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But the rain whispered to him, hissing the words he’d yet to speak.
“There are always monsters,” the old man replied. “Just as there are always men who will join them, and men who will fight them.”
“And women. Brave and true, devious and deadly. I have known both in my time.
“You must leave this place and go to another, and another still. Some will come to you, and some you will seek. The witch, the warrior, the scholar, the one of many forms, and the one you’ve lost.”
“We’ve died once, and aren’t easily dispatched a second time.
Take your pleasures where you find them, brother, for life is long and often tedious.”
“And I’d say if you can’t love when you’re facing death, then death’s not worth fighting.
“What’s the point of living without feeling? I feel for you. You stir something in me. Yes, it’s difficult, and it’s distracting. But it tells me I’m here, and that being afraid isn’t all there is. I need that, Hoyt. I need to feel more than afraid.”
“I can’t promise to protect you, but only to try.”
It was a slow simmering in the blood, a lazy tightening of muscle, a flutter of pulse—hers and his.
Women, he thought, were powerful and mystical creatures even without witchcraft.
Tears welled up and were willed back. “I’m being a child.” “No. Just an exhausted woman.
“It’s hard enough to do what we’re doing without one of us being a complete asshole.” “Is that your term for realist?”
“A great deal of what you said was right, though I swear you talk too much.” “Oh, really?”
Death is inevitable. None of us get out of that one. And you hope—or I have—that when the time comes you’ll have courage and curiosity, and so face it well.”
Crosses rose up, and rounded stones tilted. Here and there weedy gardens grew over the graves as if they were tended by careless ghosts. And he felt them, those ghosts, with every step he took.
Most women just worried about their man getting mugged or run over by a bus. But oh no, she had to get herself tangled up with a guy at war with blood-sucking fiends.
What was it about men that made them decide to be pals after they’d smashed their fists into each other’s faces?
“This isn’t about men and women. It’s about humans. The seconds you took to think of me, to worry for me could have cost you your life. We can’t spare it, neither of us. Any of us. If you don’t trust that I can defend myself—that all of us can, we’re nowhere.”
Fighting with and protecting fellow soldiers is one thing, a vital thing. We all have to be able to count on each other. But to brush me back from battle is another. You have to understand and accept the difference.”
