Oxford Blood (17 page)

Harriet kissed his cheek, not wanting to provoke anyone further
with a more full-on display. “In that case, give me five minutes to talk to
him. There’s something I have to ask.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tom replied. “You’ve said your piece, now
the best thing you can do is avoid him as much as possible.”

Rupert nodded. “Much as I love provoking George, I agree
with Tom here. The two of you are taking a risk however you look at it. Fine,
if that’s what you want to do, but don’t make things more difficult than they
have to be.”

Caroline had appeared back at her side. “I’ve told you
before, if you won’t go to the police, you really should at least avoid George.
After all, you’ve got Tom now.”

Despite Caroline’s firm words, she could see that her friend
was struggling to take her eyes off him.

Harriet knew she was being ridiculous, but before she went
home for Christmas, she just had to ask George something. Ignoring everyone’s
advice, she walked over to where he was standing. He was talking to Harry and
another candidate called Richard.

“George, can I just ask you one more thing?”

“You two leave us, now!” he commanded the two human boys,
seemingly unconcerned about the fact that Harry was the host. In spite of their
usual arrogance, they both scuttled off without complaint.

“Unless you’re here to tell me that you’ve changed your
mind, told Tom to never speak to you again and are going to make me an offering
of your blood, I suggest you stay away for tonight,” he said smoothly.

“This has nothing to do with any of that. Something happened
today that I need to ask you about. Did you once have a brother called James?”

George had an odd expression on his face, most of his
earlier anger seeming to have dissipated in a moment. “How do you know that?”
he asked curiously.

“There’s more. I know he was killed at Edgehill and that you
were there fighting beside him. I know you’ve resented some of the decisions
the commanders made ever since. What I don’t know is where this knowledge is
coming from.”

“From my blood, obviously,” he said blankly. “Supposedly,
people can imbibe a vampire’s human memories with their blood, although I’ve
never actually seen it happen before.”

“I see,” Harriet replied weakly.

“Did you see James?” George asked suddenly, with more
genuine emotion in his voice than she’d heard before.

Harriet tried to explain that she hadn’t seen anything, had
only had words put in her mouth and emotions in her mind, but then she caught
his eyes and suddenly she really saw. She was riding a large grey horse,
looking out from George’s eyes four hundred years ago. James was beside her on
his own similar but even huger stead. He had long curly blond hair and his face
was very similar to George’s, but softer and gentler. His eyes were blue and he
was smiling as they rode, seemingly fearless, viewing the upcoming battle as a
game. Harriet couldn’t stand to see the sweet, beautiful boy killed with her
own eyes. She clenched her fists and focussed on the present. Immediately she
was back in Harry’s room, though in the back of her mind she could still hear
battle drums.

George grabbed her to stop her from falling backwards.

“Yes, I saw him,” she said quietly. “He looked a lot like
you, only...”

“Nicer?” George finished for her. “Don’t worry; you wouldn’t
have been the first to say it. I struggle to keep his face in mind most of the
time, but I remember that much. There’s a Van Dyke portrait in the National
Gallery of the two of us just before the war began if you want to test how
effective your powers are.”

“George, are you alright?” she asked quietly. Harriet felt
dizzy and discomfited from the vision, but George looked much worse, clearly
struggling to maintain his customary composure.

“I’ve seen so many people die since I was changed,” he said.
“I’ve killed plenty of them personally and others have just grown old and died
in that tiresome way that humans do. I’ve even known people since who were
killed in other wars. But I’ve never forgotten the time I saw my brother die.
I’ve never felt that sort of horror ever again.”

Harriet didn’t know what to say. She’d never expected to
need to comfort the self-assured vampire.

“If there’s one blessing, it’s that I didn’t really have
time to mourn. A few days later I was turned, and if it doesn’t exactly make
one forget, it certainly blurs emotions for a time.”

“Who turned you?” Harriet asked, hoping that this wasn’t too
intrusive a question.

“You really don’t know your history, do you?” George said,
some of his mocking tone returning. “I was turned by Richard, like almost all
of us from that era.”

“Okay fine, I know nothing. Who is Richard?”

“He was turned early in the Wars of the Roses. It’s not
clear by whom. As we tend to do, he sought high positions at court, and at
various times over a two hundred year period, he was successful. His greatest
time however was when James I was on the throne. The king was obsessed by the
supernatural – just think of the witch-hunts. Just as importantly, he loved
handsome, charming young men. Richard provided him with both beauty and magic
and he became a great favourite.

“Like many of his father’s men, Richard was kept around when
Charles I took the throne. Dear old Charlie found him rather unnerving and
would have sent him away if he’d dared. Once the Rebellion broke out though, he
was pleased to have a loyal subject who couldn’t die and could kill men with
his bare hands.

“By all accounts the rebel army was soon full of tales of a
fanged monster who came in the night. I guess that for most of them it just
confirmed their worst fears of what Charles’ godless allies were like.”

 “Well, I’m certainly looking forward to putting some of
this in my next essay,” Harriet said jokingly. She was utterly fascinated.

“Eventually some of the King’s commanders decided that if
one unstoppable killing machine was good, a whole army of them would be better.
The King commanded Richard to select some of the best men and have them turned.
The numbers were limited – after all, an entire army that couldn’t fight in the
sun would have been useless, and they were careful to take only one son from
each family, not wanting to deprive great houses of their loyal heirs. The
following night, they summoned fifteen of us to the King’s tent.

Harriet was listening with her eyes wide and her mouth open.
“And then what happened?”

“Then of course, Richard turned us. Not all at once, there
wasn’t enough blood in him for that. We were kept away from the others, and for
fifteen nights, one of us would be killed and rise again. Richard had called
his master Augustine for help and permission. He supervised, took sips of each
person’s blood, but didn’t give any of his own. By the end, Richard was frail
and exhausted, but the Royalist army had fifteen immortal young lords who were
desperate to test out their new strength. We each had to drain a Roundhead
prisoner to complete the transformation. They got me the man who’d killed
James. I don’t think anyone has ever enjoyed their first meal more.”

Harriet shivered at his joyful tone. “But the Cavaliers lost
the war. How, with all of you on side?”

“Oh, spoil my mood with your historical accuracy why don’t
you?” George said angrily. “The earlier parliamentarian commanders refused to
accept what was going on. They dismissed their men’s tales as superstitious
nonsense. But then Cromwell came along. If there’s one thing puritan pricks
believe in, other than having a miserable time, it’s demons. He sent a group of
New Model Army soldiers to deal with the problem once and for all. Spies were
sent to find out about us, medieval texts were consulted, plans were made.

“They set out one sunny morning with their bibles, praying all
the time. We were holed up in an old manor house, preparing for a siege. They
found our stronghold and started a fire. Some of us burnt to death inside,
others escaped only to be just as burnt by the sun. The screams roused some
nearby soldiers on our side, who worked to put out the fire, cover the
survivors in thick blankets to shield them from the sun and beat back the
attackers.

“Of the newly made vampires, five were already dead, ten
just alive. We survivors were weakened, but the commanders gave us the captured
enemies to drink from and encouraged us to drain them to the death. To speed up
the healing process, some of the soldiers on our side offered small amounts of
their blood, and we charmed the inevitable whores who were following the armies
into feeding us too. Five of the initial survivors died of their injuries over
the next few days, but five of us entirely recovered.

“After the initial shock had worn off, someone thought to
ask the obvious question – where was Richard? We found out soon enough. He’d
been captured and tortured, starved of blood, exposed to flashes of sunlight,
staked everywhere but the heart. Cromwell wanted him to render the traitors the
same service that he’d performed for the King’s men. He wanted his own vampire
army.

“Richard resisted for many weeks. Eventually though, they
broke him, and he made five vampires for Cromwell. It didn’t go quite as well
as those bastards had hoped however. A weakened, tortured vampire cannot hope
to create strong and beautiful offspring. Besides, the men he were forced to
turn were dull, ugly brutes whom no self-respecting vampire would consider
turning in the usual run of things.

“When they awoke, they were hideous. Grey skinned, deformed,
devoid of all charm and lacking any ability to play human. Nonetheless, as was
proven when a watching commander tried to run one through with his sword, they
couldn’t be killed in conventional ways and they had superhuman strength. Old
Ironside was by all accounts extremely pleased. A fighting machine, and one
without beauty and vanity and joy – he couldn’t have asked for more.”

George broke off from his memories. “Tell me,” he asked
Harriet, watching her closely, “have you ever noticed how there are basically
two sorts of vampires depending on which books you read and which films you
watch?”

“You mean that there are the Anne Rice style glamorous
brooding ones and then there are the old fashioned scary Nosferatu monsters?”
Harriet asked nervously.

“Exactly,” George said with a hint of a smile. “It’s us and
them.”

“So I’ve only come across the good sort of vampire so far?”

“Well, it doesn’t really have anything much to do with good
and evil. Though yes, you’ve only met the glamorous ones - broadly speaking the
Cavaliers and their descendants and supporters rather than the Roundheads and
theirs. Oxford was always the royalist stronghold and all the vampires in this
city are Cavaliers. It’s this side that your stepfather leads. The Roundheads
and their hideous offspring aren’t seen around much nowadays. They’re mainly
holed up in Scotland and bits of the north, and have their own leaders and
hierarchies, but apart from the odd Scottish Prime Minister, not such an
effective system of getting their people into positions of power.”

George had been lost in his memories, but suddenly he stood
up straighter and looked at Harriet with a hard expression. “So now you know. I
can’t believe I even told you all of that after the way you’ve acted. I’m going
to walk away now, and I suggest you don’t speak to me again until you’re ready
to give in to me. Oh and I wouldn’t bother asking Tom about any of this. Maybe
you can take the twentieth century history option next term and drink his blood
for the memories, although you could probably get the same effect by talking to
your Grandmother.” He downed the wine he’d been holding and walked away once
more.

“Are you alright?” Tom asked, coming over. “That seemed
heated. I was desperate to intervene but didn’t think you’d thank me for it.”

“I’m fine. He was just reminiscing about the Civil War.”

“You really must have got under his skin. I’ve known George
a long time and I’ve never known him to talk about his human or early vampire
life.”

“Well, it’s since he let me taste his blood. It sounds
weird, but I have some of his memories of that time.”

“So he wasn’t just being inflammatory when he talked about
your blood bond? Why did you do it Harriet? He isn’t wrong you know. In our
culture, when a vampire offers his blood to a human and they accept, it really
does signify a commitment that shouldn’t be broken.”

“You’re not going to leave me over this are you,” Harriet
asked in alarm.

“Of course not,” Tom said soothingly. “I won’t ever do that.
It’s just another problem that we could do without, on top of the issue with
your mother.”

They were interrupted by a scream. Along with the rest of
the guests, they rushed to the staircase to see what was going on. At the
bottom of the staircase, by the entrance door, Charles, one of last year’s new
Cavaliers, was slumped on the ground, seemingly dead. He was eerily pale even
by vampire standards and the bloody mark on his neck was quite visible.

“He’s been drained,” one Cavalier shouted to the rest of the
group, his voice verging on the hysterical.

“Harry, take your guests back to your room and lock the door.
Fix everyone a lovely glass of wine and don’t let anyone out until I say so,”
George said commandingly.

Harry nodded, looking sick.

“Everyone just keep calm and don’t think about this,” Rupert
said soothingly. The human guests’ eyes immediately went blank and they
followed Harry docilely back up the stairs, leaving Harriet stood with the
Cavaliers.

“No one is to leave until everyone’s been questioned,”
George and Rupert said in unison, glaring at each other.

“The wound. Does it look as though it was inflicted by a
human or one of us?” asked Crispin, the surly vampire Harriet had met at the
dinner.