My heart clenched, and I released her hand to reach out and cup her cheek, making her look at me.
“Don’t talk about dying. Please. The thought of you… that…”
I shook my head, and she covered my hand with her own,
“I have no intention of dying, ma chérie. And I didn’t mean to be maudlin, sorry.”
She leaned into me, sliding her hand to the back of my neck, and kissed me gently, on one corner of my mouth, then the other. I smiled against her lips and captured them properly, forgetting where we were. We were startled apart by the crash of a chair being put down hard in front of us. I looked up just in time to see Michael and Glen sit down, Michael looking apologetic, Glen, amused.
“Get a room, guys. Sheesh.”
Glen said laughingly, chuckling harder when I made a crude gesture at him.
“Shove it, Salisbury. Just because you can’t get laid.”
He gasped in mock offence,
“Do you hear this shit?” he asked, turning to Michael, “bloody rude, that.”
“Maybe,” I grinned at him, “also bloody true though.”
“Oof, I’ll have you know, you cocky little brat, that – “
“Hey, hey, hey,” Michael cut him off, “no one needs to hear it, Glen. We all know you think you’re god’s gift to women.”
Glen threw his hands up in surrender as Michael smirked at him.
“Fine, fine. But what I want to know is why little miss bad ass here didn’t tell us that her and Ysabel were a couple…” he trailed off, looking at me questioningly. I shrugged, grinning at him,
“You didn’t ask.”
“Ugh,” Glen rolled his eyes, “you’re ridiculous.” He turned to Ysabel, “in the interests of maintaining good relations, I feel that I should apologise for hitting on you. If that douche,” he jerked a thumb at me, “had informed me you were taken, I wouldn’t have done.”
Ysabel laughed delightedly,
“It didn’t even occur to me to be annoyed, don’t worry. It’s not like Beth did anything to enlighten you, even as she was watching the soldiers take bets.”
She raised an eyebrow at me, and I mustered enough good grace to look a little ashamed, although I struggled to keep a straight face.
“Frankly,” chipped in Michael, “I think you’re both ridiculous.” He gave both Glen and I his best ‘captain look’, then looked to Ysabel, “but I’m happy you’re here. Obviously I don’t know you yet, but it’s good to see Beth cheerful for once.”
“Hey!” I objected, “I’m quite often cheerful!”
“Usually only when you’re beating the crap out of my soldiers in training, or killing vampires.” Michael replied archly.
I pouted slightly, but kept quiet. He had a point. Ysabel laughed,
“What? No, that doesn’t sound like Beth at all. She usually has such a sweet disposition.”
Glen and Michael stared at her for a beat before howling.
“I’m going to save up these charming things you say. And pay you back for them later.”
I muttered into Ysabel’s mind, she arched the eyebrow nearest me, keeping her face towards the men’s conversation,
“Oh, I know. I’m counting on it.”
There was a purr in her voice that sent a shiver down my spine. I cleared my throat abruptly,
“You know, I’m actually pretty tired, guys. I think I’m going to head home. You coming, Yz, or staying here? If you stay here,” I added privately, “I may never forgive you.”
She smirked at me,
“I’ll come,” she said, “I’m quite tired too; it’s been a long day. It was good to meet you Michael, Glen.” She inclined her head to each of them with a smile, which they returned easily, and after saying our goodbyes we headed back to our flat.
Chapter 21
Michael
What followed was another period of stasis, or what felt like it. We took some time to integrate the Americans into the unit, train together, and attempt to form some kind of plan. Unfortunately, besides increasing the numbers of patrols and their search areas, there was very little we could do – we were still acting reactively to threats identified by patrols and the IGS, unable to predict their movements or plans enough to be proactive. It was frustrating, and tensions were high; Glen, Nathan and I broke up several fights, usually triggered by nothing more than an unthinking, snippy comment. Ysabel slipped seamlessly into the unit, and her cool, steady temperament seemed to temper Beth’s fire somewhat. But I watched them train together, wanting to assess Ysabel’s capabilities as I had Beth’s, and was impressed by the skill and ferocity with which she wielded her long sword. Quiet competence against Beth’s cocky bravado. Nathan sat next to me as, watching them spar with a frown on his face,
“Still ain’t sure it’s right for young women to be swinging swords at each other.”
I suppressed a sigh,
“It’s the 21st century, Nathan, and women are just as capable in combat as men. I won’t turn away extra swords, particularly when they’re in the hands of people as skilled as Beth and Ysabel.”
He snorted,
“And if I say no? she is under my command after all.”
“I think you’ll find she’s a civilian, and a French citizen to boot. She’s under neither of our commands. But as you are currently a guest here, and I am running point on the missions, if you say no I will have to overrule you.”
“Well then,” he smirked at me, “I guess she’s fighting. She’s your responsibility though, Captain. How’s that?”
I smirked back,
“That’s just fine, Captain.”
I excused myself and slipped away, heading across the compound to check on Glen, who was running drills with the newly blended fire teams. They were running through the standard drills as smooth as silk. Satisfied, I spun on my heel, making for the communications building to see what they had for me. Even if we couldn’t be proactively hunting the higher generations, it was time to get back into some action.
The comms team had several possible nests to investigate, with patrols having confirmed two of them. I chose one, mostly at random – they’d both need clearing at some point, it didn’t matter which one came first – and grabbed the details of the area and the predicted layout of the building, and went back to the gym to collect Nathan, Beth and Ysabel.
Beth and Ysabel were nowhere to be seen, but Nathan was where I had left him, twiddling on his phone with a look of intense concentration on his face.
“Where did the girls go?”
“Get showered and changed,” he muttered, eyes still fixed on his phone, “there’s been a massive attack on our main base in America,” he glanced up, waggling his phone.
“Lotta dead men. Gotta be honest, I’m doubting the wisdom of leaving my post and traipsing over here at the moment.”
“Jesus.” I grimaced, but the fear that had once gripped me stayed down,
“what happened?”
“Ptsh,” he shoved his phone back into his pocket, “sensed weakness didn’t they? Rushed the gate as a patrol was leaving… higher generations there too, although in the absence of our young expert, they couldn’t tell me exactly how high… reckon they might have planted those emails to get us out of the way?”
I blew out a long breath, considering,
“I suppose it’s a possibility, but I think we need to talk to Beth and Ysabel about it. I’m not sure how calculating these things are able to be.”
As if on cue, Beth strode through the door,
“are my ears burning?”
“Where’s Ysabel?” Nathan asked,
“Still getting dressed. She’s a little more high maintenance than me.” She rolled her eyes slightly as she spoke.
I gave her a quick run down of what Nathan had just told me, watching the furrows between her eyebrows deepen as I spoke. She blew out a long breath after I finished, Nathan and I watching her expectantly while the information sunk in.
“Well…”
she mused, “the very highest generations are certainly not stupid, and Archer definitely has the mental capacity to plan things like that. So it’s not a completely ridiculous theory… I mean…” she frowned again, “but why? Why bother going to all the effort of getting what is actually a fairly small number of soldiers out of the country just to attack your base? They could have done it just as easily if you still there, god knows, they have the numbers.”
“True,” Nathan sighed, “true. It just seems like too much of a coincidence.”
“I never said that it was a coincidence,” Beth grimaced, “maybe the attack was actually because Archer is over here, and he’s trying to distract us from that. But it’s a maybe. We don’t actually know a thing behind their reasoning so what’s the point in trying to read into it?”
“Because it might affect how we go about things in the future,” I pointed out.
“Why? As far as I can tell, at this point, how we go about things in the future is going to be exactly how we’ve been going about things thus far. We haven’t discovered anything useful to actually use to move in a different direction. All we can do right now is keep clearing nests and hoping we happen across something bigger.”
Nathan scowled,
“Also true.” He stood up, “I need to go and tell my men what’s happened. I’ll meet up with you later to discuss whatever that’s about.” He gestured at the papers in my hand and then strode out of the room, head hanging slightly under the weight of his task.
“You really believe that?” I asked Beth, “that they’re trying to distract us?”
“I have no idea what I believe about them,” she said bluntly, “I have no idea how Archer thinks, which I’m telling myself is a good thing. I’m not sure I want to know exactly how his mind works.”
The random nest I had chosen was a farm house, on a small plot of now unkempt land just outside of the city. We were crouched around it, hiding in the shadows of trees and low hedges, waiting. The first wave of soldiers would be entering under Nathan’s command, at his request, and my unit would remain outside to catch any vampires who thought to escape across the fields. It was hopefully going to be a fairly standard nest clearance, a good first time out to try our new mixed unit.
“Moving in.” Nathan’s voice sounded calmly in my ear,
“Acknowledged.” I replied, “my unit, stand ready.”
The sounds of breaking glass and doors being kicked open filtered across the space from the house, followed by the chatter of automatic gun fire. A vampire rocketed out of the front door, heading for the trees, and was immediately knocked back in a hail of gun fire. It leapt up again, snarling, to be knocked back again and stay down, at least one bullet had hit its mark. Beth and Ysabel were crouched in the grass a few feet to my left, watching the house and talking quietly. Beth had her swords in hand, and Ysabel carried her long sword in a sheath across her back. The gun fire from the house continued for about 5 minutes, then died down. No more vampires tried to escape, but three injured men were rushed out.
“All clear, Captain.” Nathan’s voice crackled through the radio,
“Right, we’re coming in then.”
I gave the order for my unit to move in, which we did relatively casually, trusting to Nathan’s unit to have removed the danger. Ysabel strode off with Glen and a couple of other men, while Beth walked with me,
“Well that was boring,” she grumbled, sheathing her swords.
“Hm,” I looked at her sideways, “I’m so sorry the levels of death and destruction didn’t meet your exacting standards.”
She stuck her tongue out at me as we went in through the front door. Nathan’s unit had gathered in the large, open entryway, laughing and slapping each other on the back. Nathan started to come over as we walked in, just as there was a crash from the room on the far side of the hallway, and another vampire burst out of what looked like a pantry and charged straight towards Ysabel, who was standing by the open doorway. She leaped back, drawing her sword in one smooth movement, at the same time as I saw Beth draw her own swords next to me and start forwards, a look of horror on her face. The men in the hallway immediately swung their guns up and the ones at the front fired all at once, drilling the vampire and stopping it in its tracks. It dropped to the ground, foul face going slack, and there was a moment of stunned silence. Someone swore and laughed then, and the men shook their heads and began talking again, splitting off quickly to search the house once more.
“Check the bloody cupboards,” Nathan yelled after them.
Ysabel and Beth still held a sword each, and Beth was looking Ysabel over with a look of mingled concern and anger on her face, but as Nathan spoke, it turned to pure anger. She spun towards him, irate, and lashed out with a foot. It landed square in his stomach, knocking him back into the wall with a whooshed exhale of air and she followed him quickly, wrenching her other sword out of its sheath and swinging it up to point at his throat.
“Check the bloody cupboards?” she hissed dangerously,
He swore, raising his hands slowly, “what the fuck is your problem, lady?”
The Americans left in the entrance hall raised their guns, pointing them at Beth’s back, while the British troops looked to me. I held a hand out to tell them to wait.
“Beth! Stop it!” Ysabel stood next to Nathan and put a hand on Beth’s sword, pushing it down, “you’re being ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous?” She let the blade of the sword fall under Ysabel’s hand, only to flip it and shove the hilt under Nathan’s chin instead, probably hard enough to bruise, “what’s ridiculous is that this imbecile can’t clear a damn nest properly. Check the fucking CUPBOARDS?” she roared, “you should have checked the fucking cupboards the first time!” She was right in Nathan’s face now, and Ysabel had one hand on her chest and the other on the hand holding the sword,
“Beth…” she said quietly, “you need to calm down. I’m fine.”
I moved forward as well, going to other side of Nathan. I barely resisted the urge to rant at Beth, sensing that she’d lost her temper so thoroughly that she probably wasn’t thinking straight.
“Beth, c’mon. You need to chill out, or you’re going upset the Americans pointing guns at your back. And as we’re right next to you, twitchy fingers would probably not end well for Ysabel or me either.”
Beth’s eyes flickered towards me then back to Nathan, who was still managing to glare despite that I suspected he could hardly breathe, so hard was Beth’s sword hilt pressed against his throat. She jerked it away, breathing hard, and slammed both blades back into their sheaths, then spun and left the house without another word. I felt everyone in the room relax. Nathan swore again, rubbing her neck,
“what the hell was that about?”
“To be honest, I’m wondering the same thing myself.”
I looked at Ysabel, raising my eyebrows in question and she winced under my stare.
“Beth, um, she can be a little over protective.”
“Well no shit.” Grumbled Nathan, “I’m going to sort out the clean up. Get that,” he jabbed a finger in the direction Beth had gone, “sorted will you?”
I left Ysabel and the Americans to the clean up and gathered my own men to head back to base. We got to the transports to find Beth already sitting in the back of one, still glowering. Everyone, probably wisely, left her to it.
As soon as we got back to base, I dragged Beth to one side,
“Meeting room, now.”
She glared at me, sparks practically flying from her eyes and I could tell she was about to give me a mouthful,
“don’t even think about it. Go.”
I gave her a stony glare of my own and she scowled, but went in the direction I was pointing. When we got there, I sat down at the small table, but Beth’s entire body was still tensed with anger, her hands clenched down by her sides as she began pacing a tight line along one wall, giving me the impression of a tiger in a cage. Even her hair, the thick plait swinging in time
with her quick steps, seemed to radiate a nervous fury. I sat back into my chair, watching her for a few seconds to see if she showed any signs of calming down. She didn’t.
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting rather?” I asked, my eyes still following her backwards and forwards, “the mission went well... nest cleared out, a few less vampires terrorising the streets.”
There was no response from Beth besides an irritated snort of air from between her grinding teeth. I couldn’t understand why she was so furious, this was war after all, there was going to be battles and it was going to be dangerous… Ysabel’s alive and uninjured, what’s the problem? She shot a glare in my direction as if she had heard what I was thinking, and on her next stride past the table paused, leaning her hands on its dinted top.
“The problem is that she was in danger, because of someone else’s failure, I might add. And I wasn’t there to protect her. She could have been killed.”
She spoke quietly, controlling every syllable.
“But she didn’t… you need to focus on that part Beth. And anyway, you have to accept that there is a possibility that you could both get hurt. Or worse.”
She cringed slightly at this and I wondered briefly if I had been too blunt, but dismissed the feeling almost immediately. She had insisted on being out on the front line, it wasn’t my job to keep her wrapped in cotton wool… although up until now, I had never had any cause for concern.
“I know that.” She replied tersely, “but it’s Yzzy. She can’t get hurt. She just… can’t…” sighing, she flopped down into a chair, the fight abruptly going out of her. Rubbing one hand across her eyes, she sighed again,
“it doesn’t matter, Michael. Maybe I overreacted, but if she gets killed, that’s it… game over.”
That was a weird comment, I frowned to myself,
“Game over? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s means exactly that.” She looked up at me, staring at me in that intense way she did sometimes, making me want to look away,
The Guard Page 13