My next chance to talk to Uncle alone came later the same evening, when we were on our way home from the Order. At first, I couldn’t think of a smooth way to bring up the topic of the paladins, but then the opportunity presented itself – thanks to uncle Mike, actually. As he switched gears, I noticed a thin line of dried black blood on the back of his hand. Just a scratch, but I remembered that the paladins’ superhero costumes included rather strong plastic-reinforced gloves. So, it must have taken a powerful blow to have broken through the protective material to the skin.
“Got scratched on the mission?”
“Yup.”
Uncle and his “colleagues” had returned to the headquarters an hour before, and he hadn’t said a dozen words since then, which was unusual for him, always so friendly and easy-going. The mission must have gone not as smoothly, as they wanted, and the head of the Order was not in the best mood.
“Did you catch that vampire?”
I tried to sound serious but without intruding.
“So you already know everything, huh?” Uncle smiled, but his smile was a lot less cheery than usual. “Who told you? Bessie, Lumberjack, Geek?”
“Doesn’t matter, I have my own sources.”
Uncle grinned. He was not in a hurry to spill the beans. But I wasn’t about to stop, I wanted answers.
“I’ve been in the Order for a few weeks now. And you keep hiding something from me. I have the right to know the truth about what people I spend all my time with really do.”
“Well…” Uncle paused for some time. “Fair enough. You know, I had a similar conversation with my father myself, once. And at about the same age, too. Very well, I’ll tell you everything about paladins, although you know most of it anyway, I suppose. Have they told you what we do?”
“Yes. You track down nighttime vampires, ones who’ve already killed humans.”
“That’s right. It may be easier if you just ask what you want to know so I don’t cover familiar ground.”
“Okay. So what did you do with that dude…” It was my time to make a pause. “I mean, with that bastard who killed three girls.”
All that time Uncle was staring at the road ahead as if he didn’t want to meet my eye. He sighed and finally said, “We killed him.”
“Killed him? Was there no other way? Like, turn him over to police.”
“He was a vampire. It’s too dangerous to turn someone like that over to the authorities. What do you imagine he would have done, left for a couple of days without blood?”
“You could set up our own prison and keep him there.”
“That’s been tried, more than once. But our resources, unfortunately, are quite limited. A prisoner needs to be housed somewhere, fed, guarded. The rooms that are now Order members’ bedrooms used to be cells. That worked for some time, but prisoners kept arriving, and eventually, we just ran out of space. What then? Do you have any suggestions?”
“I don’t know. Add more cells, I guess.”
“Could be done, in theory. Finding a place for a prison is not the biggest challenge here. But who would guard it? There are just eight of us, and Bessie and Fleming would be no good. That leaves six. How many inmates could six guards keep an eye on, considering it’s an improvised jail, without thick walls and watchtowers with snipers?”
“A dozen, I guess.”
“That’s about right. We used to catch forty-fifty nighttime vampires a year. Then things calmed down, although they’ve become more active again lately. The jail we made was filled in just three months. What were we to do with the rest?”
“Kill them,” I said quietly and reluctantly.
“That’s right, kill. Sam, I understand where you are coming from very well. It’s wonderful that you still have compassion. So do I. Do you think I enjoy doing this thing? Before every mission, I ask myself “Is there another way?” I’ve been doing it for almost twenty years and I still haven’t come up with “another way.” Fleming is working on a cure for vampirism, but not even our professor himself believes he’ll ever synthesize such a drug.”
There was silence in the car for some time.
“I want to be a paladin!” I spoke finally.
“No.”
I expected questions like “Are you sure? Do you really want to?” or exclamations like “You’ve lost your mind! You are too young! And you are a girl!” or at least a note of doubt in his voice. But he responded with a single gunshot-like word, “no.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Should I read out all the reasons?”
I nodded, staring at Uncle in indignation.
“You’re too young, your father would never agree, you need to study, you aren’t ready, we have enough paladins, it would kill your mother, I’m not going to take on such a responsibility.”
“But you said yourself that you had a talk like this with your dad at my age!”
“It was only a talk, nothing more.”
“How old were you when you became a paladin, then?”
My uncle grimaced.
“Seventeen.”
“I’m going to be seventeen in just three months!”
“But I had to,” Uncle still resisted. “My father had died, most of the old Order members were retired, and among those who were left only Rettle could do the work of a paladin. Lumberjack and Stoker joined us much later. I simply had no choice. I became the new head of the Order, and I had to make a decision. It was either become a paladin myself or drop this part of our duties. But then the Night Guardians would have become just a vampires’ club.”
“But you made a great paladin, why can’t I?”
“You’re still too young. It’s too early for you to make decisions who gets to live and who gets to die, much less execute the guilty ones with your own hands.”
“But I’ve already done it! You know it!” My voice was angrier now. “I’ve killed already and I did it to protect an innocent from vampire’s fangs! I’ve already made my debut as a paladin!”
“Just because you once pulled a kitty out of a fire doesn’t mean you’re ready to become a firefighter!”
“A kitty out of a fire? You think that’s what I did?” I was already shouting at Uncle.
He was silent. My words struck home. I had breached Uncle’s defenses, so I needed to keep pushing, but not too hard, or he might slip off the hook.
“Mike…” Despite his permission, I didn’t often call him by his name, but now it seemed appropriate to put us on the same level. “I’m not eager to kill nighttime vampires. But why can’t I help you? Why can’t I cover your backs while you do the job?”
Uncle still didn’t say anything, but his face showed that I had again scored.
“Let me go on missions together with all of you. I won’t kill, I will only cover you and study the paladins’ trade, hands-on. You will yourself decide when I’m ready to fully join the team.”
I saw that Uncle was still in doubt, but close to saying yes.
“Your father won’t let me,” he said.
“If you haven’t noticed, my dad doesn’t give a damn about me, and he’s not likely to ever treat me like before.”
“That’s not true. He’ll come round… sooner or later.”
Uncle didn’t sound convincing. Mike knew perfectly well that I was right, but he was afraid to hurt my feelings by agreeing with my worst expectations.
“It would kill your mother!”
“She doesn’t know I’m a vampire, so she doesn’t need to know I’m a Night Guardian.”
Uncle was running out of arguments, but he kept resisting.
“You need to study! You’ll need to go to college soon, you have to get a proper education!”
“Exactly! I’m going to get into a college and leave home, and we won’t have to come up with excuses for Mom anymore. And you said yourself that vampires are much better learners. I can do all my homework during the day and be a paladin by night.”
Mike was quiet. He ran out of reasons, but he still had doubts. I decided to try another trick – a heartfelt plea.
“I can’t go back to ordinary life! I can’t! I’d go crazy if I had to just go to school and hang around town with my girl friends. After all, I’ve been through, I can’t go back to regular human life! You know how they show in the movies that veterans come back from war… It’s called post-traumatic stress disorder, isn’t it? They suffer for years, have nightmares about the war, and, in the end, they go to the garage, get an old rifle, put the barrel in the mouth and fire the trigger with the big toe.”
“Pull the trigger,” Mike corrected.
“What?”
“They pull the trigger with a toe. The firing is what happens when you pull the trigger. Pulling the trigger moves the striker. The striker hits the cartridge, igniting the gunpowder, and then the bullet is fired.”
“Who cares! You know what I mean!” I exclaimed, annoyed.
“I care. You’d just burn yourself up if you fired a trigger, not shoot anyone.”
I banged my fist on my knee. What a great speech, and just one stupid mistake ruined it all!
“A paladin needs to know such things.”
For the first time since we set out, Uncle looked at me and smiled his usual friendly smile.
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