Chapter Text
“Oh my god,” Alice hisses, “a vampire? Are you out of your mind?”
That’s been the consensus from pretty much everyone so far. Betty barrels ahead. “Mom. Focus.” She mutters, then has to bite back her smile when she catches Jughead judgmentally mouthing mom over his laptop like he doesn’t like the way it tastes. “The book. Have you ever heard of it?”
“Of course I have, Elizabeth.” Alice humphs, “ Ashmole 842 is a living legend among any self-respecting witch. I suppose Hiram has been in touch? He’s always been obsessed.”
This isn’t helping. Betty wonders why she thought it would. “Do you know anything about it?”
A sigh. “ Betty, it’s never been seen. I don’t know if it even exists. There are rumours, of course, but no. I don’t. Anyway, how’s your diet coming along?”
Betty hangs up hard.
She turns, and Jughead is mulling over his research and she knows he heard every word, but he’s pretending not to.
She sighs, and collapses into the seat opposite him.
It’s nice here. Jones Manor. A huge white block on the Cornish countryside. They’d had to get out of Oxford and it made sense here. She’s certainly found it comfortable. The grand rooms, the silk bedding. Here she is, barefoot, curled up on an expensive chair, looking at a very handsome man who’d made her breakfast.
Her mother would be proud.
“You had the Ashmole.” Jughead says, still a little sleepy-eyed, “Didn’t you open it?”
She nods. It’s words had burned, had crawled onto her hand and scorched.
He turns back to his research. “From I see we have two options. One, get the book, learn from it. Two, get the book, destroy it.” His steel eyes meet hers. “Up to you.”
*
Sweet Pea greets her at the bottom of the staircase. She smiles at him; and he nods at her.
“When you get the book- if it has anything to do with Demons-”
“I’ll tell you.” She promises. Sweet Pea nods, and stalks away.
Jughead appears then, holding two bowls of cubed honeydew. He holds one out to her, in a dark green sweater. “Made up your mind?”
“No,” she lies, wanting to stay here, in this warm, grand, domesticity. “Not yet.”
*
When his father died, Jellybean took the role Jughead should have, and went and sat on the congregation.
“Thank you,” he’d said to her, a little broken, and she’d held his hands and nodded.
She protects him, this powerful vampire, lets him study and learn and write.
But Betty. This threatens everything. This is a sharpness even Jellybean will not be able to blunt. With hair like spun gold and eyes like the ocean- the ocean how it was. Back when the world was newer and the Aztecs sang and the water was clean. Eyes that tell of a history that she understands even though she hasn’t lived through it.
Beautiful. Beautiful, and oh so powerful. He sees it in her every movement. Leaves and flowers crane to her touch, the wind caresses her cheeks, she’s wound in nature. Made from it. The spike of power, the beacon, in the library that day. He’d been in the street, head down, and his entire being had prickled. Set alight.
He wants to study her. Wants to- to protect her. He feels, for the first time since the fall of Carthage- like picking up a sword. LIke donning a shield. Like charging into battle.
How can she be? Unlike any witch he’s ever met. That sharp-teethed, feral Veronica that makes him feel like a stranger on his own territory. Betty doesn’t look at him and see vampire. Betty sees a person.
So, when Jellybean calls him, tone hard (maybe fond, maybe fond if he listens hard)
“Why am I hearing things, Jug? About Hiram? The congregation are antsy. What shit are you in now?”
He holds the phone to his ear, watches Betty admire old paintings, in a pink jumper, hair wrapped up in a bun. “It’s...bad.”
“Crap. Better be worth it.”
This, he can answer with confidence. “It is.”
*
“And Marlowe?” Betty breathes, as the rural farms give way to the fringes of the old city.
“Funny,” Jughead hums, remembering, his fingers are loose on the steering wheel. She watches the curl of his fingers. Old, old, hands. How old? His references are obscure, sometimes he slips up, she swears. References something too old. Too ancient. She loves it all the more. “He was really funny. Kind. Just- a little carefree. Not a bad thing.”
“Tell me about an encounter you had. The two of you. About a typical day-”
“No, Betty,” he laughs, “my throat is hoarse. Tell me about you. Where did you grow up?”
She winces, tries to hide it, but he catches it. She laughs; nervous. “Honestly? There’s no tragic back story. I grew up in a nice, safe town. In a nice house, with a nice school.”
“Are both your parents witches?”
“My mom is. I have a sister too, a big sister: Polly. She’s travelling the world.” Nice, neat boxes. She can file people into, not think too much-
“You get along?”
“Yes.” Family dinners, christmases, they flash before her eyes- like postcards. Holiday letters. Snapshots fill the album, pretty, pretty, pretty-
“But not so nice. You came here, after all.”
He doesn’t pry. He probably has experience being patient. Betty nods, biting her lip to stop it from trembling. “I did.”
“Ever want to go back?”
With the right person, she thinks. Picturing British Jughead with his sombre face and dry, dark humour standing in her bright, wild town and how he might make it brighter. “Someday,” she says.
*
When Jughead pulls into the faculty parking space, there’s another, sleek black car across the lot.
They both realise at the same time.
“Hiram,” the whisper, in unison.
“Don’t get out of the car.” Jughead warns, glare hard, and she feels a little like a maiden with a knight. A woman with a bodyguard. “Let’s drive away.”
Is he waiting for- permission? Betty shakes her head. “I’m going to talk to him.” Her hand finds the cool clutch of the handle.
“No, Betty, please.” Jughead grits out, and he turns to face her then. Face taught with worry; agony. “If I get out there and confront him this becomes an issue. A congregation issue. He’ll claim vampires are attacking witches-”
“I don’t need you to get out of the car, Jug.” She promises gently, “I can do this on my own.”
“No….” he beseeches.
She reaches over, takes his hand. It’s warm. Which surprises her. “Trust me.”
She feels like she could melt into him but retain her shape. He stares at her, pleading. Olive skin and frayed hair and blown pupils.
He nods.
It’s warm, a mild evening, and Hiram beams at her, though his eyes dart to Jughead’s car; excited. He won’t get what he’s after.
“It occurs to me, Betty,” Hiram sighs, “that I went about this all wrong. Some incentive, perhaps? What would you like? A seat on the congregation? A promotion here at Oxford? A position at another institution?”
She sneers at him. “I work for what I have.”
He beams at her. “Very old fashioned. Well, what would you like?”
“There’s nothing you can offer me.” She spits, turning away.
He laughs. “And yet you’re back. That tells me you’re going to get the book. What are you going to do with it?” His voice turns cold. “Give it to the vampires? You’d betray your own kind-”
“It is none of your business-”
“Come, Betty, come,” he whispers, like velvet, beckoning. “Just tell me- what was in the book? You must have read it, must have seen something, some clue. To wet the tongue, to sate me-”
“You’re sick.” She spits, almost unable to look at him. “Deranged. Goodbye.”
She marches then, back to Jughead’s car, but she can hear Hiram clear as a bell when he says: “I’ll have to resort to firmer tactics, Miss Cooper. Let’s keep this friendly. I'm a fair man.”
It’s not friendly, when with a thought, the wind whips at Hiram hard, hail summoned from the air, spitting against his face, flicking hard against his skin so he staggers back.
She catches her breath, and gets into the car.
“Drive,” she whispers, as Jughead starts the ignition. He follows her demand instinctively. She’s no maiden with a knight, no woman with a bodyguard-
She’s a queen with a soldier.
“Don’t leave Oxford." She orders, "I’m getting that book.”
*
They sit in the early morning light opposite the Bodelian. It's arches look like they touch the sky. Clouds hang low, the spires stretch high. Hiram’s ridiculous goons litter the entry way. Betty and Jughead sit, hiding.
“They’ll leave eventually,” Jughead reassures.
Betty wonders what her mom would say. That Jughead has been playing her. That he’ll snatch the book as soon as she’s summoned it. That he’ll sink his teeth into her the moment her back is turned.
Then she thinks of the cool silk sheets of Cornwall, and how he sliced her melon, and showed her paintings.
“There was a drawing,” she whispers, and Jughead turns to her; confused. “In the book...the alchemical child, maybe, but not like I’d ever seen it.” His eyes go wide, memorising her words. This book, he’s been searching for, for so long. She wonders what this scrap of information must mean to him. The significance it must hold. The secrets she’s revealing, priceless in a way that she doesn’t understand. “There was secret writing- like lemon water, visible only in the right light. The drawing was upside down. The first four pages look like they’d been torn out.” She closes her eyes; remembers. “It smelt...odd. Like fire. But water logged. It felt...powerful.”
When she opens her eyes, Jughead is before her, leaning over the the gear shift.
He reaches slowly for her hand, turns it over, sees the burn on her palm.
She watches; frozen, breathless, as he brings her hand to his lips. She should pull away. He craves her-
No teeth. No danger. No fear. He kisses her wrist. Her pulse point.
“Betty,” he whispers, voice like gravel, like tears, like gratitude. “Thank you.”
She feels alight. Right. He is no Hiram. He is Jughead Jones.
He’s hers.