The door opened. Crumbly marched out, whole and healthy. Radiating with unbelievable joy, on top of that.
“They offered me a contract,” he announced, raising an envelope he crushed in his hand. “For long-term cooperation. And called me Friend. Good, no?”
All three breathed with undeniable relief.
“Very good,” Nidor confirmed, and patted the cop on the back with all his might. “Let’s get back to the room, I’m barely alive because of all that.”
Crumbly answered him with a wide smile.
They turned around and walked down the corridor, passing praetorians’ stations. They began to descend the stairs slowly.
“Oh, fucking fuck!” Crumbly moaned suddenly, sitting on the stair.
They stopped instantly and faced him. He sat on the stairs with an especially stupid expression.
“What’s up?”
He showed them the paper he clutched in his hands, unable to say a word.
“Oh, you started reading your contract,” Nidor said calmly. “If I remember well, it’s a contract for freelance consultations. What’s the problem? They’re probably already set it up with your bosses, don’t worry...”
“They gave me a salary,” the A-T choked out. “Oh mommy!”
The nighters smiled widely.
“Twice as much as I usually make,” the cop said in astonishment. “And what am I gonna do with all that money?”
“What do you mean ‘twice as much’,” Vesper asked, furrowing his brows. “Don’t tell me they cheapened out...” he took the document from his fingers and glanced at it. “It’s in Euros, you moron!” he gave him the document back.
Crumbly stared at the sum written in the contract, and then at the double-crossed E right next to it. He blinked and put the paper closer to his eyes, then pulled it away again.
“Well, now Renata won’t kick me out,” he stated in a trembling voice.
“Just let her try!” they agreed convincingly. “Come on, stop whining. It’s just money, not a big deal.”
He got up from the stairs, still staring at them in astonishment. An obvious question, how much was a regular nighter salary, hung on tip of his tongue... but he didn’t say anything.
They sat in comfy chairs by the table, sipping drinks. They fell silent, and each was deep in own thoughts.
The silence was broken by a sudden knock, and the door opened before they could say respond. Four girls ran into the sitting room, smiling brightly.
“Poles... we heard there were Poles here?” they began to prattle together, “Is it true?”
They stood up instantly. The nighters recognized Viners at the first sight.
“There sure are...” Nidor smiled. “How can we help you, ladies?”
“We’re going to a party!” they announced together. “Immediately. We haven’t spoken Polish in years.”
Vesper and Nidor brightened right away, looking at the girls with interest. They were very attractive, like true Viners: one blonde, two brunettes, and one redhead. Their eyes glistened with undoubted promise.
“I’m faithful to my wife,” Crumbly said somewhat with regret, and sat back down. “I’m sorry.”
They looked closer at him and raised their hands up to their mouths at the same time.
“Oh, a human!” one of the brunettes exclaimed.
“And the other one, too!” the blonde added, pointing to the recruit with her eyes.
“But I’m not married,” the other said immediately. “You don’t have a problem with that, right?” he looked at them pleadingly.
“No, no, humans are out of the question,” the other brunette said categorically. “You could catch the symbiont by accident and someone could consider it illegal recruitment. Sorry babe, but it’s a no go.”
The recruit sat in his chair, folded his arms on his chest, and pouted.
“Maybe we should stay in too...” Vesper muttered, feeling loyal to his human friends, but said it so quietly that it was nearly inaudible.
He glanced at the girls again. Pretty, nice, with laughing eyes... that no storm raged in, though. And maybe that’s why they seemed so plain to him, so ordinary. They were missing that spark of craziness that could fire up his imagination. But in the current situation he shouldn’t be too picky. They’d do. Since there was nothing better in the area...
“Oh, there’s no way you can stay!” the Viners protested. “You two have to come with us, we insist. You’ll just have to try harder, gents, to take your colleague’s places.” They grinned very provocatively. “Humans will take care of themselves. Besides, it’s night, high time for them to go sleep. Right?” they said to Crumbly and the recruit, sitting with increasingly sour expressions.
“Yeaa...” the kid grumbled. “It’s after the evening cartoons, true. Good thing I at least got my injection.”
“Great!” they walked up, two to each nighter, and pulled them up by their elbows. “Let’s go! You could use a little fun, you’re so overworked...” They pulled them to the door.
Nidor and Vesper exchanged glanced at each other. Well, they didn’t know what would happen tomorrow, if the next night would find them alive... they nodded knowingly, grabbed Viners by the waists, and left with them.
“Oh, great,” the recruit growled at Crumbly. “Did you have to stand out with that idiotic comment? Maybe they wouldn’t have noticed...”
“One has to have some principles,” the other said indignantly. “And besides, you’d leave me alone? And you could have caught that symbiont, didn’t you hear them say so?”
“I dream of nothing else,” the nighter candidate sighed. “I’m just waiting for our lord to make up his mind. And you wouldn’t want to live forever?”
“Renata wouldn’t really like that,” Crumbly said, getting up. “I would have to leave her for longer.” He shook his head. “As far as I’m concerned, I prefer it the way it is. Goodnight!” He marched straight to the bathroom with a decisive step.
The recruit was left alone at the table. He glanced at the glasses with undrunk blood, left by the nighters. He sighed deeply and reached for orange juice, lifting it to his lips with resignation.
***
Crumbly pressed the remote buttons, switching channels with obvious distaste. English TV seemed incredibly boring from his point of view, and nothing from the satellite caught his attention. So he kept clicking, feeling a pronounced frustration rising within him. He was all alone in the sitting room. Vesper and Nidor had come back only at nine in the morning, grinning from ear to ear, and had gone to sleep instantly. At that moment, the recruit had thrown Crumbly a hateful look then pattered to the room, and lay down as well, all offended. The cop was left all alone. He looked over the TV channels, clicking the remote impatiently. He was tired of the feeling of waiting for the unknown that permeated through the nighters’ forced external calm. And he totally didn’t know what was going on, and what worried them. Nothing was clear and light for him here, even less than nothing.
There was a short, decisive knock at the door.
“Come in!” Crumbly said.
Ultor walked into the room.
“Welcome, Mr. Lord,” the A-T stood up immediately.
“Hello, hello! Am I interrupting?” the newcomer asked.
“Please make yourself at home!” came the short reply.
“Like you guessed...” the lord said, and a sliver of a smile passed across his face.
He walked up to the table, and sat in the comfortable chair next to the human. He watched him for a moment before speaking.
“I owe you some explanations.”
The other stared at him with interest. Finally...
“Since time beyond memory, there has been a war between Children of the Night and Children of the Day,” Ultor said slowly. “It’s not without reason, of course,” he clarified, seeing that Crumbly was about to open his mouth to comment. “Since we feed and multiply at your cost, it’s hard to talk about any sort of truce. It’s obvious that
you have the right to defend yourselves,” he nodded. “But the world is changing. These days, the impossible became very real.”
“Are you talking about the artificial blood, sir?” Crumbly made sure. “About how you don’t have to kill anymore, in order to survive? And the recruitment is, allow me to say... from the willing people?”
“Exactly that,” the lord confirmed immediately. “In this situation, would you consider a truce to be possible?”
“Well, I don’t know...” the cop worried. “You’d have to convince people that you really don’t plan to harm anyone. That none of... you...” he obviously wasn’t too keen on saying the word vampire, “would attack anyone. It’s a difficult situation.”
“Very difficult,” Ultor agreed again. “You would have to believe we have law as well... and we obey it.”
“And who’s enforcing that law?” Crumbly asked. “The nighters?”
Ultor nodded slowly.
“Yes,” he said. “The nighters. Officers skilled in tracking and liquidating renegades... meaning those who have broken the law.”
“All right, let’s assume your Special Forces catch the murderer... then what, you put him behind bars?” the human said with obvious doubt. “It sure seems horrible, to get a life sentence when you’re immortal. But sooner or later, your prisons would fill up, and you’d start letting them out for good behavior. I don’t think people would agree with that in the long run.”
“I don’t see that possibility working either,” the lord agreed. “That’s why we punish murderers with dishonor and death. We cut off their heads publicly. Getting such a sentence, having immortality as perspective... that’s a lot to lose.”
Crumbly fell silent, weighing the issue in his mind. He ran his hand over his buzz cut, scratched it instinctively.
“Hmm, right,” he said finally. “Maybe it has sense that way.”
“So, would you be willing to help us?” Ultor asked right away.
“To cut them?” the A-T startled instinctively. “No, not really. Such a sentence on an unarmed man, you know, sir, it’s the mafia’s thing... that’s not really my style. Please don’t count on me to cut any heads off.”
The lord grimaced as if that answer wasn’t really fitting his taste.
“We manage fulfilling the verdicts ourselves,” he replied. “But we need impartial, human witnesses. People who would then honestly say that we obey the law.”
“Oh, if it comes to that, then no problem,” Crumbly agreed instantly. “I can witness. When do you start?”
Ultor was silent for a while. He got up, walked up to the window and looked outside.
“We already started,” he stated, without looking at the human. “Some time ago.”
Suddenly he turned to face his conversation partner.
“But are you sure you wouldn’t have any problems with that?” Ultor asked slowly. “You’re not afraid of seeing blood spilled that way?”
Crumbly snorted indignantly.
“You know very well who I am and where I work,” he said angrily. “I don’t think you should, oh lord, have any reasons to suspect that I could be afraid of blood.”
“I apologize,” Ultor replied, bowing his head respectfully. “Of course. I didn’t mean to question ...” he fell silent, as if searching for the right words. “...your mental resistance.”
“No problem,” the other said, mollified. “I don’t tend to take offence.”
“In that case, can I ask for your presence at the nearest execution?” The lord proposed right away. “This evening, as it so conveniently happens, we’ll both have the field to show off in.”
Crumbly swallowed rather rapidly. He looked into Ultor’s eyes, and he thought a challenge was burning within them.
“Of course,” he said coolly. “There is not a slightest problem. It could be today, why not?”
The lord nodded and looked out of the window again. The day was especially nice. Cumulus clouds strolling across the blue sky threw bits of shade over the lawn’s juicy green length.
Ultor turned toward the nighters’ bedroom. A few seconds later, Nidor and Vesper ran into the sitting room, half-naked, wearing only sweat pants. They blinked under the blinding brightness.
“Yes, my lord?” they said obediently, shielding their eyes with their hands.
“There will be a traitor’s execution this evening,” Ultor said.
They both held their breath in. They stared at him with unease.
“Mr. Jazwinski will be the human witness,” the lord continued calmly, as if he hadn’t noticed their reaction. “You are his personal guard, and have to present yourselves properly. At attention and high polish. I can count on you, right?”
“Yes, my lord!” they agreed with obvious relief.
“In that case, thank you,” Ultor said and started toward the door.
He stopped at the threshold, and turned back for a moment. He noticed the recruit, who had stuck his head out from the bedroom and stared at him, begging.
“You’re staying with the nighters,” the Lord said shortly. “We’ll wait a little longer, until you learn things, get used to things. Then I’ll kill you.”
He bowed with a short, military nod, then left, closing the door behind himself. The recruit slid down against the doorframe and sat on the floor with a heavenly expression on his face. The nighters stared after the lord, then went back in the bedroom to hide from the glare raging in the sitting room.
Crumbly was left all alone again. He walked up to the window and stared at the snow-white clouds. It really was a beautiful day.
***
“And could you tell me what am I supposed to expect there?” Crumbly asked as soon as the nighters appeared in their bedroom door again.
He paced the room back and forth, and it was clear that he was nervous. Vesper glanced at Nidor questioningly. He, as the older nighter, should have some experience in these matters after all. The recruit raised his head from the newspaper, and stared at his superior expectantly.
“What do you mean, what can you expect?” the captain said reluctantly. “Execution.”
“Umm, I know that already,” the cop said uncertainly. “That lord of yours said you cut off the heads of those who don’t obey the law... and that it’s public on top of it all.”
“Exactly like that,” Nidor confirmed instantly. “Lord Ultor cuts the traitor’s head off personally. So nobody could doubt that the law needs to be obeyed.”
“And you couldn’t do it a little more... discreetly?” the man grimaced with disapproval. “You know, like in America, they give a guy a shot, and all’s done.”
“Buddy, understand this,” the recruit joined the conversation. “There can be no doubts here. Everyone has to see the law being obeyed, and the consequences if it’s not, with their own eyes.”
The nighters nodded, and walked up to the fridge and took out blood packets. Vesper glanced at Crumbly, raising the bag in an asking motion.
“Are you nuts?” the other said indignantly. “I don’t want any, come on. You can drink that crap yourself.”
“I was just asking if it was okay,” the nighter explained with a note of laughter in his voice. “If it won’t bother you...”
“Fine, just go ahead, drink it,” the A-T grumbled. “You’ll drop dead of starvation before I really get used to it. But I don’t want you on my conscience. But wait!” He stared at them with suspicion. “That symbiont of yours doesn’t transfer through dishes, right? Or towels, or stuff like that...?” he broke off and uncertainty hung in the air.
“Unfortunately no,” the recruit sighed. “The lord has to come and kill you with the whole pomp and ceremony. And let you drink his blood...”
“Disgusting, don’t tell me any more,” Crumbly interrupted him decisively. “I just need to know that I won’t catch it just like that by sitting here with you. Because, you know, I have a wife and child. I wouldn’t want my little boy to have a vampire for a daddy all of a sudden! And what wo
uld I have to teach him then, huh? Drinking blood? Flying at dusk?”
“Chill,” Vesper said, holding his laughter back. “You won’t catch it. For sure.”
“Okay, because if I do...” Crumbly warned them just in case. “Oh, then we’ll talk! There won’t be any forgiveness!”
“All right, all right, don’t worry,” Vesper calmed him gently. “It’s really not that easy to become a nighter.” He fell silent for a minute, then added perfidiously, “You know, they only take the best ones.”
Crumbly watched him carefully. It was obvious that temptation flashed across his mind. The best ones, right?
“You were accepted as a Friend,” Nidor said quickly. “It’s a sign of great regard from the Capitol.”
“Really?” The A-T brightened up immediately.
“It is,” the captain nodded. “When the time of revelation comes, we’ll ask Friends to be our witnesses. And obviously, we can’t take just anyone for that job. It has to be someone trustworthy...”
“Well, yeah, you’re right,” Crumbly agreed with conviction. “It wouldn’t do you much good if some riff-raff vouched for you. Because, for example...”
“So you will witness the execution,” Nidor cut him off. “You will confirm the sentence fulfillment. They will tell you what to say... it’s barely a few words. You’ll sit in a special, blue armchair on the stage’s right side. And both of us, Vesper and I, will stand behind you as your guard.”
“And you will watch the execution, too?” the cop asked. “Along with me?”
“Along with everyone,” Nidor confirmed, and broke off suddenly.
Maybe that’s what the lord wanted? he sent the swift thought to Vesper. For us to watch the execution?
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