by Gwynn White
Once Borona returned from that war, he’d steadfastly refused to leave the borders of the country again. He wouldn’t even go to Canada. Most of the time, he refused to go more than a hundred miles from the place he called home…the Guardian compound. Borona had been born right along with America and he was a patriot who loved his country more than anything else, but he would no longer fight wars that didn’t take place on his native soil.
After the War of 1812, the Civil War, both World Wars and a dozen conflicts besides, Borona was justifiably no longer interested in war and felt he had done his piece for his country. He was also extremely pragmatic and bright, which meant that Girard had to think carefully about what Borona said. Was he right? Was he looking for bogeymen that weren’t there to find?
Looking away from Borona’s dark, hawk-like eyes and back at the screens, he got that same tickling sensation up his spine that said there was more to the story. While it was possible that Thalia’s entirely creepy demeanor and strange outbursts were the source of that tickle, Girard still felt there was something else.
“No, I’m not looking for trouble that isn’t there to find. Something is off. I feel it. Her story has flaws and I’m not sure she’s telling me the truth. Never trust anyone that thinks they’re a god.”
Borona tilted his head a little, evaluating Girard in the steady way he looked at all things. Girard could almost feel the calculations being played out behind his eyes. Eventually, he nodded and spun in his chair to face the screens again. “Then I’ll find it. If there’s something here, I’ll tease it out. Your gut is smarter than most people’s whole brain or, in the case of vampires, both brains.”
Within seconds, he was intent on his screens again, his fingers tapping away as he brought up yet more footage and social media shares on the topic. Girard was uneasy and still had this nagging sensation in the pit of his stomach. Of course, that might be from his sip of four day old coffee concentrated into stomach-burning acid.
6
Leaving Borona to his work, Girard left the office and walked slowly toward the living quarters of the Guardian complex. He didn’t want to create problems where none existed, but he also needed to untie the knots that were making his hackles rise. He barely noticed his surroundings, but that wasn’t too unusual for Girard. Along the hallway separating the work spaces from the less-formal sections where off-duty Guardians should be able to relax, the styles inside the compound changed.
Shifting from high-tech acoustic dampening floors to wood varnished into buttery-looking softness, Girard tried to shake off his work-related thinking. Being a Guardian was a calling more than a job, so leaving it behind wasn’t easy, not even for a few hours of rest. It was important not to think about work all the time. Burnout was a real thing and Girard liked his job too much to risk that.
There was no retirement age to look forward to, no certain future moment when burdens would lift and responsibilities disappear in exchange for endless golf tee times and afternoon tango lessons. While it was true that no Guardian had to continue working, Girard couldn’t imagine leaving. What would he do with his time? Many thought the reason Girard had lived so long and remained sane was that he had a profession that allowed him to be who he was. He wasn’t forced to hide his true self for however many hours a day out in the working world like so many others. Girard wasn’t sure how he’d remained the same person he’d always been, but he didn’t discount the possibility that his job might contribute to it. It was just another reason to keep working.
No one was in the lounge, but a low fire burned in the fireplace, sending flickering shadows around the dim room and inviting anyone who entered to relax. Three Guardians were on leave, one of them an extended leave expected to last a year or more while she was pregnant…a celebrated event in the vampire world. Several others were off investigating or assisting depending on the situation.
At any one time, there may be only a half dozen Guardians in residence. Vampires tended to be a peaceful lot—despite what the movies might depict—and also rule-abiding in a general sense. Actually, it might be more accurate to say that most vampires were obsessive about following rules. That made the less lovely parts of a Guardian’s profession rather rare. Much Guardian work fell into the category of helping a newly awakened vampire not make a mess of things and wind up on an internet video doing something that would reveal their species.
Anyone awake and aware in the last thousand years knew they should contact a local Guardian for assistance upon waking. The Vampire Council used to have traveler’s inns in every major city of the world. Everyone who woke went looking for the right tavern and that worked to keep things quiet and orderly for a long time. Yet the human world was changing far too quickly for such a solution now. A vampire who went to rest in 1970 wouldn’t know what hit them if they woke today.
After all, Guardians were most often contacted via cell phone or email instead of the local vampire bar these days. That said it all.
Fires, crimes, or the illegal taking of a body were the least of their duties. Most often, the illegal taking of a body was brought about by an emergency over which the vampire had almost no control. In extremis, a vampire might be unable to stop that particular process. It was no different than the way a drowning person would cling to a rescuer. No vampire could stop that basic instinct to survive. That meant a cover-up was more frequent than a punishment. Jobs like the one today were the exception, but what an exhausting and confusing exception it was.
Girard sank into the deep couch in front of the fire. Heat stones had been placed on either side of the couch and he absently touched one as the air temperature rose due to the crackling fire. The entire compound was kept cool in deference to their higher body temperatures, but the lure of a contained fire was hard to resist. It soothed those like Girard who had grown up in a world without air conditioning or central heat.
His childhood home hadn’t even possessed a chimney. Those were still new-fangled contraptions and he’d lived his early years with a central fire pit and a smoke hole in their thatched roof. So yes, he enjoyed the red and yellow flickers of a well-built fire a great deal.
The heat stone warmed as he leeched heat into it, the big sand-filled vessel underneath absorbing the stone’s heat and dissipating it into the air. It wasn’t a lot of heat, but it felt good to get rid of it. If there was one thing that would accelerate the wear on a human body, it was this heat of theirs. Most bodies adjusted to the slightly higher temperature over time, but too much would fry the tender tissues, and it was always best to get rid of whatever excess heat they could.
Winter was good for vampires. Summer was a nightmare.
Was it any wonder that some of the first to swarm toward mild climates in the summer and build grand houses in those temperate places were vampires? Humans continued the trend, but it was vampires who started it. Stabiae for ancient Romans. The breeze-cooled islands off Greece. The Black Sea. Newport, Rhode Island. All started by vampires.
Girard felt a tickle at his palm and lifted it from the heat stone to look. The pattern of pale spots at the base of his palm undulated slightly in response to the loss of the cool stone. He touched one of the spots and felt the denser tissue there. Pressing below one of the spots with a fingernail brought a sharp pain, then the tiny whip-like end of one of his heat dissipating tendrils peeked out from the spot. Pulling away his fingernail, the end retracted quickly and the pale spot grew back, closing almost like an iris before sealing up again.
He probably shouldn’t do that, but the strange truth was that he never saw himself. He never saw his own body, only this one that he had stolen from a man who was dying too young. Seeing that tiny, little tendril was as close as he came to seeing his own countenance. When he fed he got a glimpse as well, but those glimpses were only the long tails that grew from his actual body to dissipate heat or take nutrients. It was like a human trying to see what they looked like by only examining a toenail or tooth. It was of him, but didn’t show him h
is face.
Not that vampires had faces.
As was the custom in a shared abode with non-related vampires, the soft sound of footsteps announced someone approaching the lounge. Girard knew by the pattern that it was Lila, the Guardian’s current historian and general research genius. Sure enough, her long frame darkened the doorway seconds later. The fuzzy slippers on her feet sported floppy dog ears and shiny, black eyes.
“How was your trip?” she asked, leaning one jean-clad hip against the frame and crossing her arms. The dog ears on her feet flopped as she kicked one foot over the other.
“Weird,” he said, giving her a brief smile.
“Hmm,” she murmured, then cocked her head. “Your face tells me it was a bad weird and not a good weird.”
Girard patted the couch cushion next to him and said, “Why not sit with me for a moment?”
Lila gave him a look, but came into the room anyway. She slowed when she came near and asked, “What is that smell?”
With a sigh, he sniffed his jacket and caught a whiff of the scent wafting off of him. He’d actually stopped smelling it after all those hours in the car and Borona hadn’t mentioned it. “Rotten cantaloupe, I think.”
“Yuck,” she said, pinching her nose and sitting on the other end of the couch. “Should I even ask?”
He shucked off his jacket, which only served to spread the smell, then tossed it across the room where it could reek in lonely splendor. It was a wonder that Borona hadn’t said something about the sweet, rotten stink. “I think a produce truck must have lost a load very slowly, one melon at a time. I went down a couple of miles with squishy stuff trailing along the center of the road. Once enough of it started cooking on the undercarriage, the smell seeped into the car.”
“Well, it’s disgusting and you should probably bathe.”
He nodded and went back to gazing at the fire. Girard wanted…no, he needed…Lila’s help. He wanted to know all that he could about Thalia, but curiosity about Yadikira burned inside him as well. Maybe he could convince himself he wanted to know about her because it was related to the strange case of her mother, but at the moment, he hadn’t yet managed it. He just wanted to know about her.
Lila was silent while he parsed his thoughts, but eventually she reached out and touched his arm. “What’s wrong?” she asked gently, which was her way.
“I’m not entirely sure,” he answered with a sigh.
“Why not tell me everything and I’ll see if I can help you figure that part out.” She tucked her slippered feet up onto the couch so that it looked like the dogs were staring at him with big, round eyes.
So he did tell her, even going so far as to admit the strange pull he felt from Yadikira. When he was done, he shrugged, a little embarrassed by that admission. “What do I need, Lila?”
Lila pushed back her dark hair and rested a hand on the heat stone next to her side of the couch. She was tall and lanky, the body she wore about thirty years old in appearance. Girard had been with her when she took it almost forty years prior. The girl had been so broken and bruised that neither of them had even really been able to see what she might look like. In the hospital, the doctors had not even set all her bones, knowing she would not survive.
At the time, Lila’s body had been that of an old man, bent and stooped. Their imperative had been simply to change bodies and the details about the replacement body weren’t important. They just needed a new one and a Jane Doe dying nearby provided the perfect cover. Once the deed was done, Girard had carried Lila out of the hospital inside that new and broken body, the sound of her bones knitting sending goosebumps along his skin.
Now, it was easy to see what a beautiful choice the young woman had been. Even so, Girard wished the human girl had been able to have her life, rather than have it snuffed out in a car accident. She would not have survived, so perhaps this was best.
“You’re staring,” Lila said, breaking his train of thought.
He smiled a little sadly and said, “I was only thinking of that day in the hospital.”
She looked away and back at the fire, saying nothing.
“I don’t mean to be maudlin. Tell me what I need. Or have I baffled even you?”
She shook her head, her brown eyes reflecting firelight rather than stars when she looked back at him. Like Borona, Lila was young in comparison with Girard, but a respected age in general for a vampire. Born in Virginia during the late 1600s, she was also entirely a creature of the new world. Like all those born in those rough and tumble days, her nature was tough and resilient. A perfect Guardian. She was also Girard’s best friend and one of the few people he could bear to share any of his thoughts with. Most vampires might assume he was a loner, but even they would count Lila as the exception to that rule. They’d been friends for centuries. She was one of the few beings in this world Girard absolutely trusted, the kind of trust that had no exceptions, no limits.
She twitched her toes, which made the dogs on her slippers nod, and said, “You couldn’t baffle me if you tried. No, there are two references that come to mind. One is old and somewhat vague, but also probably true. The other is most certainly not true at all. It’s more of a story really.”
“Enlighten me then. It’s not often that I meet an entirely unknown ancient. Or in this case, two.”
Twisting in her seat to put her feet back on the floor, Lila said, “Actually, I can show you. Meet me in the reference library?”
As tired as he was from sitting in the car for so long, Girard should have been eager to get up and stretch his limbs. Instead, the opposite was true. The couch was comfortable and the fire pleasant. He’d much rather sit here. Curiosity was stronger than laziness however, and he levered himself up from the cushions.
“Of course.”
Lila wrinkled her nose when he stood, then nodded toward his coat on the floor. “Perhaps a shower first?”
Girard chuckled, because he must really be offensive if she was suggesting a delay. Lila was an excellent historian and like all historians, excited to share history with willing ears…or even unwilling ears she might force to sit still for a while. He was only glad that his sense of smell had been deadened by exposure if it was that bad. He retrieved his rumpled coat and followed her toward the door.
“I’ll hurry,” he said.
Lila turned to go back toward the business part of the complex, but paused and turned back to say, “And don’t throw that coat away. Money doesn’t grow on trees.” With that, she winked and disappeared around the corner. Girard watched her go because the sight was a pleasant one, not because of any desire, but because she was happy and excited. It put a bounce in her step that he liked to see.
Vampires might not be human, but they lived inside humans for their entire existence. Without humans, they were sightless and almost mindless animals. It was from a human perspective that they developed and grew. It could be confusing at times. An image of Lila as she had been flashed through his mind, the old man with the sharp eyes juxtaposed against the lithe woman who’d just walked away. He shook his head at that, then headed into the dorms to rid himself of the scent of cooked and rotten melon.
7
Girard should have packaged the suit up for the cleaners before he took a shower. Now that he was clean and wearing fresh clothing, the stink coming off the suit was close to gag-worthy. He stuffed the last bit into the bag for the dry cleaner and then packaged the entire mesh bag into a plastic one just to keep the smell contained. Other Guardians would complain if he stunk up the whole room.
He tossed the socks into the washing machine with the rest of his dirty laundry and started the machine. He stood there in the laundry room until the machine made that banging noise that meant it was properly started. Girard had to shake his head at the absurdity of it all sometimes. Here he was, more than seven centuries old and he had to do his own laundry.
Life was odd, but better than the alternative.
Leaving the laundry room, Girard removed his
hearing protection—big earmuffs suitable for use on an airport flight line—and hung them on one of the hooks next to the door. It was the only way many of them could tolerate the normal noises of daily life. These earmuffs hung everywhere; outside the kitchen, the bathrooms…everywhere.
Stopping first at the kitchen, he grabbed an apple from the big bowl on the counter and made his way toward the other end of the complex. Food and drink weren’t allowed in the library, so he took huge bites and chewed as quickly as possible. The fruit was good, crisp like Girard most favored. Apples weren’t like this when he was a child. Humans had no idea how entirely they had changed their world and everything in it.
Even apples.
He tossed the core into the trash can outside the reference library, then entered. If the working side of the complex was modern and spare, then this library was from something out of the future. It was almost a complex inside a complex, though that word was too small to encompass what the library truly was.
Inside these restricted spaces rested some of the oldest writing in the world, most of it moved here during the various times of crisis in Europe when their safety could not be assured. Delicate and sensitive to any change in the environment, many pieces could no longer be handled. Their storage was a matter of extreme care. When Girard pushed open the inner door to the reference library, his ears felt the change in pressure and he worked his jaw. The immensity of the place was somewhat disguised by the dim lights everywhere except in the center of the big room. There Lila stood at one of the many tall workbenches in a pool of white light.
She waved him over with one white-gloved hand then bent over the large book resting there. He joined her at the bench, lacing his fingers behind his back as he did. Girard always felt a little uncomfortable here, like he was about to cause damage simply by breathing without enough care. While Girard loved history, it was this other part of the historian’s job that probably kept him from ever joining their ranks. He was simply too physical.