Aria and Will (4 page)

I know why my brother had such a strong attitude
against the Guard, even though I never understood it. He blamed the Guard for
not having protected our father. But Dad was killed while traveling outside of
the Guard’s protection zone, coming back from visiting our grandparents in a
nearby town. How that makes his death the Guard’s responsibility is beyond me.

Paul never showed any interest for what I learned
or did in my training, or later in the Guard. I remember, when I came back from
my first week at the camp, I expected Mom or him to show some curiosity in what
I had done. Mom asked me only if it was hard and if I had changed my mind. Paul
waited until we were alone to tell me what he thought. I can still hear the
exact tone he used, half sneering anger, and half condescension.

“Getting yourself killed won’t bring Dad back.”

I shrugged his words off. I wasn’t a child anymore,
and I had known for a long time that our father wouldn’t return.

“And that vamp won’t ever replace him either.”

That hurt, more than it had any right to. And it
probably hurt even more because it held some truth.

It wasn’t so much that I wanted someone to replace
my father. No one could have done that. But I’ve given it a lot of thought, and
I guess what I wanted—what I needed—was someone who wasn’t afraid of demons.
Someone who didn’t turn pale as a bed sheet when the sirens blared to life and
announced another attack. Someone I could trust with my every breath, like,
when I was a child, without even knowing it, I had trusted my parents. My mom
had tumbled from that pedestal when she had broken down after my father’s
death; and yes, Will had replaced her, had replaced them, simply because he had
been there. Simply because he had rested his hand on my shoulder and taken me
home. I didn’t have that insight at fifteen, so Paul’s words brought nothing
more than pain, and the guilt of feeling as if I was betraying my father rather
than honoring him. When my leave ended and I returned to the camp, I was glad
for a new reason. I would have a full week away from my brother.

For a year and half, I spent every other week at
the Cadets’ camp, only a block away from the Guard’s building. About two dozens
other trainees were there on alternate weeks, as many girls as there were boys.
The instructors instilled discipline in us along with a respect for the
authority of hierarchy. We weren’t allowed to fight demons, of course not, but
we learned hand-to-hand combat and how to handle swords, axes and bows. The
hand-to-hand, a mix of several martial arts, was mostly to improve our
endurance, focus and coordination. No human could hope to best even the weakest
demon without a weapon, and even most vampires would find it difficult if not
downright impossible.

We were taught, also, how to fortify a street, and
how to guide civilians during evacuations. In the last few months before I was
sworn into the Guard, there were so many large demon attacks that we helped
evacuate the streets closest to the walls on a weekly basis. It became routine
for us, but the civilians were always reluctant to leave—reluctant enough,
actually, that when it was suggested that the streets closest to the walls be
permanently evacuated, we came very close to having riots on our hands. With
the town full of refugees, all homes were needed. The solution would have been
to refuse new arrivals, but Bergsen and Will never issued that order. We were
the city with the best fortifications and defenses in the country, and they had
decided that as long as the town could live with the delivery of food from
beyond the walls along with what our gardens produced, the doors would remain
open to refugees. It took decades before that changed.

Between intensive training and evacuations, these
months flew by, slowing down only when I returned to a more ‘normal’ life every
other week. With the regular education system as shaken as it was, I learned
far more at camp than I did in school, and those weeks spent into a cramped
classroom, with my peers looking at me and the other Cadets with both
trepidation and envy, seemed like a loss of time when I could have learned so
much more elsewhere.

For the entire time, I never saw more than glimpses
of Will, and never was able to talk to him. Bergsen spoke to us on a regular
basis, reinforcing the importance of what we had chosen to do, but Will never
was one for public speeches. Even today, he leaves speaking to others, and is
happy to lead from behind the curtain—or from the front row of the defense
lines.

When I formally joined the Guard, though, I started
seeing more of him than I sometimes wished I had.

Chapter 4

The apartment’s window opened on the nicest view the
ten-story building offered. Down below, the gray of the city was brightened by
a splash of green. The city’s largest park, these days, doubled as one of the
gardens that helped provide fresh food to humans. On the horizon, far beyond
the walls, the mountains seemed purple or blue, depending on the time of day or
the weather.

However, it wasn’t because of the view that this
apartment had been assigned to Wilhelm, or that all vampires’ quarters were
located on this same side of the building—the north side. As much as the human
members of the Guard sometimes complained about it, they understood the sheer
necessity of these quarters’ assignments. Good fabric and good wood were
sparse, too much so to waste on completely blocking direct sunlight.

“What good is that view to me?” Wilhelm had once heard
a vampire protest to some human friends. “Give me a windowless room instead,
and maybe I’ll sleep better.”

Wilhelm had long ago ceased to need much sleep. As a
fledgling, he had heard from Masters that, in time, he would learn to forego
sleep altogether. He had thought then that they were simply trying to impress
him, but with passing centuries, he had started to need less and less rest to
feel refreshed. He had rarely closed his eyes for more than four hours at a
time since the demons had appeared. It often seemed like a much longer time
than that.

After going to bed an hour or so after sunrise, just
long enough to hear the preliminary reports for the night, he usually woke by
midmorning—if he managed to sleep at all. Some mornings, the news was simply
too dire for him to even fall asleep; on these mornings, it was difficult to
refrain from calling Bergsen and telling him that it was over, Wilhelm was
quitting. He had never wanted to take such a great part in the fight, had been
quite content with helping where he could, but little by little over the years,
Bergsen had pushed more and more responsibilities on him.

He had protested, of course, more than once. The last
time he had let his exasperation pierce through had been a few weeks earlier.

“If I had known when I helped you organize the Guard
that you’d trap me with all these duties, I’d have left town instead.”

Bergsen hadn’t even shown the hint of a smile. “If you
had, this city and its people would have died within months.”

The worst thing was that he meant it.

Day after day, the same routine unfolded. Wilhelm got
out of bed, used his allotted four and a half minutes of hot water in the
shower and fed, all of it so automatic that he didn’t need to think. The blood
in the fridge was always human. Some weeks, the turn out of volunteers at the
blood bank was too low, or the number of human casualties needing transfusions
too high. Animal blood was distributed to the vampires in the Guard when that
was the case, but not to Wilhelm. He hadn’t requested this privilege, but he
also hadn’t requested to be treated like the other vamp recruits. Sooner or
later, Bergsen would need to cave in and make the blood donations a mandatory
part of the war effort.

Only after finishing his first glass of warmed blood
did Wilhelm go and pick up the sheets of paper someone had pushed beneath his
door. Returning to the small kitchenette, he warmed a second glass of blood in
the instant-oven and sat down to look at the numbers. On good days, the first
line, the line for human deaths attributed to vampire activity in the last twenty-four
hours, would be zero. This was not a good day.

“Damn it. I knew I should have looked for that lair
last night.”

His mutter seemed louder than it truly was in the
silent apartment. When he put down his glass, some blood sloshed over the side
and stained the table red.

The second line showed how many new vampires had
arrived in town in the same twenty-four hours. Today’s report showed none, but
the reports from the previous two nights had showed four and seven
respectively. Wilhelm was ready to bet that there was a new clan in town, one
that either did not care about the rules or had unruly fledglings amongst its
members. The city could use more vampire recruits in the Guard, but it had no
room for vampires that killed to feed.

Picking up the phone on the wall, Wilhelm dialed the
headquarters’ number.

“What are your orders, sir?”

He didn’t bother with civilities. The soldier who had
answered knew who was on the line, just as he knew Wilhelm wouldn’t have
bothered calling if he did not need something.

“Prepare a map with the locations where the bodies
were found. See if you can pinpoint where they were last seen alive, too. And
send MPs to question people near those points, see if anyone noticed new
neighbors.”

The request was a routine one, and the soldier did not
ask for clarifications. Wilhelm hung up the phone and returned to his study of
the bleak numbers.

The next lines identified the vampires that had been
killed during the skirmishes with demons the previous night. These numbers were
never as high as the ones on the second sheet of paper, which were human
members of the Guard killed or seriously injured, but added together they
always weakened the town’s defenses too much for comfort.

Already thinking about where he would start his search
that night, he abandoned the grim reports and his half finished glass in the
kitchen and went to lie on the battered sofa. Books were piled up just within
arm’s reach and he picked one up at random. He had read each book in these
untidy piles dozens of times and could recite parts of each from memory. This
familiarity was exactly what he needed at that moment. With his mind filled
with numbers and death, the flow of words would stop him from thinking for a
little while, and maybe even stop him from wondering if the fight was hopeless.

He couldn’t have said how much time had passed when a
sharp knock on the door startled him out of his reading. No one ever visited
him, not even Bergsen, and if they needed him to go to the headquarters because
of an emergency, they always called him.

His surprise only increased when he opened the door to
find a glowering Ariadne behind it.

“You had no right to do that!” she began without
warning. “I’ve wanted to fight with the Guard for six years, and with just a
few words you robbed me of that!”

Her eyes were blazing with the same fire they had held
when she had come to ask for his support almost two years earlier. The
difference was that now she was tall enough to look straight into his eyes.
Every time he saw her, it became more difficult to remember the young girl he
had once found alone in a graveyard.

“I don’t know what—” he started, but a snort
interrupted him.

“Don’t insult me on top of it.”

The anger in her gaze only strengthened, and Wilhelm
gave a small nod, acknowledging it.

“See,” she started again, “the problem with putting me
behind a desk is that it gives me access to my own file. And to the letter,
signed by you and countersigned by Commander Bergsen, that requested this
assignment for me. What happened to assignments in the Guard being decided at
random?”

The initial outburst had calmed, but her voice was
more compelling for it, her righteous anger giving it weight. Wilhelm had never
seen her like this. He had seen her afraid, distressed, pouting, even happy,
but never truly angry, and she seemed like an entirely different person in
front of him. It made him realize that, even though he had kept a close eye on
her over the years, making sure she was safe, then following her progress when
she had joined the Cadets, he had no idea who the young woman in front of him
was. All he knew was that her name was Ariadne, and he had pledged to himself
to do his best to keep her alive.

“Come in,” he said, shaking himself out of his torpor,
and stepped back to give her room to do so.

She frowned at him but walked in, taking a few steps
inside the small apartment and looking around her with undisguised curiosity.
Wilhelm wondered briefly what she thought, whether she had expected grander
accommodations than what she saw, but she didn’t say anything and her face,
when she turned to look at him, showed nothing but impatience.

Walking past her, he went to the kitchenette and
picked up one of the reports he had been looking at earlier.

“Here,” he said, giving her the paper. “Look at
those.”

She took the sheet, and Wilhelm watched as she scanned
it. Her eyes tightened ever so slightly, even as she pinched her lips into a
tight line.

“Some of these people were my friends,” she said, her
voice raspy, when she looked up at him again. “But it doesn’t explain why you
confined me to an office when I’ve trained for two years to be on the
battlefront.”

“You’re stuck in an office so you won’t end up on this
list. That’s all there is to it.”

She blinked once, and her eyes widened in incredulity
that soon transformed into indignation and anger.

“How dare you! You have no right… I can’t believe
you’d even think you can play with my life like that!”

“I’m not playing, Ariadne. I couldn’t be more serious.
I told you before that I didn’t want you to join the Cadets, and I feel the
same about the Guard.”

Her hand was shaking when she thrust the sheet of
paper back at him.

“Too late for that. I’m in. And I’m not going
anywhere, except to the front. And how well do you think I’ll fight when we
have a big attack and they call everyone to help? Do you think I’ll still be
able to fight, after spending my time seated behind a desk?”

For a moment, Wilhelm faltered; he had not thought of
that possibility. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it.

“I’ll leak the papers to the entire Guard,” Ariadne
continued when he didn’t answer. “If you don’t change my assignment, I’ll let
everyone know, and no one will ever obey your orders again without thinking
twice about the way you show favoritism. Because you know that’s how they’ll
interpret it.”

Wilhelm’s resolution hardened again. Couldn’t she see
he was trying to save her life?

“Threatening a superior is hardly the right way to
have a long career in the Guard, child.”

The edge of her smile could have sliced his throat.
“You’re not my superior. You don’t even have a rank. You’re just a man who
thinks he knows better than the rest of us, and who ignores anyone he doesn’t
have a use for. But I am part of the Guard, I earned my rank and the right to
fight, and while you can ignore me all you want, you can’t take that away from
me.”

There was a final challenge in her wavering voice and
eyes—a final reproach—and then she saluted him, her posture perfect, before she
turned on her heel and walked out of the apartment. The door banged shut behind
her.

After her parting words, Wilhelm was left to wonder
what she had been most upset about—that he had arranged for her to have an
office job, or that he hadn’t said a word to her since he had, despite passing
by her desk every day.

* * * *

My threats, as he called them, did not change
Will’s mind. The only thing that happened was that the next time I looked at my
file, the paper trail was gone. I hadn’t thought of making copies.

I appealed to Bergsen, but with no result. He gave
me a speech about how all assignments were equally honorable, and how others
envied me, but he refused to let these others, whoever they might have been,
trade their places with me.

That only left me one option.

All the members of the Guard who have office duty
volunteer to take turns standing guard over the walls, usually one to two
nights a month. It’s a way to refresh their training in between active
assignments. I started showing up there every night. I would finish my shift at
the headquarters, go to the mess for a quick dinner, then change into combat
uniform and be on my way. Every night, I made sure I reported directly to the
commanding officer and gave him or her my name and official assignment. It
wasn’t long before they all knew me—and not much longer after that before they
started muttering that my current assignment was a waste of my training.

Will showed up on the third night. He didn’t look
surprised to see me there, so I’m pretty sure he knew what I was doing. He
stayed around all night, and came back every night after that. I know he was
watching me. No, more than that, he was making sure I was safe. We were
attacked fourteen times during the five weeks I spent pulling a double shift
every night. And fourteen times, when I fought, Will was by my side. It was
easy to get used to it, and even easier, when it stopped, to miss him.

I managed to fight well enough during this time to
earn praises from all the commanding officers. And during the same time, I
slacked off shamelessly during the day, sometimes even falling asleep at my
desk. The other soldiers at headquarters knew what I was doing, and they picked
up whatever duties I wasn’t completing; it was their way to show that they
supported my silent protest. Most of them had been taken away from the front lines
after being wounded, or because they were deemed too old. None of them liked it
any better than I did.

One morning—I remember I had fought my hardest
battle yet that night, and had cuts and bruises all over my body to show for
it—when I arrived at headquarters, I found a huge bouquet of white roses on my
desk. I was curious, of course, but also a little uncomfortable; I was as
superstitious as any other Guard, and roses this color were said to be a bad
omen.

The blossoms were still tight, barely opening their
soft petals to the world, but the scent was already heady. An envelope was
nudged between two flowers. Inside it, I found a new assignment sheet; I was to
report to the walls that same night. I also found a handwritten note, signed
simply with a ‘W’.