^^Above: Kit Connor (pictured here in Netflix's Heartstopper) as Langdon Wilkes.^^

The Institute of Paranormal Study & Prevention

Established 1701

"Audacia pro muro et scuto opus."

(Wee Latin translation: Boldness is our wall, action is our shield.)

Student Handbook, annus 1890

This Handbook is the Property of: Langdon Ernest Wilkes

17 March. — I have no other use for this handbook. I'm not about to read it, and I doubt anyone has. They've printed it with many extra pages, which are probably the only thing keeping me awake in lecture now. At least the instructor, a very old man with a long white beard that makes him look a little like a wizard, thinks I'm taking notes.

And now he's seen me looking at him, which means he'll call on me at any moment.

"Mr Wilkes," he says. "Since you seem to be paying such close attention, perhaps you could tell the class the difference between a ghost and a ghoul."

"Yes, er..." I've read this somewhere just now, I know I have. "A ghost is a disembodied spirit, and appears as a vision. A ghoul is an evil being believed to eat the bodies of the dead."

"And how do you kill a ghoul, Mr Wilkes?"

"Er...well..."

The instructor, whose name is something like Thorpe or Thurber, raises a bushy eyebrow. "Perhaps detention may help you remember?"

"It's iron," I answer quickly. "Through its chest."

Thorpe or Thurber gives me a nod, one that says Lucky recovery. Then he goes on speaking, and I go on paying less attention than I was before.

The bell signalling the end of the lecture rings before he can finish, and I'm one of the first out of my seat and the room, before he can change his mind about giving me detention. I round the corner outside the classroom and wait for my mates Seaton, Isham, and Gifford – or Giff, as we like to call him – to catch up. We'd met in our form group two years ago, after I'd first started at the Institute and hadn't known anyone — and we'd been inseparable since.

"Wilkes!"

The sound of Giff's voice, very loud and very Scottish, startles me. I push myself off the wall and run straight into him. He hooks an arm round my neck and gives my scalp a good rubbing with his knuckles.

"Ach, mate, howya?" Giff claps me on the back, so hard I cough.

"Fine," I squeak, massaging my throat. His greetings are always so enthusiastic I feel a little battered afterwards. "You?"

He shrugs. "Off to see the headmaster again. Can't ye ask your Da to go a little easier on me?"

"My father's going to do what he wants, no matter what I say." I wish it wasn't true, but it is. There's been a Wilkes as headmaster of the Institute for so long nobody can remember who the others were. My father was just another in a long line, just like his father and his father and then ramble ramble ramble interest gone.

"He knows I'm your mate, that should be enough," Giff says, then jerks his chin somewhere further down the corridor. "Look, it's Seaton."

I see him before he sees us. He's easily recognisable too, hair and skin so pale he glows when the sun hits him. It's a miracle no one's mistaken him for a ghost.

"Seaton!" Giff shouts. "C'mere, mate!"

I see Seaton's head bob up, on his long stork neck, and he waves at us. He's stopped to talk to someone, a shorter boy with his dark brown hair cut into a bowl shape like a medieval monk's and wire-rimmed specs that make his eyes appear giant.

"What's he doing talking to Collier, ye think?" Giff cocks his head. "He's an odd one, he is."

"He knows things," I point out. "Say what you want, Abe Collier has a lot of knowledge in his head."

"Guess so," grumbles Giff. "We'll just have to go to him, then."

He starts towards Seaton, and I have to hurry to keep up. Giff's built like a tree, taller than most of us here, and so broad he parts any crowd he walks through. He reaches Seaton before I do and greets him in the same way he did me, an arm round the neck and a knuckle in the scalp.

"Oi, gerroff," Seaton says, his face mashed against Giff's chest.

Giff lets go. "Seen Isham yet? He's still got my zombi-hunting book and I need it for next period."

"That isn't just an excuse for not revising, is it?" says Collier.

"Shut it, you. Or I'll give you more to worry about than that stupid haircut."

—

Later. — Once classes let out, and I've pretended to take notes in all of them, I have my least-favourite part of the day to look forward to: spending time with my father. He likes being here in his dim, dreary office, the curtains always drawn over the windows and the candles always lit. I think night has fallen when I walk in, because I've never seen one ray of sunlight make its way into that room.

"Father?" I poke my head in, squinting through the smoke from the candles.

"Come in," says my father gruffly. "You're letting all the warm air out."

I step inside and push the door shut softly behind me. Just barely I can see my father, hunched over his desk and scratching figures into a thick ledger book.

"You're late," he says, without looking up. No How are you or Nice to see you or even Hello.

"It's the zombi-hunting class, Father, it's all the way across campus—"

"That's not any of my concern, is it?" He continues to scratch in his ledger.

It should be, if you keep asking about it, I want to say. Instead, I say, "I'm sorry, Father."

"How about instead of apologising, you just do it," Father says, words clipped. "You are a Wilkes, Langdon. I will not tolerate this sort of behaviour."

"I know, Father." I try not to let it show that his comments are getting to me. He always has something to criticise me on, and so far, he hasn't run out yet. I'm late, I'm sloppy, I'm too lackluster in my studies, my marks are too low, my friends are too loud.

"And fix your hair, boy. You're not a dandy."

I push the stray forelock out of my eyes, the one hank of hair that doesn't conform with the rest. I can comb it, pomade it, wet it and slick it back — and sure enough, almost as soon as I'm done with it, it escapes.

"Now I see you are almost on the way to all practicals next term," he says. I'm one of his students now, not his son. "Do you believe yourself ready for those?"

"Yes, Father. Except for vampire weaponry, I think I'm—"

"Langdon." My father's on his feet before I can finish. "You will not disgrace this family by failing the vampire courses. We pride ourselves on slaying the bloodsuckers in record numbers."

"Yes, but—"

"You will buckle down this term, do you understand?" Father stabs the air with a finger. "Just because you are my son does not give you more leeway. The others seem to think it does, especially that friend of yours...Byron Gifford, is that right?"

"He wants me to put in a good word with you," I say with a shrug. "He thinks you're too hard on him."

"I am only trying to make that boy care a little." Father scowls. "He is satisfied with average marks, and I can see it's having an influence on you."

"Father, if it's one person I'm least inclined to be like, it's Giff." I let out a heavy exhale. We've had this conversation a couple times, and it always ends the same way — with Father asking me to have a serious talk with Giff, and me nodding and mumbling something noncommittal. I don't want my father's life, even if he assumes that I will. I'd rather die than become headmaster — and besides, there's a reason I came here in the first place. Not to watch everyone else go out into the city and rid the streets of creatures like werewolves, vampires, golems, and spirits.

I'm here because I want to do it myself. I want to be a hunter. I want to be a Venator, a title all graduates of the Institute are given. And despite what Father thinks, a bloody good one too.

—

Later, again. — Father sends me home ahead of him, a ten-minute walk from the Institute in Knightsbridge. Apparently he won't be home for supper — as usual — and expects me to have my schoolwork done by the time he is.

So after I gather all my gear from the training room — which includes a wooden stake (for the vampires), a flask of iron filings (for the ghosts), a magazine of silver bullets (for werewolves) — I start the walk home. Since we aren't exactly a secret society, no one I pass looks at me sideways. Not even at the double-edged rapier in its sheath slung across my chest. It took me the longest to learn which edge was which. One is silver — pure, no less — for the wraiths and the ghouls, and the other is iron, for the demons and the ghosts. Unfortunate when I couldn't remember.

Less than a street away from home, a dark shape — moving faster than a human — whips past the flickering circle thrown by the gas lamp in front of me. I stop in my tracks, feeling my senses tingling the way they do when there's a creature nearby. Then I reach back and unsheathe my rapier, thankful for the way it slides out without a sound.

"Hello?" I call into the shadows, much darker and more numerous at this time of night.

I hear a rustling from the side street, making me whirl towards it with my blade held out in front of me.

"Come out!" I take a shuffling step forward, out of the pool of light. "Hiding will only make it worse for you, I promise."

Another rustle, this time with a low, wet-sounding snarl. I can't tell what kind of creature it is, but I wish I could. With that in mind I reach for the gold dagger in my belt. I've never encountered a banshee, but they've been mentioned enough in my classes to make me believe they're a threat.

Then, suddenly, there's a flapping of wings coming straight at me. I stumble backwards, running straight into the streetlamp, and slash blindly in front of me and above me. One massive wingbeat knocks me sideways, and I land hard on my shoulder. Both my weapons go flying, spinning across the pavement. I scramble backwards, trying to find a handhold that will help me stand up. Because now I can see the creature: a vampire, its eyes red and its white skin drawn tight against its skull. I feel around for my wooden stake, but now that I need it I forget where it is.

A bloodcurdling yell comes from behind me, and seconds later two black-clad figures leap over me and descend on the vampire. I see one already brandishes a long wooden stake while the other draws a curved iron machete, which both plunge into the vampire's body a moment later. The vampire shrieks, and glass in two of the windows nearby shatter as the figures pull their weapons out. Then its body collapses, and as one figure crouches down next to it to see if it's really dead, the other turns to me and puts out a gloved hand to help me up.

I grasp a strong wrist and pull myself to my feet. In front of me is a boy about my age and height, with a severe dark brow and sharp cheekbones. When he pushes his hood back I notice he has hardly any hair, cropped so close to his scalp I can see the shape of his skull.

"Institute?" he says, his voice deep and gravelly.

"Yes, how did you...?"

"On your coat," answers the boy. He jerks his chin at the Institute's crest, clearly visible on my breast pocket. "You shouldn't be out alone."

"I live just up the street a little way, I didn't think—"

"Not safe," the boy says, cutting me off. "Not for someone still in training."

I bristle at that remark. "Now hang on just a moment—"

"Wells," says the second figure, and I'm surprised to hear a female voice. "The creature needs another stab. I think you might have missed it the first time."

The boy, Wells, tosses the stake behind him without looking. His face is so shadowed I can't tell what colour his eyes are — although to me they look black, just like his clothes and his hair.

"You'll attract more creatures than repel carrying all that," Wells says.

"I usually don't need this much. Training exercises, that's all." I keep myself busy collecting my rapier and my dagger as well as the flask, which had flown out of its pouch when I fell.

"You need just enough for the creature you're fighting." Wells folds his arms. "You'll never need everything."

"Wells, enough," says the girl, straightening. Her hood hides curly blonde hair in a long braid that trails out over one shoulder. "You can clearly see he's still a student. No need to keep lecturing him."

Wells splutters. "Naomi—"

"Please excuse my brother," says the girl, Naomi. She comes forward with a black-gloved hand held out. "His manners are a work in progress. I'm Naomi, and this is my brother Wells."

"Hello." I take her hand and instead of shaking it, I kiss her knuckles like Father instructed me to when meeting a lady. "Langdon Wilkes."

"I knew it," hisses Wells, pushing between us and shoving me away. "Now everything makes sense."

Naomi rolls her eyes and lets out a heavy breath. "Wells, please. Not now."

"You Wilkeses ruin small enterprises like ours," Wells continues like he hasn't heard. "Putting whole new batches of hunters out on the streets every year, with all of this fancy equipment, every resource you might need, and here we are, scrounging around just to make it another day."

"If there was a way to make it more fair," I say, backing up with my hands held out as if he's pulled a gun on me. "I swear, I would be the first to know."

"Run home to your comforts," says Wells with a sneer. "Don't you mind us plebeians."

"Stop it, Wells," Naomi snaps. "Honestly. It wouldn't kill you to be nice for once."

"No, really. I was just going." I lower my hands. "Thank you, by the way. If you hadn't killed that vampire, I'm not sure what would have happened."

"Of course," Naomi says, and I see her cheeks tinge pink. "Langdon."

I back up a couple more steps, then turn tail and run the rest of the way. I sense Wells watching me the whole time, and when I finally stop at my front door, I can see I'm right. He's standing on the street corner, shoulders hunched, eyes riveted right on me. After a moment of staring back, he looks away and turns to leave, melting into the shadows and becoming one with the night.

—

18 March. — Now I have a real journal to write in, and I don't have to cram everything onto a blank page. Meeting Wells and Naomi is certainly the highlight of an otherwise boring term, although when I think back to his words, I start to think he knows more about this business than I do. Of course I know what happens when we graduate from the Institute and become Venators — some go join hunters' guilds, for the safety, security, and pay; others will go off on their own and start their own agencies, and will often recruit other graduates. And still others go on to universities, taking a specialised Venator-designed set of courses.

Even at this stage in my education I don't know which one I want. Father would prefer I spend three more years at the Venator university in Geneva, where he attended before returning here. Of course starting my own agency is out of the question too, because unless I intend to live off of Father's money, it's impossible. Which leaves a guild. Giff intends to join one when he finishes, and while I wouldn't mind it for a while, the safety could get boring.

Isham bumps my elbow as he sits down next to me in our shared vampire weaponry class, grinning when I glare up at him. He has the crookedest teeth and the largest ears I've ever seen, but all of that just hides the fact that he's got a mind like a steel trap. He remembers everything he's read, word-for-word.

"So you weren't taking any notes, were you?" He flips the corner of my journal with a thumb. "Didn't think you were the journalling type, Wilkes."

"Sod off, Isham." I roll my eyes. "Just because you don't need to write down anything doesn't mean everyone else is the same."

"You wish you were." He bumps my elbow again, and this time it slides off the desk and makes my pen streak across the page in a long —————— line. Hence the ink splotch in the corner.

"Do you ever think about what you'll do when you graduate?" I ask him then.

"Go work for my parents, I suspect," he says, frowning and scratching at a fingernail. "Why?"

"I've just been thinking," I say. "About how the Institute turns us into a certain...type of hunter."

"What's all this about types, mate?" Isham looks confused. "I mean...I suppose we're expected to know certain things. But I wouldn't say it's a type."

"That's not what I mean." I think of Wells again. "Do you ever think it's just been handed to us? That hunting's just a hobby, not a way of making a living?"

He cocks his head. "I dunno what's gotten into you, Wilkes, but this is odd talk. Your father say something to bring it on?"

"Well no, not exactly—"

"Listen, mate." He claps my shoulder and leans in close. "I get that you're feeling a bit...disillusioned with everything. Your father being headmaster and all. But I think it'll all pan out just the way you want."

I say nothing to that. Father being headmaster has gotten me thinking, although not in the way he believes. Instead, I say, "Do you want to go vampire hunting with me and Giff? Maybe after we've finished today? Father says I need practise."

"I've got schoolwork," he says, suddenly stiff.

"Please, Isham. This is schoolwork. Applying our skills. That's what they want us to do."

"I'll think about it. No promises."

I nod. Good enough for me.

—

Later. — Instead of meeting up with the others for lunch, I leave the Institute and walk to Hyde Park. I have to think about some things, and my mates never shut up long enough to allow that. My thoughts drift around for a while until they settle back onto what Wells said. About our fancy equipment and all the resources we could want, while everyone else had to scrimp and save just to make ends meet.

I don't see the girl coming straight towards me until we nearly pass each other. Then she turns around, stopping in her tracks.

"Langdon?" she exclaims. "Langdon Wilkes?"

I skid to a halt as well, spinning on my heel. I almost don't recognise her, in an aubergine dress, a hat with matching feathers, and white gloves covering the hands that staked a vampire through the heart last night.

"Naomi?" I sound surprised, and she smiles when she hears it. "What are you doing here?"

"It's Miss Hudson when we're out like this," she says, doubling back to slip her hand through my elbow. "And I've come for the same reason as you. A walk in the park."

"Right. Yes. That would make sense, wouldn't it?"

She laughs, a girlish tinkle like wind chimes in a breeze. "I suppose."

We begin to walk, in a comfortable silence. No one gives her a second look as we pass, unlike me. It's because of the Institute uniform, I know it. I don't exactly blend in, either — black coat cut in the style of a morning suit with yellow piping on the lapels, dark grey trousers with black stripes, dark gold silk waistcoat, and a black necktie. Also with thin gold stripes. A bit unfortunate that the Institute's colours are black and gold. Not to mention the crest on my school coat singles me out for looking younger than I am.

"Oh, look there," she says, when we reach Round Pond. She's pointing at a vendor selling ham sandwiches from a cart for a pound each. "I'm famished, aren't you?"

After we've paid for them and begun the walk back to the Serpentine, I ask the question that had been rattling around in my head since I first saw her.

"Where is your brother today?"

She smiles. "My company isn't enough for you, Mr Wilkes?"

"No, it's not that, it's..." I feel my ears turning red, and I look away. "Only he seems very protective of you. Doesn't want you out alone."

"Wells is a worrier." She drops her voice on the last word, her blue eyes widening. "I told him I was going for a walk in the park. No monsters out and about in the daytime now, are there? I also mentioned that if he decides to follow me, he will get a stake in the heart."

"You would...er...do that, Miss Hudson?"

She smiles and laughs that tinkling laugh again, this time with a swat to my shoulder. "Oh, you're a silly goose, you know that? Besides, if I staked my brother through the heart, he wouldn't die. I'm fully convinced he's covered it in iron."

"Then he must be very hard to kill," I say with a shrug.

"That's one way to put it, yes."

I almost ask if the two of them want to come vampire hunting with us, but stop myself before it can get out. I hardly know them, for one thing — although they seem like perfectly capable hunters — and for another, I know Wells doesn't like me. Even in the dark last night I saw his hatred.

—

Later, evening. — Father comes home in the middle of my preparing to go out. I don't have anything that would identify me as a student at the Institute, unlike last night, and just like the Hudson siblings — although I swear it was an unconscious decision — I wear as much black as possible. Black trousers, black shoes, a utilitarian black frock coat that I'd last worn at my mother's funeral service, and a wide black cravat to hide the whiteness of my shirtfront. Even my gloves, which are a bit too tight now, are black.

"Where are you going, boy? It's a quarter to midnight."

I look up from buckling my rapier on. "I told my mates we'd go vampire hunting tonight."

"At this hour? It's a school night."

"You've told me I need more vampire practise," I point out. "So that's what I'm getting right now."

"This is not what I meant," Father says. I feel his presence come closer, even though I've tried to busy myself with making sure I have everything for vampire hunting: my rapier, a pure iron dagger, a wooden stake shaped like a crucifix, a sackful of garlic to sling round my neck, and just in case, my flask filled with iron filings.

"Oh? Then what did you mean?"

"Look at me, boy." Two of Father's fingers slip under my chin and tip my head up. His eyes are tired behind his spectacles. "Do you know why I want to keep you out of harm's way?"

"Father, please, I—"

"Your mother died fighting a vampire, remember," he says. "It broke into this house and latched onto her neck, and would have come for you next had she not staked it through the heart with her dying breath. It is why I've dedicated myself to slaying every vampire I see, so the same thing will never happen to you. And now you going out in the middle of the night to hunt them for sport, or shall I say practise, is far too careless for my liking."

"If I'm going to be half as good as you are, I have to," I say, because it's true. I'd slept through the entire attack, and only found out about it the next morning. My entire world had turned on its head in a single night. One day, my mother was alive. The next, she was dead.

Father's jaw stiffens, and I think he's about to forbid me from leaving. I see his mouth press tight, and I have to brace myself for what's coming.

"Southwark," he says, surprising me. "There's a workhouse in King's Bench Street. Rumoured to be a vampire den."

I'm about to thank him, but he steps away from me and leaves the room before I can. I want to believe he's secretly proud of me, but I can't be sure, and I probably won't ever know.

—

I meet Giff and Isham outside the gates of the Institute ten minutes later. They're dressed in all black, like me, and I see Isham carries a machete like Naomi's. I have a feeling that'll be useful.

"My father says there's a workhouse in King's Bench Street that's an alleged vampire den," I say to them after the usual boisterous greeting from Giff.

"That's Southwark," says Isham. "Does he want to get us killed?"

"I didn't think—"

"He's right, mate," Giff says. "We'd get jumped by a thief 'fore we even get there."

That makes me think for a second. I don't know King's Bench Street, or Southwark, but it's where a lot of the vampires end up. Our instructors have told us that they usually live in poverty because nobody else wants them around. And well-off people tend to notice things like that.

"But we might—" I start, and without any personal effort my thoughts finish it. See Wells. It makes no sense why I think of him in that moment. I take a deep breath, start again. "We might be able to really prove ourselves."

They exchange a look. Giff shrugs.

"I have wanted a chance to use this," said Isham, motioning to his machete.

"And I got some new iron bullets," says Giff.

"Then we're going after all?"

"You've convinced us," Isham says. "Now who can find us a hackney at this hour?"

Just as the distant clock strikes midnight, we manage to wave one down. The driver gives us an odd look but says nothing, and with a "King's Bench Street, my man" from Isham, we're off.

I try to think of the things I know about vampires, and I can only come up with three. The first: they live communally, in groups called Families, usually with a "mother" and a "father", or the vampires that made them. The second: they can turn into bats, but only the mature ones do; the newborns don't have that ability yet. And third: they have four bloodsucking fangs, not just two.

As soon as we cross the Lambeth Bridge, it looks like we've entered another world. The buildings here are sagging and crooked, streaked with grimy black soot. The streets are riddled with potholes, so much we have to hold onto the bench to keep from falling out. I squint up and see lines of washing hung out of windows, probably no cleaner than it is now than before it was washed. I hear dogs barking, babies crying, glass breaking, men and women shouting at each other. I see a girl, probably seven or eight, doing needlework by the light of a gas lamp, and a boy, covered entirely in black soot, lugging the tools of his trade in a bucket behind him: a chimney sweep. And, on the corner where the hackney driver drops us and disappears rapidly into the night, is a garishly made-up woman in a tight, low-cut dress who flounces towards us the second she sees us.

"I do wot yer want, sirs, fer a penny," she says, stroking Isham's arm, Giff's chest, and then my cheek. Startled, I flinch away. "Oi. 'E's a shy 'un, in't 'e?"

"Sorry, miss," said Giff, catching my elbow in a firm grip and yanking me away. "We've got somewhere to be."

"Some'ere better'n wit' me?" she calls after us, but by then I trot to keep up with Giff, leading the way towards King's Bench Street and none of us answer.

"She spooked ye, didn't she?" Giff bumps my arm with his elbow.

"No," I answer quickly. "I wasn't expecting her to touch me, that's all."

"Yeah. Guess not." He shrugs, then as we turn into King's Bench Street, he points. "In't that it up there?"

I squint up through the dimness again. This street's more of an alley, narrow and crooked. There's puddles of something I don't want to think about in the gutters, and piles of rubbish against the high, sooty walls around us. It's entirely deserted too, and the only sound I hear is a distant voice, rough and slurring, singing what sounds like an off-key version of "God Save the Queen."

Then I see a dim light, thrown by a door opening, almost at the bottom of the street. A head pokes out, and I can tell it's a vampire by its pale, drawn skin and red eyes. Another thing I must have forgotten about them — they can smell blood in a living body from miles away. Being among all these humans must be torture.

The head swings our direction. Instantly we press our backs against the walls, staying as still as possible and hoping it can't see us. The head pulls back in a moment later, and the door slams shut.

"Come on." Isham leads the way, motioning us forward. "We go now, we might catch them unawares."

We follow him in single file. On the way I draw my rapier, and behind me I hear Giff loading his pistol with his special bullets. We make it to the bottom of the street and stop there, because Isham's pointing at a set of crooked wooden doors hidden in the shadows across the road from us. The dim light catches the tip of his machete blade and makes it glint faintly.

"I'll go first," he says. "Then when I wave at you, follow me."

Both of us nod, and he scuttles to the doors, black coat flapping behind him like a cape. I watch him feel around for the door handle, then when he finds it he pulls on it just slightly. The door cracks open and lets out a thin strip of light. It widens as he inches it further, so now we can all fit through. Then he waves at us.

I hurry to join him first, and Giff afterward. As I do I take my garlic pouch out of my coat pocket and crush the clove inside to release its smell. Then I sling it around my neck, making sure it's secure.

"Good thinking, mate," whispers Isham, and he does the same.

Then we duck inside, Giff easing the door closed behind us. We find ourselves in a narrow lantern-lit hallway, its walls made of thin boards nailed together. Above us, the rest of the space disappears into the inky blackness. It occurs to me at exactly the wrong moment that vampires can see in the dark, and any kind of moonlight, no matter how dim, is like daylight to them.

Giff leans over and unhooks the lantern from its place on the wall, and we creep forward again, barely breathing. The silence is so total that I barely hear my own heartbeat in my ears.

The hallway ends in two flights of stairs, branching off in different directions. We glance at one another again. Separating would be a bad idea, but staying together makes us even more of a target.

"You go that way, Giff," says Isham, nodding off to our left. "Me and Wilkes'll go up here."

"But Isham, we don't have any—"

He cuts me off by taking out a bundle of sticks and a book of matches, and hands the first to me. Then he strikes a match and lights the sticks, and I make a face at the smell.

"What is this?"

"Hawthorn sticks," he says. "Soaked in garlic extract."

"That's absolutely revolting."

He shrugs. "Works, doesn't it?"

After that we separate: me carrying the makeshift torch while Isham brandishes his machete in front of us as we climb, and Giff proceeding alone up the other way. I can't help but wonder where exactly the vampires all went, unless this is the prime hour for hunting. In which case we would have come here for nothing.

We end up on a metal walkway above the workhouse floor. Dimly I can see the makeshift walls snaking around the entire room, in a dizzying maze that looks a lot like a drawing of a rabbit warren I saw in one of Father's nature books once. I grip the torch tighter, and even by its flickering light I can see my rapier hand shaking.

"Where the bloody hell are they?" Isham whispers.

"Isham, I think—"

There's a sudden hiss behind me, and before I can turn around a heavy weight lands on my back and knocks me forward. The torch goes flying from my hand as I crash into Isham, and we both go down. I feel a tongue flick at my ear, and then a voice like slime.

"A youngling," it says. "We haven't had one in sssso long..."

I hear Isham moving and the clang of his machete as he beats it against the metal railing.

"Oi! Bloodsucker! Come get me!"

The weight lifts off my back and a gust ruffles my hair as the vampire steps over me. I stand on wobbly legs, scooping up my rapier, and begin to back away. This was a bad idea. I know I shouldn't have suggested it.

I run into something behind me, just at the top of the stairs. I whirl around and find myself face-to-face with another vampire, this one a young one by the look of it. I remember what our instructors told us about how vampires appear more human when they've first turned, and gradually become skull-faced, red-eyed monsters as they age. This one's just turned, too — it looks like a young girl, with stringy blonde hair and large pale-blue eyes.

"Don't come any closer," I say, taking two steps back and aiming the point of my rapier at it.

The vampire grins coldly, and I see its fangs, sharp and deadly. "Your blood...sssssmellsss sssso good...little human."

"Stay back." I take another step away from it. "Stay away."

Then, in a flash, it's on me. One last thing occurs to me just an instant before impact: vampires are much stronger and faster than humans, and don't tire. At all.

The vampire's hands wrap over my face, its fingernails digging into my scalp. It lifts my head and then slams it back down into the metal, making my skull rattle. I try swiping at it with my free hand, but I can't see anything. I can feel its sharp knees digging into my stomach, its elbows in my chest, as it suddenly pins my head down sideways to expose my jugular vein. I struggle harder, trying unsuccessfully to slice at it with my rapier. It snarls and knocks my hand aside, and I hear the blade go spinning away. I reach down, groping at my belt for another weapon. At first I find nothing, and the vampire's fingers dig in harder as it leans forward, panting in anticipation. Then, by some miracle, I find my iron dagger. I yank it out and plunge it deep into the vampire's back.

It throws its head back and screeches, rearing up and sideways. With my other hand I seize it by the throat and roll over, pinning it against the railing. It claws at me and misses, for the most part, probably because the iron weakens it. But two of its claws rake down my cheek, drawing fresh blood, and I see its eyes turn red at the sight. It thrashes harder than ever, one of its sharp knees punching me right in the stomach and knocking the wind out of me.

Suddenly both vampires are on me. One's on my back, trying to get at my neck, and the other's snapping at the underside of my wrist, where the pulse point is.

I wonder if I'm about to die when I hear a familiar yell and a clatter of metal, followed by a screech and a wet thud. The weight on my back lifts off, and the first vampire's head goes rolling away from us. A hand pulls me off the second vampire and a blade comes down, slicing cleanly through its throat all the way to the spine. It gurgles and twitches, its afterlife draining out of it.

Then more running feet, and I see Naomi and Isham, both covered in dark shiny blood, hurrying back towards me — which means the hand on my elbow must be Wells's.

"Come on," he says gruffly. "We have to go while we still can."

The four of us thunder down the steps and flee back up the narrow hallway, piling against the doors to push them open. Then we're outside again, running in a loose group and turning corner after corner until we're deep in Southwark and lost.

Without warning Wells, who was leading the way, rounds on me. I collide with him, unable to stop, and he shoves me away, back into the brick wall behind me.

"What. The. Bleeding hell were you thinking?" he shouts. His face is twisted into a white mask of fury. "Going in that den with no preparation, no plan, and no regard for your safety? You're bloody lucky it was feeding night, or you never would have made it out alive!"

"What's feeding...?" Isham starts, but Wells blusters on, over him.

"That's twice I've had to rescue you, Wilkes! You'll never make a good hunter if you need rescuing like a fairy tale princess, you know that? Either you're just foolish, or you're genuinely stupid, but I'm not going to do it every time! Understand?"

"Wells, really, I didn't mean for you to..." I reach up, just barely grazing his shoulder with my fingers when he turns away.

He's whirling on me in a second, seizing the front of my coat and slamming me up against the brick wall again. His eyes blaze, and his teeth are bared at me like a wild animal's.

"Do not touch me. If you know what's good for you. Is that clear enough for you?"

I raise my hands in surrender. "Yes. I swear, it won't happen again."

He shoves me one more time before letting go. Naomi and Isham, watching in stunned silence, say nothing as Wells spins away from me again and I peel myself away from the wall, straightening my coat and cravat. It's then that I notice Giff's not with us, and hasn't been the whole time.

"Where's Giff?" I say, first to Isham and then to Naomi. "Where is he?"

"Langdon..." Naomi's brow furrows.

"Did he get out? Did he...?"

"He'd found the father, Langdon," Naomi says softly. "He was going to shoot him, I saw his pistol. But the father hadn't fed in...days, by the look of him, and...before he could even pull the trigger..."

"What happened to him?" I feel a yawning blackness open in the pit of my stomach.

"He jumped on him," she says, tears streaking her pale cheeks. "Bit him in the throat before he could even scream. I tried to kill him, Langdon, but...he got away...took Gifford with him..."

My knees give out underneath me and I collapse, a cold dampness soaking through my trousers. "He's...he's dead?"

"No," Wells says, to my surprise. "He's not. Not yet. The father'll feed off him until he's satisfied, keeping him just conscious enough that the blood stays warm. Then he'll turn your friend into a newborn vampire."

"We have to get him back," I burst out. "We have to save him. We have to—"

"No." Wells cuts me off firmly. "We can't save him. He's the vampires' prisoner now. And there's nothing any of us can do."

I glance at Naomi, then Isham, hoping to see any hope there. But there's none, and with a sinking feeling in my chest, I know he's right.