Nocturne | ONC 2024

Twenty One: Life

The shadows were moving. Slowly, silent as death, in the darkness below the flickering light of a single window.

It hadn't planned to be here tonight. It hadn't planned to care enough to come back.

Yet here it was. Risking everything again for someone new.

It had promised itself there would be no more after her. The numbness had followed it across decades, a black dog that always dwelled in the darkness beside it.

And then...him.

Nikolai Meier stepped up to the door he had vowed never to enter again, towards him. Towards life.

And reached up to ring.

-

His father was staring at him across the kitchen table again, as if he couldn't quite put a finger on what was wrong.

Aaron fidgeted and pretended he hadn't noticed, even as the metallic note almost - but not quite - hidden in his coffee hit his tongue and loosened the tension that had been building inside him for the past few hours.

"I was wondering if you fancied a takeaway tonight, Dad," Aaron said, forcing some levity into his voice. He wasn't sure he succeeded. It was hard to feel anything but dread these days. "I've been craving a chippy tea, don't know about you."

He hadn't been craving anything of the sort, but it was his father's favourite, and he was craving something that at least resembled normal, even if he struggled to feel it.

"You know I never complain about fish and chips, Aaron," his father said, but he hadn't stopped frowning.

"Great. I'll go get some in a bit, could do with the walk."

He got down from the stool, taking the coffee with him. He gave it a swill and drained it, upending the mug in the sink. There were several others already sitting in it, waiting to be washed, but despite being signed off all week – Bill had tried to sign him off for a month, but Aaron had negotiated him down – he still hadn't got to it. It wasn't that he didn't have the time, even though looking after his father was a full-time effort during the daylight hours, but just that he couldn't face seeing the rust-coloured stains among the coffee grounds at the bottom.

"Is that nice young man coming over? Nicholas?"

Aaron sighed. He was too tired to feel angry at the mention of Nikolai, though the first couple of days here he'd had to restrain himself from throwing something at the sound of his name.

Because the vampire had fucked off after the trial without a word, just as Aaron had asked him not to, and he'd heard nothing from him since.

"No, Dad. Nikolai's not coming."

Not exactly nothing, anyway. Aaron had found the key to this flat in his work locker when he and Bill had got back to the station after the trial.

The trial.

God. He hadn't slept in days now, waking with a jolt every time he nodded off once his nightmares started replaying Tana's scream back to him. All seven Council members had been involved with the execution, once both sorcerers had stepped forward to give their testimony, both lying - for reasons of their own, no doubt. Or the Veilwalker was, at least. He had no idea about the sorceress, or why she was even there in the first place.

But Tana had been found guilty, and Nikolai had escaped scot-free, and Aaron had to now pretend that he hadn't intentionally let a murderer go for the rest of his life.

But after what Tana had done, what she had tried to do to him, he found he had little regret.

He did wish that he'd left before the execution, though. That image, that sound, would never leave him.