Into the Ether - Complete

Spring, When New Things Grow: Part 12

"Why are you moving the cars outside?"

I tried not to jump a mile high. Nathan down here in the basement car park was the last thing I needed today.

"Because it's Saturday. I wash the cars every Saturday. Galina doesn't like them being dirty or getting damaged by salt," I said calmly.

Both things were true. Galina had always been fastidious about her belongings even back when she was a Dhampir earning shitty Guardian wages. It's one of the traits we shared – we liked to take care of our things. I could remember back at St. Basil's we'd sometimes sit side-by-side polishing our shoes and chatting. Things had been so much simpler then. While she'd been my mentor, she'd also been my friend and the closer we got to graduation, the more we'd slipped into the role of trusted colleagues.

There'd been nothing sexual between us back then. Or if she'd wanted anything, I'd had no inkling of it. I certainly hadn't thought about her in that way. But I'd respected her greatly; she'd epitomized everything that was admirable and meritorious in a Guardian, and I'd wanted to be just like her. Which is why seeing what she'd become was so abhorrent. All her basest desires brought to the fore at the expense of the qualities that had been her greatest strengths. While she professed an amorous interest in me now, I wasn't fooling myself that it was anything beyond a mechanism to satiate her admittedly voracious appetites and to use as another mechanism of control. While the Guardian Galina had commanded allegiance by earning the respect of her team, now she enforced it through fear and favors.

The Guardian Galina had been would never have wanted to live like this. Sure she probably wouldn't have minded the fast cars and some of the luxuries her Strigoi self had amassed, but she'd valued her virtue more than a Ferrari. I had to wonder whether that's why she gave her involuntary recruits a choice. In any case, it made what I was going to do a little easier to bear. Thinking that in some way I was releasing her.

I walked past Nathan, hearing his warning snarl but trusting he didn't want to upset things just before his coup any more than I did just before mine. So I got the next set of keys and drove the car out into the large paved service area to the side of the manor. Usually, I'd wash the cars quite close to the house – but today I'd used the excuse I'd also clean the minivans some of the army had arrived in to park quite a bit further from the house. I parked Galina's Ferrari and walked back to the house to get the next car.

"How do I know you're not planning to try to escape?" Nathan growled.

"Because Galina has tripled the human security while everyone is here, so I'd not make it a hundred yards towards the gate. Besides - every bored immortal is probably sitting at the windows watching me and would raise the alarm in half a minute if I tried," I said sarcastically.

Nathan knew I had a point.

"Fine - but I'm going to stay here and watch you. Galina is not going to thank me if her little pet escapes..."

"Be my guest," I said, getting the keys to the final car and driving it out onto the forecourt lining it up along with the others. Walking back to the house, I gathered what I'd need to wash and check the cars. Sponges, buckets, chamois, detergent, anti-freeze for the radiators and the high-pressure spray unit. I'd gotten lucky with the day, the weather being unseasonably warm after a frigid night. It was still only a little above freezing out, but warm enough for me to do what I needed to.

I attached the hose to the taps beside the mains water outlet outside, running it to the pressure cleaning unit. I washed the first of the vehicles, whistling as I worked. Truth be told washing cars in this weather was a miserable business even rugged up as I was, but I needed to look casual and relaxed as I did this. I quickly washed each vehicle down, using the chamois to dry them one by one. After a while, Nathan disappeared, evidently bored watching another man labor. Still, I couldn't assume he wasn't somewhere looking at me from inside, so I kept about my preparations slowly and methodically.