Page 50 of Guardians of the Pack

‘You’ll find her, won’t you?’

‘Yes, I’ll do my darndest,’ I promised, like the fool that I was.

We rang off and I ran into my office to find Greg. Luckily, he was sitting at the security console, making notes. He had a sketch of the roof on his desk and the blueprints were spread out. ‘There’s been another kidnapping!’ I blurted as I shut the door behind me. ‘Joyce Evergreen’s daughter has been taken. Wren, the four year old.’

‘Shit,’ he swore. ‘We’re out of our depth.’

‘No kidding. But there’s a lead this time. She was taken by a griffin.’

‘Shit,’ he said finally. ‘There are barely two hundred griffins in the world, and only a handful in the UK at the moment.’ He paused meaningfully. ‘One of them is Bastion.’

‘You can’t suspect Bastion,’ I said firmly.

‘He’s a griffin, he’s in the area, and he said he had things to do.’

‘He’s your friend, you’ve known him for years. You used to call him Sam.’

‘That was back when I didn’t know he was a griffin,’ Greg said grimly.

‘Why is everyone in this realm so fixated on what species a person is? He’s your friend, and you’ve trusted him for years. He’s the same person he always was.’

‘That was before I knew that he was Bastion, a griffin with a black reputation for being the deadliest assassin in the last hundred years. When I thought he was Sam, he was just another brethren member. I knew he was tough and dangerous, but it’s something else being an assassin. He kills people not just because they’ve threatened someone or something he loves but for cold hard cash. That changes things. His moral compass doesn’t match mine.’

‘Your opinions may vary, but that’s entirely different to suspecting him of kidnapping small children.’

Greg was silent for a moment before he blew out a long breath. ‘I don’t suspect him – not in my heart – but he has to be looked at, and looked at hard. We can’t rule him out as a suspect just because we like him.’

‘I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what friendship does. If you like and trust someone and you become friends, that means that you continue to like and trust them. And that means that if they tell you they didn’t kidnap any children, you believe them.’

‘What do you propose? Call up Bastion and ask him if he kidnapped the children?’

‘Something like that. Do you have any better ideas? Because, frankly, Bastion could wipe the floor with us. If we accuse him of kidnapping children it’s not going to end well for either of us.’

Greg said nothing to that, presumably because he agreed but didn’t want to admit it out loud.

I dialled Bastion’s number. He answered as usual with complete silence. ‘Bastion? It’s Lucy. I need you. Can you come to the mansion? As soon as you can.’

‘I’m on my way.’

No questions or queries; I needed him, so he was heading out to me. How could Greg doubt his intentions? I gave him a pointed look.

‘I’ll go and grab us an early lunch,’ he suggested. He returned a few minutes later with a tray of sandwiches, some crisps and coffee. Mine was milky with plenty of sugar. I loved that he knew my drinks order without asking.

We wolfed down our lunch. As we were finishing up, there was a knock at the door and Noah popped his head in. ‘Bastion is here to see you.’

‘Thanks. Show him in please.’

The griffin strode through the door, his dark eyes alert. The remnants of sandwiches and crisps were spread across the table; nothing in the room indicated the emergency I had supposedly called him out for. Being a taciturn man, all he did was raise an eyebrow.

‘Stop being so chatty, Bastion,’ I joked. His expression did not waver and I sobered instantly. ‘There’s been another kidnapping – a dryad child, four years old. Joyce Evergreen’s daughter, Wren. You may remember Joyce. Her husband was killed by a griffin.’

‘Yes, I recall. When was the child taken?’

‘Early this morning while she was playing at the park. She was carried off from the top of the climbing frame.’

‘By what?’ He asked the question, but his eyes were resigned.

I guessed very few creatures could actually carry off a child because even in the Other realm, wings are relatively unusual. As far as I knew at the time, there were gargoyles, griffins and dragons. Gargoyles’ wings were too weak to carry another person – at least, I assumed that they were since they seemed to struggle just to lift up the gargoyles themselves. Reynard had utilised some kind of air magic to help him lift off. A dragon was always a possibility, but in that situation we’d be calling Emory not Bastion.

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