The Midnight Guardian

by Sarah-Jane Stratford

  Funny, how much light there can be in darkness, if you know where, and how, to look.

  Funny, too, how surprised she was at her own surprise. If there was one thing she knew, it was how quickly one community of men could destroy another. It was one of the easiest acts a human could commit. She and all her kind often thrived on that destruction. Besides, she’d done her own personal share of havoc-wreaking, there was no denying it.

  It wasn’t even the first time she’d had her own little rug yanked out from under her, but this was very different.

  It’s not just me, now.

  Nor was it over. At no time in her long life had she ever been in such protracted potential danger, a situation in which so much of her strength and abilities would have to be channeled in a manner unsatisfying, to say the least. And if ineffective, well …

  I can’t fail. I will imitate the action of the tiger, stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. There is no other option.

  She repeated it out loud, attempting to assure herself. She would throw herself into it, and hope for the best.

  Berlin to Basel, at the Swiss border; through Switzerland and across Vichy France to Bilbao; a boat to Ireland; a boat to Wales; a train home. She laid out the steps of the journey in her mind like dominoes. It was easier to apply cold logic to the proceedings than to dwell on details like the length of the journey, the long hours of daylight that comprised a European summer, the delays that must characterize wartime travel, however determined these new rulers were to keep things normal and briskly efficient, and the presence of armed guards throughout the train.

  If only she could tell if he knew. What would give her away? She seemed to breathe, to blush, her hair shone and her eyes sparkled. And he wasn’t a hunter; he wasn’t trained in the finer arts of detection. He wouldn’t discern the skin, the touch, the whisper.

  And you have to be one of us to read the history in our eyes.

  History. Confounding, exasperating history. Lessons learned over and over, and never learned at all.

  Still. It’s not over yet. None of it.

  From two cars away, she could hear the rhythmic click-click of the striding boots. She fought down the hot surge of impatience, the rising bile at the Nazi gall. How dare they patrol up and down the corridors all night long, as though the train were a prison? She supposed they fancied they were providing comfort and security for the slightly uneasy passengers. Who, at this stage in the journey, were almost all Germans, bathed in the warm certainty of their nation’s power and absolute justification for the violence and despair they were wreaking on their weak, insolent neighbors. Still, however untouched they yet were by the war, one could not exercise too much care. Besides, this steady marching gave the soldiers a feeling of importance. Their brethren were holding sway in Poland, had broken down France, and were now battering England. Soon, they, too, might have more impressive dominion than this sleek, sumptuous train. But until that time, they would assert themselves however they could, and so they patrolled.

  Irritants. Brigit shook her head, almost amused at this reduction. Her marvelous strength, so close to useless. The powerful demon she had to soothe and lull into slumber. She caught the scent of Maurer returning, his steps slowing, but not stopping, outside her compartment. So recently, so very recently, a man like this would already have been a memory. Now he was a man to be feared.

  A man. To be feared. Oh, Eamon, where am I?

  Quickly, silently, she put on her silk pajamas and tucked herself into the narrow bed. Who knew but that they might find some excuse to knock, even enter? At no point could she be seen as doing anything unusual. Her situation was already absurdly delicate. She was in no position to take chances.

  Chapter 2

  Calais–Cologne train. November 1938.

  Otonia always insisted that there was no such thing as a sudden crisis. As ever, she was right. The vampires had seen this possibility coming over six years, but had hoped the circumstances wouldn’t get so dire. Still, it was a wrench. Barely two weeks ago, they were going about their nightly business, enjoying their lives. Now, this select group was on a train heading for Berlin via Cologne. No matter what Otonia said, it felt sudden.

  Easy for her to talk, anyway. She’s still in England.

  The five of them were certainly quiet enough. Except for Mors, who steadily hummed in a manner that Brigit was beginning to find grating. He was excited. Mors thrived on action. It was he who’d insisted they take some sort of action late in 1916, when things were starting to look particularly bad, and he maintained for years afterward that if they’d done more, and sooner, it would have made a difference. Brigit suspected he was right. Mors was an ancient warrior. He liked a fight, and having something to fight for.

  He winked at Brigit. She smiled quickly and looked away, feeling his eyes still on her. Mors was her best friend, except for Eamon, and her oldest. My first real friend. He was exasperating, but undeniably powerful, and she was glad of his company on this mission. Not that there was any question of his participation; indeed, he was their de facto leader, although a few in the tribunal had wondered at the wisdom of that, fearing he might be recognized. He was one of the most legendary among them, more than two thousand years old, and with his shaved head and earrings (which, at least, he’d temporarily removed), he was distinctive. But strong. Very, very strong. He could move like lightning. His cunning and seductiveness were the very foundation of vampire lore. He was a master of controlled chaos. They could do this thing, because they had Mors.

  Not that the rest of them were slouches. Their little group was only five in number, but their combined strength could overcome an army.

  Except that’s not how we’re playing this game.

  Brigit shook the thought from her head as though it were a gnat. It wasn’t just their physical strength that was in play, it was the accumulation of their intelligence and skills. Received knowledge. That would win the day.

  It had to be millennials, of course it did. Brigit knew that, as did Eamon, as did they all. The mission needed that level of power. There was a new skin a vampire stepped into as he crossed the threshold into the thousandth year of undead life. An extra layer of immortality encased him like paraffin wax. All those hundreds of thousands of nights consolidated into a burnished shield under the skin, coating all the still organs and every idle vein, through to the bones. It would take a specially forged stake to kill a millennial, and few hunters knew the formula. Indeed, few even believed in the lore of such very ancient creatures. It seemed too incredible to be true.

  They never understand. They always think it’s just about strength, about the seduction and the kill. They know of our loves, but they think that’s just about endless lust. They know nothing of our actual lives.

  Living one thousand years was not only about eating well and avoiding hunters’ stakes and blades, or accidents involving fire and bad timing. It was about cultivating a powerful motivation for life. One found interests, remained constantly curious, developed the mind. And there was love. Pure, deep, earth-shattering love. It gives to every power a double power. The alchemy of all this created something close to an omnipotent vampire. It was just as well the human world was generally ignorant of their existence. The fear would be overwhelming.

  But it meant that Eamon couldn’t join them. Nor Cleland’s Padraic.

  Next to her, Cleland was staring out the window with an air of determination. His hand, resting on his thigh, rhythmically twirled a sovereign through his fingers. Brigit watched the sovereign’s path for a few hypnotic moments, then shifted her focus back onto nothing. Cleland was regarded as the exemplar of tragedy in the vampire world, a mantle considered all the more respectfully deserved because he shrugged it off. He’d endured the loss of great love as both human and vampire, and now, just over one hundred years into a new relationship, was being called upon to leave it for who knew how long.

  Not too long, they’d all determined. The Nazis were arrogant, and this
weakness was one they could easily exploit. They were only too well versed in the nature of human arrogance. Careful flattery and a few well-placed dispatches should allow them all to infiltrate the party with ease. The males would impersonate SS officers, the females would ply their particular wares, they all would sow seeds of discord, confusion, and chaos. They would break the party’s back from the inside, and the Nazis wouldn’t know what had hit them.

  Brigit had her doubts about Meaghan, though. This wasn’t really the sort of thing for which she was suited. She looked across at Meaghan, who was, as ever, huddled against her partner, Swefred. They were unlikely millennials. For that matter, they were unlikely vampires. Few vampires fit the description spun by humans, but the one thing they did all irrevocably have in common was a demon deep inside them. And while each demon was a bit different, it was cut of the same hellcloth. That was what gave them vim and zest. It made them hungry. Both Swefred and Meaghan were quiet, retiring even, and rather humorless. Swefred, at least, had a dashing air—there was just something about the swoop of his brow and his slightly crooked nose that made him interesting and gave him edge. But Meaghan, when she wasn’t quiet, was fretful and petulant. Brigit had never liked either of them. Everyone in the tribunal got on well enough, as was the vampire way, and Otonia insisted on congeniality, but at home, it was easy to avoid Meaghan. Now, here she was, right across from Brigit. They’d been traveling only two nights, and already Brigit was impatient. It didn’t help that Swefred and Meaghan were so close and affectionate. Never mind that they’d have to work separately on arrival, Brigit wished Otonia had ordered them not to touch in public at all. It felt like a slap, watching them.

  Well, I hope she has it in her. I hope she knows what she’s doing.

  There wasn’t much choice. Otonia could not leave the tribunal and looked far too Greek. Leonora looked too Jewish. And Ramla was pure Egyptian. There were no other millennials in England. There weren’t even any others left in Europe, not since the last war. So Meaghan it was.

  She was pretty, certainly, with her strawberry-blond hair and enormous green, catlike eyes. But she looked frail. Brigit suspected the Nazis were more interested in women who brimmed over with health, exuberance, and possibility. On the other hand, Brigit had to concede that Meaghan was perhaps the least likely of all of them to arouse suspicion of being a vampire. That was all to the good.

  It was particularly advantageous that the Nazis believed Germany, and perhaps the whole of the Continent, to be purged of vampires. It would never occur to them that a team of vampires might descend into their midst with the single-minded goal of bringing about their destruction. Their guard would be down. But what they’d managed to achieve already worried Brigit.

  The vampires who had sought refuge in England were afraid. A vampire should be apprehensive about hunters, but to be truly afraid of humans was wrong. It upset the order of things. Europe had become toxic, alien. Forbidden.

  Cleland believed in staying out of hot spots. At the final meeting, he demanded of Otonia: “And you really think we must do this?”

  “1919,” was Otonia’s quiet answer.

  Yes. 1919. No one could accuse that annus horribilis of being a sudden crisis. Vampires had seen the human world torn apart many times. And as much as they thrived on the elixir that was human chaos, the demons inside drawn to it like a siren song, there was some chaos that was too much. The aftermath of the Great War wrought more destruction than hunters ever could. The war had severely depleted the vampires’ food supply, and would have repercussions for a whole human generation; so that for the first time since those awful few years after the Black Death, there was a vampire famine, which inevitably led to friction, and then another great, shameful vampire war. The Continent’s tiny cadre of millennials had tried to stop it, and were cut down, to the British tribunal’s shock. If such a thing happened once, it could happen again.

  The human world had recovered its numbers and even its financial woes seemed nothing it couldn’t overcome, but the rise of Hitler unnerved the vampires. They suspected that they debated more vociferously than human governments as to how to manage the rising tyranny that smelled so suspiciously of total annihilation. Then, ten days ago, came Kristallnacht, and an end to the debate. Otonia, who had seen the waste of human civilization many times over, saw the broken glass as a prelude to broken bodies. She decided that Mors was right to want to intervene before another human war could break out and once again cut a swathe through their food supply, and no one disagreed. It was not the vampire way to involve themselves in human affairs, but rather to enjoy the human world for its amusements and delights. This was different. This was defense of what both humans and vampires held dear—although the humans did not count among their own delights their status as delicious, and necessary, food. This time, the vampires were determined to preempt the devastation.

  “No one wants another war,” Otonia reasoned.

  Of either kind.

  But they had another, more personal, reason to depose and destroy the Nazis. At first, they hadn’t believed what the refugees were telling them. It was just too preposterous. Of course, humans had always wanted to eliminate vampires, but for those who knew of their existence, it was tacitly understood that eradication was impossible. A lofty goal for a different world. Vampires were. Their numbers could be tapered, the damage they did kept minimal, but there was no cleansing the earth of them. Even if every human on the planet were made to believe in them, to know vampires walked among them, it would stop nothing. One might as well wish to rid the world of nightmares.

  Yet refugees had come from Germany, France, Belgium, Austria … on and on and on. Not many from each country. Some were so shaken and befuddled that they could not accept the idea of safety, and soon fell prey to British hunters and even sunlight. With their world upended, they no longer knew who they were.

  Wolfgang, the oldest, the last survivor of the proud Prussian tribunal, explained:

  “These Nazis are intent upon blood purification. It’s not enough to clear Germany of Jews and homosexuals and other humans they don’t like, they want to eradicate vampires, too. We are a blot on human society and we must be purged.”

  “They hardly seem the sort who would believe in vampires,” Mors scoffed.

  “Are you joking?” Brigit asked. “They’re obsessive, megalomaniacal fantasists. What wouldn’t they believe?”

  “The only sort who believe in us are pragmatists who respect the shadow realm. And history. And not even all of them can extend their minds so far. I don’t say I’m bothered. Keeps the hunt lively.”

  Wolfgang cut across their smiles.

  “Oh, they believe in us. They know their legends. They have trained a special squadron of hunters. Clandestine, not even all the SS know of it. The Nachtspeere, it’s called.”

  “Night Spears?” Otonia was puzzled. “Surely ‘stakes’ …”

  “They like the idea of spears, the Nazis. And these hunters. You’ve never seen anything like them.”

  “I do not follow,” Otonia said.

  “The Nachtspeere are quite young and very foolish. They have nothing else in life, so they are most useful tools for the Reich. Single-minded. They have been assured that with each vampire death, they are paving a path to a kingdom of heaven on earth. The greatest empire yet seen, because it has no blemishes.” Ignoring Mors’s snort, he continued, “And they were taught by the true hunters.”

  Now he had their undivided attention.

  “How the Nazis found the true ones, I do not know. I would not be surprised if they befriended some Irish, but we only learned of the Continental hunters. Possibly one or two came of their own accord and named names. Most are unwilling. But they have told some secrets; they have laid the foundation. With a few lessons and a mighty government behind them, these zealots have wiped Europe clean of the undead.”

  Eamon leaned forward. “How do you know all this? How are you so sure?”

  “I barely su
rvived an attack on my home. Our tribunal was scattered. I thought it was a random attack—German hooligans. No Prussian hunter would use such artless tactics. I went to Berlin. I was a witness. I-I captured one. A true one. I tortured him until he told me all.” Wolfgang looked up at the sound of a hiss. “It was the only way.”

  His voice trailed off. Ulrika, his new partner and the last of the Berlin vampires, took his hand. Otonia gave his shoulder one quick touch, then stood and took in the whole of the tribunal at a glance.

  “So, we have a true enemy.”

  “An enemy that has had the good luck not to tangle with millennials,” Brigit pointed out.

  “We can fix that.” Mors grinned.

  They’d begun to understand what the refugees meant when the boat docked at Calais. There was a chill that had nothing to do with a foggy November night. Meaghan muttered something only Swefred could hear, and he put an arm around her and whispered into her hair. The other three concentrated on buying the train tickets. They wanted to keep moving, swiftly.

  France felt like a nation holding its breath. Watchful. Apprehensive. But not enough, Brigit decided. There was still too much to enjoy. And there was some kind of faith she couldn’t place, some variation on the age-old certainty that everything would be all right because it always was. Except when it wasn’t.

  I suppose we should be grateful for constancy.

  Zipping along through the countryside, Brigit began to sense something even more infuriating. Many of these provincial people knew, or suspected, that Nazi hunters working undercover had been systematically scourging France of its vampires. They approved; they liked it. A vampire-free France had been an ideal for centuries and had now been achieved at no cost to the French. There were many who wondered what other benefits the Nazis could bring, so long as no one made much fuss.