Chapter 11: Alexa's Hegira

July, 1988

Frankfurt was a major hub of European travel during the Cold War. Bonn may have been the capital of West Germany, but it was way down on the totem pole of German cities. Hamburg, Bremen, Stuttgart, Munich, and Frankfurt were all much more bustling. I think the only attraction that made Bonn the capital after World War II was probably the fact that it was farther from East Germany than any of the other cities. Frankfurt also had a fair number of U. S. military personnel located in its surroundings. All of which made it an ideal place to try to disappear one scrawny twelve-year-old girl. As we got near the train station, dad had the taxi driver let us out several blocks away. On our way we stopped in a few stores to pick me up some different clothes, a hat, and some hair dye. Once inside the train station, dad had me go into the bathroom and put the hair dye in and change clothes. While I was doing that, dad made a couple of phone calls at the bank of pay phones near the restrooms. He was sitting on a bench outside the restroom door when I was finished. I was almost able to walk right past him; I looked so different with blonde hair and German clothing.

From the bathrooms we went to the lockers where dad had apparently stashed completely new lives for both of us when we first got to West Germany. Alexandra McKiernan became Alice Spencer-Killdare of Sydney, Australia. I looked at the passport my dad handed me with an open mouth and wide eyes.

"Australia?" I demanded incredulously. Opening it up, I noticed that there was no picture of me inside. "Pictures?"

He nodded towards the ticket counter and I turned and saw a booth next to it. "Eoin's suggestion. And I didn't want any pictures of you as you looked, only pictures of what you look like now. An auburn-haired picture would do you no good as a blonde. The rest of the identification papers have blanks in various places for Eoin to fill in once you get to Britain. These are just to get you out of Germany. Now come on," he handed me a handful of Deutsch Marks and herded me towards the ticket counter. "You go get a few sets of pictures while I get your ticket. Try not to smile in the picture, but don't glare either. A simple, neutral-faced photo is what we are trying for."

We split up, dad watching me every other step. I slipped into the booth and sat down, popping a coin into the machine. Four quick flashes later and the machine spat out a set of photos. I pulled back the curtain to find myself face-to-face with someone who should not have been able to go out in the daytime.

"Lars Johannes Dieter Magnus, what are you doing here?" I whispered urgently, looking around the station and then over to my father's concerned face.

The vampire smiled and handed me my photos. "You looked much more beautiful with your natural color my dear. This blonde makes you look like a carbon copy of all the other American teenagers I see on holiday, if a little more petite," he said in a low, conversational voice his eyes twinkling with amused mischief. He turned with me so he saw my dad frowning at him while trying to wait patiently for the ticket he was buying. "I came to give you something which you may or may not need in the future. Should you ever need to contact me, you can do so through the gentleman at this location. My arm is not quite so long as some, but it is certainly long enough to aid you in your new life in England. I look forward to seeing you in a few years, my dear." He handed me a card and slipped into the vacant photo booth. I stared at the curtain for a long moment before heading over to my dad. How the hell did he know I was going to England? And if he knows, do others? And if not, can they find out through him?

I turned around and walked back to the photo booth, whipping the curtain back only to find the booth empty. I looked down at the card and saw it was for a bookseller and restorer named Daffyd Llewellyn who had a shop named Quills not far from Eoin's fencing club. I flipped the card over and on the back was written, "Your secret is safe with me," in German.

"Are you all right? Who was that man?" It was my father.

"Just a nice man who liked my pictures."

My train wasn't due to leave for nearly an hour so dad and I went to find something to eat for lunch. At 12:30 a. m. we began walking toward the platform where I would leave him. The world swam as I walked, my eyes so full of tears. I slid my hand into my father's as the tears began spilling over my eyelids. I looked up and saw the same was happening to daddy. He looked down at me and smiled sadly and I tried to do the same but wound up throwing myself into his arms and crying. He held me tight, almost crushing the breath from me. It took us a few minutes to get ourselves under control but eventually the waterworks stopped and we calmly, or as calmly as we could manage, sat down on a bench to wait for the train.

There wasn't much we could say that would help either one of us so we just sat there, my arm around his waist while he held me in the curve of his arm. I wouldn't know it, of course, but that time before I boarded the train would be the last time he would hold me in his arms. It is a memory I treasure and recall from time to time to fortify me when I feel alone or introverted over the years, a talisman against the Darkness.

We finally heard the train and a voice over the loud speaker announced the arrival of my carriage into exile. Daddy stood and I reluctantly followed him out onto the platform as the train roared up to a stop.

Daddy crouched down in front of me and smiled his sad smile. "Remember how much I love you and keep yourself safe, you hear me, Alexandra?" he whispered urgently, hugging me to him fiercely.

"I hear you, daddy," I replied, hiccupping around a sob. "And I love you, too. I hope we can be together again soon."

The doors on the train opened and people began boarding. I clasped my arms around my father, kissed him on the cheek, and boarded the train. I moved through the people to find a window seat and gazed longingly out at my dad, fear and loneliness and hatred for the people who brought us to this welling up with the tears. I waved to daddy as he walked down the platform to stand under my window, gazing at me with tears streaming down his face and a stricken look in his eyes. Sitting there, watching as my miserable father watched me, created The List. Before that moment I didn't really have a dark, vengeful side. After that moment I began collecting names. My father's colonel became the first name on my List, but he would not be alone for very long and he wouldn't stay there for long. Not for very long, indeed.

Eventually the train doors shut and we began moving. I put my hand and my head on the window and daddy's arm rose to reach forth his hand in a forlorn wave as he watched his little girl leave him years before he thought he would have to let me go. I found out later that he went straight from there to his base commander's office to report what had happened in his colonel's office. The general tried to get him to tell where I was but he refused and was sent to the backwaters of Turkey for two years, from what Eoin was able to find out.

I cried myself to sleep after the conductor came around for my ticket and didn't wake up until the train came to a stop in Luxemburg. I was met on the platform in Luxemburg by an Irish guy who gave me the password daddy told me to ask for. The Irishman escorted me out of the train station and to a taxi that took us to a little airport. He bought me a ticket to Dublin, handed me the bag he was carrying, and waited with me until the boarding call was announced. Inside the bag I found clothes in my size, brush, comb, toothbrush and toothpaste, and a couple of snacks. I thanked him and let the stewardesses escort me to my seat. They were very nice and attentive, as I was a minor flying by myself. I slept for the entire flight as well, brief as it was, and woke when the pilot announced the landing approach to Dublin. In the arrival lounge was a familiarly, though older, handsome face waiting for me.

"William! What are yae doin' here?" I demanded hoarsely, giving him a hug. He had grown up a little and was a lean, hunky young man who was turning into his dapper father. He now towered over me despite being only a couple/few years older than I was. "I thought I was t' be met by someone me da arranged t' meet me."

William smiled and guided me through the customs check and out into the concourse. "Ah, lass, our fathers decided that since I was here for a school trip and my father was able to ring me, that it would be best if I could escort you up to Scotland myself," he said in his new light baritone. His brown eyes were sparkling mischievously and he hiked his own large carry sack on his shoulder while running a hand through his shaggy brown hair that was nearly to his shoulders. "I purchased two bus tickets to Belfast and two tickets for the ferry to Stranraer tomorrow morning will be waiting for us. Dad will pick us up there and take us to the country house. There is a hostel we can stay in tonight not far from the bus terminal here in Dublin."

I nodded and smiled up at him, glad to see a familiar face after the day I had been having. "I guess there are no buses t' Belfast this night?" I inquired lightly, wondering why we weren't leaving right away.

William grimaced and looked around quickly to make sure we were not being overheard. "Try not to say things like that when trying to pass for an Irishwoman, Alexandra," he said tensely, speeding us up by tugging my arm and increasing his pace. "It reveals how little you know about Ireland. You do not go into Belfast at night if you can help it, especially with an Englishman accompanying you. The Troubles may be a bit quieter these days, but it is best not to tempt fate. Now hurry."

Not having been around any of my Irish relatives for much time growing up, I had no idea what he was talking about. When we got to the hostel that he and a bunch of other British teens were lodged at, William did a general introduction of me as his cousin Alice and then bundled me off to the room in which I would be staying. He then gave me a Cliff's Notes British version of the history of Ireland. It was mostly the little I had heard from my father's family but with a slight skew to the point of view. Given eight hundred years of occupation and strife, I doubted either side in the argument over the island could be counted on to give an ignorant Yank the straight story. Suffice it to say that as far as William was concerned, the quicker we got through Northern Ireland and onto the ferry, the better he would feel.

I guess I should have anticipated the tension in William and the other Brits on the bus heading to Northern Ireland from the Republic, but I didn't and it made me nervous. I could easily pick out the Brits and the Americans on the bus. The former were wound tighter than a piano wire and the Americans were bubbly and excited. I tuned those out. The Scots were blasé about things and I guess they did not feel what the English did in Northern Ireland had anything to do with them. Either that or the Scots on the bus were all Highlanders. I would come to learn that little things like IRA bombings and British police states were not their concern. They could always head back into the Highlands and ignore it all.

While there was a bus terminal near the ferry, the bus we were on was packed mainly with tourists and businessmen and so the destination for them was downtown Belfast. From there, William explained, we would have a short walk to the ferry terminal and from the way he explained it, he was not happy about that either. We shuffled off the bus with the rest of the passengers and I finally got a decent look at some part of my great-grandfather's homeland. Belfast was highly industrialized and was the largest city in Northern Ireland. It had a bustling quality under the smell of fear and repression and anger I sensed. There were visible signs that the Irish did not own their land. Military-looking police vehicles, cops out in force, and the way you could pick out the Catholics on the streets were all bad signs to my American sensibilities. It was a sad and eerie sight to experience. Later, I would come to find out there were other reasons, beyond sectarian violence and British/Protestant Irish oppression of Catholics, for the atmosphere of Belfast.

Anyway, William gallantly offered to carry my bag and the feeling of being watched made me take him up on the offer. I wanted my hands free for anything that might come along. We walked through the busy streets and were nearly to the ferry terminal when I felt it. A spike in my awareness and a tenseness in my muscles. It was the feeling my body got whenever I was about to get into a fight. I looked around the street we were walking on and saw the dark, narrow alleyway.

Before William could even slow down on the monologue I had tuned out, four thugs in raggedy clothes had grabbed him and were coming for me. Keeping an eye on William's attackers, I snapped my foot into the knee of the lone guy sent for me. As I slammed my hands down onto his collar bones I heard a satisfying pop and the punk in front of me went down screaming. The screams got louder when the pain from his broken collar bones registered to his already pain-filled brain so I clipped him behind the ear.

I slipped past his twitching form and used a leaping roundhouse kick to knock out the only guy to turn away from William, the sound of his jaw snapping sending a tingle of satisfaction through me. The last two thugs were working over William's stomach and face as I grabbed the rising fist of the one on the right and twisted until I heard the snap of his ulna and then I smashed my fist into his humerus just for good measure. I spun him down, hard, on top of his slack jawed buddy and winced when I saw the last guy smash his fist into William's jaw, knocking him loopy and to the dirty alley pavement.

"What in the bloody hell do yae tink yer doin', yae fuckin' cunt?" he snarled as he faced me, his hand slipping beneath his shirt to pull a blade nearly as long as my arm. "How the fuckin' hell did yae do that to Patty, Seamus, and Con? A wee little girlie like yae."

I smiled and knew without looking in a mirror that it was not a good smile. I could see the goose bumps crawling up his arm as he held the knife up and pointed the blade at me. I reached beneath my shirt and pulled one of the ceramic knives William's father had given me. A nice bit of irony that. I am quite sure, at the time, that he was giving them to me for my own protection.