The Midnight Guardian (15 page)

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Authors: Sarah Jane Stratford

BOOK: The Midnight Guardian
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She was so astonished, she jumped back, slipped, and fell smack into a dunghill. She would have gotten out more quickly had Aelric not tried to help her, and they were both covered head to toe in it by the time they were back on the path. Another time, in different company, she would have laughed, but a rage was swelling through her like she'd never known, and she was desperate to escape to the sanctuary of the baths.
Mors was lingering in the corridor that adjoined the male and female baths, joking with Leonora. At first, he thought Brigantia had walked into cobwebs and they were clinging to her lashes as though to a cat's whiskers. Then he realized it was smoke. Smoke, wafting from Brigantia's eyes and billowing around her head. A deep flush was rising in her face. Her hair—he could see even through the shit—was reddening and lifting, although there was no breeze.
Aelric was bouncing behind Brigantia, intoning a steady monologue.
“I'm a good listener, I am, you should try me, you should trust me, you owe me that, you do, you know. You owe me that and more. You owe me everything you are, didn't I choose you? Didn't I make you? Didn't I give you a gift and aren't you ever going to show me any real gratitude?”
He leaped in front of her then, arms crossed righteously, and he, Mors, and Leonora witnessed Brigantia's explosion in all its full horror. It
wasn't just fangs, and claws, and red eyes. It was something that seemed regurgitated from Hell. Blood-drenched bones burst from under her skin. Then, what no one had ever seen in any vampire: flames shooting from her hair and lashes. She roared, and fire spewed from her mouth. Aelric fainted, and her fiery claw shot toward his throat, but Mors seized Brigantia and threw her into the bath, holding her under the warm water until the flames succumbed and died and he finally saw the bones slide back into place and her skin regain its pallor.
Brigantia sputtered on reaching the water's surface and stood silently as Leonora reached over and pulled a towel around her. Nearly a foot of singed hair fell into dust at her feet and her fingernails were black, but she was otherwise outwardly unscathed. She wiped her face and looked at the filthy bathwater with regret.
“Well … shit.”
Mors chuckled and Brigantia looked up at him ruefully. She was trembling with exhaustion, fear, and pain, because the fire had burned deep within her, but she felt her own self flowing back into her, even more so when she made a point of treading on the still-unconscious Aelric as Mors guided her to a small, unoccupied cave.
“I suspect you want your own little chamber now, don't you? You'll sleep better.”
He waited outside while she changed into dry robes, then came in and tucked her up in bed as though she were a child. He folded her hand in his and smiled down at her.
“Well, little Brigantia. We all knew you were a fiery one, we just never guessed how much.”
She laughed weakly and shut her eyes.
“Thank you, Mors.”
It was hardly even a whisper, but he heard it. He leaned down and hummed an ancient song into her ear, sending her into a deep and dreamless sleep.
 
She could not stop being the new self she was coming to like so much, but the feeling of the fire subdued her. Undoubtedly, Mors knew what she did not want to tell anyone else, or even admit to herself, which was that it had been halfway to killing her. Her slow, considered movements the next few
days were a result of charred organs painfully repairing themselves. Her esophagus ached too badly to ask Otonia the question to which she already knew the answer anyway. No one else had a true fire inside like that. Other demons could not explode so viciously as to destroy their own hosts. She touched the place where she knew the demon dwelled, wondering why it would do such a thing to her. She'd entertained an idea that it loved her, that it was helping her to grow. Now it seemed it was another thing to mistrust, a thing that, on a whim, could turn against her.
Nothing was said of the incident, and everyone treated her much the same as always. The only difference was that Mors's eyes twinkled sardonically whenever they met hers. Eventually, however, it was he, not Otonia, who offered the explanation that comforted her.
“You were an angry human, weren't you? You were filled with bile, born with it. Times were it simply exploded from you and woe betide anyone who might be within spewing distance.”
Brigantia did not ask how he knew such details. She waited for him to continue.
“It's not the demon. It wouldn't be. Your human self was full up of anger when it died. It was too potent to simply be absorbed by the demon. It is its own beast. That's the fire, your physical manifestation of your human anger. Congratulations, Brigantia. You are unique indeed.”
There was no way to know if this was all true, but she accepted it. And it helped.
For his part, Aelric kept a wary distance from the creature he'd made and prized so much. Whether it was murder or death he'd seen in those flaming eyes was a distinction that hardly mattered. She was nothing like what he'd hoped when he had taken first her humanity and then her virginity. He'd had a dream of a fun-loving companion who gazed at him with adoration, who showered him in love and giggles and never strayed from his side. Or perhaps he'd wanted something like what Swefred had in the quiet Meaghan, a lover who, though passive and outwardly unsmiling, still saw nothing in the world but the man who never wanted to leave her sights. He was her world, and she his. It was this that Aelric had hoped for, and perhaps the envy of the tribunal, and instead he was back to bedding down alone, while she whom he so wanted to hold and love avoided his eye.
As he became more distant and troubled, Brigantia felt uneasy and even concerned. To her own mild vexation, she could not help occasionally trying to comfort and bolster him. That potent mix of duty and guilt made for uneasy relations.
Something akin to détente was eventually achieved, and Aelric took to hunting with her, even knowing it broke all their laws. He couldn't help it, he was addicted to watching her hunt. A nagging sense of duty, however unreasonable, drove her back into his bed, although it held even less pleasure than before. And it wasn't long before she was irked at his company again. But she was now close to seventy-five and slowly learning control. She also had the respect of the tribunal to revel in. No one could have dreamed Aelric would achieve his centennial, and it was her influence that had done it. These things kept her from lashing out when he was his most childish and exhausting.
“I've always wanted to eat a couple together, haven't you?”
“No.”
“Let's try it anyway, don't you think it would be fun?”
“No.”
“It would be new, anyway, and you like new things, right?”
“Aelric, I'm hungry. I want to eat alone. After that, there's some new plants that need tending and …”
“Ah, see? New.”
“Plants. In my garden. Yes, those I like. And you know it. Now go on, hurry up, you'll have a hard time finding anything good to eat if you dawdle much longer.”
Aelric fidgeted nervously, wanting to say more, but finally wandered away, leaving Brigantia to meander with some leisure toward the Nessgate alehouse.
It was no hard-and-fast rule, but when selecting a meal, vampires tended to drift toward the gender that might draw them sexually. Since most meals were killed via seduction, rather than terror, it made the process easier, and added color. It was playacting, which they all enjoyed. Brigantia often wondered about that, and determined that it was the vague unreality of undead life that gave them all such a natural turn for drama. In any case, human society being what it was, there were fewer women out in the dark than men. Even prostitutes kept to their brothels,
although they were still useful prey, as they lurked by windows and were apt to invite a man inside. Sometimes, those who sought women waited till closer to predawn, when girls might come out to tend cows and poultry. Other times, you just had to acknowledge a bad draw and give it up for the night. Even the newest ones needed to eat only every three days. The older you got, the longer you could go without food. Which, of course, was better for the human population and, in turn, better for the vampires. More selection. They could be choosy.
The alehouse was as raucous as Brigantia expected it would be. Men and the way they changed under the influence of ale … it never failed to amuse. It often made the game a bit too easy, but one had to find prey in its natural habitat.
The young man who staggered out early smelled of lust, and was indeed wending his way toward the brothel. Definitely too easy, but entertaining. Brigantia pleasantly waylaid him and raised his hopes, being far prettier and more intriguing than the wares inside the house. She hadn't even asked for any money first before leading him into a dark snicket and running a cool hand up his arm and around his neck. His eyes were closed and he was drifting with pleasure when Aelric surprised Brigantia from behind and broke the spell.
“Any of that left? I'm starving!”
Brigantia whirled. Her prey reeled in pain. Feeling the blood dripping down his neck, he began to scream.
“Vampire! Vampire! Two of them here! Vampire! Help!”
He ran, not well, but it was enough to be heard.
Brigantia caught him quickly and snapped his neck. But it was too late, she could hear the stirrings of the city and smell the fear … and the hunt.
Her first instinct was to leave Aelric, knowing she could run faster without him, but in his panic he would run straight for home and that would be disaster. So she seized his wrist and dragged him behind her, running a carefully circuitous path that she hoped would kill the scent.
It was hard going. She didn't know if they would be coming from the city or the outskirts. Perhaps they were among the guards at the walls? How much light would they need to travel? She desperately wanted to stop and think, but Aelric made thinking impossible.
“We can go now, Brigantia, we lost them. I'm sure of it.”
“I'm not.”
“Well, let's fight them then. Come on, pull that fire out of you—that might well frighten them to death.”
“I couldn't pull it out at will even if I wanted to. Don't you understand?” She stopped and faced him. “I have hardly begun. I am not ready to die.”
“You could never die.”
She wondered if perhaps that was the kindest or most foolish thing he had ever said to her.
There was little time to wonder. They were deep in the woods now, many miles north of the caves. Her thought was to crisscross their way to the river and swim back south. It would be arduous, but there was no better plan. She wished she knew how many men were hunting them, and how capable they were.
Aelric was worse than useless. He talked much too loudly, he wanted to fight, thought it would be hilarious, and what did Otonia know, anyway? Humans able to kill vampires, that was absurd. Insane. A folk legend.
“Perhaps it's we who are the folk legends.”
That shut him up, because he could not understand it.
It happened fast, faster than she could have imagined. The shouts were unexpectedly near, and though she was startled, she didn't know why she fell so hard into the bracken.
Seconds later, she realized Aelric had climbed a hill and caught the light and that the hunters had seen him. It was bad luck. Simple bad luck. She herself had tumbled into a shallow ditch and, covered in fallen leaves, was as good as invisible. It was good luck. Simple good luck. She pressed herself deep against the earth, wanting to run and yet prostrate with fear. And she could see … she could see only too well.
Aelric fought, and it was not a fight to be ashamed of, but again, his luck was against him. Though he snapped the arm of one man, he left himself free for the other. And here was where it began. There is always a choice. Even if the end is the same, there is always an option for how to get there. Her human self might have stayed with her people and fought the Vikings and either died by a blade or from the shame of sexual slavery.
She might have left Aelric behind in that alley when the man screamed, but he was her maker, and she would not have done that. Now, for the same reason, she must step forward. Here was her chance. A blinding moment of pure opportunity. As if in a dream, she saw herself fly around behind the man wielding the pointed wooden stick. She seized his arms, snapped them off at the elbow, dropped them and grabbed his head. Turned it, quickly and with just the right amount of force. The other man, all he needed was another kick to break his ribs and Aelric could feed off him. So easy, really. It was done.
But she didn't move. Aelric turned and saw his death coming and saw she wasn't there. That she was letting it happen. The stunned betrayal and hurt in his eyes pierced her as surely as the wood pierced him, so that she felt its point enter her own heart, felt her body contract. Then, what Otonia had not described: the long, long second before the body crumbled, collapsed in itself, shriveled into dust. A body was there, and then it wasn't. Aelric had been, and now he was nothing. Skin, flesh, bone … all air and dust.

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