THE GUARDSMAN: Book 2: Blood Debts – Chapters 67

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The Guardsman, Book 2: Blood Debts:

Chapter 67)

Persephone had seen a lot of strange things in the last fifteen hours.

After the obvious oddity of a Guardsman killing a Guardsman, while broadcast live to the whole planet, the evening had been full of surprises.

The hired security, taking Bryce literally, and shooting at April and Guillermo when they followed into the kitchen, was the first surprise.

No one was hurt except some pride and a door jam.

April was rattled.

The mercenary rifleman was embarrassed for his inability to aim.

Guillermo said nothing but instead shrugged off the event.

The next strange thing she saw was that once Samson was in the room, the crazy man dropped everything, down to the skin, climbed in the tub, turned on the cold water, and demanded buckets of ice of all things. As the tub turned arctic, he demanded two dinners.

Thinking he wanted to share a nice meal the beast had growled at her when she reached for one. After devouring both dinners himself, he had demanded whole milk, of all things.

With his lips blue and trembling hands, Persephone had finally convinced the big dummy to get out of the ice water.

Once Samson was dried, she guided him to the bed, pulled an extra blanket, halved it, laid it over him, and turned to get changed herself.

When she turned around again to crawl in next to him, so she could warm him up, he was already asleep.

So here she lay. Half on half off his sleeping form.

Cheek to chest, listening to the slow breathing, rhythmic heartbeat, gently gliding her left hand over skin. Persephone was very careful to avoid the huge bruise and welt that had formed on his right thigh.

Tucked into his left arm, the horrible scrapes on his chin and upper chest, and bruised neck were clearly visible in the dimmed lighting.

She whispered to herself, “The silly man sleeps like a log,” as she brushed her hand through his short hair.

Slipping her hand, under his left shoulder, she stroked his neck, and he smiled several small smiles in his sleep, which amused her greatly. She was surprised at how easily amused she was at this late hour of the morning.

For the next quarter hour, she just enjoyed laying there, watching smiles and eyes move behind their lids. Lounging uselessly was not something she was accustomed to indulging generally.

But it was nice.

Bryce and his mercenaries had specific instructions that there was to be no loud or irritating disturbances.

They had done well all night.

Persephone didn’t know she could ‘growl’ until she heard her own growl in the degrading silence of the room.

The rumble, or clomping, or commotion, or whatever it was, irritated her enough to force her to pick up her head from her comfortable rest listening to Samson’s breathing and heartbeat. As she turned her head over her opposite shoulder to look at the door, his hand stroked her hair and pulled it back from her eyes.

She looked and saw he was now awake and his dry and hoarse voice croaked, “Good morning.”

Persephone smiled her special smile and blew him a kiss. She turned full of growing disgust back to the tromping, rumbling, and offensive noise.

Even Samson began to notice the irritating racket and added his own discontented growl to her grumbling.

From the next room, Bryce’s startled, “Sir?!”

Followed immediately by the purely recognizable voice of Persephone’s father, demanding, “Where is my daughter, Guardsman!”

Persephone’s head flopped bonelessly to Samson’s chest, as suddenly she knew exactly what was causing the commotion in the hall.

She was laughing little, frustrated sobs onto Samson’s abused ribs, when her father twisted the latch and kicked open the door, for emphasis.

The light snapped on full force. “Persephone! Is this where you have been hiding!”

His near shout was a marked contrast to Persephone’s happy, “Hi, Daddy.”

The powerful man roared, “Don’t ‘hi Daddy’ me! Answer my question and stop lounging around! It is nearly mid-day and you are still wrapped in bed.”

Persephone’s voice got high as she started to pull some game, and offered, “But Daddy.” Her eyes flicked to a contrite and embarrassed-looking Vlad, who was studying his carpet for lint, or other equally imaginary yet unseemly imperfections, between Phyllip’s eight armored Guardsmen, and Bryce in his dark street clothes. “Don’t you know there is no time down here in the mists? Time is just a manufactured concept to sell us alarm clocks.”

Vlad choked a laugh to death in his throat and did his best not to draw more attention to himself.

Persephone smiled as Vlad recognized his own playful statement about time in the mists from the first time they had met, paraphrased into such an awkward situation. Vlad’s eyes shot up to meet the furious monarch’s, who turned to glare at him for the impertinence of his interruption. He was staring at his carpet again in less than a half second.

CEO Chroynos snapped, “Girl! Get your lazy ass out of bed right now!”

She felt Samson stiffen under her from a previously relaxed reclining form. “‘Girl’? ‘Lazy ass?” The princess fumed. She was focused on her father. Bryce was ignored as he applied his hand to chests, forcing his way to the door handle, as fast as he could move, with his eyes down. He knew what was coming. “So, I’m now ‘girl’ and ‘lazy ass’?!”

Bryce just grasped the doorknob and started pulling it closed behind his Lord, when Persephone exploded. “Some days ‘Phyllip’, you can be the most irritating, barbarous, jerk I have ever met!” The door slammed shut behind Phyllip. At the same time, his head snapped back to her into the empty room that now only contained the three of them, Persephone spun her legs out the right side of the bed, over Samson’s legs. “How you can be such a horse’s ass is a marvel of modern times!” She tossed the covers aside and slammed her feet to the floor making a very unsatisfying whisper in the thick carpet. She was so angry she hadn’t heard Samson’s pained grunt. “You want to behave like a horse’s ass!? Fine!” She took his stunned silence as an opening for her next volley as she stalked across the room to the bathroom where her clothes were piled. “Just fine then! I’ll treat you like the horse’s ass you are!”

She slammed the bathroom door behind her naked form and snatched her crumpled clothing from the prior evening’s interview. Grumbling to herself furiously, she pulled her shoes on and stood so she could adjust her twisted top, so it would lay more comfortably. The steady stream of profanity and irritation tumbled out of her mouth into the mirror, while both thumbs landed under her ears and scooped down the back of her neck. She pulled her hair up and out of her top allowing it to fall behind her as a particularly powerful string of invectives bounced off the mirror.

Snatching the hair clip that she had decided not to wear for the interview, off the countertop, her grumbles ceased. Flipping her hands back into her hair, Persephone rapidly wound her hair into a tight mass and slapped the clip to the back of her head to contain her cascading hair. She took an angry breath and thought of more colorful names to call her father.

When she threw the bathroom door open, she was not expecting to see the suite’s door open again.

She was not expecting to see eight armored and one clothed Guardsmen clustered around the door to her suite’s bedroom.

She was not expecting to see the suite’s outside rooms crowded by mercenaries mixed with armed Home Guard troops straining to see over each other’s shoulders.

And she was definitely not expecting to see Samson sitting up, with his back, arms, shoulders, and neck, covered in lacerations, blood blisters, and bruises.

And she certainly was not expecting to see her father leaning over his exposed right leg, while the crumpled sheets and blankets covered only his left leg and groin.

Her hand silently dropped from the doorknob as the sound of her footfalls disappeared into the thick carpet. Her next line of blistering commentary had died on her lips as silently as her footsteps did on the carpet.

Since she was still irritated but couldn’t think of anything to say now, she applied both her hands to her big, dumb, impolite father and pushed him to the foot of the bed. Phyllip outmassed her by more than two to one so, it was more a gesture and statement of her frustration, than an effective deterrent.

Persephone shouted “Gods below Samson! Why didn’t you tell me about that!” The horrible black, purple, and yellow bruise on his thigh, stretched from the top-outside all the way over the top, and down past the middle of the interior. The hilt of the broken sword was clearly visible as a torn and ragged bruise etched into flesh.

Samson snapped, “Woman! It wasn’t too bad until you sat your butt on it, just now!”

Persephone cried defensively, “I didn’t!”

Her father calmly injected, “Yes, you did Persephone. When you stormed out naked as the day you were born just now.”

Persephone fired back, “You stay out of this!”

The standing monarch flinched back a few inches in surprise at the ferocity of her words.

Samson’s irritatingly calm, but dry and hoarse voice replied, “Yes, you did Persephone.”

Before she realized it, Persephone had her left thumb and index finger seized Samson’s right ear and started gently guiding his head to different angles so she could better see the bruises and painful-looking scratches.

While leaning over to look more closely at the paired bruises and stripped skin, between his collarbones and chin, she noticed something else.

Pulling Samson forward, the bed sheets were caked by patches of dried blood, from where blood blisters had burst, and small cuts had dried around wounds and pulled away again as he sat up suddenly from the sheets. Some streamed fresh blood down his back.

Even with his accelerated Guardsmen healing Samson was a mess.

The horrid line of bruising and blood blisters caused by the handle of Alexios’ axe across his back, outlined and highlighted every rib, bone, and protrusion, like a pencil tracing through tissue paper. Every raised point had smashed and torn the skin, under the pressure. The gaps and cavities between those protrusions pooled with angry purple bruising.

Samson asked, “Persephone, could you please get my pants?”

Persephone snapped, “Your pants!? After all that, all you want is your pants!” Standing abruptly and exploding her fingers apart, releasing his ear. She turned to storm off to the bathroom, “Fine! I’ll get your pants, you big dummy!” Balling the offending article, repeatedly in her hands, when she was halfway back to the bed, she tossed them in Samson’s face. “Here’s your pants! Go get the rest yourself! You should be in a hospital or the rebuild shop! Even with your nanobots and Guardsmen body upgrades, you could have died last night! Why didn’t you tell me you were so badly hurt!”

Samson countered, “Because it’s not that ba …”

Persephone cut him off, mid-word, “‘Not that bad’? Really!” Turning to the door, “Then go dress yourself! If you’re so ‘not that bad’, I’m sure you will have no problem jumping around and picking up your own clothes!”

She shouted at the gaggle blocking the door, “Get out of my way!” She applied her hands to the chests and shoulders of those who didn’t move fast enough for her tastes, as she furiously stormed out, shouting, “I want breakfast! Find me when you are done, you big dummy!”

As the irate woman pushed her way clear of the room, she kept grumbling about ‘stupid boys who keep trying to get themselves killed’.

Phyllip sighed, shaking his head. He looked at his armored Guardsmen and nodded after his daughter.

Four of them peeled off to follow her and they were joined by a detachment of Home Guard troops.

Samson pulled the pants over his abused flesh and accepted Phyllip’s arm as an offer to help him stand.

Buttoning the shirt was irritating but he was glad he did not have to pull it over his head.

Samson was beginning to think Persephone was right. As sore as his shoulders, back and legs were, he should be getting poked and prodded in some infirmary somewhere.

Not that he would tell her that.

He didn’t bother with his socks but instead stuffed them in his left pocket. He was glad he didn’t have to bend down to pull the unlaced boots back onto his feet. Standing and shoving his right leg into the boot was hard enough.

The scared Major who commanded Phyllip Chroynos’ squad of Guardsmen grumbled, “You look like hell, Sir.”

Samson smiled at his friend, “Look who’s talking, you ugly bastard. How have you been?”

The armored Major offered his arm to steady Samson along with Phyllip, “Bored mostly, Sir. The CEO doesn’t let us have any fun like you get to have with Lady Persephone.

“Good viewing last night, by the way.

“Can I have your share of the broadcast royalties when you die of these wounds?”

Samson started to shuffle forward while his sore body screamed at him to stop. He grumbled at the same time CEO Chroynos started to reply but didn’t, “Good to see you again too, Major. And the answer is ‘no’. You can’t have my boots either when I die.”

Walking was a misery.

Limping and hobbling were his best speed.

Bryce was wearing both pistols but handed the sheathed ceramic hold-out knife back to Samson, who dropped it into his right pocket without a second thought.

Phyllip said something about the old man disappearing with Persephone and the troops.

Samson just croaked back something about ‘restaurant’ and ‘knowing where she went’.

Samson shuffled along the winding corridors and into service hallways connecting the various parts of Vladimir Lee’s empire, followed by the troop of nearly a company of soldiers and the Empire’s CEO. All following at his crippled pace.

By the time the parade of armed men entered the restaurant, Persephone was happily chatting with April and Guillermo over breakfast and the fifty soldiers who had followed her had spread out into shifts. Some were eating and some guarding before rotating as their relief finished eating.

Vlad set up a breakfast buffet in the time it had taken Samson to dress and scrape himself past enough walls to arrive.

Samson and Phyllip saw Persephone and headed toward her table. As Samson limped to her table, Persephone’s conversation ended, and she glared at him.

Her arm followed her evil eye.

When he was nearly at the table, she pushed a plate piled high with steak, scrambled eggs, biscuits, and grilled vegetables in his direction.

Phyllip sat in the chair opposite Persephone and reached for the plate, “Thank you, Persephone.”

She quickly yanked back and reclaimed the plate. Persephone replied acidly, “It’s not for you. Go get your own!”

Samson was too tired and hurt to care when he crashed into the corner of the booth, next to Persephone.

Before the embarrassment and awkward situation could spiral out of control, Vladimir Lee set one of the two plates he was carrying in front of the Hegemony CEO and slipped into the booth next to Guillermo, opposite Samson.

Still angry at her father and furious with Samson, Persephone maintained a close-lipped silence, between bites.

Guillermo and Vlad chattered amiably but quietly.

Samson didn’t say a thing as he shoveled piles of food into his mouth at a time.

Persephone noted he was in worse shape than she had feared but fortunately not critical. His nanobots and engineering had kicked his digestive system into high gear. They would claim the vital proteins and fatty acids they would require speeding his natural healing.

Had he been in really bad shape, nearing shock, but out of immediate danger, they would have shut down his body to preserve brain functions for the rebuild shop.

It was a catatonic state she had never seen any Guardsmen enter.

The Guardsmen told stories about that catatonic hell that ended quickly when she entered the room, in the past.

They talked in hushed whispers about being trapped and silently screaming, able to feel all the pain, but unable to do anything about it. From conversations over the years, though Samson had never said it explicitly she inferred that was where Samson went during his last combat deployment, before he was assigned to her.

Once he had crashed from the adrenaline high that powered his nanos, kicking him into overdrive for that fight while he was wounded. They would have closed down his body when the danger passed.

His last fight, the one that required him to spend four months to rebuild before they met.

That was why Samson had destroyed Alexios’ brain, and then severed his spine. No one could possibly rebuild him from that much damage and Alexios would stay dead.

Persephone’s brooding, angry, silence was rudely interrupted by her father. His words brutally yanked her back to reality, “So, your uncle shot himself in the head last night.”

Her eyes popped open from ‘venomous glare’ to ‘shock’. Persephone barked, “What!? Why?”

Phyllip philosophized, “Well my dear. As things unfolded last night, we were having another of our dinners.

“I believe you will recall embarrassing your mother profoundly. Something about ‘Hi mom’ ringing any bells for you?”

Vlad chuckled while Phyllip shoveled food into his mouth during the brief pause allowing Persephone’s blush to fade.

Phyllip shared, “So, we had your interview on, ruining the evening’s scheduled events. But we couldn’t have driven those bloodsuckers out of that room with cattle prods, to get them away from that interview once it started. So no harm I suppose.”

With his elbow planted on the table after a small bite and hand at the level of his chin, Phyllip pointed his fork between April and Persephone, “The two of you are quite the sensation. You two had the women swooning.

“The wives wouldn’t let the men leave. So, we all sat there like idiots anchored to the tables where our wives kept us prisoner through all the gushy-girly stuff.

“Then vile Alexios arrived. I was so busy watching the screen and wondering what the hell a Guardsman was doing calling out one of his own, I didn’t see anyone else.

“At some point, your uncle snuck out of the dinner, and by the time the fight had ended everything was in such an uproar, when we finally caught up with him, he had his bags packed and was trying to wipe his computers.

“So, when we blasted down the door, I guess that traitorous bastard figured he was trapped, so he stuck a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.” Pausing for a quick bite before continuing, “We spent all night trying to unlock his encryption protocols. That bastard had encrypted his encryptions, and installed passwords below those.

“He had an entire wing of the Internal Security Intelligence Section tracking your broadcast and that traitor locked them out from all external communications. They all thought that they were working to recover you when he was using them as his own personal hit squad command center. He was apparently taking their information reports and directing various attacks at his level unbeknownst to the section operatives.”

The color drained from Persephone’s face at the implications.

CEO Chroynos informed them, “They had no idea that the traitors were trying to kill you at the very moment they were tracking the signal. They were locked out of viewing that broadcast too.

“I always wondered how a guy as smart as your uncle could be so scatterbrained and inefficient with his work.

“I guess I know why now.

Phyllip continued with a distinct change of tone, “Oh, Persephone! Guess what? You’ll think this is hilarious.” Her father laughed in the middle of all this bad news.

She felt her stomach sink out of her, down through her seat cushion, and through the bench. “What’s that, Daddy?”

His mockery oozed sarcasm, “While all this crap was going on, at about fifteen minutes before dawn, the commander of all our military forces said something absolutely hilarious to me. Guess what it was.”

Persephone gulped at the mention of the man she was supposed to marry, “I don’t know, Daddy. Please tell me.”

Phyllip warned, “Rheas pulled me aside and told me that he needs to break your contract. He doesn’t feel there is a compatible match. He thinks you have been unfaithful to the spirit of the arrangement. And that the whole thing should be canceled per breach of contract provisions.” He growled at the daughter now cowering behind her hands, hiding her eyes, “Isn’t that funny?”

Persephone slumped, “No, Daddy. It’s not. I’m sorry.”

Leaning back, exhausted after his long day that still had not ended at almost lunchtime the next day, Phyllip sighed.

Samson kept shoveling food. His hardwired systems were in almost complete control of his functions, he could listen but would be ineffective within the byplay of the conversation.

Phyllip continued, “On the buttered side of this shit sandwich you have handed your family, Rheas did say ‘There is no way I can compete with that anyway’. So, he conceded a point of weakness with his own position.”

April asked quietly, “Sir? May I ask you a question?”

Phyllip sighed, “As a reporter April? Or as someone who is behaving like my daughter’s friend?”

April took a second too long to consider the answer. She may have been shocked by the direction of the reply, but it drew Persephone’s attention, “As Persephone’s friend, Sir.”

CEO Chroynos reminded, “Be forewarned April, I think I know the subject you are going to ask. If my answer shows up in any form of media because you make it into a big production and share it without permission, I will bankrupt the outlet you used, blackball the employees, and then hunt you down and choke the life out of you with my own two hands.”

April swallowed hard as she recalled Samson’s keen respect for this man, from the prior evening’s interview. Then the brutal display of Samson’s martial skills and his own statements that placed Phyllip in Samson’s tier as a warrior. She knew he could and would do it. “Yes, Sir, that’s crystal clear.”

Phyllip invited, “Ask then.”

April was now the meek girl, not the confident reporter, “Sir.” She was out of her depth and knew it. “Isn’t that a good thing for Persephone?”

Phyllip sighed as he rubbed his fingertips over and over his eyes, before dropping his hands, “Yes and no, April.” Phyllip’s arms fell to the table, forming a ‘V’ over the apex of his cooling plate of food. “Good for Persephone in that she can now love who she loves without fear, not that she had much fear before but … I can’t do anything about that.

“Keep in mind, Persephone can tell you all of this herself, too.

“Not good for Persephone, in that her family has just lost one-fifth of its number and another one-fifth is unaccounted for this morning.

“We can’t have any dissension in our Military Corporation.

“Politically we are vulnerable right now because of the damage done to our family. Any number of bad things can happen because of this break with Rheas.

“We now get to negotiate from the position of weakness with Rheas, because of our breaches of the matrimonial contract and at a time when our family has taken at least a twenty percent reduction in our cohesion, maybe more depending on the amount of damage done. Weakness negotiating from a position of weakness is not a good place to be, April.”

The gravity of the precarious situation began to sink in for April and all the non-family members at the table. A silence settled over them.

Samson paused between shoveling food.

Persephone noticed that Bryce had snuck in and replaced the empty first plate with a new plate full of hot food.

Samson fumbled slightly, deliberately stopping his eating. He dropped the fork, sat up a little straighter, struggling against his nanobot programming, and took a deep breath while his eyes blinked repeatedly.

The clatter of the fork drew all five sets of eyes.

Samson tried to speak and failed.

Took a long drink of juice and retried his parched voice, Samson grumbled more than spoke, “Missing? … You said a fifth missing … Who?”

Phyllip replied with a rapid and flippant disdain, “Kazimir. That jerk showed up to work this morning when all of this was going on.

“We had completely forgotten about him.” Looking at Persephone, informing her, “Your mother banished him twice from family and formal functions for almost everything we have done for the last five months, because of some particularly nasty things he said at the dinner table.”

Continuing his update, Phyllip groused, “The head of our Corporate Intelligence, the man who is supposed to be on top of this sort of thing, just wandered into his office at eight this morning. He rattled around in there for a while and walked out telling people he needed to step out for something!

“He put on his overcoat and has been missing for three hours in the middle of his father’s treasonous fireworks!

“The nerve and irresponsibility!

“Dereliction of duty, at the best.

“How the man we need most at the top of his form in this instant could stand up and walk out for a three-hour coffee break is beyond me!”

Vlad picked that moment to be a wiseass, and added, “Maybe it’s really good hot coffee.” The first thing Vlad said in the general conversation received a swift growl from the CEO of a thousand-star-spanning empire and snickers from Persephone and Samson before he started shoveling food again.

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