Ofelia (The Book of Davoth 1)

by Martyn Stanley

  The man stared at her. ‘You are devious mistress, if I may say.’

  ‘You may. Everything is set, tomorrow evening you let them in. Tell them the master is coming and they should wait for him in the cellar. Before they arrive, stock the cellar with good food and wine. They won’t suspect a thing.’

  The man smiled. ‘Very good mistress, and will you light the fuse yourself?’

  ‘For my father and his oath, yes; I will.’

  ***

  The vision faded, Ofelia was standing on the far side of the Thames, watching in horror as the flames licked the night sky. She had caused this. She gazed on, muttering to herself. ‘Dumnezuele... Ce am facut?’

  The man who’d helped her set the trap, now standing next to her, understood Romanian. ‘What have you done? You’ve defeated all the English vampires, but you’ve burned down half of London! You weren’t to know though. If only that fool of a Lord Mayor Sir Thomas Bloodworth had enforced the demolition of the surrounding buildings, this could have been avoided. What’s done is done though, it can’t be undone.’

  Ofelia turned to him. ‘Montague, is it worth it? Was I right to-’

  ‘This wasn’t your fault Ofelia. The fire should have been stopped. If you hadn’t set your trap, the disappearances would have continued. For years, decades, maybe centuries. You’re lucky. I had my doubts over whether this scheme of yours would work. I still don’t know how you convinced the entire coven to meet...’

  ***

  The scene changed again. Now she was a week before the great fire. The trap had been all but built. Montague Whitfield was supervising the loading of the first floor with rocks and powder kegs and the white-washing of the newly plastered walls in the cellar.

  Ofelia wasn’t in the trapped cellar. Instead, she was stepping over a blackened, charred-looking skeleton, with a wooden stake sticking out of its chest, in a candlelit crypt. She emerged up a flight of stone steps, only to be greeted by a butler in a dark waistcoat and white shirt with baggy cuffed sleeves. He was pointing a sabre at her. ‘What have you done?’

  Ofelia smiled, showing her protruding fangs. ‘I have slain your master. The old order will be destroyed. In a week’s time the coven will be no more. You and your friends have been fooled. Lord Gregory never intended to give you the gift. I will. Help me destroy the coven and the servants of this house will become the new coven.’

  The butler lowered his sword. His eyes filled with greed, almost hunger. ‘You will? When?’

  ‘As soon as I have destroyed the coven, I will return here. Help me, and you will be rewarded with immortality. Now where is Sir Gregory’s study? I need to practise his handwriting and forge a letter.’

  The butler sheathed his sabre and led her through the grand tapestry and portrait-hung house by candlelight. She entered his office, but as she sat down, she woke with a start.

  ***

  She was back in Tempest House. A door slamming elsewhere in the house had awakened her. She drew back the curtains on her four-poster bed and walked to her door. When she pushed it, she was greeted with an eerie moonlit corridor. Victor was standing in front of one of the windows, silhouetted by pale blue light. Ofelia stared at him. ‘I thought I heard something.’

  Victor, standing there in his dressing gown, smiled. ‘Me too, I think it was a bird hitting the window. A large one, maybe an owl?’

  Ofelia doubted this somehow. Something told her it wasn’t a good time to tackle him though. She offered him a faint smile. ‘Okay. Good night then Victor.’

  ‘Good night Ofelia. Or should I say Ilona?’

  She closed the door and retreated to her bed. For the rest of the night she enjoyed a dreamless sleep and awoke feeling rested, but uneasy.

  The first thing she did when she woke was plaster on the factor 50. She’d arranged to see Ollie today, so she wanted to be ready. She dressed and wandered down to the kitchen, then started preparing to fry herself some bacon and eggs, but Victor’s servant, Nancy again, stopped her and insisted on cooking for her. While she waited, Ofelia thought back to her conversation with Victor. How did he know so much about her? She could understand there being a record of some of it, somewhere; maybe even most of it. What troubled her was Victor knowing she was responsible for the Great Fire of London. The only person she thought knew about that was her friend of the time, Montague Whitfield. She’d left England shortly after. She’d never returned to Lord Gregory’s house. Had someone got to Whitfield? She’d never heard from him again, but that had been their agreement. This was something she’d have to tackle Victor on. Again, it all contributed to her vague feeling of things not adding up.

  At ten o’clock Ollie turned up as promised. He looked sheepish ringing the brass doorbell of the massive main double doors. Nancy let him in and led him to the kitchen where Ofelia was finishing her breakfast, drinking a black coffee and reading the newspaper.

  Ollie stared at her for a moment, then smirked. ‘Your ladyship.’

  Ofelia’s head snapped around, then locked eyes and burst into laughter together. ‘Ollie! Morning. Have you eaten yet? I can get Nancy to rustle you something up?’

  ‘Nah, I’m good thanks. I can’t believe you’ve got servants running around after you. Hey is this Victor guy about?’

  Ofelia shrugged. ‘He’s usually out on court practicing his forehand in the morning.’

  ‘Tennis? We should get some bats and have a chucker some time.’

  ‘They’re called rackets Ollie.’ Ofelia corrected.

  ‘Nah, that’d imply you knew what you were doing. I had a go once, but I was rubbish. I’ll start calling it a racket once I can actually serve the ball.’

  Ofelia knocked back the last of her coffee and folded her paper. ‘Hey, let me show you my room.’

  Ollie followed Ofelia through the massive house, staring at the portraits, oak panels and impressive antiques. It was the sort of house you’d normally pay to go in, that would have furniture roped off so you couldn’t sit on it. He half expected to see an elderly employee in a blazer standing in a corner watching the visitors to ensure nobody stole any priceless relics or damaged anything. When they did make it up the grand staircase and down the windowed corridor to her room, he was impressed. ‘Wow! Your room is bigger than the footprint of our house.’

  Ofelia shrugged, crossed the room and slumped onto the bed. ‘Maybe. It’s certainly a lot bigger than my room at Harper House. I like it here. Victor leaves me alone. The servants do all the chores. It’s a good life.’

  Ollie sensed a hint of hesitation in her voice. ‘But?’

  Ofelia glanced around the room, wondering if Victor had hidden microphones or cameras. She wouldn’t put it past him. He knew too much already. ‘Hey, want to go explore the grounds? The forest goes on forever.’

  He read the expression she was giving him correctly and nodded. ‘Sure.’

  After making their way through the labyrinth of the mansion, they exited via the terrace, which overlooked the tennis courts where Ofelia, not so long ago, drank coke and agreed to move in. Victor was in his tennis whites, waiting for a machine to periodically fire tennis balls at him. He was whacking every ball back with a satisfying smack. Despite his apparent age, he clearly had a lot of power. The balls were hitting the cross-linked fence around the court hard, one or two balls had been returned so hard they’d become embedded in the little squares between the links. Engrossed in his practice, he didn’t look up.

  After trudging across the manicured lawns, Ofelia and Ollie entered the ancient woods a good twenty-minute walk from the house. It was cooler in the shade of the forest so they both zipped their fleeces up before finding a broad, ancient oak overlooking the garden to climb. They climbed into the crown and sat facing each other. Ollie spoke first. ‘Ofelia, you are such a lucky so-and-so getting to live here. I can’t bel-’

  ‘Shh!’ Ofelia interrupted, ‘Something isn’t right here! I can feel it. Last night Victor told me something I thought nobody else knew. At
least not since the 17th century.’

  Ollie leaned back against a thick branch and folded his arms, huddling against the chill. ‘What?’

  At this Ofelia looked sheepish and started avoiding eye contact. ‘Well, you remember we were doing the Great Fire of London at school?’

  ‘Yeah, it started in Pudding Lane?’

  Ofelia sighed. ‘That’s the thing, it did start in Pudding Lane, but it wasn’t the baker’s fault. I started it.’

  ‘You started the Great Fire of London? How?’

  She sagged, as her shoulders slumped. ‘I thought I was being clever. I didn’t mean to. Every time I slay a vampire I steal documents from their homes. I had lots of lists of contacts. They all keep in touch with each other. They were like some secret club or something? I knew in England there were thirteen vampires. They called themselves “The Coven”. Their leader was a Lord Gregory Fareham. I snuck around following him, trying to learn what I could. Turns out he had this bunch of servants, who’d all been promised if they help look after him and let him feed on them, then he choose one to be made vampire. He’d been running this scam for decades though. I don’t think they believe him anymore.’

  Ollie trembled slightly. When she’d been talking about slaying vampires, it’d seemed so far from reality, it hadn’t seemed real. He’d been imagining it as some fantasy story, but now realisation was starting to grow that this was real, they were real people. Of course, these stories were ancient history. If he’d read them in a history book, they’d have felt detached and different. As it was, he was talking to a person who despite having the appearance of a child had been there, had seen it with their own eyes. That made it more real. ‘Go on.’

  Ofelia continued, ‘I snuck into Gregory’s crypt under his house while he was sleeping, before anyone knew I was there, and staked him. His butler challenged me when I came back up to the house. I told him I was planning to slay the entire coven and replace it with my own loyal servants who I make vampire. Their loyalty to Gregory and Coven vanished there and then. They helped me lure Coven into a trap I’d set. Got them to meet in a residence owned by Lord Gregory on Pudding Lane in London. We’d already dug out the cellar, filled it with stuff that burns and gunpowder and hid it all behind plaster, then loaded up the first floor of the house with big rocks and more gunpowder. I forged a letter to each member of the Coven calling a meeting in the cellar of said house. Once they were all down in the cellar, I light the fuse and ran. The entire Coven was buried and burned. The trouble is, it spread to the bakery next door, then the rest of the houses. I never saw Gregory’s servants again. The only person I thought knew I’d started the fire was a man called Montague Whitfield. I’d met him and his father when he was a child, some years before in Prague. His father was a merchant. I left England in the 17th century, I never saw Montague again.’

  Ollie shrugged. ‘Guess you’ll just have to ask Victor how he knows.’

  ‘I will. I don’t trust him though, I don’t think he’s telling me the whole truth about stuff. I know there’s another vampire left, but he won’t tell me who it is.’

  ‘You need to wait until he’s out, then sneak around his house looking for clues.’

  ‘I could do that. But I suspect his servants have been asked to follow me arou-’

  ‘Just feed on them. It’ll knock em’ out and leave em’ with no memory.’ Ollie suggested.

  She looked away. ‘I don’t like doing that.’

  This started a pause in the conversation. The wind rustled the drying leaves on the boughs. In the distance they could hear the rhythmic twang and thwack of Victor practising his tennis playing. Ollie lowered his eyes and murmured, ‘You’ve lived since the 15th century; have you ever been in love?’

  Ofelia shook her head. ‘No. The vampire can’t make babies. If they want children, they make blood children somehow by turning people. But when you live forever, you don’t need to have children and keeping vampire numbers small made it easier for them to hide.’

  Ollie sighed. ‘I don’t mean that.’

  She leaned closer. ‘What then? What is love? I’ve had friends, good friends. You get sick of watching them grow old and die though, so you start to try to not make friends with people.’

  He shrugged. ‘Being in love is wanting to be with someone, even though you can’t explain why, even though you know any future you have together may be fraught with difficulty and danger. Even though you might get hurt.’

  Ofelia reached forward and tilted his chin, forcing him to look at her. ‘I like you Ollie. But I don’t think I can love. When you’re a kid, your brain isn’t wired to love. It’s a thing your brain makes you do when you grow up so you make babies. I like you. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me since I came back to England. I do look forward to seeing you, but don’t let yourself fall in love with me. I don’t think a relationship between mortals and immortals can ever work. You are my best friend too, why would I want to risk that?’

  He pulled her hand away and leaned back. ‘I know. Who knows though? Maybe you’ll find what you originally came to England for and become mortal again?’

  She smiled, then leaned forwards, gripped his face with her palms and kissed him on the lips. When she pulled back, smiling, he stared at her. ‘Have you ever kissed anyone before?’

  Ofelia shrugged. ‘A long time ago. I think the last time I kiss a boy was in 1452.’

  ‘Oh… Who?’ asked Ollie.

  ‘My friend Albrecht, in Brasov. We were good friends. We used to joke about growing up together. Neither of us grew up.’

  ‘One more thing. Why Ofelia?’ Ollie asked.

  ‘I told you that my real name was Ilona right? When I became a vampire, Ilona died. I am not the person I was before I was turned. It felt symbolic, it also meant maybe I could hide my real identity for a while. I don’t know, but I wondered if maybe the vampire community knew about me and was looking for an Ilona? I chose Ofelia from the ancient Greek. It means “help”. I wanted help. But I also wanted to help people. People were disappearing - the vampires were responsible. I set myself the task of stopping them, as my father had before me. I had intended to change it, but when I read Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in the 18th century I decided to keep it. Ofelia’s death in Hamlet is great tragedy. As was mine. After I read Hamlet, I decided I was Ofelia and always would be.’

  Ollie frowned, ‘Going back to Victor; if you want to know how he knows you started the Great Fire of London, maybe you should just ask him?’

  ‘Maybe... Come on. Let’s go back to the house. I get the servant to make us some lunch. Do you play snooker? Victor has this huge billiards room behind the library. I want to try it.’

  They climbed down and walked back to the house hand in hand. Ollie’s head was spinning. Her lips were as cold as her dead hands. He asked himself the question, if Ofelia could turn him, would he ask her to? Being a vampire sounded tough, but the prize of being able to live indefinitely... But then being stuck as a kid? Eleven didn’t seem like a great age to be frozen at.

  Chapter 18 - The Ultimatum

  Ofelia and Ollie had a plate of beef sandwiches and crisps prepared by Nancy. They carried them on a tray with glasses of coke with ice and lemon to the billiards room. Snooker turned out to be a game Ofelia didn’t excel at, pinging balls all over the table, potting the white as much as any colour. Ollie actually fared marginally better and allowed himself a small dose of smug satisfaction for it. They ate with Victor, another hot meal prepared by Nancy, then Ollie left. Victor smiled a lot and left Ofelia to her own devices, but the atmosphere was weird. Ofelia suspected his patience was waning. She spent the Sunday avoiding him, doing her homework and reading.

  Life continued unchanged for another two weeks. Ollie and Ofelia hung around together at school as much as they could. She occasionally ran into Stoney at school too. She exchanged text messages with the others, always making sure she followed the code she’d agreed on. Ollie came around on Saturday. She asked Sto
ney, Kerry and Lucy, as well as Ollie over for the following Saturday. They drank pop, explored the endless grounds of Victor’s estate and spent the afternoon messing around in the billiards room. They left and Ofelia spent the Sunday working, reading and preparing for her coming week at school.

  It was the Sunday night when Victor next challenged her. She was sitting in her room reading the third Harry Potter novel when Victor knocked and entered. ‘Ofelia, come down to the library for a drink. We need to talk.’

  He left. Ofelia snapped her book shut and made her way through the rambling mansion. Victor was seated in one of the wing chairs. He’d already poured them both a single-malt scotch and set them on the table between the two seats. Ofelia took the seat opposite and sipped her whisky. ‘What’s on your mind Victor?’

  ‘I want your blood. It’s been weeks. When are you going to uphold your side of our bargain?’

  Ofelia put her glass down. ‘How do you know I started the Great Fire? Who is the second vampire? I’m not-’

  ‘Going to give me any blood until you have answers? Fine. You can have your answers. You’d probably have found out eventually, anyway. I am the other vampire.’

  Ofelia stared, mouth open at Victor. ‘You? But-’

  ‘Your attempts to hide your condition are effective for the most part, but they are unsophisticated. Why don’t I look pale? I use sunscreen too, but I also use spray tan. I protect my eyes with UV filtering contact lenses.’

  Ofelia had a sudden instinct to get up and run. But it wasn’t worth it. For all her extraordinary abilities she’d be no match for an adult vampire. She took another sip of whisky. Victor continued. ‘You’re asking yourself why am I telling you this? When did I become a vampire? First, I ask you: Do you intend to try and slay me as you slew the others?’