The Guardian

[DeathsKnight]

OOC

His family have been charged to protect her family back in the Dark Ages, through the years they have done just that. Always in the shadows, always on-guard, they have done what they had to, to keep her family alive...and they never knew.

She became his charge at the age of sixteen, by then he had already been taught to the best of his family's ability and he had to learn how to protect her. The only thing that made his work harder was when she joined the Police force, this made her a target when she started to distinguish herself and he had to step outside the law many times to save her, this made him a vigilante, a man she had to hunt down and prosecute to the full extent of the law.

Name: John Gray
Alias: Santiago
Age: 31
Height: 6'11
Weight: 240lbs

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He had barely made it this time, he wasn't sure how she found his latest hiding spot, if it wasn't for the kid who didn't seem at ease with the woman he was, they might have had him. All that he left behind was a cooler with two cans of her favorite cooldrink, ammunition that had been wiped clean and just as they made ready to enter the building, he slipped out. He was sure that he left no trace nor evidence behind for them to track him down.

 

[CaramelLuv]

OOC -
Name: Cali Rinna
Age: 26
Height: 5'6"
Weight: A curvy 138

She was newly-made detective in her medium-town police force. She had quickly risen up the ranks since the Academy, and had assisted in investigating and solving a major case. Taking the initiative, she had taken her detective's test and had passed. Sometimes she wondered whether she had ever gotten through that case on her merits, or if she was being helped from above somehow. Her grandmother had left her a note before she died, along with a medallion of San Miguel, the Archangel, protector of the righteous warrior. It was a treasured pendant, she often wore around her neck on a thin white gold chain.

She certainly had felt watched sometimes, usually when she was alone. Watched, but not afraid. Then her cases started popping up with mysterious circumstances and strange coincidences. A vigilante was taking up where she left her work off... she didn't know how to feel about that. On the one side, she felt pleased that some of the scum she helped prosecute were taken care of, but at the same time, vigilante justice was illegal, and she swore to protect, serve, and uphold the law, even if it meant bringing that vigilante to justice.

IC -


She growled as she scanned the empty space that somehow felt like it had been occupied before, and resisted the urge to punch a wall. He had been here! The vigilante had been here, and she had missed him! How did he continue to give her the slip?

"Hey Detective..." a uniformed LEO called from the cooler placed nearby. She looked over and he gestured. She walked over, and couldn't help but smile. Coca-cola and fruit punch gatorade were intermittently placed in the cooler. Her favorite drinks of choice, since she had an aversion to strong liquors, and only drank occasionally. "Apparently this guy knows what I like," she said in what she hoped was a casual tone of voice. In truth, she was a little freaked. She reached up, unconsciously, to rub the medallion of San Miguel between her fingers gently.

She moved to survey the scene, watching as the CSI people looked for evidence. They wouldn't find any, of course. The vigilante was too careful not to leave behind fingerprints, or anything that could give an indication to who he was. She knew this, but it was protocol, and she had to do it anyway.

"Let me know what you find," she said to the lead investigator, and reached up to run her fingers through touseled curls, before she meandered back to her bike parked outside. Zipping up her brown leather jacket, she pulled on her helmet with the firebird emblazoned on it, pulled it over her head, and brought the machine to life, speeding off to file her non-existent report before heading home.

Later...

She paused by the Thai takeout place she liked, ordering a chicken pad thai, and some spring rolls.It had been a long day, especially once her Captain had realized that yet again they had failed to capture the vigilante and had made his displeasure known. She had no answers, which didn't bode well for her as a detective.

'Sooner or late you're going to screw up, buddy, and then I'll have you,' she thought to herself as she waited on her food, helmet in front of her on the table.

 

[DeathsKnight]

He stood in the shadows opposite the take-out, his car parked on the sidewalk, he smiled to himself, it was good that they haven't figured out to use her as bait. That meant that nobody have figured out what he did, he hoped that tonight would be one of those nights where she actually went home and stayed there. Though his family had collected riches beyond measure (looting corpses can become lucritive after a few centuries, especially as the Rinna's tend to make a lot of enemies) he still like the feel of performing a useful work and in this day and age, that work was telephone computer support for a local company. Very rarely he had to leave his post, the post he used to watch over Cali.

He pushed himself deeper into the shadows, wanting to make certain she didn't notice him. She was trained to notice suspicious people and up to date she had seen him, but never connected him to Santiago. Not that he didn't believe that she could not, but more to the point that his disguise was so basic and the only picture they could find came from a parking lot CCTV camera, all grainy and unfocused. He sipped on the coffee he held and kept up his watch.

 

[CaramelLuv]

She paid the clerk and smiled her thanks as she placed the plastic bag inside her shoulder satchel and slipped it over her head, before walking out and pulling on her helmet after looking around. She had long settled herself to feeling as if she were watched. Raising an eyebrow, she peered into the shadows and the doorways, but whoever it was didn't seem to be of the mind to reveal himself. She bit her lip. It wasn't malicious, really, the watching. She took a breath and pulled on her helmet, then mounted her bike, a Harley-Davidson Seventy-Two Sportster in pewter and chrome.

Parking outside her apartment building, she took a breath. There were days when she wanted someone to come home to except her pet fish, Nemo. Making her way up the stairs, she unlocked her door and stepped into her apartment, letting out a soft sigh as she put her bag in the kitchen. She moved to her bedroom to change. Her apartment was high enough that she didn't worry too much about peepers, and she kept the shades relatively lowered.

She stripped down to a pale yellow tank top and bikini-cut pale yellow undies, washed her face, and pulled back her hair into a ponytail. She rubbed her belly idly as she padded into her living room, she moved to her PC. She wanted to check her e-mail, and then look up some information on her cases. She used a laptop at work, but she always backed up her files to the cloud so she could access at home.

She turned on the computer as she moved to fix her meal. She fixed her plate, poured herself some wine, and brought her meal to her desk. After signing in, she tried to begin working on her email, but had one of those gray boxes keep popping up. She growled softly, and tried to press a few buttons, then shut off the computer, and restarted it... nothing.

Shaking her head, she pulled out her cell phone from her jacket pocket and called up the phone number for the Tech support guys. After going through the automated voice system to get someone on the phone, she finally heard the tinkling music that stated she was in the queue for the tech support guy.

 

[DeathsKnight]

John Gray

He had followed her at a discreet distance, the take-away and the fact that she went directly home allowed him to take the liberty of assuming that she would be staying in. He parked the car across the street, collected his small amount of groceries and headed into the building opposite her apartment building. The small corner apartment he rented dirt cheap and since he paid cash, the name he gave never came under scrutiny.

He opened the door and settled in, setting up his laptop with it's internet connection and looked out of the window, Cali walked towards the kitchen at that precise moment and he smiled. Not a bad sight to look over, he slipped on his headset and looked at the laptop as he signed in to the help desk. Immediately a call came through, it was not a serious matter and after a few setting changes and a restart he filled in a form. He opened a bottle of water and took a sip, just then another call came through, it came from a cellphone and the number was hidden,

"Alltron good evening, my name is Daniel, how may I assist you?"

 

[CaramelLuv]

She stared at the phone as the voice of the Alltron tech support came on the line. It sounded familiar, like... Anonymous tip line familiar, or the voice that sometimes spoke in her dreams familiar. Suddenly her heart started pounding.

"Um, I am Cali Rinna, and I have one of you 3800T series models. I am have some problems with my boot up process. Can you help... Um... I'm sorry, what's your name again?"

 

[DeathsKnight]

John Gray

"My name is Daniel ma'am."

He looked up, out of the window and saw her sitting there, back straight as if in shock,

"The 3800T model is known to dump memory and with that memory some of it's boot drives. It's fairly easy to remedy, if you put your operating system disc in, the computer will pick up the disc and give you four options, Install, format, repair and exit. All you do is press three on your keyboard. It might take a minute or two, but after that the computer will restart and you should be able to get in to your computer again. Would you like me to stay on the line while you run the repair?"

He didn't even bother trying to hide his voice, a sudden changw in tone and depth would make her suspicious. Of all the people to call him, she was the last one he had expected to get through to him.

 

[CaramelLuv]

Cali Rinna

She blinked, and nodded. "Yeah, please. In case this doesn't work." She laughed a little, but it seemed forced. Truthfully she didn't know how to feel. This was a voice that sometimes haunted her dreams. She cleared her throat, and looked in her drawer for her disc. After rummaging around, she found her disc and inserted it into her disc drive and started up her computer. Following the instructions, she tried to smile into the phone. "Well for your records, I'm Cali Rinna. Address is 1412 Pardue Street, apartment 306." She proceeded with her date of birth and phone number, then glanced at her phone. "Do you live here in the city, Daniel?"

 

[DeathsKnight]

John Gray

He dutifully typed in the information she gave him, the form still open until she was satisfied that her computer worked, he had to smile at her question,

"No ma'am, when I registered with AllTron I did live there, but I had moved away, using a remote log-in to keep on working for them."

He heard the familiar beeps in the background, it meant the OS was at the start-up screen,

"It sounds like it's gotten through the boot-up, does everything look fine?"

He had to distract her, to make her believe he was just another bored, but helpful desk technician.

"It would be wise to put the disc away as soon as the system is up and running again, they usually have a habit of disappearing when you want them."

OK so he liked to insinuate, no way could there be any mistake of him not talking about data discs, when he could also mean the fact that he knew of her unsucessful attempt to capture him and he kept disappearing on her.

 

[CaramelLuv]

Cali Rinna

She nodded into the phone as if in understanding. "Lucky duck. It must be nice being able to travel and still do your job." She sounded wistful for a moment, then turned to her screen as he directed her attention to the screen.

"So far so good. Now to see if it stays that way. " She gave a rueful chuckle and signed in. His words of warning about the disk caused her to raise an eyebrow. "Isn't that always how it goes?" She murmured into the phone. She shifted in her seat, and brought one of her bare legs to her chair, bending at theknee and wrapping her arm around it.

 

[DeathsKnight]

John Gray

He gave a low chuckle,

"Let's just say the then-girlfriend refused to move, the now-wife still refuses, so I have not much of a choice in the matter."

He waited patiently, thrilled for two reasons, he had her on the line and talking to her and he was actually helping her. This time with something that did not include him having to kill somebody whose out to kill her, he knew that he could just look at her progress from where he sat, but that kind of took the fun out of it for him, so rather he stayed on the line.

 

[CaramelLuv]

Strangely she felt a stab of disappointment at the word "wife", however unreasonable that may seem. Perhaps he wasn't her anonymous caller after all. Hwr anonymous caller lived in the area, she was sure. She bit her lip and lowered her leg, straightening her back and clicked a few programs to make sure they opened.

"Well Daniel I think our endeavor was a success, "she said smiling into the phone. She ejected the disc, studied it a moment, then tucked into its sleeve and put it back in the drawer. "Thanks for your help. I'm good at a lot of things, computer wizardry is not one of them. "

 

[DeathsKnight]

He smiled at the screen,

"You are most welcome ma'am, just glad that I could assist you. I hope you have a lovely evening and thanks for call AllTron Support."

He ended the call, filled in the last of the form and filed it, more calls waited and he set to answering them. He had to admit that he was kind of upset that he could not have spoken longer with her, but a support guy who talks too much about his life attracted attention and though he never had to doubt the solidity of his aliases, he also knew that they were not entirely water-proof. All-in-all he had to be careful, the rest of the night went by rather along the same vein, he answered calls, filled out forms and kept watch over Cali, it was after she have locked her apartment and went to sleep, that he finally logged off and slept on the sofa.

 

[CaramelLuv]

She hung up with a smile, then continued eating as she perused emails, groupon offers, and tips from the tip line. She marked the ones that pertained to her cases, then moved to her bag to open her mail. There was a large manila envelope from one of the local elementary schools, and she couldn't help but smile as she opened it and pulled out the folded pieces of construction paper and the pictures. She had visited one of the schools in the area for Career Day on behalf of the girl she mentored through the CASA program, and had spoken to the class about being a female police officer, then took some pictures with the kids. It had been a good day. Apparently the class had written her personal thank-you cards, and the kids had drawn her pictures for her desk. She particularly liked the one in which she looked like Wonder Woman. Turning it around, she saw it was from Marcela, her mentee. She chuckled. She would put it on her cork board when she got to work.

Soon enough her meal was done, the flowers she ordered so she could put them on her parents' and grandmother's graves were ordered, and she shut down her computer moving to the kitchen to wash her dishes before she double checked her door, shut off her lights and went to bed, her thoughts full of the voice of Daniel the tech support guy and the guy whose voice haunted her dreams.

next day....

Cali finished her stretches, checked her laces, grabbed her keys, her phone, and her headphones, before heading out the door and into the cool morning. She started her run slowly, warming up to her usual speed as she maneuvered through early morning pedestrian traffic.

 

[DeathsKnight]

John Gray

If anybody ever wondered how Cali kept her figure, this was part of the answer, she went jogging early mornings. Of course following in a car would be stupid, in fact various automotive ideas fell out of the bus. What the perfect answer was, especially for him, was to jog as well. Keeping her in sight and in range...in range of the pistol in it's concealed holster in the small of his back. You never could be too careful, especially when looking out for Cali, who seemed like a trouble magnet when she got stuck into a case.

He usually go out in disguise, it consists basically a filling out of his nose, darker hair, color contacts and a filling out of his cheeks to allow it to look plumper, the oversized clothing cave off the idea that he was a midelaged slightly overweight man. But when he tailed Cali in the mornings, he wore no concealments, this was the time that he was basically the most of himself as he dared to be. Today was no different, he usually waited for her to turn and then angled off to approach from the front, seemingly following another route, then circled back. Ok so he enjoyed watching her jog, but it also gave him a check to make certain that there wasn't a tail that he could have missed.

 

[CaramelLuv]

The pulsing beat in her headphones made her smile as she moved through one of her routes. She had three, just to keep things interesting, and useful for different weather patterns, or climates.

Waving to the grocer two blocks around the corner, like she did every chance she passed by, she continued down her route. She enjoyed the people watching, and musing about her neighbors, but her thoughts turned back to Daniel, and the vigilante, Santiago, as he was called. Not that there were connections between the two, she was sure, but just because they happened yesterday.

 

[DeathsKnight]

John Gray

It was curious to watch her as she jogged, she's been doing it for so long, that he could have sworn that most of the people actually looked out for her. It was one of those strange occurrences in life, the tough as nails cop who had the heart of gold. Of course only those who knew her got to see that heart, he smiled to himself, he only knew about it because he had been watching her so long.

It was the slight tingle down his spine which made him glance around, two joggers had suddenly appeared, they wanted to appear like they have been jogging for a while, but he could tell that they had slipped out of the alleyway which Cali had just passed. He stepped up his pace, making sure to gain steadily on them, but still keep himself winded. From what he could determine, Cali was in some trouble...again.

 

[CaramelLuv]

She felt the weight of eyes on her, and she glanced over her shoulder. Nothing but other joggers, apparently. She looked around, then shrugged internally. It wasn't as if people were following her, right? After all, she didn't have enemies in her neighborhood, and most people knew she was a cop, so they didn't try to antagonize her. Even so, she couldn't shake the unease and sped up, veering away from her predictable turn to go in another direction, toward the local area park.

 

[DeathsKnight]

John frowned as she sped up and didn't take her usual turn, that meant that she had suspected something. By now he was six feet behind her pursuers, he kept his eyes lowered, so that when they glanced at him, he seemed to be uninterested in them. Drawing up to them he could see the entrance to the park, he moved to the left of the two and timed his next step so that his foot collided with the man's close to him. He stumbled and went down, his partner stopped as did John,

"Aw geez sorry man! Are you OK?"

The two men stared at him with murder in their eyes, behind him he knew that Cali was drawing away. He noticed one face, it was an enforcer for the Luzio family, why would the mob be after her? Of course an enforcer had a reputation to uphold and this one was not slow to uphold his reputation, as he got to his feet, his hand slipped into his hoodie's pocket and out came a knife. With a click the blade jumped out and with a loud grunt the man went down as John's foot lashed out and hit his right knee on the inside, twisting it out. Not enough to break it, just enough to hurt.

His partner was so shocked by the sudden attack that the four punches went unchallenged. John took off after Cali, leaving two men in his wake, both groaning in pain, but alive...for now.

 

[CaramelLuv]

Cali made her way down toward the trail and continued in that direction, intending to double back around a different way if at all possible. She nodded to other joggers as she ran, but soon enough her unease lifted, almost as if she wasn't being watched anymore, or at least in trouble. She always felt she was being watched. She attributed it to her grandmother's guardian angel, San Miguel.

She paused at a bench and began cooldowns. She could walk the rest of the way back home for cooldown. What she really wanted to see was if someone actually was following her. She didn't like feeling threatened in her own neighborhood.

 

[DeathsKnight]

John Gray

He turned the corner and found that Cali was not that far from him, doing cooldowns, he huffed a soft curse and slowed down his speed, not braking as he could see that she had spotted him. As he came abreast with her he gave her a nod and a briefly mumbled,

"Good morning."

With that he went by and turned the next corner, slipping into the brush, he wore a very generic tracksuit, under it he wore shorts and vest, he could change into a different jogger if need be, but he hid away, waiting to see what way Cali would go, though he was fairly sure she would be heading home, the detour gave her little choice in the matter.

 

[CaramelLuv]

She smiled at the jogger as he passed by, and nodded a response. Waiting some time more, she shrugged to Herself, chalking it up to paranoia and making her way towards home. She thought back to the jogger. He was kinda hot. Did he jog here at the park every day? If he did then she might have to start taking more detours, and "accidentally" run into him. He had seemed familiar, even for the bit she saw him. The smile on her face was hard to shake as she made her way home to change.

 

[DeathsKnight]

He followed her, but at a safe distance, he had made one change to his outfit, the top was tied around his waist, but she didn't look back and the rest of her way back was without incident. He showered and changed, he wondered what she would make of it if she came across this room, a place where he did most of his work-outs, where he looked out for her when she was home and where a fair share of his weaponry resided.

He watched her finish and then slipped on his jacket, covering the holstered weapons and magazines he wore, as she left he got into the car, deciding that it was time for a new one, she would grow suspicious of the car...perhaps he should follow her example and get a bike...he smiled at the thought and turned off, only to join the traffic behind her few blocks further

 

[CaramelLuv]

She made her way into the precinct, nodding a greeting to her partner as he fell into step beside her, holding out a travel mug of coffee. "Tara made it special for you. She says you should drink better quality coffee than the, quote, instant crap we have in the office."

Danny Bateman was a married man of 38 years, married to his high school sweetheart, Tara. He was the father of two precocious twins, Will and Wyatt, and a daughter, Briana. When she had first started as his partner, Tara had not taken it very well that a young, beautiful woman was spending all her time with her husband, and the first few months of their partnership had led to some very tense moments among the three of them, until Cali took it upon herself to bring a batch of her grandmother's caramel fudge brownies, and two bottles of wine to the Bateman's home when Danny was on a scout camping trip with his sons, and Bri was sleeping over at a friend's house. At first Tara had been suspicious, but Cali quickly explained why she had one. She explained to Tara that she had no family of her own, no siblings, and her grandmother and parents had died. She assured Tara that she had no designs on her husband, and that she had no intention of leading him on or flirting with him. She saw him more like an older brother, or something along those lines, rather than a man she would get involved with. She explained that she cared and respected he had a family and she would do all in her power to ensure he came home to them every night. She knew what it was like to have no father and she had no intention of doing the same to Will, Wyatt, and Bri.

From that night forward, Tara and Cali were the best of friends, with Tara taking on the role of surrogate big sister. Cali was invited to family events, and was essentially hero-worshipped by Briana, though Cali always made sure to share her spotlight with Tara. It wasn't the same as having her own family, but it was nice to be a part of one all the same.

Cali chuckled and took the coffee. "I will not complain that your wife looks after me." She grinned as they made their way to the desks to begin the day.

"Hey, Rinna, though you'd like to know that Vinny Desca, the Luzio enforcer was just admitted to the hospital, today. " One of the LEO's spoke as she dropped off the report on Cali's desk. Cali frowned, picking up the report. The pictures showed a man all banged up, but even so he looked familiar. "Apparently, he got mugged while jogging along Trailwilde Park."

Cali felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on her. Trailwilde was the park near her house, where she had been jogging earlier in the day. She felt the space between her shoulder blades start to itch, just like they did every time she got the feeling there was more to the story than appeared. She stared at the picture and shook her head. " Maybe I should check this out," she murmured as she grabbed her jacket. "alone." She glanced at Danny who raised an eyebrow. " could be nothing, but I will explain later. I have my phone."

She headed out of the precinct like a bat out of hell. She needed to find out who this guy was, and why he had been following her.

 

[DeathsKnight]

He was just cleaning out the car when Cari came rushing out, he frowned and settled back into the car. She took off and by the haste of things he decided that she must have found a clue about him, couldn't be anything else that would press her to such drastic haste. He swung into traffic and again follwed at a distance. Her route took her directly to the hospital, had they found the two mobsters?

"Well...shit."

He was certain that with the hoodie up, the two would have difficulty to describe him in enough detail. She had seen him again, but failed to really notice that she had seen him before. He parked the car, stashed the pistol under the seat and got out, the only weapon he had, his hands. But he knew it would be enough to protect her if the need arose, he did not follow her directly, but when he entered, he walked like a man who knew where he was going and wasn't stopped. The seat he took, looked down the corridor at the room she entered, he picked up a magazine and opened it, apparently reading.