8 - Thursday Night Drinks

Sorry — I was going to post this yesterday, but Edwin was up early, moving about, cleaning, proper “busy hands” mode. I didn’t get a safe gap to get the laptop out without risking him clocking it. So yeah… posting now.

And yeah. Thursday night into Friday morning was… a lot. Not chaos like the start of all this, more like… the world quietly flipping over and showing you what’s underneath.

So, Evan turned up around eight like I said. I’d been about to go Paul’s. FIFA, party chat, usual. I cancelled. Didn’t even try to argue this time — I could tell by the way it was happening that it wasn’t optional.

I went upstairs, grabbed a hoodie because it was freezing, threw my jacket on, and when I came back down, Evan was already by the door.

Edwin was there too, half-smiling like he was trying to be normal about it. He goes, “Have a good night, boys.”

Evan shot him this look — sharp, warning — but Edwin just kept smiling, like he was winding him up on purpose.

We step out, and I’m like, “Where are we going then?”

Evan doesn’t answer straight away. He just looks at me — not aggressive, not friendly, just that calm, measured stare. Then he says:

“Somewhere busy. Somewhere you can breathe without making yourself the centre of the room. You’re quiet. You watch. You don’t like eyes on you. That will help you tonight.”

I mutter, “Really?”

And he just tilts his head slightly, like he’s almost amused by me pretending I’m not exactly that.

Then… this is the part I still can’t say like it’s normal because it isn’t.

One second we’re at the end of the path.

Next second… we’re on top of a building.

Wind in my face. City noise below. My stomach drops like I’ve missed a stair. I spin round on him like:

“How the fuck did we—”

He lifts one hand — calm, controlled, like shutting a door gently.

“Not yet,” he says. “Wait until we’re inside.”

“Inside where?” I ask, because I’m genuinely lost.

“You’ll see.”

He takes me across the roof like it’s nothing. Finds a side door. We go in. Down metal stairs — the kind that clank under your feet. Then we reach a fire door that’s slightly ajar. He pulls it open and—

We walk into a bar. Proper bar. Rammed. Music, lights, bodies everywhere, people laughing, shouting, spilling drinks, living their lives like nothing supernatural exists in the world.

And for a second my brain can’t catch up. I’m stood there thinking: Where are we? How are we here? How is this real?

Evan’s right though. I don’t like attention. I don’t like being watched. I’m not that guy. I’ve got my mates and that’s it. So the crowd actually helps — it swallows me up.

He catches my sleeve — not rough, just guiding — and pulls me through the place to a booth tucked away at the side. There’s a little “Reserved” sign and a tablet built into the table like it’s some fancy chain place.

He sits like he belongs there. Like it’s his booth. Like he’s been there a hundred times.

He looks at me and asks, calm:

“What are you drinking?”

My brain’s still buffering so I just go, “Stella.”

He taps the tablet, orders two pints, and I’m watching him like… you’re ordering? like a normal night out?

Then he says, without looking up:

“Both are for you.”

I blink. “What?”

“It will look strange if I sit here with nothing,” he says. “But I don’t drink what you drink.”

The pints arrive — lad in a white shirt and apron sets them down, one in front of Evan, one in front of me.

I grab mine and take a big gulp because I need something to anchor me in reality.

I put it down and go, “Right. What are we doing? Why are we here?”

Evan leans back slightly, eyes on me. And then he says something I won’t forget, because it hit like cold water:

“Callum… I don’t think you’re frightened enough.”

The way he said it — not angry, not joking — just… true in his mouth. Like a statement of fact. It put a chill straight through me.

I swallow, trying to sound tougher than I feel. “Of you?”

That tiny lift at one side of his mouth — not a smile, more like he’s acknowledging the question.

“That’s part of it,” he says. “But it isn’t the point.”

So I lean forward, elbows on the table, and I say what’s been sat in my chest for weeks:

“Look… you keep saying you don’t know what’s going on. Edwin doesn’t know. So what am I meant to be scared of?”

Evan doesn’t rush his answer. He just holds my gaze and says:

“You have learned that monsters or shall we say those you don't understand exist. If one thing you were sure was fiction is real… what else is real? What else is watching? What else is waiting?”

That messed with me, I won’t lie. Because it’s not even an answer — it’s a door opening in your head.

I ask him, quieter now, “Do you know anything? Like… really?”

He nods once.

“Some,” he says. “Not much. But enough.”

Then he does the hand again — the “stop” gesture — and he says, firm but not shouting:

“Listen. For once, just listen. The world is mostly as you believe it is. But there are things that live beside it. In the shadows. Some hide well. Some don’t. Some are in headlines and you still wouldn’t see them for what they are.”

I sit back, because for the first time I’m realising this isn’t him trying to scare me for fun. It’s him trying to make me understand the scale of it.

He watches me, then says:

“Drink.”

I take another couple of gulps.

Then he picks up his pint — the one he hasn’t touched — and pours half into mine.

I’m like, “What are you doing?”

He says, like he’s explaining a basic rule of life:

“Appearances matter. If you finish yours and mine stays full, people notice. If people notice, they think. And thinking is dangerous.”

Then he looks at me and just says it, quietly, like there’s no point dressing it up:

“I drink blood, Callum. That is all.”

Hearing it like that — not in a film, not in a game, not in some edgy story — shook me. Because it’s suddenly real in a way I can’t mute or skip or log out of.

I must’ve gone white because he says, still calm:

“Are you alright?”

I nod, but it’s probably a lie.

He continues like he’s building a foundation.

“We’ve established what I am. We’ve established what I’ve done. I am not telling you this to hurt you. I am telling you because you are living in a world you don’t understand.”

Then he circles back to the rooftop.

“You asked how we got there,” he says. “At your gate, you looked into my eyes. I told your mind to sleep. You did. I caught you. You didn’t fall.”

I stare. “You— you just switched me off?”

He doesn’t deny it.

“It was safer,” he says simply.

Then he says something that made me remember all the stories and all the nonsense people say about vampires.

“In the old tales they say we fly,” he says. “We don’t. Not truly. It is… movement. Strength. A leap you cannot imagine. Control. It looks like flight because you don’t understand what you are seeing.”

At that point I check my phone and the time smacks me:

8:45.

And he goes, casually, “We’re in Nottingham.”

So my brain flashes back to Knaresborough. To getting home too fast. To the missing time. And I just sit there thinking: This is what he can do whenever he wants.

Before I can even start spiralling, he lifts the hand again.

“On the way back, you won’t sleep,” he says. “You’ll come with me awake. You need to understand what I can do, because you will be living alongside it.”

He leans in slightly then — not threatening, just… serious.

“I was given the duty of keeping you safe,” he says. “Whoever placed you with me did not expect me to stay hidden forever. You must understand me, as I understand you.”

Then he explains why we’re actually there.

“It isn’t me you should fear,” he says. “It is why. Why were you sent? What is your purpose? I know mine — to keep you alive. But the reason you were placed in my care… that is the unknown.”

That was the first time it really hit me: this isn’t just about my life being weird. It’s about something bigger that none of them fully understand.

Then he starts talking practical stuff. Not myth. Not drama. Logistics.

Money. Cover stories. Normality.

He says he has businesses, properties, people on payroll, identities — all the stuff you’d need to exist without getting flagged as “that bloke who never ages and never shows up in daylight.”

And then he tells me the plan properly:

I’m going to have a job. A real cover. Something believable. Digital marketing, online sales, physical and digital products — the kind of stuff you can talk about without people going, “Wait, what?” But the key is… I have to learn enough to sell the lie.

“You don’t need to become an expert,” he says. “You need to sound like you belong in the conversation. No hesitation. No mistakes.”

I tell him straight: “I don’t know anything about that stuff. I’m just… FIFA, COD, mate. That’s me.”

And for once he doesn’t judge it. He just says:

“That is what you were, Callum. You can still play your games. I’m not here to strip your life away. I’m here to keep it intact.”

Then — and this is where I felt him watching me more closely — he says:

“And your girlfriend, Camille.

I blink at him. “What?”

“Camille.”

My throat goes a bit tight because it’s weird hearing him say it like it matters.

I say, “You’re not gonna stop me seeing her?”

“No,” he replies, calm. “She is good for you. She pulls you out of your room. She gives you a life beyond screens. Keep your mouth shut, and you can keep that.”

The “keep your mouth shut” landed like a warning. Not shouted. Not dramatic. Just… weight.

He orders more pints — again, for appearances — and keeps topping mine up so it looks normal. I’m not proud of it, but I was drinking because it gave my hands something to do while my head tried not to explode.

Then he says there’ll be training.

Not gym-bro stuff. Not “let’s go lift.” More like: you need to be able to defend yourself. Because if something comes for me — or for you — no one knows what it will look like, or when.

He says he’s got places where we can do it. Properties. Private rooms. No questions. No witnesses.

Then he drops another rule, like it’s just weather.

“You must not leave this island,” he says. “England. Wales. Scotland. Stay here.”

I stare. “Why?”

And he explains, blunt:

“Running water is… poison to my kind. Large moving water. Rivers are difficult. Oceans are death. I cannot cross them. If you go abroad, I cannot follow. I cannot protect you.”

I don’t even know what to do with that, so I just nod like an idiot.

Then he adds:

“Don’t run from me again. I’m not your jailer, Callum. I’m your protector. Argue if you must. Hate me if you want. But don’t run.”

That was the first time I heard something like… care in the command. Not soft, but present.

He asks if I’ve got questions, and my brain is full of them, but I manage a few.

How many vampires are there here?

He says more than I’d think. He knows of at least sixty-something — but numbers change. Some are made. Some die. Some get killed. Some hide.

He mentions a group — a “coven” — like he hates the word, like humans invented it to make it sound theatrical.

“They live together,” he says, almost dismissive. “It is easier for some. I prefer alone.”

Then I ask about Prof.

Evan’s whole focus shifts. Not angry, but sharper.

He says Prof isn’t like anyone he’s met. One of a kind. A confidant. Someone who knows what Evan is. Someone who knows about me — but only because it’s necessary. And Evan makes it clear: that information is controlled. Permission needed. Boundaries.

That bit told me a lot without him even saying much. Like… Prof is not someone you casually name-drop.

Then I ask about the jumping — how far, how fast, how it works.

Evan actually answers properly. He says the world’s changed, tech’s changed, tracking’s changed. He can’t go high like he used to because then people will notice. So he stays low, uses familiar routes, and keeps it dark. He says he can control the movement mid-air.

He says fifty miles is his limit now, about ten minutes on a clean run. Used to be more — eighty, maybe a hundred — back when nobody was watching the skies.

My head nearly popped trying to do the maths.

Then he explains something that made me angry in the moment: he’d left me asleep on the roof while he came down first, checked the room, made sure there was nobody in there he didn’t want.

I said, “You left me asleep on the roof?!”

He just looks at me like I’m missing the point:

“I checked the roof,” he says. “I checked the door. I checked the building. Nothing was coming for you.”

And then he says something that stuck with me:

“This is my world. It is second nature. You do not understand it yet. But you will.”

At some point I check the time again and I realise we’ve been there ages. My head’s buzzing, my body’s warm from beer, but my mind is still trying to stay sharp.

He tells me to stop drinking. Says he wants me alert. Says he wants me to remember.

Then he asks where I want to go next.

And I say the one place that’s always been a calm spot in my head: the Moorish Temple at Elvaston Castle. I don’t know why, I just love it. The trees, the grass, the whole vibe.

Evan nods.

“Very well,” he says. “We’ll go.”

We leave the booth. Back through the crowd. Back up the stairs. Out onto the roof again.

He tells me to walk like I belong. Not rush. Not look like I’m escaping. Just… normal.

Then, on the roof, he asks quietly:

“Are you ready?”

And he pulls this thin black blanket from under his coat. Silk-ish. Light as anything.

He drapes it around me.

Steps in.

Takes me in a firm hold — almost like a hug, but braced, like he’s anchoring me to him.

And then he jumps.