Return

Although he apologized for the incident and Prier realized he wasn't trying to come on to her, Chevalier left because he couldn't work with a loonie like Prier. Sister Romaine ended up giving her a nice lecture on jumping to conclusions; the hunter realized how much like Alouette her boss sounded.

So on the day of the festival, Angelique was without a bodyguard again. She did perform in the pageant; even catching the second baton and twirling both of them at the same time. By the end of the children's show, Prier was all smiles; excited to see her only child doing well. She smiled and embraced the girl. This was the proudest moment of Prier's life; even prouder then defeating the Dark Prince.

"Sister Prier!" called Sister Romaine, "We have a new bodyguard candidate here. This time, I hope to Poitreene that you don't scare him away. Though I think you're going to be good now." She gave her that eye that told Prier that it would be quite miserable if somehow her next one ran off too.

"Ok, I'll go and meet him. But I'm taking Culotte, Francoise, and Jacques along with me. If he pulls any stunts then they can vouch for me. And Angie needs to come along to meet the bodyguard as well. Is it ok for our unit to be deployed to that area of the festival?" Prier questioned in a joking manner.

Sister Romaine replied, "Watch your tongue young lady. It would be ok to bring your unit; not like I've ever made you meet with those men in private if it feels uncomfortable for you. Just make sure you don't have Francoise scaring him off either; I know that two men left because she gave them the chills."

Prier looked at her. "Done deal. I'll just gather them up and we'll wait for him in the office. That's the most official place to conduct an interview. Besides, I have a lot of ammunition with all the books you keep around." She left and Sister Romaine sighed. No matter what happened, Prier would never learn.

S...S

They were sitting around the office playing Go Fish; though Jacques plainly preferred poker, it was not a game that Angelique was old enough to understand. Francoise, eager to see if the new guy was a hottie, made sure to position herself facing the door. She did earn a few hard glares from Prier and Jacques; the former wishing she would control herself a little more around men and the latter having a strange sting of jealousy in his heart. Culotte simply concentrated on the cards in his hands; he was a notoriously unlucky Go Fish player and it seemed that he lost no matter who he played in a game with.

At last, the door opened. The man was barely inside when Francoise's familiar scream lit up the air. She leapt high up and grabbed him around the neck; shrieking all about how handsome he was at how she wanted to go on a date with him. Though he was protesting quite a bit about losing his breath.

"Lady cut it out!" he stammered, "For one, I already have a girlfriend and she wouldn't like me going out with another woman. And for two…you're squeezing me way too tightly!" At the sound of a man gasping for breath, the team looked up. Angelique, knowing her mother would be even more violent, lunged at Francoise and began using her baton as a crowbar. Soon, she let go and fell into a hit over the head by Prier. But the exerted force was harder than usual; this wasn't the usual PO'ed Prier hitting her.

"You pain in the rear end! I hope you feel lucky that Angie was in the room; if she wasn't I'd give you an even worse beating for this stunt! Of all the things you could do…" Prier yelled. Culotte looked up to see the reason his sister was so mad. He eyed the recovering mercenary and let out a small gasp!

Lucky for them, nobody was hurt; even Francoise recovered quite quickly. A little laugh escaped the mouth of the man in the doorway. He stated, "Prier…you sure have found an interesting friend. And I thought guys could be bad; can't even order a quiet drink without hearing them try for every girl in the bar. So…how have you been? And what is the full details of this little job? All I know am I have to baby-sit."

Prier calmed down a great deal at this point. Her wish had come true. "Well I wouldn't call her 'interesting', Croix, I'd call her a pain in the rear. She's gotten us in trouble by flirting with guys before. A few times their jealous girlfriends began getting catty and started a fight. When that happens, I'm the one who has to save her ass. And if she tries this little stunt with you again, then I am so going to kill her!"

"Don't worry," Croix replied, "You know I have no interest in her. I've already given my heart away…" That comment was met with an incredible blush from Prier; knowing he was talking about her. Francoise looked back towards Culotte and Jacques; no wonder Prier had been so hung up on this guy.

'She called him "Croix"! That's the same name that she let slip some time ago in one of her tirades. I was wondering back then if that was the name of my missing father. Not only that, but I'd never seen Mommy treat one of Sister Francoise's incidents so harshly. It has to be,' Angelique told herself.

The child walked up to her mother; who was still conversing about something or other with the new bodyguard. Angelique wanted to speak, but found that she had no clearance. So she tugged on the end of Prier's clothing and stated, "Excuse me; Mommy. Is this man who just came in here my Daddy?"

Prier looked over at her child; knowing this question would have come up sooner or later. What a resourceful and intelligent girl Angie was. But Croix was clearly shocked; after all, Prier had never told anything to him about a child. In fact, if he'd had a cigarette in his mouth, it would have fallen out by now. "When did you have a kid? I know you weren't pregnant when I left?"

"Remember the night before genius?" Prier responded angrily, "We spent the entire time together in my room. I didn't know for three more months and had no way to get in touch with you and give the news. Besides, I knew you'd break your neck getting home. Then if you stayed you'd be real restless. If you left again, you'd worry way too much about us and do something utterly stupid! It was better not to know."

"What Prier means is that she was too worried about you to burden you with her little problems. We were ok by ourselves. I helped my sister as best as I could and we had Francoise to back us up. But things have gotten a little hectic as of late and that's why we need the extra manpower," Culotte told him.

Croix said, "I wouldn't expect Prier to come out and say that she's worried. But I know her well enough to understand how she feels. Nice of you to think of me. However, I'd like to know what is so urgent that it involves a bodyguard? Unless she gets into as much trouble as you do on a daily basis."

Prier looked down. "Demons are after her. I don't know what their problem is but I'll bet any amount of money they're up to no good. However, I'm almost certain it has to do with the fact that she's naturally talented at both Dark and Light powers. Probably think they can use her for their little games."

Croix held his gun up as if to salute. "Well don't worry. We'll make this through together. I know you would never let them hear it down. And I'm not going to fail someone that I love again! Maybe I only just met my daughter today…but I'm going to do what any other father would and protect her from harm."

Teefa's Last Words...

And Croix enters the scene. More revelations and fun next chapter. It takes place not too long after this one, but things start to pick up. It took me weeks to figure out how to do this scene. Had to make it perfect. I had a ton of other ideas such as Angie getting kidnapped and Croix unknowingly saving his own daughter, Prier being wounded while protecting the child and Croix finding her, Angie getting lost and running into her father, ect. But I went with the bodyguard for hire in the end.