Chapter 25

The preparations had taken three days but now Robin was confident it might work. He was waiting for Ashley to add the final ingredient to a potion he, Alex and Hyax would drink so they could combine their magic and cast a spell in order to change Robin and Gwil's appearance. Jack would also be included but he would need another version to account for his magic.

"Nearly there," Ashley said, throwing a sprig of rosemary into the cauldron.

They were all gathered in one of the outhouses Ben used for his experimenting as the potion had to be drunk fresh.

Alex peered at the liquid. "Looks good, nice shimmer."

He saw Ashley preen at the compliment, as elves were known for their brewing skills and he knew Ashley was another chemistry nerd like Ben. Three glasses had been placed onto a lab bench and Ashley decanted a decent mouthful into each then handed them out.

"Down in one and then we'll turn Gwil into a pox-infested vamp fuck boi and Robin into his cock slut," Ashley said, grinning.

"I'm pretty sure that wasn't the exact backstory," Gwil said.

Ashley snorted. "Gwil, I'm sure you can tell them what we've prepared, but you're going to have to accept that your alter-ego is going to be thought of like that. It's not real."

Hyax was stony-faced, and Robin couldn't blame him. "Let's get on with this. Once we've cast, this pair need to get on their way. Then we can do Jack and I'll go with him to abduct the staff member he'll replace who is meant to be starting a new job."

Jack didn't seem bothered by the thought of becoming an orderly in the facility, and Robin knew he'd done all sorts of jobs for the Warlock Ruling Committee and the Vampire Council over the four hundred-odd years he'd been alive.

"Seems that things have moved on a great deal since I was party to a metamorphosis casting," Jack said.

Robin had been impressed with the dealings he'd had with Jack. He had an aura of professional competence that was harder to come across than most people realised.

Alex was first to knock back the potion, he didn't react to the taste but both Ashley and Hyax gagged.

"Time to get this going," Hyax said as he stroked Gwil's cheek. "I know you won't be talked out of this, but you have to promise me you'll be careful. I won't be held responsible for my actions if anything happens to you."

Gwil smiled, he was hopelessly smitten with Hyax, any fool could see that. "I'll be fine, don't worry. We just need to get selected and then find Simon. Easy-peasy."

Robin hadn't given too much consideration to Gwil's role, but it struck him there was no reason for him to have agreed to have done this. He'd taken it for granted that he would, and he was probably leant on by Solivatus to do so, putting him at odds with Hyax. Robin realised Gwil would have never said no, even if he'd wanted to, the hierarchy of vampire society too rigid for him to have done otherwise.

"I don't think I've thanked you for agreeing to help," Robin said. "I have considerable influence, and you should never worry about asking me to exert it in your favour."

Gwil looked somewhat taken aback. "I'm happy to help."

Alex patted one of a pair of chairs. "Time to take your seats. The potion's done its job. Let's get our Cinderellas ready for the ball."

Robin sat. He trusted these three or he'd have been less inclined to subject himself to a three-way casting. "I'll go first—you'll be unsurprised to hear this isn't my first multi-person session. Do I need a safe word?"

"Ha, ha." Ashley snarked. "You'll be safe from me doing anything to you other than throwing magic at you."

He knew better than to tease Ashley further. He might be the partner of his best friend, but because of how close he and Ben had got physically in the past, they hadn't reached a stage of camaraderie yet where they could exchange much banter.

Robin braced himself, unsure what to expect. He'd experienced Simon and James's casting but those were protectionary whereas now he'd agreed to be transformed into an emo kid with boyfriend issues and a nasty magical infection.

"This might tickle at first," Alex warned as he, Ashley and Hyax stood in a triangle around them. "Then it's going to hurt like a bastard."

"What?"

"We're reshaping your anatomy, Robin. It's not a glamour, the wards would strip the magic before you got within a few feet of them, this is the only way."

He should have realised it wouldn't be a walk in the park and gripped the arms of the chair. Ashley held out a strip of leather. "You might want to bite down on that. We added some numbing elements but we can't do too much as it'd be counterproductive."

"Is it likely to be on the same level as when I was turned?" Robin asked, he considered himself to have a high pain threshold and his transformation into a vampire hadn't been as bad as some of his creed had made out.

"On a par but condensed into a shorter time," Alex explained. "We'll be done in minutes not days… this isn't permanent, and you might have a similar reaction when it's reversed."

He placed the strip of leather between his teeth, not convinced he was going to need it but thirty seconds later he was proved wrong. The casting started with a gentle tickle. Three waves of magic, one from each of them, circled his body, dancing across him almost playfully, but the waves combined and as they did so the sensation was no longer gentle but thousands of pinpricks, which got deeper and fiercer with every second. Robin bit down on the leather, his jawbone and skull feeling as if they were melting. He keened in pain and rocked backwards and forwards.

"Nearly there," Hyax called.

It might have been seconds but it felt like an eternity and as the magic dissipated the relief flooded him and swept away the nausea from the pain with it.

"I think the ginger hair is a nice touch," Ashley said. He grabbed Robin's chin and inspected their work.

Alex conjured a hand-held mirror and handed it to Robin. "Spelled for vampire use."

Robin's face was now much squarer and his nose flat and broad. He wasn't bad-looking but he wouldn't want to stay like this forever. "I wouldn't recognise me, so it worked."

Gwil was next and it was strange to watch how his features shifted, he was less stoic than Robin had been and had let out several howls of pain but the end result wasn't too shabby and he supposed he was still attractive enough to make people think him capable of convincing someone to dabble in black magic for a good time.

They had to adapt a few things for Jack but twenty minutes later a blond cutie with a round face had replaced the long black hair and square jaw. He'd had none of the pain, and Robin wasn't sure if that was because his magic had cushioned it or if Jack's pain threshold was higher.

Alex handed out new clothing. After changing into jeans, a T-shirt and a sweater that were certainly not the designer clothing he preferred, Ashley handed him back his mobile phone he'd given him earlier. "This is now adapted to your new identity, your old information is still in there but hidden but you can access it through the calculator app."

Gwil slipped his phone into a pocket. "Do you think they'll work in the facility?"

"Jack developed a spell, so we hope it will work, but it might not and I would limit the use of phones as much as possible—best kept for emergencies."

Robin hoped Ashley was right and he and Gwil followed Alex outside where a car was waiting for them. Hyax pulled Gwil away, and Robin got into the car to give them some privacy as Hyax kissed Gwil goodbye. Moments later they were heading away from Crofton Hall. Travelling at the tail end of the afternoon they would pick up a rental in a couple of hours and drive to the meeting after sunset.

"Hyax isn't happy about this is he?" Robin said.

"He's being a bit funny and there's no reason for it. The Solivatus side I get, he's my sire, we have history and his parents are pressuring him into marrying someone else. Now I'm pretending to be with you, he's even more skittish."

"Nothing's going to happen between us."

"I know that, he knows that. But you're Robin Flint, and you've a reputation for taking what you want."

He couldn't argue with the perception, but that was the old Robin. "That was before I was married."

"You ain't been married long, and although Hyax knows about the bond with Simon, he's just feeling a bit unbalanced. He's even asked if I wanted out, but that's the last thing on my mind."

Hyax and Gwil's relationship couldn't be easy. "Do you think he'll bow to his parents' wishes and get married?"

"It'll be a political match, and be touted as a way to further show cohesion between the tribes, so reading between the lines he might… I'm not sure he'll have a choice to say no in the end."

"What would happen to you?"

"If sanctioned I could have the status of harem member or be called the Prince's Beloved. His parents wouldn't object to that, well, that's what they've said."

Robin couldn't bear the idea of Simon marrying another. Hylei had mentioned the fae practise of having harems and he'd had to fight a hot bolt of anger at the idea. "Doesn't sound like you'd be happy, though."

"But I'm not anyone important, so I won't get a say. And I don't want to lose him."

"You're important to Hyax."

Gwil smiled, but there was a sadness that looked even more pronounced with his new face. "Sometimes that's not enough. For now, I can't do anything about it, but I can help get your Simon back."

Robin knew an end to a conversation when he heard it. They chatted about less personal things for a while, but he spent some time on business matters and Gwil appeared to be doing the same. They both knew their back story and were running through it a final time when they reached the rental place where they would pick up their car.

At first, he'd argued he would drive but having learnt what they were renting he'd changed his mind and was happy enough to let Gwil drive a car half the size of his preferred model. He at least made himself useful by programming the sat nav and they were only twenty minutes away, but down country lanes better suited to tractors than a Fiat 500. There was at least one occasion he thought they might die if they weren't already dead. Gwil's great reflexes kicked in as the locals used the lanes as rat runs and thought nothing of doing sixty miles an hour around a blind bend in the dark.

They pulled into the car park of a village hall—the sort of place that did coffee mornings and toddler play groups—and Robin suspected the usual clientele would have had palpitations if they realised what was going on this evening.

"You ready to be William Carpenter?"

Gwil nodded. "As much as I can be. So how's it feel to be Robert Black?"

"Itchy. Due to the pox you gave me."

"I told you, I didn't mean to… how was I to know that doing the nasty in a bath with spelled water would do that." Gwil grinned. "I'm sorry, babe."

Robin laughed. Maybe he could see why Hyax liked him so much. "It's fine, sweetheart, we'll get through this."

They got out of the car and walked around the side of the village hall, the noise of people chatting far louder than he'd expected given it was already dark and on the chilly side. They'd been told there would be a lot of interest but there must have been over a hundred people waiting in line and they joined the queue. It would be important that they came across as a couple in need of help. The magic used to change their features would mimic the issue, but they would also need to come across as genuine. Robin took hold of Gwil's hand. "Don't look so worried. I'm sure Dr Mettle will be able to help."

Solivatus had suggested an option to observe a meeting, get the lay of the land, and attend the next, but Robin hadn't wanted to wait. They'd been lucky they'd found out about this one, it seemed too good a chance to pass up, but it did mean they would be going in blind. He nodded in the direction of a young man, in his early twenties, but then looks meant nothing, with a crop of curly black hair and eyes that shone a little too bright in the streetlights to be human. He carried a clipboard and was holding a quartz of some kind, the stone glowing with different intensity and colour as he walked past those in the queue.

As he passed them the quartz flashed red three times.

He stopped. "Gentlemen, can I ask you to answer a few questions to see if you will benefit from being here?"

"Yeah, sure," Gwil said. He was to take the lead, and Robin was to be his submissive and somewhat put-upon partner.

"Please follow me."

They walked hand-in-hand around the side of the village hall. It was bigger than Robin had given it credit for and they entered via a side door. The hall itself had a raised stage area at the front, and rows of chairs had been set out, at least a hundred by Robin's estimation, and probably less than a dozen were already filled. The young man bade them to sit at one of three school desks at the back of the hall, the other two were already occupied.

"My name is Nurse Helm, I'm one of Dr Mettle's assistants this evening. Just to explain, the quartz is an early warning system, while we understand that everyone who comes is looking for help, not everyone will be able to be treated or even if they could be treated during a single session."

"Are you saying we won't be treated?" Gwil asked, but Robin thought they both had figured out this was them being primed for a residential stay.

"Not at all. I need some details and to discuss your options before any decisions are made. Can you give me some details, name, address, species, and condition you're here for? I assume you're both here for treatment."

"Yeah both of us have an infection we've not been able to shift. It's spectral in nature that's caused a different variant of Nosferatu disease," Gwil said. "I'm William Carpenter and this is my partner Robert Black. We're vampires, obviously or we wouldn't have what we have, and we live at 12a Aldershot Avenue, Clapham."

"Have you already sought out medical assistance?"

"We've both seen doctors but there's not much theycan suggest apart from signing up for an experimental treatment and we've not been selected."

Nurse Helm's eyes glowed yellow. "Did you get a reason why?"

"The doctor wasn't convinced it was worth his while, and that the chances of success were too low so he wanted to prioritise someone more likely to be cured."

Ashley had helped put together the backstory of their medical side. He had been able to build a credible narrative that could pass muster with even a specialist in the disease, which they didn't expect Mettle and his team to be. But there was a hidden bait encoded that would make them even more attractive to a lich.

"Understandable, resources are limited," Nurse Helm said.

"But he did say it might clear up on its own, but wasn't sure as it's a level four spectral infection… which I don't really know what that means," Robin said.

"Level four?"

"Yes." According to Ashley that meant it was rare and would cause the virus to produce very specific proteins that would excite a lich.

"And you're both infected?"

Gwil huffed. "Yeah, look, I know what I've done, and Rob is willing to look past it and we are working through that, all right? He's sticking by me, I don't deserve it, but I'm going to do anything I can to win his trust back fully."

Gwil played cheating arsehole boyfriend well.

Nurse Helm made several notes on his clipboard. "I do think Dr Mettle will be able to help, but what you have is a persistent and difficult to treat infection. Let's see, are you in the position to locate to a secure facility after the meeting if needs be?"

"We've a few things in an overnight bag, but we weren't planning to be away for long," Gwil said.

"Everything will be provided for you, and if you need a medical certificate for an employer Dr Mettle can arrange that."

Robin shook his head. "We don't have employment in that sense, I have a trust fund and support us both."

He must come across as a complete muppet, putting up with a boyfriend who lived off him and gave him a nasty pox. But this way, Robert Black was a prime candidate to be manipulated and that would also go in the lich's favour.

"Perfect. Take a seat, and the meeting will begin shortly."

Gwil stood first and grabbed Robin by his upper arm. "Come on."

They took seats and waited, within a few minutes the main doors were opened and the hall filled up. Robin could see several people were turned away before the doors were once again closed. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, their intel was minimal, he thought it could go either way, basic or over the top. The crowd didn't seem the type to be whipped into a frenzy, and perhaps it would be different somewhere in the US Bible Belt, but in rural Herefordshire, he thought it would be a more muted reception.

There was a low hum of chatter, but nothing rowdy and the crowd fell silent as from a side door a man Robin presumed to be Dr Ralph Mettle took the stage with no pomp or ceremony. He wasn't someone he'd have looked twice at, reasonably attractive but nothing special, with brown hair and a close-cut beard, and Robin surmised that in order to blend in there would be no point in him being able to pass as a supermodel.

"Friends, welcome, I am humbled that you have come to see me. My credentials speak for themselves, I don't have to sell my wares like a street hawker. Now, knowing all our time is short and everyone knows why they are here we don't need a song or dance. So I will begin without further ado. I will walk amongst you, I will lay my hands on your head as I pass so you will feel my presence. I will heal you if I can."

Even in the paranormal world the British public were a reserved bunch and the crowd offered up a polite round of applause to a man they believed would be able to change their lives irrevocably. Robin glanced around the audience, some of them were sitting forwards, eager, others more reserved and some indifferent, in fact most of them didn't seem to care if they were here or not and it struck Robin that maybe most of them weren't here to be cured but to fill up seats to stop others taking them. Ralph would only have so much power, and not enough to cure a room of a hundred people even if they had minor ailments.

Nurse Helm was standing behind Ralph, and there were two others who appeared to be serving the same function, taking details of each person after Ralph had laid his hands upon them. It seemed uneventful until the fifth participant. Ralph's hand had barely rested on her head when she sprang up from her seat, she threw her hands into the air and for a few seconds stood stock still, then collapsed back into her chair. "I'm free. The spirit—it's gone," she cried.

She was a decent actor, but Robin didn't believe she'd been exorcised. Malevolent spirits were difficult to evict and that seemed far too easy. She was sobbing and one of the nurses helped her out of the hall.

"It appears we have had our first real success, my friends," Ralph said, smiling. "I hope it will be the first of many."

Ralph moved on and Robin realised that the next guy was one of the pre-screened attendees. His hand lingered on his patient's head before he closed his eyes and shook his head. "I can help you, but not here. One of my colleagues will see what we can do."

The guy let out a choked sob and Nurse Helm led him away. Robin risked a side glance at Gwil who seemed to be taking everything in, watching Ralph as he moved on to the next, who was once again uneventful, the crushing disappointment on the attendee's face too real to be an act.

Ralph worked his way around the room, a mix of nothing and then jubilation, and then it was their turn. Nurse Helm whispered something in Ralph's ear before Ralph addressed them. "I think it best I do you two together."

They'd hoped this would be the case, the way the spell had been constructed meant their pretend disorders were interlinked and it would be more attractive to the lich to get the equivalent of a buy one get one free offer.

Robin braced himself, not sure what to expect as Ralph's hand descended onto his head. A gentle trickle of exploratory magic weaved through him and then it was gone. Ralph appeared perturbed, almost stricken, but there was a light in his eyes that told Robin he'd been hooked. "Oh my, gentlemen there is something greatly disturbing. I cannot fix it now, in fact it may take some time but I do believe that I can help you. If you want me to."

Gwil nodded. "We knew it wouldn't be easy, but it's why we're here."

"Then if you can put your trust in me, I will do everything in my power to ensure the best outcome. Go with Nurse Helm, he will give you instructions on what to do next."

Robin took Gwil's hand and the two of them followed Nurse Helm out of the hall and into one of the side rooms that was the kind of place where chairs and random bits of crap were usually stored. "We have accommodation for this evening and can transfer you to the residential facility in the morning." He paused. "The vehicles will be prepared with UV blockers so completely safe for you to travel during the day, and when we reach the facility, you will be delivered directly into the building so you won't have to go outside."

"Looks like you've thought of everything," Gwil said. "We need to return our hire car."

"Get what you need out of the vehicle, and give me the keys, I'll arrange for its safe return first thing."

"Won't we get in trouble?" Robin asked. "With the rental company?"

"Don't worry, I will take care of it all. There is a minibus in the carpark, those who Dr Mettle thinks he can help at the facility will be transported to a nearby hotel for the night."

"We'll get our stuff," Gwil said.

"Perfect. And I'll call ahead to the hotel and make sure you have a double."

They went back to the car. Robin texted Sebastian an update using a contact called Dad and kept it vague and got an instant reply.

Rob: We saw the doc, but he needs us to stay at his facility. Not so surprising. Will be in touch soon.

Dad: Little steps, son. I'm sure you'll get everything you need at the doc's place .

His phone was programmed with the backstory and an electronic trail that meant if it were confiscated then there would be nothing to trip them up, everything else was hidden and protected. Gwil had something similar, including another fake contact called Mal who was really Hyax, and he'd been set up as the guy Will was cheating on Rob with so he'd be free to chat to him within reason.

"You ready?" he asked Gwil as they grabbed their bags.

"Yeah. This needs doing… there are some things that can't be allowed to linger."

If anyone was listening it could have been about the upcoming treatment but Robin knew Gwil was as on board to bring Ralph Mettle down as he was. Tomorrow they'd be at the facility and he would try to find Simon as soon as possible, then he would need to convince him who he was and send word to Sebastian to get them out.