Blue Convolvulus

Aubrey groaned, eyes fluttering as he battled sleep to stay conscious. Groaning again, he slowly found purchase and struggled to sit up.

"Stay still," said a gentle voice, and after a moment, he realized it was Stregoni.

He grunted and ignored the command—but was promptly defeated after a wave of dizzy dropped him back down on the bed. "What…what's going on?"

"You've been asleep a little over a day," Stregoni said. "You lost a lot of blood helping Ruthven save Gilles."

That he remembered—well, passing out he sort of remembered. Whatever Ruthven had done, by the end of it all, Aubrey had felt weak as a baby. Only his refusal to drop before Ruthven was safely in their bed had kept him from passing out sooner.

He slowly turned his head to look at Stregoni, who was slumped tiredly on a chair pulled close to the bed.

"You look exhausted," he said, immediately feeling guilty. Of course it would be Stregoni who took care of them all. "How are the others?"

Not waiting for a reply, he turned to look at the other half of the bed, relief undoing the knot in his chest when he saw that Ruthven was beside him, and looked no different than the last time he'd gone into a deep sleep.

"Ruthven is fine," Stregoni said, yawning. "Gilles is sleeping at least as hard, but seems okay otherwise. François is badly shaken, and feels awful about what he did, but he's recovering faster than the rest of you."

That drew Aubrey's attention to something else he'd noted during the awful night. "Stregoni…how long have you been in love with Gilles and François?" Because there was no mistaking the way Stregoni had looked bent over an unconscious and—at the time—very likely dead Gilles. The way he'd rushed to save François, frantic in a way he usually wasn't when helping people.

Stregoni flinched at the question and did not reply.

Aubrey didn't press it, not really able to comprehend it, and still too tired to try and figure it out.

"Carmilla has taken a turn for the worse," Stregoni said.

"Milla?" Aubrey said, snapped from where he'd turned back to Ruthven. "What's wrong with Milla?"

Stregoni shook his head. "I don't know. She's been sick since the attack. I think the shock and fear were too much for her frail body. She's sleeping as well." He sighed and rubbed his forehead tiredly, and the shadows beneath his eyes suddenly looked all the worse.

"What time is it?" Aubrey asked.

"Coming on eight o'clock," Stregoni said, smiling weakly. "I was beginning to think the lot of you would sleep forever. Your father is downstairs in his study. Lord and Lady Blackfield are confined to their rooms until Lord Sangre sees fit to let them return home. He is, to say the least, quite furious. We still cannot find William. We were all poisoned with garlic, which is dangerous only to Pets. It was by sheer luck alone that Elisabeth and Ruthven fed before the dinner party and so were not poisoned like François."

Aubrey frowned. "That makes no sense. What is the point in poisoning our Pets?"

Stregoni shrugged. "I do not know. If your father has figured something out, he has not said." He stood up slowly, grasping the bed frame for balance.

"You are dead on your feet," Aubrey said, sliding slowly from the bed. "Go rest, Stregoni. You will probably be needed later, so it's better that you rest now while everyone else is sleeping. I can manage until you wake, just tell me what to do. If something goes wrong, I'll wake you up."

"There's not really anything to do right now. We're at the watch and see stage." Stregoni said. "Keep an eye on your sister, make her drink her tonic whenever she stirs. Try to make your father sleep. Check on Gilles and François, but they should be fine, I think. Whatever Ruthven did, Francois will be fine once he wakes up, and Gilles should only need a few more days of rest."

Aubrey shifted his gaze to Ruthven, fast asleep and perfectly, eerily still. "Yes, that is another question that will require an answer once everyone is well."

If his father didn't demand them sooner. Stifling a sigh, Aubrey took Stregoni by the arm and all but dragged him from the room and towards his own—but he hesitated halfway there, remembering the look upon Stregoni's face when he thought Gilles would die, when he'd gone to save François.

Aubrey did not understand it. Gilles was a bastard of the highest order, and François much the same…but there was no mistaking that look, and Stregoni was more his brother than his friend. If there were answers to be had about the oddity of it, he would get them later.

Changing directions, he guided Stregoni to Gilles's door.

"What?" Stregoni said, struggling to break free. "I don't think—"

"Just go rest," Aubrey said, opening the door and pushing him inside.

When Stregoni did not move, he pushed him toward and onto the bed.

"This is a bad idea," Stregoni said, looking around the richly appointed room as though he expected something to leap out and bite him. Then his eyes landed on Gilles and François in their enormous bed, and he forgot to keep struggling. "They'll kill me," he said softly.

Aubrey snorted. "I doubt Gilles will be capable of fluffing his own pillow when he wakes. And I don't think François will be in the mood for more violence. You're worried about them, so stay here and keep watch. I'll be busy with other things. Tug the bell pull if there's a problem."

He did not wait for a reply, but strode from the room, closing the door firmly behind him.

In the hallway, he had to rest a bit, wait for the world to steady beneath him.

First thing was first—he needed to get cleaned up and changed, then find food.

Then…then he would have to go and speak with his father, and see what the two of them could figure out, as there was simply no one else to do it.

He returned to his bedroom and fumbled to pull out fresh clothes, ringing for a servant. Turning away from his wardrobe, his gaze landed absently on the window.

Outside, the snow had resumed falling, and it looked as though it had been falling for some time, and rather heavily. Just a few days ago it had begun to melt. Now they were once more being consumed by winter. The moonlight made the snow glow where it slipped between the heavy clouds.

It was rather like being caught in a dream.

He turned and looked at Ruthven.

Perhaps nightmare was the more accurate term.

Hearing the servant arrive, Aubrey bundled his clothes together and went to order a bath and food.

Two hours later, he wanted only to go back to bed. Another pot of tea would take care of the worst of the exhaustion, but he still would rather linger and make certain Ruthven would be all right.

"What are you?" he asked softly, brushing back a strand of Ruthven's hair. His stillness was as eerie now as it had been the first time Ruthven had gone into a deep sleep.

Exertion was obviously the reason behind it. But what had Ruthven done the first time to exhaust himself? Hell, Aubrey still wasn't certain he knew what Ruthven had done this time. Saved Gilles by taking Aubrey's blood, but why had that worked?

Shaking his head, allowing himself one more glance at Ruthven, Aubrey turned away and left his rooms.

Downstairs, he knocked on the door to his father's study, then pushed the door opened when he heard something.

Sangre was sitting at his desk, wearing nothing more than his shirtsleeves, rolled up as he read through various books.

Books Aubrey had never seen before, and he was doubly sure of it when he drew close enough to read the titles. "Where have these been? They weren't in Mother's room, or the study."

Sangre looked up at him, tired and angry—but amused. "In my room. Where sons with a tendency to defy me would not find them."

Aubrey glared but could not muster the energy to be truly angry.

"You should still be resting," Sangre replied.

"So should you," Aubrey retorted. "What have you learned?"

Sangre set down a book he'd been reading, leaning back in his seat and scrubbing at his face tiredly. "Call for tea, would you?"

"I did before I came here," Aubrey said. "Tell me."

"Patience, Brey," Sangre muttered. "I knew what was going on the moment the word poison came up."

"Stregoni said it was garlic."

Sangre sighed and picked up one of the books on his desk, rifling through the pages, then turned and pushed it toward Aubrey. "Yes, though to be precise I believe poor François was poisoned by an extract made from garlic flower. I have seen its effect upon vampires only once before."

Aubrey startled, looking at his father. "What did you call them?"

"Vampires?" Sangre asked, mouth quirking in amusement. "Your mother and I never called Mina our Pet. She was always just a vampire to us. We drew up papers that declared she was free, even found ways to see she had her own money and would inherit plenty should I die before either of them. In every way we could, we made certain Mina was free. I've done the same for Elisabeth, François, and Ruthven.

"And we always, always called Mina a vampire. We believed, once, that so long as they were called Pets, that was all they'd ever be. That half the battle was simply getting through to everyone, forcing them to see vampires as people, not Pets."

Nodding, still not certain how to handle the fact his strict father had once fought to free Pets, Aubrey glanced down at the book. "Garlic flower?"

"Yes," Sangre said, still sounding far too amused. "Vampires are, for reasons unknown, highly allergic to all parts of the garlic plant. Usually it's not a problem; anyone who can afford a Pet does not eat garlic. Most are not even aware of the problem anymore. Those that are take care to feed their Pets well before or well after they have eaten anything containing garlic. Even if they don't, the quantities are usually small enough that the worst that happens is the vampire takes sick for a little while. A case of vampire poisoning this severe has not occurred in many years."

Aubrey frowned. "Why?" he asked. "I don't understand who would have done this and why."

Sangre leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "I think our culprit is William—that much is obvious by the way he has vanished. We will run him to ground eventually. This weather hinders him as much as us. The why eludes me, though. I can only assume it has something to do with the fuss Gilles and I raised over the way Stregoni was treated. A bit of an overreaction, which leads me to conclude William did not quite mean things to go as they did."

"François and Gilles nearly died," Aubrey said quietly. "Neither of them deserved this, whatever Gilles did to William and the Blackfields. Especially François. He had nothing to do with the matter. What exactly happened? Why did he turn mad and attack everyone?"

"He had enough garlic, ingested through the feeding that it simply drove him mad. It would have made him crave still more blood in an attempt to find untainted food, but the more he ingested, the worse it became. It's a miracle he did not die from ingesting too much. We have Stregoni to thank for that; he deduced the cause and had the proper tonic to counter the poison."

Aubrey closed his eyes. "I never thought I'd feel sorry for those two, but as aggravating as they can be, they didn't deserve this. No one does. Poor Gilles, to be attacked like that by someone he trusts and cares for. And François…"

"You might try saying 'poor Gilles' more often," his father said quietly. "There is more to your cousin than you have ever bothered to learn." He grunted softly. "Though, that certainly goes both ways."

"If you say so," Aubrey said, but couldn't muster the will to really argue, not when he remembered Stregoni's face. For his best friend to feel that way...either Gilles was more of a monster than he'd always believed, or far less of one.

"How did Gilles survive?" Sangre asked. "I saw him before I went downstairs to find François and William. He should not be alive. Ruthven has fallen into his strange, deep sleep again—I cannot think the two are unrelated."

Aubrey hesitated.

"Tell me," Sangre said firmly. "I seriously doubt you can say anything that would shock me, not after what has already transpired...and what I used to do."

"Ruthven...did something..." Aubrey said slowly. "He drank my blood...and then gave it to Gilles. I don't know, it was very strange."

Sangre went still. "What? Are you certain?"

"As certain as I can be," Aubrey said, scowling at the desktop. He glanced up at his father, who had a strange look on his face. It was part disbelief, part suspicion...and Aubrey swore he almost looked excited.

Standing, Sangre began to rifle through his books in earnest, setting several aside after flipping through them, all but tossing some aside in his impatience. "Are you positive that is what happened, Brey?" Sangre demanded.

"I don't know," Aubrey snapped. "He fed from me three times, and each time he then turned and seemed to give the blood to Gilles. Who can say for certain, though? I was half asleep and terrified at the time." He covered his face with his hand for a moment. "There was blood everywhere."

"Hmm," Sangre said absently, then gave a soft, "Ah ha!" and sat back down again. "Here we are—medical treatises on vampires. Most of them are concerning the blood fixation—that a vampire can only feed from the human from whom they first take blood." He opened the book and gave it to Aubrey. "The accepted theory is that despite bonds of family, each person's blood is in some way wholly unique. It was the greatest argument for never freeing Pets: they could not survive without their masters, and so would be slaves anyway."

Aubrey frowned as he read, eyes snapping open wide as he comprehended the words. "This...proposes that's not true." He looked up at his father. "What in the hell are you doing with so many illegal books."

Sangre snorted in amusement. "Jealous?"

Rolling his eyes, Aubrey looked back down at the book. "This says that there are different kinds of blood, but not as unique as we currently believe..."

"Yes," Sangre said. "Vampires can only feed on the blood of their masters. That has long been the accepted theory. If they tried to feed off someone else, it would not suffice. They would starve, even get sick and reject the blood. This would indicate that no two people have exactly the same kind of blood...yet Ruthven used your blood to save Gilles."

Aubrey frowned in thought. "Maybe it's only a difference that affects vampires, not humans."

"That could be," Sangre agreed. "Most of us did not believe it, though. If that were true, the vampires would not have thrived as they did for so long before they agreed to being enslaved."

"What!" Aubrey dropped the book he was holding. "What in the hell do you mean 'agreed to be enslaved?'"

Sangre quirked a brow. "The situation is far more complicated than you can possibly imagine, Brey."

"Not for lack of trying," Aubrey snapped. "You're the one who won't let me get involved."

"For your own good," Sangre said, voice taking on a heat of its own. "The people who killed your mother will not hesitate to kill you too! That should be obvious."

"So what?" Aubrey snarled. "Everything comes at a risk." He started to say more, but the shadows that appeared in his father's eyes stopped him short.

"And what would you do," Sangre said quietly, "if one day they killed your sister instead of you? If they murdered Stregoni? That is what they did to me. I ignored their threats, determined to take them on exactly like the valiant hero I saw myself to be—and they killed your mother and Mina to teach me a lesson. Do you know how it felt to find that carriage? To see the women I loved dead? It was a miracle they left you alive, and I have never stopped being grateful. Is that what you want, Brey? To see your sister and closest friend murdered because you angered the wrong people? Let the past lie."

Biting back an angry curse, Aubrey bent to pick up the dropped book. Silence fell for several minutes, until at last he forced himself to stir. "What was all that nonsense about vampires choosing enslavement?"

Sangre sighed. "It is buried knowledge, like so much else where vampires are concerned. They were created by mistake, roughly six hundred years ago, though I could never learn anything more than that. I don't even entirely know what 'created' means, or who did the creating. Whatever anyone likes to say about them, the first vampires were not born. They were made. Anyway, they got out of control, or so it's said. It was decided by everyone, including the leader of the vampires—Tsar Abraham, they called him—that it would be best if his race was annihilated. If they continued to grow in power and numbers, they would eventually destroy the human race."

Aubrey frowned. "That seems cruel."

"Yes," Sangre said. "There were many vampires who disagreed, obviously, with their tsar's decision. Shortly before the agreement was to be signed, the tsar died in a tragic accident. No one believed that for a moment, but no one could ever figure out who actually killed him. So an accident it remains. Someone else stepped into his place and agreed to his people's enslavement rather than their demise."

"How...how do you know all this?"

Sangre smiled sadly. "Because once I believed very strongly in freeing them, and took a great many risks to learn all I possibly could. Many secrets cost me gold, others cost me favors...and in the end, I paid a price I could not bear." He toyed with the ring he wore, made of rubies set in gold, a twin to the one on Elisabeth's wedding finger. Aubrey vaguely remembered a wedding ring of diamonds and sapphires that had vanished after Sangre had brought Elisabeth home.

Sangre turned the ring round and round, the rubies glinting in the fire light. "When I found you, Brey," he said, not looking up, "you were covered in blood. You kept crying that they were sleeping, and did not understand what had really happened. When we finally explained, you did not stop crying for nearly a week. It was much longer before you stopped calling for them in your sleep."

Aubrey looked down at his own hands, not certain what to say. His father had never volunteered such information before, and he was at a loss as to what to do with it.

A servant knocked on the door, announcing the arrival of the requested tea.

Aubrey stood to fetch it and poured for both of them. When they were settled again, Sangre said, "The authorities came while you were all asleep and spoke with Stregoni and me. They are presently scouring the countryside for William, and have issued alerts to other villages. One way or another, we will find the bastard."

"What will we do with him?" Aubrey said, his imagination supplying plenty of satisfying methods of revenge.

"That will be determined after we catch him and all affected parties are able to decide," Sangre replied, the tone of his voice implying that his own imagination was just as satisfying.

Aubrey took a sip of his tea, dark and sweet, staring at it a moment before finally speaking again. "Stregoni said Carmilla has taken a turn for the worse."

"Yes," Sangre said, face turning dark and stony. "If she does not recover in the next few days...I..." He trailed off, staring at his own tea, looking troubled.

Aubrey did not press him to finish.

He struggled to think of something else to say, mouth quirking as something indeed came to him. "Stregoni said you are keeping the Blackfields hostage."

"Yes," Sangre said, his own mouth quirking, and for a moment, father and son looked very much alike. "I would go and fetch their son, but in light of what I learned from Gilles, I feel perhaps the lad is doing better without their overzealous fretting. Stregoni will likely go see to the boy once everyone here is doing better."

"You mean once Gilles and François are doing better," Aubrey muttered.

His father chuckled. "Noticed that too, eh? I tried to broach the topic, but Gilles refuses to discuss it. If there was one trait I wish my brother and I had not passed on as well as we did, it would be our obstinacy."

Aubrey snorted, unable to argue that one. There was no denying that they all of them were a trifle too stubborn, from his father to Carmilla to himself and right on to Gilles. "Is your brother obstinate, too, then?"

"Yes," Sangre said. "Far more than me, even." He sighed. "But I think we have enough problems on our hands without adding him to the mess."

"You know, he's the only one you talk about less than mother."

Sangre looked up, every line of age showing in his face now. "We neither of us coped well with losing the women we love. I have dealt with it better than him, because I knew Mina and Lucy would want me to push on for our children. Later, I chanced upon Elisabeth when I accompanied an old friend when he went to purchase a Pet. She has helped me a great deal, more than I deserve, frankly.

"My brother, unfortunately, never recovered from losing his wife. Gilles would not want it discussed, for he is ferociously guarded about such things, but if I had not taken him from his father, I have no doubt he would be dead. There is...an arrangement, I guess you might say. I raise Gilles, provide my brother with what he requires, and he leaves all of us alone."

Aubrey nodded, feeling more tired than ever. Secrets and secrets—how much more about his life and family had never been told to him? Why was he so damnably ignorant?"

"This is the second time your Pet has gone to sleep like this," Sangre said suddenly. "Why did he do it the first time?"

"I don't know," Aubrey said. "Though, uh, there were things about that night I never spoke of, that I guess I should tell you now."

Sangre's brows went up. "Do tell."

Wincing, Aubrey told him all that had actually transpired.

When he finished, Sangre leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, and simply sat thinking for several long moments.

Aubrey sat nervously, wondering if they were about to get into another shouting match—and realized he'd rather enjoyed that so far there had been no voice raising at all. Not even a moderate loss of temper.

He and his father were getting along. How strange.

"Ruthven is the strangest vampire I've encountered," Sangre said at last. "Nothing I've ever read would account for such behavior. He sounds more like the stuff of myth and legend, which is absurd."

Aubrey grimaced. "I guess that's what we get for letting Gilles do the shopping."

"I suppose so," Sangre said, smiling.

Before he could catch himself, Aubrey smiled back.