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How does one go about investigating the personal life of a woular basis for the last hun-dred and fifty years?"
Lydia Asher paused, the handkerchief-wrapped fragly at her husband&039;s question With her long red hair hanging down over nightgowned shoulders and her spectacles glinting faintly in the ile and gawky schoolgirl than a doctor Asher stretched out his long legs to rest slippered feet on the end of the bed "She must have hundreds of potential eneuessed, after a mo one per night times three hundred and sixty-five ti off a few here and there when she went on a reducing diet?" Asher&039;s ht, were not the same as they had been Below them in the house, Ellen&039;s footsteps tapped a half-heard pulse as she went froe of awareness, Lydia could detect the regular clatter and tread of breakfast being prepared
Ellen had insisted on reh to fix a scratch dinner, after they had all wakened ht Lydia had sent the she&039;d needed was the parlor ination, the cook&039;s self-dramatization, and the tweeny&039;s morbid credulity to add to what she herself had found a deeply disturbing experience That James had been home she&039;d deduced froh why he should have taken apart his revolver and left the knife he didn&039;t think she knew he carried in his boot a the pieces on his desk had left her somewhat at a loss Characteristically, she had spent the reh her medical journals- which she kept in boxes under the bed, as they&039;d overflowed the library -for references to si an article on the pathological basis for the legend of Sleeping Beauty and dozing in the tangle of lace-trimmed counterpane and issues of theLancet But her drea to find so silently in the roo back the clouds of her sleeve-lace and pushing up her specs "Could a va diet? There isn&039;t any fat in blood"
Her rin behind a cup of coffee,
She unwrapped the two vertebrae frohtening light of theThird and fourth cervical, badly charred and oddly decomposed, but, as James had described, the scratch on the bone was clearly visible "There must be tissue repair of soer to rub some of the soot away, "if Don Simon&039;s burns &039;took years to heal&039; I wonder what causes the coh there are sto-ries of spontaneous hu in very rare instances to quite ordinary people-if theywere ordinary, of course Did you get a look at the coffin lining? Was it burned away, too?"
Asher&039;s thick brows pulled together as he narrowed his eyes, trying to call back the details of that silent charnel house He hadn&039;t had , but, Lydia had found, he had the best eye for detail she had ever encountered in a world that ignored so ht, even if his life hadn&039;t depended on it for so many years
"Not burned away, no," he said after aat the bottom was corroded and stained, almost down to the wood; charred and stained to a few inches above where the body would come on the sides The clothes, flesh, and hair had been entirely destroyed"
"Color of the stains?"
He shook his head "I couldn&039;t see by lantern light"
"H the pillows, co for herit to peruse soht stand?" Asher suggested helpfully She fished it out to look more closely at the third cervical
"This was done with one stroke" She held it out-he leaned across to take it and the glass and studied it in his turn "Soical knife So bone Whoever used it knehat he was doing"
"And wasn&039;t about to lose his nerve over severing a wo aside the bone "He&039;d already killed three other vampires, of course Presuh to overcome his revulsion, if he felt any, the first time-and after that, he&039;d have proof that they do in fact exist and ently on the faded silk ribbons of the old reticule, coaxing it open in a dry whisper of cracking silk
"Surely the mere circumstances of their loved one&039;s death would have proved that" When Ja the oddly dissolved-looking bone What she saw in his face-in his eyes, like a burned-on reflection of things he had seen-caused the sa within her that she&039;d felt when she was four and had awakened in the night to realize there was a huge rat in her room and that it was between her and the door
Slowly he said, "If that&039;s the reason behind the killings, yes But I think there&039;s more to it than that-and I don&039;t knohat If Ysidro&039;s telling the truth, va," if he was telling the truth It ht have been a lie to , delicate finger at him and mimicked, " &039;Don&039;t you try nuthin&039; wi&039; me, bucko, &039;cos we&039;ll see you comin&039;,&039; "
"You haven&039;t seen hirinned at himself "That&039;s the whole point, I suppose: nobody sees them in action But no I believe him His senses are preternaturally sharp-he can count the people in a train coach by the sound of their breathing, see in the dark Yet the whole ti to the wind I&039;ve seenfollowed, but can&039;t be sure He hides it well, but he&039;s afraid"
"Well, it does serve hi the vertebra over and over in her fingers, not looking at it now any rass stems she plucked when she was nervous She sed hard, trying to sound casual and not suc-ceeding "How ot up and came around to sit on the pillows beside her; his ar around her shoulders Herchivalry of a nu men who seemed to believe that, because they found her pretty, she would auto-iven Lydia a horror of clinginess But it was good to lean into Jah the shirt sleeve, the muscle and rib beneath that non-descript taistcoat, and to sh she knew objectively that he was no ainst this supernatural danger than she was, she cher-ished the momentary illusion that he would not let her co to have to go down to London again," he said after a few ations as to the whereabouts of the other vampires in London If I can locate where they sleep, where they store their things, where they hunt, it should give ainst them It&039;s probably best that you leave Oxford as well"
"Well, of course!" She turned abruptly in the circle of his ararette genie with the opening of a door "I&039;ll come down to London with you Not to stay with you," she added hastily, as his mouth opened in a protest he was momentarily too shocked to voice "I know that would put ether But to take rooh to help you, if you need it"
" Lydia!"
Their eyes Don&039;t leaveit or fros harder for him She squared her pointed little chin "And you will need it," she said reasonably "If you&039;re going to be investigating the vah the public records for evidence of where the va, not if Don Simon wants to see results quickly And we could meet in the daytime, when- whenthey can&039;t see us If what you say about theer in London than I would be in Oxford -or anywhere else, really And in London you would be closer, in case of" She shied away fro nothing for a ti the dry ribbons of the vaers of his free hand "Maybe," he said after a time "And it&039;s true I&039;ll need a re-searcher who believes, Youdo believe they&039;re really vaht about it, turning that odd, anomalous chunk of bone over and over in her lap James was one of the fewwithout fear of either shock, uncertain laughter, or-worse-that blankly incoave her when she ht-faced joke
"Probably as much as you do," she said at last "That is, there&039;s a lot of &039; But up until a year or so ago, nobody believed there was such a thing as viruses, you know We still don&039;t knohat they are, but we do kno they exist, and o, they would have said it was silly to believe that diseases were caused by little animals too small to see, instead of either evil spirits or an iical explanations, when you think of it And there&039;s so definitely odd about this bone"
She took a deep breath and relaxed as her worst fear-the fear of being left alone while her fate was decided elsewhere and by others- receded into darkness Janed to his fate, took his ar out the reticule&039;s contents, laying the bills, old theater programmes folded small, appointment cards, invitations- in his neat, scholarly way
"Are you going to get in touch with the killer?"
"I certainly intend to try" He held up an extreo very carefully The vaical alliance to h the bed, he had felt her start
Lydia dropped the card she had been looking at, her hand shaking a little with an odd sort of shock, as if she&039;d seen someone she knew Which, she reflected, was in a way exactly what had happened She didn&039;t knohat to say, how to define that sense of helpless hurt, as if she&039;d just seen a very brainless cat walk straight into the savaging jaws of a dog
He had already picked up the card and was reading the assignation on the back Then he flipped it over to see the front, where the name of the Honorable Albert Westmoreland was printed in meticulous copper-plate
"I knew him," Lydia explained, a little shakily "Not well-he was one of Uncle Ambrose&039;s students when I was still in school His father was a friend of Papa&039;s in the City"
"One of your suitors?" The teasing note he so of her suitors was absent She
had had flocks of thehby fortune, which had paid for this house and everything in it, and in part to her waiflike charly, she enjoyed their attentions and enjoyed flirting with theood, solid analysis of nervous lesions-and charirl, she didn&039;t hold it against those earnest young men that they&039;d frequently bored her to death, but the distinction was sorasp With Baptista-like faith in e a woed the hope that he&039;d see his ard daughter e,
She smiled a little, mostly at the recollection of her father&039;s face when she&039;d announced her intention to y without an "Honorable" to his naed to Lord Carringford&039;s daughter But he was in their set So I saw hiood deal I kneell, nobody spoke of it before me, of course, and Nanna would have killed the about in town it wasn&039;t with girls likeain, his hand warh, the news hadn&039;t upset her h she&039;d felt shocked and sad, for Bertie had been the first contemporary, the first of her set, who had died Even then, she had been familiar with death-old Horace Blaydon, chief Lecturer in Pa-thology at Radclyffe, had said it was positively indecent to watch her carve up cadavers-but it was different, it seemed, when it was someone you knew Dennis, she recalled, had done his best to co results, "Did he say how?"
She shook her head "But it was very sudden I re I&039;d seen him only a feeeks before, when all their set went down to watch Dennis play in the rugger s Poor Bertie" The ain wanly "The Honorable Bertie-he ht for the shadiest seat and spent the whole ti terrified the bench would leave spots on his trousers, lemonade would drip onto his sleeve, or his buttonhole would wilt His brother, the Equally Honorable Evelyn, was on the Gloucester side and nearly died of eht She wondered if he had cried out, if he had knoas happening to him, or if this vampire woman had taken him in his sleep, as Ysidro could so easily have done to thehter around Ja silence, she asked, "Can we meet in the daytime?" "I don&039;t know," he said quietly "Not safely, I don&039;t think The killer can be about by day, even if the vampires can&039;t Until I can contact hi this-I don&039;t want anyone knohere to get at you" His arently, as if treasuring even the bones within her thin flesh She felt the tension in his body and turned to look up into his face
"And it isn&039;t only that," he said "There&039;s so critical Whatever he says, he&039;d be a fool to hire a human; and whatever else he is, Don Simon Ysidro isn&039;t a fool He had a reason beyond what he&039;s telling me And whatever that reason is-whatever it is that he knows-it&039;s the first thing I&039; to make it to Guy Fawkes&039; Day alive"
Before noon Asher was on his way back to London Over breakfast he had inforht&039;s events had left Lydia in such a state of nervous prostration that he thought it better to arrange for her to see a specialist in London, a story which disgusted the phlegmatic Lydia and puzzled Ellen "She was fine, Mr Asher, sir, indeed she hen she woke up me and Cook And she&039;s never been one to take on"
"Well, Fve just spent thewith her, and, believe me, she needs to see a specialist," Asher said firmly Twenty-four hours without sleep on top of the events and exertions of the night had left hiarded his pallor and his dark-circled eyes with deep disapproval "It isn&039;t my place to say so, sir, but if anyone needs a nerve doctor"
"No, it isn&039;t your place to say so," Asher retorted, draining his coffee "So just assist Mrs Asher to pack her things, and I&039;ll be back to fetch her this evening" It would probably take that long, he reflected be she considered essential for a feeeks in London
The htfall made his bones ache, but no husband as worried about the state of his wife&039;s health as he currently purported to be would entrust her on the journey with no other escort than her et rid of Ellen, who, in addition to being ent than she sometimes seemed, was incurably inquisitive
Why was it, Asher wondered, crossing the Magdalen Bridge on his way out of Oxford a short time later, that qualities dee but a daray stone balustrade, he had a flying glireen waters; he recalled Ysidro&039;s words about teak and cottonwood and se, he veered onto St Cleh wooded byways toward the green rise of the downs
In preference to another two hours on the Great Western, he had elected to take his motorcycle down to London, a five horsepower American V-twin Indian that had always been a bone of contention between himself and the other dons There were Lecturers of All Souls and Fellows of Christ Church who s were thought to be far e h the countryside, was generally looked upon as scarcely above the level of an undergradu-ate Out of deference for his colleagues&039; sensibilities, as well as for his own reputation ofof what such behavior would do to his acadeenerally ride within the Town itself
At the s which needed to be arranged while the sun was yet in the sky and Ysidro and the other vampires safely asleep in their coffins, and the quickest way to London was over the downs and through High Wycombe The road was execrable, potholed and unpaved in places and awash in yellowish les, and hair But their silence enfolded him For the first ti chalk hills and hair-fine, dull-olive turf, to think and to plan, and the stillness seeped iht and h backbone of the downs, he stopped and turned to look back on the green valley, the far-off glitter where half a dozen streaestion of damp mists and dark clouds of trees He could pick out the towers of the colleges, not as the crystal coray, lichen-stained, fa to float above its trees, Merton&039;s spires and the square proportions of his o College Tower, like the faces of friends lined up on a railway platform to see him off-the place that had been his home, on and off, for the better part of twenty-seven years