Justin peered cautiously around the corner, eyes watching warily for any signs of movement. There was twenty feet between him and the door – such a short distance, and yet it felt like miles. Gingerly he crept out from behind the wall, wincing every time the floorboards creaked. In the silence the small noises rang like gunshots. Slowly, as stealthily as he could, he closed the gap between himself and freedom.

He was not eight feet from his goal when a blade appeared at his throat.

“I’m tired, I’m bleeding, and I’m pissed off. Don’t even think about it.”

Within an instant, Zachariah had arrived. “Overkill, Lucas.”

“Ahh!” Justin grunted aloud. “Why will you people not leave me alone?”

“Happily, so long as it’s in these four walls. And don’t think Carmel and Zac aren’t bored of catching you every time you try this. You’re surrounded by teleporting super speed immortals, you know.” Lucas slipped the blade back in its scabbard and as if by magic it vanished, leaving him to start stripping off his armour. “You’re never going to get out that door until we let you.”

Justin didn’t reply. He was too busy staring at the number of scratches and cuts Lucas now bore. A nasty scrape grazed one cheek, and his eye was swelled half shut. He also noticed the same leather crested wrist guards Charmian had been wearing – an axe and a bat set against a maroon background. It struck him as an odd symbol for people who were supposed to be the good guys.

“What happened to you?” He asked.

“Same thing that happened to you and Charmian. Only I took more damage than she did.” He shrugged, but instantly regretted it and grimaced. He’d disturbed one of his many wounds and it stung.

“Really?” Zac’s brow furrowed, looking perturbed. “That’s alarming.”

“Why?” Lucas’s head immediately jerked up from where he’d been wrestling with his straps. Something in Zac’s tone told him that this was more than simple surprise.

“Carmel is currently upstairs worshipping the porcelain god after cleansing a serial.”

“Serial killer?” Justin exclaimed in horror.

“Rapist,” Zac said casually, as if that was any better. “Worse, he was already a serial rapist before he got his demon on.”

“What?” Lucas cried in disbelief. “That’s absurd.”

“Why?” Justin asked. “Way you guys tell it that should be an all you can eat deal for these things.”

“I see your logic but that’s not how it works,” Lucas responded. He looked greener than he had when he walked in, even though his cuts were fading before Justin’s very eyes. “Demons feed off the corruption process. When they invade somebody who’s already that corrupted they don’t get much food out of it, so there’s no point. All it does is aggravate the bastard they’ve infected and force a psychotic break.”

“Yep. So we have demons taking people over for fun instead of food now. Isn’t that something?” Zac chirped with false gaiety before turning to Justin. “So if you wouldn’t mind quitting these doomed escape attempts, we’d appreciate it. We have better things to do.”

“Damn it.” With a wave of his hand, Lucas sent the rest of his armour into the ether along with his sword. “Has Char stopped the tantrums long enough to help?”

“Last I checked, she’s in the library with Nathaniel. Won’t talk to anybody else.”

“Oh well. It’s an improvement from destroying all my shit,” he sighed.

Without really being conscious of what he was doing, Justin turned around and headed in the direction of the library. He told himself he just wanted to get away from Lucas and Zac and their disturbing conversation; the truth was that he was hoping to find Charmian, although he would have denied it if anybody had asked. Although when she’d started having her little fit he’d been happy to avoid her and had been doing so ever since, the more time he spent around these people the more convinced he was that there was something he didn’t know – something to do with Charmian that they were all dancing around. It was amazing how every time he started questioning them too much on the topic they all disappeared or changed the subject.

She was their leader; that much he’d worked out. He’d also deduced that the violent temper she’d been in was uncharacteristic – they all seemed at a loss as to how to deal with her, and as if they were scrambling for any kind of order without her. There was a hierarchy; that much was obvious. Lucas was clearly in charge in Charmian’s absence, but Zac also seemed willing to take orders from Carmel. A few other faces had come in and out but none stayed as the others did and none displayed the same wristbands as the four, even Father Nate.

He hovered uncertainly outside the library door until he heard a “come in.” Gingerly he pushed it open, revealing Nate crouched over a desk and frantically scribbling.

“If you were looking for Charmian, she’s not here.”

“Uhh, no, not really. Not sure what I’m looking for.”

Nate smiled wryly without looking up. “I’ve met few humans who are, especially being a priest. How are you keeping?”

“Apart from being a hostage I’m fine.”

Nate put his pen down and swung around in his chair to face Justin. Gesturing at the seat next to him, he smiled kindly. “I know they can seem like hard asses but I promise you, every one of them is prepared to defend you to the bitter end.”

“Heh.” Justin eased himself into the chair, idly wondering if Charmian had been in it earlier. Zac had said she’d been in here. “So what you working on?”

“Well, now that Charmian’s feeling a little… better,” he chose his words carefully, “she’s asked me to try and look a little further into the odd demon behaviour and what it has to do with you.”

“Why are you all so certain this is about me? I mean, I know I’m famous but I doubt Satan or whoever cares.”

Nate tapped his fingers together thoughtfully, a slight frown on his face. “It’s hard to know how much to tell you. You’re quite overwhelmed as it is and as annoyed as you are about it, some of it really ought to come from the lady herself.”

“I can handle it.”

“We’ll see,” he sighed. “Very well. We’ve already told you that you’ve had past lives, yes? And that you knew Charmian in them?”

“Yeah.”

“Well. Charmian, as we’ve told you, is an avenger, and Lucas, Carmel and Zachariah are her lieutenants. You may have seen their wrist guards?”

“Yeah. Kind of ugly.”

He chuckled. “The mark of an elite group. There are thousands of avengers across the globe and precisely four of them wear the crest. They’re heraldic symbols, medieval. Do you know what they mean?” Justin shook his head, so Nate continued. “The axe symbolises the execution of military duty, the bat an awareness of the powers of darkness. And the maroon background means patience in battle, though victory in the end. It may seem like an odd combination but when you know the significance I think it fitting.”

Justin frowned. “I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”

“As with any sermon, we have a way to go before the truth of the lesson emerges. Now, what you need to understand is that we immortals have a single purpose in our lives. When we are raised, it is to a specific calling and we are bound to that calling for eternity – no swapping, no crossover, no occasionally picking up the slack for another group, one job and we stick to it. And yet, for reasons unknown to us, Charmian was many centuries ago given a second task.”

“What?”

“Protecting you, as your guardian, throughout your lives.” When Justin looked flummoxed, he hurried to explain. “One such calling is as a guardian, immortals who are assigned to protect specific individuals from demons. You don’t get a guardian in the first place without being significant in the bigger picture, but to get an avenger… it’s unprecedented and can only mean you have a crucial role to play. We’ve always known there was something different about you because of that, but in all these years we’ve never worked out what. In all your lives we have tried to protect you, and in all of them so far we have failed.”

Justin’s eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me that you got me killed a bunch of times before? That’s not filling me with confidence here.”

Nate tried to let out a laugh, but it came out as more of a sad huff of air. “Us either. The reason we keep you here, Justin, is not because we want to imprison you. It’s because we know you’ve been a target in all your previous lives and because this time, there’s a lot of very strange demon activity around you. Whatever they want you for, we think now is the time in which they’re really going to go for it. Hence why we’re keeping in a place we know they cannot enter.”

“But you can’t keep me locked up forever. People tend to notice a lot faster when a celebrity goes missing.”

“I know, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he sighed. Then, suddenly, he changed the subject. “You know what surprises me, Justin?”

“What?”

“Most people on learning they’ve had past lives want to know everything about them. Except you, you’ve yet to even ask.”

“What’s to know? I lived, I died. I live again.”

“Hmm.” A small smile started playing at his lips. “I’m sure curiosity will get you soon enough. Anyway, what I need you to understand is that although I know you’re angry with Charmian, everything she’s done has been in an attempt to protect you. She takes your safety very personally.”

“Yeah, she seems like a workaholic.” Justin snorted loudly. “She’s the big cheese with these guys, right?”

“Yes and no. She answers to another immortal, one higher than any of us, but among the avengers she is by far the most accomplished. I’ve always thought it was the maternal instinct in her.”

“Maternal?” Justin laughed incredulously. “The ass kicking she gave that guy didn’t seem very milk and cookies to me.”

“A mother’s first instinct is to protect,” Nate replied simply. “And I always thought she’d have made a rather good mother. An avenger’s job is horrific and many of the others have to completely emotionally shut down in order to it, but she never has. As you can tell by the fit of rage she had earlier she’s plenty in touch with her emotions.” He paused, as if he was questioning the wisdom of what he was about to say, but then continued.  “She really is rather upset that you had to be exposed to all of this, you know. She’s only angry because she didn’t want you to see her killing anyone; she hates an audience for these things, makes the guilt worse and in any event she’d never want you to think badly of her.”

“What… you mean all of that… was about me?” Justin asked, astounded. He had assumed that she was so angry because of the strange occurrences messing up her well oiled machine and that things hadn’t been going her way. It had never even crossed his mind that she might be upset on his account.

“Who else?” Nate picked up his pen and started writing again, eyes flicking between the pad and the book he was making notes from. “She cares for you greatly, you know. She’s spent centuries giving everything she has in trying to save you, and not just while you’re alive either.”

“Because it’s her job, you said.”

“And do you always give everything you have to your job, Justin? Or do you find some things motivate you more than others?”

He was about to retort with an indignant denial, but then Justin realised that it wouldn’t really be true. He had off moments. He had days when he felt too tired, or was sick of the paparazzi or was bored of being asked the same question for the millionth time. There were times when he really didn’t want to sign autographs or where he wished he had a night off instead of having to go to another event. There were radio interviews he’d made excuses for and cancelled. Nate was right, he didn’t always give everything he had one hundred percent of the time - and he’d only been doing his job for a couple of decades.

He couldn’t lie, not to Nate and not to himself. The idea that this woman he’d become so quickly infatuated with had spent multiple lifetimes running around after him had made his pulse quicken in a way that kind of scared him.