The Guard

by Harri Aburrow-Newman

  The captain nodded slowly, turning this information over in his mind,

  “How do you know all of this?”

  I grimaced inwardly, I had anticipated this question but was yet to come up with what I thought was a satisfactory answer. I wished Ysabel was there, she could have sweet talked him into believing anything. As she popped into my mind a sharp pain radiated through my chest and I had to suppress a groan, the pain momentarily erasing my train of thought, filling me with a longing to just curl up in a ball somewhere and shut down. I cleared my throat, recalling myself with some difficulty to the situation at hand,

  “You think that the army was the only organisation trying to get rid of these things? There are plenty of people attempting to infiltrate vampire hideouts and bases, passing themselves off as human cattle or vampire wannabes. For every ten that died trying, one managed to get some information out. It was pieced together and once we thought we had the whole, we came to the authorities with it. This isn’t the only special unit being formed, every major country in the world, or at least every one with a significant vampire problem has formed one. And for each unit is someone like me to provide the intelligence and keep everyone linked together.”

  I touched his mind delicately, testing how he was taking this… swallowing it for now, so I continued,

  “There is a catch though, or at least I expect you’ll see it as a catch…”

  His eyes shot up to my face again,

  “Oh let me guess, you need masses of money in recompense for telling us this? Oh or wait, maybe a title when it’s all over?”

  His brown eyes had rapidly changed from bright curiosity to radiating fury and I couldn’t help but laugh, which just made him look angrier,

  “Such suspicion! I’m shocked that I look like that sort of girl,” I chuckled again, “No, the catch is that we are not just advisors. Those of us who have been selected to work directly with the special units are also combat specialists. We will be joining you on the front line, and that is non-negotiable.”

  The captain’s jaw dropped slightly, this was obviously the last thing he expected to hear and immediately his brain started calculating the risks and assessing me.

  “Uhh, to be honest I’m not sure that that will work… you’re a civilian! And, well, no offence, but you don’t look like the fighting sort…” he stumbled slightly and I grinned inwardly at his discomfort, wondering what his reaction would be if he could see me in full fighting mode.

  “Have you ever handled a gun?” he asked,

  I made a noncommittal noise in the back of my throat and shrugged slightly,

  “Fear not, captain, I was neither kidding nor exaggerating when I said I was a specialist. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  I shot a hand out and put a finger on his lips as he made to protest again, enjoying the shocked look on his face at such an invasion of his personal space,

  “Your superiors have already cleared this. You don’t have a choice.”

  He scowled, conceding the point reluctantly, at least for the moment.

  “So what’s next, any more bombshells for me?” he said mulishly,

  “Nope,” I grinned at him cheerfully, unsettling him yet again, “now there is only the boring planning part, where I will have to shout a lot and stamp my little feet to convince the idiots in charge that I know what I’m talking about.”

  At that, I stood up and walked out, leaving him sitting back in his chair, stunned.

  Exiting the room quickly, I turned sharply to my left, waving off the armed soldiers who had been assigned to babysit me. When they made to follow anyway I turned on them, nearly hissing my frustration, a reflex which I barely managed to swallow,

  “I am going to the bathroom. Can’t a girl have a little privacy?”

  As I said it, I nudged at their minds, implanting the response that I wanted in their heads with just a whisper of power, which nevertheless involved lowering my defences enough to allow another wave of pain to jab through my midsection. The soldiers saluted and returned to their posts by the door, simply requesting that I return as soon as I was ready.

  I continued on my way, carefully forcing myself to keep to a human speed, too aware of the CCTV cameras blinking near the ceiling at regular points along every corridor. Slamming into the toilets after what seemed like an eternity of walking, I locked the door, just in time for the barriers keeping the pain from my body to finally cave in. I collapsed to my knees and curled myself into a ball, an annoyingly human response to the pain radiating throughout my body, centred on the hole in my heart where Ysabel’s presence should be. After all these years, and all our attempts to work separately, I knew without question why the guard were never allowed to bond, and why the punishment for it was death. A warrior who had bonded became next to useless if they weren’t within a few miles of their mate at all times, and would be a burden, no, a danger, in a battle. Always too ready to defend their mate, even at the cost of other people’s lives.

  A low groan escaped through my clenched teeth, which I realised had extended. Shuddering from the effort, I slowly began the process of side lining the pain enough that I could rebuild the barriers that prevented me from feeling the worst of it. Ysabel and I had spent a very long time practising this… hundreds of trial runs and weeks apart of nearly unbearable agony, before we finally managed to function without each other. Even now it was far from perfect, this was to be the longest we had ever spent apart, and neither of us knew whether we would be able to keep it up.

  Finally managing to shore up my defences, I uncurled myself with some difficulty, all my muscles having succumbed to vicious cramping, and stood, dragging myself up by the wash basin that I had collapsed next to. I glanced at myself in the mirror and scowled, my lower lip was in ribbons where I had bitten into with my fangs, and bloody tears streaked down my face from eyes still the opaque black of the shift. As I watched, my lip healed, the soft skin knitting together so that there no sign of the damage ever having been there. I leant over to wash the blood from my cheeks, trying to keep my hands from shaking, and contemplating the dull ache that was to be a permanent fixture in my chest for the unforeseeable future. This was ridiculous. If Ysabel and I got back to each other alive, I would kill her anyway for putting us through this hell.

  I huffed a little, trying to quell the mutinous thoughts now roiling around in my head, demanding that I return to Ysabel and leave the humans to their lousy fate. What had they ever done for vampires anyway? We relied on them for our continued existence, sure, but we hardly needed their permission for that… even their fiction persecuted us; our deaths their entertainment, and of course now the ferals were running riot they felt themselves justified in their hatred. Maybe the ferals even had it right, treating the humans as cattle to be farmed. The memories of my life as a human had a hazy, surreal cast now anyway, having had just eighteen short years as one, most of which was spent being abused by the people supposed to care for me. With the exception of Melissa, the only affection I had ever known had come from the hearts and lips of vampires, and now here I was, risking my own life and sanity for the freedom of humankind. It hadn’t seemed so bad when I had Ysabel by my side. Her insistence on having eyes in the American unit made sense, I supposed, but it didn’t make it any easier being apart from her. Already, I was struggling with the sense that a large part of me had been torn violently away, and that I was slowly bleeding out.

  Chapter 7

  Michael

  Miss Miller’s sudden exit left me a little stunned. I sat back in my chair for a moment, mulling over the new information that she had given me. There was something extremely odd about that girl. Even in the short time that we had talked, she had run through about ten different moods, switching between them with not a seconds notice. And no one should have eyes like that, it had been like she was hypnotising me at times. I shook my head, whatever, she was useful and that was all that mattered right now... any mental health issues she had could be dealt with
at a later date.

  I headed off towards the major’s office to report in, registering as I left that the girl had already dumped her guards, and resolving to ask if there was any way to bring her a little more under the military thumb. I wasn’t going to be able to keep our advisor in one piece if she wasn’t willing to cooperate, especially if she was really determined to join the fighting as well. I frowned to myself as I walked, running over ways to broach the subject of asking if there was any way to prevent that happening as well. I reached the office I needed and rapped smartly on the door, going in when I heard a mumble that I hoped was an invitation to enter.

  The major beckoned me into the chair on the other side of his desk, waiting until I was seated to begin speaking.

  “So, what did you think of our new best friend?” he asked wryly, “no issues with her I trust?”

  I paused carefully before answering,

  “Well no, not exactly. She’s certainly unusual, and perhaps a little cocky. She’s already stopped her escort following her, which is ridiculous. We can’t have a civilian running around unarmed and without protection. I also have serious reservations about allowing her to fight with us.”

  “Hmm,” the major looked thoughtful, looking down at his hands, which were folded in his lap, “I’m completely in agreement with you about the guards, she needs to keep them with her. Being allowed to fight was a non-negotiable part of her deal to help us though, I don’t think we can get around that one. Find out how fit she is, then take her in to the gun range; see how well she can shoot and put her through her paces hand-to-hand. See what she’s got before making any judgements. If you’re still overly concerned after that then we might have to rethink.”

  He broke off, opening a drawer of his desk and pulling out a wad of paper, which he pushed across the desk towards me,

  “In the meantime captain, here’s your homework; the records of the rest of the fine men and women making up your command. The first briefing is tomorrow, all the details are in that pack. I’ll see you then.”

  The dismissal was obvious, and I stood and saluted, scooping up the hefty personnel file that it looked like I was expected to get though tonight. I stifled a sigh, paperwork was definitely the worst part of being an officer. This wasn’t so bad as most though, I was actually kind of looking forward to seeing who had been included in this ‘special unit’. I had been asked when I agreed to take the command if there was anyone I wanted to be included, but of course there was only Glen. I pondered as I walked, wondering what obstacles I was going to come across in commanding a multi-force unit, with a civilian to boot. Thinking of Beth, I decided that testing her fitness had to come pretty high up on my list of things to do... there was no point dragging out her hope of being in combat if she turned out to be unsuitable.

  After the initial briefing the next morning, I strode quickly across the base to make it to my meeting at the gym on time. Even so, I was a few minutes late, having been waylaid a couple of times on my walk over, and arrived to find Beth sat on the steps waiting for me. She was leaning forward, propping her chin on one hand that was in turn propped on her knee, blowing out smoke from the cigarette held in her other hand. She looked up as I approached, squinting against the sun.

  “’bout time, Cap. Can we get this done quickly? I have things to do.”

  I frowned slightly but refused to take the bait,

  “It’ll take as long as it needs to, Beth. The faster you run the better though, so I guess how quickly you’re done depends on how fit you really are.”

  She grunted a noncommittal response and stood, flicking the stub of her cigarette away to one side.

  “You should give those up too,” I nodded in the direction she had thrown it, “won’t help your fitness one bit, and we need you in top condition if you’re going to be fighting with us.”

  She levelled a glare at me and turned her back, striding into the gym. This was certainly looking like it was going to be a fun afternoon... I wondered why she was so tetchy, unless it was because she was worried that she wouldn’t pass the tests.

  Beth stripped off her hoody as she walked into the room full of machines, tossing it into one corner along with the contents of her pockets - phone, keys, cigarettes and lighter - and then turned to face me, waiting to see what I wanted her to do. She was wearing a tight fitting green tank top and looser, black jogging bottoms. I ran a quick glance over her body, noting the impressive muscle definition in her exposed arms and shoulders and the completely flat plane of her stomach, which made me think that maybe she could be a little justified in her blasé attitude towards these fitness tests.

  “Right, first up you need to warm up a bit, so hop on a treadmill and start walking… nice and quickly, mind, you’re in the army now…”

  She snorted at that, but headed over to the nearest treadmill, hitting the quick start button and then ramping up the speed until she was striding along at a fair clip. I followed after her, ditching my own jacket and leaned against the front of the treadmill,

  “do about eight hundred metres, walking and jogging, then give me a shout. OK?”

  “yea, yea.”

  She waved a hand towards me dismissively, not bothering to look up from the screen in front of her that showed the statistics of the exercise she was doing. I rolled my eyes and stepped up onto the treadmill next to hers, upping the pace rapidly until I settled at a steady jog.

  We continued our running in silence for a while, both retreating into our own personal workout zone. For my own part, the generic, top 40 music piped into the gym from tinny speakers was soon forgotten as I focused on the pounding of my feet. I was vaguely aware of Beth speeding up on the treadmill next to me, but mostly I just let the rhythm hypnotise me, concentrating on getting air into my lungs and blocking out the lactic acid ache, which was greater than I was used to thanks to being laid up for so long… still, it provided a brief respite from worrying about vampires.

  Five minutes later and I was snapped out of my trance by Beth’s voice. I started slightly and slowed down the treadmill, catching my breath for a moment before turning my head to look at her,

  “what was that, sorry?”

  She smirked slightly, an amused glint in her eyes,

  “I said, I’ve done the eight hundred metres. What’s next?”

  “Oh, right… well next you’ve got the standard 1.5 mile run.” I explained between still slightly laboured breaths,

  “OK. Standard for what?”

  “It’s part of the army fitness test, for both regular sign ups and officers. You’ve got to complete it in thirteen minutes.”

  She raised both eyebrows, disbelieving,

  “thirteen minutes? Seriously? I thought the army was supposed to be super fit…” she tilted her head slightly to one side, appraising me, “how fast did you do it?”

  I frowned at her… she really was cocky…

  “well men have to complete it in ten minutes… the thirteen is for women.”

  “Right, well that’s weird too. But I asked how fast you, personally, can run 1.5 miles”

  She obviously wasn’t going to drop it so I decided to humour her,

  “eight-and-a-half minutes” I told her, matter-of-factly.

  “fine,” she grinned brightly at me, “I’ll do it in eight.”

  Slightly taken aback, I just stared at her as she turned back to her treadmills control panel… programming in a 1.5 mile run and then rapidly upping the speed until she was stretching out in a fairly fast run. I shook my head slightly and turned back to my own treadmill. I would be extremely surprised if she could keep that pace up for the whole time… her attitude so far was definitely leaving a lot to be desired. I was starting to think that I was going to have to be firmer with her that I generally liked to be with people under my command. In the SAS in particular, the soldiers knew their jobs and wanted to be there - they had worked bloody hard to be - so there was no need to bellow and intimidate. You got the best response when you w
ere popular with your men, which meant keeping morale high and punishments rare, but severe enough that you were always taken seriously. By her own admission, Beth didn’t have a temperament that would ordinarily be suited to the army, but if she was going to be a part of any of our missions she was going to have to learn to follow orders and lose the smart mouth. I absolutely would not put my men in danger because of one girl’s lousy attitude.

  I huffed a sigh and hit the stop button, hopping off the treadmill while it was still moving and sauntering over to where I’d left my bag to extract a bottle of water. I sat myself down on the end of a weight bench and watched Beth running; she certainly showed no signs of slowing down yet. The door to the gym banged open and a small pack of soldiers came in, laughing and joking. One of them wolf whistled when they spotted Beth, and she flipped them a middle finger without breaking stride. I smirked slightly, an expression that rapidly changed to a grin at the look on the faces of the soldiers as they noticed me sat there watching them. They immediately shut up and scuttled off to the smaller back room, where all the free weights were kept. I had already noticed that a lot of the regular army lads in the unit seemed a bit nervous of me, which I put down to them not being used to working with the special and elite forces. I would have to think of a way to get them all mixing a bit better, and to stop seeing me as a big, scary SAS captain who was going to bite their heads off at the slightest provocation. Maybe some kind of social event? Get some beer involved. I didn’t want to go into combat whilst there was any hint of distrust between the soldiers themselves or between them and me. I pulled the personnel file out of my bag again and starting flicking through it, trying to familiarise myself with names and faces, and which force they had come from.

  It seemed only a couple of minutes later that Beth started slowing down on the treadmill. I smiled slightly to myself… I knew she wouldn’t be able to keep up that pace for long. I chucked the hefty file back into my bag and went up beside her,