of a parent to a child.'

The reasoning for the edict was selfish and logical. The supreme King, long before he had become that, had fallen in love with one of his Children. The female had betrayed him in the worst way possible, with a human male, revealing to the male precisely where he could find her Sire. as well as many other of the vampires that he'd sired. While the King escaped assassination, he never forgot. He hunted down his Child and her human lover and destroyed them both, slowly, terribly. Then, when he finally became a territorial king, and then the King supreme, he passed the edict so that no others would have to face the depth of betrayal that he had.

Looking up at Roderick now, Piers grinned. "If I'm spoiled you have only yourself to blame you know. I was pure, innocent and unspoiled when we met."

Roderick snorted out a laugh. "You were none of those and we both know it. If I remember correctly, and I do, you were in the process of robbing the man who had paid you to let him fuck you. You're lucky the constables didn't find you before I did. You would have been punished harshly if they had."

"Okay, so I wasn't quite that innocent but for damn sure no one ever spoiled me rotten the way you have. So it's all on your head." He ducked away when Roderick took a swipe at his ass.

"Go start packing, we leave as soon as it turns dark tomorrow evening."

Piers opened his mouth to protest again before thinking better of it. It would do no good, and if he seemed to accede to his Sire's wish now, perhaps the strictures on his 'confinement' to the sixteen thousand acre estate would be minimal once they arrived.

Guardian Angels – Ambivalent - 5

A few minutes later Vic said, "Keefe Investigations doesn't exist."

"But you said the car was registered to them."

"All he would have needed was proper identification and papers saying he owned the car. Those are easily gotten if you know the right people."

"Meaning they'd be forgeries."

"Got it in one. So I'd be willing to bet the address he gave is as bogus as everything else." Vic tapped a couple of keys on the keyboard. "Yep. Unless he's set up in a vacant lot in the middle of the warehouse district, it's definitely bogus."

"Damnú air!" Paddy muttered.

Vic chuckled. "Can I presume that means damn it in… whatever?"

"Gaelic," Paddy replied, "and it does. So I'm stuck in limbo unless Mr. Keefe shows up at the shelter again."

"Looks like. Tell you what, let me do some checking around. Describe him to me."

"Average build, average height, probably mid-forties, dark hair, thin lips, blue eyes."

"That helps...not. Any scars, tattoos, other identifying marks?"

"Not that I noticed." Paddy smiled slightly. "No wasp tat on his neck, unfortunately."

Vic snorted. "I take it you read that book?"

"The first and the second. I haven't gotten around to 'Hornet's Nest' yet."

"Who has?" Vic asked, laughing. "Okay, back to Mr. Keefe. How was he dressed?"

"Slacks, a blue shirt. He looked businesslike but not formal. He had a messenger bag."

"Still no help. The car?"

"Green sedan, whitewalls. Wait…" Paddy closed his eyes. "Okay, I only saw one side of it, but there was only one whitewall. The other tire was just black."

"Now that does help. Make and model?"

Paddy shrugged. "Doesn't it say in the information for the license plates?"

"If he told the truth, it's a Chevy Malibu, two years old."

"The big if," Paddy grumbled.

"Yeah. So what we have is a man who claims to be a licensed investigator for a company that doesn't exist. Paddy, you'd better hope he shows up at the shelter again or we might never find him."

Paddy blew out a long breath. "If he does, it'll be because he's figured out Mike is who he's looking for."

"Which I suspect wouldn't be a good thing, since it's obvious Mike's father couldn't have hired him. We have to come up with a reason why someone else wants to locate Mike."

"And that means I get to make friends with him somehow."

"You can't pick his brain?"

"For what? Unless he's come to the same conclusions we have he's not going to be thinking along those lines. Even if he has, it could take a lot of careful questioning to come up with someone in his past that has a reason to want him found. I can't do that mentally."

"So, make friends with him like you said. And…" Vic grinned, "Don't pop in on him the way you and Dom did with us. You'd probably scare him to death."

"Point made. Okay, thanks for your help. I better get back there and figure out a legit way to make his acquaintance."

"Any time. If you need anything else call or drop in."

"Believe me, I will." Paddy grinned. "I like learning how to be a PI."

Vic chuckled. "Like you learned a lot today."

"I found out almost any information is available if you know where to look. And I know the sites you went to, and how you accessed them. That's a start."

"Reading my mind? I though that wasn't allowed."

Paddy just shrugged. "Needs must when the devil drives."

"Says the angel," Vic replied with a bit a amusement just as Paddy vanished from his office.