Solomon's Sieve (4 page)

“I guess,
” he conceded. His scowl was more obligatory than sincere, lip service to the code of macho.

Using an armload of logs from the half cord of firewood on the deck, Sol built a fire to warm up the cottage while they were waiting for the small gas furnace to do its job. When everything was put away, they drank a glass of wine and made love in front of the fire on a white rag rug that was so thick it felt like a pallet.

When Sol had assured her that he had the resources to take her anywhere she wanted to go, she had immediately formed images of having him in her house. And, once that vision had taken root, it appealed to her more than anything else she could think of.

Farnsworth was so accustomed to relaxing at the cottage and letting work stress dissolve away that her nervous system responded to the environment automatically and put her in getaway mode. Sol, on the other hand, had muscles that were knots on top of knots on top of knots. If he had ever known how to relax, it had been decades in the past and, certainly, the idea of "vacation" was foreign to his nervous system.

So he fidgeted and paced and suggested things to go and do. She sat watching him, casually sipping chardonnay, in a yellow cable sweater the same cheerful color as the cottage.

“Let’s go for a walk on the beach,” she said.

He stopped abruptly, his gaze going toward the ocean. “A walk on the beach?” He looked and sounded as if he'd never heard of such a thing.

“Um-hmmm.”

“
What for?”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Just because. Go put on enough layers to keep you toasty and we’ll go see what there is to see.” He looked dubious. “Come on. It’ll be fun. I promise.”

“You promise?” His face split into a grin.

“I do.”

He swore he liked the sound of that, but he would have also sworn that he would hate walking on the beach. Maybe that would have been true under other circumstances, but doing things with Farnsworth just made them different. She had a way of transforming ordinary experiences into extraordinary events, simply by virtue of being there.

She taught him to like walking on the beach by changing his perspective. She pointed out sights like little birds that ran on the sand so fast you almost couldn’t see their skinny little legs and little crabs that ran out of holes on some unseen errand and then retreated to safety just as fast. Now and then she'd point to the remains of a seashell and tell him what kind it was. Through her eyes his consciousness was raised to appreciate the way sunlight dances on water, the way the color of the ocean changes to try and match the color of the sky, the way brightly colored windsocks whip in the wind against a blue sky background and make the whole world feel festive.

He began to see through her eyes, hear through her ears, feel her sensations, and little by little, day by day, the layers of tension fell away and she saw, for the first time, what his face looked like when the muscles were lax and not held rigid as steel.

One day he picked up a stick and threw it for a retriever someone was walking on the beach. When he turned back to her with a laugh and a glorious heart-stopping grin she said, “Solomon. You’re so lovely when you let go.”

His grin resolved into a smile. “Lovely? If you say so.”

“
I do.”

He liked the sound of that every time he heard it. “I was just aiming for nice-looking. Did I overshoot?”

She laughed. “Indeed you did. By fathoms.”

“
I think I’m keeping you”

He pulled her into a kiss that was far too passionate for a beach they shared with passersby. She thought about pulling away, was sure that pulling away was the appropriate thing to do, but her body was making the case that life was too short for propriety. So she returned his kiss with enough fervor to make sure he knew she meant it.

The days melted away into the closest thing to pure happiness that Sol had ever known. He didn’t remember feeling that happy or carefree even in childhood. And that was the state of his euphoria when the call came that he was needed at Headquarters immediately. The furrows in his brow reappeared instantly, the lines around his eyes were deeper, and the smile that had become perpetual disappeared.

She nodded as he promised to come right back if he could. He gave her the keys to Storm’s roadster and a soft, lingering kiss goodbye. When he reached the end of the deck he turned back once to see her watching from inside the glass door. She waved and his heart responded with a reluctance to go. He’d never before had a hard time with the call of duty and he cursed under a heavy sigh when he confronted just how much he didn’t want to leave her or that place. He would have given just about anything to stay right where he was.

But he didn’t.

He took a cab to Ocean City and paid dearly for a jet charter to New York where he could jump on a company transport to Scotia.

When he got to Simon’s office, Baka and heads of some of the other units that would be most affected by the news were already there. Sol thought he’d been in grim meetings before, but nothing compared to the somber vibe in Director Tvelgar’s conference room as he delivered the message that the tide had turned on the Inversion. Not only had the vaccine ceased to work, but the resurgent strain of virus mutation was stronger and faster than before, converting human to vampire within minutes of contact with the bloodstream.

As they went over the projections, each man present had felt his heart sag as he realized that the short, hopeful reprieve was turning into a bigger problem than they had before. Instead of reducing the number of knights in rotation, they were going to be hard pressed to meet the increased demand. They would have to recall every able-bodied retired hunter to active duty and begin inducting the trainees sooner than optimum.

The Hunter Division had developed a tradition of waiting until their knights-to-be were twenty-two before sending them into the field, although exceptions were made on a case by case basis. Though they might be physically capable by the time they were eighteen, they were generally thought to lack the judgment crucial to keeping them and their comrades alive. There were only three training facilities in the world. They were the units in London, Brasilia and New Jersey.

Dr. Tvelgar turned to the three men who were Sovereigns of those facilities and told them that they were to go home and begin gearing up by submitting requisitions for support staff and sending formal notices to a lot of retired knights who’d gone to bed that very night believing they’d seen their last hunt. They were informed that the active duty knights who had been transferred would be returned to their former units with no additional paperwork being necessary. They were also instructed that they were to begin the process of selecting trainees to “go” early. They would each need to contribute three to make the numbers work.

Somehow that was harder for the Sovereigns to digest than the idea of compelling retirees to return to a dangerous occupation from which they thought they’d successfully escaped and lived to tell the tale. They agreed they wouldn’t bring up any retirees over the age of forty, which was palatable enough. But the idea of sending the young against vampire before the age of psychological readiness was difficult. It smacked of sacrifice. And the training unit heads didn’t like it one bit.

At the same time they were told that people were being pulled from other Order duties to expand Recruiting and that they should prepare for larger incoming classes of fourteen-year-olds. The Sovereigns – looking older and grayer by the moment - glanced at each other with a taciturn solemnness and even the least sensitive of them was aware of the air grown heavier in the room. Still, they looked downright giddy compared to Baka.

Leadership had always required dedication and concentration, but the burden had never felt cumbersome, like lead weight. There wasn’t one person in the room who wasn’t silently wishing that they’d never heard of the vaccine. It was turning out to be three steps forward, ten steps back. And each step back represented deaths that they, as Sovereigns, would be responsible for cataloguing.

As they filed out of Simon’s office, Sol looked at Baka. “Looks like you better make a bigger effort to stay human this time.”

Baka turned toward Sol and cocked his head. “I suppose it could be said that the only good thing that came out of this was that I got my humanity back. No doubt there’ll be many in the future to say it wasn’t worth it.”

“What’s the final verdict on the others?”

Baka grimaced. “We didn’t have as much success with rehabilitation as we had hoped.” He looked away and lowered his voice like it hurt him physically to say the next sentence. “Nearly half became suicides.”

“Well, you know that thing about historical distancing and the big picture. Who’s to say how it will look in the annals when the dust settles?”

Baka tried a smile that didn’t quite work. “Good to see you, Old Man.”

Sol barked out a laugh. “You’re calling me old? Now
that
is funny.” When his smile died he said, “What are you going to do? You’re welcome to join my hunters at J.U. Storm always said you missed your calling, that you would have been a great vampire slayer.”

“No irony there.” Baka drew in a big breath. “Thank you for the offer. I guess I need to have a sit down with my wife. And, of course, we need to decide how this affects the, um, do you call them Animal House, too?”

Sol smirked. “Everybody calls them that but you.”

Baka nodded. “Well, we need to decide what part, if any, they’re going to play now that we’ve changed direction. Can I get back to you?”

“Anytime.”

Baka gave a lift of his chin as he started walking away, but stopped and turned. “The hardest thing is that there are some out there who could still be cured, but knights in the field have no way of recognizing which strain the infected are carrying, new or old.”

“No. They don’t,” Sol said slowly.

“So they all have to be treated as incurable hostiles.”

“I’m afraid so. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. It’s a shame. Huh?”

Sol had hung back and lingered in Simon’s outer office hoping to talk to him privately before he left.

“So, where were you when we called?”

Sol smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “On holiday with my girl. First one I’d ever taken. Wouldn’t you know?”

Simon sat behind his desk and cocked his head while he considered that. “First girl or first vacation?”

“Funny. First vacation.”

“Did you take her home or leave her stranded?”

“Neither. I left her at her vacation house at Cape May. Told her I’d come back if I could.”

“Hmmm. Well, I don’t see how taking another couple of days would make such a difference. We’ll be stipulating that your transferred knights and former staff have twenty days to report for duty. Why don’t you go finish your holiday on a good note? It may be a while before you get another.”

Sol nodded again. “Suspect truer words were never spoken. Thanks. I believe I will. She works for The Order, at my unit. So same goes for her.”

“Oh? Do I know her?”

“No idea. Her name is Farnsworth.”

Simon leaned back and laughed. “You and Farnsworth? Well, yes, I know her by phone. I’ve talked to her many times over the years, a marvel of efficiency.” He looked at Sol like he was studying him through a new filter. “Yes. I can see the two of you together. Is she a handsome woman?”

Sol smiled at Simon’s very British expression. “None can compare.”

“Well, then.”

“Well, then.” Simon stood, shook hands with Sol and walked him as far as the door of the outer office.

When Sol learned that he had to wait six hours to get a company jet back to New York, he decided to use the time productively. Baka told him about a jeweler a couple of blocks away. So he set out on foot to, as Farnsworth would say, “see what there was to see”.

Between waiting on the jet at The Order’s private hangar to refuel and get a maintenance check, the flight to New York, the charter to Ocean City, and the cab ride, he was traveling for eighteen hours. He tried to give some thought to the monumental tasks awaiting when he returned to J.U., but all he could think about was getting back to Farnsworth. He cursed himself for acting like a fifteen-year-old who had just found out that sex is even better than it sounds.

He texted her from the hangar at Edinburgh.
It will be tomorrow, but I’m on the way back.

She responded almost immediately.
I’ll be here.