Chapter 14
Hester | London, present day
‘What if he’s out hunting?’ Floss sounds nervous. We’ve arrived in Belgravia to find Charlie’s windows in complete darkness. But that doesn’t mean anything. He can see without the lights on as well as any of us.
‘It’s barely eight o’clock. No self-respecting vampire hunts until after midnight,’ Sadie reasons. ‘Who’s going to knock?’
No one volunteers, least of all me.
‘You guys are such wimps. Well, I’m not afraid of a doddering old vampire.
’ Sadie squares her shoulders and stalks across the eerily silent street with us trailing a few paces behind her.
I haven’t been here since 1905, and the place looks pretty much the same as it did then with its snow-white columns, polished ebony door, and brass lion’s head door knocker.
Little did I know when I was seeing Charlie that Floss had been turned here; he didn’t really like talking about her or Alexander.
It would be another 16 years before I met her and Sadie in Edinburgh and we formed our coven. I suppose I have him to thank for that.
I linger on the footpath behind the others as Sadie rapidly mounts the steps like she’s on a mission.
She raps the door knocker sharply three times.
My gut twists, threatening to splatter the bushes with the hastily ingested blood I drank before we came out.
Floss grips my hand, and a sense of peace flows over me.
She’s imbuing me with calming energy even though I know she’s scared too.
At the very least, Charlie is going to demand a feed for giving us information, and she hated that last time.
I smile at her gratefully. Thanks, I needed that.
You’re welcome—oh fuck, the door’s opening!
Slowly, I turn my head, prepared to see my ex.
But it’s not Charlie that stands there. It’s a middle-aged woman wearing a pale-blue twinset and pearls; her light-brown hair is swept up in a Priscilla Presley beehive.
The fact she hasn’t switched on the lights to greet us is an undead giveaway.
Her attire is another sign—she looks like a throwback from the 1960s.
Then her rose perfume flows to my nostrils.
I raise an eyebrow at Floss, and she nods. Vampire!
‘Yes? Can I help you?’ she enquires.
‘Good evening. We’re sorry to bother you, but we’re looking for our friend Charlie Dryden. Does he still live here?’ Sadie asks politely.
The woman looks her and then the rest of us over with snooty suspicion, assessing the level of threat we pose. ‘He might,’ she says at last. ‘What do you want with him?’
‘Just to talk,’ Sadie assures her. ‘We need some information about his ... father, and we were hoping he could help us.’
I take a peek into the woman’s mind and am surprised that she has a strong mental shield. She must’ve erected it as soon as she sensed us out here.
‘You can all come in,’ she says at last, which is our invite to cross the threshold. ‘But you can’t stay long. We’re going out for dinner.’
‘Thank you,’ says Sadie. ‘We appreciate it.’
The woman stands aside, looking down her nose at us as we file past. I’m intrigued to know who she is. Is she Charlie’s housekeeper?
‘Go through to the parlour. Straight ahead, first door on the right. Knock and wait for him to reply. I’ve warned him you’re coming.’
Sadie and Floss glance at each other warily but lead the way.
The house is dark and quiet, apart from the loud ticking grandfather clock on the landing.
Unsurprisingly, there are no photos hanging up in the hallway to mark the passage of the past century.
Vampires aren’t big on those. But there isn’t even any artwork.
It makes the place feel devoid of emotion.
Floss knocks on the parlour door.
‘Come,’ a raspy voice says after a pause.
Here we go. Sadie had to face Tim. Now it’s my turn.
We file into the parlour, and the wall sconces slowly brighten, illuminating the room.
Charlie is standing looking out the window, hands clasped behind his back.
He turns slowly, and I get the shock of my life.
The fresh-faced, handsome gent I knew in 1905 who always wore a smart suit and a jaunty hat has been replaced by a bent-postured, wrinkled old man in a black cardigan and joggers—with a sparse grey-haired comb-over.
‘Well, well, I see you bitches found Hester Everill.’ His dark eyes swivel to me, then the rest of the coven.
‘How nice that you’re all looking so young.
’ His tone brims with bitterness, and I can’t help feeling sorry for him.
Poor Charlie, he always was a misery guts.
But he sounds much worse now, as if he spends his days wallowing in the past.
‘We did, thank you. It’s good to see you, Charlie,’ Floss says softly.
Charlie huffs in disdain. ‘Yeah, yeah.’ But do I detect a flicker of relief that he has some visitors?
The parlour door clicks shut, and we all turn to see the woman who greeted us standing there.
‘This is Helena, my wife,’ says Charlie gruffly.
His wife! Well, at least he gets his leg over ...
We all murmur, ‘Nice to meet you,’ and look awkward until Helena gestures to the green velvet couch, the same one that’s been there for over a century; it’s now an antique! ‘Please sit down and make yourselves comfortable.’ She looks at Charlie. ‘Should I...?’
‘No. We’ll be fine,’ he says abruptly, taking a seat in the armchair, then adds, ‘Thank you, my dear.’
Helena nods and leaves us to it. I catch Floss’s eye as she takes a seat on the couch with the others, and have to look away before I giggle. Charlie may act like the grumpy lord of the manor, but he still has to mind his Ps and Qs with his wife.
Charlie is staring at the guys curiously and not without envy since they’re both young and good-looking.
‘Who’re you?’ He sounds none too friendly and like he wants to drink their virile blood.
‘Damian and Elliott,’ says Sadie, indicating each in turn, and they nod at Charlie. ‘They’re the newest members of our coven. Well, Elliott isn’t exactly new as such ... It’s a long story. Elliott’s my fiancé, and Floss and Damian are together. Hester’s single.’
Great, now I’m the seventh wheel!
Charlie glances at me sitting in the other armchair and smirks, as if to say, ‘Serves you right, bitch!’ He seems to cheer up a bit after that.
Folding his arms, he says, ‘So now that we’ve got the pleasantries over with, what the hell do you want?’
Sadie’s lips peel back, revealing her fangs, and Elliott hastily takes her hand so she doesn’t do anything silly.
‘It’s about your father,’ he says. ‘We found out he’s setting up a vampire brothel in Covent Garden.
He’s taken possession of around forty thralls, young innocent women, who he plans to turn into vampire whores through a potent serum he’s concocted.
I, unfortunately, was part of his scheme.
He kidnapped me, took me to the Scottish Highlands, kept me chained in a castle dungeon, and drew my blood to help make his serum.
That was until one of his newbie vampires turned me and I escaped. ’
Charlie’s thin grey eyebrows rise. ‘Fuck me. Why is Papa doing all this?’
‘It seems he’s running out of money, and this is a business venture,’ Damian says, taking up the narrative.
‘But he can’t go around ruining people’s lives.
So we need to stake him before he turns the thralls.
There are other more personal reasons for it too.
He’s still intent on draining Floss to get his own back and, consequently, me too.
Obviously, we’re keen to get him off our backs so we can exist in peace. ’
Charlie is silent for a moment. ‘I haven’t seen Papa for a long time.
Not since he did this to me.’ He waves a hand at his face and body.
‘Of course I hate his guts...’ He sneers, a flash of the old Charlie emerging; then it’s gone again.
‘And I understand your concerns. He’s not a foe you want to get on the wrong side of.
But I’m not sure if I can get involved. He is my father after all . .. and I have Helena to think about.’
Wow, Charlie does actually have a caring bone in his body.
‘We’re not here to ask you to be involved at the staking level,’ I say. ‘We need more information about him. Something about his background that might give us an edge.’
Charlie chews his lip and considers. ‘I probably don’t know much more about him than you do. He’s a dark horse. Every time I asked him questions, he’d shut me down.’
Floss nods. ‘He did with me too. What about his basement laboratory? What’s in there?’
Charlie shrugs. ‘Dunno. It’s been locked up tight since he left for Paris in 1888 with you. But you’re welcome to break the door down. If anything’s going to shed light on that shady bastard, it will be in there.’
***
Damian and Elliott say they’ll do the honours, and the rest of us watch from the top of the stairwell, with Charlie muttering unhelpful advice that no one listens to.
‘Right,’ says Damian to Elliott. ‘On the count of three—one, two, three!’ The door is solid wood, but it’s old and no match for their strong vampire thighs. A few well-aimed kicks have it splintering and cracking. The guys tear away the broken pieces of wood and toss them aside.
Elliott sticks his head through the doorway and does a slow sweep. From this angle, I can’t detect what’s in there. But a funky odour wafts out, making my nostrils curl.
‘See anything, El?’ Sadie calls down impatiently.
‘Yeah, there’s some stuff in here!’ he calls back. ‘We’ll check it out!’
Damian breaks off a few more shards of wood and follows Elliott into violet gloom.
‘Be careful, babe!’ Floss cautions.
I’m not sure what she thinks is going to be in there that will harm him after over a century.
Even a rabid dog would be fur and bone, and he is a vampire with superhuman strength.
Soon, there are the sounds of drawers opening and closing, heavy items whumping, and, after a cloud of dust comes billowing out, coughing.
Eventually, Damian sticks his head out, his purple-streaked hair covered in a light frosting of dust. He beckons, saying, ‘You guys should come and see this.’
Eagerly, we clatter down the stairs, Sadie pushing us out of the way so she can get there first. Charlie follows more sedately, holding on to the railing, unwilling to risk breaking a hip.
Sadie rushes through the door, and a jagged splinter from the doorframe saws across her bare arm. ‘Ow, fuck!’ Hah, serves her right for wearing a crop top without a coat. I told her it would look weird in winter, but did she listen? No!
‘Careful, sweetheart.’ Elliott holds her arm steady and licks the bleeding wound on her bicep, which isn’t that deep. It disappears almost instantaneously from his healing venom. She smiles up at him. ‘Thanks, lover.’
I roll my eyes, though it is kind of hot to watch him lick her blood. An image of Will sucking euphorically on my neck springs unbidden into my mind, but I push the thought aside before I can get too attached to the idea—not going to happen!
Forcing my attention elsewhere, I scan the room.
Since it’s Alexander’s laboratory, I’m not surprised to see a variety of scientific apparatus set out on a desk: a brass microscope with rust-coloured slides, wooden stands with discoloured test tubes, and a collection of crusty glass jars with a dried brown substance.
One is sealed, and there’s a dark residue at the bottom and a cloudy layer above.
‘I’m no scientist,’ I say, nodding at the jar. ‘But I’m pretty sure that’s old blood. Looks like he was doing a lot of experimenting back then.’
‘It’s probably mine!’ growls Charlie, coming in behind me.
‘Or mine,’ says Floss, sounding faintly horrified.
‘Yes, that’s interesting,’ says Elliott from over in the corner. ‘But it’s not as helpful as these.’
I turn to see that he and Damian have raided the bookshelf; and a motley pile of leather-bound books, some tied with string, is sitting on a nearby desk. There are at least a dozen. The cover of the top one has been flipped over.
‘What are they?’ Sadie asks.
‘From the look of what’s written in the top one, I’d say they’re records of Alexander’s experiments. But there may be journal entries in there as well.’
Sadie goes over and reads aloud from a yellow-brown page covered in elegant cursive:
August 26th, 1888
Cure for Vampire Insomnia: Coagulum prepared from cat’s blood, mixed with drops of the Subject’s own, dried and ground fine.
This I dissolved in a cup of my own blood, mingled with a preparation of camphor and valerian root, and bade him drink.
For several minutes nothing happened, then his body convulsed and I feared dissolution, yet the crisis passed.
He lay still for a full six hours. A most successful outcome!
‘Yuck, that’s disgusting,’ Sadie says, wrinkling her nose. ‘I feel sorry for the poor subject being made to ingest cat’s blood.’
Charlie gives a low menacing growl, and we all look at him.
‘Papa is talking about me. I’m the“poor subject”,’ he says in a voice like ice. ‘His shitty cure is why I now look like this. I want that bastard drained.’