Resurrection (7 page)

"Good. I hate fucking coffins."

"No coffins, but we'll need to put in some decent heating. This place is fucking freezing to start with, and with little or no natural light ... It won’t be cheap to do. Or to run afterwards."

"Score one for the renewable energy then. How long would it take to complete it all?"

"Are you in a hurry?"

"Not especially, but now I've been back here, seen this place again... "

"I get it. I'd say eight months, maybe nine. There might be planning and conservation issues, though we're not going to be doing anything to greatly alter the external appearance. And we'd need to bring in the right people to work on it. This is specialist stuff, not that many contractors I'd trust."

"Okay, leave the planners to me and you line up the right workforce. What sort of budget are we looking at?"

"I reckon I can keep it below a million, but it depends what snags we come up against once we get on site."

Ged nodded. "Let me know if costs look like they’re getting out of control. I can always free up more cash if we need it."

"Where will you be living in the meantime?"

"I'll stay in New York, but I was intending to move on from there soon. It's been twenty years..."

Sven nodded. Vampires rarely remained in the same location for more than two decades because of the difficulties which would inevitably arise as the humans around them noticed that they showed no signs of aging. Hiding in plain sight was relatively simple these days, but there were still complications.

"Have you seen enough?" Ged was ready to be off. His glasses offered a high degree of protection, but his eyes were starting to sting in the daylight.

"Sure. Do you want a lift back to the airport? I'm headed that way."

"Thanks. Shall we make a run for it then?"

They sprinted back down the hillside to the hired Range Rover parked at the foot of the hill, both doing their best to shield their eyes from the weak sun just breaking through the clouds. Ged settled in his seat and smiled to himself. He was coming home.

*****

The renovation of Roseworth and construction of his new home within the ruins of the great hall took longer than either Sven or Ged anticipated.

The conservation lobby were horrified at his plans, and seemed willing to see the place crumble to dust before they'd allow him to taint Roseworth with the trappings of the twenty-first century. Good sense and reasoned arguments prevailed for the most part however, aided on one or two occasions by the sort of gentle persuasion only a vampire could exert. Ged preferred to play it straight in his dealings with human bureaucracy, but he couldn't do without his power supply so when the woman in charge of the heritage section in the planning department dug her heels in over his solar panels, he eventually resorted to the tried and tested method of getting his own way. He sat opposite Mrs. Hathaway in her cluttered little office, met her gaze and held her fast.

She tried to lower her eyes. He would not allow it. As soon as the connection was strong and stable enough he gently pushed his thoughts into her mind. Helpless, the city council planner absorbed the pragmatic suggestion that solar panels could be disguised (which would cost him, but that wasn't a problem), that renewable energy was a positive force, that bringing Roseworth back into use would secure the castle for the benefit of future generations. Mrs. Hathaway found herself able to recommend his proposals to the relevant council committee, and soon the works were under way.

And now, he was here. Life had come full circle and he was back where he started. Well, almost. Back in the fifteenth century, he'd been a powerful nobleman with influence and authority over those around him. He ruled here, holding the stronghold in the service of his King. Even after the crown changed hands and the new dynasty of Tudors tightened their hold on England, Roseworth had remained a key fortress in the north. The castle had bustled with life, everyone busy, always rushing somewhere.

Life had been hard back then, unrelenting and merciless at times. Even as a member of the aristocracy it was a risky business and he had found himself increasingly at the mercy of dynastic power struggles. A man would be fortunate indeed to enjoy the three score years and ten ordained for him, and life was perilously short on occasions—as he had so nearly discovered himself.

Ged strode the perimeter of his property at dusk on the first evening after he moved in, breathing in the sweet air of his childhood, a time when he'd been innocent, and everything had seemed so simple. He knew better now, but of course hindsight was a wonderful thing. Hindsight was particularly acute when spanning a little over five centuries.

Ged had been thirty five years old when an arrow from a brigand's bow had somehow penetrated his armour. He and his men had been set upon as they returned from a visit to Henry Tudor's court. Just five leagues from his home and safety, the bandits emerged from the trees on either side of the isolated road and although the Roseworth men at arms put up a valiant fight, they were hopelessly outnumbered. Ged had tumbled from his horse as his world blackened and knew nothing of the carnage which followed. He had opened his eyes to find himself in a rough hut, his head feeling as though his horse had kicked him in the temple, and a woman he did not recognise standing over him. She was beautiful, quite breath-taking, but something about her unnerved him.

He blinked, and she was gone. He closed his eyes again and slept.

When next he awoke, the woman had returned and was seated beside a small fire in the hearth. She smiled as he stirred, and came to stand over him as he lay in the crude woodsman's cot.

"You have survived the turning, then." Her voice carried an unfamiliar lilt to it, not quite English, he thought, nor Scottish either. Her words meant nothing to him.

"I... my men?"

"Gone. All. I chose you."

"Chose me? What are you babbling about?"

"You are mine. I chose you, and I turned you."

Ged sat up, amazed that the wound from the arrow seemed not to pain him at all, and even his headache had cleared. He no longer wore his travelling clothes nor his armour but was clad in a soft robe of pale coloured wool. He shook his head to clear it, then shoved his feet from the narrow mattress to plant them on the earth floor of the hut. The woman backed away from him as he stood, though he had no sense that she feared him.

"Your name, woman?"

"I am Lilia."

"I know no one by that name. Where are my clothes? My armour? My horse?"

"Your mount is tethered outside. Your other belongings I burnt. Or buried. You will have no need of them."

"Madam, I shall be the judge of what I need and what I do not. Where did you bury my belongings?" He turned to face his companion, fixing her with the glare that usually reduced the serfs and serving folk of Roseworth to quivering jelly. Lilia was unmoved.

"You are mine and I shall provide what you need."

"You shall go straight to Hell, madam. Now, for the last time—" He reached for her, intending to drag her outside if he must and do what was necessary to convince her to reveal the location of his armour. One moment she stood beside him within reach of his right hand, the next she was several feet away, regarding him through the open door of the tiny croft. Outside it was dark and the woman stood, framed by the doorway, silhouetted in the moonlight.

Baffled, his legs still unsteady, Ged lumbered towards the door and the woman who waited there.

"You require rest. We need not leave immediately." Lilia remained calm, though as he emerged from the hut she was suddenly several feet to his left, beside his horse which grazed contentedly at the lush grass.

"What the...? You are a sorceress, madam." He glared at her, taking in her serene expression, the perfection of her features, the simple elegance of her plain, blue gown. She was tall, not far off his own height. Her pale blonde hair was uncovered and hung unbound to her waist, and her hands were folded before her as she contemplated his bewilderment.

"If you like. You will have questions, and I shall answer them. You may sleep if you desire, or we can be on our way."

"On our way where?" Ged viewed her with suspicion, and a dawning respect. Whatever this woman was, whatever she might represent, he recognised strength when he saw it—and courage. And he did not believe she meant him harm. She could have murdered him while he lay unconscious but had chosen not to.

"I have a home, a place we shall be safe. You may share it for as long as you require."

"I do not require your protection, madam, nor your hospitality. I shall return to my own keep. I thank you for your aid, if it was you who treated my wounds, and if you will be so good as to direct me to my armour, I shall trouble you no more."

"You have no home now, but for that which I shall provide. You are mine, my responsibility. I chose you, and I shall care for you. Now, since you clearly have no wish to return to your bed, you will follow me. You may ride if you so wish."

Lilia turned on her elegant heel and walked away from him along the rough track leading from the hovel. She was almost out of sight before Ged gathered his wits sufficiently to mount the horse and kick it into a lively canter. He had almost reached her, when suddenly she disappeared. Before his very eyes, she vanished. Astonished, he dragged on the reins to bring the horse to a halt. He stood up in his stirrups to peer around him, and spied her on the rise of a hill. She was perhaps half a mile from him, and had travelled there in less than the blink of an eye.

"Sweet Jesus," he breathed, "what is she?" He turned the horse's head in the direction she had taken, and he followed.

Ged remained with Lilia for almost a year and a half. She explained to him in her soft, lilting tones how she had come upon the aftermath of the robbery to find him close to death beside his horse, his slain men scattered around him. She might have passed on by and let his fate take its course, but his eyelids had fluttered as she crouched beside him and he seemed to mutter something to her. She had leaned in, her ear beside his lips, to hear the words 'help me'. So she did, in the only manner at her disposal.

Lilia had opened his leather tunic to bare his neck, then sank her fangs deep. Instead of drawing his life's blood from him, though, she allowed a little of her own essence to drain into his near lifeless form. Only when his breathing eased and the blood started to congeal on his wound did she lift him from the ground and prop him back on his horse. Ged had snorted at her description of having hauled him back onto his mount, but was soon to realise that her strength far outstripped his own, at least it had then.

As he regained his own health and vigour Ged was soon more than a match for his slender saviour. Lilia had been a vampire for over a century already and had honed her skills and abilities in that time. Her own sire, the blacksmith in the village where she grew up, had taught her to use her superhuman strength and heightened senses to good effect, and so Lilia imparted that knowledge to her own turnling. Ged learned to live as vampire. He learned to hunt, and to hide. He learned to avoid the daylight as it would drain his strength more rapidly than his changed blood could restore it, and to avoid superstitious humans who would seek to destroy that which they feared and did not understand.

And back then, a vampire was a being to be feared. They required blood to survive, and could only feed from live hosts. Human blood was preferred, though other creatures would suffice if need be. Farmers found sheep dead in their fields, their bodies drained. Wolves might be blamed, though rumours abounded about the mysterious undead creatures who roamed the darkness, striking from the shadows, an abomination to all decent Christian folk. It was said that vampires, witches, ghouls and other displaced souls were the creatures of Satan, his instruments put on the earth to wreak death and disaster on the God-fearing populace. They had to be hunted, captured, killed.

Eventually, Lilia fell victim to a mob, trapped in the daylight and unable to escape to the relative safety of the cottage she and Ged shared in the Scottish Highlands. Too late, Ged realised she was in danger and rushed to her aid, but the ignorant peasantry had already staked her to the ground and severed her head. They were gone by the time he arrived, having left his beautiful companion to rot where she lay. Ged buried her, muttered some words he recalled from the priest at Roseworth, and then he departed the shores of Britain, not to return for almost two centuries.

*****

Much had happened to him in the centuries since. He had endured hardship and danger, wars, famine, disaster. He almost lost his life when London burnt in 1666, and again almost two hundred years later when an Arapaho warrior caught him in an uncharacteristic moment of carelessness at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

Ged was a soldier by training. Warfare was what he was born to do, the only real skill he had and he could rely on it. He traded as a mercenary, spent most of those first few centuries in one battle zone or another, fighting for causes he rarely shared and scarcely understood. But where there was war there was blood, and he could feed. Survival was what mattered, and Ged did what he had to do.

Civilisation and the inexorable march of science brought with it other options, and Ged recognised those when they presented themselves. He was well paid for his efforts on the battlefield and he accumulated wealth. He invested, earned more, reinvested. As medical research advanced, he recognised the potential and poured his money into it. The massive, life-changing breakthrough came early in the twentieth century when human scientists discovered what Ged had long known—that human blood came in different types. Ged knew that, he could taste the differences, but now medicine knew it too. From there, it was a rapid progression to collecting blood for transfusions and storing it for later use. The blood bank was born, and with that Ged and his kind were freed from the necessity to injure and kill in order to survive.