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GOOD-BYE, LITTLE YELLOW BIRD

The director had left her in charge of the night shift, which put Montague Druitt in a black mood When Genevieve wanted to stay by Lily&039;s bedside, Druitt harru she should delegate the general authority if she wished to devote herself to this specific case In the small downstairs room where the child&039;s cot was, Genevieve dispensed instructions Druitt stood at his ease, and affected not to notice the sawing of Lily&039;s lungs Long, agonising down-cut rasps caed nurse, fussed around the patient, rearranging the blankets

&039;I want you or Morrison in the foyer at all tihts, there has been a streah I don&039;t want anyone in who has no business here&039;

Druitt&039;s brorinkled &039;You perplex me Surely, we are for all&039;

&039;Of course, Mr Druitt However there are those ould exploit us We have medicines, other items of value Thefts have been heard of Also, should a tall Chinese gentlerateful if you could refuse him admission&039;

He did not understand; she hoped he would not be made to She did not really think thecreature out when it resumed its persecution of her The elder was yet another of the proble for solutions

&039;Very well,&039; Druitt said, and left She noticed his one good coat was trailing strands along the bottoood clothes were arue John Druitt, she thought, hadacquaintance with the depths He was polite to Genevieve but so behind his reserve worried her He had been a schoolmaster, then half-heartedly e to Toynbee Hall He had achieved no distinction in any of his chosen professions His special project was the raising of public subscriptions to fund a Whitechapel Cricket Club He would run the side, recruiting likely players fro in theaion

Lily began coughing up a red-black substance The new nurse - a vampire with some experience - wiped clean the child&039;s e cleared

&039;Mrs Amworth? What is it?&039;

The nurse shook her head &039;The bloodline,One of the wariven a little blood but it was no use The ani over, and that ani inch by inch into leathery dead flesh

&039;It&039;s a trick of theTo beco down to the set every little working thing right The raw ability is in the bloodline, but the knack doesn&039;t colad that those of the bloodline of Chandagnac could not shape-shift A like a blanket Genevieve saw the disproportionate growth as a child&039;s crayon drawing, bending the wrong way, not fitting together Lily yelled, a stabbing pain inside her She had gone blind on the streets, the sun burning out her new-born&039;s eyes The dead as leeching substance out of the bones of her legs, which crumbled and cracked in their sheaths of muscle A action

&039;It would be a &039;

Sighing, Genevieve agreed &039;We should have a Silver Knife of our own&039;

&039;Silver Knife?&039;

&039;Like thefrom one of the reporters that he has sent a letter to the newspapers He wants to be called Jack the Ripper, he says&039;

&039;Jack the Ripper?&039;

&039;Yes&039;

&039;Silly name No one will ever remember it Silver Knife he was, and Silver Knife he&039;ll always be&039;

A apron The floor in the roole to keep dirt out of the Hall It had not beenmore to be done, ma&039;m I must see to the others I think we can save the Chelvedale boy&039;s eye&039;

&039;You go, I&039;ll stay with her Someone has to&039;

&039;Yes ma&039;m&039;

The nurse left and Genevieve took her place, kneeling by the cot She took Lily&039;s huth in the child&039;s fingers, and she responded Genevieve talked to the girl softly, reverting to languages Lily could not possibly understand Nestling in the back of her skull was a Medieval Frencharound with her true father, she had learned, even in her short lifeti Her father, the physician, tried to save et out of the way The battlefield stink was in this roo of the priests and wondered whether Lily had any religion She had not thought to call a pastor to the deathbed

The nearest clergyo and the Christian Crusader would not consent to attend a vampire of any stripe There was Reverend Samuel Barnett, Rector of St Jude&039;s and founder-patron of Toynbee Hall, a tireless co-out of the vice dens of the &039;wicked quarter- red-faced with fury when preaching against the practice of woht each other Barnett, even without the unreasoning prejudice of Jago, disapproved of Genevieve and was openly suspicious of herthe East End Settlement Movement She did not blame the Warriors of God for their distrust of her Centuries before Huxley coined the ternostic When Dr Seward had interviewed her for this position, he had asked: &039;you&039;re not Temperance, you&039;re not Church, what are you?&039; &039;Guilty,&039; she had thought

She sang the songs of her long-ago childhood She did not know if Lily could hear The waxy red discharge froht be deaf as well as blind Still, the sound - maybe the vibrations in the air, or the scent of her breath - soothed the patient

&039;Toujours gai,&039; Genevieve sang, voice breaking, hot bloody tears welling, &039;toujours gai&039;

Lily&039;s throat swelled up like a toad&039;s and brackish blood, brown streaks in the scarlet, gulped out of herbreath still in her nostrils to fend off the taste and s andout of her ht She had defied death for centuries; now the great darkness took its revenge How many of Lily had died before their ti life of Genevieve Dieudonne?

&039;Lily, my love,&039; she incanted, &039;, my Lily, my Lily&039;

The child&039;s boiled eyes burst open One h the pain, there was so close to a smile

&039;Ma-ma,&039; she said, first and last word &039;Mma&039;

Rose Mylett or whoever was the child&039;s human mother, was not here The sailor or market porter who spent his fourpence to become her father probably didn&039;t even know she had lived And the atroyd from the West End - whom Genevieve would track down and hurt - was passed on to other pleasures Only Genevieve was here

Lily shook in a fit Drops of sweated blood stood out all over her face

&039;Mma&039;

&039;It&039;s mother, child,&039; Genevieve said She had no children and no get A virgin when turned, she had never passed on the Dark Kiss But she was more this child&039;s mother than waratroyd

&039;It&039;s mama, Lily Mama loves you You&039;re safe and wared her close, hugged her tight Bones irl&039;s thin chest Genevieve held Lily&039;s tiny, fragile head against her boso her chemise apart, Genevieve thu as her blood seeped

&039;Drink, my child, drink&039;