The Shack: The Guardians

Our plans to go out and visit her parents ended up getting shifted into the middle of my final exams, so Danni decided to go out alone this time.

Something about it bothered me, but I couldn't put a finger on it.

The second day she was gone, Kelly sent me an urgent message to meet her after class.

###

I met up with Kelly at the path that overlooked the water fountain. We leaned on the rail and watched people circulating around.

"What's up, Kelly? Your message sounded serious."

She glanced up and down the empty path. "Derek, I trust you, but if any of this gets out, I'm fucked, John's fucked. I'm just trying to keep you from stepping into a shitstorm."

"What kind of shitstorm?"

"Nobody's sure. DA, State Office of Special Investigations, the Feds, everyone is freaked the fuck out about that shit at the Mark."

"What's to be freaked out about? It's bad, but it's probably La Em or somebody else Tony Montana pissed off."

"From what I hear, the DA would give his first born son to make that true. Evidence points somewhere bad, real bad."

"What do you mean?"

"One shooter. Somehow they got into the building despite our stake-out, maybe through an old utility tunnel -- it's a really old building. Nobody has said anything official, but word's leaked out of Forensics." Kelly's husband, John, worked in Forensics. She was taking a huge risk. "One fucking shooter killed all of them. One fucking gun fired every bullet. Same guy killed them all. At least that's what they think. Can't be sure about the two in the basement by the utility and electrical room."

"Why not the two guys in the basement?"

"They were both knifed. One guy just under the base of the skull into the brain, the other right through the left eye. A single wound each, no defensive marks." She glanced around. "It gets worse. The four guards on the ground floor were caught in two different places, so that is understandable if he used a silencer. But there were eight guys in the meeting room, all of them were armed, somebody should have at least had a chance to return fire. None of them even got a weapon out. Every one of them was shot twice center mass, then shot in the head. The head shots look like they were done after the guys were all down."

"Jesus."

"It has to be a pro. The knife wounds. The Doc says the stab under the base of the skull is 'indicative.' That technique is only used by real professionals; they call it a 'Chinese Spoon.' Only elite military units teach it. He said it was very clean, the killer has probably done it a lot. It's not something that gets used a lot in most places. So the working theory is that the shooter is probably former special ops, they're guessing a professional hired in from outside."

"Tony came up in the East Coast syndicates, he might have crossed someone who bore a real grudge."

She shook her head. "Doesn't wash, Derek, everything else points to someone sending a very loud message. The East Coast syndicates are more subtle." She bit her lower lip for a second. "There's a rumor. A 'friend of a friend' thing, nothing more. Story is, an out of town OMC delegation showed up, sent as messengers by 'parties unknown'; they were told to put the word out that the clubs are off limits, and anyone who pushes it gets the same treatment as Tony Montana."

Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs -- OMCs -- are often used to run drugs cross -country, so they tend to have a lot of contacts.

"At least some of the reps from the OMC almost certainly know who they're carrying messages for."

"The rumor says the OMC reps are disinclined to share that information for fear of becoming statistics."

"Did they say why the clubs are off limits?"

"They didn't give specifics, just consequences. My best guess is that one or more of the clubs is part of a money laundering network."

"You may have a war on your hands."

"Don't think so. Whoever it is made their point. The clubs are toxic. Hell, they're fucking plutonium now, nobody wants to touch them." She glanced around. "Derek, it isn't just the fourteen guys at the Mark. That'd be bad enough, but least ten more of Tony's guys disappeared either that day or within a couple days before. Maybe more, maybe as many as thirty all together. In three fucking days. This wasn't a hit, it was extermination."

"Nothing in the papers about the others."

"Nothing to tell, no bodies, no reports. They might have run for it, but nobody's buying it."

"Jesus. So now what?"

"Everybody goes back to their lives. The clubs could be worth a lot of money as distribution points, but they sure as hell aren't worth tangling with anyone willing to do this. As for our side, nobody wants to even think it, much less say it out loud, but I think everyone knows it's for the best not to chase this. The DA will wait it out; it's a case of bad people killing bad people, so it won't get much political traction. Maybe make it out like you said; 'a grudge from the past' would play well in the news. Everybody would want to believe it."

"So what do I do?"

"Stay the hell out of it. Walk away. We'll keep the clubs under close surveillance. But whatever happens it isn't your problem."

"I got it, Kelly. I'll stay out of it."

She silently watched as a couple holding hands walked by. "So when are you and your girl tying the knot?"

"We haven't set a date."

"Why not?"

I explained the whole issue with meeting her parents, and Kelly seemed a little thoughtful for second.

"You haven't met her parents?"

"I've talked with her mom on the phone."

"But not her dad?"

"Well... no, not really."

She was silent for a bit.

"What Kelly?"

"Maybe nothing, but... maybe she thinks her dad won't like you."

Kelly obviously had more to say, so I prompted her. "Why?"

"You're kind of... ethnic."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"You may not have noticed, but you're not really 'white,' ya know? Big fucking goon like you with real tribal tattoos all over him... kind of Conan the Barbarian looking. Maybe she's worried a little about daddy's reaction."

"Seriously?"

She shrugged. "I said 'maybe.'"

Kelly's words ate at me, and the morning after I finished my last exam, I decided to finish this one way or another. I packed up my F150 and started the 8 hour drive to her parent's house.

###

I knocked on the door and waited.

I was expecting Danni, or her mom, but instead I found myself staring at her father.

As often as I seen his picture, the scars were still jarring, especially that grey-white eye.

"You must be Derek. I've been wondering when Danni was going to bring you around."

"I think she was trying to find the right time."

He smiled, although it seemed oddly remote, oddly un-charged for a guy meeting his daughter's fiancé. There was just a strange, unreal feeling to the whole thing.

"Danni and Anne had to pick a few things up. I expect them back in couple hours." He moved to the side. "Come on in, you can help me getting dinner ready."

As he led me through the house, down the stairs and through the walkout basement doors, I looked around.

The house was neatly kept, about what one would expect for a college history teacher; more shelves of books than the usual house.

The really odd thing was the pictures. Every surface of every room seemed to have pictures. Danni at every age. Her two brothers. Two absolutely beautiful golden-haired little girls whose resemblance to Danni's friend Angel was unmistakable. There just couldn't be another Angel on the planet.

Just outside the patio doors, he had a huge outdoor kitchen. I had to stop for a second to take it in -- any guy would. Two grills - one gas, one charcoal - a smoker, a pizza oven, a sink and what seemed like miles of preparation surface.

"Did you build this?"

"The whole family built it. The kids and I probably put four months of work into this. We built it together." There was finally a personal feeling there, a bit of pride.

"You take barbeque pretty seriously."

He gestured to a pile of vegetables on the countertop. "I always have."

We talked for while as he sliced vegetables with rapid, sure strokes of what looked like a very expensive chef's knife. Patterned layers of steel caught the sunlight. He noticed me looking at it.

"It's a handmade Damascus steel blade. It was a going away gift from my last military unit."

He talked me through the process of getting his charcoal grill ready for steaks. Apparently a gas grill was okay if you were in a hurry, but charcoal was the preferred medium.

He asked about my plans in a sort of interested-but-disconnected way. I got the feeling he was judging my every decision, but as if it had no impact on him.

The only time he seemed interested was when I talked about Danni's plans. There was a spark, something that felt real when we talked about her.

I finally finished getting the charcoal grill set up for dinner. "Do you want me to light this?"

He glanced at the set up. "I don't use lighter fluid, it taints the fire. There's some kindling over on your left. There's a lighter in the family room next to the fireplace."

I rearranged the charcoal - lump charcoal, obviously from his purist streak when it came to steaks and grilling, then headed in to the family room.

I found the lighter on top of the mantle. That's when I realized I was a dead man.

It was just a picture, an old, faded picture in a cheap metal frame that told me.

I stared at the picture, dominos in my head falling until everything snapped into place in a sudden jolt.

Eleven guys in unmarked tactical uniforms, all grinning into the camera, all holding weapons with the easy confidence of true warriors. Some kind of special operations team. A movie-star good-looking guy in the back, holding some kind of long rifle. A white haired man off to the side, obviously the oldest of the bunch. And in the center, on one knee, utterly relaxed and confident, was Danni's father. Uninjured, unscarred. His tactical vest had two crimson eyes dead center on the chest and he held what looked like an MP-5 submachine gun -- some police tactical teams use them, so I recognized it. But his had the thick heavy cylinder of a silencer on the front.

Survival in the ocean. Don't panic, don't even move until you have to, until you know which way to move. I studied the picture, the guy in it was different, his face showing life in a way that Danni's father didn't.

The hair on my spine stood, warning me. Memories of meeting nuihi in the ocean. At first you don't see anything, then a peculiar black spot floating in the water. Slowly, ever so slowly, the massive streamlined body of the shark coalesces around that dead, cold, eye.

"The Hero picture. Anne has always liked that picture. Usually makes sense to keep a few old ones out. People might find it odd otherwise." Flat, cold, utterly emotionless. His real voice.

There was no sense in pretending. "The killings at the Mark."

"Danni is very important to me."

"Whoever killed those men had to be fast. I've seen Danni fight. She must have gotten that speed and those reflexes from you." I paused, nodding slowly toward the picture. "One theory is that a silencer was used, otherwise the shootings on the first floor would have alerted the men upstairs."

Just silence behind me.

I waited a second, then pushed on, trying to make it conversational. "It makes sense, except for the meeting room. Eight guys in one room? Even with your speed, one of them should have cleared a gun, gotten at least one shot off."

The cold voice. "A shooter wearing night vision gear, using a silenced weapon and subsonic ammo, with an integral flash suppressor has a huge advantage if the lights are cut just before he enters. If they aren't really expecting trouble because they know there are police outside. If he's fast enough."

I remembered the hard core of basalt I'd sensed in Danni's mother and didn't have to wonder who would have tripped the breakers in the basement while standing between dead bodies.

I turned slowly to face him. He'd stopped pretending. He was standing as still as stone in the doorway, his clear, cold eye looking through me with detached calculation. Impassively calm and inhuman. Danni's "warface" during the fight at the club was really just an imitation of this, the real thing. The chef's knife was in his hand, the blade resting along the inside of his arm. The blade seemed more alive than he did, light from outside shimmering silently up and down the ornate patterns of the steel.

It's funny how the old stories start to make sense. Mano Kane. Half man, half shark. Ruthless. Lethal.

He was thinking something through. Not wondering if he could kill me; that was the easy part. He was certain he could. So was I. Even with my size and strength. The precision of the kills in the basement. Danni's nightmarish speed, with the training and experience of a true killer.

Killing me would be no challenge at all.

No, he was wondering if he had a reason not to, and how to explain it to the one person that mattered in this whole thing. Maybe in his whole world.

Danni.

This was all about Danni.

I glanced down, catching sight of my right wrist and the ornate shark tooth tattoo patterns that ran up my arm. A single word suddenly crystallized in my thoughts. A word from one of the old tales.

The old legend came flooding back. An ancient story, told by firelight. Not Mano Kane.

"I know you, 'Aumakua."

I sensed a slow deliberate turn, a cold recalculation. A tiger shark moving in the water, turning away just a bit.

"My Grandfather used to tell me stories. We have the same goal."

He gave a wordless tilt of the head, a gesture for me to go on. He had the infinite patience that came with already knowing the outcome of the looming storm of violence.

"My Grandfather said that when a man dies, if he dies in the right place, in the right way... a warrior in battle, maybe... sometimes, that man can choose; he can stay, and be 'aumakua. Guardian to his family. He assumes another form; an owl, an eel. Or maybe, more often, a mano or niuhu. A shark. His family cares for him, and he watches over them in turn."

I pulled a breath in.

"I know you 'Aumakua. I know what you want. I proved what I want. I put myself between her and death, and I will do it again as often as I have to. We want the same thing for Danni."

###

"Dad?" Danni's voice was hollow, a bit fearful. She must have seen my truck out front, realized what it meant.

"In the kitchen, Danni."

She came in slowly, pale, and her eyes widened slightly when she saw me standing next to her father, preparing steaks for the grill.

"Dad?" For the first time since I'd met her, I heard cold hard fear in Danni's voice.

He looked over at her and I could see real humanity in his face. "We were just getting everything ready for dinner and wondering if you were about ready to set a date for the wedding."

Danni looked back and forth between us with a mix of disbelief and wonder, then rushed forward and hugged him fiercely. "I knew you'd like him!"

He smiled at her and kissed the top of her head. "He'll do fine, we understand each other."

He slowly let her go and walked out down the stairs, the tray of steaks balanced in one hand.

Danni pulled herself against my chest. "I'm sorry, I didn't know how to... introduce you to each other."

"Shhh... it's okay. I get it." I really did. How do you tell someone? Most people would never believe her, never understand that she was the daughter of... whatever he was. She'd been buying time, trying to find a solution, a way out for all of us. Me. Her. And her father.

But there was only ever one way out. The Monster had to find me worthy of his most valuable treasure.

Her voice was muffled against my shirt. "I know it's kind of girly, but I want a big wedding. The white dress. Both our families. Everything. I'm only going to do this once and I want it to be traditional."

I ran my fingers through Danni's hair. It felt right; Danni and I belonged together. I knew Danni would put everything she had into our marriage. She was only going to do this once. And so would I. We had to.

A traditional wedding sounded about right. My mom was big on traditions, so the dress, the cake and everything would be a big hit with her.

And of course traditional vows. The missionaries to Hawaii had used the Book of Common Prayer.

Everybody knows the wedding liturgy from that book.

They're ones that end:

"Til Death do us part."

Post Production Notes

When Danni showed up married and pregnant in "Pogo's Very Long Day" I immediately wondered what kind of man could possibly marry Monster's daughter. This story is the answer to that question.

I won't go into the Hawaiian words, since I kept them to a minimum, and most of them are explained in the story anyway. I should mention that "kefe" is actually Samoan, but using it is a good way to get your ass kicked nearly anywhere in the Pacific. Samoan doesn't really have "bad words", it is use and tone of voice that are usually an issue, but "kefe" is widely understood to be very insulting.

"Kefe" really means to cut away or circumcise, but it has evolved to indicate a particularly vile or putrid person.

For those that are interested, a part of Belle Anderson nee Markham's story is told in "The Marker."