The Guard

by Harri Aburrow-Newman

  “So,” Glen started after working his way through half of the mound of food on his plate, “we were wondering if, as our resident leech expert, you had any idea how they knew where we were last night?”

  I supressed my cringe at his use of that hated word and chewed my eggs slowly, taking my time answering.

  “I imagine they just tracked us, and that place happened to be a good ambush site, so that’s where they attacked.” I paused with a grimace, “It was probably attempted retribution for the nests we’ve cleared over the last few weeks. Strange that they underestimated us, though.”

  Michael dropped his fork with a clatter and stared at me.

  “Half of our patrol was killed or injured.”

  I raised my eyebrows,

  “and? They only sent eight vampires to ambush us. If they’d matched us on numbers we would have been obliterated.”

  Michael just shook his head and went back to his food, a wave of unease rolling off him as I considered what I’d said.

  “This feels almost like it was a test,” I mused, “I’ve never known them to hold back before. They have plenty of cannon fodder after all.”

  “That cannon fodder was once innocent human beings. With people who loved them.” Michael snapped at me, “have a little respect.”

  Glen cringed,

  “Easy, man. She didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Mmm…” I squinted at Michael, “what’s up with you?”

  “I’m just frustrated. Good men died last night.”

  “Good men always die in war. Bad men too. It’s a fabulous equaliser. But I shouldn’t have to tell an SAS captain that, should I?”

  “Beth…” Glen growled my name warningly.

  “No, Glen. I’m sorry, but if you’re not going to say it then I will. Five men have died. Five. What would have happened if it had been 10, or 15, or 50? Would you have completely broken?”

  I snapped my mouth shut as Michael looked up at me, hurt and anger warring for dominance in his eyes. His feelings; guilt, pain, fear… so much fear… crashed into me again and my vision flickered black for a moment under its onslaught.

  “There’s nothing wrong with being afraid. But you can’t let it overwhelm you.”

  “What makes you think I’m overwhelmed?” Michael ground out through his teeth, “please,” he continued, “give me your teenage wisdom.”

  Glen shook his head, but wisely kept out of this one.

  “Don’t patronise me, Michael. I’m not speaking as a teenager, I’m speaking as someone who has spent their entire damned life fighting, and watching the people around her die. I don’t know any other way to live. And if I can see that fear in your eyes, so can your men. And it’s not exactly going to inspire them.”

  I shoved my chair back and stalked out without giving him a chance to reply, equal parts annoyed with both him and myself. I’d lost my temper and railed against him about getting overwhelmed because his feelings had overwhelmed me. The irony chafed me and I hissed slightly as I walked. Not even sure of where I was going.

  I ended up pacing a circuit around the base, and then another, before finding myself outside of Michael’s office. I knocked softly and waited.

  “Come in.” He called after a few seconds.

  I opened the door and peeked my head around it, without actually going in,

  “you sure?”

  He glanced up at me and sighed shortly,

  “Yes, yes. Come and sit down.”

  I opened my mouth to speak as soon as I sat down, at the same time as he did. He gave me a slight smile and waved a hand at me,

  “after you.”

  “I’m sorry for going off at you like that. It wasn’t my place.”

  “Well… actually I’d say that it is. Of all the people here, apart from Glen, you’re the one who can tell me to sort my shit out, without worrying about insubordination. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have patronised you. I just forget sometimes that you’re not a normal teenager.”

  “Heh, that’s ok. I meant what I said though, even if it didn’t come out quite like I meant it to. I’m good at reading people, and honestly, you don’t read like a soldier at the moment.”

  He scowled, looking down at his hands where they were folded on the desk.

  “I will admit that I took what happened to my unit very hard, particularly as I was pulled out of the situation early. I had a lot of guilt, and a lot of anger to work through. That I’m still working through.”

  “I get that… have you ever wondered if you’ve got a bit of PTSD?”

  “N-oo…” he stalled for a moment, frowning, “I’ve seen people with PTSD, and I don’t think I’m that bad. I don’t want to go down that road anyway. It would just lead to me being removed from my command, and we’ve just got the unit working well.”

  “Why does Glen not seem to know you’re struggling more than usual?”

  “Because I haven’t told him, and because despite how easily you seem to have seen through me, I’m actually quite good at hiding it.”

  “You can’t keep on being so scared.”

  “I know that, and I’m working on it, really.”

  “So if we went out on patrol again tomorrow, and were attacked again… there would be no impairments to your judgement?”

  His fear spiked, jabbing into me, and his nostrils flared slightly. I scrutinised him carefully as he groped for words.

  “If that happened, I would deal with it. As I always have. Don’t worry about me, Beth. I’ll trust you to do your job, and not patronise you again, if you do me the same courtesy.”

  I sighed inwardly, sorry Michael, I thought, I can’t take that risk. I lowered my guard, steeling myself against the pain, and threw my mind towards the maelstrom that was Michael’s. I eased into his consciousness, slipping easily between the streams of his thoughts, and grasped the slimy, grey threads of fear that were woven through all of it. I drew them out carefully, irrevocably changing his way of thinking, making sure to leave just a few of them remaining. A little fear was good; a little fear just made you careful. I removed just enough that it wouldn’t be crippling anymore, but not so much that he would wonder about a sudden change of feeling. I reeled myself back into my own head. Only the space of a heartbeat had passed.

  “Alright,” I said aloud, squashing the slight guilt at having invaded his mind without permission, “I trust you.”

  I got up to leave, but had to pause and grasp the back of the chair hard as the room spun around me like a carousel.

  “You OK?” Michael sounded worried,

  “Yea I’m fine. I’ve just got a bit of a headache. Do you mind if I head out today? I’d like to check in with the IGS in person; give my contact there a hand. She’s been bitching lately about the number of reports she’s got to go through.”

  “Sure, sure. It’ll just be business as usual here today anyway unless today’s patrols find anything of interest.”

  “Cheers, Michael. See you later.”

  I left the room quickly and leaned against the wall in the corridor, taking a few deep breaths to steady myself. My shields were still down, and I could feel every mind in the building pressing against mine. I held my breath and dragged them back into place with difficulty, feeling like I’d been lit on fire as I did. I groaned and bent over, grinding the heels of my palms into my eyes. It eased, slightly, but I had overtaxed myself going into Michael's mind. I shoved off the wall and headed towards the hospital.

  After ghosting into the hospital and exerting myself even more to turn aside any curious eyes in order to swipe a couple of bags of blood, I felt marginally better. I drove my car home and then took to the sky, winging my way towards the IGS’s town house. I rapped on the door and grinned wickedly at Owen, who swore viciously in greeting.

  “Aww, Owen. I’ve missed you too!”

  I barged past him and headed for the kitchen without waiting for an invitation. Jackson and a couple of other slayers were in there
, sitting at the kitchen table talking. They stopped as I walked in, and all but Jackson looked immediately wary. Jackson stood and approached, towering above me with a grin.

  “How you doing, Beth? Here to see Lexi?”

  “I’m good, thanks Jackson. And yes I am, is she around?”

  “Aye, aye,” he rumbled, his Scottish accent thicker than his sister’s, “she’s up in her room, working, as usual. Here,” he slouched across the kitchen to where a jug of coffee sat on a warming plate and filled two mugs, “one for you and one for her.”

  “Thanks,” I flashed him a grin as I took the mugs and headed for the stairs, blowing a mocking kiss in Owen’s direction as he glowered at me from the doorway into the entrance hall.

  I let myself into Lexi’s room without knocking, and she swung round, fury written on her features for a split second until she registered who I was.

  “Heyyy!” she smiled prettily at me, her wide, brown eyes crinkling, “long time no see! And you brought coffee. You angel.”

  I chuckled,

  “Angel? First time I’ve heard anyone call me that.”

  I flopped down in a chair and she stuck her tongue out at me, slurping some coffee noisily.

  “You here for any particular reason, or just to see my sexy face?”

  “Hmm,” I pretended to consider her for a moment, “nah. I’m not sure it’s sexy enough to warrant dragging my ass across the city and suffering your father’s wrath for.”

  She gasped and lobbed a pen at me,

  “well tell me why you’re here and fuck off, then!”

  I laughed again, waggling my eyebrows at her.

  “Would you forgive me if I said that I actually just came to help you?”

  “Help me? With what?”

  I looked pointedly at the crazed towers of paper covering her desk.

  “Seriously?” she frowned at me suspiciously, “the great Beth Miller is going to lower herself to doing paper work with one of her lackies?”

  “Well fine, I’ll go home then.”

  I stood up to leave and she lunged at me, grabbing my wrist,

  “no, no! I’m kidding! Please god don’t leave me. I’m so bored of being in this room all by myself looking at reports. Pleeeeeease! I didn’t mean it!”

  I sat down and shuffled my chair up to her large desk,

  “come on then, boss. What do you want me to do?”

  “Beth!?”

  I jerked slightly, snapping my head up to face the now slightly worried looking Lexi.

  “Uh, you OK?” she queried.

  I sighed and nodded, going back to shuffling through the large pile of notes she’d assigned me. There was masses of information; locations, times, names, numbers... all of which were started to blur, leaking out of my frazzled brain despite my best efforts.

  “Have you heard from Ysabel?”

  I asked, although saying the name made my head throb. I whispered it to myself again, too quiet for Lexi to hear, again and again, feeling my head throb in time. Nudging at the feeling, unable to stop myself.

  “Not really. She only ever emails reports - all very professional. Why?” she looked over at me, “haven’t you?”

  “uh, no, I haven’t. We don’t talk.”

  Lexi frowned, looking confused,

  “Did you have a falling out?”

  I laughed humourlessly and put down the papers in my hands, leaning forwards to push my fingers against my temples, trying to massage away the headache.

  “No, it’s just easier not to have contact with her. Being apart is... painful... enough.”

  “Why on earth is it painf-...” her eyes popped open wide, “oh my god! You’re bonded! But... you’re warrior class. I didn’t think that was even possible!”

  I groaned, wondering when my common sense had left the building,

  “Of course it’s possible, it’s just illegal. You realise I’m going to have to kill you now?” I muttered.

  She completely ignored my half-hearted threat,

  “But how? I mean... I know how, but HOW?”

  I glared up at her,

  “Do you also realise that you make no sense sometimes?”

  She just pulled a face at me, waiting for me to answer.

  “Ugh, I assume you mean how are we so far apart?”

  She nodded.

  “Practice. And a bloody high pain threshold.”

  I let my head sink down onto the table, pressing my forehead against the cool wood with a low groan.

  “God, it’s hard.”

  “I can imagine... I met a couple of bonded high vampires once and they couldn’t be more than a few miles apart. They said they tested it once soon after they’d mated but ended up fainting at about the 20 mile mark.”

  “Mmm.” I picked my head up again, “sorry Lex, it’s been a long couple of days. I shouldn’t be talking about this. I think I’m going to go and get some sleep.”

  Standing up, I gathered up the scattered bits of paper again and headed towards the door. I apologised again, grimacing,

  “Sorry I’ve been a bit useless. I’ll take these home if you like and contact you when I’m more awake and have looked through them properly. Catch you later.”

  I left before she had a chance to respond, darting out the front door and leaping into the air, keeping a tight grip on the sheaf of papers as I wound higher into the sky, meandering across the city towards my flat. Lexi had caught me at a bad time; my head was hurting so damn much I through it might explode, and everytime my heart beat it sent a knife of pain through my chest. From a purely physical stand point, I wasn’t sure I could keep this up much longer. The level of pain was getting to the point that it was affecting everything I did, my head was fuzzy, my movements sluggish. I needed Yzzy, more than I had ever thought it was possible to need someone.

  I landed hard on the balcony of our flat and dragged my feet slowly inside, dropping the pile of paperwork onto the coffee table as I passed, heading straight for the bottle of whiskey sat on my bedside table. I slumped down on the bed with a sigh. Everything ached. A flash of red caught my eye and I glanced up, hitting the answer machine button on my phone.

  “Beth, it’s Michael. Why aren’t you answering your mobile?” He sighed irritably and I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see that I did indeed have four missed calls. Oops. “Whatever”, he continued, “something’s come up and an emergency briefing has been called. Get to the small conference room on base for 1700 hours this evening. Don’t be late!”

  He hung up, and I glanced down at the phone still in my hand. It was 4.30pm. I growled to myself, reluctant to give up the oblivion of sleep. I took another long swig of whiskey before heading back out the way I had come just a lousy three minutes before.

  I arrived at the conference room in plenty of time, having made a beeline for it from my flat, and arrived before anyone else. I crossed my legs and tapped my dangling foot against the table leg as I lit a cigarette, hoping to lose myself for a few minutes in the ritual act of smoking. I lit up and inhaled deeply, enjoying the delicate, spicy taste of the clove-laced tobacco. My thoughts ran over the paperwork that I had been going through with Lexi, coming up against wall after wall. There was nothing of interest in there; just a few locations for small nests and a few names of possible thralls. Useless. I dragged my thoughts away from that particular waste of time and went back to wondering why I was here... for once I had no idea what was going on, and no inkling about why this emergency briefing had been called… it was making me tense. The only way I had found to keep the now agonising pain of separation under some semblance of control was to almost completely lock down my psychic abilities, leaving myself not much more attuned to the people around me than a particularly empathetic human would be. The sensation of being out of the loop was annoying and slightly disorientating. After centuries of being able to know what humans were thinking before they were even fully aware of it themselves, not being able to was… odd… like I had gone partially deaf. I
pushed my chair away from the table and leaned back, propping my feet up on the table as I blew smoke out slowly towards the ceiling, watching it curl and billow out as it rose in a twisting, bluish cloud. I allowed my eyes to shift ever so slightly, just enough to pick out the glistening particles of dust darting amongst the smoke, lit up randomly as the air swirled by the light from the windows behind me, finding beauty where human eyes could not.

  Just as I had managed to convince my muscles it was ok to relax a little, the door banged open and the room began to rapidly fill with the officers in charge of leading the war effort, all of whom glared at my boots, still resting on the table top, and the illicit cigarette between my fingers… the last person to enter was Michael, who simply raised one eyebrow and hooked my feet onto the floor as he passed me to sit a little further down the table. I smirked at him as he sat down, shaking his head slightly he looked pointedly at my cigarette. Turning, I flicked it out of the window and smiled at him like butter wouldn’t melt, amused by the twitching of his lips that told me he was doing his best not to smile back.

  Once everyone had sat down and stopped fidgeting themselves into comfortable positions, the major began to speak. But beyond the first few sentences, I zoned out, suddenly finding it irrationally hard to remain on my chair.

  Chapter 15

  Michael

  I tried hard not to grin at Beth's as per usual blatant disregard of rules and focused on the major as he stood, looking grave as he prepared to tell us the reason behind this emergency meeting,

  “Gentlemen, and lady” he addressed the room with a quick glance and then a nod towards Beth, who rewarded him with a steady glare. Looking a tad unsettled, he cleared his throat with another glance at Beth, who continued to look back at him impassively, and began,

  “I’m going to get straight to the point; we have been in contact with our American counterparts. It appears that the location of the vampire leader has been discovered. In London,” He paused as if for dramatic effect.