I asked a couple more questions regarding interrogations and the organizations that know about me, but Aileen assures me that everything is more than fine and that I can rest at ease, of course with a little bit of due caution. When I asked about the risk of them spreading information about us any further, Aileen just explained that they let some of the communication be intercepted and altered, while at the same time implanting some kind of bug that will help with the tracking of the network while also providing no useful information about us at all.
“Okay…” I nodded at her explanation. “And might I ask what you did with the guy? Is he still imprisoned? I suppose we don’t need him anymore, right?”
Aileen nodded in return. “That’s true, we don’t need him anymore and that’s exactly why we turned him over to law enforcement. As you might not be surprised to learn, he had quite the record. So we just handed him over through one of the Conclave’s contacts with a fabricated break in and entry charge. But he will probably serve quite a lot of time in prison looking at the rest of his record.”
“Is it fine to turn him in like that? After what he has seen? I mean… I’m not saying we should kill him… but… “
“Aurora.” Viktor raised his hand with a smile. “Are you already forgetting what both mine and Alessia’s particular specialities are?”
“Ah… right… You could fuck with memory, couldn’t you?”
“Uh, you make it sound bad, but yes.” Viktor nodded. “Together with a bit of Alessia’s help we wiped the memory clean and put some others back in place. There’s not a trace left of that night or any information on you or the Conclave.”
“So no need to worry about any of that. We dealt with it completely humanely.” Aileen smiled.
“That’s good to hear. I’m rather glad you have the ability to do such a thing…” I took the glass with Aileen’s special blend in my hand and swirled the liquid around in it for a moment, staring into its deep red color. I didn’t really like thinking about what we would have to do if that wasn’t an option… There was already enough blood on my hands. While definitely justified, I’d rather not color my hands in even more.
Aileen stopped me from swirling with my glass by placing her hand around it. She then brought the open bottle to the edge and poured me some more. When she had filled it up however, she didn’t let go until I looked up at her. I guess it was her way to keep me from going to dark places with my mind. “Now that we have discussed that,” she smiled “why don’t I talk to you about the second thing I wanted to talk about?”
I looked at Viktor but he just shrugged. “I don’t know, I just knew she wanted to talk about the prisoner, the second subject is entirely unknown to me.”
I then looked at Aileen and tilted my head slightly. “You said it was also a serious matter, right?”
“Incredibly so.” She nodded and finally let go of my glass, pouring herself the last drops of bloodwine. “It’s actually concerning Helen.”
The moment Aileen said that, Viktor leaned back into the sofa and rolled his eyes. “So this serious business is about your love life?”
“My love life is very serious business, thank you very much.” Aileen replied and took a swig from her brew. “I just want your opinion on a couple of things, that’s all.”
I for one was happy that the serious talk actually didn’t end up as serious as the last topic, so I sat back on my sofa myself and took a sip from my recently refilled glass too. “Go ahead.” I didn’t disclose yet what Helen told us on the car ride home last week just to see what Ailleen actually wanted to talk about.
“Well… you see… I’ve been courting Helen ever since what happened on Christmas Eve, but lately I’ve felt like she’s been a bit distant. And I was wondering if you knew why… Maybe you heard something from Emma?”
“Hmmm.” I looked at Aileen for a while while I was putting my thoughts together, she was fidgeting a little, showing slight discomfort with the subject. Quite atypical for her. “Could I ask first what your intentions are with her? If I’m not overstepping.”
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“I feel like I shouldn’t be present for this conversation.” Viktor held his hands up.
“Shush, Viktor, you are like my best mate, I just want some support from you.” Aileen quickly shut Viktor down.
“Selbstverständlich…”
Aileen then looked at me with confidence, the trace of discomfort had quickly faded. “I want to try having a sincere romantic relationship with her, that’s for sure.”
“And why? You seem to have plenty of ‘game’ already, don’t you?”
Aileen crossed her arms. “That’s different. I feel like there’s a connection between her and me, one that I have not felt in a long time. I think she understands me to some degree and I feel similar towards her… The flings are fun… But, it doesn’t feel the same… I… I don’t really know what to call it?”
“Love, perhaps?” Viktor suggested.
Aileen looked at her friend and breathed in deeply before reply. “Perhaps…”
I smiled, content with her answer. “Well, Helen is just holding you back because she doesn’t want to hurt you.”
“What? Why?”
“Because of your lifespan, presumably…”
“Ah, like that…” To my surprise Aileen smiled and leant back on the sofa and then continued to stare up at the ceiling.
“Why are you smiling?” Viktor asked with a confused look on his face.
“Hmm.” She chuckled. “It’s just that I really appreciate her thinking of my feelings like that. I think that really shows her character, even if she looks tough on the outside.”
“You understand her then?” Viktor asked in return.
“Of course I do.” Aileen replied. “It’s not the first time someone I cared about has mentioned that to me. It might not have happened to you before though as you are a hell of a lot younger than I am.” Aileen sat back up straight and gave Viktor a boop on the nose. “But in time there will be people like that in your life. It’s pretty much guaranteed.”
“There have been people like that in my life, as you should know, Aileen. I’m not that young.” Viktor glared back. “It’s just that you generally look quite happy-go-lucky about things like that…”
“There were times when it was different.” Aileen nodded.
I was interested by their little interaction. Sometimes I would forget that Viktor is actually a lot closer to my age than to Aileen, even though it’s not even close. In all honesty, Viktor often acts like the older one of the two. I suppose some people just keep a younger spirit and it’s not like Viktor can’t act immature at times either.
“So you are going to go for her completely, Aileen?” I decided to ask after letting Viktor and Aileen talk for a bit more.
“Of course I am.” She nodded confidently. “Look, loss is a part of life, even if it’s not directly applicable to our personal stories, we still come into close contact with it by the nature of living in a human world. I would lie if I said there wasn’t a part of me that wants to hold back and disconnect myself away from it all, but that’s not living, is it? I choose instead to just embrace it, good and bad all included. I’ll cherish the time we will spend together, I will mourn the time we will lose, and I will carry her memory with me for as long as I am deemed to traverse the surface of this planet, as I am doing with the memory of the people who I have cherished before.”
Her monologue rendered me speechless for a moment until Viktor broke the silence again. “That was very romantic, I am saddened by the fact that I didn’t record that line.”
“It’s a bit impractical to carry a gramophone recorder around with you, innit?”
“I do know how to use the recorder on my Handy, thank you very much.”
“I’d like to see that first before believing it, Vik.”
“Is Viktor truly one of your best friends, Aileen?” I joke around. “Seems to me like you are in each other’s hair more often than not.”
“That’s what best friends are for, aren’t they?” Aileen smirks. “Besides, who else can I mess around with like that? Alessia is way too scary to attempt that with.”
“She is?”
Viktor nodded. “You do not want to mess with the person who can sneak into your room and give you the worst nightmares you’ve ever had.”
“That sounds very specific… Did something like that happen before?”
“We may or may not have broken one of the glass windows at the chateaux before while we were messing around just a little bit too much…” Aileen replied. “You’d think we would be smart enough to just stay up after that incident, but both of us were stupid enough to think Alessia would just let it slip.
“She was really angry about that window…” Viktor nodded.
-Good to know for future reference…-