The Midnight Guardian

by Sarah-Jane Stratford

  They loved their constancy, but they were preparing for a break in the pattern. And unspoken, barely even thought, was the knowledge that the break might be irreparable. That to visit once more places that meant so much to them was to solidify each memory, lest that be all either of them was left with.

  Back in London, at Claridge’s, they indulged in a dance. They’d come here many times, but Eamon’s favorite memory was of them learning to Charleston here. He smiled, thinking of Brigit’s freshly bobbed curls bouncing around her head and her short, sequined skirt swirling about her thighs. She moved with a grace a ballerina would envy, her legs flying around her. As Eamon watched, it seemed to him he’d never appreciated those legs as much, and he was glad for the radical changes in fashion.

  On this night, though, not twenty years later, there was much less exuberance in their dancing. Happy Londoners twirled around them, but Brigit and Eamon moved slowly, marking each step, carefully noting every moment of this new memory.

  The boat from Folkestone was to leave the next evening. They had one day left for each other.

  It was like the first time they made love, all those centuries ago. Brigit concentrated on memorizing the body she knew so intimately but rediscovered every dawn. The fullness of his lower lip, the length of the finger that traced a path down her thigh, the firmness in his belly. Each plane of his body, so happily familiar, was new terrain, and she explored it with infinite care and gusto. She thrilled like a green girl to the shudders he couldn’t control as she stroked him, first with her hands, then her tongue. She pinched and teased each nipple, storing the resultant gasps for use all the lonely nights to come. His hair tickling her breast when his tongue circled her own nipples, the pressure of his tongue between her legs, this was a hundred years of love in the space of twelve precious hours.

  Eamon, too, was memorizing the partner who had penetrated him with her being as much as he did her with his body. The magical rhythm of her hips, rising and falling as they rode him. The way her back arched, pressing her breasts even more tightly against his chest as he entered her, first slowly, teasingly, and then with gradually increasing urgency. The pressure of her fingers on his back, on his bottom, in his hair, and intertwined with his own. Their lips on each other’s, open, almost breathing, groaning with ecstasy as they climaxed together. As the shadows outside grew longer, Eamon carefully ran his hands over every last inch of her, resting finally between her legs, slowly and gently stroking his favorite button there and loving her sighs and murmured assents and the way her body moved in time to the touch. He stopped, holding his hand tight to her as she gave over to the quaking thump of the orgasm, feeling the whole of her opening pulsing warm and wet under his hand.

  She pulled him to her, wanting every bit of his skin on all of hers, wanting pore to melt into pore. She dove deep into the eyes that had pierced her so many years ago, even before she’d really seen them.

  “Wherever else I may go, for however long, I am always here,” she promised. “You are my heart. No stake could ever be strong enough to pierce that.”

  The large, beautiful eyes grew wet.

  “No. And you will not be from me, because you carry me inside you. I will protect you, as surely as you protect me.”

  They wanted to say so much more, to find new words to express everything that had never been properly said in all this time, but Otonia’s soft call came through the door. It was time to go.

  Little was said before the group went to Folkestone. Only the five of them, plus Eamon and Padraic, were going all the way there, it was too dangerous otherwise. Otonia kissed them all on the forehead, even Mors, who looked graver than Brigit had seen him look in several centuries. No one said a word on the train, nor on the walk to the dock. Meaghan and Swefred boarded first, then Mors. Brigit turned to Eamon, her heart full but her eyes dry, choking on the realization that this was happening, that she was leaving that which she could not possibly leave, with no immediate return in sight. She felt as if she were ripping herself in two, that she could not possibly be of any use in Berlin because only a small piece of her would be there.

  The warning bell sounded. Cleland was halfway up the plank and sent Brigit a carrying whisper. Eamon nodded, and nudged his frozen beloved toward the boat.

  “You are going forth to conquer in a mighty way. The whole world will have new songs to sing when you are done. And you will be home with me soon,” he swore.

  She touched his face, the skin of his cheek a cool purr under her fingers. She had no words of her own anymore, there was no way to speak anything inside her. For one crazed moment of near amusement, she wondered how they had ever managed without poetry.

  “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”

  She turned from him quickly and ran onto the boat, knowing that if she looked in those eyes one more second, she would never be able to leave them.

  Halfway across the Channel, she raised her eyes to the low-hanging stars and smiled, hoping Eamon could feel it.

  Yes, infinite. Like our own selves.

  Eamon played on and on and on. He knew she would hear it, or at least feel it. If his music was there, not just in her but all around her, she could not be alone, could not feel fear, could not be in danger. There were hundreds of years of songs to play and he would know when it was time to stop.

  Chapter 19

  Bilbao. August 1940.

  The clerk in the pensione gave them what he optimistically referred to as a two-room suite and Brigit knew he was charging her twice what it would normally let for, but she hardly cared. It was stuffy and shabby and barely clean, but she didn’t care about that, either. Lukas was deteriorating more every minute, and Brigit was consumed with terror for him.

  They’d gotten inside and bolted the doors without anyone realizing that the boy was anything other than tired, or so Brigit was choosing to believe, but this was small comfort. Lukas was even hotter than he’d been on the train and barely conscious. Possibly it was already too late for a doctor, even if they could take that risk. It didn’t take much reading of history to know that children could sicken and die within hours, and Brigit, so intimate with death, felt that cool shadow lurking near the lightly breathing boy. Another enemy she couldn’t fight, not that she didn’t intend to try. To lose Lukas would be to lose everything, and more. The boy was going to live.

  “What are we going to do?” Alma’s face was twisted in fear. Brigit saw a demon of a very different sort clawing at Alma, showing her Lukas’s death, their capture, Brigit’s public execution, and her own long journey back to Germany and the certain horror that awaited her there. Brigit seized Alma’s cheeks and looked the girl hard in the eye.

  “We’re going to nurse Lukas till he’s well, and then tomorrow, we’re getting on the ferry for Ireland, just as planned.” The ferocity in Brigit’s voice stunned Alma into something like acceptance.

  “How, though? How can we nurse him? We haven’t got anything. We don’t even know what’s wrong, besides the fever.” Alma was quite right, and Brigit hated it.

  “I’ll find a way.”

  She couldn’t think of anything that might work, however. They were being watched, and whereas on the train it had been difficult for their enemies to try to compromise the children on her brief jaunts out of the compartment, this was a far easier spot for them to attack. There was no leaving the children alone, even for a moment. Nor could she send Alma out for the herbs she knew might help. The only real option, asking someone in the pensione to run an errand, would be courting questions at best—and possibly far worse. They were stuck.

  Brigit loathed Lukas’s pallor and sweat. She dabbed his brow impatiently, almost hating him for putting them all in this precarious position. As the hours passed, however, her sympathy grew. He was only a frightened boy, after all, in a strange place, with not even a human for a caretaker. He knew his own weakness, that he was just a child, not as
fast and sturdy as his sister if speed and strength were needed. None of it was his fault, he could not help being merely six. He would not be six forever. Or so Brigit hoped.

  His breath grew raspier, and Brigit felt colder and colder. That too-familiar fear was weaving its slithery path up through her intestines. He couldn’t … she couldn’t lose him. But he could. And she could. This thing could happen. Here, in this dim, shabby room, in this arid hour of the wolf, he could slip through the shadows and disappear like so many billions of children had since the dawn of humanity. And she was helpless, powerless, had nearly no resources for holding him here in the human darkness. Like so many billions of mothers, she was doomed to hunch sleepless over a fitfully sleeping child, and will him to wake at the end of the night. And stay.

  Mothers at least had God to beseech, and from whom to glean some cold comfort. She had her distant Eamon, the burning fire inside, and her fierce, furious relationship with dusty death.

  Is it me? Is it spending so much time in my company that is draining the life from his little body? Is death contagious? To one yet so fresh, so recent to life, is he maybe in his way as close to the precipice as I? And if so, what the hell can I do to pull him back?

  What a terrifying thing it must be to be a mother. Brigit decided it must be one of the most frightening institutions in the world. These horrible sleepless nights urging your child’s soul to stay enveloped in the body you grew inside your own, coupled with days of instruction and concern, mingled with all the other work a woman must undertake. Then that feeling of some cautious relief as the child passed into adolescence, possibly safe from some dangers, but now prime prey for Brigit and Eamon and their kind. It seemed unlikely there was ever any reprieve from worry.

  That Lukas was a paradigm for the children who grew into food was an idea Brigit shrank from, knowing full well that if she let herself dwell there even for a moment, she would never enjoy a meal again. She would be like a farmer who loves his cattle and swine, but eats beef and bacon nonetheless. That was the way of things. It was how it had to be.

  She lay a finger on Lukas’s neck. His pulse was racing. Fury welled up inside her, making her want to grab both children and simply swim their way to England. A strangled sob reminded her that Alma was huddled in the corner.

  “Don’t cry. It won’t help.”

  “You have to send for a doctor!”

  “That would be handing a victory to Doctor Schultze.”

  “What! Why … him? How do you know he’s even in Bilbao?”

  Brigit knew she’d said too much, but sensed it was wisest to trust the girl with the truth.

  “He’s following us, Alma. And he’s not the only one. They want to keep us on the Continent, and you know it. It’s mostly luck that’s gotten us this far.”

  “So I just get to sit here with a vampire all night and watch my brother die? Is this what my father entrusted us to you for?”

  “Alma, please. Don’t you think I would do more if I could?”

  “Can’t you hypnotize one of these men around here, make them do it?”

  “That’s not exactly what I can do. And anyway, I’m not at full strength.”

  “Well, something! Do something! Do something!”

  Alma shrieked and flew at Brigit, beating her with small, sharp fists. Brigit seized Alma’s hands in one of her own and clamped her other over the girl’s mouth.

  “Don’t attract attention!”

  She could see Alma’s eyes screaming that she didn’t care how much attention she attracted and amended the order.

  “You will upset your brother.”

  Alma quieted at once, but her eyes still snapped.

  “I can cast no spells, not the sort you hope for, nothing out of a storybook, but there is one thing I might try. It’s a risk. You must prepare yourself. It may not work.”

  “Prepare myself?”

  She only understood when Brigit didn’t answer.

  “Go and sit with Lukas. Shut the door and don’t you dare open it, not one crack. I don’t care what you hear.”

  Their eyes locked and Alma silently obeyed.

  Brigit no longer gave a damn about questions. She rang for a night porter.

  The youth who answered the call had the same knowing, condescending smile that was making Brigit itchy to lay waste to the entire city. But his eyes flicked over her figure with hungry appreciation and when she smiled at him, she could feel his knees go weak. Her spirits rose.

  “I was wondering, could I ask you to run a small errand for me? It’s not safe for me to go out alone, not so late, and there’s no one I can trust.” Her voice was warm and melodic, a gentle purr that made him lick his lips nervously.

  “I am not meant to leave the premises, señorita.”

  “It is very urgent. I do not think it will take you long.”

  She carelessly pulled out several bills from her calfskin fold, taking care he saw their numbers. He gasped, and she knew he was imagining all the stupid things he could buy with that amount of money.

  “Truly, dear señorita, it’s not possible,” he protested, but it was clearly just for show now.

  “All I need is rosemary, sage, sorrel, and a lemon. Strawberries will do if need be. I am sure you can accomplish this easily?”

  “My deepest apologies …”

  She wondered fleetingly if proper nourishment, combined with that store of Mors’s gift, would be enough to cajole him, whisper an idea, anything to keep her from having to do the obvious. There was no point wondering, however. His blood was hot and this would not take long. Better to save her strength for where it was needed. She sank to her knees before him, her eyes wide and warm.

  “Dear señor, I am begging you.”

  And beg she did. It took even less time than she’d thought, and it easily sealed the deal.

  He was back with the herbs in ten minutes. Also a very sweet-smelling lemon.

  By midmorning, Lukas was regaining color. He was still feverish, but Brigit hoped that perhaps it might be passed off as discomfort in the Spanish sun.

  What’s my excuse?

  Alma had finally fallen into a fitful sleep, and Brigit was disinclined to wake her. The day was hot and bright and even the heavy coverings she had would not be enough to shield her, not for the amount of time she needed protection. What she would like was to use the sewers, if she could find an entrance, but it meant taking the children down there and the nascent motherliness flowering in her made that impossible. There was no choice, then, but to wait until late afternoon and hope that was late enough, while still in time. She ordered eggs and paella from the sour-faced waitress.

  If only the kitchen could send up something to feed me.

  That afternoon, they set out for the shipping office, Brigit carrying Lukas as before, grateful for the drowsiness that kept him quiet, and clutching Alma by the hand. She couldn’t hold her parasol, but the horrid hat and veil, along with her gloves and scarf, kept her skin from any errant rays. There was barely a foot of shadow in which to walk, and the heat seared inside her, but she didn’t care. They made it.

  The shipping clerk smiled when they walked in, and Brigit thought she saw him almost wink until he remembered himself.

  “You must be the Irish girl seeking passage to Cork,” he remarked.

  “Business is clearly slow here in Bilbao.”

  He laughed condescendingly.

  “No, no, only there are too few blond beauties who come this way now, and with two children in your care, well, everyone is likely to know who you are.”

  “Good, that should make things more convenient.” Brigit smiled, knowing full well that he was going to find a reason to deny them passage.

  “Yes, but I am afraid the convenience is solely my own. Apparently there was some confusion about your papers at the Swiss border. Officials from Germany are on their way now to sort it all out with you. Absolutely routine, of course.”

  Alma’s hand went clammy, but Brigit tossed her
head and glared at the man.

  “What utter rot! If anything is the matter, surely it is Irish officials who should be seeing to the trouble, not Germans.”

  “I am only passing on the message, señorita.”

  “I see. Well then, pass on the message that I wish to send a telegram to Ireland about the appalling treatment I am receiving here.”

  “Please, señorita. We only want to help. It is merely a matter of the correct stamps. There is no reason why you cannot be on a boat tomorrow night, or the next day at the latest, if you simply cooperate.”

  “How dare you speak to me like this? The Germans have no authority over me.”

  Sweat beaded on the clerk’s brow. He stood, but as he was a good three inches shorter than Brigit, this was hardly impressive. She didn’t much care for his glare, though.

  “No, señorita, they have no authority over you, perhaps, but these children you are taking to Ireland with you, they are German, are they not?”

  He looked hard first at Alma, then at Lukas, and then, with great deliberation, at the chipped plaster statue of the Virgin Mary on the corner of his desk.

  Brigit thought he ought to thank the statue she had a child in each hand, because otherwise she would rip him straight down the middle.

  “I see. Well, I expect this absurd muddle will get straightened out to my satisfaction directly, else I shall have to register a number of complaints, and I guarantee you, I know how to make trouble.”

  “I have no doubt.” He smiled, smug.

  There was a bit more shade to cover them on the way back to the pensione, a blessing Brigit was in no mood to count.

  “I thought Spain was supposed to be neutral.” Alma’s voice was thick and Brigit saw she was close to tears.

  “These things are often more complicated than that,” Brigit told her.

  “They’re really coming for us.” Alma sounded much younger than she was. Brigit realized it had only been the girl’s anxiety over Lukas that had kept her from fearing for them all before now.