A Vampire’s Guide to History: Volume 1, Ch 6-8-ish, Rough Outline

Sally Temperance Cudd has never suffered a bite before. Not from an animal and certainly not from a human. She’s fuming, sitting at the emergency room after a few hours of indecision of whether to go or not. She just wants to get checked to make sure there’s nothing wrong with her, that’s all, and that’s what she tells the medical student who performs her examination. She just wants to make sure.

The medical student is very understanding. They’ve seen each other around in the hallways. She’s pre-law, isn’t she? She’s a little flattered that he would even know. He’s seen her in the park too. He goes there to workout sometimes. Tells her she should be mindful of the hour of day she goes there. Afternoons are fine but she should stay out of there at night. Just a friendly warning. His care is kind of sweet.

Though Sally is the loyal type of girlfriend she’s never been so infuriated by anything Patrick has ever done before so she allows herself some leeway. She’s allowed to acknowledge the sweetness of another human being when her boyfriend bites her. Well, barely bit her. He barely drew blood and it stopped bleeding straight away, didn’t it? And she begins to feel guilty and hurries out of the emergency room, phone to hear ear, trying to get a hold of Patrick.

He doesn’t reply. He hasn’t replied when she wakes up, when she gets ready for her morning class, at lunch, during her afternoon run in the park, and he hasn’t replied before she sits down for her evening class. She calls him the minute she’s out and finally he picks up. She tells him they really need to talk and he says he knows, and that he’s sorry but he has somewhere he has to be right now. She doesn’t even get a response to what exactly that’s supposed to mean.

Patrick is debating what one wears to an appointment with the immortals of Oxford. Or perhaps he’s only going to see one of them. Surely it wasn’t Victor who left the invitation or he’d started there rather than with a handwritten note. Are vampires not supposed to bite people? Fuck, what if he’s walking into some sort of Thou Aren’t Supposed To Exist stabby-stake situation.

Are stakes a thing?

The more he thinks, the more questions pop into his head and if he’s honest he might rather be stabby-staked than have to continue on eternally with no real answers. He lands in the choice to have a tiny bit of faith that whoever would send a printed invitation on high-end paper, rather than sneakily get rid of him if he was to be got rid of, must be on the more traditional side of civility.

Though he did bite Sally.

He can’t think about that right now. He can’t think about how to explain this to her or how to apologize to her or even how to relate himself to her since she’s all human and he most certainly is not. He had dreamed of growing old with someone in a quaint cottage near a small village in a quiet English hamlet with zero tourist appeal. He had thought, more than once, that perhaps that someone could be Sally and now she’d be the one growing old while he… what? Stays as still as possible all day to stave off the hunger?

The reality is suddenly crushing in from all sides. If it can even be called reality. It all seems like some fever dream. He’s supposed to go to a location without knowing what awaits him? He’s supposed to just accept his fate and roll with it? Fuck. That.

He’s going but he’s going to give them a piece of his mind.

If there’s no rule against biting some strange person in the street - hitting them with your car first or not - then perhaps there should be. Reform could be needed here. Or, at the very least, rebellion. He can use the frustration for something productive, surely. He can confront and shake his fist and make demands. Surely.

Thirty minutes later he rings the doorbell of the swankiest house he’s ever stood in front of, riled up and ready to go. The door is opened by a young and smartly dressed butler who offers him the kindest smile he’s ever had from a stranger and tells him to please wait in the front library and someone will come to greet him.

It makes the frustration ebb in an instant. This is real. This is all real. And he’s finally about to get some answers to his many questions.

He waits in the opulent front library, unwilling to gawk. It’s not like he’s never been to beautiful places before. He’s an Oxford student, for God’s sake. But there’s something about the room that feels different. A weight to the collection of books that comes from the very real possibility that whoever started it may still be adding to it. Also, if this is the front library then what could the back library be like? Bigger? Bolder?

The door opens and a man who looks to be closer to sixty walks through it. Graying hair, stubbled jaw, rather piercing dark-brown eyes. He introduces himself as Linus and asks if Patrick is ready. Patrick is, in fact, not ready at all for whatever he’s meant to be ready for but he still nods. The man smiles and together they walk through the hall into a larger room at the back of the house where there’s a gathering of more men.

Or, Patrick deduces, of vampires. Who are male? Male vampires? Vampire-men? He has no idea what the correct way to address them is and what he wants now is to find a corner to hide in until he can suss out if he’s in any immediate danger. He decides on a corner, is headed for it, when he overhears a conversation about the founding of Oxford university that stops him in his tracks.

He can’t keep his mouth shut since he’s been drilled with the origins of the university since day one on campus. He corrects the faulty information, making the room go quiet. All eyes are suddenly on him. He stands by his correction. The murmured conversation of the room picks back up again and the group of three men he’s interrupted engage him in a conversation that makes him long for the corner.

He only understands half of the historical references though he tries to lean on the knowledge he’s gained through his love of architecture through the ages. It’s not enough. He knows it’s not enough. He knows he’s making a poor first impression. Moreover, he gets the notion that everyone’s mind had already been made up before he got there and when someone refers to him as ”new” it seems to confirm it.

He’s being looked down on by vampires who may have been around for centuries. Rather than guide him they’re like a pack of wolves circling their prey. His hackles go up. He’s not getting any answers out of them. They invited him to have something to play with. He excuses himself and head’s for the door. Linus intercedes, asks if he doesn’t want to stay, dinner is about to be served. Patrick is tempted but something in Linus’ gaze tells him this will only be another test he’ll most likely fail. He wants to say something but can’t bring himself to. He thanks Linus for the invitation and leaves, questioning his own sanity.

He enters his dorm room starving and regretting his stubborn pride. He should’ve stayed. He would’ve learned something. Then he notices a shadow on his bed, someone is lying on it. Gavin? Patrick turns on the lights and jumps back at the sight of the complete stranger, slowly sitting up like it’s taking all of his energy out of him. The stranger groans, stretches, fixes Patrick with the same sort of piercing gaze that Linus had, and Patrick instinctively knows who it is.

Victor.