Chapter Text
All my dreams are lost and I can't sleep
And sleep alone could ease my mind
All my tears have dried and I can't weep
Old emotions may they rest in peace and dream, dream a bunch of friends
Rest in peace, and dream, dream it never ends
Security footage was all that the camera crew would end up having of Nandor on the train, in the moments after leaving without Guillermo. The footage was heavily debated amongst the crew of whether or not it should be included, as it was frankly, miserable and disturbing.
In the footage, Nandor sat quietly for a good full hour, staring out the window at nothing in particular. Until, suddenly, and without much warning, he began to scream. A wail so ferociously full of sadness, the windows of the train rattled and shook, the lights flickered, bursting, the train itself tilted dangerously close to going off the rails, until Nandor simply disappeared into a mist when the conductors and attendants rushed in to investigate.
For the remainder of his train journeys, rumors flew online of the mysterious Wailing Train Rider, a new supernatural Cryptid that had achieved meme status the world over, even getting a featured episode on a beloved Ghost Hunting show from the Buzzfeeds.
Soon the Wailing Train Rider disappeared, quickly replaced by other scary stories, at roughly the same time that Nandor the Relentless found himself taken in by some kindly vampires in New Zealand.
Viago and Vladislav, members of the High Vampiric Council, had been surprised—rumor had reached them that Nandor was dead, thus Nadja’s sole ascension to the High Council. But vampires are fickle and easily swayed creatures—they were simply happy to have a new roommate, a change in dynamics and routines. It was pleasant for the 4 weeks that it occurred. So pleasant, they may have neglected to inform the rest of the council, but vampires take time with these things. It wasn’t a problem…
And then Nandor found himself repeating old patterns. Dear Katherine, beloved of Viago, had kindly tried to help him through his feelings. Nandor has misread the attempt as a romantic overture.
This is how he now found himself chased out of New Zealand, stranded now somewhere not quite in between China and Russia. The train the Guide had organized had come to some sort of issue, and already annoyed, grouchy, and miserable, he’d abandoned it in favor of wandering the countryside. This swiftly proved to be an idiotic idea, but he was dedicated to it now. He was once a mighty warlord. He could camp out in the woods, feed as necessary, fend off the elements—it couldn’t be that hard, right?
Wrong. By the second night he was soggy, his clothes and hair drenched in dew and rain, he was overly tired, the rest he’d gotten uncomfortable, itchy, and full of creatures crawling all over him, and though well fed, it was a tasteless morsel, no joy in the act, no flavor. This continued on for at least another week.
At the height of a moonless night at the beginning of the week, he stalked a large, highly decorated vehicle, parked and bouncing with loud, celebratory music. This felt almost like one of the monster movies that Colin Robinson liked to talk throughout, pointing out the logical inconsistencies and random trivia while the creature was trying to be sneaky and spooky. He was not certain if he felt like shit because of the general state he was in, if the idea that he was a spooky creature put him out, or if, somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, he missed Colin Robinson’s annoying voice.
As he approached the door to knock, it kicked widely open, a body flopping out of the vehicle, limp and drained.
Eyes wide, and mouth slack, he tore his gaze away from the dead human up to the vampire before him.
She was tiny, dressed mostly in black, a leather jacket with studs and spikes, and poofy pants and a loose shirt, all of it covered in blood. She shook out her red brown hair, and raised a brow at him. Cocked her head, while he mirrored her movements. Something… looked familiar about her. It could have been that she seemed to consciously or unconsciously copy his own movements, but he couldn’t figure out why. He hadn’t met a vampire from around these parts in centuries.
Finally, she pointed a finger at him, “Nandor the Relentless?”
A part of him wondered if she seemed familiar because she was an enemy somehow. “Noooo?” He winced.
But it was too late, she’d placed him. She laughed, and smacked her hands together, “Nandor the Relentless! What the fuck are you doing at the Tripoint?”
He shrugged, still unable to place the vampire before him in any memory, nor was he able to decipher what the fuck a tripoint was. Plus, there wasn’t an easy way to explain what the fuck he was doing here either.
“You don’t recognize me do you?”
Awkward. “Nooo, of course I remember you… you’re… we met uh. 19…24? 22?” He searched. Finally, exhausted, and deprived of a meal, he grumbled, “Can I just come in and we can figure this out?”
It took a second, but she shrugged, almost identically to him, and gestured him inside, “Fuck it, yeah, come on in.”
The inside of the vehicle was like a little home, decorated heavily in beads, blankets, and scarves, with a little television in the corner, and a small kitchen, also covered in blood. He stared as she started dunking a mug into the full sink, and handed it to him.
“Oooff, falling back into old patterns here, that’s weird. I haven’t served anybody since the 1400s… in fact, I think you were the last person I served,” she didn’t quite laugh, it was a breathy sound and through the nose, almost sarcastic somehow.
His brain was still scrambling to place her. 1400s had to be his human years. So she was nearly as old as he was—was she a servant back then? A rival to his crown? When she looked up at his face, she laughed out loud again before plopping onto her couch, attached to the walls of the vehicle, and covered in patterned pillows.
“You have no idea who I am, do you, Nandor?” she began wiping off the blood on her face with the back of her sleeve, totally disgusting and mannerless. It wasn’t until she proceeded to scratch her nose with her pinky nail, a totally unbecoming gesture that filled him with a familiar mild annoyance that almost unconsciously he felt the need to call for his first wife, to let her know that…
He grimaced, “Zhaleh.”
She beamed, and bowed in her seat, “Your last and least beloved wife. Hello, husband.” She shivered, “Oh yuck, I haven’t said that in 700 years. Did not miss that.”
He frowned, wishing a camera was nearby that he could express his displeasure to. He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to depend on the silly little documentary crew to make sense of his own heart.
Zhaleh was his youngest and last wife. She was the daughter of a particularly desperate courtier, and he had married her as a favor to him—she was, according to her family, too spirited to find a suitable match elsewhere, had humiliated a few of her potential suitors, challenging them to duels and beat them handily or pranked them, it was hard to recall, and was causing the family a little bit of trouble in the whole ‘diplomacy’ department. Once they had married, she hung on Nandor’s every word and action much in the opposite way a wife should—she dressed like Nandor, annoyingly, she talked like Nandor, annoyingly, she tried to go into battle with Nandor, annoyingly, and she had seduced at least two of his wives away from Nandor which… he did have an excessive number of them, so that wasn’t the worst thing, it was really the weird bit of somewhat hero worship and also open distaste she somehow had for him at the same time that had really troubled him. As if she would have been a better Nandor than Nandor.
Looking at her now, in her very modern clothes, living in a car that she apparently could drive on her own, and wandering like a true warrior vampire without anyone holding her down, a doubtful, frightening little voice inside him wondered if perhaps she had achieved that.
“When did you become a vampire?” He said, incredulous that she had copied him in one more final and vital way.
She puffed the air out of her mouth, looking off in the distance, as if trying to puzzle it out herself, “Well, when you became a vampire and started you know, that whole thing, and Afsoun told us we should all leave in protest of that, yadda yadda, we all left for her family’s kingdom, and then we all kinda broke off from there—Soraya and Niloufar, you know, we kinda had a thing going all three of us, so we decided, you know, palace life’s not for us anymore, and we didn’t really want to deal with being married off again, seemed boring, so we went off traveling, lasted for awhile, then we met a witch and vampire couple, Niloufar wasn’t too interested, so she went off on her own,” she seemed sad a moment, but pressed on, “And then Soraya and I, well, we picked. Soraya wanted to be a witch, and I chose to be a vampire!”
Nandor rolled his eyes. Real original.
She shrugged, “Times change, Soraya and I broke up,” another hint of sadness, but quickly moved away from, “Now I just, you know. Travel. It’s fun! How about you, old man, what are you up to?”
He made another face at the old man comment, but said nothing, sipping on his mug of blood. It was warm, and tasted fairly good, but he did not want to give her the satisfaction. Why? Well, mostly from the old annoyance he used to feel at Zhaleh and her tendency to copy everything he did, but perhaps a part of him was jealous. He didn’t have half the interesting eternal life to talk about that she did.
“Oh, you know,” he mumbled. “This and that.”
“You’ve been doing this and that for 700 years?”
He sipped his blood again, to avoid answering. But then it occurred to him—“And a documentary is being made about me! Because… I am a very important vampire. I was on the council!”
She was impressed, “The High Council? Not bad!”
Fuck. “Well, not exactly… The Vampiric Council of… the Island of Staten.”
“Oh New York, I love New York! I can’t believe I haven’t seen you around, how long have you been there?”
He didn’t know the answer to that question, so he chose not to respond. “Now I am traveling to Al-Quolanudar...” The reason why fell off his tongue. The blood began to taste bitter, and he stared into it, blankly. He had not been very successful at forgetting about his abandonment at the train. Or in forgetting how excited he had been to perhaps, finally, not be alone. Or in forgetting Guillermo…
“That’s called Iran now, buddy,” she eyed him carefully, but did not press. Instead, she stood up, “I usually try to visit every 100 years or so. Little early for that, but what the hell, you still want to go?”
He blinked away from his mug of blood, and shook his head, “What?”
“Iran? You want to go? It’s hard to get in, but that’s kinda my specialty,” she bragged. “I can get in anywhere. ”
A big, wide empty feeling was growing in his belly, the one that had consumed him in the train from Staten Island, the one that had led him to try and kiss Katherine, the one that had been chasing at his heels all this last year. He was supposed to go with Guillermo. To see Al-Quolanudar again, with someone else. It felt… Incomplete. Incorrect. Like someone had rewritten a certainty, and now the world was upside down. Like when Colin Robinson took away the turtles.
But Guillermo hadn’t been there. And maybe, just maybe, he needed to see his old home for himself just as much as he had wanted to share it. And Zhaleh wasn’t the worst person to go with—it was almost assured that he could not mess up with her like he had with Meg, Gail, Jan, Gui—Katherine. Firstly, he found Zhaleh very annoying. Secondly, much like he learned of Meg, Zhaleh was assuredly only attracted to women.
“O…Kay,” he said, slowly. Zhaleh raised a brow, doubtful, until he said it again, more confidently, and with the hand gesture to match, “Okay-a!”
She chuckled, and flopped at the front seat, “Then buckle up, buster, let’s go!”
Again, he wished for the cameras or someone to share a look with as he mouthed buster to himself in distaste.
But maybe this would be good for him. Maybe this was exactly what he needed.
~~~~~~~~~~~
It took them a month. In that time, Zhaleh had done most of the talking, as she had always been wont to do back in Al-Quolanudar. He had learned more of her adventures as a vampire. She briefly had tried the conqueror route, becoming somewhat feared as a warrior woman, but not having gained any land or peoples, because when the time came for political machinations, she found the action boring and dull, and gave it over to a favorite lover, and swiftly left for other things. She had a fun little tryst as a pirate for awhile, lover to the infamous Zheng Yi Sao, but she’d left that behind after the crew began to be nervous that some of their own were disappearing in the night-- “You know, when you get the munchies, you just have to eat, and pirates are a dime a dozen, but… I guess Pirate Queens kind of have to be sort of good to their crews or something?” She had shrugged, as they passed over what Nandor thought he recognized as the Amu Darya River, and he had gotten lost in some old memories of riding John along the river bank, stars twinkling above him, the wind chilling his lungs, and whipping his hair, and he wished that Zhaleh would be quiet for a second, so that it could be his turn to tell his stories, but he did not get that chance. Along the border, where they had to wait until nightfall, transforming the whole of her vehicle--what she had called an Arvee--into mist as they spirited through a checkpoint with several large watchtowers, walls, and guards, he finally got a word in edgewise.
“How are you able to do this?” he had gaped at her, as they resumed driving in a physical form.
“Vampires as old as us can do a lot more with our powers than just any old vampire,” she winked. “Can’t you?”
He shrugged. “I suppose I am quite strong. But I haven’t tried much of anything else.” He did not mention his weakness with hypnosis.
Zhaleh beamed, “Ohohoho, I gotta teach you some of the stuff we can do. Once, I made a cloud appear just above my head, so that I could get to my RV in time as dawn rose.”
“You saw the dawn?” He could not hide the reverence, the hope in his voice, though he quickly snapped his mouth shut, in a foolish attempt to.
“Fuck no, I didn’t look at the damn thing! But I did escape unharmed, thank you very much!”
From then on, when they rested or fed, she tried to show him a few of the tricks she had learned. And he, in turn, with a little exasperation, tried to teach her the things she had always wanted to learn from him, but he’d always ignored--how to properly wield a saber (“Fuck, I have been holding this damn thing wrong for centuries!”), how to do tricks on a horse (a lucky find, a random horse farm), how to loom threateningly (“It is hard for you because you are so teeny and tiny, but it’s about the look, not so much the size.”). He’d even begun to remember some faint traces of his language, though modernized as Zhaleh spoke to what humans they did encounter.
Before they arrived in Al-Quolanudar, he asked to stop.
Zhaleh parked, and the two of them walked out of the Arvee, standing under a full moon, the stars brilliant as he remembered, but not quite his stars just yet. He watched them, trying to sort out the empty feeling that had begun to fill him again. He imagined himself as the sky above, but without stars--even so, memories of someone sparkled through, hurting even more.
Zhaleh stuck her hands in her pockets, and leaned forward, trying to unceremoniously steal his attention from his deep thoughts, “Yooo. Nandor? Hello? We’re like. 2 feet away? What’s up?”
He sighed, closing his eyes against the sky, shutting out the vision of the stars that began to hurt him more than they had soothed. “I am thinking deep thoughts, Zhaleh. You should probably try it sometime.”
She stood back up, and considered, “You know, I don’t think I ever have. You mean like philosophy? I tried that back in the 1700s, but Voltaire really got on my nerves.” She shuddered, “But that’s probably just the French, really.”
“We are both trying new things,” Nandor sighed again. “If it will keep you quiet, try to think your deep thoughts to yourself.”
She stuck her tongue out, half put out, and half to annoy him, but she agreed to try. She looked up at the sky with him.
A merry 3 minutes passed in absolute silence before she spoke. “I miss Soraya. I miss Niloufar too. I miss what we were. I hate coming here because that’s all I think about.”
Nandor felt somewhat uncomfortable--he had loved 35 of his 37 wives, but in truth, it had been so long, that some of them tended to blend together in his memory. Nadja once challenged him to remember all their names, and he had felt horrible that he’d only gotten about 15. To be fair, some of them had the same names. He thought there at least was two or three Leylas, it had been a popular time for Leylas. But distinct faces did not always come with the faces, not half as much as hazy, meaningful memories, and those were few and far between. He remembered Afsoun, because she had been the first. Their wedding had been a glorious celebration, it was the night he had first been gifted John, after his first noble steed had been felled in the battle that had won him her hand. Guilt tickled the memory, for it was really John he remembered--Afsoun was somewhere in the background, half in her wedding garb, lovely and proud, and half her future self, always asking for this and that and wanting to organize food drives for the people, and he’d always tuned her out. Perhaps he remembered Khadijeh, or was it Golzar? She had been the sweetest of them, if he recalled correctly, a round, small thing, with big black eyes. That was right, that was Golzar, and Khadijeh had been the one always talking mathematics. She was a bit boring. But try as he might, even though he was certain that he had loved Niloufar and Soraya just as well as Zhaleh had, he could not recall their faces. He didn’t even remember one unique thing about them.
So he let Zhaleh talk about them. So he could remember too.
“My first night as your wife, Soraya and Niloufar immediately came to me, showed me the ropes. Soraya always said you were really quite a,” she smiled, that twinkle in her eye he’d come to know meant she was being cheeky, but sincere, “‘A sweetie’. She was always so loving, of everything. Niloufar gave you a much harder time, even though I think she liked you the most of us three.”
“Niloufar once said that she couldn’t believe that you ever made love to any of us because she was sure you were busy fucking that horse every night--.”
“Hey,” he said, a warning, and Zhaleh laughed.
“That’s what I remember the most about you. You were always saying ‘Hey’,” she copied his voice, low and warning, but there was more affection there than he thought he deserved. “You were always so funny, so easy to tease, poor Nandor. Niloufar and I would always give you such a hard time--not half as hard a time as Jahanara, who was so annoyed you named the damn horse basically the same thing as her, but Soraya. Soraya always said ‘Poor Nandor, he is so sensitive, you mustn’t tease him so.’”
He sniffed, “Soraya was one of my favorites.”
“The horse was your favorite,” Zhaleh snorted. “If you loved any of us, none of us knew that.”
That stung, and he tore his eyes away from the stars, and looked at Zhaleh, frowning. If he had had a heart, perhaps it would have raced, with guilt, with hurt, with regret, he wasn’t sure--maybe all of it. It was the same as that big and empty feeling he’d been feeling for so long. He swallowed.
“That… Was unkind of me. I… Have never been very good at expressing my feelings. I thought gifts would be suitable, but,” his fingers searched for his rings. He fiddled with them, and shuffled his feet, “But I did care for you all… In my own way.”
Zhaleh again raised her brow, a doubting look at first. But it softened. She scratched her nose with her pinky, in that uncouth way she was accustomed to, and said quietly, “I’ve never been too good at that either. That’s why Niloufar left. The last thing I remember her saying was… ‘Don’t you know I loved you for you? I can’t love whoever you’re trying to be.’ And then when Soraya and I…,” Zhaleh sniffed, almost exactly like Nandor had earlier. He pretended not to notice. “When we… Broke up. She said that she couldn’t spend eternity playing guessing games. So, I guess we got the same problems, huh, old man?”
“We cannot be that different in ages,” Nandor hissed.
“I was 18 when we married and you were like at least 40.”
“I was exactly 28,” he whined. “Yeesh, it was a hard time back then! I was turned not too long after.”
Again, Zhaleh raised a brow, doubt full in her face. But her smile made it playful. He didn’t feel too defensive after that.
“I guess I got turned around 30ish too, so we are basically the same age then,” she shrugged. “So. What lost love has you moping?”
Nandor tensed, his hands stilling as he twisted a ring. “Uh… All of them I guess. I am… Alone.”
“Well fuck me then,” she laughed. “No, no, I mean like, obviously, we’re buddies, we’ve always been buddies, sort of.”
“We have?” This was news to him.
“Sure! Like we have waaay more of a big sibling little sibling vibe than we ever had a married vibe. I don’t think you ever even like…” Both of them made an almost mirrored face of disgust.
“And I would not have. You made it clear from the get go that you were not interested, and I never forced anyone, and, and, you were very young,” he was rambling, but this had been his thoughts about this matter for centuries, only now spilling out with abandon. “I’m a terrible husband and partner, but I’m not a monster, even though nobody loves me.”
She touched his shoulder, a foreign expression of concern on her face. “You weren’t ever terrible, Nandor. What are you talking about?”
And so it all came out, the emptiness, spilling out of him like the wailing cries he’d let out as a mist in the trains that had led him here. He talked about how he felt when they all left him, how he understood, how he probably deserved it, but he was so alone--he talked about the various lovers he’d taken over the centuries, people who never ever stayed, despite how desperate he was for no one to leave--he talked about Laszlo and Nadja, beloved friends that he could not help but feel an ice cold pain of jealousy towards, knowing neither of them would ever be alone--he talked about his latest failures, his listlessness, his uncertainty. He told Zhaleh it all, knowing, knowing that she would tease him, rip him apart, make him feel just as worthless as he felt, but he couldn’t stop, even if he wanted to.
He only halted on Guillermo. He had told her everything about him, except his name. His beautiful black eyes, his steadfast loyalty, how it hurt when he would leave, how he felt ashamed of the thought of turning his strong, sturdy heart, and taking life from someone so warm, and true. But he stopped at their fight, he stopped at his final abandonment, and could not say Guillermo’s name.
Zhaleh listened with an uncharacteristic attentiveness. He expected the ridicule any minute now. Instead, she just stared at him like he was a particularly difficult battle strategy, and she was trying to decipher what it was she had missed in the enemy’s plan.
“Fuck, we’re stupid,” she finally said, turning towards the Arvee.
“ We’re stupid? I’m talking about my problems right now, I’m sorry we’re finally focusing on me for once on this trip!” He snarled, and she looked back at him over her shoulder.
“Of course we’re stupid, everything I ever did was to be like you, idiot,” she laughed. It was patently obvious, but he never thought she’d admit it. Fully turning back, she sighed, “You are a cool person. You were always a cool person. You are, admittedly, a little self centered and stupid, but who isn’t? It’s easier to be self centered and stupid! You don’t have to give anything up, you don’t have to try to do anything scary!”
“I’m not scared!” He barely believed himself.
“And neither am I!” she said back, and gestured between them, like that was proof enough. “But… I’ve been scared. As many great loves as I had, I never actually opened myself up and was honest about my feelings with the people I loved--so they left, because they were hurt. And I never listened or believed them when they said they loved and cared about me. I just. Only thought my own thoughts, only believed the bad things about myself, and that hurt them.” Zhaleh narrowed her eyes, and paused, appraising him. “Are you following, Nandor?”
“That was a pretty stupid thing to do, yeah,” he wasn’t sure why she was asking. This clearly was the wrong answer though.
“Nandor, you and I are the same,” she hissed.
He frowned. He was about to say no, no of course I don’t do that , but he thought about it, sat with it, looked back up at the sky, and tried to let the words sink in.
Why had he wanted to be human again? Was it because he was alone? Was it because he was bored? Or did he just… want anything to help him feel alive? And had he been taking it out on everyone around him, rather than asking for help?
The last time he felt alive was fighting with Guillermo. And Guillermo was always there, until he wasn’t. But the times he left… were often times where Nandor had been cruel and selfish. Perhaps they had even taken turns being cruel to each other, and why? What were they both pushing against? What had happened this time?
When he looked back at her, Zhaleh was smiling. “There, you get it. You’re not stupid stupid, just a little stupid.”
He opened his mouth to object, but she kept going. “So, whose your Soraya? Who are you missing, here on the edge of our Al-Quolanudar? Maybe, instead of being here, we should go find them?”
“You’d do that? Why?” He had always pushed Zhaleh away most of all his wives, unable to understand the friendship she apparently had been trying to strike up with him all those years ago. To show him kindness after all of his dismissals, his feigned annoyance, his disrespect. It was inconceivable.
She shrugged, smiling, “I know I was your least favorite wife--.”
He rolled his eyes, “Second least favorite. Jahanara was really mean.”
Her eyes twinkled. “But I like you, Nandor. I think you’re cool. And if I could have another chance with Soraya, I’d take it in a heartbeat. Which I don’t have anymore.”
Nandor’s fingers, wrapped around his rings, were shaking. He felt the horrible, tremulous start of a wail coming on, so he forced a smile instead, “You would take up this noble quest with me?”
“Noble? Nandor, you are over 700 years old, haven’t you learned how to talk like a person--OF COURSE I WILL! Get in, where are we going?!”
He bounded towards Zhaleh and the Arvee before he realized he had no idea.
He paused. They frowned at each other, mirrors in their confusion. Finally, he lifted a finger, and moved away, “Let me make a call.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
It was at that precise moment, that someone began calling out to him through the ether.
His heart dropped, instantly recognizing the voice that called out over and over, strained in its sweetness, “Nandoooooor? Nandor? NANDOR YOU STUPID DONKEY, please pick uuuuup!”
“What do you want, Nadja, I am trying to call the Guide to find out where Guillermo is.”
“Guillermo? Guillermo is in London with me and his awful vampire hunting cousin! But we don’t have time to talk about Guillermo!”
“London? Why is he in London?” He wasn’t sure his heart could fall lower, but Nadja dismissed his question, he could almost see her waving it away with her hand, though he only heard her voice.
“Some idiot plan of Laszlo’s, apparently there’s a great danger or something equally dreadful in Staten Island, so he spirited away Guillermo to protect me in London, but what we really need is you, Nandor, could you please get out of wherever the fuck you are and come here straight away?”
“Danger? What are you talking about?” It was difficult to piece together what had apparently happened, but he felt a little lighter at the idea that, maybe, hopefully, Guillermo had not meant to leave him behind. “Guillermo was taken to London?”
“Nandor, enough of this mushiness, where are you and will you come to London? You can make googly eyes at Guillermo all you want when you get here!”
“Yes, yes, I’m in Al-Quolanudar with my wife--well, uh, that’s… Complicated, but we’re on our way! We’ll leave right now!”
“Oohohoho, wife, huh? Well, you better treat her better than Laszlo has treated me, I’ll tell you, when I get my hands--.”
“No, Nadja, that’s not. She is my wife from Al-Quolanudar,” he tried to explain, but her voice cried out one last time, clearly having not heard him.
“Oh shit. Uh. Well, if you could get here, somewhat quickly, I’m in a bit of a… Pickle? Guillermo no, Pickle is a stupid word, we’re in a shit sandwich if anything, Guillermo--.”
“Guillermo is with you now?” he felt his chest tighten, and he wished more than anything that he could see him now, but Nadja continued, still as if she hadn’t heard him.
“Anyway, please come right away. Uh. We’re not in danger, but uh. Please treat this like an emergency. Okay? Thank you, bye!”
“Nadja, wait, Nadja!” he tried to keep the connection longer, but it wouldn’t hold. He jumped, when Zhaleh said behind him.
“Well, shit. London, then?”
Nadja was in some kind of danger. Guillermo was in some kind of danger. The emptiness he’d so long felt subsided instantly, purpose igniting like a flame within him.
“London then,” he said, low and with a glare to the sky.
“Ooo,” Zhaleh shivered. “I just got chills.”
“It’s kind of an emergency though we should leave--.”
“Oh yeah, shit, yeah, right away, absolutely.”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
London then.