Carry On

I sneer. Out of habit. “Put a sandwich in it, Bunce.”

“How can we guess who sent the vampires or what the vampires even wanted,” she prattles on, “if we don’t know anything about vampires?”

“Vampires want blood,” Snow says through a maw full of roast beef.

“But they can get that anywhere,” she says. “They can get it easily. In Soho. After midnight.” She picks up a sandwich and sits on Snow’s bed, crossing her legs. I could see right up her skirt if I felt like it—and if I tipped my head a bit. “I can’t think of a more difficult place for a vampire to get blood,” she says, “than Watford, in the middle of the day.”

She’s got a point there.

“So why even try it?” she asks.

“Well, the term hadn’t started yet,” I say, picking up an apple, “so no one was on guard.”

“Yeah, but it’s Watford.” She shakes her long hair. “Even back then, there was a wall of wards against dark creatures.”

“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Snow says. “The Humdrum sent the vampires. Just like that dragon today. It didn’t want to be here either.”

I wasn’t sure Snow realized that, or believed me when I told him. I thought he was going to murder that dragon hen in cold blood in front of the whole school.

Well, not in cold blood—it was attacking us. But slaying a dragon is dark stuff, too dark even for my family. You don’t slay a dragon unless you’re trying to open a doorway to hell.

“But if Headmistress Grimm-Pitch was talking about the Humdrum,” Bunce says, “why would she throw that on Baz’s shoulders—does she expect him to kill the Humdrum? And what about this Nicodemus?”

Snow frowns. “We should stop thinking of it as an isolated attack.”

“It’s the only vampire attack in the history of the school,” I argue.

“Yeah,” he says, “but all sorts of other stuff was going on back then. The Mage said the dark creatures thought we were getting weak—they were making a serious move on our realm.”

“When did he say that?” Penny asks.

“It’s in The Record,” Snow says. “The Mage gave a speech to the Coven—even before the Watford invasion.” He sticks what’s left of his sandwich in his mouth and reaches around Penny for a book. His jacket and jumper are on the floor, and his white shirt tugs out of his trousers on one side.

He finds the right page soon enough, holding it out to us. I stand above them, not prepared to actually sit on Snow’s bed.

It’s the front page of The Record. The Mage’s speech is printed in full, and there’s a large chart with dates and bold-faced atrocities—all the attacks on magickind over a fifty-year period. OUR DOMINION IN DANGER? the headline asks.

“Wait a minute.…” Bunce takes the book from him and hands him her sandwich to hold; he takes a bite. “There’s nothing about the Humdrum.” She flips ahead to the story about my mother’s death, then scans it with her finger. “No Humdrum here either.”

She closes the book and taps the cover with her ring. “Fine-tooth comb—Humdrum!” The book opens, and the pages start rifling forward. They pick up speed towards the end; then the book slams shut on her lap.

“No mentions,” Penny says.

“That doesn’t make sense,” I say. “The Humdrum existed then. The first dead spot appeared in the late ’90s. Near Stonehenge. We’ve studied it in Magickal History.”

“I know,” she says. “My mother was pregnant with me when it happened. She and Dad visited the site.” Bunce takes what’s left of her sandwich back from Snow and takes a bite. She looks up at me, chewing suspiciously. “I wonder how they knew…”

“Who?” I ask. “What?”

“I wonder how they figured out that it was the Humdrum behind everything,” Bunce says, “behind the dark creature attacks and the dead spots? How would they know it was him before they knew how he felt? That’s how we identify him now. That feeling.”

“Did you feel the Humdrum?” Snow asks. “That day in the nursery?”

“I was a bit distracted,” I say.

“What did they tell you?” Bunce asks.

“What did who tell me?”

“Your family. After your mother died.”

“They didn’t tell me anything. What was there to say?”

“Did they tell you it was vampires?”

“They didn’t have to tell me that. I was there.”

“Do you remember?” she asks. “Did you see the vampires?”

“Yes.” I set the apple back on the tray.

Snow clears his throat. “Baz, when did you first hear that it was the Humdrum who sent the vampires?”

They’re imagining my father sitting me down in a leather club chair and saying, “Basilton, there’s something I need to tell you.…”

He’s never said those words.

Nobody tells anyone anything in my family. You just know. You learn to know.

No one had to tell me that we talk about Mother, but we don’t talk about Mother’s death.

No one had to tell me I was a vampire:

I remembered being bitten, I grew up with the same horror stories everyone else did—then I woke up one day craving blood. And no one had to tell me not to take it from another person.