AN: I am slightly redoing Sally Sparrow's backstory (and the backstory of her house & family), which is why things said in this chapter conflict with my existing lore.

Who's Afraid of Rose Tyler?

2

Tuesday

Sally Sparrow being a vampire, she didn't get up until at least three in the afternoon. Rose's pledge to visit 'first thing in the morning' was broken immediately, but that suited her just fine, because she needed the rest.

She'd been partly expecting not to be able to sleep that night, however. The deaths, the sour note she'd left her husband and Donna on, Benji's interview questions circling in her mind. But the exhaustion was too much as soon as she was back in a real bed. She sank away into a deep, endless sleep, and wasn't close to being conscious for a full twelve hours.

When she woke up, she was in pain all over. Now she had no adrenaline coursing through her – less anger, less terror – the muscle aches came running up to meet her. She lay there in the empty house, in a box room with beige walls and no décor, willing it to subside. It didn't. The only silver lining was that, when she did force herself to sit up eventually, no blood had come through her bandages.

Superstrength did a lot of things, but it didn't account for muscle soreness, and it took all her willpower to drag herself into the bathroom next door and look in the medicine cabinet for some painkillers. Clara had sprained her wrist back in November fighting an underwater dinosaur, so there were still a few low-dosage co-codamol tablets in there from the injury. Rose took them for herself and swallowed them using water in the toothpaste tumbler. She brushed her teeth. Clara had gotten her a toothbrush for the house back in December, without drawing attention to it. Rose hadn't found time to thank her.

She shuffled back into the bedroom and lay back down to wait for the painkillers to work, picking up her phone, which was charged up again. It hadn't completely died, luckily. She had a lot of missed calls and texts from Donna, and voice messages, apparently to update her on all the time they'd spent cleaning up their own mess. Rose skimmed the texts but ultimately ignored both them and the messages. Instead, she texted Sally Sparrow, hoping the number was right. There was no text history between them.

Need to talk to you, you in today? she wrote. Then, quickly sent a follow-up: It's Rose btw. She set the phone aside, waiting, enjoying the sunlight coming into the room. Her phone buzzed far quicker than she'd been expecting.

Did you mean to message someone else? read Sally's text.

No, you. SS. You around?

Sure.

Rose made up her mind to get up, get dressed and leave before Clara, the Doctor, and Mattie were back from school, which wouldn't be too long now because Rose had slept for so long. Slowly as she could, she got dressed, mostly in the clothes Clara had brought for her the night before.

And then she realised, she had never actually been to Sally Sparrow's house in London before. Embarrassed, she texted for the address. A W1 postcode. Typical. She knew London well enough though and, slowly, followed the directions away from Grosvenor Square to a residential corner of Westminster after teleporting out of Brighton. The house was a grey-brick, Georgian townhouse, almost black, with a red post-box outside still bearing Queen Victoria's royal cypher, VR. Two hundred years old.

She walked up the steps and knocked loudly with the ornate, silver doorknocker. From outside, she counted five floors, including a cellar below street level, the boarded-up windows of which she could see from the steps. All the curtains were drawn shut. If it wasn't all so clean and proper, the house would look deserted.

Sally answered the door quickly enough, opening it slowly so that she could avoid the sunlight – not there was much of it, the rain continuing. It had been raining in Brighton, too.

"Come in, come in." Rose did, gently wiping her feet on the welcome mat, though she flinched to do it. She'd never been more grateful that she'd left an old pair of shoes at Clara's house, too, even if they were a tight squeeze with the bandages. "Nice to see you at my house, for the first time since… actually, have you ever been to my house?"

"No. Didn't know you lived around here, exactly. Is this Mayfair?"

"Yes."

"Blimey…" said Rose. Sally closed the door behind her.

"You okay? You smell of disinfectant."

"You're smelling me?"

"Well, no, it's a strong smell," she said quickly.

"Just have a few cuts," said Rose.

"What's going on, then?" Sally opened the nearest door in the big hallway, into the living room. Rose had expected the entire building to feel draughty and haunted, but it was cosy through there, even with the gloom. With the windows all blocked up, every surface had candles on it, including two large candelabras standing at either end of an antique coffee table. There was a plush sofa and armchairs, all facing half towards a large television and half towards a genuine fireplace.

"Oh, hey!" said Esther, who Rose hadn't seen right away, buried in a cushy, tall-backed black armchair as she was. She had a laptop on her lap and her legs up on a footstool and one of them, to Rose's surprise, was locked in a large cast.

"Christ, what happened to you?" asked Rose.

"Got in a motorbike crash," she said.

"The motorbike crashed right into her," said Sally. "Are you staying long? Shall I put the kettle on?"

"Erm… yeah, go on. I can't say no to tea."

"It's strange, I don't actually know how you take it."

"Milk, two sugars. Actually – three sugars," she changed her mind.

Sally picked up two used mugs from the coffee table and disappeared through another door. Rose sat down on the sofa, nearest to Esther.

"It's gloomy in here," she said, "Do you get used to it?"

"Oh, sure," said Esther, "But I'm usually out of the house, anyway. And I have the curtains open in the morning before she's up."

"I'd've brought some grapes if I knew you broke your leg, Clara didn't say anything about it."

"It was only a few days ago, and I don't want a fuss," Esther was dismissive, "It's nearly healed, besides. In fact, it is healed, but Oswin won't let me take the cast off yet. She's worried I'm being devil-may-care."

"You almost died the last time I saw you," said Rose, "Maybe Oswin's right."

Esther sighed, "She usually is. But what am I gonna do? Have this power and not use it for something good? I've tried that. It's depressing."

"What're you up to while you heal, then?"

"Playing GTA," said Esther.

"Really? I didn't think you'd be into that," said Rose.

"Why?"

"Well, you're just…" Esther stared at her. "I don't know. Mickey used to play those, years ago. Don't you just drive around and shoot people?"

"…Kind of, I guess. But it's more nuanced than that."

"You just go around and kill prostitutes, for fun."

"You do not! I mean, sure, if that's what you wanna do, but I don't want to do that," said Esther. "And anyway, this is a more recent one, I'm playing as a prostitute."

"God. The future, eh?" Rose joked.

"What are you doing here, anyway? You're not just paying a social call, I'm sure."

"I could be."

"For the first time ever?"

"I'm here on business."

"Business?"

"Something serious. But I'll wait for her to come back, she's the one I need to talk to."

"You okay?"

She sighed. "No, not really. But which of us is, these days? We're all just… here."

"If you're feeling aimless, I recommend becoming a superhero," said Esther, "Very fulfilling. You could be my partner, we could call you… the Gold."

"The Gold?"

"Because you're all gold."

"Thanks. But I have a name. And I don't want to be the Lightning Girl's sidekick."

"I said partner, not sidekick, like Blue Beetle and Booster Gold," said Esther, "Or Cloak and Dagger. Or Power Man and Iron Fist."

"I don't know what these words mean."

"C'mon! It's like you've never read a comic book."

"Why would you think I have read a comic book?"

Sally Sparrow came back, balancing three mugs of tea.

"She just told me she's never read a comic book, can you believe that?" said Esther.

"It's almost like she's a normal person," said Sally, handing out tea.

"Hasn't the world moved on from making fun of people who like comic books and video games? It's as if I've gone back in time."

"A far better time, I'm sure," said Sally, "When you didn't live in England or drink tea, and said 'motorcycle' instead of 'motorbike'."

"I'd rather have coffee, but you don't know how to make it properly."

"I make coffee just fine," Sally Sparrow sat down in one of the other armchairs, nearest to the fire.

"How far away from Buckingham Palace are you here?" asked Rose. Sally made a face like she'd been asked that question a hundred times before.

"Ten minutes if you're rushing, maybe. Why? Are you going to go visit the King?"

"Just wondering."

"Where is it you're from?"

"Southwark," said Rose.

"You could walk to Buckingham Palace from Southwark, too, if you wanted to. Wouldn't take too long."

"It's not the same, it's south of the river."

"You just take the Jubilee Line," said Sally.

"South of the river," Rose reiterated.

"If I was on the roof, I could see Southwark, it's that close."

"Londoners," said Esther, "You have to cross one river, and suddenly the whole world ends. Nobody in D.C. ever complained so much about the Potomac."

"You all drive there, though, don't you?" said Rose, "Americans?"

"Not so much in the District, it's got the metro. And, do you know-"

"Oh, please don't regale us with your public transport facts today, I only just woke up," said Sally. Esther scowled at her, but she was looking at Rose, "What's happening, then? Why are you darkening our door?"

"I'm investigating some murders and thought they sounded a bit vampire-y," said Rose. "Just here to pick your brain, see if you've heard anything."

"You're here to accuse me of murder, more like."

"Sally couldn't murder anyone," said Esther, "She saw a mouse in the kitchen two months ago and almost cried."

"…It was frightening, they move very quickly," Sally defended herself.

"I don't think it's you, obviously," said Rose, "If you were gonna kill people, I don't think you'd do it in London-On-Sea."

"Murders in Brighton?" said Sally, frowning, "And recently? Not those ones around Halloween, or that palaver with Prometheus in September?"

"No. Different murders. Four homeless, all kidnapped, all showed up a week or so later in the same cemetery in the middle of Brighton, naked, full of anaesthetic, drained of blood and with organs removed," said Rose. "I found one of them, last night, by accident, and the filth picked me up for it. I was in a holding cell until after midnight."

"Well, maybe it was you, have you considered that?" said Sally, sipping her tea.

"It's not funny. I saw what happened to that woman, left there like that, in February. Killings going back months and they don't have any suspects or public interest."

"Bite marks?" asked Sally.

"No, I asked."

"And they were all left in a cemetery? The same cemetery?" Rose nodded. "Hm…" She thought. "I haven't heard anything about vampires in Brighton, but it's certainly odd. Hard to think of one stupid enough to set up down there with the Doctor around."

"The Doctor didn't know about any of this, so maybe not that stupid," said Rose.

"There aren't even forty vampires in the UK, and they all know where she is and to keep away," said Sally, "We do communicate with each other. There are meetings."

"It's strategic, though, isn't it?" said Rose, "Going after homeless people, and then draining them of blood."

"Yes. It's almost clever. But then, why leave them all in the same place? You're right there on the coast, you could throw them into the sea, a much better way to get rid of a body," said Sally. "And usually, when I've seen vampires go after homeless people like that, it's a lot more frantic. Kill them in the street, leave them in the street, disappear. No kidnapping. It's all contradictions."

"The anaesthetic, though, is the strangest bit," said Rose, "The police don't know what it is. They're saying it's an 'unknown compound'. Clara's weird detective friend, he turned off the tape and asked me outright, do I think it's aliens."

"Bringing alien anaesthetic to Earth and killing homeless people?" asked Sally, "Is that what aliens are into these days?"

"Aliens, or vampires. Maybe you've got some vampire chemist out there making his own mixtures. Knocking people out to steal their blood. That's easier than killing them right away, isn't it?"

"Most vampires don't kill people," said Sally, "It's far easier to just go to the nearest hospital and hypnotise someone into bringing out blood bags. That's what most of them do."

"And what about the rest?"

"Well, they've either got Oswin to clone blood for them, or they get into these… arrangements, with people."

"Arrangements?"

"It's kind of like, a fetish thing. People willingly, uh, 'donate' their blood, shall we say. Straight from the source."

"Strangers ask Sally to do that all the time," said Esther.

"To drink their blood?" asked Rose in disbelief.

"Yeah, that or turn them into a vampire," said Sally, "It's not just me, it happens to all of us. Sometimes we get offered money, and everything."

"Jesus. And you don't take it? A massive cash pay-out just to bite someone?"

"Well, no, because then there'd be more competition, wouldn't there? There are only so many blood bags you can pilfer from local hospitals," she said, "Don't want other vampires showing up. Usually, what happens is, they'll make a deal to take the cash up front, and then kill them. I doubt your homeless people are offering enough money to make it worthwhile, though.

"But, look," Sally went on, "The only other vampire nearer to Brighton than me, who might know more, is down in Wych Cross."

"Wych Cross," said Esther, "Isn't that Seb? Sticky Seb?" Sally made a face. "It is. I thought you don't talk to him anymore, not after Bingo died? You were so upset." Now, Sally glared at her furiously.

"Who's Bingo? And Seb?" asked Rose.

"Okay, so, what happened is-" Esther closed her laptop in anticipation, but was interrupted by Sally.

"What happened is that I may have gone on a rather misguided date under the advice of Clara Ravenwood, and then I had Esther call with a fake emergency halfway through so that I could leave."

"That emergency being the death of Bingo, our beloved, imaginary cat," said Esther.

"We went on a date, didn't have a connection, he's very dull, so I left," Sally said, "And his name is Sebastian, he doesn't like 'Seb'."

"When was this?" asked Rose.

"Three years ago."

"And you haven't seen him since?"

"I've seen him at meetings. Look, it's fine. If you want to go and talk to him and see if he's heard anything, I can come with you. God knows, if it is a vampire, it needs to be dealt with properly. Internally."

"What does that involve? A slap on the wrist and on you go?" asked Rose.

"I wouldn't want to bore you with the bureaucracy. Do you want me to come with you, though? Or are you going to go alone?"

"No, it's better if you do." She didn't actually know where Wych Cross was. "Unless you're busy?"

"I'm never busy anymore. Will you be alright without me for a bit?" she asked Esther.

"I'll be fine," said Esther, "I've got crutches."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. You don't need to babysit me."

"…Alright. I'm going to finish this tea, though." That reminded Rose to keep drinking hers. It wasn't hard, she was parched, and getting hungry again. "You know your feet are bleeding," said Sally.

"Probably," said Rose, "I'll just change the bandages when I get back later. And how can you tell?"

"The smell."

"Smelling my feet from the other side of the room? That's creepy."

"What happened to you?" asked Esther, "Did you get in a car accident, too?"

"No, just a lot of walking without proper shoes. I don't want to talk about it. Although, actually," she sat up and talked to Sally directly, "Would you dump someone if they took you on a sort of, jungle hike, for about four days, and wouldn't let you leave?"

"If they kidnapped me, you mean?"

"No, if you were just unwillingly taken with them somewhere and couldn't get away."

"Right," she nodded, "Like a kidnapping?"

"God, you're impossible to talk to."

"It does sound like a kidnapping, in her defence," said Esther. "Although, I agree about her being difficult to talk to."

"You two are weird, you know," said Rose, "It's like you're married."

"And you think two women being married is weird? That's not very modern of you," said Sally, "And I've got some dreadful news for you about Clara and the Doctor if that is what you think." Esther shook her head.

"We just live together," she said.

"But you've lived together for a long time."

"So, just because I'd rather not be in a relationship with anybody," Esther began, "That means I have to live alone forever? Why is that the choice?"

"And do you actually like being single?" This Rose asked Sally Sparrow again, knowing Esther's opinion on the whole matter.

"At the moment," she shrugged, "Maybe one day that'll change. I'm not going to force anything, though. And I'm also not going to comment on whether I'd dump anybody for the kidnapping thing, for fear of being named in your divorce papers."

"Nobody's talking about divorce," Rose dismissed her.

"What are we talking about, then?"

"Just… maybe I wouldn't like to keep living on the TARDIS."

"Well, there's plenty of room here if you don't want to leave London," said Sally.

"Nothing ever happens on there. At least here there's… weather. Toffs and tourists walking around outside."

"They're all looking for Savile Row," said Sally, "They want to see the rooftop where the Beatles played."

"Maybe I should go see that," Rose mused, "Then again, I'd probably run into someone."

"Like your husband, you mean?"

"Well, precisely," said Rose.

"You could go in disguise. Wear a big hat."

Before Rose could answer, her phone went in her pocket. It made her heart sink; Donna, it must be. Asking when she was going to come home. Saying how much he missed her. Breathing deeply, she checked it, and then relaxed. It wasn't Donna at all, only Clara, saying she was at the supermarket on the way home and asking if Rose wanted anything. She responded quickly about how she needed more bandages and wound dressing.

"Can we head off to see this bloke now?" said Rose, "I think I'm expected back for dinner."

"Absolutely," said Sally Sparrow, "I'll just go get dressed properly." She'd been in pyjamas the whole time. Of course, three o'clock in the afternoon was the early morning for a vampire. She put down her mug and left. Rose polished off the rest of her tea while she waited.

"I think it's fine if you want to live on Earth," said Esther eventually, "I like it here, with the structure – the days and the nights. When you've been away for a long time, being normal is… it's like breathing again. Like you've been holding your breath without knowing it."

"Yeah…" said Rose, "I know what you mean."

It was raining dreadfully in Wych Cross. There was almost nothing there, just fields fanning out from roadsides lined with trees, everything wintry and dead. Allegedly, there was a garden centre somewhere to the north.

Instructed by Sally Sparrow, Rose materialised them at an A-road junction that Sally insisted was exactly the right place. Then she took them immediately off the beaten track, over a stone wall and into a farmer's field.

"Probably not great for your injuries, this walking," said Sally, apologetic.

"Don't farmers shoot people in places like this?"

"Do they shoot ramblers in the home counties, you're saying?" asked Sally. "Not that I know of. And besides, these are Sebastian's fields, they're his property. Kind of."

"'Kind of'?"

"I think he's squatting. But there's nobody to clear him out, no one's fussed."

"It's like the wild west," she said dryly. "What's the forecast? How long is this rain meant to last?"

"Days," said Sally, "You're the one who wants to spend more time in England."

"I've missed it, that's all," said Rose, following her slowly through the muddy field. Rose didn't have an umbrella, but Sally did, pitch black, so Rose stayed close at her side. "What do you do with all your time, though? Other than solving vampire crimes."

"I still work, still do photography," said Sally, "I should've brought a camera here, actually, the light's quite interesting."

"It's all grey."

"Yeah, in an interesting way. But it's all freelance. It's lucky I don't really need the money."

"Because you live in that massive house," said Rose, not doing a good job of hiding her resentment. "How did you get that house?"

"Inherited it when my parents died, when I was twenty. But it's been in my family for over two hundred years."

"Bloody hell," said Rose, stopping dead.

"What?" Sally turned around.

"I always thought you were nouveau riche, but you're a proper aristo, aren't you? Blue-blooded."

"I'm not royal," she said. Rose started walking again. "That house is the only thing left now, anyway. There used to be titles, and a country estate – an estate not too far from where we are now – but some Sparrow cousins lost it gambling in the 1960s, betting on horses down in Brighton."

"And the titles?"

"There was an earldom, the Earl of Hove, but too many female heirs. We stopped being the Hoves before my father was born."

"Where's the house now? You couldn't have persuaded Adam to buy it back for you?" asked Rose. Sally laughed.

"Then I'd have a second empty house to do nothing with. But, no, somebody sold all the land to the government to build a power plant, in the eighties," she explained "It was Tudor. Somebody named it 'Sparrow's Rest' in the sixteenth century, and that's where the name came from."

"You're not the long-lost Countess of Hove, then?" asked Rose.

"In a parallel universe, maybe. One with less sexist rules about peerages. Here we are, it's just over this hill," she said. They came up over a hillock that, while not steep, was just tall enough that it had kept a large, old farmhouse hidden. It had sandy walls and a slate roof, surrounded by overgrowth.

"He doesn't do much gardening, then? This bloke?"

"Too busy foraging in the woods, I imagine," said Sally, "Looking for sticks. That's why everybody calls him 'Sticky Seb', they're all he ever talks about."

"Right…" Rose paused, "Why?"

"He collects them, they're all dowsing rods. He's looking for underground waterways or ley lines or something. He'll tell you all about it, I'm sure."

"You'd really rather stay in London than sell that house and come and live in the countryside, then?" asked Rose, "I thought poshos are supposed to love the country, always going fox shooting and pheasant hunting."

"I've always been rather bad at being posh," said Sally, "There was a clique of girls at school who once blocked me from joining their ski lift on a trip to Val-d'Isère because I didn't know the best calibre rifle for shooting grouse."

"What school was that? Hogwarts?"

"Cheltenham. I never had any friends there, anyway. Always got on best with normal people. My mother was from Galway; she got into Oxford, where she met my dad."

"I see," said Rose, "So, you're half-posh, half-normal?"

"You'd say half-normal, they'd say half-bred. The girls at school."

"Makes me glad I went to a naff comprehensive and didn't have to put up with boarding school freaks. Aren't we going in the front?"

"No, he only answers the back door, something to do with cold callers," said Sally, "It's this way, come on. And to answer your other question, I don't think I could ever live somewhere that isn't London. Not for very long, at least."

Sally knocked loudly on the back door, old, wooden, and starting to rot away at the bottom.

"What if he's not in?" Rose whispered.

"He is, I can hear him." Rose heard nothing, but it didn't take long for Sebastian to answer.

Rose didn't know what she'd been expecting from a reclusive vampire squatting in a rural farmhouse collecting sticks. She definitely hadn't been expecting him to be gorgeous, even if he was still cast partially in shadow. He stepped out a little more when he saw it was so grey and cloudy.

"Sally Sparrow. To what do I owe the pleasure?" He was a mumbler. "It's too much to hope for a social call?"

"I'm afraid so. Just need to talk to you, it won't take long. Can we come in? This is Rose, Rose Tyler," Sally introduced her, "She's an old friend of mine."

"Sebastian Sinclair," he said, holding out his hand for her to shake. Rose looked down at it and saw he was caked in filth. He noticed, quickly withdrew. "Sorry. I've been cleaning up a specimen, it's only mud."

"Don't worry about it, it's fine," said Rose, smiling. He'd been polite, but then something came over him. He stepped back.

"A Time Lord?" he squinted at her, "You brought a Time Lord here?"

"She's not a Time Lord," said Sally, "I wouldn't dream of it. She's… I don't know. What are you?"

"I'm more of an entity," said Rose, "But how can you tell just by looking at me?"

"When you've lived a long time, you can sense it on people."

"Sebastian, it's pouring, can we come in?" Sally implored.

"Oh, right, yes, of course, come in," he stepped aside.

Sebastian's house was gloomy, dusty, and smelt like earth and mildew. It was dark enough that she couldn't see how grimy things were, and that was how she'd like it to stay. The back door went right into the kitchen, and there on the table were half a dozen large sticks, all Y-shaped. He went to wash his hands.

"Do you need to be invited?" asked Rose, "I thought that was only for human buildings?"

"We're different clans, different bloodlines," Sally said, "He's Valois, I'm Gutkeled."

"…Okay…" said Rose. "So, when you say you've 'lived a long time', how long is that, exactly?"

"I died in 1917. Passchendaele." Sebastian held out his hand to Rose again, now clean. "Lance Corporal Sebastian Sinclair, 143rd," he introduced himself again, properly, shaking her hand. In the candlelight, she tried to get a better look at him; dark eyes, stubble, chiselled jaw. If he showed up on camera, she thought he'd be better off modelling cologne than hiding out in Sussex.

"You're the 143rd person in your family called-"

"No, Warwickshire Brigade."

"Oh, right. Sorry, I don't know much about the army."

"It's alright. They have beautiful hazel trees in Flanders, the ideal wood for dowsing," he picked up a tiny brush, one used for archaeology, from the table, and started dusting dried dirt from one of his sticks. "They used to send us out with rods to look for shells."

"Not to interrupt your, erm, stick cleaning-" Sally began.

"They're specimens, I've told you before," he said.

"Yes, right, your specimens. But we were wondering if you'd heard anything about some murders, in Brighton."

"That Time Lord den? You've come here to accuse me of killing humans in Brighton?"

"You see?" Sally said to Rose, "That's what I said."

"Right, but, maybe you've still heard about it," said Rose, "It wouldn't be good if somebody was trying to frame vampires for something, would it?"

"No bite marks, though," said Sally, "That's the one thing you'd be sure to add if you were trying to stage a vampire attack. And don't take the questions personally, Sebastian, she thought I'd been killing people earlier."

"That's not true," said Rose, "It's just, weird murders, nobody on camera, homeless people targeted and then drained of blood with their organs pulled out – and then everything with the cemetery. It sounds vampiric. You don't have a dowsing rod that can find serial killers, do you?"

"Divination is a lost art form, and there's no limit to what its potential might be," he said. "If you want to borrow any of the specimens, I can let you. But I'll need your contact information."

"You need my contact information to… borrow a stick?" asked Rose, "Erm… I'm actually married, sorry." She assumed this was a ploy for him to get her phone number.

"I didn't mean it like that. I take the care of my specimens very seriously, I can't loan them out to anybody," he said.

"Oh, right, well… I'll be able to get in touch if I do need to borrow a 'specimen'."

"A lot of people think willow is the best wood for dowsing, but I'm old-fashioned. The lightness of hazel – it's really able to key into the energies of the Earth. Water and its flow create energy, and that energy blocks us – vampires – understand?" he said, but he didn't wait for Rose to reply. "With the right type of wood, the right resonation, you can tune into all that. Become one with the natural world." He talked very slowly.

"Fascinating."

"Now, birch – that's a little too flimsy, though you'd think its rejuvenating properties might make it an ideal wood for divination. But some would say the birch is a sacred tree, protected by the fae, and it won't submit to our whims. It might be misleading. That's why I'd avoid it."

"That's… great."

"I have diluted rubbing alcohol here, to remove the dirt. Just a tiny amount, otherwise it will be leeched into the wood and cause all kinds of impurities," he went on. Handsome as Rose had thought he was earlier, he was looking distinctly less handsome the more he told her about sticks.

"Maybe then you'd have a dowsing rod for alcohol," said Sally, "You could use it to find the nearest pub."

"This is a sacred art, Sally. Now, the one wood I would never recommend is oak. You can't disturb an oak tree, and no oak wood will willingly offer up the right vibrations to find the waterways," he went on, dusting his twig, sometimes spraying it down. "But there's only so much each specimen can take. My favourites, I seal them in resin at the end, to preserve them. See?" He pointed out something hanging over the kitchen door. In an old country house, she'd usually expect to see a gun or some dead animal head mounted about the place, but no. It was a dowsing rod on a plaque.

"…Where do you get your blood from, then?" asked Rose before he started telling her about how he made resin, "If not by killing homeless people."

"I go to Tunbridge Wells Hospital, there's a nurse there who likes me."

"And she lets you drink her blood?"

He stared at her, "No, she brings me blood bags. I'm not a beast."

"I did tell you most vampires don't kill people," said Sally. "Are you sure you haven't heard anything, Sebastian? If anybody thinks it's vampires, that's bad news for us. We could get found out."

"Nobody would go to Brighton," he said.

"What about fledglings? Have you heard anything about that?"

"No, have you?"

"Well, no. I just thought, maybe, the weird politeness with the anaesthetic and leaving them in a graveyard, could be a fledgling," said Sally.

"Polite?" asked Rose, "What do you mean, 'polite'?"

"The graveyard, like I said."

"But in what way?"

"You're cutting out the middleman, aren't you? Take them straight to the graveyard. It's where people are supposed to end up," said Sally.

"Well, yeah, I suppose…" said Rose, who hadn't thought about it that way. "Why kill people at all if you want to be nice about it? If you don't need their blood?"

"Vampires aren't the only species that prey on humans," said Sally.

"That's true, have you looked into the werewolves?" said Sebastian.

"I've met werewolves, they don't use anaesthetic or sew people back up," said Rose.

"What did the Doctor say?" asked Sally.

"She blamed you lot, that's why I am here."

"That's so typical," Sebastian complained, "None of us asked to be vampires."

"Sally did," said Rose.

"It was that or dying of thyroid cancer before hitting forty," said Sally defensively, "And I never went out in the sun much, anyway."

"Here's what I don't get," said Rose, "You vampires, you're so cloistered and secretive, but you're more powerful than humans, aren't you?"

"Have you been watching films? It's really not like that," said Sally, "First of all, you're a manifest, and regular humans have managed to treat you abysmally enough despite your being a demigod. And second of all, we're very fragile. There's the sun, running water, religion, garlic, needing to be invited, stakes, and precious metals. Then look at Clara, a telekinetic powerful enough to bring planes crashing down, and she's got to stay hidden."

"You're resentful of humans now?"

"No, of course not. Obviously, they're scared of us, we're designed to prey on them, and we didn't always have fridges full of blood bags. But it's certainly in our best interest to stay hidden, too," said Sally. "Even Esther keeps her identity hidden."

"I think that's because she's a bit…" Rose began, "Well, you know." Sally stared at her. "Not in a bad way. She's unique."

"If you're not interested in my specimens, I'd rather you leave me to it," said Sebastian, "I wasn't expecting callers today, and I've told you everything I can. I doubt a vampire has anything to do with these Brighton killings. The Doctor is prejudiced. The Great Scourge of the Great Vampires, we call her."

"I'll be sure to tell her off," said Rose, then her phone buzzed. A text from Clara asking whether she'd be back for dinner and that it would be ready soon. "But yeah, alright, you've helped, and I should be getting back, anyway."

"You can stay if you like, Sally," Sebastian offered.

"Oh, no thank you," she said.

"What about this weekend? Are you busy?"

"I'm not interested, Sebastian. Sorry."

"You're not still upset about that cat, are you?"

"I just don't want to go out with you," she said, blunt. "Sorry, again."

"No, it's alright. Thomas and Lily have been trying to proposition me, anyway."

"I'm sure they'll be a lot of fun," said Sally, "But we'll be off now."

"Certainly. It was nice to meet you, Rose, even if you are a Time Lord," he left his sticks to open the back door for them.

"I'm not a Time Lord," said Rose, "I'm much worse. But unlike them, I don't have a grudge against the vampires, so you'll be fine."

"If you're ever in the area, Sally-"

"I'll drop in and say hello," she promised as they left, opening the umbrella again since it was still raining heavily. She told him she'd see him later and he shut the door against the wind.

Rose didn't waste time teleporting them back to Westminster, onto the doorstep of the dark grey townhouse. They hadn't been gone for that long at all, really.

"He's… interesting," said Rose. "A dashing, First World War veteran."

"And I hope one day he finds a woman who appreciates both how handsome he is and is just as interested in sticks. He should go seduce a neopagan and bite her."

"And who are Thomas and Lily, exactly?"

"Vampire swingers. They're very nice, though – she was a human for a decade before he turned her," said Sally, "But, really, I don't think you're looking for a vampire. Do you want my advice? As someone who investigates strange happenings for fun?"

"Go on."

"The anaesthetic," said Sally, "See if you can get a sample of it, and then see what Oswin says."

Rose groaned, "I really don't want to have to talk to Oswin."

"Nobody does, but unfortunately, she's a genius," said Sally. "Now, you'd better get home, no doubt dinner's on the table. And I think you should sort out those bandages."

"Yeah, alright. And thanks for everything, even if it's not a vampire killer. It was… nice to see you."

"Was it?" she was surprised.

"It was, actually. Maybe you're not a complete twat."

"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"I might come round for a tea, or something, one of these days. If you ever want the company after she's back on her feet."

"You're always welcome," Sally left her side, rushing up the steps in the rain to unlock the door, leaving Rose exposed. "I'll see you later! Tell Clara I said hello. Actually, wait, don't do that, she might get the wrong idea."

"Bye," said Rose, laughing a little at that, as she went inside.

Not one for lingering in the rain, she headed straight back to Brighton, wondering both when it would be appropriate for her to ask Clara for a set of keys and how she was going to get a sample of the 'unknown anaesthetic' to deliver to Oswin. And then, on top of all of it, how she could wrangle an invitation to Mattie's parents' evening the following night.