Aria and Will Read Free

eventually, of course not, but I was sure
we’d meet again. Call it wishful thinking or premonition; the truth is, I was
right. Less than a year passed before we met again.

 
     
     
    Chapter 2
     
     
    As useless as he knew it was with the alarm sirens
blaring every few seconds, Wilhelm couldn’t help keeping an ear out for sounds
of battle in the distance. By Central Command’s best estimations the demons
were an hour away from the city walls, still much too far for him to hear even
the stomping noises of an army. The town had resisted assaults from small
groups of demons for years, with only a few managing to breach the defenses and
rampage over the town before they could be stopped. However, there had never
been more than a hundred or so demons trying to take the town walls at any
given time. There was three times that number advancing toward Newhaven now.
    “Sir? We’ve evacuated the entire block. The refugees
are en route to the shelters; they should arrive within ten minutes.”
    Wilhelm spared a look at the soldier. His voice held
the slight tremor that came with nervousness, but he held himself upright, and
his eyes looked straight ahead without wavering. He couldn’t have been more
than eighteen. The Guard accepted children as young as seventeen, now. Wilhelm
hated it, but he had been the one to convince Commander Bergsen of the
necessity of it. They needed more troops, and that meant either opening the
ranks to younger volunteers, or establishing a mandatory draft for the
able-bodied men and women in town. It would come to that eventually, Wilhelm
was sure of it, but Bergsen still couldn’t resolve himself to it.
    With a nod of thanks to the soldier, Wilhelm looked
down at the map spread over the car trunk in front of him. He trailed a finger
over the evacuated area and continued farther inside the city. The walls would
be breached, this time, they all knew it. The question was, how far would the
demons advance before the fifteen hundred men of the Guard managed to stop them
and start pushing them back? And the Guard had to win. The alternative
would mean carnage. The city was full of refugees who had fled other towns
destroyed by demon attacks; there would be no escaping this time.  All Central
Command could do was hope the Guard held strong.
    “How full are the shelters?” Wilhelm asked when his
finger stopped over the name of a small street he had visited almost nightly
for the better part of the past year.
    “Most report being filled to maximum capacity. But
almost all of them say they can make room for at most a dozen more people if
needed.”
    Wilhelm nodded again as he folded the map. “Then we’re
clearing out the next street. Same as before, two soldiers per household,
civilians can take no more than one bag per family. I want the entire street
cleared in twenty minutes. Stop the sirens as soon as it’s done.”
    The soldier saluted before hurrying away. They always
did, however often Wilhelm reminded them that he was not part of the Guard and
military protocol did not apply to him. Bergsen snorted every time he heard
Wilhelm say it. He had long since stopped trying to push a military rank on
Wilhelm, but he still encouraged his troops to treat him as his second in
command.
    In private, they both knew who led and who followed,
and Bergsen, thankfully, had no problem in taking orders from a vampire.
    Following the flow of soldiers, Wilhelm pulled out his
cell phone and called Bergsen. The Commander was at the wall, where they
expected the first wave of attack to come, keeping an eye on the advance of the
demons and on the preparations of the Guard.
    “We’re evacuating one more street in the north west
quadrant,” Wilhelm said without preamble. “I’ll be back to the front within
half an hour.”
    “Latest estimates show approximately three hundred and
seventy demons,” Bergsen replied. “And they’re walking faster than expected. If
you take more than half an hour, you’ll miss the