London 1982

It was the evening of 19th July when I walked into a pub on Kensington High Street and noticed the woman sitting at the bar. She drew my eye immediately, not only because she was tall and elegant with glossy chestnut coloured hair, although that was probably why I first noticed her, but because on my second glance I realised that she was vampire. She didn't seem like a vampire. It's difficult to explain quite what I mean by that, she seemed, diffident somehow, lacking in the confidence we usually have and I assumed that she must be very young and began checking around the bar for her Maker. I had no wish to get into an argument with another, possibly much older vampire.

I could see no-one in the immediate area and so I went up to the bar and sat down on a stool a few feet away from her. She gave me a quick glance and then looked away. I was surprised to see that she seemed to have no idea what I was.

"Good evening." I said. "May I buy you a drink?"

She turned to me with a start. "No thank you" she said in a small voice "I don't...um..."

"It's usually a good idea to have one though." I said quietly "Otherwise people will wonder what you're doing here?" I smiled at her and let my fangs slide out a little. Her eyes widened for a moment and then flicked up to the barman who had just come over.

"Can I help you sir?" he asked. I retracted my fangs quickly and turned to him. "Whisky please and a brandy for the lady." I smiled at him. "She's had a bit of a shock." He turned away and a few moments later placed the drinks on the bar and I paid him. "So," I said, glancing around to see that we were not overheard, "what are you doing here?"

"Oh, I don't know...I..." she put a hand up to her head and pushed her glossy hair back from her face.

"Okay," I said calmly "let's start at the beginning shall we? I'm Bill. What's your name?"

"Claudia...my name's Claudia."

"You seem a little lost Claudia, how long have you been..."

"A week...ten days" she said softly.

"And where is your Maker Claudia?" I asked.

"I don't know" she looked at me helplessly. "He left a few days ago and never returned." She leaned towards me and whispered "He told me not to leave the house but I had to...I'm so hungry..."

I thought for a moment. Did I really want to get involved in this? It was, after all, none of my business. Then I looked back at Claudia and saw the helpless expression in her beautiful eyes and I got down from the stool with a sigh and held out my hand to her. "Come with me Claudia." I said. She simply sat for a moment watching me and then appeared to come to a decision. She stepped down from her stool and placed her hand in mine.

Claudia and I walked back to her Maker's apartment which turned out to be in an expensive block on South Carriage Drive overlooking Hyde Park. I looked around in awe at the luxurious surroundings.

"This is your Maker's property?" I asked.

"I don't think so" she said "He said the owner was abroad, but I don't know how long for. I'm sorry….I really don't know very much at all."

I smiled at her. "Don't worry, you wait here, I'll be back soon, trust me."

I left the apartment and set off across the park. Within half an hour I was back, accompanied by a girl wearing the sort of outfit which had probably never been seen in these refined streets before.

"Oooh…this is nice. You must be doin' alright love." She said as I opened the apartment door for her. She walked in and saw Claudia sitting in an armchair by the fireside.

"This is my friend Claudia." I said with a smile. She turned to me with a patient expression "Oh now look mate, I'm not into any of that kinky stuff…." by this time I had caught her eye and pulled her mind under my control. She stopped and simply stood silent, watching me as I beckoned to Claudia.

"Dinner!" I said with a smile.

Claudia got up and came over to me. "How did you do that?" she asked, examining the girl closely.

"Your Maker didn't show you?"

"I saw him do it a few times, it's like hypnotism?" she asked.

"Something like that" I said. "I'll explain it later, for now you need to feed. But I should warn you, I don't know what your Maker did, but I won't let you kill her." Claudia looked up at me.

"I don't know…"

"You go ahead, I'll stop you if I think it's necessary." I said firmly.

Claudia's fangs were already out and she put her arms around the girl and bit down into her neck. I watched the girl's blank gaze carefully, waiting for the spark in her eyes to begin to fade, but before then Claudia stopped and pulled away, licking her lips fastidiously.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yes, fine" she said, watching me as I turned to the girl and explained to her that she would feel weak for a few days but that she shouldn't worry. That she should take some Iron Supplements and Vitamins and she'd be fine. I told her that she would not remember what had happened to her tonight, it was just a normal night. That she would go home and sleep and when she woke she would not recall anything about us.

I watched her carefully as she walked to the door and noted that she seemed to be steady on her feet and able to get home without assistance. I closed the door behind her and turned back to see Claudia sitting in the armchair watching me with a quizzical expression.

"If she had been too weak to walk, you'd have gone with her wouldn't you? To see that she got home safely?" she asked. "Why would you do that? Simon would never have done that. He despised humans, he referred to them as cattle."

"Simon?"

"That was his name, my Maker."

"Well, I'm not Simon!" I said firmly. "If you want my help, you'll have to learn to do things my way, not his. Did he teach you to kill them when you fed?"

"Yes" she said quietly, as if she were afraid I'd disapprove. "I didn't know there was any other way!"

"Well, now you do know." I said with a reassuring smile. "Why should they have to die just to provide us with a meal, when it's not necessary?"

Suddenly she smiled at me and it was as if a light had come on behind her beautiful, chocolate brown eyes. "Oh, I'm so glad" she said. "I hated the thought that someone had to die for me."

I sat down on the sofa and leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. "What happened to you?" I asked curiously. "Did you know him before... did you know what was going to happen to you?"

"No, I had no idea" I met him one night in the park. I'd just left my friends and was on my way home. He stepped out onto the path in front of me, I just remember thinking that he was very pale and then the next thing I remember was waking up here."

So Simon, whoever he was, had glamoured Claudia and turned her completely against her will and even without her knowledge, I thought. The poor girl, she could have had no idea what was happening to her.

"Did he explain what he had done to you, afterwards, at least?" I asked.

"Oh yes" she said. "We talked for hours, well….I cried for a while" she smiled at me. "I don't know what good that was supposed to do. He said he had been watching me for a long time, said that he loved me. He obviously expected me to feel the same way, but I didn't even know him! How could I be expected to love him?" Her voice grew angry as she tried to explain and I reached over and put my hand on her arm.

"Trust me, I know exactly how you feel." I said with some sympathy. "The same thing happened to me."

Her head snapped up "Really? When was that…..oh perhaps I shouldn't ask that."

I laughed. "It was about 120 years ago now, you'd think I'd have got over it, wouldn't you?"

"And have you?"

"Not entirely – I don't think you ever do." I patted the sofa beside me and she came over and sat down. I put my arm around her and slowly, hesitantly, I told her my story. Of how I had been on my way home from the war, through the woods to Bon Temps and had met Lorena. Of how she had decided that I was an honourable man, the kind of man she wanted and had simply taken me, snatched me out of my life and away from my wife and children. How for the next 70 years I had wandered the world with her, helpless, lost, trying to make some sense of my existence, praying for a release from the nightmare in which I found myself. How at first I had been horrified at what had happened to me and then, when I realised that there was nothing I could do to change my situation, how I had tried to please her by embracing what she called "our nature". How for a while I had slipped into the darkness which surrounds our kind, thrown away my humanity, done things…..terrible things, things I would regret for as long as I walked the earth. I tried so hard to love her, she was all I had and I knew that, despite her cruelty, in her own twisted way she loved me desperately. But in the end I….I just couldn't do it any longer.

I stopped, and looked round to see Claudia gazing at me sadly with those enormous dark eyes.

"What did you do?" she whispered.

"For a long time I was lost to the darkness" I said softly "It's so easy for us… to let yourself fall into that frame of mind, to believe that you truly are a monster. That you are something more than human, that you have some kind of right to hunt and kill without mercy, that it is "our nature" as Lorena always put it." I sighed "Perhaps for some it is. After all we were all human once and some humans are monsters too. But I wasn't, and I knew this, deep down I knew that this wasn't what I was. Yes, I'd killed men. I was a soldier, I'd had no choice. But I was also a husband, a father. I knew that, whatever had been done to me, even if I had been turned into a monster, that wasn't all I was. Part of me was still there. One night we had another fight and I told her that it was over, that she had to let me go. I told her that if she did not release me I would destroy myself, that I would rather meet the true death than go on."

"She believed you?" asked Claudia.

"Oh yes. I meant it and she knew that." I stopped, as I felt a tear form in my eye as I recalled that terrible night in Los Angeles. "For a moment I thought that she would refuse, that perhaps this truly was to be the end of my suffering. I remember wondering if I would see my Caroline again…and then she said it. That she released me. It was as if something had broken. Somehow I knew that she no longer had any power over me, that I was free at last. But free to do what?"

I stopped and looked down at Claudia and smiled. "This isn't really helping you is it" I asked with a laugh.

"Oh but it is!" she said. "I've been so afraid that I would change, become like him, like Simon, heartless and cruel. "You've shown me that I don't have to. That perhaps I can live with this after all." She smiled at me. A genuine smile full of warmth.

I smiled back. "It'll be dawn soon, I should be leaving."

"Oh do you have to?" she asked "I was hoping you'd stay." She looked down at her hands. "That is, if you don't mind?"

"Where do you sleep?" I asked.

"The apartment has a basement, it's light tight. Simon and I slept there. You could stay with me." She looked up at me hopefully.

I glanced at my watch to see that the dawn was, in fact, closer than I had thought. "Thank you" I said "I'd like that."

She stiffened suddenly and looked slightly embarrassed. "Simon always expected me to….um….."

I gave a resigned little sigh. "Yes, I expect he did. Why does that not surprise me?" I reached over and tilted up her chin so that she was looking into my eyes. "Claudia, I will not expect you to have sex with me….okay?"

She looked back up at me, her expression a mixture of relief and, rather to my surprise, what might have been disappointment. She smiled. "Okay" she said "This way". She stood up and moved to a bookcase on the far wall. She pressed a panel beside the bookcase and it swung open revealing a flight of steps going down.

I paused and examined the bookcase. "You said this was not Simon's apartment?" I asked.

"No. Why?" she asked turning back to me.

"A disguised doorway leading down to a secret, light tight basement?" I said "This place belongs to a vampire! I'm guessing he borrowed it from a friend. Still, we can worry about that later, we should get downstairs."

We hurried down the steps and Claudia pushed open a door leading to a small room containing a double bed and a dresser. We lay down on the bed side by side and surrendered to the pull of the dawn.

When I woke at dusk Claudia was still sleeping and I got up quietly and went upstairs into the apartment. I had felt a disturbance during my sleep. I wasn't sure what had caused it but I felt that something wasn't right, something was happening outside. Going to the window which overlooked the Park I looked out and froze with shock. The whole area was alive with police, army, reporters, TV, you name it and they were out there. There was a TV set in the corner of the room and I turned it on and tuned to a news programme.

I sat and watched in horror as the news unfolded, explaining the chaos outside. As I watched the basement door opened and Claudia came out.

"Oh there you are" she said with relief, "I was afraid you'd left."

"We need to get out of here, right now!" I said, not taking my eyes off the TV screen. "It's going to be far too dangerous for us to stay here."

"What's happened?" She asked.

"Take a look outside." I said getting up and following her to the window.

"Oh my…" she stood looking out of the window as I came up behind her. "What on earth's going on? What's that?" she pointed to one of several large mounds in the road, each covered with a tarpaulin, great dark stains surrounding them on the tarmac.

"A bomb was left in a car parked outside, a nail bomb. It was set off by remote control just as a troop of the Blues and Royals, The Household Cavalry, were passing after the Changing of the Guard. The blast killed four soldiers of the Blues and Royals and peppered the rest of the troop, their horses and the crowd with nails and shrapnel. The other soldiers in the procession were all badly wounded as well as a lot of the crowd. Those tarpaulins are to cover the seven dead horses."

I put my arm around Claudia who stood gazing out across the Park in shock.

"That's not all." I said "According to the TV reports a second bomb went off two hours later under the bandstand in Regents Park during a performance by the Royal Green Jackets band. Again the crowd was showered with shrapnel from the iron bandstand and the entire band was either killed or wounded. Seven of the bandsmen were killed outright."

I took her hands and turned her to face me. "We have to get out of here now. We can't afford to have anyone coming in here trying to question us. Security is going to be really tight around here, around the whole of London. You understand, you can't stay here and wait for Simon, we have to leave."

I stood watching the panicked expression on Claudia's face. I knew it would be hard for her to disobey her Maker and leave the apartment but she was quick enough to appreciate that I was right, she couldn't stay here. Already we could see from the window, teams of Police officers gathering to begin visiting the neighbouring apartments.

"But how are we going to be able to leave?" she asked "There are Police and Army units everywhere, we'll be stopped and questioned!"

"If we go out onto the street, yes" I said. "But we're not going that way. Come with me." I took her hand and tried to move to the door but she pulled me back.

"No, wait a moment. There are a few things I need, please? I won't be long." She looked at me with such a pleading expression that I realised I could not expect to rip her away from her life completely.

"Okay, but be quick" I said.

I stood back from the window so that I could not be seen from outside and watched the TV crews setting up lights and cameras and interviewing anyone who stood still for long enough. In a few moments Claudia was back wearing a pair of jeans, some tough looking boots and a khaki jacket, with a small rucksack which she strapped to her back.

I held out my hand and she placed her small hand in mine. "Ready?" I asked.

She took a last glance around the apartment and then looked up at me trustingly. "Yes! Let's go."

I eased the door open and looked out cautiously into the foyer. There was no sign of anyone yet so we hurried over to the stairs. Claudia looked puzzled but said nothing and followed me up to the top floor of the four storey building. There was a locked door at the end of the corridor but a quick tug broke the lock and we ran up a short flight of steps and through another door onto the flat roof of the building.

The front edge of the roof was bordered by a parapet about three feet high and the bright lights put in place by the Police and the TV crews meant that anything outside the range of those lights was, for all practical purposes, invisible from the ground. We walked along the roof until we reached the end of the block and looked down into an alleyway between the two apartment blocks. The next roof was fifteen to twenty feet away. Claudia backed away hurriedly.

"How on earth are we going to get off this roof?" she asked.

I smiled and said "We jump!"

She looked at me with an expression of absolute horror. "I couldn't possibly jump that far, no one could!"

"No one human could." I said. "Claudia, you must begin to accept that you're no longer human. You can see thing, hear things, sense things, do things you could never have done before. You can do this, believe me you can jump that far easily, watch."

I stepped up onto the low side parapet and jumped off the edge of the roof. I heard Claudia's cry of shock just as I landed neatly on the other roof and turned around. She was staring at me in astonishment. I smiled at her and jumped back onto her roof.

"You see?" I laughed. "Come on, give me your hand!"

"Are you sure about this?" she asked nervously.

"Yes, quite sure. You're nowhere near as strong as I am since I am so much older than you, but you can do this easily, trust me."

She took a deep breath and held out her hand. I took it in mine and turned to her. "Want to take a run at it?" I asked with a grin.

"Okay!" she said. We went back a few steps and ran forward, stepped up onto the parapet and jumped. There was a rush of air around us and we landed safely on the other side.

"Wow!" Claudia leapt into my arms with a huge grin on her face. "That was amazing! Can we do it again?"

I couldn't help smiling at her infectious excitement. "Well we'll have to if we're to get off this roof!"

"Yes!" She reached up, took my face in her hands and kissed me. For a moment I just stood there, enjoying the feel of her lips on mine and then she seemed to wake up and pulled back. "Oh…I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…." She looked down, embarrassed.

I laughed "Please, don't apologise, I enjoyed it. But now is perhaps not the best time? We need to get out of here."

I took her hand again and we ran across the roof and flung ourselves across the gap on to the next building laughing like a couple of children. We raced down to the end of the street jumping from building to building, her obvious pleasure in her new strength infecting me with some of her excitement.

Soon we were well outside the Police cordon and were able to leap down a fire escape to street level. Over the years, by means of judicious investments I had managed to accumulate a considerable amount of money some of which I had invested in many properties all over Europe and America, most of which were let and managed by professional agents on my behalf, but I kept a few for my own use and we headed back to the one I was currently using. Although it was on the other side of town, well away from all the activity, nevertheless I thought it prudent to leave London altogether for a while and we picked up my car and drove out towards Oxford to a house I owned out in the country on the river.

The Mill House was set on the river outside one of the villages that surrounded Oxford. As the name suggests it was built in the 17th century, next to an old Mill with the millpond at the bottom of the garden. It was a substantial, stone built property with a large stone flagged kitchen, a great inglenook fireplace in the open hallway and a sizeable wine cellar which I had converted into an underground, light tight bedroom with a modern en-suite bathroom. Claudia and I quickly settled in and began to gradually explore the area.

Although I had owned the property for some time I had never really lived in it. Just used it as a staging post on my way to London, but I found, over the next few months with Claudia, that I relished the peace and quiet of the countryside. Perhaps it was because I had been farmer in life, although the neat fields and hedgerows of the English countryside could not have been more different from my farm in Louisiana.

As Claudia was so young she needed to feed far more often than I did and we got into the habit of going into Oxford every other evening to hunt. It was term time and at night the bars and clubs were packed with students, many of whom had never been away from home before. The pickings were easy and Claudia developed a taste for young male students who, captivated by her striking beauty, were only to eager to follow her down the dark alleyways by the river where I would be waiting for them.

I often wondered later if the University authorities ever actually noticed the sudden increase in iron deficiency and anaemia amongst the student population during those few months.

Towards the end of the summer I considered that it was safe to return to London, not least because Claudia was, by now, quite capable of surviving on her own. I had no wish to force her to stay with me if she wished to leave and the Mill House, although charming, did not offer much in the way of entertainment or excitement. Although we had become lovers while we were living in Oxford I felt that it was more for comfort than because she had any strong feelings for me and, after my experience with Lorena, I wanted to give Claudia the chance to leave, should she wish to do so.

However, as it turned out it was I who would be the one to leave.

On our return to London we had kept the same type of hunting grounds, although we began to hunt separately since Claudia favoured the rather more upmarket bars and I, the underground clubs which were springing up around London at this time. I had found that these clubs were the ideal hunting ground for vampires. They were dark, noisy and so full of cigarette smoke that no-one could see exactly what was going on. Which was fine for most of the patrons and even better for me, and it was on one of these expeditions that I had the encounter which was to change everything. Which was to alter the course of my life dramatically and for ever.

That evening I had put on a pair of ripped jeans, a T shirt and a battered leather Biker's jacket I had found on a second hand stall on Camden market one night. To complete my camouflage I darkened my eyes with some of Claudia's eyeliner and ran my fingers through my hair using some gel to spike it up a little. I looked in the mirror and smiled at my reflection, I looked so different. Not that I was unrecognisable, but I just looked so unlike me! I set off to search for dinner.

I prowled around two or three clubs before finding one which seemed suitable. It was in a basement and I headed to one of the bars and bought a pint of bitter. It was a little quiet for my taste as there was a live band playing in the other bar and so I headed through the dark corridor into the second bar. As I passed down the corridor I noticed an empty pint glass on a shelf and, with a quick glance around I put down my pint and picked up the empty glass. As I had anticipated the other bar was packed and noisy with flashing lights and the thumping beat of the live band. I headed towards the bar and the barman turned to me and immediately noticed my empty glass.

He had spiky blond hair with a ring through one nostril and half a dozen more in one ear. He wore a battered khaki waistcoat with a couple of metal chains slung around his neck.

"Want another pint mate?" he asked holding out his hand for the glass.

"Yeah, I'd love one actually" I replied.

He took the glass and began to pull me another pint of bitter. "Ain't seen you rahnd these parts 'ave I?" he said.

"Nah, the truth is I've got ten years sober...well I did 'ave, thank you Mrs Thatcher!" I said with a smile.

"Fucking Thatcher!...that cunt could drive the Pope to drink!" he said bringing the pint over and handing it to me.

I laughed "You got a name?" I asked him.

"Callum" he said.

I raised the glass, "You'll have one with me Callum?"

He paused for a moment in thought. "Don't see why not!" he said reaching for another glass.

I leaned on the bar and we chatted for a while, the bar itself was not busy as most of the people were dancing to the live band and Callum didn't have much to do. After a while he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one.

I looked up at him and asked quietly "You got anything stronger?"

He took a rather shifty glance around the bar and gestured with his head to the back door. After a quick glance around to check that we were not observed I followed him out into the alley...

Callum seemed to me to be ideal for my purposes. He was strong and healthy, well able to look after himself and would quickly recover from my meal. There were many much easier targets in London at that time but, unlike most of my kind, I wanted to be sure that no harm came to my victims. After feeding I persuaded him to look into my eyes and he was lost.

After healing the marks of my fangs on his neck and giving him a little much needed advice on dietary supplements I released him. He turned and ran off towards the rear door of the bar and then turned back to me. "Right then" he said raising his fist in the air. "Fight on!"

"Fight on mate!" I replied raising my fist in response.

At that moment I heard a voice behind me.

"You don't kill them?"

I spun round, fangs bared to see a well dressed blond woman watching me. She tilted her head back and bared her own fangs.

"My name is Nan Flanagan." she said.

"Bill Compton" I replied cautiously.

"I know who you are" she said "I've been watching you for weeks."