Thanks for the lovely reviews everyone! I do normally reply individually to every review, but for some reason FFN isn't letting me at the moment, so I'm sorry if you haven't had a personal thank you.
In response to a couple of comments, yes I do love writing Herrick. After Mitchell, I liked Herrick best, so S3E8 was a real double-whammy for me! I love that when I write him I can hear Jason Watkin's voice so clearly in my head. A fantastic portrayal, so round of applause for Mr Watkins, please!
This instalment seems Mitchell's resurrection as a vampire and his immediate reaction to it.
Please leave a review if you enjoy it! :-)
As the fangs bit down on his neck he did close his eyes, a tidal wave of pain enveloping him and his knees buckling from under him. Mitchell's eyes rolled as he started to lose consciousness. "I'm cold, so cold," he murmured, grasping at his attacker in an attempt to stay upright as his body started to shut down. Herrick caught him as he crumpled to the ground then resumed his feeding. He couldn't abandon himself to the pleasure of the feed – not if he was to recruit Mitchell. He had to stay aware – watch Mitchell's responses as his skin got clammy and his heart started to race to try to keep his body processes functioning. Herrick couldn't risk him dying before the transaction was complete.
The critical moment arrived when Herrick had to turn his fangs on himself, piercing the skin of his wrist and holding the welling blood to Mitchell's mouth. "Drink. You must drink, soldier, or you'll die for keeps." He could feel the man slipping away, but managed to force a few precious drops of blood between his lips and was confident that was enough.
They had to leave him then, for a while at least; carrying him would have slowed them down and the soldiers were almost upon them. Seth was all for staying and killing Mitchell's men anyway, but William Herrick was a man of principle, in his own way, and he intended to see the deal done. It would give him a hold over Mitchell that would be hard to break: an honourable pact sealed in blood. Let them find their sergeant dead and carry the news back. John Mitchell would become another statistic on the list of killed in action, and start his new life as Herrick's man.
By Herrick's reckoning they had a good few hours until Mitchell would come round, although the time for a vampire transformation was an inexact science. Herrick and the others would return to the spot later to sit with the body and be with the new vampire when he returned from the dead. That was a distressing time for a new recruit: they had all experienced death, yet none of them spoke of what they had seen, even amongst themselves.
When they returned, they found the bodies from the clearing gathered together into a heap ready for the burial detail. Herrick and his men left the bodies as they were: no sense in disturbing them in case the burial party returned. If it came to it the burial party would die in order for them to protect the new vampire. Mitchell would be confused and distressed when he came round, but Herrick and his friends would try to stay under the wire if possible and a whole burial detail going missing would call undue attention to them.
Herrick stayed nearby and watched, waiting for his latest recruit to come back from whatever dark recess of his mind he was buried in. Mitchell wouldn't wake alone; Herrick would make sure of that.
Dusk was falling as Mitchell awoke, his eyes snapping open the same jet black that Herrick's had been when he killed him. He drew in a long shuddering breath and looked wildly about him, disoriented and distraught. Horrified, he realised he was lying with corpses; so many like them had been left where they fell to rot or be blown apart by shells, gradually consumed by the mud that had been churned up across great swathes of France. Crows hopped optimistically from man to man, ready to tear dead flesh from their bones. He could feel their claws as they brushed his face, flapping darkly away from him as they felt his movement.
Someone else had noticed him move. "Mitchell? Easy there, soldier," Herrick placed a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back as he struggled to get up. Mitchell was glad enough to submit. "You'll take a while to acclimatise. Take it easy – no rush to move."
"Jesus," he gasped, "what the hell was that? I saw..."
"I know," murmured Herrick. "It's not considered good form to tell people what will happen to them when they die. That's why I didn't warn you. Lie still a moment - you're shaking. Your body needs time to get used to the changes."
"There was a corridor. They were going to judge me – good things and bad things. And there were men there..." He turned agonised eyes to Herrick, now returned to their original brown. "Oh, Jesus Christ, Herrick, they were going to-" Mitchell covered his eyes with his hands and rolled over, his shoulders shaking as he fought back the memories of what he had seen.
Herrick waited for the reaction to subside. "Quiet now, lad. We'll get you out of here in a minute."
Mitchell wiped his face on his sleeve, ashamed of his weakness: aware of the grinning Seth ever in the background. He pushed himself up cautiously, steadying himself as his head swam. He didn't make any further attempt to talk about what he had seen, and Herrick was glad of that; those memories were only to be revisited in nightmares and best locked safely in the depths of ones mind. Waking as a vampire unmanned the bravest of them and he thought none the worse of Mitchell. He had seen strong men reduced to sobbing children as they woke from their encounter with the men with sticks and ropes.
The vampires hauled Mitchell to his feet and led him away - the burial party cheated of one corpse to lay to rest.
By the time they got him back to their base Mitchell was exhausted and fell asleep where they left him, fretful and muttering. Herrick once more watched over his new recruit, dozing in an armchair nearby while he slept and waking to check on him through the night. Vampire etiquette required the sire of a new vampire to tend to the newborn and care for them during the first few distressing days: Herrick intended to fulfil his side of the bargain.
It was fully light by the time Mitchell stirred and Seth had already been out for "groceries".
"Don't try to get up. Here, drink this." Seth handed Herrick a tin mug and Herrick held it to Mitchell's lips. He drank eagerly, suddenly hungry. The contents were warm and satisfying, sending new strength into his weakened body. That mug was followed by a second and this time Mitchell held it himself, passing it back empty to Herrick and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Mitchell stared, horrified, at the smear left behind, bright red and fresh against the dried mud and blood on his skin.
"Was that...? Ah, no, Jesus..." and he rolled onto his hands and knees, gagging and trying in vain to throw back up what he had just drunk.
"Hey, hey, what's all this? You need to eat, soldier. You need to get your strength back. See, you're looking better already – bit of blood inside you. We'll get you to feed again later – show you how to drink from a living person. It won't always come served up in a mug, you know; it normally comes in its own handy little wrapper." Herrick grinned; he wasn't averse to laughing at his own jokes. He seemed unperturbed by his recruit's reaction; it hit different people in different ways, and Mitchell's instinct to vomit wasn't that unusual. "Came over a bit queasy, did you? Yes, well, it can happen that way – your system needs to adjust, I dare say. Try to keep it down though, eh. Bit of a waste if you bring it all back up again."
"I'm not going to," Mitchell groaned wretchedly from the floor.
"Good. Seth would get in a right mood if I got him to clean up after you."
"I'm not going to drink from a living person," Mitchell ground out through clenched teeth.
"Hmm," Herrick pondered. "That could pose a problem. We don't mind bottle feeding you, so to speak, just to start with. Getting other vampires to do your hunting for you on an ongoing basis is going to be a no-no though, I'm afraid."
"I'm not going to drink blood. Not ever."
Herrick had a sinking feeling that his new recruit wasn't going to be as biddable as he had thought. This one was showing a disturbing trait of thinking for himself and Herrick wasn't sure he liked it. "But you have to feed." Herrick talked slowly and precisely as if to a small child, or an idiot. "If you don't feed you'll weaken. You'll be as good as dead anyway."
"If he's not going to finish up, can I have this one?" Seth asked from the far corner where he was bleeding a critically injured soldier into the empty mug: a soldier that he had got to before the stretcher bearers had carried away the casualties of another encounter that morning. Herrick ignored him and Seth glared at Mitchell before tucking in anyway; there was clearly going to be no love lost between the two of them. Seth fancied himself Herrick's right hand man and he already had an inkling that his position would be threatened by this youngster.
"It wasn't part of the deal. You said you'd kill me, turn me into one of you and I agreed. I never said I'd drink blood. And you can't force me." Mitchell sat up to face Herrick, stronger now that the blood was coursing through his system.
"Oh, Heaven forbid I should try to force feed you. You're only a bloody vampire, after all. Stands to reason you'd prefer meat and two veg. Crazy." Herrick turned away in disgust.
The three other vampires turned their attentions to the dying man in the corner, ensuring his blood didn't go to waste even if rejected by the newborn. The soldier's moans gradually weakened and eventually ceased altogether as they drained and finally discarded him. Sated, Herrick returned his attention to Mitchell, intending to begin his instruction in vampire ways, but found that he had slipped out into the darkness. They searched but he was nowhere to be found, and for all Herrick's rages and tantrums he had to admit that his new conscript had well and truly given him the slip.