Read The Midnight Guardian Online

Authors: Sarah Jane Stratford

The Midnight Guardian (9 page)

BOOK: The Midnight Guardian
7.78Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Aelric raised his head to look at her. He'd been so eager. Those curves, that hair … he'd thought she was a creature in which to get completely lost. But for all her inner heat, she was inexplicably cold. And yet, when he rolled onto his back, she looked down at him and smiled, and the smile was warm. It was the first tender expression he'd seen on her face, and it made her look so beautiful, he thought he felt his heart beat. Perplexing creature. She brushed his sweaty hair from his face, patted his cheek, and swept a cloak over her shoulders.
“Where are you going?”
“I want to feel the air.”
“It's nearly daylight. You have to be careful. Don't go.”
“I will be back.”
At the main entrance to the network of caves, she sat, tucked her knees under her chin, and stared out at the dark wilderness. The stars were gone, but the sky was still black. Finally, a chance to think, to absorb all that had happened. There were some whispers of regret. Had she known that the dull morning of two days ago was the last glimpse of the sun she would ever have, she might have paid it more attention.
For as long as I live,
I must remember that daylight is a beautiful thing. It frightens me, and it will kill me, but I must remember it is beautiful.
She knew she would miss seeing blossoms turn toward the nurturing sun, seeing all the true colors of every plant that thrived under her hands, the rainbow gift of nature. And yet, she had always loved her nighttime gardening, touching buds that chose the blackest hours to unfurl. She wondered if something in her human life had known this was coming, was intended, and had prepared her. She had never heard the lore of vampires, but felt curiously unsurprised at her fate. From this realization, her mind played out the monologue of all new vampires, although none of them knew it was a sort of script.
My human self is dead, is gone. Parts of it are still in me, perhaps always will be, but there is a demon there, too. Humans are my lifeblood now, my livelihood and prey. I am solely of the night, from now until always. Until never, whenever that will be, and I hope it is thousands of years away. I would
not have chosen thislife, but ithas chosenme and / embrace it.
I will make
not have chosen this life, but it has chosen me, and I embrace it. I will make this a good life. These are my people now, my family. I am cleaved to them.
But from there, her thoughts took a turn unique to her, and down a path she wished she didn't have to follow.
I have no love for Aelric, though he is my maker. I am grateful for the gift, and even his desire, and I pity him in all his well-meaning and foolishness, and certainly I never pitied anyone as a human, but he is not the one onto whom I can pour all this love that lies so heavily in me, like waste. No. I cannot love him, and I never will. And he …he has no love for me. He thinks he does, and that is sweet, but he only loves an idea. He'll never see me, whoever I am now, and whomever I'll grow to be. Have I slipped from light into eternal dark, only to be kept from love? Isn't love the only genuine light in this darkness? Or perhaps that is just my mark. As girl and now as creature, I'm not made for love.
The sky was turning navy. It was time to go. Aelric was keeping the bed warm for her, and that would be pleasant. This was important. Still, as she turned her back on the rising sun and slipped down the tunnel, she wondered how it was that a heart which was no longer beating could feel as though it might break.
 
Eamon roused himself, wiping his wet face. He hadn't tumbled down the rabbit hole of Brigit's history in centuries, but that world was more vivid
than some of his own memories. Her pain pricked him. He wanted to break through the hourglass and rearrange the sands.
He had no envy of Aelric, of the bond he had shared with Brigantia, of the years they shared a bed. Perhaps it would have been different if she'd loved him, but the only thing Aelric had that Eamon would have coveted was the chance to look in her human eyes. And since that would never have been possible, he dismissed it. He knew, too, that it wouldn't have been the same. The deep blue eyes that met his nearly three centuries later had been shaped by life. They were marked less by that hunger and fiery rage than by loneliness. There was a vast knowledge of humanity in them, and a seductive intelligence, and a scintilla of something like terrified hope. Aelric had seen the glow of human life, but Eamon had seen something more. Something which, under his hand, had evolved.
Don't lose that, Brigit. Don't come back without the sparkle.
“Eamon? Are you all right?”
Padraic had come up the stairs and was looking at him, worried.
“I'm fine, thanks. Just musing.”
Padraic nodded and held out his hand to help Eamon up. Eamon didn't meet his eye and said nothing as he turned and hurried to his own tower. He hadn't realized how much he'd needed to feel a friendly hand on his, even for a moment, and he wasn't entirely sure he could bear it.
Berlin–Basel train. August 1940.
A heat wave had rolled over the land. Brigit could feel her hair starting to go limp. She couldn't remember ever being so hungry and uncomfortable. The demon was restless, anxious, clawing away at her tissues. There was nothing else for it. The time had come to take a risk.
The water in the tiny bathroom remained stubbornly warm, but she flicked some over her neck and arms anyway, telling herself it provided relief. There was the problem of leaving the cargo unguarded yet again, but that could not be helped. The time was long past when she could space her meals. Any more of a drain, and she'd be as delicate as the cargo. Tucking her hair in a snood and sticking a defiant silk camellia behind her ear, she strode out of the compartment.
Had she not been feeling so unwell, her knees probably wouldn't have buckled so visibly when the blast of light from the sunset hit her right in the eyes on exiting. The blinds were usually lowered this time of evening to prevent glare, but someone had raised the one outside her door. The light seared her skin and the demon roared, nearly popping out her fangs. She ducked her head and groped for the blind, lowering it quickly.
Dabbing her brow and trying to regain her composure, she sensed a faint odor but saw no one nearby. She felt sure it must be the doctor, but she had no idea why. These people prided themselves on logic, and where
was the logic in sending a doctor after her? If that was what they were doing. There were other possibilities. Who could have described her well enough to make her a target with such unerring precision, she couldn't imagine, but it seemed safest to think they had guessed and were trying to garner absolute proof before closing the trap.
Well, where are you then, little cowards? I have just shown a great weakness, aren't you pleased? Don't you want to dance round me like a funeral pyre?
She stalked down the corridor, fury and hunger pounding in her ears, her fingers twitching, wanting something to rip. Kurt was not in his compartment, and she suspected him of being closeted with that Eberhard swine, happily planning their meteoric rise through the art world. Deciding that caution could be carried only so far, she added their deaths to her list of things to accomplish before finally getting off the train. There would be leisure for a plan, once she could think properly. Once she …
“Fräulein!”
Maurer strolled up to her, grinning. A stuffy woman in an absurd hat sniffed as she shuffled around Brigit, and cast a glance at the sergeant that suggested he should not waste his time paying attention to such trash. Maurer took no notice; his eyes were firmly fixed on Brigit. They glittered.
“Are you enjoying your journey?”
His voice was polite and genuinely interested. Brigit was thrown. She had no idea what to make of him. She decided it was best to play along, and play up her assumed role: a spoiled, silly girl. The sort he was bound to get bored of sooner rather than later.
“I am, but it's taking quite a bit longer than I had thought. These stops are awfully long. Shouldn't we have reached Switzerland already?”
“Indeed, indeed, deepest apologies, but you must realize how much caution must be taken, how carefully papers and even luggage must be checked. There is a war on, you know, and there are spies amongst us. We cannot be too careful. And I'm afraid those British have managed to damage some rails with their bombs. That is slowing us considerably.”
Brigit found herself in the odd position of cheering her native country and being cross at the timing of its prowess.
“Yes, but I thought surely the German trains would be efficient, even during a war. I might as well have cycled to Bilbao!”
“That would have been something to see.”
“Another time, maybe I will. But really, it's so miserably hot, I can't think about such a venture too long, even as a joke.”
“Yes, the heat is bad. Wouldn't we all be happier if we could wear less clothing?”
Brigit had no more energy to create a blush, but she spoke with proper outrage.
“Sergeant Maurer! I'm afraid that's really no way to talk.”
“Come now, Fräulein. Girls who dine with artists are known to be open-minded.”
A giggle threatened to burst from her cheeks, and she quickly twisted it into a snort.
“Perhaps in Germany, but that's hardly the case in Ireland.”
Her modulated tone lessened the insult and made it sound instead like an apology for her poor, benighted island nation. There was, however, still a warning glint in her eye. To her shock, it seemed to arouse him—he grasped her wrist and jerked her up against him, hissing in her ear.
“You should let me in your compartment, let me take a bath with you, that will keep you cool, if indeed you're not cold already.”
“How dare you!” She made to pull from him and he wound his other arm around her back, gripping her hip.
“You should be careful, you know, you and your little friends. Perhaps if you're nice to me, I can take care of you. Wouldn't you like that? Wouldn't you like me to take care of you?”
“I can take care of myself well enough, thank you. Myself and others, I'll have you know.”
“I know that's what you think. But you may think wrong.”
“I'll take that under consideration. Now, if you'll excuse me …”
The sound of running feet and giggling children startled them both, and he pushed her away from him. They stood, glaring at each other as a small cluster of boys ran past them, followed by their flustered nurse, who was feebly calling to them to stop and please behave like nice children.
When the ruckus had safely descended into the next car, Maurer caught Brigit by the chin, jerking her head so she looked in his eyes.
“You are being watched. You're intelligent enough to know that, I think. So perhaps you should be asking yourself whom you want watching you: them, or me?”
“Oh, so I have options?”
“Things can be arranged.”
With a greedy sneer, he ran a finger down her throat, dangerously close to where, by all rights, a pulse should be pounding. She bore her eyes hard into him, struggling to keep his concentration on other possibilities. He winked, pulled away, and strutted down the corridor, whistling off-key.
I swear, if I stayed in the bath for a year, I would never wash off the feel of all these monsters.
Shaken and nauseous, Brigit limped toward the observation car, desperate for fresh air, hoping that the platform's awning would provide enough shade from the lingering sunlight. She found the nurse and the rowdy boys waiting impatiently for a table in the dining car. One boy set up a shout as Brigit passed, making her jump. The other boys laughed with gleeful malice and the nurse smiled a grim apology. Brigit could see that the woman hoped to engage her in conversation, yet no matter how sympathetic she might feel, she simply could not marshal the strength or wits to equal the effort. Luckily, another of the boys shouted, hoping to see the pretty lady jump again, and the nurse set about rebuking them all.
“Excuse me,” Brigit muttered, hoping she sounded rueful about making an escape, and carried on toward the back of the train. Since the chastened boy's flat “sorry,” addressed more to the floor than her back, would likely not have been heard by a human woman, she felt safe ignoring it.
The observation car was blessedly empty and the train had just turned enough so that they were heading southwest and Brigit could contemplate the gathering dusk behind the train at leisure. She supposed she could thank Maurer for the slight delay that guaranteed this advantageous position, but she thought she might have dropped her sense of humor somewhere along the line.
What had he meant, the insinuating toad? His words ran in a continuous loop through her exhausted brain. “Cold already,” “little friends,” “being watched,” well, that last was unnecessary information. But “if you are not cold already”—a stupid phrase if she'd ever heard one, and yet laden with portent. He was surely hinting, although he may have been referring to the coldness of a girl who rebuffs a man's advances, who won't bestow even a light kiss where it seems due. That must be it, she reasoned, because otherwise he was at once attempting to seduce and threaten what he knew to be a vampire, and no man in his right mind … On the other hand, she was being watched for several good reasons, and he might know how tied were her hands, how incapable she was of unleashing the demon. As such, perhaps she was irresistible, perhaps the idea of touching a body so full of power, otherworldliness, one that reached back through wave upon wave of history was a temptation worth giving in to. Perhaps.
And what of the groups of people watching? “Them or me”? Which set of “them” did he mean? His superiors? Unseen operatives? Or did he know of the doctor and his attendants?
And “little friends.” A phrase that made her feel the chill in her blood. She would like it to mean Eamon, or Mors, or Cleland. The entire tribunal. The demon inside her, however numerically inaccurate that was. Anything but the obvious. Anything but the precious, precarious cargo. The one thing she was determined to protect that couldn't protect itself. If Maurer, if anyone, had a thought that meant compromising the safety of that cargo, there was nothing she would not do. The thought of his hands on her body made even the demon want to vomit, but if it had to be that, instead of his bloody death, she would do it.
It's too much, it's too much, it's too much. How am I supposed to go on?
She filled her lungs with a mass of arid air, held it, then expelled it over the countryside. The act brought no relief.
Too bad there isn't a finite amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. At least I could take pleasure in stealing someone's breath.
Eamon's music, that's what she needed now. If he were here, he would play and sing a song to clear all the cobwebs and chase the fears of impotency and doom right out of her. She hummed softly, in her own
unmelodic way, searching for a thread of Eamon's magic lingering somewhere inside her. It was gone. She'd used it up.
The door slid open behind her and a sturdy, broad-shouldered woman strode onto the platform. Her lips were pursed and her neck was thick, giving her the impression of a fish. On seeing Brigit, she smiled widely.
“Not so hot this time of day, is it?” Her manner was eager, a woman desperate for sisterly companionship.
“It's a bit better, yes.”
“I think there might be a lake, where I'm going. I'll like that, I've always wanted to spend time at a lake in the summer, see.”
“You don't know where you're going?”
The woman brayed with laughter.
“No, this wasn't exactly a planned trip.”
She leaned in confidentially, clearly bursting to share her story with someone, and who better than a complete stranger?
“My fiancé sent me a letter from Bern, see. Well, my former fiancé, I ought to say. I knew he wasn't interested in fighting, see, but I didn't realize he'd go so far as to leave Germany. Don't mistake me, I liked him for his cowardice. You'd have to be mad to marry a man ready to go off and be killed, is what I think.”
“But surely the war will end soon, and there's no danger of anyone else being killed?”
The woman's expression was fond, as of one who knew the way of the world.
“You're young, of course. I'm twenty-six, see, and I've seen some things. My name is Elsie, by the way, what's yours?”
“Brigit.”
“Irish, aren't you? Lucky you, coming from a neutral country,” she carried on blithely, not noticing Brigit's quick bristle. “Well, the Führer hates war, of course, but those horrid Jews are having to complicate everything. It's only because of them that more fighting is happening. Them and the communists, of course.”
Brigit studied Elsie's oily face and pale, piggish eyes. They held that damn spark of certain superiority. This pathetic woman, abandoned by what was no doubt a relieved man, must know somewhere inside herself how worthless she really was in the grand scheme of things. But no, the
Nazis had lifted that burden from her in their bizarrely magnanimous manner. Brigit ran her tongue under her teeth, feeling the tips of the fangs start to descend.
Elsie chattered on, as though Brigit had asked her a question.
“So sure, Jews should be able to be destroyed easily enough—I don't know why the Führer doesn't just set my granny on them, that would be something to see, all right, but what I really mean is that too many men will be taken away from their duty to us women. I want a quiet life on a farm. I want to raise lots of children, not because the Führer says we should, but because I like the idea of it, always have. All this needs a steady man, you see? A strong, hardworking man who takes care of the business side of things and takes care of me and all of us. If you have a man like that, you'll never be hungry, see?”
BOOK: The Midnight Guardian
7.78Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Salaam, Paris by Kavita Daswani
Deceptive Desires by LaRue, Lilly
Donovan's Child by Christine Rimmer
Secrets in the Dark by KD Blakely
The Dog Collar Murders by Barbara Wilson
Hairy Hezekiah by Dick King-Smith
Untamed Wolf by Heather Long