The Midnight Guardian

by Sarah-Jane Stratford

  Two businessmen walked past Eamon, heading for a club.

  “Say what you will about Hitler, you can’t deny he’s a man of action. Imagine what the stock market would look like if Chamberlain could manage that much action.”

  “Shaky, I would think. I prefer steadiness in the market myself. I think I’ll be putting my money into shipbuilding. Mark my words, it will yield a fortune.”

  “I would guess aeroplanes. Rather wish the war would start already, if we’re going to have it. Great bore, waiting.”

  Eamon turned to look after them, incredulous. What a peculiar thing, to be considering one’s money when the cost of war was human. Perhaps the general public found it easier not to think about it too deeply. He supposed it was useless to expect real understanding, even though the Nuremberg Laws had been printed in the papers and discussed with properly expressed abhorrence before turning to the home news. Everyone approved of the Kindertransport, but quietly agreed that it should have its limits. In spite of the vast improvements, it troubled Eamon to realize that little had changed in the overall attitude toward Jews in Britain since he himself had been a member of that community some eight centuries ago.

  Contemplating the breadth of general prejudice, he’d remarked to Brigit back at the time of the Russian pogroms that it was almost a shame Jews weren’t vampires, as some stories had it.

  “They’d be a damn sight safer, anyway.”

  “But still dead, the way those devils want it.”

  “There’s always a catch, isn’t there? Of course, if death is coming anyway, at least as vampires, they could fight.”

  He knew his logic was muddled, but this was not an area in which he could think with his usual clarity. As a Jewish vampire, made on the eve of the York massacre in 1190, he still had a tenuous tie to that segment of human society. The Jew-haters were wrong: Jews were not bloodthirsty and there was no good reason to link them to vampirism, which in any case was so much older than any established religion. But Jews made excellent vampire companions. Theirs was one of the few human groups of which Otonia was aware that had no theory of an afterlife when the human body was spent, so that an observant Jew, once sired, would always retain a shroud of humanity. In one of his songs, Eamon described it as the bittersweet weight of a partial soul. It was indeed as though the soul could not wholly depart but must cling to the animated body it had known, sharing space with the newly lodged demon. The demon was as powerful as in any other vampire, but that fragment of soul gave a Jewish vampire a different sort of light. They were often called the only beating heart of the community. Their lot was not the easiest, because, as Brigit liked to joke, “You eat as heartily as the rest of us, but you feel guilty afterward.” Not entirely true, more that they felt a little melancholy, but it was the idea. Still, they were loved, they were respected, and they were equals, and that was generally such an improvement over their human experience, beyond the Jewish community, that they were prepared for the trials of undead life.

  The “millennials only” rule for this mission made sense, but it rankled nonetheless. He hated the idea of not doing anything. Eamon was energetic, and he liked to be active. There were some foolishly vocal Nazi sympathizers to tease and pick off, but they were so inconsequential as hardly seemed worth the effort. Eamon wanted to make a difference.

  Even worse than the sting of uselessness was the prickly feel of impending chaos. He couldn’t literally see the future, not exactly, but even in his human days, when something explosive neared, he could sense the vibrations, the way some animals knew when a natural disaster was approaching. It had bloomed on his making, and intensified over the centuries. He’d gotten the feel of the plague coming, not it precisely, but something that meant the vampires had better be prepared. So they stole a few sheep and pigs from all the local farmers—most of whom would later be dead anyway—and maintained them in a hidden shed. It wasn’t anyone’s favorite solution. Animal blood has not the same nutrients and potency. Some of the new ones had argued strenuously for the stockpiling of plump humans who could be made to last. With not a little asperity, Otonia had reminded them that such torment was not the vampire way. Arousing a bit of fear during the chase, if you fancied, was acceptable and could add a pleasing spice to a meal, but to kidnap and feed from a human for months on end was an act even the demon would repulse. The animals didn’t provide quite enough, the vampires had to ration, but it kept them alive. Theirs was the only circle in Europe that remained whole, and thus the tribunal only enhanced its influence.

  This time, Eamon wasn’t yet sure what they should do, but there was a weight in his abdomen that told him the war was likely unavoidable. Which meant that Brigit and the others were not going to succeed, were putting themselves in danger for almost no reason. It was the damndest thing about humans. Their will would always win out, if it was strong enough.

  No, no. We’ve never tried this. I’m just upset because I miss Brigit. There’s no reason they won’t accomplish all we hope, and more.

  A slow grin spread across his face.

  Those poor brownshirt bastards. They won’t know what hit them.

  Despite the chill, the streets in Soho were crowded. There was the usual rush to nip down a quick drink, or tuck in a chop or even just a sandwich before one had to be at the theater or concert hall. The people who were out only for supper, or were headed for a private engagement later and thus had more leisure, regarded the desperate ones with happy, haughty amusement, even though they themselves might have been in the same predicament the night before, or would be so the following night. For himself, Eamon preferred to get a drink after a show, when its pleasures or horrors might be discussed at length. As to eating, well, that was a show all onto itself. One generally guaranteed to be pleasurable.

  He began to hum as he strolled, smelling the air, searching. It was one of the only things he and Brigit did—any vampire did—alone. Hunt. Eat. A few occasions called for a shared feast. The monarch’s birthday. Winter Solstice. But for most meals, it was a dance you danced as a single. To your own music.

  “Literally, in your case.” Brigit smiled.

  This was true, but it wasn’t a typical tune. Hardly even music, really, more like a code. Eamon’s hum swirled into the air like a spider’s web, spreading out and out in concentric circles, wending its way through dingy alleys until at last it secured a moth.

  About half an hour later, he felt a note hit. She was two hundred yards ahead. He felt the girl’s head turn, wondering, interested. She smelled of stealth. He stopped humming when he turned into the alley and leaned against a wall, watching the girl, who was now focused on the back door of a grimy pub. When a drunken young man came out, tugging his hat low, she set upon him, skillfully relieving him of a pocket watch. As she made a play for the purse, however, he noticed her.

  “Oy, get off! I ain’t interested,” he barked, assuming she was a streetwalker.

  “No harm trying.” She grinned.

  He made a disparaging gesture and staggered up the street.

  She held up the watch, squinting at it in the dim light.

  “Not quite nine.” Eamon helpfully announced from behind her.

  His hand was on her mouth as she whirled around, muffling her startled scream. His gentle smile and soulful eyes calmed her. But they were also intriguing. There was something about the smile that suggested a man who was not entirely innocent. She liked that. She also liked how well dressed he was. If she could inveigle him somewhere private and distract him, she could probably walk away with a month’s haul.

  Centuries of experience with stalking the demimonde told Eamon her thoughts, and they never failed to amuse. The silly pickpocket, like so many before her, did not seem to notice that it was she who was being led somewhere private.

  They walked, his hand stroking the small of her back. Shivers ran down her legs. His eyes rarely left her face, and she felt herself falling into them. Nervous, she switched her gaze to his lips, whose curl encha
nted her. It seemed almost certain that the strange, seductive sound that had entranced her was coming from them, and if they could make that sort of magic without even touching her, the idea of contact was so enticing as to be unbearable.

  How they’d ended up in a dark, deserted corner, she neither knew nor cared. She liked the feel of him, liked the feel of herself with him. His hands, pulling her body into his. And that mouth, that mouth! It didn’t meet her own hungry lips, but teased around her ears and jaw so that her knees were buckling. She felt her entire body turn liquid.

  There was a sudden pressure on her neck, something that might be pain except that she wanted more, wanted the heat of his embrace to melt her even further, wanted him to take every last bit of her into that amazing mouth. His fingers were firmly, yet tenderly, massaging her spine and neck, and if she had realized that the effect was to manipulate all her blood down his throat, she still might not have minded.

  Eamon carefully lay down the empty body, smoothing the girl’s skirt over her knees, although not before using it to neatly dab his lips. He stood, and sighed—the same reflexive action, as so many times before, the body’s memory of how to express a twinge of regret. The waste of a life, and yet he needed it to continue his own. A conundrum. Sometimes there was something small he could do, as atonement. He liked that. He searched the girl’s jacket carefully.

  Ten minutes later, the drunken young man was struggling to fit his key into the lock at his family’s house. His mother opened the door with a frown. But the scold died on her lips and her eyes widened at something unexpected over her son’s shoulder. The man looked behind him, apprehensive.

  A good-looking fellow with a peculiar smile was casually twirling his pocket watch. He handed it to the astonished young man.

  “I’m feeling generous tonight. You oughtn’t drink so much, though. You’re going to need your strength for the fight ahead.”

  And, with a polite nod, he was gone. The young man exchanged a glance with his mother. Suddenly cold, he ducked inside.

  It was a pleasant, if long, walk through Camden Town and then up Malden Road on the way to Hampstead Heath. A human would grow weary before even going a quarter of the distance, but vampires liked to stroll. Besides, they could always move faster, if they needed to. It was still early, though, and Eamon wanted to take his time getting home.

  On Parliament Hill, he gazed down upon the city, the way he and Brigit had for so many centuries. He still marveled at how it had grown and changed. He adored its lights. Life was there, and adventure, and promise.

  The lights in Berlin cannot possibly be this warm.

  There were some among the younger vampires who saw the mission as an adventure. Even Mors probably felt that way, Eamon mused. Mors still had a tremendous appetite for danger. It was presumed that creatures of the night fed on danger as readily as they did jugulars, but this was really only true the first hundred years. After that, a vampire made the distinction between danger and risk. Unless that vampire was Mors, in which case it was all wonderfully intoxicating.

  Eamon adored risk, too, but over the centuries he and Brigit had become less inclined for it. There was too much else to do. Eternal life opened one to a wealth of possibilities. As a human, Eamon’s natural aptitude for music was something he and his family could never dream of affording to indulge, but as a vampire, he’d learned to play the rebec, then the violin, and a small host of other instruments, although his passion was for those two. He liked the feel of them in his hands, and the way the bows danced across their strings. When music hall began to be popular, he had to expand to the piano.

  “You just can’t play George Formby on the violin, not if you want to get the right expression.”

  “Or hit the right note.” Brigit smirked.

  And while George Gershwin lent no end of entertainment to violin experimentation, that wasn’t quite the same, either. Piano it was. For some things. Music and Brigit. So long as he had them, he had the whole world in his still heart.

  The tribunal made its home in a castle deep below Hampstead Heath. Otonia liked the view, and the fresh air. The current millennials often marveled at how well she had chosen the location, which had been pure wilderness at the time—Kenwood House came later. She had sensed that London would become the center of the civilized world, and she’d spent too many years in the center of things, or waiting for there to be things again, never mind a center, to let events overtake her. So southward from Yorkshire they went, and hadn’t had much cause for regret.

  Eamon slipped through the hollow tree that marked the castle’s entrance. Not that a human passerby would see it was hollow—the vampires had built a cunning sliding door once the Heath became popular for roaming. Even if a human did manage to get in, they would never find the other door at the base of the trunk, or work out how to open it.

  The apartment he and Brigit had shared for so many centuries was warm and cozy. Eamon stirred the fire in their book and music room and sank into his own squashy armchair. If he squinted, he could just make out a depression in the cushion of Brigit’s chair, still there after a week of emptiness. He hoped it wasn’t an illusion.

  He opened his latest book, then realized he couldn’t remember anything from the last chapter. He didn’t want to read anyway. His sketching things were in the corner, but that didn’t bear thinking about. There were his instruments.

  The only real comforts now, that’s what they were. They were his friends, the pretty little piano, the Amati violin, and the rebec, that odd little curio, the precursor to the violin, played while propped awkwardly on the thigh. The instrument that had started it all for him, and for Brigit. They all missed Brigit, too. They were the only ones who really understood.

  That wasn’t fair, of course. That was selfish. He was restless, so restless. He needed more distraction.

  Eamon knew Padraic was probably in the castle library—a library any book-loving human, especially the collectors, would give a ransom just to see. Otonia had stolen books back in her early days, and acquired more as she went along, and others joined her. So works that humans thought lost, or didn’t know even existed, could be found in that cool, enormous room. To say nothing of first editions. Also the complete works of Shakespeare. Some folios were even signed by the author.

  I don’t want conversation, I want …

  Well, a host of things. None of which he was going to get, not now. He practically snatched the Amati from its rest and cradled it under his chin. The bow purred under his palm.

  Where will we go tonight, my friend?

  The bow touched the strings, and spun out a memory in melody.

  Brigit. Brigit, and the sound of her laugh, the sound of a sudden rain on a midwinter’s night. The two of them, skipping and splashing through the Thames, jumping from boat to boat, until many of them cracked. Leaping up to catch onto bridges and daring the lightning to come closer. Mocking it with their own energy and light. Chasing the storm all the way up to the top of the heath. Collapsing on the grass, sides aching, but still laughing. Rolling down the hill. Catching her as they rolled, turning her over so she would land on him and not the muddy ground. Tangling her wet hair hard between his fingers …

  The Amati played on, a sweet, erotic melody that ran rings around him, chased its way through the castle, lightly touching here and there on open ears, promising the happiest of dreams as the notes flew up and out into the pale air until they hit the faint sun rays just tickling the earth. There, like eddies, they swirled up, up, up … and out into nowhere.

  Chapter 4

  Berlin–Basel train. August 1940.

  Brigit took advantage of the prolonged evening train stop to stretch her legs in a brisk stroll around the small, well-shaded platform. She bought two bars of chocolate and a newspaper from the tired-looking newsagent, who did not return her smile, and tucked them into her hard leather Her-mès bag. The warmth of the evening was not unpleasant, and she made a point of taking several deep breaths, as though
relishing the fresh air. But the only person who noticed her was a harassed young mother shepherding two squabbling little boys—twins, by the looks of them—in crisp sailor suits. The woman seemed to take Brigit’s beauty and calm as a personal insult and sneered as she passed her, muttering something unintelligible under her breath.

  Fighting back a giggle, Brigit continued her energetic walk. After all, a healthy young fräulein needs her exercise. Get a bit of circulation going. Again, Brigit felt a laugh rising. She wished the demon could swallow it.

  It was being out in the air that was making her giddy. It gave the illusion of freedom. She forced herself to concentrate on the soot and grime, the smell of too many cigarettes and sweat under summer tweeds. This was no atmosphere for exhilaration. In as much as she knew she should look at ease, a young woman on a great adventure, she must also look capable and self-contained. A woman with responsibilities, who took those responsibilities seriously. Balance. And balance was something she had worked at her whole life, so she was hardly in new territory.

  But I am. Oh, Eamon, I am.

  At least this line of thinking squelched all the smile right out of her. The whistle sounded, and, in no mood to wait for the next call, she decided to board at once. The sooner she was out of the air, the better.

  At the door to her car, the porter was assisting an elderly, slightly deaf couple with their luggage, and they kept shouting at him to be careful. Another new passenger, a bony young man in dark-rimmed glasses, smiled pleasantly at the old woman and held out his arm.

  “May I give you a hand getting on the train, madam?”

  The woman recoiled from his arm as though it were toxic.

  “Don’t you be thinking you can get my handbag, you little rat! Army too good for you, is it? Off on a pleasure jaunt instead of fighting for the glory of the Fatherland? Army knows what to do with rotten thieves like you, mark my words!”