Chapter 10: Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

July, 1988

I think my hormones must have been catching up with me because I had never found anyone so gorgeous in my life. Lars Johannes Dieter Magnus was dressed in an elegant, if a little foppish, baggy white shirt with billowy sleeves and frilly cuffs tucked into skin tight silk pants the same color as his dark blue eyes which were in turn tucked into a pair of over-the-knee boots of black leather. A tight, blue silk vest a shade or two lighter than the pants was buttoned over the shirt. On his head was a hat right out of an old novel like The Three Musketeers. Wide-brimmed with a big, bright blue feather. His sparkling blue eyes bored into me and he smiled lazily as he looked me over in an outfit you would have had to kill me to get me to wear. One of the long, bell-like dresses made of pink and white silk and velvet and satin with a bodice that was totally inappropriate considering my lack of need for buttressing. My long auburn hair was done up in ringlets and I could tell by the cakey feeling that my face was covered in make-up. We were in the middle of a massive ballroom straight from the Palace at Versailles and there were dancers twirling around us to music coming from an orchestra at the back of the room. Despite my sudden awareness of the vampire's good looks, I was very aware that I was neither sleeping nor awake and that what was happening was probably dangerous.

Frowning, or at least trying to in the face of Lars' smoldering smile, I put my hands on my hips. Or as close to them as I could get in my outfit. "What the hell is going on?" I demanded with as much gusto as I could muster.

Lars whipped his hat off and bowed deeply to me. "Might I have the pleasure of this dance, Frauline McKiernan?" he asked in a courtly manner.

"I am twelve years old! I do not dance, especially with men as old as however old you are!" I retorted indignantly, my gaze darting around the room uncomfortably. Something was making my spidey sense go crazy and I wanted nothing better than to get back to my dream about dragons chasing me down the soccer field, spitting fire at me. "What the hell is going on?"

Lars put his hat back on and took my hand, spinning me about and into the first steps of a dance. It should have been ridiculous, us dancing, considering that he was over six feet tall and I was on the runty side of twelve years old but somehow he made it work. We glided gracefully around the marble parquet floor in perfect time with the other dancers and the music.

"You are very lucky I am the one who saw you first, Alexandra," Lars said quietly, twirling us around the center of the floor, his eyes boring into me. "Most others would have either killed you for the danger you pose or taken you for one of their own to increase their own power."

Shaking off my thoughts on dancing, I frowned and concentrated on what he just said. "And how are you different from any of the other monsters?" I asked, more for something to say than anything else, as I thought about what he said in the context of what had been happening to me of late.

He simply laughed, his fangs flashing in the light from the crystal chandeliers. "Perhaps I should make you one of mine after all. You are delightful!" he retorted with amusement shining in his very blue eyes. "Contrary to what some people will tell you, my dear, not all of us 'monsters' are slavering, evil beasts ready to rip you apart or violate your body or soul. There are varying shades of gray and white amongst the monsters of the world. And while I will not claim to be a saint, neither am I demonspawn. I am no more or less evil than when I myself was bitten by the master who took me from the world of the living, the light, the good. I was not an innocent, like you, but neither was I so far gone down the path of depravity that you would have seen me as a bad man. Becoming a Vampire simply made my inclinations easier to practice. As a matter of course, I try to keep a limit on the depravity and evil that I allow in my territory. Even your monk friends find me useful from time to time in their endeavors, which brings me to why I dragged you away from the dragon. I feel compelled to warn you that you must leave the country and find yourself a new identity immediately. I have no doubt that your father will already be thinking along these lines, but you must urge him towards severing all contact with you himself. I am simply one of hundreds, of thousands of Vampires in this world and there are those who are stronger than me who can compel me to help them find you if you remain in West Germany. I hold no ill will toward you, but there are those who do and they now have allies among the Ogres and the Goblins. You must loose this life and find another in a place away from here."

Looking around, I suddenly realize we were no longer dancing and the ballroom was empty. "Why? Do you mean that my dad has to send me away from him?"

Lars nodded, his pale face grave and his eyes sorrowful. "It is very hard to find a single child in and of itself. To find a single man of your father's rank and skills with a single girl child of your age who has the skills you have in soccer is a very different problem. One more easily overcome with enough people looking and enough money offered for information," he told me in dire tones. "There are already people associated with your enemies in New York and Washington, D. C. on their way to my master in Berlin. If they arrive before you can escape, I will be dragged into the hunt for you ... and I already know where you are. I will not be able to avoid it, and you and your father will both die."

"But-"

"Alexandra!" my dad's voice echoed throughout the ballroom. "Wake up! Alexa, you have to wake up!"

Lars bent down and kissed me on the lips, sending a shiver of emotions through me. "Remember what I have told you! You must disappear and you must do it without your father being near you! These next few years will decide if you survive to join the Dark Wars or if you simply become another casualty of them. We will meet again, my dear, and next time you will dance better I think!"

"Alexa! We don't have all day!" dad said, shaking my shoulder.

My eyes popped open and saw that he was already dressed in his dress uniform. Then I remembered: We were going to go see his commander and find out how fast I could be gotten out of Germany. I was a little excited as I had not met his boss and that was more than a little strange. In fact, I had never been to dad's work on this stint in West Germany. That was unusual. The last time in Germany, in Missouri, and in Virginia dad's commander was always a nice old guy who tried not to talk down to me even as he shunted me to the side so I wouldn't be in the way on the few times I did have to go into work with my father. I especially liked Colonel Clancy in Virginia.

I hopped out of the stiff bed in the gasthaus and dug into my bag to pull out a pair of jeans and a purple t-shirt. I slipped into my knife harness and, feeling paranoid, I slipped four throwing knives out of my bag to slip into my socks. After I got my socks and shoes on, I ran out of my room, down the stairs, and into the barroom of the gasthaus. Dad already had a plate in front of him and as soon as the wife of the owner saw me bolt from the stairwell she smiled and hustled into the kitchen, returning with a plate of scrambled eggs and sausage.

"Eat quickly, you overslept," he muttered, shoveling his own breakfast into his mouth.

I generally did not like breakfast back then, but I was suddenly ravenous. I inhaled the eggs, crammed the sausages into my mouth and then ate all of the toast that sat on a plate between my dad and me before gulping down four glasses of apple juice from the pitcher sitting next to the toast. I wiped my mouth on the napkin, lamenting the fact that there was no more extra food on the table, when I realized that both my dad and the nice lady who brought the food were both gaping at me.

"What?"

Dad merely shoved the last of his sausage into his mouth, picked up his hat and motioned for me to head out the door. Looking back at the nice German lady I saw that she had a half-scandalized, half-pitying look on her face and her mouth was open as if she wanted to call us back so she could feed me some more.

"Hungry, were you?" dad asked when we were both in the car.

I shrugged and decided that silence was wiser.

We rode through the German countryside for a long while before we finally came to the Autobahn and sped along towards Frankfurt. When I asked why we were going to Frankfurt, dad simply replied that that was where his commander would be. Whether that meant that that was where he was supposedly based out of or that Frankfurt would simply be where his commander would be located on that particular day was not forthcoming. My father had turned taciturn and he spoke very little the whole trip there. I went back to sleep.

I woke when I felt the car decelerate and I saw we were getting off the Autobahn in a large city that had to be Frankfurt. Within a few minutes we were at the gates of a U. S. Army compound and driving through the boring architecture of post-WWII military with uniformed soldiers everywhere. Dad followed the signs for the PX and we ate at a little snack bar before we drove to a plain building with obscure acronyms and ordinals on the signs out front. We got out and dad led me inside and down into the basement of the building.

It was kind of creepy. Fluorescent lights, cracked paint, and exposed pipes were the only decor down there and there were no people, just a bunch of closed doors with acronym-laden signs on them every so often. By the time dad knocked on one of the doors and opened it I had the feeling we were no longer under the same building we entered.

The room we walked into was small with only a couple of o.d. green chairs and a small desk behind which sat a severe-looking female staff sergeant whose right hand was under the desk at an odd angle. Dad darted a glance at me and I stopped my hand halfway to my knives as he handed the woman his i. d. She inspected it thoroughly and handed it back, moving her hidden hand to a buzzer that unlocked the door opposite the one we entered. She glared suspiciously at me as I walked by and I glared back until my father called me into the office and closed the door firmly on the secretary/guard.

The room inside was lavishly decorated with Persian carpets, antique paintings of seventeenth century battles, real Civil War cavalry swords (I could feel the lives they had taken; it's a gift, don't ask), and bookcases full of books all bound with the same type of material and typeset. There was a large desk on the far side of the expansive office, a couch along one wall, and six chairs facing the desk. Behind the desk was a colonel with a wicked scar running the length of his face from his left brow, over his nose, and down to his right jaw line. He had white hair cut like he just got out of basic training and hard blue eyes that glittered like sapphires. His square jaw and hawk-like nose gave him the fiercest looking face I have ever seen on a human being. He rose to a considerable height as we walked in and dad saluted him. He was of medium build but I could tell by the way he moved to return the salute that here was a very dangerous man. No wasted movement. Smooth, almost graceful.

"Good to see you, Sergeant-Major," the colonel said, his voice a shockingly soft tenor coming from the frightening officer. He turned those hard eyes on me and a snowy brow rose, the sapphire gaze darting back to the six foot-plus frame of my father before flicking back to me and what I suppose was supposed to be a kind smile creaked across his face. "And I suppose this must be Alexandra. Welcome, young lady. Please, have a seat."

Dad must either have picked up some vibe from me or not liked what he was feeling from his commander because he gave me a warning look before nodding me toward a chair as he sat down.

As I sat down in the chair the colonel sighed and a grave look came over his face. "So, I understand that you had some problems over in your quarters. Something about the possibility that the people who are after your daughter may have found you again?" he inquired, though from his tone I suddenly got the suspicion that he somehow knew exactly what was really going on.