No trace: Part Two of The Accidental Trilogy

Chapter Seventeen

After darting about battles in and amongst Germany, I decided that I would go to Turkey, the desert life still intrigues me and any bandits that see me as an easy target are seen off without much difficulty. Weapons are definitely improving and, in the process, easier to load, fire and use in general.

To that end, I move to Russia, to St Petersburg. I need a challenge and living in the cold definitely is part of it. I get work as a messenger, its steady work, my reputation for venturing out in bad weather spreads and I am able to raise my fee, which I lower for people who clearly have naught.

I am tempted to perform other tasks for a fee, remove troublesome people from the equation, but I reign in my violent tendencies for the moment, chances are the people I remove, might be important in the future.

Of course, such pressure on every bullet I might fire into someone is maddening and I wonder if I must hold off on violence forever, it is a foreign idea, I sometimes feel as though I crave it, as I am a monster after all.

'Women don't fight in the wars,' a woman in Russia tells me, 'We fight on our home front, we fight until our men come home.' The Crimean war was raging and although I was tempted, I knew it wasn't right to involve myself. Minor battles, on the other hand, I disguise myself for and I am there.

I start chasing them, obsessively so, but on the battlefield, seeing young men, barely allowed to be called adults, halts my attempt at soldiering.

I push myself into the next one, before going into semi-retirement in Ghent. Belgium is seemingly pushed about by every country that surrounds it, it feels nice fighting for the underdog for a change.

I refuse all maid related positions and once more take on a messenger role, disguising myself again in order to take on more lucrative clients. Knowing that Andrea is as indestructible as I am is as ever, a comfort to me.

I move to Czechoslovakia when it appears that the game is up and then to Switzerland when once more, my true self is revealed in some manner. I travel through Austria and Italy, living off my savings, not quite seeing them this time. I decide to fight on the Prussian side with their fight with France afterwards but I feel quite lost in the aftermath.

I tell myself that it is because the battle is once more over and I am bereft of purpose and partly that is true.

The next time a battle begins, I'll defend others, I decide. Still being able to cause undue harm, but at least next time I'll have some restraint to control my actions.

I pass from one group of civilians to another, most are suspicious of me, but I don't care.

By this stage the American Civil War is over, from all accounts some ugly battles took place, which is a naïve suggestion - they are all ugly. But I do have a reprieve of sorts, that strange group of vampires I met so long ago now, I meet again.

I stay with them, for some time after the war has been declared over. Alaric accompanies me on walks that I would usually take just Andrea for company. He is a fine conversationalist. We discuss the world, ourselves we leave alone. For the most part.

'You don't consider the others, naïve?'

'The youngest of them perhaps,' he replies, pushing a bough of a tree out of my path before I am tempted to singe the leaves. 'But I do not mock them for that. They have been kept caged for some time, I cannot belittle their optimism.'

'And now? With your captors far away in the north?'

'Distance makes no difference, they are still our captors.'

'I considered old acquaintances in the same manner once.'

'We can sometimes resent those who hold us to a high standard.'

'I burn the pedestal.' I grin. 

He smiles too at that. 'For a time, we did the same to Claire, after her murder of a young gentleman in Zurich. Though you would not call him a gentleman in truth.'

'They rarely are. I cannot imagine the sight of her wielding a weapon.' Let alone murdering.

'She was called a prodigy by her fencing masters. She warned him first, and then a second time before striking.'

'Live long enough, you can see clearly if the person in front will surrender to you.'

'Her gift assisted her, I believe. There was a moment of hesitation.'

'Not so much a help more a hindrance if she hesitated.'

Alaric glances back to the house for a moment. 'Jan is playing again.'

'I can hear it. Does it aid her?'

'Aids us all. We were all there, but none of stopped her.'

'I see the guilt is with you all then.'

'She was quite young, we knew the effect it would have, but we also knew that she clung to her past.'

'And you waited for the opportunity, and let it happen regardless.'

'How did you first experience it?'

'My old acquaintance. Her husband was an abusive man, who went after his own daughter in her crib.'

'I thought as much.' No judgment in his reply. 'Tristan and I, our trade was something close to spycraft. It was a time that people now would think of Robin Hood and his merry men would occupy, but there was no such merriment in those woods. If you were accused of a crime, then you might be burnt with a red-hot iron to determine your innocence. Of our own innocence, it ended in our younger years, mine with the death of my sister, Tristan was sold at seven. As young men, we both held each other close, as bodyguards for each other, then as comrades in the never-ending fight. A farmer turned us, for protection for his land. Almost two centuries, before Mr Hunt, collected us for his own protection. Raymond thought us both brutish enough for the task.'

'The first time we met, I admired your grimace.'

He smiles again. 'I am sure yours is just as terrifying.'

I hold up my hand and focus, keeping the flames to that one part of my anatomy. 'This is what usually scares away the humans.'

'Those monsters you don't consider worthy of death?'

'I didn't say monsters.'

'That is who you focus on, in the hunt?' He faces me full on. I suppose I should have known, after hearing his own dark tale that he would guess at my own. 'Tristan went after those that sold him after he was turned. And then, those that he was sold to. I see the same face that I did, that night. But for him, that was the last time he ever committed vengeance on someone who had wronged him.'

'My vengeance is on those who would wrong others. I know the face that I see in the mirror.'

'It was named for you, I can see that, but not by you. When we meet again, I hope you have learned your own name.'

After my departure, I travel south, making it to the Himalayas, and then through to India, who are having their own problems.

The British are firmly entrenched and I can see it will be some time before they leave the country well enough alone.

There is some sense of peace there though, but the spiritualism gets on my nerves, what they preach is and will always fall on deaf ears, as far as my dark well of a soul is concerned.