Nighter

by Magdalena Kozak

  The recruit shook his head, walked briskly to the bar, and poured himself a glass of blood. He had raised it nearly to his mouth when he realized he wasn’t a nighter yet. He put the glass down on the counter with a loud bang. Some of the liquid splashed out, leaving a red stain.

  “So... I could have walked away?” the human asked in a trembling voice. “I could have walked away this whole time, right?”

  “Yes,” Vesper confirmed. “The whole time.”

  The recruit faced him. His breath sped up and face reddened.

  “You know what? In that case, thank you so damn much!” he let out rapidly. “Because if I could have, I would have probably walked away. And I stayed thanks to that.”

  Vesper stared at him attentively. He didn’t see any signs of sarcasm on his face. Was the kid for real?

  “I’ve spent the best moments of my life here,” the recruit said powerfully. “Even though everyone treats me like a third wheel and the lowest of the life forms, then you know what? At least I’m somebody in my own eyes!” He nodded, as if he tried to emphasize the conviction behind his words. “And I think coming here was worth it, really. So, once again, thank you so much. Really.”

  Vesper closed his eyes, not saying anything. For some unclear reason, he felt ashamed. The recruit grinned widely.

  “By the way, it’s good news I don’t have to stick myself anymore,” he said with relief. “I was getting tired of it.”

  “You don’t have to,” Vesper confirmed, staring at the tips of his shoes. “Again, I’m sorry.”

  “No problem!” the recruit waved his hand carelessly. “No pain, no gain, or however that goes. Never mind. Let’s change the subject.” He glanced at him with interest. “Listen, apparently you are in the next mission?” He gulped excited. “Is that true?”

  The nighter reacted immediately.

  “You’ll have to ask Lord Ultor about the mission plan,” he said with a stony expression. “You won’t get anything out of me. Sorry, buddy.”

  “I understand, I understand, no matter,” the other prattled quickly. “I just wanted to tell you, so that you know...” he broke off for a moment, and undeniable admiration flashed across his eyes. “To me, you’ve got balls man,” he finished swiftly. “Not some little chicken eggs, but real cojones, really.”

  Vesper shrugged lightly. What am I supposed to say at a moment like this, he thought bitterly. It wasn’t all that pretty or as simple as it seemed.

  “Thank you,” he said simply. “Excuse me, but I’m gonna get going.” He smiled at the kid, slightly artificially.

  “Sure, sure,” the recruit said. “They’re not taking me on that mission. It’s not a game for newbies, and especially not for humans, they said. But you will tell me everything in detail later, right?”

  “Sure,” Vesper said moving toward the door. “See you tomorrow, then.” He nodded at the recruit and left the hall.

  He walked toward his room, speeding up so that in the end he was nearly running. He threw himself into his room, and bolted the door. He leaned on it, breathing deeply. The night was coming in gently through the open window. His beloved, warm, always faithful night. But it didn’t soothe him now, like it usually did.

  He stood there, trembling, Aranea’s beautiful face still swam before his eyes. And in his ears, he could hear the constant whoosh of the waves.

  ***

  “Move, move!”

  Vesper ran, keeping his eyes on Nidor’s back. When he bent slightly, and then disappeared behind the Mi-17’s dismantled back tailgate, he dived right after him.

  The air set him head down at first, and for a moment he thought he would flip, and fall down on his back. But he made it, bending his spine forward with all his strength, until finally the unbelievably swiftly-cut airstream began to arrange him in a safe, flat position. He didn’t allow it, and placed his arms along his body and dived down. He caught up with the colleagues who had preceded him out, and now circled Ultor. The ones who had jumped out after him were approaching, taking their places in the formation perfectly.

  They were falling like rocks. They wouldn’t start breaking yet... time, time was most important now. One hundred and sixty miles per hour in freefall, and they’d jumped from fifteen thousand feet. Easy, they had over a minute before they’d have to break.

  The nighter looked down. Polytech’s building was easily recognizable now. The pilots, led by GPS, hadn’t disappointed at all.

  Now! the lord thought at them.

  Vesper focused on the ground running up to meet him. He pushed it off slowly, at the same time careful to decrease his speed at the same rate as Ultor and the companions surrounding him. The maneuver required unusual precision, even a slight loss of balance wasn’t allowed. Vesper tensed even more. Luckily, he’d trained those damn dive jumps before, a short thought fluttered across his mind. He controlled his body in the air perfectly. It worked!

  The formation slowed, but just by a little bit. The buildings grew beneath them, they seemed to force themselves on their eyes. One more moment and they would hit them at full speed...

  Now! the lord repeated.

  They broke at almost the last second, pushing the roofs away with a perfectly measured thought. The formation broke off immediately, with some of the nighters flying over the hall’s stained-glass roof and landed at the front. There, they would squeeze through the attic windows, only to run as fast as they could down the narrow, twisted stairs to the gallery’s highest floor.

  Go, go, go! sounded in Vesper’s ears. Those were the praetorians landing around Lord Ultor, getting themselves ready for a fight.

  Ultor and his guard landed on the roof, near the left staircase attached to the back of the main hall. They disappeared inside within a blink on an eye. More nighters filed in behind them.

  Vesper’s reality sped up suddenly, becoming an over-vivid movie watched through a scope. The roof of the twin right staircase. The window frame, his own legs swinging down, and then the dirty-yellow color of the room. Stairs rocking before his eyes, Nidor’s wide back still in front of him.

  Go, go, go!

  He reached his position in a split second. He rested the butt of the G36 sniper gun on the windowsill, and swiftly swooped the room with the end of black barrel. Hunched silhouettes snuck across the gallery ahead. Lord Ultor and the praetorians had almost reached the terrace.

  The young nighter sighed lightly, feeling Nidor’s strengthening presence behind his back. The captain waited, tensely expecting the enemies, watching over the gallery’s halls and nearby, right across their position, the reading room’s glass door.

  Vesper became one with the gun, the red circle of the scope became his eyes. He hung his sight briefly on Ultor, working on the box of a huge clock over the stairs. Then he let his eyes soar to the stained-glass roof over the hall. Then he glanced down, at the courtyard. His eyes returned to the third floor’s gallery, and he noticed Fulgur’s focused face in the right corner, and Alacer’s tensed one right behind him.

  All clear. For now, it was all clear.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move downstairs. He glanced that way.

  A series of sudden explosions, accompanied by streams of light, rocked the hall. Those were the flashbangs. He narrowed his sensitive vampire eyes instinctively, squinted his lids...

  When he opened them, a shadow flashed in front of his eyes. A blurry silhouette rose up right in front of him, and stopped in mid-air, facing the terrace toward Ultor. The gallery below filled with black-clad silhouettes. His speeding heart announced, unmistakably, that the renegades had just arrived.

  “So, we finally meet,” he heard a voice behind him.

  It was Nidor speaking, and in a tone as if he...

  He was greeting Nex, Vesper was sure of it. He lost his head for a moment, unsure of what to do. Should he face Nex, shoot the renegades a floor below, or maybe...

  Stand still! howled a mental order.

  Vesper grabbed his gun
and found Ultor with his eyes. And then gulped.

  Two lords faced each other. Everyone in the hall froze, as if a movie had paused for a moment.

  The lords stared each other down.

  “You’ll give it back to me,” Aranea said suddenly in a clear, sharp tone. “It’s mine.”

  Ultor stretched his lips in a slow, harsh smile.

  “Nothing is yours anymore, little girl,” he choked out through his teeth forcefully. “You’ve already lost everything... everything, you understand? Everything!”

  Her face twisted in a nearly identical copy of his expression.

  “Like I ever had anything...” she responded with practiced disdain. “Nothing that was worth keeping anyway.”

  She hung her head slightly, staring up at her ex-lover. She took a few steps in the air, setting herself sideways to him, like a tigress readying to attack.

  She’s so beautiful, Vesper thought briefly.

  Ultor walked out to face Lord Renegade Aranea, hopping over the balustrade in a lazy move. He clearly wanted Aranea to understand that she was still just a little girl... and that he really just disregarded her.

  She was instantly enflamed with fury. She extended her right hand. An accumulated energy bullet soared toward Lord Ultor, bouncing off his invisible shield and splintering to the sides.

  Vesper felt overwhelming fear tighten his throat. His skin shivered in the blink of an eye, and cold sweat ran down his back. His muscles began to spasm, and his heart beat wildly. Only one thought appeared in his mind... run away! Run away as fast as you can!

  He glanced unconsciously around the hall, losing his target for a moment. Vesper saw how everyone trembled as one in fear. He was surrounded by tens of paled, sweaty faces with shocked eyes. He wanted to scream, and knew perfectly well the others wanted just that as well.

  He focused, pulled himself together swiftly. Ricochet, it was only a ricochet of the attack, he calmed himself from within. He controlled his trembling breath, and viewed the world through the scope again.

  Aranea and Ultor circled each other slowly. They were like two wild wolves who were about to charge into a bloody battle, but were sniffing around, analyzing, getting a feel for the opponent for just for a little longer.

  Suddenly, Ultor smiled, staring into his ex-lover’s eyes. He waved his hand in a caressing, barely-noticeable move.

  Aranea stopped, heaving heavily. A look of overwhelming suffering appeared on her face, then disappeared, chased away by an unreal fury.

  “Play fair, you sonofabitch!” she hissed with fury. “Don’t...”

  “Why should I?” he interrupted her coolly, cynically. “Besides, don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy those sweet little moments... I just wanted to reminisce a little. That’s all.”

  That picture, Vesper understood. I was walking on the beach with her, everything around singing with happiness... It wasn’t one of my dreams, it was their own memories, and one of them forced it into my mind. But which one? And what for? Why?

  The rifle began to twitch in his hands, and the red circle with the dot in the middle blurred away, lost its shape, then re-focused. He felt sweat trickle down his forehead, and knew that soon it would fog his eyes over, reach his lips, mark its trail with salty flavor...

  But he didn’t wipe it away. He waited motionless like everyone else; nighters, praetorians, and renegades all frozen in one mutual wait while the lords dueled.

  Vesper swallowed. He tried to focus on following Renegade Lord Aranea’s silhouette with his scope. But suddenly, he began seeing double. Aranea blurred out, joined and twined with Ultor in strange memories. In a gasping union of hungry bodies, full of desire.

  Shoot! Lord Ultor’s sudden order came in.

  Vesper found Aranea’s still unfocused face in a hurry. He pulled the trigger. A black silhouette swayed and fell to the ground instantly. A body hit the stone floor with a muffled slam.

  And then Vesper saw Aranea’s triumphant look, staring straight at him from mid-air at the terrace’s level. So he looked down, frozen in paralyzing, panicking fear.

  Ultor lay on the ground, a pool of blood quickly spreading around him.

  ***

  Events suddenly cascaded around him. Fulgur’s eyes directly across stared at Vesper with unbelievable shock, while Alacer screamed, “Traitor! Kill!” A terrible force jerked his body suddenly, and Vesper fell to the ground at the flabbergasted Nidor’s feet. As if in a terrible nightmare, Nidor raised his weapon, and aimed straight between Vesper’s eyes... but he hesitated, and then had no more time to decide as Nex lunged for him. Both joined in fierce battle.

  Nighters and praetorians abandoned their posts and spilled down, rushing as quickly as they could to their lord, lying motionlessly on the ground. Renegades shot at them like at ducks, in a visibly-satisfying cannonade. Bullets swished through the air, ricocheting among the walls. The nighters reached Ultor, grabbed him quickly, and ran toward the main exit, shooting around with obvious difficulty. There was no one who didn’t get hit at least once. Vesper heard their telepathic, desperate screams.

  Nidor jerked free of Nex, interrupting the fight with a clear effort. He resembled a bloody zombie as he threw another astonished glance at Vesper, who lay limply on the ground. He hesitated again but answered the desperate screams of his colleagues’ tending to Ultor and flew down as fast as he could amid the constant fire exchange. Nex lunged after him, but stopped at the railing, realizing quickly what was happening.

  Some of the bullets reached the ceiling, scratching a web of fractures in it. A moment later, the stained glass crashed down, spreading thousands of razor-sharp pieces. Plaster crumbled along the way, and soon not much was visible through the clouds of dust.

  Vesper lay on the gallery’s cold floor. He tried to move, but couldn’t, drowning in a wave of his own, hot blood. I died like this once, he thought with a startling lack of emotion. He stared up at the corridor’s ceiling, white and beige blurring into the increasingly omnipresent fog.

  A lord’s face appeared suddenly above him. Just as Ultor’s before, now Aranea stared at him attentively. A crowd of renegades thickened around them.

  They squatted by him, took his gun away, and unzipped his jumpsuit a little. And then, at their lady’s gesture, several hands picked Vesper up. They ran toward the reading room, carrying him on their shoulders. The nighter barely recognized his surroundings. He was overtaken by a strange state, as if he was about to fall asleep... but he still held on to his disappearing consciousness with a shred of strength.

  The renegades ran as fast as they could, through to the reading room’s internal staircase, and then jumped from the third floor to the first. A quick passage through the wide-open glass door, and then President Narutowicz stared down at them—clearly startled—from his memorial. Or maybe Vesper just imagined it...

  They turned right down the hall, and then they turned toward another staircase. Surely, swiftly, without a sliver of hesitation. It looked like they did their homework, tumbled through Vesper’s head. They had obviously been here many times.

  It was a strange state—half asleep, half awake, and without emotion. Everything happened without Vesper’s own involvement, just like a movie played on hundreds of projectors. The world outside swathed the nighter in a thick, non-permeable cocoon, creating a barrier around him.

  The renegades fell out into the courtyard. BMW X5 Security bulletproof vehicles were waiting for them there, drivers keeping the engines going, the cars ready to drive off.

  Vesper wondered how they could have overlooked that. Counter-intelligence had screwed up royally. Sure, the attack was supposed to come from above, and the courtyard was hidden under thick fabrics, so maybe they couldn’t see, but they should have gone down anyway, checked it out... Maybe they had done so, maybe those cars hadn’t seemed out of the ordinary among the other BMWs and Audis belonging to the professors... Anyway, was that important now? Nothing was important anymore, nothing...

  Vesper be
gan to fall into the soft, velvety darkness. His body went limp, and worried renegades put him on the ground immediately.

  Somewhere from afar, as if from space, Aranea’s worried face swam over. Right, he hadn’t killed her in the end. He had killed that other lord, maybe, he didn’t really remember, everything was so weird and intertwined. The world went completely dark, becoming even softer and friendlier. As if the Night had welcomed him again.

  “We’re gonna lose him, my lady,” a voice confirmed. “We don’t have a chance. He’s drifting off already.”

  “Give him blood,” Lord Renegade Aranea ordered decisively. “Real blood, it should give him a kick. Maybe it will help? He’s got nothing to lose anymore, anyway.”

  Vesper felt someone forcing his mouth open. A moment later, a sticky, warm liquid went down his throat in a thick trickle. He swallowed instinctively, nearly choking. Nothing happened. Nothing at all.

  And a moment later, the darkness pulled back.

  The ex-nighter opened his eyes.

  The universe streamed widely through rapidly-opened eyes. Vesper looked up slightly, staring around in wonder. The moon rolled over the roof in silver trickle, and the grass’ warm scent reigned around. The muffled cocoon, that had surrounding him so far, disappeared forever. Everything was so unbelievably sharp, so overwhelming, so real... The universe is here.

  “Ooooh,” Vesper moans joyfully. “Whoaaahh.”

  He tried to stretch his hand out, to touch the wonder spreading before his eyes so suddenly. He still couldn’t move though. He was very weak, but conscious. The renegades picked him up, and helped him to the car. Vesper leaned on the headrest, staring out of the window with amazed eyes.

  The world was so fucking beautiful.

  “Go, floor it, now!” Nex hurried them, sitting next to the driver.

  Aranea held Vesper’s hand, watching him with attentive worried eyes. He leaned his forehead on the BMW’s cool window. It actually didn’t matter who drove him now, he decided deep in his soul. Just as long he got out of here, just as long as he saved his butt. Luckily, the nighters wouldn’t go after him now, they had other things to do. Above all, they were rushing to their Emów base, praying for that lord of theirs not to kick the bucket. Because without him, they were children in the fog.