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Back when this settle like Grenewyche, the monastery of St Bartolph&039;s commanded a river viehich o ships Themaids and subterranean oblations at obscene altars With the Dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII used St Bartolph&039;s as a prison for a while Thecrumbled under the Tudors and Stuarts Sir Christopher Wren and his assistant Nicholas Dyer rebuilt it in 1710 as an afterthought to the Royal Naval College, semi-officially known as the School for Discipline In 1869, the cadets lashed Adh to death with his own cat o&039; nine tails during a dry-land ot shot of St Bartolph&039;s It became an outpost of the University of London

Between the wars, Professor Elwyn Clayton and the &039;St Bartolph&039;s Set&039;, a clique of Victorian new-borns and Carpathian left-behinds, made a noise about a project to uncover (or ash) the vae Kate had owned a copy of Clayton&039;s The Whole History of the Undead since its 1938 publication, and still not finished reading it During the War, St Bartolph&039;s was requisitioned back into naval use as a facility for training saboteurs Needing extra classroom space to perfect infernal devices, the Navy threw up huts in Wren&039;s spacious quadrangle Typically, the prefabs remained in use Kate dreaded to think what state they were in One wing of the college was destroyed by a V-weapon in 1945 Clayton, who stayed in his chaainst direct orders from Winston Churchill, was killed by the rocket Disciples talked of his eventual return The School of Valand, if not the world Lately, however, its status was challenged: St Bartolph&039;s was often outbid for ie with alu va was replaced by a controversial plate glass-and-concrete hothouse designed by Santonix, the ainning but certifiable architect Jim Graham said the St Bartolph&039;s annexe was a masterpiece - but he lived in Shepperton and never had to look at it

This was the last week of the academic year at St Bartolph&039;s Many Third Year studentsfinals, and would be back - or not - for graduation, or at least the posting of their results Kate arrivedto offer refuge Like all educational institutions with a mixed warered day: one set of lectures and tutorials starting at nine in theat four in the afternoon, the out-of-the-coffin hour Young bloods could get their studies done and be ready to go out on the town at ated, but the split schedule nudged the living and the living dead to stick with their own kind

A group of tanned, long-haired kids ca - their lecture just finished A paisley blouses, denim bell-bottoirl enveloped in a violet djellaba, half- adoringly on the aruitar slung over his shoulder Was the girl called a &039;scab hag&039; by other vampires? Did live birds who fancied her boyfriend call her &039;viper&039; behind her back? Hey,spent conte the works of Caleb Croft had poisonous after-effects

&039;Hello,&039; she said to the students

&039;Fuzz,&039; a youth sneered &039;Va towith the police &039;I&039;irl with Indian braids and a headband Did she pack a scalping knife under her embroidered waistcoat?

Kate had a fold-out ly in the last five minutes As a ploy to avert Revolution, Vice-Chancellor Goodrich let the student body vote on what their lecture halls were called British heroes were out, radical chic was in The Harry Paget Flashman Refectory became Che Guevara Hall, the Horatio Hornblower Library was now the Jean-Luc Godard Collective Professor Bowles-Ottery&039;s George Edward Challenger Biology Laboratory transforlo psychedelic mural exhorted passersby to &039;Pop a BOP&039;

&039;If it&039;s about Bowles-Ottery, man,&039; said the vampire&039;s boyfriend, &039;he&039;s on sabbatical Floated away on a multi-coloured cloud Awaa&039; wi&039; the fairies&039;

Many journalists had filed stories about Bowles-Ottery

&039;I&039; to find the Sir Francis Varney Theatre,&039; she said

If her i that na about Sir Francis, it&039;d have been worse But they stopped ragging her

&039;Varney - that&039;s Mauys &039;Dru?&039;

The wared in her djellaba

&039;Oh yeah,&039; she said, reluctantly &039;The Tent You can&039;tand it&039;s in the meadow The Prince Mamuwalde Theatre&039;

And watch out for the Black Monks,&039; said Dru&039;s boyfriend

The vahed

Kate was surprised these kids had that hosts of the pirate es These Black Monks were so or a political faction, perhaps? A variety of hallucinogenic mushroom? The students moved on before she could ask for an explanation

&039;Ricky Strange is appearing at Groover&039;s tonight,&039; Dru told her boyfriend, &039;and I&039; the freak-out of the irl had been reminded she wasn&039;t like her friends There&039;d be a lot of that about, if things kept up Kate re Hill blood riots of &039;58 Then: Teds with razor-edge crucifixes; now: skinheads with silver-toed Doc Martens The haters of &039;68 had adopted a bubblegum hit as an anthely chanting &039;Hey, ninety-eight point six, it&039;s good to have you back again&039; Body temperature lower than the norm was a trait of all va, she found the Prince Mae was shadowed by a vast, bat-shaped canvas roof stretched over a frah wind White chairs were arranged for an audience This graduation ceremony would be here, but it was a music venue too Reparata and the Delrons played here lastto posters Jethro Tull were booked in a week The College Dra of MacBird! next Friday if Goodrich didn&039;t ban it

Professor Croft was using the shade for his see, perched on an u stick He wore a dark-purple corduroy blazer, a th cape, a straw hat which didn&039;t suit hiestured and talked, hands more expressive than his face

Now Kate understood who the Black Monks were

They sat in a semi-circle at Croft&039;s feet, cowls down His students wore black habits A sht or nine: mostly men, all vampires The robes were acaderoup, a tribe She&039;d seen the Black Monks before, she realised: at the demo yesterday and in Nolan&039;s party pics They , but styled - a Regency dandy look, not let-it-all-hang-out hippiedom

Janey Mack, of all the vaets to be a style icon!

Kate sed her spit and drew in her fangs She sat in the back row, and eavesdropped

Croft was talking about the Dracula Declaration Everyone alive in 1885 remembered where they hen they heard the news - va over! People her age competed to see their first vah few said it out loud, to be bitten, turned If her family hadn&039;t been in Dublin that year, Kate would&039;ve had bragging rights She was friends with Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker, Dracula&039;s first English get Considering what happened to poor Lucy, Kate e to turn if she&039;d seen her chu ahead of her memory Kate&039;s first vampire was a Carpathian Guardsman named Kostaki, who visited the Reeds&039; Chelsea home when her father, a Classics Professor at Trinity and London, brought his family back to London Kostaki quizzed Father about his circle of suspect friends, which included ene The vampire wore the sort of uniform she associated with comic opera, but it wasn&039;t funny on him He had a handlebar moustache and pointed ears, and turned out to be more honourable than most elders Kate&039;s second valishe outside the house while Kostaki paid his call Caleb Croft, already a secret police different to Croft

For him, already a va

&039;Until the Declaration, we hadn&039;t even kno many other vampires there were, how spread across the world,&039; the Professor said &039;A few vained themselves unique, the only creatures of their kind ever made Those cats were in for a shock, you better believe it! Many shunned hu like mad her aone, dribbled away over decades My connections, once of the highest, ca, zip, nada, zilch My title and estate passed to heirs when I could no longer explain why I was still alive&039;