Oxford Blood (The Cavaliers: Book One)

by Georgiana Derwent

  ***

  Tom stood at the back of the scaffold stage and watched the proceedings impassively. George hadn’t trusted him with taking any active part, but had wanted him present and visible, presenting a unified front for Augustine. For the hundredth time that night, he wondered what had happened to Harriet. Was she still trying to stop the ceremony? Hopefully not. For all the promises he’d given her, they couldn’t really do anything against a highly organised group of immortal beings who had the police, the government and the university authorities under their control.

  When the vampires leaned forward and bit the inductees, his worry at Harriet’s absence turned to relief that she’d missed the ceremony. The plan had been to keep her awake and have her watch, in order to induct her fully into the ways of their world. Judging by her reaction to just hearing about it, she’d have been utterly traumatised.

  The vampires raised their heads and slashed open their wrists to feed the inductees, and the flares once more flashed off. It didn’t make any practical difference, considering they could all see perfectly in the dark, but everyone frowned. Only powerful vampires could light and extinguish flames with their mind, and all of the ones with enough strength were engaged in the transformation process.

  When the flares flashed back on again, Archie walked out of the woods. All eyes focussed on him as he headed towards the scaffold. When he reached it, he jumped neatly onto the platform, dropping the large sack he’d been carrying with a thump.

  “What is the meaning of this, young man?” asked Augustine. “This is our most sacred and crucial ceremony. It is bad enough that you didn’t attend on time, but to blatantly disrupt proceedings at the most delicate point is unthinkable.”

  Still holding onto the semi-conscious Ben, George turned to Augustine. “I’m sorry, sir. We turned Archie the year before last, and he has refused to cooperate ever since. I’ll have him removed for the moment and decide what to do with him later.”

  “You’re not going to be deciding anything,” said Archie, staring George down.

  “Why not?” George snapped.

  Archie didn’t answer. Instead, with all the showmanship of a magician on stage, he unzipped the bag. “Stand up,” he commanded.

  Tom watched in horror as Harriet scrambled awkwardly out of the bag. Her pallor suggested she’d lost a lot of blood, and her cuts and bruises told their own story. The rules of the Cavaliers utterly forbade murdering their own kind, but surely Augustine would consider it acceptable for him to kill Archie right there on the stage.

  Harriet’s blank expression sent a chill through his heart as Archie made her turn to face the members. They stood silently, watching in horrid fascination.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” George shouted.

  “Getting my revenge,” Archie replied. He drew an obviously sharp dagger from his pocket and placed it in Harriet’s right hand. “Hold that to your neck,” he commanded. “But be careful. Don’t cut yourself – yet.”

  “Stop it,” Tom found himself yelling. “If you want to attack us then do it, but don’t take it out on Harriet. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  “Oh, I know. It’s unfortunate. I hate to hurt her really. But I don’t see any other way,” Archie said.

  For the first time in decades, Tom felt cold. He looked to Rupert, to George, to all the senior members for reassurance, but they all appeared almost as lost as he did.

  Archie walked away from Harriet, and paced the stage as he rattled off his demands. “I want taxis ordered and all the human guests sent home. There’s to be no more of this bloodshed. I suppose you realise now that I’m the one who’s been killing you all off, but it’s George I really want dead. Every day’s been a torture since you made me kill Steph.”

  “I can’t believe it. Is this really all about that silly vapid creature?” George asked with an exaggerated sigh.

  “George, please don’t antagonise him,” Tom begged, walking over to his rival. “Can’t you see he’ll kill her?”

  “I could kill him so easily. I don’t care how many of us he’s drained and how much he’s worked on his powers. He’ll never take me. Wouldn’t you agree, Tom? After all, you have firsthand experience of my prowess.”

  “If anyone tries to kill me before I’ve had what I want, I swear I’ll have Daddy’s Girl cut her own throat out,” Archie snarled. “Of course, there’s always a slim chance that one of you will kill me before I manage to get the words out, but maybe that’s worse. I won’t be alive to break the mind control, and she’ll be a walking zombie for the rest of her life.”

  His words made a horrible sort of sense, but Tom couldn’t resist trying. “Harriet, come here sweetheart,” he called. “Put the knife down.”

  She didn’t even look at him. Vampires supposedly never felt sick or dizzy, but as he walked towards her, nausea and panic overwhelmed him.

  “Don’t come any closer, Flyte,” Archie screamed.

  Terrified of escalating the situation, he froze. “George, you try. Please. I hate to say this, but you’re much better at this sort of thing than I am.”

  “It won’t work,” George said. He sounded almost sad. “Everyone knows that one vampire can’t reverse another’s mind control.” He turned to Archie. “All right, we can do this your way. Let’s send the guests away, and then we can fight one on one.”

  Archie smoothly agreed.

  “Augustine, would that be acceptable?” George asked, turning to their leader.

  Tom glanced across at Augustine. So far, he’d been entirely silent. Unlike the others, he looked utterly calm. He glanced at George and gave a barely perceptible nod. Didn’t he care about his stepdaughter at all?

  Whilst George readied himself, Rupert took over proceedings. “Hugh, get the guests out of the way. Mark, take the stakes out of the losers and give them to the duellers. For God’s sake, give George his first; we can’t trust Archie an inch.”

  “Don’t provoke me, Rupes,” Archie said, pacing around the stage. “You don’t know what I might do.”

  Once Hugh had taken the guests into the woods, George and Archie climbed off the stage and stood facing each other in the clearing. For what felt like hours to Tom, they just stared at each other, and then they both moved at once.

  Lost in the energy and excitement of the battle, the spectators barely seemed to remember what was at stake.

  “Look at him go,” Rupert whispered to him. “Can you believe we only turned him a year or two ago? I bet you wish you’d had the foresight to drain half the society before fighting George now, don’t you?”

  The fight seemed evenly matched, with no end in sight. Harriet remained rooted to the spot, the knife held lightly to her throat. To judge by her pallor, Archie must have taken a lot of blood. It seemed to be only his mind control that kept her on her feet at all.

  “I think that’s quite enough,” said a husky female voice. Adelaide appeared from nowhere in the centre of the clearing and put Archie in a headlock, with the business end of a stake pointed at his neck.

  “Let me go,” he screamed. “I’ll make your precious daughter kill herself.”

  “No,” Adelaide said firmly. “No you won’t. And you’re a fool if you think you’re leaving her like a zombie either.” With that, she made a small cut in his neck so that the blood began to drip slowly out.

  Archie gasped for air. “Harriet, slit your throat!” he choked out.

  Tom screamed, but to his amazement, Adelaide didn’t so much as blink. Hardly daring to look, he turned to face Harriet. Her arms had dropped to her side. Gus stood behind her, hands lightly touching her head.

  “Did you really think that you could drain a few sorry excuses for vampires and then manage to outsmart me?” Augustine said, sounding almost emotionless. “I could have stopped this at any moment, killed you with a glance as you walked into the clearing, but a life of two-thousand years tends to lack surprises. I wanted to see what you did.”


  Archie stared at him in dull surprise, his blood dripping down over Adelaide’s perfectly manicured hands. Gus looked down at Harriet.

  “Go to Tom,” he said reassuringly. Still clearly unaware of her surroundings, she did just that.

  Tom grabbed his girlfriend, took the dagger from her shaking hands and helped her to the ground. Close up, she looked even worse than he’d thought, her skin waxy and her eyes dull. She lay her head in his lap and passed out. Tom stroked her hair, wanting to give her more practical help, but not daring to move.

  “You played your little game well,” Gus continued. “Playing on my emotions and using the fact that no vampire can break another’s spell. You just made one tiny mistake – assuming that I’m the same as all the other vampires. I’m more powerful than you can imagine. I can break your mind control as easily as you can break a human’s neck.

  “It’s not just that I have centuries on any of you – I was made by the first vampire, who was more demon than human. And in the end I killed and drained him, and all of the others he’d made.”

  Archie had been fading fast, but at this last comment, he found his voice.

  “That’s not strictly true, is it?” he croaked. “I happen to know that...”

  Adelaide stabbed him again, and his words turned into a scream.

  “The moment you started fighting, I had her in my power,” Augustine continued, ignoring the interruption. “Now, I told my wife I’d never hypnotise Harriet, but I hope she’ll forgive me in this instance.”

  Adelaide smiled. “Anytime my darling, anytime. I never should have taken her necklace away.”

  Tom wondered whether she had ever admitted being wrong before.

  “Archibald, I understand that you loved Stephanie and that as far as you’re concerned, all of this is in remembrance of her,” Adelaide said to him. “It upset me to hear of her death. I loved my niece too, and I don’t say that about many members of my family.”

  “It was George who killed her,” Archie said faintly.

  Tom wondered how long Archie could stay conscious with his blood ebbing away. If Adelaide had wounded him with anything but wood, he’d have healed by now, but the wounds stayed wide open.

  “Oh, I know. I only discovered that tonight. If it makes you feel better, I’m so very upset about this that I have changed my mind about him being the right man for Harriet.”

  George looked like someone had kicked him, but had enough sense not to speak.

  “Of course, no vampire should ever kill another merely for killing a human,” Adelaide continued. “It’s just not the done thing. But unfortunately for you, I love my daughter more than life, so I intend to make an exception.” With that, she twisted his neck. The snap of it breaking echoed across the clearing.

  “That isn’t going to kill him,” George said sulkily, finding his voice at last. “He’ll be unconscious for a while, but that’s it.”

  Adelaide didn’t answer him. Instead, Augustine spoke.

  “Tom, put Harriet down for the moment, and go to my wife. I agree with her that you’re not a powerful enough vampire for my stepdaughter, but I know she loves you. So instead of wringing my hands, I’m going to make you one.”

  Dazed by the rapid turn of events and still desperately worried about Harriet, Tom struggled to make sense of anything. Trying to stay calm, he jumped off the stage and walked to Adelaide and the bloodied and broken Archie.

  “Drink,” Gus said simply. “It may usually be frowned upon, but where someone tries to destroy our traditions and threatens our very existence, we can relax the rules a little.”

  The suggestion shocked him so much that for a few seconds, Tom didn’t know what to do. Then he realised, and kneeling lightly on the floor, he bent over Archie’s prone body, and sunk his fangs into his neck. The blood, rich with the power of all the vampires that Archie had consumed, tasted intoxicating, and Tom drank and drank. He paused just before Archie died, unsure what Augustine intended.

  Augustine nodded. “Drain the bastard,” he said, as calm as ever.

  Aware that everyone’s eyes were on him, some disgusted, some jealous, some simply fascinated, Tom bent his head again and did just that.