Custos Bellator

            What am I you asked?  So you noticed that I am different.  You’re the first in a long time.  I am a Guardian.

            No, not exactly a bodyguard.  Guardians are a rare and ancient people.  We serve our masters in the way they wish.  Guardians have specialties of sorts, but we serve in any way we are needed. 

            Oh, there are many specialties.  Some are great lovers.  Others are expert craftsmen.  Me?  I am a warrior. 

            You look shocked.  Is it because I am a woman? 

            Yes, I suppose it is my build.  But I am stronger than I appear and I’m very skilled.  I have fought in many of the great wars alongside my masters.  From the Persian Wars to the World Wars.  I don’t care much for these modern wars though.  I can shoot a gun as well as the best sharpshooter but it’s not the same as the old days. 

            You wouldn’t have heard of most of the people I served.  I only served one king, and his name has all but been lost to history.  All the others were great people but not great enough to warrant being written about. 

            No.  No, I have no master now.  Otherwise, I would be at their side instead of here in this bar.  No, I last served over twenty one years ago.  My last master was a good man, but he had ideas about freedom for me.  He died without leaving me to another.  But this is not freedom for a Guardian; it is hell.  We must serve or we die, and I am dying. 

            I’m sorry.  I am talking so much.  More so than I think I ever have, but it has been so long you see.  So long since I have been recognized.  Guardians weren’t well known in the best of times, but we seem to be forgotten.  I often wonder if other Guardians still exist.  If so, how do they fare?  Do they have masters or are they lifeless wanderers like me?

            Inherited?  Yes, one can inherit a Guardian.  But my last master had no family.  And as I said, he was an idealist.  I have been inherited, sold, won in gambling.  There are a multitude of ways to get a Guardian.  It matters little to us.  We serve.  We are devoted. 

            Yes.  I’ve had a master I disliked.  I pay for him now.  I believe that is why I have no master.  I left him by choice.  It is a cardinal sin of Guardians.  The man, he treated me terribly.  He used me like a slave, beat me, starved me.  All of that was fine but he didn’t respect the gift that I was.  That I couldn’t forgive.  I was a prisoner of war at the time, my master had died in the war, and somehow, as a general, the new man acquired me.  He knew what I was but didn’t see me as something to be valued.  He simply hated me for having fought for the other side.  He couldn’t see that I was his Guardian and would have done anything for him.

            How I left?  It is shameful to say.  There was another man.  He was one of the general’s lieutenants.  I caught his eye.  Not for being a Guardian but he found me attractive.  He knew how the general treated me and thought the general would give me up willingly.  The general wouldn’t, of course, knowing that I at the very least would someday fetch a pretty penny should he be inclined to sell me.  I thought the lieutenant had given up when the general threw him out, but he hadn’t.  He waited until I was alone fetching water from a stream.  He begged me to run away with him.  I refused, of course.  But later that day, the general was drunk, and he beat me viciously.  I weakened in that moment.  I snuck away when the general passed out and found the lieutenant.  I told him I would leave, and we made arrangements.  I left my master, and I’ve been sorry ever since.  It is the guilt, you see.  We are not meant to do such things. 

            The lieutenant?  He was a good man, but he wanted a wife.  He didn’t know what I was and had difficulty understanding when I explained.  I couldn’t be a wife or mother.  He died a year later of disease. 

            The lieutenant I mourned for as I didn’t do right by him either.  I served him but I couldn’t be what he wanted so he was unhappy.  Perhaps it is better than he died so quickly. 

I felt sorry for my last master as well for I couldn’t serve him well as he was so uncomfortable.  He inherited me from his mother.  Oh, yes, I have served women as well as men.  Just mostly men because, well, they own the property.  But occasionally I was a gift to a female.  Women were never the best use of my skills, but I served them as well as they needed.

            You’re leaving?  Oh.  Yes, it was nice talking to you, too.

            I downed my eighth drink as the man left the bar.  It didn’t matter how much I drank.  I couldn’t get drunk.  At worse, it had made me talkative.  Perhaps too talkative.

            I wrapped my cloak around me and pulled the hood over my head.  I followed the man out of the bar at a distance.  It was dark out now and lightly foggy but I could see him well.  I knew I probably shouldn’t track him, but he saw me, maybe not as a Guardian but as something different.     

            My heart beat in my chest.  It had been a long time since I felt it I almost didn’t recognize it.  I was beginning to feel alive again, and I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.         

            Mentally I willed the man to turn around and decide to come back and find me.  Bending people to my will was beyond my power but still I kept thinking it. 

            When the man turned a corner, I ran to catch up.  I risked a glance around the corner and saw him standing under a street lamp lighting a cigarette.  I ducked back and hoped he wasn’t heading for a car.  I could find him but it might take days to do so.  I didn’t have days anymore. 

            Another peek told me he was walking again.  He said he was headed to work.  I wondered what his work was.  This late would be a third shift somewhere.  There were no factories in the area.  No hospitals either.  He was walking towards the residential area.  Up the hill to the large houses. 

            I continued to follow him sticking to the shadows, stopping as he stopped.  He paused in front of this house and that.  Some had lights on; he walked passed those.  Others were dark and he would hesitate.  He seemed to be admiring the large houses with the lavish landscaping.  I admired them as well as the bushes hid me easily. 

            He stopped in front of another house and lit another cigarette.  He stood staring at the house for a few moments then looked around.  I pushed myself deeper behind a tree so he wouldn’t see me. 

            He took a last puff and then dropped the cigarette.  He took one last look around and then headed to the back of the house.  I followed discretely thinking it was odd he went to the dark rear of the house to let himself in.  Still, he seemed careful as he looked around again while opening the door with difficulty. 

            Now I felt satisfied.  This was a man that needed a Guardian.  I could show him how to take care of himself.  I could tell him to leave lights on and how to prevent break-ins.  I could show him home so he didn’t have to worry about muggers and other attackers.  I could serve him well.

            Once he was inside, I sat near the back step assuming that he had returned home to ready himself for his work.  I would follow him there ensuring his safety.  I didn’t worry about him leaving by the front door for I would hear it easily. 

            I sat there knowing that even if he left in a car to work that I at least knew where he lived.  Somehow, I would entice him to claim me.  He would be an interesting master.  He wasn’t a warrior like me but he had some warrior-like tendencies.  He was careful enough to be aware of his surroundings. He stepped silently as I couldn’t hear him move about the house.  With some fine tuning he could almost be a fighter, or at least battle ready.  For though he may not ever see combat, living in a city such as this, you had to be cautious.

            I had sat there for some time, mulling over my potential new master when I heard a muffled male scream.  I stood quickly and flew silently into the house.  I stopped and listened looking for the right direction to go.  I hear another noise, and locating it, I crept up the stairs.  I followed the noises to the room at the end of the hall.  Sticking to the shadows, I looked in and saw a strange man tied up and gagged on the floor.  The man from the bar kicked him brutally and demanded, “Tell me where the money is!”

            I slunk into the room and the strange man spotted my entrance.  His eyes wild, he screamed through the gag, “Help me!”

            I nodded.  I slipped up behind the man from the bar.  I grabbed him, forced his head forward, and slit his throat turning his body with mine so as to spray the blood away from the man on the floor.

            I let the bar man drop to the floor and then knelt in front of the strange man.  I removed the gag from his mouth and asked, “Would you like me to call the police, master?”