let’s get out of here. We can talk on the way back to your house.”
I’d always heard the advice that couples should not discuss work in bed, and now I could see why. Reluctantly I got up from the floor, dressed and followed William to his car. Once we were inside, he started to speak.
“I know the Council. Remember, darlin, my father was a U.S. Army officer. He had a deep sense of honor and patriotism that did not die when he became a vampire. I was no different; perhaps it’s why he and I lived so easily together over the decades. As I’ve told you, after I was reborn we left for Paris. We arrived in 1863, long after cholera, the Revolution and even the Prussian Army had ravaged its citizens. We managed to live in relative peace for many years, watching the Eiffel Tower rise along the way as a part of the World’s Fair. Finally though, the whims of humans caught up with us.
“When World War I began,” he continued. “My father wanted us to join the Allied forces—France and Britain—against Germany. He felt a deep loyalty to the French for their assistance in the Revolution. He convinced me to become involved, to support France. I was not a full-fledged French citizen. I had no papers to enlist. I found the perfect solution in the American Ambulance Corps. The United States had not yet joined the war in 1916, but money was pouring in to support the Allies.
A group of men founded a volunteer ambulance service to help reduce the distance injured soldiers had to travel from the Western Front. My father went back to America to see what he could do to hasten their entry into the war, but the United States had little appetite for getting involved,” William said, pausing for a moment. “How much do you know about the war?”
“The obvious details,” I admitted.
“It was horrific, I can tell you,” he said. “Humans are so fragile. These men were living in enormous trenches that were damp and filled with the blood of the dead. I could smell the rotting bodies for miles.”
“You must have realized the value of your work,” I said. “You were able to withstand things a human couldn’t.”
“I might have seen the value, if I had witnessed a shred of common sense from the generals. It was so similar to the Civil War; man upon man massacred, as if humans could be reproduced indefinitely. On any given day, France easily sacrificed 60,000 men. Russia lost more than one million solders. Over and over the generals sent their men to slaughter, often never moving their lines more than a foot or two in the process. And here I was, racing to drive these mangled young men, many younger than myself, to a hospital so they could be patched up and sent back out on a fool’s errand.”
“I don’t understand, William. How does the Council fit into this?”
“One evening I was out in the forest near Lille hunting for something to eat when I came across a group of men traveling in the cover of darkness. They were like me. There was another vampire, a werewolf and a powerful witch. His name was Pierre Laurent; Gabriel’s great-grandfather. Pierre recognized what I was immediately, and asked me what I was doing in the area. I told him about the ambulance corps. He in turn told me he would find more drivers to assist.
“The next day he arrived with additional drivers, including himself. Over those days and weeks, he slowly introduced me to the Council and its mission. The war was not supposed to be the Council’s main focus, but no one wanted to sit by while the human leadership of the world worked to slowly kill off an entire generation of young men.”
“And then what happened?” I asked. “Did you continue to work for them?”
William didn’t reply immediately. He was looking out the window and at first I thought he would not answer me.
“I did,” he said after a while. “I spent many years working for them, traveling back and forth between the United States and Europe. Eventually I quit.”
“Why? Why did you stop?”
“I stopped because I began to feel that humans deserved their own fates. I started to believe that our intervention was a wasted effort.”
By now we had reached my house and William had pulled into the driveway, letting the car idle while we spoke. I thought of inviting him in, but