Sarcasm and Inappropriate Jokes

I

London, 1599

Some say if you dance with the devil, he might follow you home. That may be true, but so was what your Grandame always told you: “Once the devil gets a good look at you, he’ll never forget your face.” And isn’t that worse than being followed? The real horror is of being seen, and known, and remembered. 

You didn’t believe in the devil. Not really. Not in the way the Mortals did; the horned imp with cleft feet and fangs and a curling tongue. Mortals saw darkness everywhere, dark magic, evil intent, when the truth was so much simpler: there was nature, forces seen and unseen, life and death. No good, no evil. Only power, only energy. Of course, alongside that, there were people and beasts, plants and fish and spirits, and there were beings like you, existing on the faultline between the physical and the intangible, the magical and the mundane. 

That was the true dichotomy. Mortals and the Others; shape changers and bloodsuckers and spirits and witches, like you and Grandame. 

These things all coexisted together, cluttering the rocks and plains of the earth, entirely distinct from the Mortal concepts of good and evil. That being said… while the devil may not exist, while dark magic might be the paranoid mutterings of Mortals afraid of what they didn’t understand, evil was real. It existed in Others, as much as it did in man. You just hadn’t looked it in the face before. Not until that night. 

September in London. The summer hadn’t released its sweaty hold on the capital yet, and the heat remained in the dusty, stinking air long after the setting sun dyed the skies umber. The river was putrid and brown, lapping lazily against the south bank and the oars of the wherrymen, smelling of ripe decay.  It would be another rowdy night, though Bankside knew no other kind. Barely six and the taverns were already full to heaving, punters pressed sweatily against each other above their cups; the brothels rang with screaming laughter, raucous singing and tinkling music. In the alleyways between the ale- and pleasure-houses, brawlers and lovers alike tangled together groaning amidst the trash heaps, beset by rats. The streets were dust choked and dry in the drought, the only moisture to be found was in the gutters; standing water, piss and spilt beer, inching in yellow streams towards the river. 

At the bear baiting the people’s champion, a ferocious black-furred beast named Stormcloud Ned, swung his paw at one of the bloodhounds tormenting him and split the creature’s spine in two with one clean strike. Its vengeful litter-mate leapt at Ned’s throat and ripped out a lump of hairy flesh the size of a child’s skull. The watching crowd roared: the sport was good, and Ned kept things interesting enough to bet on. Their stamping feet in the stands sent ripples through the blood-clotted sand dusting the floor of the pit. Bankside had built itself a colosseum, and in the bear had forged itself a gladiator. Until it would inevitably die, and another poor beast would be brought in in chains to curry favour in blood and broken teeth. 

For yourself, you had pursued other entertainment for your afternoon off; less cruel, but no less bloody. A trip to the theatre. Another trip to the theatre - this playhouse was newly built this spring and you were already a regular. You swallowed the plays like bread and honey, like the roasted nuts the vendors sold outside for a penny. It was a portal, a stifling, sweat-stained portal, to other worlds. Tonight’s fare, bloodsoaked, tragic, dramatic, and funny by turn, was The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. You’d stood amidst the Groundlings slackjawed and wide-eyed as the two hours’ traffic of the stage whipped by, blind to the shifting mass around you, their smells, their gasps and whispers. There was just you and the tale, the boys in their robes and painted faces, their voices flowing like wine over the crowd. When real pigs’ blood poured from their doublets during the fight scenes, you were close enough to the stage for some to spatter your face, and you shrieked in delight. At the final bow, the applause was so raucous it drowned out the Beargarden next door. You hollered and cheered with all the rest, screamed for an encore, for the playwright to come onstage and bow, and clapped so hard the deepening sky was fractured into a thousand tiny pieces between your stinging palms. 

The walk back along the river passed quicker than the walk to the theatre earlier that afternoon. Your mind was reeling with the tale, with treason and violence and prophecy and plot. You recited your favourite parts to yourself, lips moving around borrowed words. 

The fault, dear Brutus, isn’t our minds but in… no, that wasn’t right. Hold on. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in ourselves… 

You wished you could command a room like the actors did, even without magic. You imagined spreading your hands wide and speaking words that a hundred people would hang upon. 

Of course, it would be a tough sell. Women weren’t allowed on the stage. And even if you were, you could never remember all the bloody lines. 

The fault, dear, Brutus…is not… in our...something… but in… something…

No use. You had to hope the meter would click, that later the line would come back to you. The only other option was waiting for the piece to be performed again (which was never guaranteed, the censors came down hard on new plays, banning offensive ones after one performance), or keeping your eyes peeled for a pirated version that some quick-scribbling thief had copied out during the performance to sell for a profit later. Though those were never entirely accurate. 

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our…hearts?

Dusk was falling now, and the city was still so hot, so loud. You stepped down onto Green Walk, your boots sinking into the stinking river-wet marsh. It was a lawless part of the city, and not safe for those who could not defend themselves without a knife or a well-timed hex. But you were armed with both, and had no fear of anything but the stink of the mud on your skirts and the wrath your Grandame would bring down on your head if you were really late, and the labour had started in earnest before you got back to Mistress Phillips. She was an illustrious client, the wife of a wealthy merchant. She’d been complaining of birthing pains all morning, begging to push, but Grandame had held firm. Drawing her head conspiratorially close to yours while you both stood at the fire laying out fresh towels and linens to use later, she muttered: 

“She’s barely ready to pass a blueberry, let alone the babe. Nay, it’ll be a few hours yet. Get thee out of doors for a while, come back at eventide. Before seven bells, mind you!” You nodded, and left the Phillips’ house calmly, with all the dignity you could muster. But inside you were dancing jubilantly. Freedom! If you hurried upriver, you could get a ticket for The Globe! Grandame knew where you were headed; where you always went, if you could afford a ticket. She didn’t mind. She’d winked as she sent you away. 

She’d mind that you were late, though. Eventide, she’d said, and it was eventide now: the stars were just pricking through the dusty reddish-mauve of the deepening sky. 

Stars. 

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. 

“YES!” Your smile flashed in the dusk, your shout disturbing an owl. It shrieked; a shrill puncture in the sweltering dark.

You were still beaming as you made your way up to the house, as you kicked the foul-smelling marsh dirt from your boots and rubbed fruitlessly at your muddied skirts with a handful of moss torn from the garden wall. You swung the knocker, greeted the Phillips’ maid, and traipsed past Goodman Phillips with barely a nod, back up the stairs to Mistress Phillips’ chambers, where a reedy moaning was slipping through the gaps around the door. Being a midwife allowed you certain privileges; a wage, of course, and a way to use your power discreetly and in service of the most vulnerable and needy; but more excitingly, it enabled you to strut past the master of any house into a room he feared, into the secretive space of women and apothecary, into the birthing den, where women’s word was law. 

Mistress Phillips was labouring properly now, the sheen of sweat on her brow gelling her pale hair to the pain-crumpled flesh. Grandame was easing her onto all fours on the bed, rubbing firm, soothing circles into her spine, encouraging her in a low voice. She looked up as you entered, her silver eyes flashing. 

There you are, you luskish pigeon! What time do you call this? Eventide, I said! Her voice rang clear in your head, like a church bell heard across the river when the air was especially still. Coven mates could speak telepathically like this, use it for channelling spells and murmuring incantations nonverbally. Grandame mostly used it to talk without being overheard by Mortals, who thought her a woman of few words simply because they could not hear her. 

I’m sorry, Grandame.

“Boil some water, and help me get her into the birthing stool,” she said aloud, as the voice in your head added: I’ll give you a flea in your ear later, girl. She wasn’t angry, not really. Just exasperated. This job was easier with two, especially if magic was needed to ease things along, which, given Mistress Phillips’ slow travail, was likely. You did as Grandame directed, easing Mrs Phillips onto the stool and setting the kettle over the flames to boil. You ground willow bark into a paste with a pestle, brewed raspberry leaf tea, and prepared tinctures of shepherd’s purse and yarrow flower in sight of the labouring mother, while Grandame silently performed her spells at her back. The secrecy was vital, or you risked your magic being outed. And to be outed was to court witch hunters, persecution, and death on the scaffold. 

A midwife was already a suspicious figure, and one who walked through the world like Grandame did? Six feet tall, wire-haired, silver eyed, broad shouldered and strong despite her advanced age? A satchel of herbs and homemade concoctions at her hip and ancient magic in her bones, so vibrant even the Mortals could sense it even if they couldn’t give it a name? Even if countless babes were saved by virtue of being helped into the world by you and Grandame, it would not save either of you if an accusation of witchcraft came your way. Your Coven had learned that the hard way in Berwick, nine years before. 

When Grandame tired, you would take over. A tag team of witchcraft, magic volleyed back and forth across the branches of a genealogical tree. Hours. Contractions. The dusk deepened into bistre darkness. The moon rose. The temperature did not drop. Both you and Grandame were sweating as much as Mistress Phillips, who was desperate and bad-tempered with exhaustion. 

“It must be a son,” she moaned. “My husband wants for a boy, to take over his business. He has no use for girls. You must deliver me a son! It must be a boy. It must-!” 

You couldn’t keep the irritation from rising inside you, brushing up the inside of your sternum like the barbs of a stinging nettle leaf. So often, you heard these words; or worse, the whimpered apologies of a mother still bleeding on the birthing bed, presenting a newborn girl to her husband. The reign of King Henry and his thwarted prayers for boys may have passed into the golden age of Queen Elizabeth, but nevertheless; her subjects wanted boys, boys, an army of boys to carry on after their fathers. What about the girls? You always wondered. What do they carry on? What do they inherit? Where do their legacies go? 

Grandame knew you too well; she caught your eye again and gestured you behind Mistress Phillips to support her shoulders. It was a vital role, but also an invisible one: your distaste at her words would be concealed. As would your spell, the incantations whispered in the mind, strengthened by Grandame’s voice in your head; the beam of power unfurling from you into the labouring woman’s spine, unfurling like lotus petals, blooming… the spell took root and helped the baby turn, giving Mistress Phillips strength to bear down again. Grandame moved forwards, and took the woman’s hands in her whorled old ones, and didn’t once flinch when she squeezed. 

Between you, you supported Mistress Phillips, now transformed into a primal being of survival and pain. Blood. Pressure. A keening wail, rising like wolfsong. And then: a cry. Young Master Phillips emerged into the world. Grandame caught him, wailing and red faced and wet, and cut the cord. She handed him to you to bathe and swaddle him while she attended his mother. This done, and the babe cradled against his mother’s breast, Grandame straightened up with the agility of a much younger woman and crossed the chamber to open the door, calling in Goodman Phillips to meet his son. The relief was palpable on the merchant’s face. 

Grandame joined you at the fireside, where you were gathering up the tools of your trade; the scissors, the paring knives, the linens, the vials of tinctures and herbs and potions, the mortar and pestle. The hare pelt that had been wrapped around Mistress Phillips’ belly to promote a speedier labour. The geodes and runestones in their protective pouch. All went into the worn leather satchel. 

Was it a good yarn, at least? Grandame’s voice, smoky in the mind. You dared a glance at her, found her smiling wryly into your face. You grinned back, dipping your head to her shoulder briefly.

–Wonderful. It was a new one by the young man. Master… Shakespeare, I think he’s called. He’s fantastic. Almost as good as Master Marlowe was—

Ach, Grandame tutted, and she kissed her teeth aloud. You and your Master Marlowe! If you like him that much—

What you should do, you didn’t find out. Grandame’s words, whispered directly into the brain, were stalled by the sound of knocking downstairs. 

Grandame looked up, her silver eyes suspicious. You wondered what she’d sensed, and let your own instincts probe the house, the sharp edge of the sound as a second round of knocks punctured the air. 

“Where’s that Agynes?” Snapped Mistress Phillips, furious at the intrusion into the warm serenity of her new motherhood. Her son squalled at her breast. “Stupid girl! She’ll be dreaming over the stove again, the halfwit–” More knocking. 

“-Go see to that, child,” murmured Grandame, and you nodded, glad to escape the stifling heat of the chamber for the equally stuffy hallway. You descended the stairs, collecting a candle to guide your way, and approached the door as another round of knocking commenced. Still no sign of the maid. You seized the wrought iron handle and opened the door.  

It was a man, bathed in the sputtering glow of the taper in your hand. He was standing close, too close to be polite; framed in the doorway, halfway between the dark without and the light within. His eyes, glittering in the candlelight, fixed on you and held your gaze unflinchingly, even as he bowed politely and greeted you in a clipped, courtly English voice. It settled in your stomach like stones. Something about his voice, his carefully chosen words, his manner, reminded you of the actors on stage. 

“My lady,” he choked out, sweeping his cap from his head and wringing it in his slender, white hands. “I have to throw myself on your mercy. I beg you - implore you - for charity.” 

“Why?” you asked hesitantly. “What’s happened?” 

“Sanctuary,” he begged. “Please, madam. Sanctuary, I beg you. I was attacked on the road by the river there, on the marsh. By robbers. They’re still out there! I barely got away! If they find me—!” 

In the folds of your skirt, you clenched your fist, felt your power thrumming in the hollow between your palm and your fingers. A hex, a warding spell, a defensive curse? You weren’t sure yet. But that voice was like silk fraying over a blade. Smooth, cool, and with a lethal undertone that chilled your blood. He was solidly built, handsome and well dressed in unusual clothes; a high necked yellow jerkin and a pale doublet beneath to match, the quilted fabric patterned with gold darts. He was dripping with yellow, the same hue as saffron flowers, and with gold: a chain at his throat glinting in the candlelight, rings on every finger, tipping the hem of his ruff. 

“You’re well dressed for having just been robbed,” you said, bluntly, and the stranger stilled like a snake willing to strike. You realised that he had not blinked since his eyes found your face, a realisation that made you want to run and hide. He put you in mind of the witch hunters that had descended on you in Berwick. They knocked politely at first, too. 

“It’s like I told you. I barely got away. But they’re out there still, and won’t just take my money. They will slit my throat as soon as catch me. Here—“ he slipped his rings from his left hand, and held them out to you entreatingly. The gold caught the candlelight as his eyes did; gleaming and glinting. “Take these, as payment for your hospitality. Please, sweet lady. Grant me sanctuary. Save my life! Let me in.” There was a desperation in his voice that his eyes did not reflect. “Let me in!!”  

His mantle, a defiant yellow gold around his shoulders, brushed the dusty earth as he dropped to his knees before you, fistful of gold still outstretched, straining against the threshold as though a pane of glass stood between you. He was the picture of vulnerability, of supplication, of weakness, but it wasn’t enough to overpower the suspicion, the chill of dread that had taken root in you. Instinct. The jangling nerve-endings of your power, sensing another, an Other. 

A vampire. 

Of all the Others who shared the shadows with you, of all the faefolk and the immortals, vampires were the only ones Grandame feared. That alone was enough to instill terror, even though you had never met one. Until now. 

“No.” You whispered, drawing backwards, away from the door frame, away from him. “No. No–!” You threw up your hands, palms pulsing with the feverish energy of every protective ward you knew to reinforce the threshold, fingers flared wide and crackling with power. The vampire’s eyes widened, his nostrils flaring at the smell of ozone; the sour, electric kick of magic in the air. 

“Oh,” he breathed, and his full lips curved into a terrible grin, as though he really saw you for the first time. “Oh, I see…” 

You dug in your heels, braced all your might against the intrusion of him, cold as steel between the ribs and toxic as hemlock in the mouth. With a shaking hand you reached for the pouch at your hip, made by Grandame: portable protection, sealed with the sigil of a witches’ knot. A bag of magic-charged salt and powdered eggshell, ground rosemary from the kitchen garden you kept, crumbled balsam soaked in frankincense; all to charge your shielding spell, the incantation clamouring in your head and hot on your lips. The vampire watched with a sly, hungry sort of interest, totally unphased at the display of your magic. His ears were pricked for your racing pulse, the tang of your sweat and fear budding against the hum of your magic in his nose. Still his lips wore that terrible curl. 

You tore the pouch free and upended it, dusting the threshold, grounding the spell, reinforcing the ward. Desperation made you bold. You smeared your sweaty fingers through the powder and scrawled sigils on the doorframe that glowed faintly in the deepening darkness.  The vampire’s eyes glossed over the powdery line between you, up over the shaky symbols you’d drawn, onto the plains of your body, the thrumming palms of your hands and the curve of your throat. They lingered there a moment, then climbed up into your face, staring deep as though inspecting the bottom of a pool. For a moment, there was brittle, electric silence. 

And then he laughed; a cold, arrogant sound, a single bark on the balmy air. 

“Ara,” he chuckled, the clipped accent slipping, vowels lengthening melodically. “Ya dote, I’m scarlet for ya. It’ll take a lot more than that to hold me back, once I’m in there with ya, darlin’.” Before you could reply, the parlour door behind you swung open with a clunk.

“How now, Miss!” cried the maid, her heavy footfall breaking the chill silence as she advanced up the hall towards you. “Why have you answered the door? ‘Tis not your place!” 

“Goodwife Phillips was angry you couldn’t be roused, so I came instead,” you said without looking at her, your gaze caught in the trap of those strange, glittering eyes. You steeled yourself as Agynes reached your shoulder, staring confusedly at the scattered dust on the threshold and the mess of daubed shapes around the doorframe, before volleying between you and the vampire. 

“-Who is this?” 

You replied: “A stranger,” as the vampire yelped: “-A friend!” 

He had transformed once more into the timid, fearful Englishman. Still on his knees, the stranger turned to Agynes, fixing her with that stare, that beseeching, desperate need writ large on his pale, handsome face. Agynes was a rosy-cheeked girl of nineteen, a village girl freshly arrived in London for work, heart ripe like a peach ready to be torn apart with sharp teeth. You saw her soften towards him, saw the shiver of sympathy pass through her.

“Please, sweet lady,” he gasped, clasping his hands supplicatorily beneath his chin. “Grant me sanctuary. I was set upon on the road, attacked by robbers. I have told your Mistress of my trouble, but her heart is hard–” 

“-She’s not my mistress,” Agynes blurted out. “Goody Phillips is in childbed. This is just the midwife. She cannot dictate who comes into my Master’s house, and who does not.” You spun to stare at the girl, shellshocked; your movement sent the flame of your taper dancing and the light shifted over the stranger’s face. In the rapid shift of light and shadow, the strange glitter of his eyes became a glow: a pure bloody red. Terror licked its icy tongue up the nape of your neck and into your spine. 

“Aye, but you are kind,” the vampire said gently, his voice full of honey. His lips were glistening and wet in the sputtering light. “What’s your name, chuck?”

“-Agynes,” the girl replied, charmed, her cheeks flushed. A weight dropped into your guts like a stone; she’d softened so readily for him, presented her creamy throat up to the snap of his jaws. “And this is—” You gripped her shoulder, cutting her off and turning her roughly toward you. Agynes grunted in surprise. It was mere superstition on your part, carried over from your dealings with the faefolk, but you believed it nonetheless. Names were powerful. You did not give over yours easily. 

“Stop,” you spat. “He is not what he seems. He’s dangerous. He lies–!” 

“Agynes, show mercy,” the vampire’s voice came again from the threshold, turning the maid’s head. He had risen to his feet again, two spots of dust on his pristine pale hose. “I am  but a humble soldier of the queen, landed from Ireland this morning. The men who attacked me were Irish - supporters of the rebellion no doubt, sympathetic to their countrymen in revolt against the Crown - and they would have killed me if I hadn’t gotten away–!”

“-Ignore him, Agynes,” you groaned. “Think. He’s a soldier? Where is his sword, his scabbard? His clothes are strange. He has gold, but was robbed? He was attacked down by the river, he says. But his clothes are clean. Look at his shoes! Why are his shoes clean, if he walked in the marsh?” You held up the hem of your own dress, still dark with mud from your own walk by the river. Agynes looked, but your words didn’t seem to land. “Agynes!” 

“-Agynes! What’s all this clamour?” You jumped, and Agynes did too: Goodman Phillips was himself descending the stairs, and behind him - you could have cried with relief - was Grandame. “Who knocks?” 

“A gentleman, robbed on the marsh, begging for our help,” Agynes said. She fixed you with a pointed stare. “He is a soldier, a hero who fought in Ireland on behalf of the Queen. But he has been denied aid, barred from your door. By her, a guest of your house.”

You ignored the barb, stared back up the stairs, into the face of the Grandame, pleading, begging inside your head. She nodded stiffly, her mouth a grim line, eyes on the threshold. Goodman Phillips had reached you. He looked the stranger over cynically, and hope flared in your chest.

“-You served in Ireland, sir? With the Earl of Essex?” 

“-Aye sir, at Curlew Pass. The Earl himself gave me leave to return to London, after our defeat to the rebels.” The stranger’s voice was calm, smooth and cool as a stone. The affected desperation he had shown you had melted away. When his eyes met yours, which they did often, they were sly and smug. 

“-He was robbed on the Green Walk, attacked by a band of Irish sympathetic to the rebel cause!” Agynes cried. 

“-So he says,” You snapped. “I didn’t see any roving bands of Irish on the Green Walk earlier. I don’t believe him. Sir - don’t let him in!!” Goodman Phillips turned on you, incensed. He was a big man, bigger than you, bigger than the stranger, and his rage was blustery. 

“-Unfeeling wench! Where is your Christian charity, to deny a member of the Queen’s army sanctuary into an Englishman’s home?” You could have snarled in anger. Your voice, when it came, was brittle as a snapping branch.

“You stupid old fool! Can’t you see he’s not what he seems! You cannot - you must not let him in! He’ll kill us all!!” 

“Granddaughter.” Grandame’s voice was heavy as lead. She stepped forwards, seized your shoulders.  “You have overstepped yourself, to speak to Goodman Phillips thus. We must take our leave. Now.” 

“But–!” You gasped, but she cut you off. 

“Now. The babe is delivered, Goodman Phillips has paid our fee. Our work here is done.” 

“Aye, I think that is for the best,” Goodman Phillips said loftily, and you glared at him. He didn’t notice, turning instead to the stranger. “Come in, sir. Any servant of the Queen is welcome here.” The words passed over you like an icy wave, humming with power. The meagre protection the threshold had provided melted away like snow in July heat. Your own spell faltered, flickered, died. The sigils around the doorframe were mere pictures now, their glow dying; the line of salt across the door just powder, dust to be swept away with a broom. You opened your mouth, raised your hands once more to defend, to ward, to protect—

Let go. There is nothing we can do. Grandame’s voice rang clear and commanding in your head, stopping you in your tracks. We must get away, save ourselves. 

-NO!!! I won’t leave them!!

Grandame’s eyes flashed at your retort. She seized your shoulders roughly, and as her hands connected with your body you felt the heat of a spell, compelling you forwards. She was the leader of your Coven, the font of your power. You were powerless to resist her. 

In the doorway, the stranger was grinning at you, directly at you, and his teeth were white and sharp. 

“A shame, sweeting,” he said silkily. “I should have liked to know you better. Pray, what’s your name?” 

Your jaw was locked by Grandame’s spell, not that you would have opened your lips in response anyway. You did all you could, and spat at him. 

He laughed and stepped aside, bowing gallantly and bidding you goodnight as Grandame pulled you over the threshold. He stepped in behind you, scuffing the line of salt with the heel of his boot. Agynes closed the door with a snap in your face. The last thing you saw was the flaring ruby red gleam of his eyes, boring into your face as though committing every line and curve to memory. 

Grandame dragged you home, deaf to your protests. She didn’t release you until you passed the threshold of your own narrow cottage, the tiny one-up-one-down abode that had been home since you arrived in London. It was built flush to the northern bank of the Thames, near to the wherry steps and the stinking docks at St Katharine’s. It was poky and damp, but had a small kitchen garden and a modicum of privacy. Privacy meant solace, but also safety. For all you yearned for friends, for the companionship you lost with your Coven and your sister, when danger pressed close to the nape of your neck you were grateful for the dark, sombre cottage you shared with Grandame. It was warded from the foundation to the chimney flue, and perhaps the most magically fortified place in London. But your thoughts returned continually to the chill that passed over you as the threshold’s protection at the Phillips’ house evaporated.  

Grandame scarcely let you through the door before setting you to work reinforcing the wards, grinding up bones and eggshell and salt crystals into a powder, tearing wild garlic flowers from the stems until the entire cottage hummed with the stink. She dictated your moves from where she stood, hunched over her battered Grimoire reading aloud while your cat Greymalkin weaved between her feet, the faintest tremor in her voice the only thing betraying her fear. 

“I didn’t realise there were vampires in London,” you ventured, smearing your streaming eyes with your sleeve. You’d moved on to garlic cloves now, ripping them from the bulb and grating them up small. The smell was permeating your pores, stinging your eyes.

“They’re rare. But they can be anywhere. Like rats. There’s always one closer than you think.” Grandame’s voice was grave. 

“Couldn’t we have told them? The Phillipses? Warned them, or—?” 

“It’s no use, child. Speaking of monsters to the Mortal folk will only invite their eyes on you.” 

That word stuck out to you: monsters. As though a vampire was a baser being than yourself, as though their violent existence rendered witches closer aligned with mortals than with them. As though a mortal wouldn’t put both to the fire, vampire and witch alike. 

“…They’re like us,” you mused. Grandame spat on the ground in disgust, her fingers fluttering around a sigil to ward off evil. When she spoke, it was venomous. 

“That creature is nothing like us.” You swallowed, cowed. 

“I know. I… I’ve never seen one before, that’s all. I didn’t expect—”

“Thank your lucky stars you’ve not seen one, girl. I saw you back there; you would have stood your ground, and wouldn’t have left without a fight. But trust the wisdom of my years. I have seen a vampire take down a coven of ten, singlehanded. They cannot be stopped, nor slain. Only slowed down, and evaded.” Grandame kneaded her forehead with an aged fist, her knuckle bones straining against the papery flesh like knots in the bark of a tree. “It is a point of pride that you’ve never seen one. It means I have protected you well. But I will not lose you, not as I lost thy mother, and thy sister. And our coven-sisters in Berwick, and all those before, lost to the fires, or the noose.” Her eyes gleamed, wet with unspilled tears. In her six hundred years, she had seen so much loss. So many of your kind lost to paranoia, fanaticism and hatred. So many killed simply for what you could do, slaughtered by those who were too wrathful in their fear to attempt to understand. Her next words were gentler, had softened in her mouth. “Thou art brave, child. So brave! But you have forgotten an important rule. A witch ought never be alone. You cannot fight things yourself. Sometimes all you can do is protect your coven, and run.”

Those words would echo in your mind many times over the following days.  When the gory scene at the Phillips’ house was discovered the following day; the entire household slaughtered, their blood soaking into the floorboards and witchmarks around the door. When the shiver of terror at this grisly discovery rippled outwards, over London Bridge to the City and along the banks of the Thames to Wapping. When the eyes of your neighbours and clients became cold, stony, suspicious. When the whispers reached you that, as the last people to see the Phillips family alive, the wise old midwife and her granddaughter were now suspects.  On the morning when the heat finally released its grip on the city and the air held the first delicious snap of autumn cold, when the constables and armed officers came for you and Grandame, they echoed once again. Should you have run, both of you, as you had from Berwick? 

You saw them coming up the lane, peeped them from the window and hollered for Grandame; mortal men armed to the teeth, toting bibles and warrants, with a baying crowd of your neighbours assembling behind them. There were so many of them, as though they expected a legion of darkness to reside in the tiny cottage. Perhaps if they’d come ten years ago, they’d have found it, and been made to pay for their invasion; your Coven had once been twelve women strong. But the witch hunt at Berwick had claimed more than half your number and many innocents besides, and the plague six years prior had claimed your mother and sister, and now that left only you and Grandame. Scarcely enough to channel a spell strong enough to summon up a rainbow, let alone a fearsome tempest. There were so few witches left now; so many lost that you wondered how many covens remained at full strength. And yet the Mortals feared witches still.

You tore around the cottage, sweeping the tools of your craft into hiding places, or directly into the banked coals of the stove to burn. You hollered for Grandame again, shooed Greymalkin out the back door, a whispered prayer cast over his sleek body that he would melt into obscurity and anonymity among the strays that gorged on fish guts at the docks. You were bundling Grandame’s books into the stove, now a hearty blaze, when she appeared on the back doorstep, coming in from the kitchen garden with a spade in her hand and fresh dirt on her skirt. She said nothing; merely squeezed your shoulder and shook her head as the door crashed in. 

You acted on your rawest instincts, and fought like a cornered bear at the baiting, scratching and foaming and screaming. The officers dragged you bodily from the house, wrenching your hands behind your back so you couldn’t cast a single spell nor shield your ears from the accusations hurled at you by your shrieking neighbours. 

Witch! Murderer! Babe-killer! Lover of the devil!! 

You let their screams wash over you, weightless as sunlight, and kept struggling, pulling against your restrainers, desperate for freedom, for flight, for a glimpse of Grandame. 

The constables tore the cottage apart for evidence. Every bundle of herbs, every tincture, every almanac in the house was vilified. Some unlucky officer scorched his hands pulling half-burnt books from the stove. The herb garden was trampled into pulp beneath their boots, your midwifery supplies tipped out and shattered against the kitchen flags. No sign of Greymalkin. This small relief offered a shred of comfort you could cling to until Grandame was dragged onto the street. 

They pulled her roughly from the house and threw her to the ground, no respect for her wisdom or care for her age, and you roared and spat with rage at the sight. Grandame didn’t say a word, didn’t flinch, didn’t react. She seemed unafraid. Eerily calm,  in fact, and her eyes met yours in perfect serenity. It didn’t soothe you. The constable announced your charges to the waiting crowd, who cheered with glee at the apprehension of two witches in their midst, the instruments of the horrible slaughter at the Phillips house. You  argued, screaming your own defence, naming the vampire as the true killer. You may as well have been whistling. No one was listening to you. 

They bundled you and Grandame into a waiting carriage, and drove you directly to Newgate prison. There, you were crushed into crowded cells, tortured, stripped, starved and interrogated until your trial, where a sallow-faced justice of the peace charged you both with witchcraft, heresy, and murder, and sentenced you to death. 

Newgate, cramped and stinking and festering as it was, became a kind of chrysalis around your body. Like a caterpillar, once you entered it you could never return to what you had been before. Over the months that followed, you began to consider your life before that night at the Phillips’ house as a kind of dream; a foreign country, a half-forgotten wish. Had you really once been a trusting, smiling girl, who ran up Bankside to watch the shows at The Globe? Had you really readily entered mortal homes to help them when they were labouring and vulnerable? Had you really held their babies when they were fresh-born and innocent, eased them gently into this world only for them to grow up and bare their teeth at you, spit at you, hunt you down like a hare? It all seemed so inconceivable, so obscenely naive. You’d had a strange fantasy of performing on stage. 

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings. 

Autumn set in. London’s palette transformed from sunbaked bronze and topaz into a slick wash of grey and silver and brown. The stench of the city remained, sharp and tangy on the frosty air. Soon it would be Christmas, then New Year, then a new century. You wondered if you would live to see 1600. 

Grandame, who had seen six new centuries dawn at least, was stonily quiet throughout your incarceration; both in spoken words and in the private chamber of your mind. She was holding up well, painfully thin and more aged and frail-looking than she had ever appeared, but still vital, vibrant, strong. You had no idea what you looked like, and hadn’t seen your reflection in months, but you hoped you mirrored her strength. 

At night, you would lay curled together on the straw, manacled by the ankles to the wall.   Grandame would sleep. You would chase escape plans around your head, knowing they were futile; without your tools, beaten and tired and cold and starving, your magic had weakened to a barely-discernable humming in your marrow. You’d tried a hex on the cruellest guard, and barely ruffled his hair. The sense of powerlessness was so fathomless, you’d thought you would drown in it. Hopelessness settled around you like tar, thick enough to smother when the sun went down. Around you the other condemned prisoners snored and wept and coughed, warm wet sounds amplified by the cold stone of the cell’s walls. There were six other “witches” in the cell with you, all condemned to die, all Mortal and without a speck of magic in them. They were as innocent of the charge of witchcraft as you were of the charge of murder, and the injustice of it made you feel as though you’d swallowed lead shot. You watched the moon wax and wane and wax again through the barred slit of a window near the ceiling.  

The morning of your execution was grey and cold. You were woken at dawn from an uneasy sleep, where you had dreamed once again of the vampire, of blood and sinew, of the glowing red eyes in the handsome pale face, of the sharp-edged smile and the stray curl of dark hair falling over his forehead. Inexplicably, the dream made your guts writhe like snakes, and you were considering this when the cell door opened; the sneering turnkey and a posse of guards entered the cell and ordered you to your feet. 

“Oh God,” you moaned. “Is it time? Is- is it–” You twisted against your manacles, desperate for the familiar warmth of your magic simmering beneath your skin, for the comfort of knowing you could defend yourself. None came.

Grandame seized you firmly, pulling you into a bone-crushing hug: her silver eyes were burning, her face set and powerful. For the first time in days, she spoke. Her voice in your head was like birdsong, like raindrops on the roof tiles after a drought, so blessedly welcome after her silence. 

Courage, child. Courage! Don’t make them a gift of your fear. 

You gulped thickly, and promised aloud, your lips moving against the wiry brush of her filthy hair. The guards had to prise you apart.

The gallows at Tyburn were surrounded by a braying crowd, the square where they stood still swaddled in the early-morning mist. It had been specially adapted to execute up to twenty-four condemned at once. Death en masse, without discernment. They called the frame of the scaffold the Tyburn Tree, and soon you would hang from its branches like overripe fruit, like bunting on Beltane.

It was November, and the nights had lengthened, greedily swallowing up the daylight. Though it was almost eight bells, the sun had scarcely risen, its weak light barely penetrating the veil of grey cloud and silvery mist. You were shivering with cold as you approached the scaffold, and it made you ashamed. You had promised to show no fear, and now you seemed to tremble with it. The watching crowd would gorge on your terror like crows, a delicious morsel before the feast; the death of an accused witch, the triumph of good over evil. 

Beside you, Grandame was still, her eyes on the gallows as though daring it to take her life. You didn’t have to wonder if she was afraid. Of course not. She was resolved. You felt a swoop of hope, enough to make you giddy. She had a plan. You could see it prickling in her silver eyes, tensing the corners of her mouth, tugging them downwards. Her posture was still straight as an oak tree, despite Newgate’s attempts to fell her; no amount of beatings could bow your grandmother, no Mortal torture could crush her spirit, and this gave you strength. You drew back your own shoulders, stiffened your spine, angled your chin to mirror hers. You repeated her words to yourself, over and over, as you and your fellow condemned were forced onto the scaffold and roughly placed before the dangling ropes that would take your life. Don’t make them a gift of your fear. Don’t make them a gift of your fear. Don’t make them a gift of your fear. 

“Grandame,” you breathed, as the Justice approached, flanked by a priest, and began reading off the charges of the women on the scaffold. She was beside you, her wrists bound before you as yours were. “Grandame, what would you have us do?” 

She did not answer, but smiled reassuringly, glossing her eyes over the simmering crowd, the gallows, the grey-faced priest and the droning judge. He had reached the elderly woman beside you, bowed with exhaustion and sickness and years of starvation in the pits of Cheapside. 

“-Mistress Margaret Baker, you are accused of the capital crime of thievery, that you did steal from Goodman Geoffrey Arundell a silver cup…” 

“-Grandame? What do we do?” It was becoming harder and harder to mask your terror. What was the plan? How would you escape?

“Aye, guilty,” wheezed Mistress Baker. “I pray the Lord have mercy on my soul…” The crowd cheered, the Justice scoffed.

“Grandame–!” 

“-And finally,” The Justice stepped in close, blocking your view of Grandame.  His breath was wine-sour as he bellowed your name to the jeering crowd. 

“-For the capital crimes of witchcraft and murder! You stand accused of the slaughter of Goodman Thomas Phillips, his wife, Mistress Elizabeth Phillips, and his unbaptised babe, newly born, for usage in your dark magic rituals! You did then slaughter the Phillips’ maid Agynes Perrot, and drained both her and the Phillips family of their blood, feeding it unto your familiars and the dark demons that you draw into this world with your evil! You did leave behind witchmarks on the door as part of your ritual, and–”

“-No!” You cried out, unable to listen to any more. “No, no! We didn’t! It was him–” The Justice didn’t even falter, as though you hadn’t spoken at all. 

“-How do you plead?”

“NOT GUILTY!!” You screamed. “Not guilty! We didn’t, we would never–” Your words were swallowed whole by the roaring crowd. Someone threw a rotten apple; it exploded against the wooden frame of the gallows, spraying juice and brown-red flesh everywhere, like viscera. The Justice raised his hand, waiting for the shouts to subside before he continued, his voice icy as the misty air.

“-You are sentenced this day to die, by hanging.” He stepped away, moving onto Grandame to read her charges, deaf to your cries. Panicking now, you strained against the bindings at your wrists, casting your eyes over the crowd for an ally, for a shred of kindness. There was none; the watching crowd were bloodthirsty as hounds, jeering and shouting to see witches and murderers and petty thieves put to death. Between the hostile, snarling faces filling the square before the gallows, standing in the alleyway beside an alehouse crammed with spectators for the occasion, you caught sight of a flash of yellow, dulled by the swirling mist.  

It felt as though the trapdoor beneath you had already fallen away. You tried to keep it in sight, to see the face, to know for sure if it was him, if he’d dared– 

“-How do you plead?” the Justice droned on, his nose inches from Grandame’s face, still proudly angled upwards as though she were the Queen, as though the gallows were a throne and all of us beneath her.

“Guilty,” she replied, simply. 

Your head snapped to the side as though the rope had already pulled taught around your neck. The flash of a yellow cloak vanished from your mind as quickly as it had from your sight. Your head and heart were full of her now, of Grandame, stood tall and ancient and unafraid before the noose, her voice calm and ringing on the air as though she was alone in the square; as though you weren’t screaming for her in your mind, begging her to stop.  

“I am the very witch who did threaten the Queen’s cousin, King James of Scotland, in Berwick these nine years’ hence. I did summon up a storm to drown his young bride on her voyage across the sea. I did commune with the devil. I did send my familiars into the town to spread pestilence and wickedness. I did curdle milk and smother babes. And when King James hunted me down, I did escape justice and curse his lands, fleeing to fair England to spread my Master’s mischief here!” Grandame was grinning broadly now. She was enjoying herself, enjoying the bizarre yarn she was weaving, a pack of lies and sensational tales to whip the crowd into a frenzy. It was working; the Justice and his guards had lost control of the spectators, who were howling like wolves, crowding the scaffold, throwing rubbish and insults. Your fellow accused were shuffling uncertainly, the priest had gone pale. And you - you were desperately trying to quiet Grandame, to stop her tirade, but one look at her silver eyes and you were frozen. She dropped her voice dramatically for the continuation of her tale. The crowd, still broiling with fury, leaned in to catch her every word, as transfixed by her as you were. 

For a moment, you were back at The Globe, and instead of a painted boy on stage reciting his lines, it was Grandame; she commanded the square like an audience, like the hero of an epic play, and you were more awed by her than any of Master Marlowe’s plays or Master Shakespeare’s soliloquies. She was electric. 

“I flew into your stinking cesspit city on a stormcloud, and set to my wicked work. I poured poisons in men’s ears, stirred up malice and violence. I soured women’s hearts, sowed bitter sickness in their bellies. I summoned up the great plagues, sending souls to the grave for my dark master. And this very September, I did slaughter the entire Phillips household, did drain their blood for my dark and demonic rituals. I did leave witchmarks around the door to mock the sanctity of their home; did offer up their souls to the devil! It is true, I am guilty, and I have no regrets!” 

The crowd erupted in fury and terror, but Grandame wasn’t done. “My granddaughter is innocent! I killed her mother with plague, and imprisoned her, cursed her to do my dark bidding, all against her will! She was not with me that night, and when I did summon her to the bloody scene she did weep and pray. There isn’t a drop of magic in her - her soul is so pure it burns me!” 

What are you doing?! You begged desperately, as tears carved tracks through the grime on your cheeks. You said a witch should never be alone! You said we had to protect the coven!    

She turned to you, acknowledging you fully for the first time since the prison. 

I am. 

She lifted her bound hands, and twisted them against the ropes, releasing a pulse of magic you felt in the buds of your teeth. It emanated out like a wave; knocking the priest to the ground and making the Justice drop his scroll, buffeting the faces of the shrieking crowd and cracking the windows of every building on the square. The nooses dangling from the scaffold whipped upwards like kites on a stiff breeze. The magic pressed harder, making your ears pop and your eyes burn, churning the grey clouds above and channelling swirling patterns in the mist. There was a crush at the entrance of the square as the spectators tried to escape. Grandame’s voice rang in your mind, calm and true:

It’s all alright, my darling. It’s all alright. You remember what I told you? Sometimes you cannot fight. Sometimes all you can do is protect your coven, and run. Leave the first to me, and the latter job is yours. 

The guards recovered first, and reacted violently. They threw Grandame to the ground and pummelled her with their fists and boots as her magic wavered and strained. The priest was next, bellowing prayers through pale lips. And you: you were screaming her name, begging, howling, fighting, crying so hard you scarcely noticed another guard loosening your binds as the Justice directed everyone but Grandame down from the scaffold as she was dragged back to her feet, back to the noose. And yet she was still calm, still proud, still straining to stand straight and tall. 

NO, GRANDAME!! NO! NO!! PLEASE–!! 

Go back to the house. Gather what you can, tend my garden, and go. He saw your face, that thing, and he will come for you again. You remember what I always say about the devil? You must run. Her eyes were on you, her voice urgent and strong in your head even as they tugged the noose around her neck. I  love you. I love you. I love you. I lo–

The trapdoor beneath her opened, and the wave of her magic dissolved as soon as her life was extinguished, leaving a stink of ozone in the air strong enough to burn the back of your throat. All around you was calamity and terror, and yet you were numb: your eyes fixed on the limp form at the end of the rope just visible beneath the scaffold, and a silence like you had never known in your head; dark and cold as the open maw of a grave. 

Your pardon came, heavy as lead, unwelcome as a wolf at the door. Every other woman on the scaffold that day was granted a stay of execution until the following morning, because the square had descended into chaos that the guards nor the Justice could quell. As for you, Grandame’s performance left the authorities in no doubt that you were a victim of witchcraft and possession yourself.  They returned you to Newgate in a covered cart with the rest of the condemned, and sat you in a small private cell behind the guards’ mess hall. A guard was posted at the door, and he stared at you unashamedly through the bars. The priest entered, prayed over you, left again; you sat mutely through it all, completely numb, tears streaming silently down your cheeks. The sun had risen high in the sky and begun its descent once more towards darkness before the door opened once more, and you were formally set free. The pardon itself was somewhat anticlimactic - a roll of parchment marked with the seal of the Chief Justice, a final clatter as your manacles were removed, and the squeal of Newgate’s barred gates swinging closed behind you. You were free. And for the first time in your life, you were utterly, completely alone. 

The telepathy of witches, which had been there since before you were born - sacred, comforting, warm - had fallen silent. Where before there had always been the flickering presence of magic, of other spirits attuned with yours, now there was only cool, lonely silence. 

Grandame was really gone! It was unimaginable, irreconcilable. It was as though the entire world had inverted somehow; as though the colours had faded to greys, or the earth and sky had swapped places in her absence. Thinking of a world without her knocked you sideways; you leaned into a wall. Her horrible final moments. Her final words. I love you. 

Who were you without her? Where would you go? What would you do now? It was sundown. You had no home, no family, no Coven. You were alone, as witches should never be. Your powers were weak and your body weaker still. All you wanted was to go home. Why? Home was an empty shell now. But it was yours, and Grandame’s final instructions had been clear: Go back to the house. Gather what you can, tend my garden, and go. 

You closed your eyes, rolled your head back against the rough plaster of the wall. Why did Grandame want you to tend to her garden? She knew as well as you did that the cottage was likely destroyed, vandalised, looted, and unlivable, the garden burnt and earth salted. You could never return to living there, even as a free woman: your neighbours wouldn’t allow it, and to try would incite violence. You couldn’t work as a midwife. The corruption of a witchcraft accusation would cling to you like tree sap. Whichever way you looked at it, your life in London was over, returning to the cottage was pointless, and tending to the garden was downright fanciful. But it was Grandame’s final instruction. 

You pushed off the wall and painstakingly walked from Newgate back down to the river with your head bowed, terrified that someone would recognise you. No one did. The Londoners streaming around you at Blackfriars and on the road that sloped down St Andrew’s Hill to the river barely noticed you were there. An innocent woman died at Tyburn, not the first and certainly not the last, and the city bustled merrily along as though your world hadn’t fallen apart. Grandame was dead and London lived on unchanged: stinking and noisy and careless. You pulled your tattered cloak tight around yourself, flinching when someone walked too close. 

Your footsteps were slow and leaden with pain. You stopped frequently, your bruised, aching limbs trembling under your weight after weeks in shackles and enduring the beatings of the guards. You descended the wherry steps and climbed into the boat with difficulty. The wherryman had to help you, handing you aboard as though you were a much older woman. You stared blankly into the brown Thames, knuckles blanched as you gripped the railing of the boat as it trundled back to Wapping. 

As expected, the cottage was a gaping wound. It had been vandalised, its windows smashed, door daubed with curses and spattered with rotten fruit and shit. You forced the door and picked  your way across the carpet of shattered glass and clay pots littering the floor, sidestepping the overturned table and chairs smashed to matchsticks. The cottage, once full of warmth and humming with magic, was cold and hollowed out. You found yourself collecting whatever relics of your former life the looters hadn’t stolen or destroyed: the chipped mortar and pestle, a dented copper cauldron, a pewter cup. Carved bone runestones, scattered over the kitchen flags like broken teeth. The small spade that Grandame had been holding, that final day, when she came in from the garden before the constables kicked in the door. 

You thumbed the wooden handle thoughtfully. Tend to my garden. She’d had mud on her skirts that morning. Something fluttered in your chest, something warm and enticing that felt like hope. You hurried outside, dropping to your knees in the churned up mess of weeds that was once Grandame’s immaculate kitchen garden, and hacked at the ground with the spade. 

The dusk was deepening to nightfall. You had to light a candle and return to the garden, digging fruitlessly for a while before you were rewarded with a dull clunk under the spade, spreading up your forearm as you struck the earth. You tore up clods of dirt with your fingers when the spade was too slow, eventually pulling up the small wooden chest that had once been kept beneath Grandame’s bed. It was engraved with runes, anointed with protection spells, and under your hands it glowed with warmth. Its clasps were wrought iron and very heavy, but they popped open easily as you tried the lid. The smell that rushed up at you was so familiar it brought tears to your eyes. Grandame. Grandame, condensed into an essence. Rosemary. Frankincense. Lavender. Mint. Rose petals. Pine resin. Old paper. The slightest whiff of ozone, the ghost of old magic.  The contents of the box were tightly packed. Grandame’s Grimoire. Her satchel. Stubs of enchanted candles. Her silver ring, which fit perfectly onto your thumb. Pouches of herbs. Seeds and dried cuttings, enough to grow a garden of your own. There was enough here to start again, to rebuild, to continue living the only way you knew how; as a witch, even if you were coven-less and weakened, exiled and alone. Grandame’s final act took on new meaning, as did her quiet stoicism for the duration of your imprisonment. It was a sacrifice. She knew she would not survive it, knew that the Mortals’ suspicion and fear and vitriol demanded blood, and at Tyburn, she offered hers up. It was not merely for safekeeping that she buried the box, a witches’ toolkit. It was insurance, preparation, a promise already kept. From the start, she was accepting of death. She was protecting her coven. She was protecting you.

You sat for a while silent and still, filling your lungs with the smell of her as your tears flowed freely down your cheeks. The night air was full of noises from the riverbank; footsteps, the shouts and snatches of songs from a nearby tavern, the muffled steps and voices of workers returning home, the din from the distant wharf, the yowl of a cat. 

It was only when footsteps approached behind you, too loud to be from the wherry steps, that you were jolted from your sobs. You spun quickly, upending the box in your haste to stumble to your feet. There, leaning against the garden wall with Greymalkin in his arms, was the vampire. 

Your first emotion, burning white-hot and ferocious, was rage. 

“YOU!” You spat, venom bubbling in your throat. The vampire didn’t respond straight away, merely drew his slender fingers over Greymalkin’s sleek black head in a deft, firm stroke. Greymalkin wriggled, shedding dark hairs over the yellow jerkin, and you stared in exhausted, furious astonishment. Your words stumbled in your throat. “You–! You–” 

The vampire’s eyes, glittering as they had before, slipped from Greymalkin up to your face. His eyebrows quirked, as if to say take your time, and your already simmering blood ratcheted up to a boil. There was no space for fear, only your thundering rage. “Give me my fucking cat!” The vampire’s lips curved; you recognised the lethal angle of the arc from that first meeting, from your dreams every night since.

“Ara,” he exclaimed, his voice melodic and accented as it had been the last time you spoke privately. “He’s quite happy here with me. I won’t do him any harm.” A beat; silence crackling in the bitter air. “I don’t mean ya any harm either, sweeting.” You scoffed, the sound sharp and ragged in your throat. 

“Oh, really? You expect me to believe that, you repulsive creature? My Grandame is dead, hanged, because of you! I was locked up, tortured, starved, because of YOU! After what you did to the Phillipses?” The vampire, who had been half-heartedly listening while scratching Greymalkin behind the ears, looked up.

“-Who?” 

You ground your teeth in fury, your hands shaking at your sides as you curled them into fists. Your blood was up, your humours bubbling. Deep inside, barely a quickening, the tiniest flicker of magic awoke. You tried not to react; tried to fan the spark into a blaze without drawing his attention. Your body was weak. Your magic dulled. But you still had fight in you yet. 

“The Phillips family. You killed them, and ate their baby.” Your voice was trembling now, vocal cords raw from crying and unspent rage. Greymalkin twisted in the vampire’s arms, sensing your distress, and your attention snapped to him. “-Greymalkin, come!” 

The vampire’s brow furrowed slightly. You could see his grip tighten around the cat’s sleek body as he stroked him again, his voice thoughtful when he eventually answered. 

“...Ah. Aye, I did do that. But see, I only do what I have to, to survive. Ya can’t blame a man for not wanting to starve.” You spat on the ground in disgust. 

“You’re no man. Grandame was right. You creatures are nothing like us. You’re foul. You’re a parasite! You’re a filthy baby-murdering monster—” The vampire snorted, laughter burbling in the space between his nose and his mouth, and your temper splintered, sending a crackle  of energy to your fingertips. “—Don’t you dare laugh at me! And GIVE ME MY FUCKING CAT!” He shrugged, smile still curling his lip, and released Greymalkin, who leapt nimbly down from his arms and gave a satisfied little shiver on reaching the ground. Bizarrely, he was unafraid, and settled down on the ground between you and began to preen before slipping behind you into the ruin of the cottage. You stared after him in disbelief as the vampire began picking at the black hairs on his doublet. 

“It’s funny you’re so attached to them, sweeting. The Mortals I mean. They’re mayflies, here for a blink and then they’re rotting in the ground, good for nothing but fuel for us, and they hate you. But here you are calling me a murderer. They’re the murderers. They strung up the old woman, not me. And I’m sorry. Truly, I’m so sorry for it. I wish I could’ve gotten to her first. I was there, you know? At the hanging. I wish I could’ve helped her, could’ve spared her the—”

“I know you were there, you loathsome fucking cockroach. I saw you from the scaffold. You’re hard to miss with that hideous fucking outfit you have on.”

“It’s good, isn’t it? I dyed the mantle myself. Did it the old way, the way old fat King Henry outlawed for us. But where’s he now? In a vault somewhere, rotten. And where am I? Or any of my people? Alive and fighting and holding onto the old ways. Like you.”

“I’m nothing like you,” you spat, though his words had stirred up something in you, buried deep in the murky pond of two centuries of memory. The Saffron Ban. The old King had outlawed yellow, and forbade the dyeing of cloth with saffron, convinced that the colour was a symbol of independence, of defiance against the Crown. But only in Ireland; the land he was determined to subdue, home of a culture he was desperate to crush. 

The yellow. The voice. The slippery way he wove his true heritage into the lies he spun on the Phillips’ doorstep. “You’re Irish then. I knew that was nonsense about the Earl. You didn’t fight at Curlew, for or against the Queen.”

“Nahhh, ‘course I didn’t!” he chuckled dismissively. “Sure, I’m Irish, but I don’t go back too often as of late, not with ye Sasanachs carving it up. I’m hardly after fightin’. Here now, what would I go and do a thing like that for, pet? What good’s a battle for me?”

“Easy pickings for a carrion bird like you, I’d imagine.”

“Ah, ye dote. Only when the sun goes down. And by then the blood’s all dried up. I like my meat fresh, when I can get it.” Bile rose in your throat. The Phillipses were fresh meat. Agynes was fresh meat. The baby was fresh meat. And so were you. You couldn’t take it any longer - the surface tension of your reunion had to rupture. 

“You’re here to kill me?” Unbelievably, the vampire looked flabbergasted. 

“Kill ye? No, no. I don’t want to kill ye, pet. I want to ask somethin’ of ye.” You scoffed as his words landed. 

“You really think I’d give you anything? After everything you’ve done?! You ruined my life!! I wouldn’t piss on you if your ugly fucking cape was on fire.” Your heart was hammering now, loud enough that he could surely hear it. His eyes were fixed on yours, glittering gold and scarlet in the glow of your taper, which was burning low. You eased your weight onto your back foot, inching painstakingly back to the shell of the cottage. Some wards remained, a threshold too, and that might be enough— 

“—ah, ye aren’t too friendly are ye, sweeting? No matter. I’m sure we’ll see plenty of each other. And all I ask of ye is a little favour. An exchange really. Ye give me somethin’, and I’ll give ye somethin’ back…” Your guts twisted, hot and heavy as stone in your belly, the way they had when you’d woken up from dreams of him, of the sharp toothed smile held at bay by the threshold. You retreated back a little further, inch by agonising inch, glaring at him with fists clenched as you tried to coax the crackle of power thrumming there into something strong enough to shoot at him. You knew you would probably only have the stamina and opportunity for one blast: you had to make it count. The vampire took your silence as consideration, and continued. 

“—See, what I need is a rare thing, and it occurred to me a while back that a witch might be able to get it for me. But there’s not so many of ye around these days, is there? There’s not so many of my kind, either. And my people, my real people? Ara, they’re all long gone, sweeting. Just like you, all alone now, hm? And see, this house stood empty after they came to get ye, so I know you’ve no Coven kickin’ about. Shame. Ye must feel awful lonely, up here.” He tapped his temple with his index finger; a ring that once sat on Goodman Phillips’ pinky glittered there. “-But I can help ye. See, witches aren’t the only ones connected to each other. Our kind, Others, we’re not supposed to be alone, are we? We need… fellowship. Community. Friendship. I can give ye that, and ye can give me my people back. Should be easy enough.” You realised with a start that he had advanced as  you had retreated; he nudged Grandame’s Grimoire with the toe of his boot. “There might even be some spells in this book here.” 

Does he ever shut up? You thought numbly, even as his words permeated your skull. His voice was lilting and entreating and honey-gold, slipping over his slick lips. His face, a broad, handsome face, was open and smiling; a tempting face, a vulpine face, a placid freshwater pool that concealed a whirlpool just beneath the surface. He stepped forwards again, his eyes flaring in the candlelight. You had stopped breathing. He hadn’t blinked since he entered the garden. A string of drool, viscous and milky, slipped down his chin. You spun on your heel, dropped your taper,  and made a break for the house. 

He was faster, and caught your wrist in a vicelike grip, before you made it two paces, spinning you effortlessly into his chest like a dance partner. You struggled, aching bones straining against his grip as the chill memory of your arrest submerged your brain in icy adrenaline. They’d caught you. They’d dragged you hands behind your back, so you couldn’t summon a spell. They’d taken you away, and beaten you, and killed Grandame. You would not be trapped again. You kicked out, striking him hard in the side of the knee, and twisted into him as he buckled, breaking his grip on your wrist. You were running before the heat of his palm could leech from your skin into the cold air; the same air that rushed past your ear as the bulk of the vampire’s body collided with yours, his boots hitting the earth with a thud as though he had jumped. Or just landed.

His arms encircled you like vines, his breath hot against the nape of your neck. Every hair on your body stood on end, your skin bristling, and a shrill gasp tore from your throat. 

“Shh sweeting,” the vampire purred, his voice like a noxious gas. “You don’t have to struggle. Don’t cry…” You ground your teeth together so hard the enamel squealed. Your own voice, when it came, was a hiss, fracturing as you writhed.

“You don’t–tell–me– what to do!– You– creeping– crumb of shit!” Your elbow, the joints sharpened by starvation, drove into the thick plain of his torso beneath the ribs, and as he grunted in surprise you spun against him again, slipping out of his arms and driving a fist into his nose as you turned. The impact ricocheted from your knuckles up to your underarm, the sensation of bone striking bone flooding your gut like nausea, but you struck again. The vampire was winded, but caught your fist and wrenched it back against your wrist almost to the point of snapping the bones; in wild desperation you lashed out with your free hand and clawed down the length of his face with your fingernails. The scratches you left behind were wet and red and angry, and little half-moons of his flesh were bedded in under your nails as you ripped your hand away. But it wasn’t this that made him scream, his cry puncturing the air like the shriek of a fox. 

It was Grandame’s ring. It had scorched his face, leaving behind a furious, swollen weal. He reared back, but you struck again, seizing his head like a ball and forcing the ring flush against his eyesocket. Agony made him clumsy, shock slowed his reaction. He dropped your wrist and you scrambled backwards to the house, tripping over the threshold and catching yourself on the doorframe, spinning around in panic. It was only by the moonlight and the glowing coals of his eyes that you could make him out; he was clutching his face, one eyelid sagging as another weal swelled the flesh. Blood dribbled from the wound, running down his cheek like tears. His expression, what you could see of it, was murderous. 

You brought your hands together, funnelled the energy crackling between them into a beam of power, and threw everything you had behind the hex you lobbed at him. It caught him between the throat and the shoulder, a sizzling brand that cauterised the flesh, and he roared again, charging forwards against the threshold, colliding against the barrier.

The handsome mask he wore had degraded; melted, like beeswax. His face had contorted, grown waxy and hollow; the mouth was pooling with saliva and lethal with rows of narrow, white, razor sharp fangs. His hands had gruesomely lengthened, fingers lethally sharp and tipped with claws. The eyes burned, red and terrible. For a moment, you faced each other; chests heaving, eyes flashing, Immortal forms on full display. The darkness beyond the garden was suddenly splintered by howling dogs and angry men; your confrontation was drawing attention. 

“Go,” you snarled, your entire body trembling with the effort of standing. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll go now. LEAVE!” 

The vampire, still staggering against the heft of your spell and the burning weal on his face, let out a crackling, rasping laugh. He probed his face with a clawed hand, inspecting the damage. 

“Ah, sweetness. Ye didn’t have to do all that. See, I’d have made it so you never felt grief again. I’d have taken all your pain…” 

“No one could do that,” you replied. “Certainly not you.” 

“Suit yourself,” he hissed, pulling his hideously engorged hand from his swollen, sizzling face. “I’m sure you’ll be quick to beg me, next time we meet.” 

“There won’t be a next time,” you  snarled. He just laughed. 

“Sure there will, ye dote. I like that waspish sting o’yours. And remember, I have a favour to ask ye.” He spread his arms wide and bowed theatrically, inclining his head to best show the ruined, blistering side of his face, grinning broadly all the while; when he straightened up, he smoothed out his mantle and pulled his doublet straight with a flourish, before turning on his heel and retreating up the garden the way he came. His monstrous form melted away as he walked; the claws retracted, the hands shrank. On reaching the gate he called out once more, taunting and smug, over his shoulder. 

“I’ll be seeing ye, sweeting. The name’s Remmick, by the way.” 

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