Chapter Text
Heather Button was dead and there was a car coming up their driveway. They all flocked to the windows, seventeen of them all together, with various expressions of apprehension and excitement. There’d been an argument that morning - something about Fanny screaming in the middle of the night - but that had been quickly forgotten when Robin had heard the car coming. Now they were all staring, waiting to catch a glimpse of the vehicle.
“Do you think they know about us?” Kitty said, looking around with wide eyes.
“They must do, surely.” The Captain frowned. “Heather put it in the contract.”
“They know we exist and that we own the rooms.” Fanny pointed out. “We can assume they don’t know the rest.”
“Are we going to tell them?” Humphrey said, from next to the downstairs lot. They were stood separate from the others, looking through a different window.
“Going to be difficult to keep it a secret, mate.” Pat frowned.
“Especially if they ask Thomas.” Julian pointed out.
“That is uncalled for, sir!”
“He’s gots a point, though.”
“Mary!”
“Stop.” Robin said, and they did. “We don’t talk to them for now, listen.”
They all nodded, though it wasn’t like they had a choice. They turned back to the window just as the car finally came into view, pressing against each other to get a better view.
“Are we sure it’s them?”
“They look lost.”
“Surely they’re not related to my darling Heather.”
“Must be some relation through marriage or something.”
“Oh, yes, that’s the way they get you, sneaking in for a cut of the inheritance.”
The couple looked normal enough, a man and a woman clearly in a relationship if the way they stood was any indication. Thomas and the Captain both drew in sharp breaths at the sight of them, getting raised eyebrows from Humphrey and the downstairs lot. Kitty put a hand on Thomas’ shoulder before he could start waxing poetic, pulling him back slightly away from the window.
“Wow.”
They could hear the ladies voice, clear as day, and the man when he spoke next.
“Shall we, Lady Alison?”
This kicked them into gear, shuffling off to their own rooms. Humphrey waved his brood downstairs before joining the others in the attic rooms. They’d just closed their door when they heard the front door open.
“Oh my…” The woman, Alison trailed off with a gasp. They all glanced between each other, wondering what had caused her to react. Julian mouthed ‘suit of armour’ behind Fanny’s back and they all nodded, Fanny harrumphing at the idea that any part of the house wasn’t worthy of marvelling at.
“This is, one hundred percent, the most incredible moment of my life - apart from our wedding.” The man was saying.
Julian snorted. “Good save there.”
“And it’s all ours.” Alison said, before starting to ramble. “Well, the ground floor and the first two floors, the attic and basement aren’t but it’s mostly ours, half ours. Enough of it is ours!”
The man laughed and their voices started to move away. Above them, the vampires followed them, keeping track of where they went.
“So, this is the library.”
“Does that mean we’ll have to start reading books?”
The Captain and Julian exchanged a disappointed look at that and Fanny pursed her lips, ignoring Mary’s eye roll from beside her.
“We’ll have to fix up the plaster work.” Alison was saying.
“There is a lot of fixing up that needs to be done.” Pat pointed out with a shrug.
“Start with architrave.” Robin shrugged. “If want to fix library.”
“I’m sure we can give them a hand with that.” Pat grinned. The others all nodded, agreeing, some more enthusiastically than others. It had been a long time since Heather had wanted to do anything with the house and they’d quite missed being able to potter about and use their strengths properly.
There was a gasp across from them. Clearly they’d missed the couple leaving the library. “We could do every room in a different style.”
“Over my dead body.” Fanny yelped.
“Well, technically…”
“I know.” Fanny snapped at Humphrey, who held his hands up in defeat.
They listened to the various suggestions the man had for decorations, glancing at each other and trying to figure out if they should be worried. Soon, the couple went outside and the coven moved to the windows to watch them. Luckily, the pair were turned away from the house and didn’t spot the nine figures staring down at them.
“Look at that. Is that a lake?”
“It’s a lake.”
“Surely they knew there was a lake. It’s on the house information, did they even look into the property they inherited.”
“Oh, give them a break Fanny, they’ve only just found out they inherited it.”
“This is going to make one incredible hotel.”
Whatever Fanny was going to say got stuck in her throat as her head whipped back to the window. The others were all staring gobsmacked at the couple as they stood, unknowing of the horror they had caused.
“What?!”
It wasn’t clear who yelled first but everyone was soon talking over each other, arguing back and forth. Robin could even hear the basement lot getting agitated and nodded to Humphrey, who ran off to calm them down.
“I’m sure it will be fine-”
“They want to turn our house into a hotel! Do you realise how dangerous that will be, Patrick?”
“Well, they don’t know that so I’m sure if we explain-“
“Oh, yes, because that will go down well, won’t it? ‘Sorry, but we are blood thirsty monsters who are likely to kill any guests you have over, so if you could avoid running a hotel, that would be great.’”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
“We’s got to tells them something.”
“Look, we just need to sit down and talk to them, explain that we don’t want half of house turned into a hotel. They’ve got to understand that, even if they don’t know what we are.”
“It is their house though, they have a right to do with it how they feel suit.”
“Right, this is getting us no where. Who is going to talk with them?”
“Pat definitely should.” Kitty beamed. “He’s the most modern of us all. Well, apart from Julian but Julian is-”
“Julian.” Thomas finished, glaring slightly at the former politician. “Fanny should go as well. She wrote the contract with Heather, she knows it best.”
The Captain looked at bit put out that no one had suggested him but forged on. “But Robin’s name is on the inheritance that Henry wrote up, he’ll have to go.”
“Right yes.” Julian chuckled. “Try not to scare them away.”
Robin raised an eyebrow, wondering how he was supposed to that, considering he was a bloodsucking monster from the earliest reaches of time but clearly they thought he would be fine.
“Okay.” Pat grinned. “Let’s go talk to our neighbours.”
The three wandered downstairs - heading towards the kitchen. They could at least say they were getting a drink if asked. Fortunately - or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it - they bumped into Alison in the doorway.
“Oh, hello!” She said, almost excitedly. “I’m Alison. You must be the lot from upstairs…or downstairs?”
“We’re the upstairs lot. At least some of them.” Pat nodded reassuringly. “The downstairs lads don’t come up very often.”
“Right.” Alison beamed. “Well, Mike’s just put the kettle on, if you fancy a cuppa, we can chat a bit about the house.”
“That would be great!” Pat said, giving Robin and Fanny a thumbs up when Alison’s back was turned.
They followed her into the kitchen, nodding at her partner as he shot up from his seat.
“Hi, you must be our new housemates! I’m Mike, Mike Cooper, nice to meet you.”
“Pat Butcher,” Pat said, shaking Mike’s offered hand and sitting down opposite him at the table. “This is Fanny Thorne and Robin Bone.”
They’d decided that it wouldn’t make sense for Fanny to introduce herself as a Button and Thomas had been overjoyed when Kitty had suggested she adopt his name, so that’s what they had gone with. Alison and Mike glanced over to Robin, who busied himself with the kettle. It had only just finished boiling but he put it back on briefly, grabbing their mugs from various cupboards.
“Like house?” He muttered as he set up their drinks - tea for Fanny and Pat and coffee for him.
“Oh, yes, it’s incredible. I couldn’t believe it, when I got the call, thought it must be some kind of joke. You must have had a good relationship with the old owner though, if you’re used to all this.”
Robin turned away to busy himself with pouring the once again boiling into the mugs and adding the right amount of milk and sugar. He wasn’t as good at this as Mary was but he knew what people liked. Besides, it gave him an excuse to be looking away as the others talked about his girl.
“Yes, we knew Heather quite well. We weren’t sure who would be coming along after she passed.” Fanny said, clearly disapproving of anyone having the house who wasn’t Heather.
“Did she not want to leave the house to you? It’s incredible for us, of course, but I would have assumed…”
“Couldn’t.” Robin said, handing Pat and Fanny their drinks and sitting down at the head of the table. The three of them were now across from the Coopers, who glanced at each other confused. Alison looked at him to continue but he just sipped his drink.
“So,” Mike said, when it was clear no more information was forthcoming. “You’re Robin Bone, you own the other half of the house? For what, the next 300 years?”
Mike started laughing at the idea and Robin raised an eyebrow without comment. Mike nudged Alison slightly and she took up the conversation.
“Actually, we were hoping to talk to you about the house. We’ve got some plans for our part of it.”
“Oh? What’s that all about then?” Pat said, doing his best to look confused.
“Well, when we told about the inheritance, we were told that Heather stipulated it not be sold to some chain or anything. But, really, this place is going to cost us a lot of money on upkeep and repairs, and the solicitor said we either had a choice to sell it to someone who could afford the upkeep or do something with it ourselves.”
Fanny and Pat glanced at Robin, who glared down at the Coopers. “Shouldn’t have said that.”
“What Robin means to say,” Fanny said, placing her hand on Robin’s arm to calm him down. “Is that we thought Heather put a clause in the will that the house shouldn’t be sold without our approval.”
Fanny knew that clause was in there, she’d helped Heather write it herself.
“Yes, of course.” Alison soldiered on. “We’d not want to go against you but, in that case, we need to find a way to make some money in order to keep the house in a good state.”
“What are you trying to say?”
They knew what she was trying to say, they just wanted her to come out and say it so they could say no.
“We’d like to turn our section of the house into a hotel of sorts.” Alison saw their faces darken and quickly went on the defensive.
“Obviously, we wouldn’t impact your parts of the house at all. There’s lots of building work that needs doing but we’d get your approval before we did any of that.”
“Well, we can help with any construction that needs doing.”
“We might not look it but we’re pretty handy to have around.” Pat chuckled. “But, a hotel? With guests staying every night? Taking up all the rooms.”
“That’s the plan!” Mike said with enthusiasm. Alison shot him an awkward look but he just smiled and continued. “Big old place like this in the beautiful countryside, everyone will want to stay here, surely?”
“That doesn’t exactly seem fair, now does it?” Fanny frowned. “We live here as well. Turning this into some sort of business where we have constant visitors underfoot isn’t exactly charitable to us, is it?”
“Well, no, I suppose… look, it’s going to impact you that much. People will stay in their own rooms, they won’t bother you. Hey, we might even be able to set a breakfast service. In the mornings, you can help yourself with the guests.”
Robin couldn’t help it, he snorted at that, ignoring the strange look he got. Pat stumbled to respond.
“I can see how that might be appealing to you but we’ve lived here an awful long time and-”
“How does that work, exactly?” Mike frowned. “He can’t be older than forty and he’s got a contract going back to before the war. What, do you have to keep having sons and giving them the same name so the contract holds?”
“And, and, during the war, you had the military here. Your grandfather must have shared the house then and they would have had many more people, it can’t be too bad.”
“Yes, but that was for the army!” Pat spluttered.
“Not the same.” Robin added, barely keeping a snarl from his voice.
Alison’s eyes flickered to him. She hadn’t properly looked at him in the whole conversation - neither had Mike - and Robin didn’t want to imagine what they thought of him.
“It’s not going to affect you!” Alison complained. “We won’t be using your part of the house, just our own and it’s a good way for us to make money, to make improvements. Improvements you’ll benefit from!”
“We’re not saying you can’t make money.” Pat frowned, glancing between Fanny’s disapproving glare and Robin’s dark eyed stare. “Why not run events? Heather used to let the scouts use the gardens and clubs and talks in all the rooms. In her old age it slipped a bit but we even had political conferences here a couple times. We used to help out with those, we’d be happy to do so again.”
“And someone staying overnight makes a massive difference to your life?”
“More to their life.” Robin muttered under his breath, ignoring the incredulous look he got from the younger vampires. It wasn’t like the humans could hear him.
“Look.” Alison said, standing up. “I respect that this isn’t what you wanted but, at the end of the day, the rooms belong to us and if we choose to rent them out as hotel rooms, that’s our choice. I’m sorry this isn’t the best first impression but we are doing this! We’re not going to let you stop us.”
Robin frowned and stood up himself. He glanced to the others. “Head upstairs. I’ll join soon.”
Pat and Fanny nodded, standing instantly and moving away. Fanny squeezed his arm as she passed and he nodded gratefully.
“What was that?” Alison frowned. “They just do whatever you say?”
Robin shrugged.
“Bit weird mate.” Mike tried to laugh but it got stuck. “Like you’ve got your own cult or something.”
“Cult one word.” Robin smirked. He stepped around to the sink, cleaning out their now empty mugs. “We not want trouble. For anyone.”
He was facing away but he could sense them frowning at him. He put the mugs on the draining board then turned to nod at them and walked off, leaving the Coopers looking very confused behind him.
He headed upstairs, trying to think of a solution to their new problem.
“I say we just kill them.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous Julian.”
“Think it through man.”
“We can’t kill them, it’s wrong!”
“Okay, okay, let’s put killing them as a back up.”
“No, we are not putting ‘kill the new owners’ as any kind of plan, back up or otherwise.”
“Well, what exactly are we going to do? They’re going to turn our house into a hotel!”
“We could just be honest with them, tell them exactly what we are.”
“Tell us, Captain. If we had been honest with you, in that first day you moved in, would have believed us.”
“…no, quite frankly I would have thought you were mad.”
“Exactly, and that was with us making no effort to hide our strengths.”
“So, what then?” Kitty said, looking worried. “If we don’t tell them, they’re just going to think we’re being unreasonable and ignore us.”
“I mean, would it be so bad?” Pat asked, glancing between the older vampires. “Like she said, you were all fine when the army was here.”
“Ah, yes, well…” Thomas trailed off, looking around. The others were glancing nervously at each other and guiltily refusing to look at the Captain.
“What the bally hell does that mean?”
“We never hurt any of your men!” Fanny blustered. “We made sure to go far away to sate our hunger but things were rather difficult at times.”
“Most for Thomas.” Robin nodded.
Thomas looked affronted, glaring at the caveman. “Well, I couldn’t exactly leave, could I? Stuck in the house surrounded by beating hearts while the rest of you ran off to drain the first criminal you could find. Not that I would have hurt your soldiers, Captain, don’t worry.”
“It’s all about the temptation, isn’t it?” Julian said, swinging an arm around Thomas that was promptly shrugged off. “We can all handle ourselves just fine until we’re presented with a buffet of blood, as it were.”
“Okay,” Pat nodded. “No hotel. There must be something we can do.”
“Why can’ts we kills them?” Mary frowned, looking at Robin, who shrugged.
“Trace back. Then another inherits.”
“Ah, yes.” Julian frowned. “No guarantee the next one will be any better.”
“What we need to do is convince them that this place isn’t fit to be a hotel and never will be.”
“But how do we do that? What reason could possibly make them change their minds?”
“There is none.” Fanny said, importantly. “This house is absolutely splendid.”
“Oh, yes.” Thomas said, his eyes starting to glaze over slightly. “It was build in the time of Henry VII and has been…”
“No, Thomas.” Robin said, shaking him out of whatever past order he had got himself caught up in.
“Thomas?” Pat said. “Was there ever anyone who didn’t want to stay the night?”
“Um, yes, I believe there was. Lord Whatley was very reluctant, he did stay one night but left the next day in a hurry.”
“Why? Come on man, out with it.”
“Well, I believe his reasoning was that he thought the place was haunted. He was scared of supernatural presences attacking him in the night.”
“Well, how strange.” Kitty chuckled. “The only supernatural things in this house was us.”
“I believe he was talking about you.” Fanny said, not unkindly. “Even if the house wasn’t haunted, the idea that it could be was enough to scare him off.”
“So, if we make them think there are ghosts in the house, they will give up on the idea of a hotel.”
“How exactly are we going to make them think there are ghosts in the house? They don’t exactly seem like superstitious types.”
“Except,” Thomas was shaking slightly as he spoke this time. “The house is actually haunted.”
There was a brief pause and then several people spoke at once.
“Haunted?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Why didn’t you mention this before?”
“What do you mean haunted?”
“The spirit of a plague girl lingers in the pantry.” Thomas looked sheepish. “I was told not to mention it unless asked.”
The others grumbled, knowing it wasn’t really Thomas’ fault but still annoyed.
“Right, the pantry is in enemy territory but if we wait until nightfall, we can make contact with the plague girl. Can she be seen by living humans?”
“Not so much seen, but she can be heard. I believe when Jemima sings, they can hear her, as if on the wind.”
“Huh.”
They all stood for a moment, letting the realisation that ghosts existed sink in. They had always assumed they were the only kind of non-human creature running about, it was strange to consider there might be others.
“Even with Jemima’s help, we will need to do something else. What skills do we have to convince them?”
“We can moves faster than they can.” Mary pointed out. “Make things looks like theys moving on their own.”
“Excellent, Mary, thank you.”
“Unless they think it’s just the wind.”
“That’s a risk we’ll have to take.”
“Right. We go and find the plague ghost girl at 2300 hours and then we get the plan in motion tomorrow. If all goes to plan, they’ll have changed their mind by supper. Any questions?”
No one seemed to have any and the Captain nodded, satisfied. Julian took that moment to throw himself down on the nearest chair.
“I still say it would be easier to just kill one of them.”