Aria and Will (2 page)

Would you believe me if I said I still have his
handkerchief, even after all this time? I’ve sewn it inside my jacket, so I
could have it with me at all times without fear of losing it. The first time he
noticed, he didn’t recognize it. When I pointed out what it was, he told me I
was too sentimental. I thought he was a jerk—hell, I’ve thought as much many
times—until one day he admitted that he still had the stake he had traded for
the handkerchief. When I gave him his words back, he smiled and answered that
he knew.

It’s been a while since that night—I was twelve,
not ten as you said—but I still remember it well. It was September, and the air
was crisp, though not cold. We had buried my father that afternoon, and I had
memorized the way. I’m not sure anymore if I wanted to see him again, or if I
wanted to make sure he didn’t come back as a demon to hurt Mom, Paul and me. A
bit of both, I suppose. It never occurred to me that I might meet vampires or
demons on my way there. It never occurred to me either that if my father had
indeed awakened as a demon, I’d never have been strong enough to use that
stake. Not that stakes are very efficient on demons, but I couldn’t possibly
have known that, back then. All I knew was that my father was dead, my mother
kept sleeping, and sleeping, and sleeping, and my brother hurt as much as I
did. She stopped sleeping so much after Will had that little chat with her. We
kept hurting, though.

I remember something else from that night. I never
suspected until I heard him say it that he was a vampire, and even then, I had
trouble believing it. Few of us can seem as human as he does. I envy his trick,
sometimes. I’ve heard it said that it comes with centuries, but it would be
more logical if centuries made us less human, not more.

One last thing I recall—he didn’t say goodbye and
he didn’t look back, but I knew, there and then, that I’d see him again. I
didn’t imagine I’d be a vampire too eventually, of course not, but I was sure
we’d meet again. Call it wishful thinking or premonition; the truth is, I was
right. Less than a year passed before we met again.

Chapter 2

As useless as he knew it was with the alarm sirens
blaring every few seconds, Wilhelm couldn’t help keeping an ear out for sounds
of battle in the distance. By Central Command’s best estimations the demons
were an hour away from the city walls, still much too far for him to hear even
the stomping noises of an army. The town had resisted assaults from small
groups of demons for years, with only a few managing to breach the defenses and
rampage over the town before they could be stopped. However, there had never
been more than a hundred or so demons trying to take the town walls at any
given time. There was three times that number advancing toward Newhaven now.

“Sir? We’ve evacuated the entire block. The refugees
are en route to the shelters; they should arrive within ten minutes.”

Wilhelm spared a look at the soldier. His voice held
the slight tremor that came with nervousness, but he held himself upright, and
his eyes looked straight ahead without wavering. He couldn’t have been more
than eighteen. The Guard accepted children as young as seventeen, now. Wilhelm
hated it, but he had been the one to convince Commander Bergsen of the
necessity of it. They needed more troops, and that meant either opening the
ranks to younger volunteers, or establishing a mandatory draft for the
able-bodied men and women in town. It would come to that eventually, Wilhelm
was sure of it, but Bergsen still couldn’t resolve himself to it.

With a nod of thanks to the soldier, Wilhelm looked
down at the map spread over the car trunk in front of him. He trailed a finger
over the evacuated area and continued farther inside the city. The walls would
be breached, this time, they all knew it. The question was, how far would the
demons advance before the fifteen hundred men of the Guard managed to stop them
and start pushing them back? And the Guard
had
to win. The alternative
would mean carnage. The city was full of refugees who had fled other towns
destroyed by demon attacks; there would be no escaping this time.  All Central
Command could do was hope the Guard held strong.

“How full are the shelters?” Wilhelm asked when his
finger stopped over the name of a small street he had visited almost nightly
for the better part of the past year.

“Most report being filled to maximum capacity. But
almost all of them say they can make room for at most a dozen more people if
needed.”

Wilhelm nodded again as he folded the map. “Then we’re
clearing out the next street. Same as before, two soldiers per household,
civilians can take no more than one bag per family. I want the entire street
cleared in twenty minutes. Stop the sirens as soon as it’s done.”

The soldier saluted before hurrying away. They always
did, however often Wilhelm reminded them that he was not part of the Guard and
military protocol did not apply to him. Bergsen snorted every time he heard
Wilhelm say it. He had long since stopped trying to push a military rank on
Wilhelm, but he still encouraged his troops to treat him as his second in
command.

In private, they both knew who led and who followed,
and Bergsen, thankfully, had no problem in taking orders from a vampire.

Following the flow of soldiers, Wilhelm pulled out his
cell phone and called Bergsen. The Commander was at the wall, where they
expected the first wave of attack to come, keeping an eye on the advance of the
demons and on the preparations of the Guard.

“We’re evacuating one more street in the north west
quadrant,” Wilhelm said without preamble. “I’ll be back to the front within
half an hour.”

“Latest estimates show approximately three hundred and
seventy demons,” Bergsen replied. “And they’re walking faster than expected. If
you take more than half an hour, you’ll miss the beginning of the festivities.”

Information exchanged, Wilhelm flipped his phone shut
and hailed the two soldiers who were about to walk into the fenced yard of a
house.

“I’ll take this one,” he told them. “Move on to the
next house.”

The two women exchanged a quick glance. No doubt, they
found it strange that he would take part in the evacuation himself. He owed
them no explanation however, and at his raised eyebrow, they saluted him before
hurrying off to the next yard. One of them was a vampire, but he could never
have guessed from simply looking at her if he hadn’t recruited her himself. The
first vampires who had joined the Guard had demanded a special insignia, but
Wilhelm had fought that idea with all his might. Distinguishing between humans
and vampires would have led to nothing good.

He couldn’t help glancing at the second floor window
as he walked toward the front door. The light was on behind the pink curtains
despite the late hour. The wooden lattice that had once run down the facade of
the house had been torn away days after he had visited the house, almost a year
earlier.

He raked his fingers through his messy curls when he
reached the door, then pressed the bell. The three chimes were the same as he
remembered, but when the door opened, the woman behind it was much different
from the grief-struck widow he had once met. A hint of fear clung to her scent,
but she showed none of it and the way she stood straight screamed her
determination.

“Your street is being evacuated,” he said, wondering
if she would recognize him. “Your family has three minutes to pack one bag
before we take you to safety.”

He saw her gulp, but she nodded before turning back
toward the inside of the house and calling out very calmly: “Paul, Aria, we’re
leaving.”

Within seconds, the two children were descending the
staircase while their mother picked up the travel bag resting against the wall.
Clearly, they had listened to the emergency instructions broadcasted earlier.
If everyone had prepared like them, Wilhelm thought grimly, the evacuation
could have been finished in half the time.

Both Paul and Ariadne opened wide eyes when they saw
Wilhelm, and the girl gave him a shy smile; they recognized him, even if their
mother did not, but neither of them said anything as she motioned for them to
step out. She closed and locked the door behind her; when she rested her palm
against the white wood for an instant, her lips moving soundlessly, Wilhelm
guessed that she was praying she would still have a home when it was over. He
felt a slight pang at that. There was no place he called home anymore. No place
he would miss if he needed to leave town.

“The trucks are this way,” he gestured toward the end
of the street, and the three humans started walking behind him. There were
other groups walking up the street, all of them accompanied by soldiers. They
had learned the hard way that they needed to accompany the evacuees to the
trucks if they wanted a fast evacuation.

Wilhelm was startled when a small, warm hand slipped
into his. He looked down and met Ariadne’s eyes. She had grown, since he had
first met her, and her head almost reached his shoulder.

“You’re Will, aren’t you?” she asked quietly.

“And you’re Ariadne. I remember you.”

Her smile widened, just a little.

“I’ve seen you,” she murmured. “When you walk down our
street. You always look at my window.”

Both Paul and his mother were observing the exchange,
Wilhelm noticed, and neither seemed pleased by it. Uncomfortable, he freed his
hand from Ariadne’s.

“I just wanted to make sure you were safe,” he
replied, shrugging to make his words more casual. “You haven’t been walking
around at night anymore, have you?”

A quiet gasp from the mother revealed that she
understood, at last, who Wilhelm was. When he glanced at her, she looked away,
her cheeks suddenly very pale.

“I haven’t,” Ariadne said with a shake of her head.
“But I’ll join the Guard, when I’m old enough. They will let me, won’t they?”

Paul muttered something under his breath that might
have been a curse. His mother was more vocal.

“Ariadne, that’s enough.”

The thread of fear in her voice caught Wilhelm’s
attention, and he looked at her again, wondering why she was so upset. Did she
believe he would take Ariadne at her word and give her a sword right there and
then? Who did she think he was?

“Maybe by the time you’re old enough,” he told the
child just as they were reaching the trucks, “the war will be over and there
won’t be need for the Guard anymore.”

Paul let out a bark of dry laughter at that; he was
shaking his head while he climbed into the back of the truck and helped his
mother. Ariadne was last, and she turned a large smile toward Wilhelm before
following them.

“Good luck,” she said. “I’ll wave at you next time you
walk in front of our house.”

He managed to smile at her then turned away and
quickly strode to where the soldiers who would soon to go the front were
gathering. He looked at all of them with new eyes, his fatigue from the past
days all of a sudden lifted. Each one of them had volunteered to be there and
believed in what they did. Maybe the battle wouldn’t turn out so badly, after
all.

* * * *

Are you trying to make me look like a Lolita, and
Will like a pervert? Let’s set things straight, all right? I was twenty-two
when he first let me kiss him, and it was five years later before we did
anything more than that. The age difference will always be there, of course,
but you don’t have to make it look so bad.

While we’re at it, that’s not how I remember the
events of that night. I do remember squeezing his hand, because I wanted to say
thank you—for bringing me home, months earlier, for talking to my mother, for
being kind—but I didn’t quite know how. Also, I don’t think I was smiling that
much. Hell, the sirens had been blaring for at least two hours when we evacuated.
I was scared I was going to die, or if not me, Mom or Paul. I can’t possibly
have smiled that much. I don’t care what you think you know, I just didn’t.

As for Will… You’re not explaining much about him,
are you? I guess that means I have to.

The reason why he came to our door was the same
reason he had for walking through my street so often when he patrolled the
town, or even for deciding to evacuate my street and not the next one. It’s
also the same reason why he kisses me every time we leave for a fight. As old
as he is, with everything he has seen, all the battles he has fought, he still
needs something to fight for. He needs an image at the back of his mind of the
people he’s helping to keep safe.

When he first met me, in the cemetery, he didn’t
have that connection anymore, he told me, long after we had become lovers. So,
he picked me and my family as the people he’d fight for, the people he would do
everything in his power to protect. With his influence in town, ‘everything in
his power’ turned out to be quite a lot when I joined the Guard, and we had a
couple of heated arguments about that. He can be so stubborn!

His need for someone to keep alive was also why he
was so upset when I was turned. I thought he would kill my Sire when I rose as
a vampire. For the longest time, I told myself he had just been jealous that he
wasn’t the one to turn me, but now I know better. I know him better. Still,
even after all this time, he always manages to surprise me.

The last time he did was just days ago, after our last
big battle. As soon as it was clear that the demons had retreated for good and
wouldn’t be back for a while, he gave his orders to his second in command and
then led me to a car with blacked out windows, on the other side of town, where
it would have been safe even if the demons had pushed further in. We were both
covered in mud and blood, and I was dying for a bath, but he shushed my
protests and made me climb in. He drove for the remainder of the night, too
fast for someone who had fought for hours. I dozed off after a little while;
even if he drove fast, I knew he wouldn’t run us off the road.

When he woke me, the sun was beginning to appear
above the horizon and I didn’t have time to really see where we were. We
hurried into a small house. There were white roses just about everywhere,
hundreds of them, and I laughed at their scent and beauty. White roses are our
flowers. They have become a symbol of mourning for many people, but they have
never been so for us.

Thankfully for him, there also was a tub, in this
house—a nice, large one, in which we both fitted easily. We washed each other,
and played a little, but we were both too tired for much more. We went to sleep
between satin sheets. I hadn’t seen any of those in decades if not more; I have
no idea where he found them. We slept the day away, catching up on sleep lost
preparing yet one more big battle.

We rose together by nightfall, and while I warmed
up some blood I found in the fridge, he went outside for a moment. When he came
back, we fed quickly and then he slipped a blindfold over my eyes and led me
out. He made me sit down on the ground before removing the blindfold. He had
spread a blanket in front of the house, but that wasn’t what made me open my
eyes wide. Just a few steps in front of me, the yard ended in an abrupt cliff,
and I could see miles and miles away, small clusters of light where towns lay,
and the immensity of the sky above them. It was breathtaking.

I kept watching when he sat behind me, his legs on
each side of me, and pulled me to rest against his chest. He tugged at my
robe’s belt and pulled it open, baring me to the night. His hands played over
my body, soft and gentle, arousing me slowly but with the confidence brought by
decades of sharing the same bed. We made love blanketed by the night, and lay
together afterwards, watching the stars together, reminding each other of the
names we gave the constellations more than a hundred years ago until there was
nothing left to say. And then…