The Midnight Guardian

by Sarah-Jane Stratford

  All this she could bear easily enough, but she knew they had their suspicions about the children as well, and that would not be borne. It was foolish of her to hope they did not know whose children they were, or even that the children were Jewish. No, the little girl was right. Brigit could not leave them alone again, not for Kurt. What Mors had told her all those months ago on the train to Berlin still held true: She couldn’t kill them all. She abhorred the idea of Kurt and all he represented, but to kill him would only create a blood trail she couldn’t afford and would gain her nothing. The worm would have to live, and feed the worms their supper another day, by another way.

  Deep inside, the demon prodded her. It was weary of circumspection and care. It wanted action. She closed her eyes, willing it to lie quietly. The better part of valor is discretion, my eager friend. They both knew there would be time enough for action. Transporting two children marked for death in Germany to the safety of England was certainly action, although none upon which the demon could thrive. It would have to wait. And so would she.

  Chapter 11

  Berlin. October 1939.

  Again and again, they pored over the papers, not speaking, not looking at one another. They had all maintained their disguises and their business, but the shameful weight of failure clung to them like cellophane, and choked just as hard. Poland was occupied and war had begun. True, little seemed to be happening now, but that made no difference. More was on the way, they didn’t need Eamon’s sensitivity to smell it. They took cold comfort in the humiliation of Chamberlain, and liked the speeches Churchill was giving, but despaired of any of it amounting to anything. Something needed to happen, and every day that passed in inaction felt like another step toward annihilation.

  “We should leave. To hell with whatever Otonia thinks and to hell with these bastards and this whole fucking country. We should leave while we still can.”

  They all stared at Swefred. Brigit’s eyes narrowed.

  “You’re turning into quite the agitator for passivity, aren’t you?”

  The full force of Meaghan’s punch in her jaw was something Brigit had not expected. Meaghan was only about twenty years older than Brigit and her fretfulness and stolidity gave everyone to believe that, millennial or no, she hadn’t much vim or strength. So when the blow tore into Brigit’s face and sent her sprawling to the floor in agony, it was several moments before any of them could register what had happened. Only when Meaghan, her green eyes tinged with pink and her fangs at full extension, gripped Brigit’s ear and flung her around to spit in her face did Cleland jump forward and push her back. He threw Meaghan against the wall and slammed his forearm into her windpipe.

  “Whingeing, useless, tiresome bitch! We should send you back to England in pieces!”

  Swefred, his face in full fire, seized Cleland’s outstretched claw and had nearly snapped it off when a noise like a sonic boom sent them all flying into a corner. Brigit, still stunned, dragged herself to her elbow to stare at Mors. This was what the legends spoke of, with fear and dread. This was what it meant to be a vampire more than two thousand years old. A powerful vampire, filled with fury. His body appeared suddenly colossal, as though it extended ten feet tall, his skull bulged through the skin, his eyes swelled far beyond their sockets, blazing heat and death. He roared again, and Meaghan wrapped her arms around her head. Mors gripped Swefred and Meaghan in one claw and Cleland in another and jerked them all to their feet.

  “Remember who we are. We are the millennials of the British tribunal. Who are we?”

  He shook Swefred, who gasped, “The millennials of the British tribunal.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “That we are great and noble and admired throughout the vampire world.”

  Mors turned to Meaghan.

  “Do you disagree?”

  “N-no.”

  “Do you know what it means to behave as a tribunal millennial?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you have any inkling what I will do to you if you ever fail to behave in the manner you should again?”

  Meaghan gazed up at him beseechingly, her face contorted with terror.

  Mors flung them away from him and turned to Brigit, his human appearance restored. He ran a finger over the large, indented contusion overspreading her jaw and cheek.

  “That should be healed by tomorrow night, and you can go and work Gerhard some more. We will get more of their war plans, by and by.”

  Swefred, though still shaken and wary, was roused again.

  “But that’s it, that’s just it. What can we do? We were supposed to have destroyed them by now, paved the way for a proper government. We haven’t stopped them doing anything.”

  “And if we leave now, we certainly never will. These are men of action and we will be as well! Enough with this excess of self-pity and defeatism! We know who and what we are. We are creatures of power and we are not done yet, we will see this through. What are we, three parts coward? This thing’s to do and we have cause and will and strength and means to do it. Never mind twenty thousand men, we leave now and we’ll see the deaths of millions of men, good food most of them, and progenitors of more meals, and if our thoughts can’t be bloody as regards the Nazis, they’d best turn on the blood we won’t imbibe for years if those devils see their plots through.”

  Swefred nodded, his eyes fixed on his knees. Meaghan pinched her lips together. She stole half a glance at Brigit, then leaped to her feet and marched off to her chamber. Swefred slumped off after her.

  Brigit focused her gaze somewhere in between Mors and Cleland.

  “Thank you. Neither of you had to do any of that.”

  “I did,” Mors responded, his voice flat.

  “I’ve never liked her,” Cleland remarked. “But I shouldn’t have, that is … ah, hell. You won’t tell Padraic, not ever, will you?”

  They murmured that no, of course, what was done was finished and need not ever be mentioned again. Cleland surprised Brigit by kissing her on the forehead, then turned quickly and headed for his bedroom. Brigit was sure she saw tears in his eyes, but thought it best to leave him alone.

  Mors pressed a cool cloth to her face and knelt so he was looking in her eyes. The look unsettled her, and she realized it had been many centuries, certainly before Eamon, since he’d looked at her with such intensity. It roused a sudden question, which her mind hastily dismissed, but if Mors saw her discomfort, he gave her no indication. He smiled.

  “Who frightened you more, her or me?”

  Brigit grinned, even though it hurt.

  “I think it might be a draw.”

  He wound a finger around one of her curls and tugged it playfully.

  “Come on, get you off to bed. You need your rest.”

  She made no argument, feeling herself utterly drained. He put an arm around her to guide her to her room.

  “Didn’t think I knew my Hamlet so well, did you?”

  “Nonsense, you came with us to the second performance, don’t think I don’t remember.”

  “You never forget a thing, do you? Memory like a whole herd of elephants.”

  “None of us forget anything, you know that.”

  At her door, he held her hand and looked at her again. For the first time almost since she’d known him, she had the sense he wanted to say something and couldn’t bring himself to do so. The question buzzed inside her again and she swatted it back. Desperate to break this unaccustomed and awkward mood, she grinned her ancient, joking grin and poked him in the shoulder.

  “Missed a trick, you know. You could have gone for the St. Crispin’s Day speech, easy.”

  He grinned back, their usual relations restored.

  “Ah, perhaps, but that one’s better saved. We may need it another day.”

  As Brigit collapsed onto her bed, willing herself to melt into the feathers, she hoped it would not come to that. In her heart, thinking of Eamon, she had more care to go than will to stay, but again, thinking of Ea
mon, the desire to fight was still powerful. Allowing her thoughts to turn pleasantly bloody, she closed her eyes, feeling the demon inside purr.

  Brigit waited until she heard Swefred and Meaghan leave the next night before venturing forth. She took the long way around to get to Gerhard’s office. Her face, she could tell even without Cleland’s assurance, was its usual pale and pretty self and she felt equal to the task of listening to Gerhard crow incessantly about all the great good that was happening in the world, now that the Führer had given them a taste of Germany’s true power.

  Something was wrong, however. Whether it was residual tension from the fight, or just impatience with the tedium of this process and what felt like the constant, low spin of wheels, she didn’t seem able to work any magic on Gerhard. She wondered if perhaps he’d begun to grow immune to her powers.

  “Ah, Brigitte, Brigitte, imagine the day when we bask in nothing but sunshine, all the year round!”

  “I don’t think the farmers would like that so much.”

  He laughed condescendingly.

  “Come now, my silly girl, I know you have poetry in you, for all your lack of education. Think broadly, liebchen, broadly!”

  “Describe it more, then. Let me see it all through your eyes.”

  “Well, you know what the Führer said at the Reichstag, that all Europe will be clean. We will have space, vast quantities of space. There will be nothing undesirable. The Jews, the Gypsies, those are just the obvious stains. I hear, and I oughtn’t to have heard this, really, but they do trust me so, that the cleansing of the mentally ill and disabled has begun. One would pity them, but they are a drain on our resources, and we cannot have that. We want nothing but health and vibrancy in our great new world. A child who is lacking in capacity, well, he’s as good as inhuman, isn’t he? Not unlike a Jew. So, we will have a clean, healthy world in which to thrive. I could weep with joy.”

  Brigit gaped, hardly able to comprehend the waste he was describing, and his cavalier tone. True, she had never eaten anyone with an actual mental disability—and she suspected fools didn’t count—but this was more because they did not wander the streets at night than any prejudice on her part. There were institutions, and surely humanity had evolved enough to treat the less fortunate among them with kindness? But kindness seemed quite beside the point in these strange days.

  “Where will they all go?”

  “Who?”

  “Everyone. Can you really cleanse Europe of everyone—Jews, Roma, communists, homosexuals, everyone they say is an enemy of the state? I mean, does it really matter if there are homosexuals in Sweden, say? Surely it wouldn’t dim the light in Germany?”

  “What a funny little thing you are. We are talking about grand principles, my sweet. But there, I am being unfair, I cannot expect you to understand. Come here,” and he pulled her into his lap and nuzzled her neck.

  “But there must be a plan. Isn’t there? People do not just disappear.”

  “Oh, plans, plans, plans. I have a plan right now, would you like to hear it?”

  She forced a giggle and put a hand on his chest, holding him at a distance.

  “Isn’t Germany a bit worried about England? I mean, she’s still considered at war, isn’t she?”

  He waved his hand dismissively.

  “England! They’ve had every chance, you know. The Führer thinks very well of the pure-blood English. They are beautifully Aryan, like your own pretty self. But they will go their own way, stubborn fools. Well, I’ve not been told all, but I do hear there is a plan to bring them around yet, one way or another.”

  “Is that really possible?”

  “All things are possible. Now, enough of this tiresome chat. It is making you frown and I want to see nothing but smiles.”

  She plastered a dutiful smile across her face, but inside was fuming. It wasn’t just that the demon was hungry, she herself wanted more. He wouldn’t succumb to her whispers and she knew it was because she was so roiled and frustrated, she couldn’t concentrate.

  I’m so close, I’m so close. He knows more, he can give me something to use, why can’t I get it? Why?

  But the window had closed for the night. There was nothing to do but tell him regretfully that the housekeeper was ill and she must get back early. With a kiss that nearly choked her, she was gone.

  Full of dyspeptic temper, she prowled the streets hungrily. There was something about the quiet that night that exacerbated her rage, her itch simply to lay waste to the nation. Five millennials at full throttle could surely do more than Kristallnacht ever did to destroy and foment fear and rebellion. But it could not happen. The possibility of hunters in the country who knew how to destroy millennials was beside the point. No matter what they were capable of, they couldn’t take it all down. Likely the Germans would be more devoted to Hitler than ever, believing not only that the infestation was not his fault, but also that he would stop it, as surely as he had begun to stamp out the pestilence that was all the undesirables. Nor was there any way to create such carnage without destroying innocents, and while there was no question that most of the prey they’d consumed over the centuries had been innocent, this would be something very different. Children would die, for a start, and it would all be the sort of annihilation they had come to Germany to prevent. They were predators, yes, but not indiscriminate monsters.

  The scent of chaos swirled hot and sudden in the air and she turned to it. Two Gestapo officers with drawn guns were presiding over the arrest of a small group of Jews. Three families, by the look of it. There was a combination of fear and defiance on their faces and in their mien, but resignation bowed their shoulders. Brigit followed the procession, her anger rising. It wasn’t death she wanted. It was the triumph of life. Propelled by a curious heat, she caught one of the officers by the arm.

  The man whirled with an exclamation, but the warm smile that met his sharp eyes startled him into silence. The group halted, hovering, wondering.

  “What are you doing out alone, Fräulein?” the man asked. “And what do you mean by stopping us when we are about official business?”

  “What sort of official business requires women and children to be marched away with guns, under cover of darkness?” Her voice was sweet, but insistent. The man scowled. The girl may be a beautiful, perfect Aryan, but she was treading on forbidden territory.

  “You had best get home, Fräulein, and learn not to ask questions.”

  He made to move, but her hand was a vise around his wrist.

  “I like questions. And I like answers even more.”

  He looked right into her eyes and spoke robotically.

  “They have been agitating, breaking laws, as though all our work at Nuremberg was up for dispute. They are to be made examples.”

  He didn’t notice his hand was losing circulation.

  “The children, too?”

  “Bad blood runs in families.”

  The small group of Jews was too stunned even to gasp as the two officers fell. Blood flowed into the gutter. Supremely unconcerned, the girl handed the guns to the one man who seemed to sense what she might be. She spoke low and authoritatively.

  “Go. Get to a train, go, and don’t look back.”

  They obeyed, but even as they disappeared, Brigit was struck by the new scent they emitted. They were the walking dead. She’d achieved nothing, except perhaps a small pocket of time for them to head more certainly toward their end. As she dragged the bodies to a nearby incinerator, she had a sense of herself and the other four vampires, gigantic, linking arms to block the relentless march of the Nazis … and being mowed right down. Not easily, perhaps, but inevitably. Even still, she’d never wanted to fight and protect and win in the human world so hungrily. This had all become bigger than herself, than all the vampires, and she was so livid, she thought at that moment she could reach her claws to the German borders and rip the entire land asunder.

  Brigit turned the corner and heard the carrying cry of a man. A nighttime r
ally was under way inside what had been a small, pretty theater. The demon raised its head hopefully, sniffing the air. The man was screaming, a would-be Hitler, assigned to keep the men in the district enthusiastic and on edge. To remind them who they were, and what it meant to be the master race. Men. Men who were being primed for more action. Nothing innocent there. The demon sang and slithered up through her, a cobra dancing to a charmer’s music. Now Brigit smiled in earnest.

  Yes, my darling demon, I will sate you.

  She crept inside. There was one bored guard posted at the door and as he started to order her off, she snapped his neck with a brisk gesture. A giggle swelled inside her, but she held it down, happily ripping off the guard’s arms to wedge inside the handles of the double doors, bolting them from the inside.

  Reconnaissance, girl, there is a stage door, too.

  First, she checked the windows in the cloakrooms. Two men were smoking in the lavatory. They looked around at her in mild surprise, and this time she couldn’t help laughing when, after slamming one man’s head through the other’s throat, the expressions were still frozen on their faces. One was clinging to life, and she pulled off his legs to bar the window. That finished him.