***
Harriet opened her eyes and tried to work out where on earth she was. Trees surrounded her. Her head ached, and the dizziness made it hard to think. She attempted to get to her feet, but couldn’t make her limbs obey her.
“Don’t try to move,” a voice said softly. To her amazement, she noticed her mother sitting beside her.
“Mum, what are you doing here? What happened? I got ready for the party at college. After that, it’s all a blur.”
“What’s already happened isn’t important,” Adelaide replied. “What is important is what happens now. You’ve lost a lot of blood and taken a heavy beating. We can try to get you to the hospital and have our people there try to heal you. Alternatively, you can drink more vampire blood, and maybe that’ll be enough. Or if that fails, we can try the third option.”
“What’s the third option?” Harriet asked, although she suspected that she already knew.
Adelaide just smiled at her. “You don’t have to decide just this second. You’re in much better shape than when I had to be turned. I’m going to send Tom over now. He can give you enough blood to keep you sufficiently lucid to make a proper decision.”
“I thought you hated Tom. Now you’re suddenly happy for him to give me his blood?”
“I had nothing against Tom personally. I just couldn’t stand the idea of my beautiful, talented daughter being with someone weak. But as you’ll see, that’s no longer the case.”
With that rather cryptic comment, Adelaide walked away. A moment later, Tom appeared from nowhere.
“So you can do that whole vanishing and reappearing thing now,” Harriet said, puzzled. “What have I missed?”
Tom practically bounced on the spot with energy and excitement. “It’s a long story,” he said, picking her up as though she weighed nothing. “Suffice to say I’m the equal of practically anyone now.”
With that, he kissed her, and in one smooth movement, slashed at his neck and drew her head down to the wound. Harriet wanted to ask a million questions, but both her survival instinct and her urge to be close to Tom made her drink first and talk later. Almost immediately, strength flowed back into her body. Tom’s blood tasted different to George’s, lighter and fresher, but just as delicious. She clung to him, never wanting to let go, never wanting to stop drinking. Tom allowed her to take much more than the usual token amount, but eventually lifted her head up. He kissed her again, before carefully setting her down on the ground.
Harriet’s disorientation faded enough for her to realise she’d somehow made it to the Summer Party. Then she remembered why she’d come. “Tom,” she screamed. “We have to stop it.”
Tom just shook his head.
For a moment, she didn’t understand the problem. Then she saw Ben and all the others lying unconscious on the floor. She gripped Tom’s arm to stop herself from falling.
“Are you trying to tell me I slept through it?” she said. “Have they already changed?”
Before Tom could answer, George came over. “Well, it’s good to see you conscious again,” he said in a brittle voice. “According to your dear mother, it’s game over for me and you. Now, for the record, I don’t give up that easily, but in the circumstances I suppose I’d better give you this back.”
He took her hand and placed her necklace into her palm.
“Have you had it all this time?” she demanded. “So all this gloriously honourable stuff about how you wouldn’t dream of mesmerising me was just a front. You nearly got me killed.”
“Okay, so I could have told you. But first of all, I didn’t take it from you, your mother did. I just took care of it for her. Second, I never did mesmerise you, after that first time out on Steele Walk.” He smirked. “So anything you felt was coming entirely from you. And don’t tell me you didn’t feel anything.”
“Just go, George,” Tom said commandingly. “She’s had enough of a nightmare for one day?”
“Fine, I’ll leave you in peace for the moment. I need to check on the new recruits anyway. They seem to be stirring, and Crispin has just brought the girls back from the woods. If I were you though, I’d get that magic necklace on as fast as you can.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harriet snapped, but George had already disappeared.
Harriet stroked the pearls. Despite her almost physical urge to put them on, Harriet decided to defy George by leaving them off for the moment.
She watched as the inductees woke up. Ben jumped to his feet first. Harriet stared at him. She’d expected to feel horror, but his transformation astonished her too much. Always handsome and well-built, he looked like an avenging angel. Caroline is going to be so impressed, she thought for a happy moment, before the reality of the next step hit her. The Cavaliers manoeuvred the inductees into line, so they each faced the girl they had chosen as a partner. The women had entirely blank eyes.
“Caroline, come here!” Harriet shouted, as the newly vampiric Ben reached out and put his hands on his girlfriend.
Caroline didn’t respond. Harriet tried another tack.
“Ben, don’t do it, for God’s sake, you love her. You know you don’t want to hurt her.”
Ben turned his head a fraction. He looked utterly inhuman, his skin deathly pale and his eyes almost glowing. “I know I shouldn’t,” he said in a strangled tone, “But I’m not sure I can help myself, Harriet.”
Sensing a hint of doubt, Harriet walked over to her friend to remonstrate, but before she could reach him, Tom took hold of her. “Don’t get in the middle of this,” he said gently, whilst keeping a firm grip on her. “What’s going to happen was always going to happen. You couldn’t have done anything about it.”
“You said you’d help me stop them,” she shouted, struggling futilely against Tom’s iron grip, trying to wrench his arms away from her waist. “You can’t let them kill all these people. You can’t let Ben drain Caroline. I’ll lose them both.”
Several of the older vampires turned to look at them. The new recruits focused entirely on their partners and didn’t pay her any attention.
“That’s enough, Harriet,” Augustine said firmly. “The ceremony has taken place for centuries. You mean a lot to me, and everything to your mother, but I can’t let you ruin it. The killing is unfortunate, but we have no choice. If he doesn’t drain Caroline, Ben himself will die. What’s the difference?”
“You can’t just kill people,” she shouted. Most of the crowd raised their eyebrows, seemingly shocked that she dared to argue with the centuries old vampire, but there and then, he was just her mother’s new husband. “Aren’t there enough of you? And why do you need to keep society under vampire control anyway?”
“If we didn’t have the control, whoever did would find out about us and kill us,” Augustine explained, as though giving a lecture he’d practised many times. “Besides, between us, we have centuries of knowledge and experience of human nature. We have the power to get things done. With all of time at our disposal, we never seek short-term gains or glory. Everything is better with us at the helm. Why do you think that almost uniquely in Europe, Britain has never had a true revolution? How has it achieved so much?”
Harriet, still held firmly by her boyfriend, struggled to formulate a reply. The big picture meant nothing. She just wanted Caroline, and if at all possible, the other girls, to make it out of there alive.
“Please let them go,” she said. “Just this once. Do it next year if you have to, but just give this group their life as a token gesture.”
“Darling, are you going to sit quietly and let the ceremony continue, or am I going to have to mesmerise you?” Adelaide asked, in much the same manner as someone telling a small child that they’d send them to their room if they didn’t do their homework.
Harriet thought about the room that her mother had always kept for her, and couldn’t believe that she would betray her. “You wouldn’t,” she said.
Adelaide looked pained. “It’s for your own good sweethe
art. Although I have to admit, I can’t quite bring myself to do it personally. Will someone please put her under?”
George immediately stepped forward. “I’ll do it, my lady. Everyone would agree that my mind control powers are up there with the best.”
Adelaide nodded. “All right. You’re talented at what you do, but don’t think this gets you back in my good books. I’m going straight to Stephanie’s grave after this.”
Before anyone could say another word, George stood in front of her. At first, Tom looked as though he would defend her, but he let go and stepped aside. Free of his grip, Harriet considered running, but realised just how futile that would be.
George put his hands on her shoulder and bent his head slightly to look at her. “I told you to put the necklace on,” he whispered sadly. “But perhaps this won’t end as badly as you fear.”
With that, he touched his forehead to hers. A flash of electricity flowed between them. For a second, Harriet saw herself in seventeenth century clothes in a burning manor house, and then everything went dark.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself back in the clearing, conscious, but unable to move or speak. Only seconds could have passed, as the new recruits still stood in a line, facing their partners. Some of the most senior Cavaliers walked towards them and formed a third line. Almost inevitably, George had Ben.
Augustine came to the end of a speech. “To complete the transformation, we drink to the death,” he concluded.
Each old member leant forward and bit the neck of the girl in front of them. Harriet wanted to scream or maybe even run over and try to stop it, but she couldn’t move or make a sound. Any hopes she’d had that George would do the right thing faded as he bit down hard on Caroline’s tanned neck. Harriet remembered how he’d fed from her at the winter dinner and bile rose in her throat. All signs of that tenderness had disappeared, leaving only an animal who’d found his prey.
George raised his head and pushed Ben forward. Harriet hoped that Ben would at least put up a token resistance, but although he didn’t attack with the gusto displayed by some of the others, he needed only the gentlest prompting from George to lower his head to Caroline’s bleeding neck and suck enthusiastically. Caroline and several of the other victims made little sounds of pleasure. Relief that at least Caroline’s death would be painless, even pleasant for her, mingled with disgust at the vampire’s mind tricks.
Harriet couldn’t make herself turn away. One by one, the girls dropped to the floor, and eventually, Caroline followed them. Her eerily pale face provided a stark contrast to her usual healthy tan and a lived red gash stood out on her neck. She didn’t seem to be breathing. The sight of her friend lying there dead cut through the mind control and Harriet screamed. Tom, had been sitting at the back of the stage trying his best to ignore proceedings, but he rushed to comfort her. She tried to push him away, but finally gave in and fell sobbing into his arms.
“She’s seen what she needed to see,” Tom said firmly to Augustine. “Please let me take her away now sir.”
Augustine nodded. “Please don’t hold any of this against myself, your mother or anyone else present, Harriet. Remember that we love you very much. I just wish we could have brought you up. Perhaps if you’d been introduced to all of this earlier you would have found it easier to understand.”
Harriet didn’t reply. Tom picked her up. Before he could move, George appeared next to her. Harriet hit him full in the face. He reddened slightly but didn’t flinch.
“Two things, before you go,” he said. “One, for the last time, put your necklace on.” He picked it out of her bag and carefully fastened it around her neck. “Two, I have a note for you. Read it when you’re safely back in your room. Like I said before, perhaps this won’t end as badly as you feared.”
Harriet took the note then turned her face away, unable to look at him. Gripping her more tightly, Tom closed his eyes and touched her forehead.
The next thing she knew, they were outside the college.
“Let’s get you to bed,” Tom said, not putting her down even when the porters stared at them. “We can discuss all of this in the morning.”
Harriet wanted to tell him there was nothing to discuss, but couldn’t find her voice. Back in his room, Tom undressed her and carried her into his bed. Utterly numb, she clung to his cool body and quickly fell asleep.
She woke late the next morning. Tom had disappeared at some point during the night, presumably into his coffin. She considered getting out of bed but couldn’t see the point. She knew she should tell Josh and Ola about Caroline, but couldn’t face the conversation or begin to understand how to explain it. She wondered just how the Cavaliers would play it – a fake cause of death? Claims that she’d left the university? Thorough mind-wiping of everyone who’d ever known her? At the thought of it, she started to cry, and buried herself under the duvet.
Whilst she lay huddled away from the world, she remembered George’s letter. She could hardly bear to read the treacherous boy’s words, but some sixth-sense insisted that it might be important. She dragged her protesting muscles and mind out of the bed and over to the chest of drawers where Tom had left her bag. Digging inside, she quickly found the letter:
Dearest Harriet,
If you are reading this, everything will have gone to plan. No one can stop the Summer Party, and you were foolish to think that you could. Even I couldn’t have stopped it once Caroline had agreed to go, but I could change the outcome. Your friend isn’t dead, at least no more than I am or your mother is. Under a trance, I had her drink my blood every night last week. When she said she was rehearsing her play, she was with me. Therefore, I could happily let Ben ‘kill’ her, safe in the knowledge that she’d wake up again better than before. I considered keeping her for my own, but I thought she’d prefer it if I gave her back to Ben. Besides, she’s no you and I still have my eye on the prize. Come to the Commemoration Ball tonight and accept my peace offering. We’ll all be there.
Yours,
George
THE END