She could no longer feel nervous, but she could feel awe. She felt it now as she opened the heavy stone door and entered the chamber. She drew back the heavy red curtain. Beyond it was another, which she drew back, and then another. On the great bed enclosed by the curtains lay the figure of the one she served. She stood beside the bed and softly stroked his face.
The hand of the sleeper shot up and gripped her arm.
'Quis me conturbat? Who disturbs me?' came the dusty voice.

'Domine, discipulus est. It is your Disciple, my lord,' she said. 'Remember how you love me.'

'Disciple,' he purred. 'I would have killed anyone else. Speak to me.'

'My lord, you have slept long. The book has been found.'

'I have heard of many books. I have written and read many. Do not tell me riddles.'

'I speak of the book which was lost, my lord. The book that contained the knowledge of doom, and which we thought destroyed. A copy of it, at any rate.'

'It is certain, Disciple?'

'We have performed the rituals. The worlds beyond confirm it. And we have been fortunate. A human has the key, and has been promiscuous in his calls for aid in translating it,' she said.

'Then it is time to rise. Summon the brethren.'

'It shall be done.' She turned to go, but he spoke again.

'Tell me, beloved; how long have I slept?' The Disciple felt the ground shake.

'I confess, my lord... it was more than eight hundred years.'

A pause. 'What became of the Angli?' he asked. It was the question she had expected.

'They have grown,' she said. She explained how things stood.

'I see,' he said. 'I shall consider this. Now you may leave.' The Disciple turned and vanished in a billow of black muslin.

The time had come again, then. He must take up the battle and he must bear it alone, or with only his handful of disciples, of whom he trusted only Her. He must fight for all his kind against the peril they now all faced. Yet there was hope amid the apprehension. This knowledge might do great harm in the wrong hands; it might do so also in the right hands.
It all meant leaving this refuge, so homely after all this time, and risking his being amongst the commons, the herd, the kine. He despised them, but could never forget that even the puniest of them, the puniest of a puny breed, could have the advantage of him, if the circumstances so dictated. The world was wrong, and he would make it right, or at least have his vengeance. And with vengeance would come the sweet plunder.

With a little effort of memory, he lifted himself off the bed. Pundit and Weld brought him his robe; Last and Neck bowed and handed him his amulet and his greaves. The weight of them dispelled his last regrets and restored him to his purpose. Pundit polished his claws.
'Now what shall we do, my lord?' asked Weld.

'Now we kill them all,' he responded. He sat down on his throne and they bowed. 'Look at me,' he said, permitting himself a small smile, in which the disciples basked for a brief but delightful they took the path which led up, up and out of the caves beneath the hills, and eventually emerged into the moonlit countryside of the Cotswolds.

For thirty generations men had driven sheep across these hills, married and given in marriage, gone down to Bath or Stroud to market, and built their houses in the pale-coloured stone. That was their world and the life of their country, of their world.
Now he would end it.

The Home Secretary scribbled a note in the margin of the last memo in the red box, then relaxed. The day had gone well. It was good to make things happen, good to sit here in this office, good to be noticed and pointed at as the coming man. It was also good to be a father: little Diana adored him. He poured himself a brandy. Good brandy, why did he feel so on edge?
It was foolish. His life had been leading up to this, he had risked his neck on every continent for the sake of a reputation that would make men say that he was worthy of his father, and more. No reason why I should not have India or the Treasury next, still young as statesmen went, and then... But the fact was, Winston Spencer Churchill was feeling bored.

He pulled on his coat, picked up his stick, and left the building. London was dark, and shifting clouds shut out the moonlight. It was not quiet, though. What with the shouting of the roast-nut sellers and the rattling of the horse-drawn buses and the rolling of barrels and the singing of drunkards, there was enough noise to drown out almost anything.

Almost anything. Winston was crossing the street when he heard the shout. Shouts were hardly unusual in the back alleys around Westminster. Then there came a growl, deep and sharp at the same time. Some wild animal, here? He glanced around for a bobby; but he saw no-one except a woman, dressed in a style that had gone out in the eighties, and a black man standing near a street lamp. He briefly considered approaching him, then rejected the idea, and plunged into the darkness of the alley. The background hum of noise was still there, but the shouting and growling seemed to have stopped. He halted, doubting himself, and called out: 'who's there?'

No answer. He began to make his way back to the main street. There was the growling again, much closer. He turned and felt a rush of wind as a large figure, dimly visible as the clouds parted, ran past. He could hear the footsteps of a second figure approaching quickly. It barged into him, stumbled, and sprawled on the ground. Winston gripped his stick tightly, and leaned forward for a closer look. And then the world changed forever. Before him was a visage of unspeakable grimness, all fangs and swellings.

'Good Lord,' said a voice behind him. Winston drew back in revulsion from the creature, instinctively raising his stick in defence, and the monster struck out with tremendous force, shattering the stick and sending Winston reeling. As he stumbled backwards, he saw that the voice behind him had come from the black man he had seen before. The thing was attacking him, with blows that would have stunned any man had they connected. Decisive action was necessary. Winston attacked from behind, seizing the monster's left arm. It shook him off, but the distraction enabled the black man to land a powerful blow which spun the monster around. The creature s response was swift and fearsome, a punch which laid his opponent low. It advanced on the man with deadly intent, but Winston now cast aside all restraint and stabbed the monster with the broken end of his stick.

To his astonishment, the creature did not convulse or fall, but disintegrated. There was nothing whatsoever left.

'What the Devil?' he said. He helped his comrade-in-arms to stand up. Did you see that? he asked.
'I saw it,' said the other. He was a good-looking chap, strong and fit. On closer inspection Winston realised that this was a mulatto, not a Negro.

'My name's Walter,' he said.

'Do you recognise me?' asked Winston.

'Every young man in England recognises you, Mr. Churchill. We would all like to have had your adventures.'

'I never expected to have adventures within earshot of the Mall,' said Winston. 'I have never seen such a creature.'

'I have,' said a new voice. 'But never in England.'

'And you would be?'

An oldish middle-aged man stepped into the little pool of moonlight. 'Rudyard Kipling, at your service,' he said. 'I must say, you did well, Home Secretary. But you are not exactly the usual type of box-wallah.'

'Talk about a turn-up for the books,' said Walter. 'You write poems.'

Rudyard considered for a moment. 'I write verse,' he said. 'And novels. And I take an interest in books generally.'

'So do I,' said Winston, 'when I have the time. Let us go elsewhere, as I think you have some explaining to do.'

'Mister - what was your name again?'

'Tull,' said Walter.

'Mr. Tull, I think you should join us. We need to go to my apartment,' said Rudyard. 'There are things to tell you.'

The Disciple considered the furnishings of their new flat. The previous owners had had poor taste indeed, in more ways than one but she could soon remedy that. She liked red. There would be red curtains, red carpets and red wallpaper. Nice.

There was a knock at the door. 'Come in,' she said.

The man struggled intermittently as they brought him before the Disciple. 'Good evening, Mr. Sim,' she said. 'It seems your little scheme did not work. That loose end remains untied.'

'That was not my fault,' he managed to say, wheezing. 'I expected him to come alone.'

'But he did not,' she said, 'and I suspect trickery. You should not try trickery, Mr. Sim. We are the masters of it.' She stared into his eyes. 'You are not sharing all you know,' she said finally. 'You are hiding something from us. Suppose I kill you. What would you give me, to avoid that?'

Sim breathed heavily. 'You promised not to kill me,' he gasped.

'No. Indeed, what is the point of threats? I can find out all you know. You will tell me gladly. And in return, I will give you the greatest of gifts.' Her face transformed, and Sim whimpered.

'The wisdom of the East has its limits,' said Rudyard. 'There are stories which Europe tells which have never been heard east of Suez. And vice versa, of course. But the wise ones of Hindustan have no conception that the unclean ones whom king Vikramaditya subdued still infest the world. The Ill Wind.' He lowered his voice. 'The vampires.'

Walter whistled. Winston picked up his glass and drained it.

'When I was working on the Star, one of my contacts, an assistant magistrate called Barton, told me of a set of particularly grisly murders in a village near Delhi. My first thought, after I heard the details-'

'What details?' asked Winston.

'I prefer not to say. I thought it was a revival of the Thug cult, but what I found was actually worse. Some villagers had caught the murderer red-handed, beaten him severely - so badly that no-one could survive - and thrown the body, as they thought, into a pit, then called for the police. I was with Barton when their messenger arrived. He sent an Indian officer to the scene along with two constables, and said I could go along. I thought it sounded like a good story.
'We arrived at midday. The villagers assumed at first I was in charge, and they were very keen for me to know that they had captured the murderer in the act, mercifully in time. They showed me the victim, still bloody from numerous wounds, and he showed me by signs that his attacker was much stronger than he, and that he used his teeth. Then they took us to the pit. One man let a rope down, and another climbed down to attach it to the body so that they could haul it out. Then as he reached the bottom, there was a snarl and a scream.

'The policemen were just as surprised as I to see that the creature was still alive. They decided that the next man should descend with a torch just far enough to see the creature, then throw a net over him and tie him in it. It worked, and we hauled it up with ropes. All of us by now knew we could not be dealing with a common murderer.

'As the thing came out, it began to struggle more fiercely than anything I have seen, fiercer than a tiger. It managed to rip its way through the bonds, but too late. As the sunlight struck it, it began to smoulder, then caught fire and burned away to nothing.

Walter leaned back in his seat, and let out a breath. 'You hear stories,' he said.

'Indeed,' said Winston, getting to his feet. 'Are we in one of your novels?'

'This is no vanity, Home Secretary.'

'Quite. I am His Majesty's Secretary of State, it is my job to know of anything that menaces His Majesty's subjects, and I read, or could read, every police or secret service file in the Empire. Why have I never seen a word of this?'

'Of what? Of creatures that vanish to nothing when slain, which are next to impossible to capture? It was only by the slimmest of chances that creature in India was taken; and it was probably a very new and weak vampire. I am convinced that most people who ever encounter these beings die very quickly, so there are no witnesses. Or witnesses who thought they saw something in the darkness. No, every policeman and secret serviceman in the Empire would dismiss such talk.'

'The lucky ones die quickly,' commented Walter quietly.

'Yes,' said Rudyard. 'The unlucky ones... you have seen.'

'Which brings us back to the matter in hand,' said Winston. 'What were those creatures doing? What were you doing in that alley? It is not where one would expect to find an eminent man of letters.'

'Until recently I had never heard of any vampires in England,' said Rudyard. 'After that incident in India I read what I could, but almost all writings on the matter were and are contemptible. I concluded the matter was strange, and worthy of attention, but there was nothing to be done. I even began to doubt my own memory of the business.'

'Until recently, I take it.'

'A book dealer of my acquaintance wrote to me saying he had a manuscript fragment partly in a foreign language, or actually several foreign languages, which he thought might be Indian Hindi or Tamil or Bengali, perhaps. He was barking up the wrong tree: I am no linguist. Sim, his name was. This was some months ago. Then yesterday I received an urgent telegram, here,' he rummaged among the papers on his desk, 'this is it. "Meeting essential, 9pm Horseferry Road end of Strutton Ground. Vital for Empire. Sim." And I went.'

'We were some way from the Horseferry Road,' said Walter. 'What happened?'

'I saw Sim from a distance, he gestured and I had to follow. He kept appearing then slipping away, and I was about to go home and put it down as a poor joke when those two vampires attacked. I was lucky that they were clumsy, and I heard them coming. They also, I think, did not realise that I knew of the existence of vampires, so I was not struck with terror when they revealed themselves.'

Winston had not sat down during all this. Now, he realised that he did not actually doubt a word. He felt more alive than he had in weeks, or months. Deadly danger was close, and he could fight it - indeed he already had fought, and won. There was no doubt that he liked victory very much. He felt more exhilaration than fear.

'What happened then?' asked Walter. Fortunately I was carrying a cross, a gift from my wife, which I brandished at them. Then when they heard you coming they panicked, one said it s a trap , and they fled. You slew one, and the other is still at large.'

'As is the elusive Mr. Sim,' said Winston. 'He must be in league with them.'

'With your agreement, gentlemen, I would like to pay him a visit. He is our clue in this affair. You see it is most odd to me that I we should encounter two vampires working together like that. All the reasonably reliable information that I have is that they are generally intensely solitary creatures, as hostile to each other as they are to us.'

'Then this certainly falls into the Home Secretary's remit,' said Winston. 'This is criminal conspiracy, of however peculiar a kind. Mr. Tull, are you with us?'

'Yes, sir. This will be an adventure worth having.'

'May I ask, Mr. Tull, what brought you to my aid at just the right moment?'

'I was waiting to meet some of the lads,' he said. 'Then I heard the same noises you did.'

'The lads?'

'Some of the Tottenham lads,' he said. 'I came down to catch up with a couple of old friends from Spurs.'

'Spurs? Are you a horseman?' asked Winston.

'He means Tottenham Hotspur,' said Rudyard. 'Football. Mr. Tull, may I ask you a favour? There is a Gladstone in the next room could you fetch it, please?' Walter did so.

While he was gone, Winston asked, 'Do you not like the man?'

'Not very much,' said Rudyard.

'Is it because he is black?'

'What? No! He's a footballer. Oafish game.'

'Not all of us can afford to play polo, Mr. Kipling.'

'Here we are,' said Walter, re-entering. 'What have you got in here?' He placed the bag on the table.

Rudyard opened it and drew out a short, narrow sword. 'This is a beautiful piece,' he said. 'Japanese beheading sword, made around fifteen-hundred, still as sharp as the day it was forged.' All three men stared at it entranced by the play of light on the grain of its surface.

'That is truly beautiful,' said Walter. Rudyard considered him for moment, then offered him the hilt. Walter held it at a distance, as though afraid to get too close.

'Beheading works,' said Rudyard. 'And this...' He held out a crossbow. 'That one is more modern. German craftsmanship, quarrels made of teak. Are you familiar with them?'

Winston nodded. 'It will serve.'

'Everyone must carry crosses and holy water in reserve. Are you ready?'

Winston hesitated. 'I should inform the Prime Minister of this menace.'

'Will he believe you? I revert to the argument I made before.'

'Then I will write a memorandum for him to open in the event of my death. He has a right to know of dangers to the country, to the Empire, and so has the King. It would be remiss of me not to write to him. Permit me twenty minutes.'

'Slain?'

'Yes, my lord. There is no doubt.' The Disciple held up a vial of blood and poured it out before her master. The carpets were getting redder all the time. 'By this libation we honour our fallen kin,' she intoned.

'A pity,' he whispered. 'I was fond of Neck, you know. He was so delightfully, whimsically savage.'

'Still, we have turned Sim. He will be useful, and help us tie up loose ends.'

'He has not been properly inducted into the Order. Should we trust him?'

'I will bring him to you tonight, my lord. He returned to his apartment to find the parchment. Only...' The Disciple hesitated, struck by a new thought. 'Perhaps the poet-human knows where Sim dwells...'

'And the scribbler had allies, you say. They may have gone to find our newest recruit?'

'Even if they found him, it should not stop us,' she said. 'He has told us what we must do.'

'And he may tell them also. What is worse, he knows of this place. We must relinquish it at once. This displeases me, Disciple. I perceive that you have grown careless in these matters. I slept too long.'

She discovered then that she could also still feel annoyance. She mastered herself, and said, 'Pray do not concern yourself, my lord. If they go to him, they will die. They are not of the breed. He outnumbers them one to three.'

Despite not having slept, Winston was feeling no tiredness as dawn came up, lighting the roofs of Hampstead as they approached Sim's apartment.

'Hope the bobbies don't stop us,' said Walter.

'They will respect the authority of the Home Secretary, I think,' said Winston. 'Even if we are each carrying several deadly weapons. It is a point of principle for me that no Englishman should lack the means of self-defence.'

'Long may it remain so. Here we are,' said Rudyard. 'Let us go up. Sim's apartment was on the second floor.'

The door was heavy, and bolted. Force will not serve here, said Rudyard. I have an idea. Keep back, gentlemen. He knocked on the door.

'Who is it?' came a voice.

'Mr. Sim, I believe you may be in danger. Please let me in, I must talk to you.' Sim opened the door, seized Kipling and dragged him inside.

'No, you fool, I believe you are in danger,' he growled.

Winston and Walter rushed in before Sim could close the door.

'Sim, I was right the first time,' said Rudyard, holding up a cross. Sim flinched, and ran into the living room. They pursued, weapons at the ready, but as they came through the door stood still in surprise.

'He's vanished?' said Winston. 'Can they do that?'

'We can do this,' said Sim, dropping from the top of the doorframe, sending Winston sprawling and the crossbow scuttling away under the ottoman. Walter reacted first, landing a heavy punch that drove Sim back. The vampire recovered fast and kicked Rudyard across the room, before leaping upon Walter with fangs bared. Walter managed to hold him off for long enough for Winston to snatch a marble bust from a shelf and bring it down onto Sim's head, a blow that might have killed a human. Sim reacted by shaking himself free of Walter s grip, throwing him against the wall, and hurled himself upon Winston.

'Idiot, do you not know how powerful we are?' he growled. 'You cannot hope to defeat the Order. We live forever!' While Sim spoke, Winston recoiled towards the window, letting the weight push him back while using both hands to keep Sim s hands from his neck. Then, as he ran out of room to retreat, he abruptly let go and seized the curtain-cord. The heavy cloth shot back, and Sim screamed as daylight flooded the room and he began to smoulder. He fled for the safety of the shadow, but Walter was there, driving him back into the deadly light with a great sweep of his sword. The three men watched in fascinated horror as Sim burst into flames and dissolved into nothingness.

Winston knelt beside the stunned poet. 'How are you?' he asked.
'I'll live,' he said. 'I think next time I will hang back a little more.'

'Next time?' said Walter, somewhat breathless. 'Wasn t he the second one?'

'I think I see your meaning,' said Winston. 'Sim was not the second vampire - he was just the lure. He let you in because he thought you had escaped them and were coming to warn him and that he could finish the job they did not. So there is at least one more of them out there. He gestured to the window. We must continue the hunt.'

Rudyard sat down on the ottoman and began to clean his glasses. 'I am more and more bothered by all this,' he said. 'These creatures are cooperating, and he spoke of something called the Order. That implies more than two or three, and it implies common effort. We three may be outnumbered badly.'

'You have no idea how badly, came a voice from the shadows. Walter and Winston whirled round, weapons held up. The voice said, 'My apologies; the door was open.'

'Who are you? Are you one of them?' asked Winston.

The figure emerged into the sunlight. It was a handsome young woman, fashionably though not ostentatiously elegant in her dress, and she carried a wooden stake which she now secreted inside her jacket.

'Now, if I were naive enough to ask who you mean by them , we might waste a lot of time in verbal sparring,' said the newcomer. 'Let me say, no, I am not a vampire.' She chuckled.

'It seems we are at a disadvantage, Miss...'

'Do you not remember me, Winston? I am sorry to see I made so little impression on you at Boffo's garden party.'

'Boffo - I believe he now prefers to be known as Lord Hensley. Yes, I recall seeing you, but your name eludes me.'

'Call me Georgina, for now. You three are doing very well, I must say. Two dustings with no more than cuts and bruises. Better than I ever did to begin with. I am sorry, gentlemen; I am getting ahead of myself. Please sit. In fact, Mr. Kipling, I advise you to lie down. There can be few laureates of the Royal Swedish Academy who have ever been beaten half to death by vampires, and you need to recover.'

'I do feel rather...' said Rudyard, now lying down full length.

'Better. Gentlemen, some time ago I began to track this gang of vampires, though not, alas, quickly enough to save the unfortunate Mr. Sim from being turned. Nor indeed quickly enough to save several other victims. Mr. Churchill, you may not yet have received them, but you will find that in recent days the Metropolitan Police have discovered several murder victims all over London with peculiar kinds of neck trauma. All of them, oddly enough, were men with a particular skill in obscure or ancient languages.'

Winston settled back in a large armchair. 'I have been prevaricating. Rudyard, your arguments seemed good at the time, but if what Miss Georgina says is true, then I simply must go to the Prime Minister, and the Cabinet, and make them believe. Then we can unleash the full powers of the Government on these unholy fiends, for it will take nothing less, police and Army too. We have been lucky twice, I fear we would not be again.'

'I am afraid, Mr. Churchill, I cannot permit that.'

'Who the Devil do you think you are?'

'I am the representative of the Council in this business, and there is no advantage to be gained by your course of action. There will be panic and mass vigilantism, lynchings and suchlike, which may be just what these creatures want. In any case they will hear what is occurring and will slip away, quicker than any Government can mobilise. The only way to hunt them is by stealth.'

'What Council?' asked Winston.

'Let me say that there is a group of professionals who make these creatures our business,' said Georgina. 'We have a great deal of experience and know that our ways are best.'

Walter shook his head and stood up. 'You ask us to take a lot on trust, Miss Georgina,' he said. 'You've talked a lot but you haven't told us much. If you can't help us, you had better get out of our way and let Mr. Churchill act.'

Georgina dropped her thin smile and sat down. 'Very well, Mr. Tull,' she said. 'These vampires are seeking something. We are not sure what, but it must have something to do with the manuscript fragment Sim told you of, which is perhaps in this very room. We must find it.'

'We do not have much to go on,' said Rudyard. 'All I know is that there was a sheet of paper or parchment written in some script that appeared to be Indian. Sim may have had many such items.'

'Which is why I had hoped to interrogate him,' she said. 'You have rather forestalled that possibility.'

'Well, we must apologise for stopping that creature from killing us,' said Rudyard.

'He would never have talked, surely?' said Winston.

Georgina displayed a small bottle of water and a crucifix. 'There are methods,' she said. 'You said it very well yourself, Mr. Kipling. Some of him lived when the most of him died , or similar, yes? Sim's soul was no longer in his body, but the shell retained enough memories and enough fear for me to coax the relevant information out of him. Now we must use other methods.'

'So much the better,' said Winston. 'I should hope no Englishman would ever do such things.'

'Hangings are all very well, but torture is not?' asked Georgina, the smile resuming. 'You have a strange tenderness for creatures that you are willing to kill.'

'I have no tenderness for them at all,' said Rudyard. 'You talk of souls. Surely you know it is the torturer, not his victim, who loses most?'

Georgina shook her head. 'Let us resume this debate,' she said, 'when you have seen as much as I have. Perhaps Englishwomen are less squeamish than Englishmen.' Kipling harrumphed.

'May I suggest we get to work?' said Walter.

The task took many hours, long enough for each of them to break in order to indulge nature and send telegrams to their families and employers.

Over the centuries she had come to make a habit of reflecting on the content of her own thoughts. Her companions had no conversation; they were animals, such life of the mind as they had ever had lost in the feed, the anticipation of the feed, and memories of the feed. She knew this was the case for most of the Kind. It was the difference between her and them, and it was why she was the Disciple. Disciple meant follower. Yet, she wondered, were her thoughts those of a follower? She saw Weld approaching, hesitantly it seemed. An animal, she reflected; why was she wasting her time here?

'What is the matter?'

'Disciple, I bring news,' he began, and explained what he had learned.

The sun was well past the zenith when Georgina laughed with excitement as she leafed through a tome of Eastern wisdom. 'I have it,' she said, and the others gathered round. 'It is not Indian. The script, and language, is Arabic. Most strange that he should have thought it Indian.'

'Judging by his book collection, he had very little in any non-European script,' commented Rudyard. 'It is all Latin and Greek, a very little Cyrillic. He might have some vague knowledge of Urdu.'

Walter rubbed his eyes as he rose from the ottoman. 'What does it say?'

'Something like... "the hidden" and... "forbidden"... I lack the skill. We need to visit a friend of mine at the British Museum.'

'Let us not waste time,' said Winston. 'If you have not noticed, it will soon be dark again.'

They hastened outside. The pale sun was setting behind the peaceful villas of the Suburb; the prosperous and enlightened middle classes were returning to their idyll. One or two of them, perhaps, recognised the distinguished visitors and nodded to them. Walter attracted some uncertain looks. 'How many of these people would dream what we are doing,' said Kipling.
'It's hard enough to believe,' said Walter. 'But then, we hear about things that go on in other parts of the world, and we believe it because no-one could ever check. But in those other parts they probably think the same about us.'

They walked to the station in silence, their minds seeking comfort in what distracting thoughts they could find. But the weight of events gave them little scope for this. They descended into the station at Hampstead.

'I do believe,' said Georgina, 'that before we see the Sun again, all will be done.'

They left the train at Euston, and by the light of the streetlamps they got into a cab which took them to Great Russell Street. 'One thing bothers me,' said Winston. 'How did these fiends find Sim to begin with?'

'He wrote to me, among others,' said Rudyard. 'He must have written to the wrong person.' He sighed. 'Life was simpler when I thought all we had to worry about was Red agitators and Irish traitors.

Winston grunted. 'Some of our best friends are Irish traitors,' he muttered.

'Gentlemen,' warned Georgina. 'Play nicely.'

'My apologies, Home Secretary,' said Rudyard.

'Think nothing of it, Mr. Kipling. We face a threat now that makes our party quarrels seem small.'

In the depths of his conversation pit, he seethed. Two of the Kin fallen in battle, members of the Order unavenged, and the enemy well on the way to discovering his plans. In other days he had had servants who could plan and execute plans adequately. He glared at the Disciple, and she averted her eyes. Now, he thought, he would have to think for himself, and act quickly.

'Disciple, tell me. These... kine. Who are they? Clarissimi? Humiliores?'

'Their leader is clarissimus. His name is Winston, of the clan Marlburensis. Officium habet.'

'Truly? There is no mistake in this?' She shook her head. He reclined onto his divan, and did not see her momentary expression of anger. 'The names are uncouth, but no matter. This opens new possibilities. Perhaps the Kin did not fall in vain.'

A light shone in one of the offices along an upper corridor at the Museum; the other rooms were quiet and dark.
'Good heavens, Mr. Churchill? What brings you here? Georgina, what is going on?'

'Trouble of the inhuman kind, I am afraid it is most urgent. We have a text that needs translating.'

'Why certainly, forgive me. Leonard Wilmore at your service, gentlemen.' The white-haired curator bowed slightly and took the fragment, perusing it briefly. Then he sat down and examined it more closely. 'I have seen any number of odd texts, he said finally, but this takes the biscuit. At first glance, it appears to be a cipher key to a book, with some other mad writings. How strange that it should come to light now.'

'A book?' asked Rudyard. 'Do you know which?'

'Fascinating,' said Wilmore, bending over the paper again. 'It says, "knowledge which is forbidden must lie in the hands of the worthy". Then a list of symbols - see here, these characters are not Arabic, or any other script that I recognise. Or rather, not any other that has a name.'

Winston sat down. 'Please explain it to three gentlemen who have somewhat less learning,' he said. 'I have heard many riddles in the last couple of days, and my patience for them is spent.'

'What did you mean about it coming to light now?' asked Walter.

'These symbols resemble those in that manuscript found recently by that chap, that Pole. Voynich, his name was. Have you not heard?'

'No, I have little time for lost manuscripts,' said Winston. 'If you had a dozen red boxes crossing your desk every day you would not either.'

'There was this chap, Polish chap, found a mysterious medieval manuscript in Italy. It was quite the nine days wonder at the time. No-one could decipher it, but perhaps what we have here is the key to doing so. Oh.'

'What is it?' asked Georgina.

'This says, "beware the subjugation of the unclean - by this means realms perish". It is a kind of warning about the manuscript itself. And then it says, "the strong one may know"? Ah, no, more like fulfil? Complete? Use? - "the book and make undefeatable war". Then there is a spell of some kind.

The silence that followed was broken by Georgina, who said, 'We will keep this safe, and make a copy for you. We shall speak again soon.'

In the corridor, Rudyard broke the silence. 'And these vampires want to be able to read that book.'

'I say we stop that happening,' said Walter.

'And that, finally, is in our power to do,' said Winston. We do not need to chase around town any more. We contact this Pole, purchase the book, if need be I will spend the entire Home Office contingency fund on it, and place it under the most secure guard we may arrange. I will set the Secret Service onto it at once.'

'And the Council will support that solution,' said Georgina. 'Now we must merely-' At that, a fearful scream sounded from the far end of the corridor. 'Father, said Georgina, white-faced. They raced back to the office.

Wilmore was gone, and on the desk was a piece of notepaper, with words written in blood: "The House. Come".

'Oh, I am a fool,' said Georgina, and fainted. Walter and Winston caught her and laid her down gently. Within moments she had revived. 'Never mind me,' she said. 'Get after them.'

Walter went to the window. In the yard far below, three figures were walking quickly toward the gate, two of them carrying a large bundle, the third, clearly a woman in a large dress, striding in front. 'That must be them,' he said, pointing. 'I'm off.' He raced out.

'Let us follow as quick as we can,' said Winston. They found Walter at the front gate, helping the gatekeeper to his feet.

'Did you lose them?' asked Georgina.

'No,' he said, standing up. 'There are two of them in ambush over there.' He tilted his head to indicate a shadowy doorway across the street.

'You did right,' said Georgina. 'They would have killed you. Time to equalise the odds.'

She stepped out into the middle of Great Russell Street, and pointed at the doorway. 'Show yourselves, carrion-mongers,' she called out. Pundit and Last emerged with tremendous speed and flung themselves towards her.

Out of the folds of her jacket Georgina produced and raised a stubby cylinder. There was a hiss and a thud, and Last fell and dusted. Georgina ducked, and Pundit hit the ground behind her and rolled. As he stood, Walter stepped forward and removed his head with a swift, precise sweep of his sword.

'That was smooth,' he said to her, approvingly. She nodded. 'What is that thing?'

'A more up-to-date version of Mr. Churchill's contraption,' she said. 'With compressed air instead of a bowstring.'

She fitted a new quarrel. 'Now. The others.'

'I know,' said Rudyard. 'That note was for you, Mr. Churchill. The House - what does that mean to you?'

The bell of St Stephen's tower tolled once as the companions crossed Palace Yard, and was silent. Westminster was quiet. In his crypt, he waited. The Disciple waited.

'They are slow in coming,' said Weld. 'Do you think they have the wit to follow our clues?'

'They will come,' said the Disciple. 'Beguile the time. Amuse yourself a little.' Weld tightened Leonard's bonds, heard him moan with pain, and smiled.

Winston stepped through the narrow door into the pool of torchlight. 'I never knew about this place,' he said. 'I must thank you for educating me.'

The others followed. 'Westminster Hall has many hidden corners. Such a fascinating old building. But then, dear William was a fascinating man.'

'Perhaps you could enlighten us,' said Winston. 'That unfortunate event in the New Forest. Was it really an accident?'

'The historians must decide for themselves. I find history such a stimulating study, you know,' said the Disciple. 'So much blood.'

'So much courage,' said Winston. 'So many themes of goodness and beauty. Nothing you would know or care about. Release our friend.'

The Disciple laughed. 'Of course we will release him,' she said. 'Once you give us that fragment of paper.'

'Give us my father first,' said Georgina. She raised the airgun.

'Very well,' said the Disciple. She nodded to Weld, who cut the bonds with a cutlass. Leonard stretched.

'Now, the parchment,' said the Disciple. Rudyard held it out at arm's length for Weld to take.

'Georgina,' said Leonard, and strode across to join her.

'Goodbye, father,' she said, and shot him, and he dusted.

'That was impressive,' said the Disciple. 'How did you know?'

Georgina returned her gaze without blinking. 'I did not think he could have lost his limp,' she said. 'And you set him free without a quibble. Of course you turned him.'

'Clever,' said the Disciple. 'May I have her?' she asked.

Her lord spoke. 'Habeas corpus,' he hissed.

'That remains to be seen,' said Georgina.

'And you,' said Winston. 'You are the chief mover in all this, I see. Who are you?'

The ancient vampire stood up to his full height, the effect heightened by the stone dais on which he stood. He spoke now in Latin, the Disciple interpreting. 'You cannot know the full measure of my hatred,' he said. 'You are kine. Your blood will flow to me. Of course. But you are also Angli, all of you, usurpers of the true Empire. This weak tawdry thing you call your Empire will be mine and this world shall be as it was, as it always should have been. I am Aurelius, last defender of Britannia from the Saxon scum. When all was lost, when courage had failed, I became a lord of the night, and if I could not have victory at least I had revenge. Do you not call that time the Dark Ages?'

'My God,' said Winston. 'Aurelius Ambrosius. You were the last champion of Rome in Britain.'

'I still am. Eight hundred years ago, glutted with blood, I wrote the books which foretold what must be, then I slept. Now I arise again. And I will make myself master of all the Kin, and with such an army, master of your Empire. In a few days, the new order will arise.'

'You mean to bring all vampires into subjection to you,' said Rudyard. 'Inventive wickedness indeed, worthy of a noble Roman.

'It will not work,' said Winston. 'We will obtain Voynich's book before you.'

Aurelius laughed, dry deadly laughter. 'The book? It matters not where it is. We have the parchment. The power of the book comes from its existence, and that I can now invoke. Hear the words that will doom your kind.'

The Disciple stopped translating, and Aurelius's dreadful voice rasped out by itself. 'Dignus sum loqui verba. Invoco occulta potestate. Da mihi quod quaero notitia. Et populum meum pateat animus!'

Aurelius began to glow with a yellow-green light which suffused the crypt, and around him appeared the transparent, flickering images of a thousand vampires, all intoning: 'domine! Venite.'

And the Disciple added: 'They hear him. They are coming.'

As she spoke, four more vampires emerged from the shadows to stand behind Winston and his companions. Walter and Rudyard whirled round to face them. 'They will feed well. But you, Winston clarissime, may join us. I have heard much of you. Most impressive, for a human.'

'I stand with my companions, and for my King,' growled Winston. 'You are clever, Aurelius, but fifteen centuries have not taught you wisdom.' He raised his crossbow.

Big Ben tolled again, the first of ten times. Outside, there was a shout, then a dozen men flooded into the crypt. 'The cavalry?' sneered the Disciple.

'Better,' shouted Winston, as the fight began, 'the infantry'. He fired his crossbow at Aurelius, only for the ancient creature's hand to block the quarrel. Georgina's quarrel struck the Disciple in the shoulder, then she followed through with her stake, fighting hand to hand.

'Swords only! Go for their necks!' shouted Rudyard, wading into the fight. Walter leapt onto the dais, parried Weld's wild strike, thrust, then parried again. In the contest between slender Japanese artistry and the heavy cutlass, there could only be one victor, and in a few moments Walter had lopped off the unclean one's arm, then his head. Meanwhile Winston advanced on Aurelius with crucifix raised. The ancient vampire recoiled momentarily, then lashed out with his long claws, driving him back. But then he saw his followers dusted in quick succession, and that Winston was backed by a dozen armed fighters.

Aurelius turned and fled. The Disciple picked Georgina up bodily and hurled her at Walter, leaving both sprawling, then fled also into the dark space on the far side of the crypt. She reached the exit first.
'You have not heard the last of me,' she cried, then slammed the door behind her. Aurelius screeched with fury. Then he smashed his fist through the door and ripped it off its hinges. But Winston was upon him, and now he plunged the stake into the monster. Aurelius screamed and thrashed wildly, slapping Winston to the floor, before vanishing in a blaze of heat and light, leaving only dust.

They emerged into the open air in an inner courtyard.

'Sterling work by your men, Major. You chose well.'

'It was good to use the cold steel again, sir,' said the Major. 'A rum business, though.'

'You must swear them to secrecy. Fifty guineas apiece - send me the account.'

'They're good men, sir. Right then,' he said to the soldiers, 'we were never here. Guardsmen, fall in,' and they marched away.

'I expect the mind-slaving spell wore off as soon as Aurelius was slain,' said Rudyard. 'I doubt that the vampires will remember any of it.'

'I wonder just how many of them there are,' said Walter.

'You saw the vision,' said Winston. 'What we do not know is if that was all of them, or just the ones in Britain.'

'Either way, more than I would like,' said Walter. 'You'll have to do something, sir.'

'I will, sir. The Council must become part of the Secret Service.'

'It will do no such thing,' said Georgina. 'The Council existed long before the Home Office, long before His Majesty's Government in fact. There is no 'must' about it.'

'Who do you think you are?' said Rudyard.

'We are the ones who have saved the world more times than you can imagine, from threats you have never heard of,' she said. 'I slew my own father, what was left of him. Do you think that was a sacrifice? I have done harder things than that. And I expect to do harder still, and then die before my time. That is what every Watcher must expect.' They were silent for a moment.

'You will at least keep us informed,' said Winston.

'Yes, Home Secretary, you have earned that. But don't call us, we'll call you.' She walked away, not looking back, and vanished into the shadows.

'Now what?' asked Walter.

'I suggest we go back to our lives,' said Winston. 'Mr. Tull, know that you have a friend in high places, if you ever need one. I will get you a travel warrant to Northampton. First class, of course.'

Walter nodded. 'I'd like to stick to football from now on,' he said. 'No more fighting. Except... Can I... ?'

'Keep the sword, Mr. Tull,' said Rudyard. 'I hope you never need it again.'

'And I must think how to keep the country safe,' said Winston. 'I expect trouble from that female vampire.'

'Surely she will fly the country now?' said Rudyard.

'Surely. But she will go bearing a grudge, I doubt if vampires find it easy to forgive and forget.'

'Her lord dreamed of destroying the Empire,' said Rudyard. 'How could she do that?'

'By organising aggression from without, or subversion from within,' said Winston. 'I must watch carefully for any great movements or powers that might be able to do that. In Germany, or Russia, or India perhaps. For I am a Watcher too.'

On board a ship steaming out of Southampton, a female figure regarded the stars from the stern rail. A smartly-dressed gentleman came up beside her.

'It is so beautiful, is it not?' he said. 'May I know your name, mademoiselle?'

She turned, revealing her visage, and sank her fangs into his neck. 'No,' she said, and pitched his body over the rail.

The Titanic continued its western course, and she wondered what she might do in the New World; something better than hiding in a cave for eight centuries, in any case. She had heard that many of the Kin dwelt in California.