Chapter 7 Augustin
Gideon: I’m calling a war council at Allie’s place tonight.
He’s had word of who the three delegates will be, and Komal running for mayor has just made our whole plan more complicated.
I need to drink at least a pint of blood before I can strategise, and since Sanctus is currently involuntarily dry, I’m staging a hostile takeover of the Black Crag cellar. See you at nine.
I NEVER LEARNED TO DRIVE anything beyond a horse-drawn carriage, so Alaric sends his Thrall Reginald to collect us. Hannah climbs in the back of the vintage vehicle, and I clutch her tightly against me as Reginald proceeds to reenact his favourite scenes from Fast & Furious: Vampire Drift.
We’re tossed about like two otters stuck inside a blender being carried along by rapids during a thunderstorm as Reginald assaults the narrow village roads with nary a thought given to speed limits, hedgehog crossings, or the metaphysical reality of an afterlife.
I think we can add a fourth way to kill a vampire to the list – fire, beheading, draining, and Reginald’s driving.
As I’m hurled past the village green like a runaway shopping trolley, I notice Komal sitting at one of the Rose & Wimple’s outdoor tables with a tall, handsome gentleman.
They’re sharing a dessert. He leans over and wipes a speck of something from the corner of her full, annoying lips.
I look away, concerned by the sudden squirming sensation in the pit of my stomach.
It must be the current state of Argleton’s country roads wearing on my tough disposition. Either that, or I have caught some kind of rare vampiric disease. Those are the only two possible explanations for why seeing Komal Ahuja on a date makes me feel as unhinged as Reginald’s driving.
It has absolutely nothing to do with how beautiful she looks tonight, with her wild hair flowing over her narrow shoulders, and that red jacket with the plunging neckline and—
That’s not beauty, I scold myself. That’s trouble in a five-foot, three-inch package. That’s the reason you’re being escorted to Black Crag by a homicidal maniac.
“What are you looking at, Augie?” Hannah presses her nose against the window. “Is that the woman from the council? The one who’s running for mayor against you? She’s pretty.”
“She’s a murderous annoyance.”
Hannah grins. “She can be two things.”
The first time I met Komal Ahuja, she told me off for cutting in front of her at the market.
Hannah was still a toddler and had come down with a nasty bug.
Upyr don’t get sick, so I was completely unprepared for the sheer volume of bodily fluids evacuating at velocity from every part of her.
I’d run out to the market – the only shop open at night – swiped every kind of medicine from the shelves, and was frantically checking the security system I’d set up in Hannah’s room to make sure she was okay when I pushed in front of Komal at the checkout.
Komal let me know in no uncertain terms that line cutters were equal in her esteem to fascist dictators and people who talk at the cinema.
We’ve been utterly unable to avoid aggravating each other ever since.
She wanted the village to host a 24-hour costumed cycle race through the woodland paths, but I shot it down because of how disruptive it would be for the animals and plant life.
In retaliation, she insisted on chairing the tourism board so she could torment me at weekly council meetings with increasingly bizarre and eccentric festival ideas.
I may have responded by joining her Midsummer Festival committee.
We had a screaming argument about the bonfire placement, and I’ve never felt more alive, more human.
Sometimes, I bring ideas to vote on in council meetings simply because I know she’ll hate them.
It’s childish and petty.
I’ve worked so hard to tame the anxieties that live inside me – the constant fear that we’ll be discovered and they’ll take Hannah from me – to become a trusted leader who might be able to create change.
But when it comes to Komal, I can’t help myself.
I cannot explain how much it delights me when her nostrils flare, and she purses her delectable lips and balls up her fists in frustration.
I suppose we all must have our entertainment, and I’ve never really been one for the cinema.
I’ve spent my whole life trying to go unnoticed, unseen, but for a few hours every Tuesday evening at council meetings, I bask in the full force of Komal’s rage.
Someone thinks I’m worth getting angry at.
Before Gideon Blake moved to the village, I didn’t worry so much.
But vampires see what humans do not, and the Sanctus Estate has brought more of my kin.
When Mayor Jones announced his retirement and asked the council if anyone was interested in running, I raised my hand because I knew Komal would hate me for it.
I thought that if I could be useful to these new vampires, they would accept Hannah and me. Foolish, but I’ll never stop hoping for a normal life for Hannah.
Komal always has such a strong belief that things can change. Even though the wheels of bureaucracy turn slower than a vampire on hold in the blood bank’s customer service queue, she stays enthusiastic about her absurd village projects until every council member who opposes her gives up.
I’m borrowing some of her belief for tonight.
I’ll need it, especially if this wretched bout of nausea doesn’t abate.
The car clatters across the stone bridge leading to the castle. I place my hand over Hannah’s eyes so she can’t see the churning river below as Reginald yanks the car to a stop in front of the wide wooden doors.
I’ve only visited Black Crag Castle once, and that was for Alaric’s disastrous ball.
I slipped out before the Lady of Agony could administer the Mora on the first vampire suspected of being the husker.
Something about seeing a vampire horrifically executed and cut into nine pieces for disobeying our sacred laws makes me lose my appetite.
Reginald opens the back door and holds out his arm for Hannah, who takes it gleefully, as if she were born to live in a castle and not our meagre cottage.
Wonderful. Now I feel even worse.
“Miss Winnie has returned from book club, and is in the east tower, sorting through my lord’s recently rediscovered mummy collection,” Reginald says to Hannah as he pushes open the castle doors. “Do you want to help her, or would you like to prepare snacks with me in the kitchen?”
“Kitchen, please!” Hannah bounces on her heels. “Can we pretend we work in a magical bakery?”
“Why pretend? I resent the implication that I don’t enchant all my cakes.” Reginald winks at her.
“I want to make enchanted cakes. Take as long as you want at your boring vampire meeting.” Hannah shoves something into my hands. “Show Lord Valerian my scarves. They’re eight pounds and endorsed by Theseus the minotaur slayer.”
“I shall do my best to make the sale.” I fold the scarves – squares of fabric I picked up at last month’s village rummage sale, which Hannah has cut up and stitched together – over my arm. Hopefully, Lord Valerian doesn’t inquire after them.
Alaric’s Thrall settles Hannah at the kitchen table, then leads me into a lofty drawing room where a fire roars in the hearth and a black-and-white cat luxuriates across the rug.
Gideon Blake stands at one of the high arched windows, the moonlight casting a halo about his golden hair, as if he were a saint anointed by the Christian god and not a proud and prolific sinner.
He sips from a glass of blood and surveys the valley below.
The lord himself sits behind a large easel, brush in hand and starched white collar speckled with paint. He does not look up as we enter.
“Augustin Durant to see you, my lord,” Reginald says.
“Hmmmm.” Alaric bites the edge of his lip as he adds shading to the painting of Winnie’s face.
“My lord. Your guest is here.” Reginald snaps his fingers in front of Alaric’s nose. The vampire doesn’t even blink, so intense is his concentration.
“It’s no good, Reginald.” Gideon helps himself to the carafe of blood on the table. “I’ve spent the last ten minutes asking Alaric to be the best man at my wedding, and all I got was a noncommittal grunt.”
I bite my tongue.
My friendship with Alaric and Gideon is new.
When I first moved to Argleton, Alaric was the only other vampire, although he never left the castle and I never introduced myself.
But when Gideon arrived and started building Sanctus, I saw my chance.
We are working together on this Conclave visit, but I have to remind myself that, for all our ease, they are old friends with ancient ties, and I am new to their company.
It does not always work. Sometimes, like now, it reminds me of being at the orphanage, afraid and alone and human, intruding on the other children’s games, never invited, never included.
Despite their differences, Alaric and Gideon are so at ease with each other.
I’ve never had a friendship like that. I’ve never been anyone’s best man.
I thought I had, once, but…
No, don’t think of him now. You must focus, for Hannah.
Gideon slumps down in one of the chairs closest to the fire. “I say we start without Allie. Fancy a glass of blood? This one is a 1920s Vaudeville Starlet. You can practically taste the sequins. Allie always has a decent vintage, although it’s a pity he won’t share his delectable wife—”
“If you so much as wave a fang at Winifred’s neck, I will circumcise you from the inside out,” Alaric deadpans, without looking up from his painting.
“A drink would be lovely.” The scent of the blood swirls around me.
I can’t keep vintage at home, because of Hannah, so I usually attend a feeding club in Grimdale, but visiting Chirag Ahuja meant I couldn’t go last night.
I’ll think better on a full stomach. I accept a glass from Gideon and move to the opposite chair. “Should we—”
“That’s my chair.”