Aria and Will (3 page)

“This is why I fought last night,” he murmured, and
I knew he wasn’t talking about the stars.

Chapter 3

“So we’re back to square one.”

Bergsen’s voice reflected his frustration and
tiredness, and Wilhelm could not blame him. They had both been hopeful that the
new ammunition perfected by the research labs would prove key to turning the
odds against the demons in their favor. It had taken them years to reformulate
the metal casings and powder components into something that would have an
effect on the demons, and for the past week, soldiers had used the new riffles
and ammo whenever demons had approached the walls. After some good news on the
first night, the results had ended up disappointing. It was almost as though
demons had instantly adapted to this new threat.

From that first night, three decades earlier, when
demons had appeared seemingly out of nowhere all over the planet, humans had
fought back with their best weaponry, guns, assault riffles, automatic weapons
that could pierce through any kind of body armor and tear a man to shreds within
seconds. Yet everywhere, the same reports had come. Bullets simply did not
work. The demons’ wounds healed within seconds, fast enough for the gunner to
see the flesh repair itself—if the gunner lived that long. A shaky, grainy
video had even showed to the consternation of military advisors all over the
world that the more bullets fired into a demon, the faster it healed.

Fire had looked like a promising alternative at first,
but the incredible heat required to slow down the demons, let alone
incapacitate them, made it too cumbersome. In time, the disruption of fuel
supplies had rendered it even more inconvenient.

Chemical weapons could have posed an ethical dilemma
if their first use had not proven that demons were immune to them.

In the end, resorting to bows, blades and other close
range weapons had been a necessity. For the first time in military history, the
advantage didn’t belong to those who had the technical and numerical strength,
and soldiers all over the world had traded their guns for swords, axes, spears
and halberds. Museums had been ransacked and weapons of the past had been
reproduced with the techniques and metal alloys of the day. It had taken long,
bloody weeks before the first troops had gone into the battle with the
slightest chance of coming back alive.

“All this work for nothing,” Bergsen griped again. His
hand clenched around the report he had been reading, tearing pages and
crumbling them into a ball.

“At least now we know what doesn’t work,” Wilhelm
commented coolly. He was just as upset by the news, but complaining wouldn’t
change the report’s conclusions. “That leaves us other options to explore.
We’ll find a solution, eventually.”

Bergsen snorted. “’Eventually’ might be fine for you,
Will, but it’ll be too late for me and many others. You might have all the time
in the world, but we don’t.”

Wilhelm’s answer was no more than a cold look. Bergsen
sighed and nodded as though he had answered in words.

“Of course I’m not blaming you,” he said, his voice
calmer now. “I’m just so… tired.”

It was Wilhelm’s turn to nod his understanding. They
had all been fighting for too long. Nevertheless, none of them could afford to
take a day off.

“What should we have the labs work on?” he asked,
bringing Bergsen back to a hopefully more productive line of thought. “Did you
see—”

A sharp knock on the door interrupted him.

“Come in,” Bergsen called out.

A soldier stepped in, his salute perfect as he looked
straight ahead rather than at either men seated at the desk.

“A prospective recruit is requesting a meeting with
you, sir.”

A flicker of the soldier’s eyes toward him left
Wilhelm confused. Not only was this Bergsen’s office, but also, Wilhelm rarely
ever met with recruits unless he sought them out in the first place.

“Direct him to the recruiters’ barracks,” Wilhelm
said. “I don’t have time for this now. There are other vampires there who will
talk to him.”

“Sir, it’s a girl, a teenager, and I do not believe
she is a vampire.”

Wilhelm shrugged. “I still don’t have time.”

With a gesture, Bergsen dismissed the soldier and they
resumed their talk, the incident already forgotten. However, after a few
minutes, a second knock revealed the same soldier, and even though his voice
remained steady, he seemed flustered.

“Sir, she requested that I give you her name. She
insisted you would meet with her if you knew who she was.”

Wilhelm barely refrained from grumbling. “Then tell me
so I can send you back to inform her that aggravating me in the middle of a
meeting is not the smartest thing to do.”

The soldier swallowed heavily, as though Wilhelm’s bad
mood had been directed toward him. He was a new recruit, and they were often
more nervous around Wilhelm than they had reason to be.

“Her name is Ari…Ariadne, sir.”

He had stumbled on the unusual name, but of course,
Wilhelm recognized it. He frowned, annoyed that the child apparently thought
her name would be enough to force him to drop everything he was doing to meet
with her.

“You know her,” Bergsen guessed. “We can finish this
later if you want.”

Wilhelm shook his head. “No. We have work to do.”
Glancing back at the soldier, he gave a sharp nod. “You have my answer for her.
If she continues to argue, have the MPs escort her out of the building.”

The soldier saluted before walking out.

“You should be nicer to your groupies,” Bergsen said,
his voice just on the edge of teasing. “Especially wannabe recruits. Heaven
knows we need more of them.”

“She’s fifteen,” Wilhelm scoffed. “Unless you changed
the minimum age without telling me, she can’t join the Guard.”

A rare chuckle passed Bergsen’ lips. “So you do know
her. And her age. If I didn’t know for a fact that you don’t have time for
that, I’d point out that she’s much too young for you.”

With a grimace, Wilhelm looked down at the report in
front of him and tapped it with a finger.

“We have work to do.”

* * * *

When, after hours of debating, arguing, and agreeing
on the direction that they needed to take, Bergsen and Wilhelm walked out of
the office, Ariadne was still there, sitting on a bench on the side of the
lobby. Wilhelm’s eyes went straight to her as she stood. She looked sullen, her
voice cold when she asked if she could speak with Wilhelm now.

“Such determination should be rewarded,” Bergsen
butted in, the smallest of smiles tugging at his lips. “Don’t you think, Will?”

With a roll of his eyes, Wilhelm stepped forward and
gestured for the girl to follow him. He led her to his office, which was down
the hall from the Commander’s office. He rarely ever used it; he was always on
the move, and if he needed to sit down, he usually did so at Bergsen’s desk.
Ariadne patted the seat of the chair he indicated to her, and dust rose in the
air. She sat without commenting on it and looked around her expectantly.

“I thought there would be more old stuff in here,” she
said after a few moments.

Wilhelm cracked a smile despite himself. “I’m the only
thing that qualifies as old here. Now what do you want?”

Arms crossed, he was leaning against his desk a few
steps in front of her. She looked up at him with determination and—could it be hope?

“I need you to talk to my mother and convince her to
let me join the Cadets,” she said, very seriously, in the tone of someone who
had practiced her words. “I want to be ready to fight when I enroll in the
Guard but Mom refuses to sign the consent form.”

Wilhelm waited, certain that there had to be more, but
Ariadne did not add anything and merely continued to look at him.

“I don’t see why you want me to talk to her,” he
started.

Ariadne jumped in right away, as though she had
practiced that part too. “You convinced her once when she was acting stupid. I
know she’ll listen to you again.”

It was doubtful, Wilhelm thought. After all, Ariadne’s
mother had sold her house and moved to a different part of the city as soon as
she had learned he was patrolling her street regularly. As far as he was
concerned, she had spelled out rather clearly that she wanted nothing from
him—be it his protection or his opinion on how to raise her daughter.

“I am sorry, Ariadne. That’s a family matter, and I
have no right to interfere.”

“You have to talk to her,” she pressed on, her voice
strained now, and leaned forward as though to give more weight to her words.
“My father would have let me do it.”

“But your father is gone,” he said, as gently as he
could, “and it’s your mother’s opinion that matters.”

“You’re a jerk!” she shouted as she jumped to her feet
and glared at him, her fists closed tight and her eyes gleaming. “I thought you
cared about me but you don’t! I should have known when you stopped patrolling
in front of our house!”

Standing as she was, only a couple of feet in front of
him, she seemed to dare him to deny her words—seemed, also, to be demanding an
explanation, or even an apology. Wilhelm gave her neither.

“It’s time for you to go home.”

He escorted her to the door, and led her down the
corridor to the entrance of the building. He was shocked to discover, when they
reached the door, that the sun was just about to set, the sky lit up in pink
hues over the western horizon.

“If I let you go alone, you’ll be breaking curfew,” he
sighed, glancing back at her.

The look she gave him made it clear that she couldn’t
have cared less.

“Come with me.”

Protected by the long shadows cast by the buildings
around them, he went to the camp garage and requisitioned a car to drive Ariadne
home. She followed him the entire time without a word, but without balking
either when he told her to get into the car. She remained silent for most of
the drive, until they were only two blocks away from her new home.

“So you do know where we live now,” she commented,
very quietly.

Wilhelm did not answer. It hadn’t been very difficult
to find out that piece of information.

When he parked the car in front of the small house,
Ariadne did not move.

“I really would like you to talk to her,” she said, staring
straight ahead at the road. “I know she’d listen to you.”

After taking a deep breath to calm down so he wouldn’t
snap at her, Wilhelm asked: “What makes you think I want you to join the
Cadets?”

The look of pure surprise she gave him made it clear the
idea that he might side with her mother had not entered her mind.

“You’re still a child,” he continued. “I’ve seen too
many children die already to want you to fight.”

He could see, by the hard frown she gave him, that she
disagreed with his calling her a child, and that she wouldn’t stop pressuring
her mother to let her enroll. Cadet training was nowhere near as dangerous as
the actual Guard was, of course, but Wilhelm refused to help her step onto that
path. It was a decision she could make for herself when she was old enough, but
not one he would encourage in any way.

She opened the door and stepped out without a word of
goodbye. Wilhelm watched her go to her door, and glimpsed someone opening to
let her in before he left. His mind blank, he drove back to the camp to return
the car. He had patrolled the streets of the city by foot for years, breaking
his routine only when large attacks were expected.

Just as he was leaving the camp again, he walked to
the front of the wall where the Guard posted the names of its dead. At the foot
of the wall, beneath the most recent list, rested a bouquet of white roses.
They were in full bloom and Wilhelm took a deliberate breath to take in their
scent, wondering how many more children would die under his watch.

* * * *

I may have been fifteen, but I knew what I wanted
to do with my life. I was not a child. It took Will many years to realize that.

To this day, I am still certain that a word from
him would have been enough for my mother to sign that damn paper. Without his
help, however, it took me six months to convince her to let me enroll in the
Cadets training. I had to plead, beg, nag, pout, argue, and in the end, I even
had to resort to a threat.

I had spent a week writing her a letter that listed
all the reasons why I wanted to take part in that training. When I gave it to
her, she sighed, and without even looking at it she said she wouldn’t change
her mind. It hurt and I lashed out with the threat I had hoped I wouldn’t need.

“You can prevent me from joining the Cadets, and
even force me to wait until I’m of age to enroll in the Guard. But if you do,
my eighteenth birthday will be the last time you ever see me.”

She looked at me as though I had just announced I
was going to the moon.

“You don’t mean that,” she said after a few
seconds, but her voice trembled with shock.

“I’ve never meant anything more in my life, Mom. I
didn’t want it to come to this but—”

She slapped me. I can’t remember her ever raising
her hand to me before that day. She hurt my pride more than anything else, and
I left her there and went to my room. My eyes were stinging, but I refused to
cry. Later that night, she came to me and said she had read my letter. She had
brought the signed parental consent form for the training with her. Nevertheless,
she never apologized for slapping me, and I never did for threatening her.

The day I graduated from the actual Guard training,
she admitted that she had hoped I would tire of the discipline and demands of
the Cadets before I ever enrolled in the Guard. She couldn’t have been more
wrong.

She wasn’t the only one who opposed my desire to
join the Guard. The entire time she and I argued, Paul never lost an
opportunity to show his own dislike for the Guard, and by extension the Cadets.
It comforted our mother in her opposition, I suppose, until I made my last
argument.