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A the British Museum Asher had his cab set hi to the rattle of wheels retreat away down Great Russell Street in the darkness He knew this area of Bloomsbury the way a jack hare knew its burrows- alleys, mews, quiet squares, and pubs that had inconspicuous doors into back lanes and owners who didn&039;t much mind who used them It was one reason he&039;d chosen it

The streets were relatively deserted, save for an occasional cab clat-tering its way to Euston or back from the theaters on Shaftesbury Ave -nue He s, across a h a deep-shadowed lane between high homes whose sunken areaways formed an unbroken line of pits, like a protective moat, between pavement and rose-brick walls He crossed Bruton Place and found the black slot of the alley that backed both it and Prince of Wales Colonnade There in the moist and potholed dark-ness he halted, the stenches of a hundred garbage bins floating in the wet night air about hirow accusto his

It took soainst the blackness of the alley wall-had it possessed Ysidro&039;s weird quality of stillness, he doubted he&039;d have ever been able to But the va what at first seeular white face and big white hands, hands that picked unco collar of a black coat For a moment, Ysidro&039;s words floated into Asher&039;s mind: I am conscious of the smell of live blood, You would do well to re-member it, if ever you find yourself in the coht irritably, angry that they&039;d be following hi him With Ysidro asto get anywhere If I&039; for them, they jolly well can&039;t kill an to walk down the alley

The va sec-ond, the creature&039;s eyes caught the dilea teeth A split instant before it would have charged to take hiotten the best results from Prussian farm hands, and it worked The vampire checked, baffled, and then seely, without Ysidro&039;s invisibility and without Ysidro&039;s deadly grace, and Asher breathed again

"And you are?"

The valint-ing eyes under a narrow, craggy brow "Bully Joe Davies is me name," he said, in an accent which Asher placed within half a s disquietingly, a nervous gesture which, after Ysidro&039;s poise, auche Truculently he added, "You cry out or make a noise and I&039;ll suck you dry afore the cat can lick her ear"

Asher studied him for a moment with deliberate conte-ar in a black suit that did not fit well-that hard little nut of a face would have looked more at home above the corduroy work pants and frieze jacket of a mill hand or docker Black hair was slicked back under a five-shilling derby; there was blood under the uncut nails

"If you didn&039;t have some reason to speak to me, I assuo, in fact Why have you been following me?"

Davies took a step closer The smell of old blood in his clothes was repulsive When he spoke his whisper was rank as a enaone?"

Asher&039;s every sense of danger came alert "I haven&039;t the faintest idea," he said coldly "He could have followed me back here We parted rather abruptly I haven&039;t seen or heard hilance around hied closer still, his long-nailed fingers picking at Asher&039;s sleeve, his voice lowered to a hoarse breath "Has he spoke of me?" he whispered "Does he know ofcuriosity out of his voice "Shouldn&039;t he?"

The hand closed around his ar Asher of that other tenet of vath of ten men Ysidro cer-tainly had "If you speak of ht of me, I&039;ll kill you," Davies breathed "They&039;d kill me, they would-Grippen, and that chilly Papist bastard Ysidro-if they knew about ht it was Grippen and the others what done for Calvaire Then I heard them others had been killed-Neddy Haet! Sodding bas-tard&039;d never kill his own! And now I&039; watched"

"By whom?" Asher demanded sharply "How do you know?"

"Dammit, you think I&039;d be askin&039; ahis hands, his hard face contorting with rage rooted in fear, and Asher fought not to step away from him, not to show his own fear "Sum- Coo, ain&039;t that a tickler? I can stand acrost the street in the shadows and hear every word they says! And they say there&039;s some bloke killin&039; us wi&039; a stake in the heart, just like in theotta protect me, same as you&039;re helpin&039; the others"

His hands closed around Asher&039;s sleeve again, and Asher thought fast "I will protect you," he said, "if you&039;ll help me, answer my ques-tions Who are you? Why do the others want to kill you?"

The calm authority in his voice seemed to quieten Davies, but the vampire&039;s reply was still sulky and iet, Grippen&039;s the Master of London None of the Others&039;11 dare get a fledgling wi&039;out his say-so Grippen don&039;t want none in Lon-don but his own get, his own slaves"

"But Calvaire wasn&039;t Grippen&039;s get"

Davies shook his head, goaded, weary, confused "Narh He coular elt I wanted, never die! He never said it&039;d be like this!" Desperation crept into his tone "For a month now I been livin&039; from pillar to post, never sleepin&039; the same place twicet! Hidin&039; from Grippen, hidin&039; from Ysidro Calvaire said he&039;d take care ofnowf Everything&039;s all dinnin&039; and burnin&039; in my ears, smellin&039; the blood of every livin&039; soul"

He broke off, licking his lips, his burning eyes fixing on Asher&039;s throat, like a drunkard forgetting his thought in irl last night-Chink girl, down by the Limehouse-and I don&039;t dare hunt another for a couple o&039; days at least But my brain&039;s burain&039; for it! I dunno how the others do it, kill and not get the flatties down on &039;ein to draw hied face With deliberate cal followed?"

Davies flinched, as if he&039;d been shaken fro his lips with a hand that shook "I dunno," he whispered "Soht, watchin&039; me, and I&039;ll turn around and there&039;s nuthin&039;! Other ti back fros

"I don&039;t want to die! I died once already I went through it with Calvaire! I wouldn&039;t of let him do this to me, &039;cept that I didn&039;t want to die! Christ Jesus, I didn&039;t know it&039;d be like this!"

There was a noise at the end of the alley Davies swung around, his hand tightening with bone-crushing force on Asher&039;s elbow Through the pain, Asher was still interested to note that no sweat stood out on the vae boy stood hter slot of the alley&039;scoyly away as the man bent his head down Then, as if they heard Asher&039;s involuntary gasp of pain, they paused, peering sightlessly into the dark-ness After an uneasy o of his aro," he said, his voice thick

It was Asher&039;s turn to catch at his sleeve "Can you take ht" The va hands "I ain&039;t killed yet tonight and I need it bad Just bein&039; this close to you turns my brain wi&039; the wantin&039; of it Like in" He shot a quick, sullen glance at Asher, daring hih drunkards and addicts to know that, if he did either, Bully Joe ht very well kill him from sheer pique He was unco, and of how long the interview had lasted already What effect would that psychic pungence have on a ht how to handle the influx of new sensation?

"To once again to the alley mouth "I&039;ll come here and wait for you, after I been and killed Seems like, until I do, I can&039;t properly think I&039;ll keep away from the coppers somehow It keeps hurtin&039; at ht-Madge, the

youngest, sixteen she is She&039;ll still come and see me, look for me-she don&039;t knohat happened to s, nor nuthin&039; I hadn&039;t killed yet, and by God it was all I could do to keep fros into her!

"You seen the others," he went on, with a gesture of helpless rage which seemed to abort itself midsweep into a kind of futile wave "You talked to other vamps, now, you must have Are they all like this? Killin&039; the ones they love, just because they&039;re handy-like? Calvaire said he&039;d teach et on, but he&039;s dead now And the one that done for hi wildly around at another sound, but it was only a girl, sixteen or so and plain as an old boot, stepping, candle in hand, out into an areaway from the tradesmen&039;s door of one of the houses that backed onto the alley Asher heard the flap of a shaken rag and the spattering of crumbs on the cement and, beside him, the soft hiss of the vampire&039;s ht, Asher saw the young man&039;s eyes, blue and shallow in life, blaze with the strange inner fire of the Undead

Bully Joe o"

Asher&039;s hand clinched down on the vaed, his other hand lifted to strike, and Asher h with it After a y silhouette, Asher saw the se of candle flame disappear into the house froed ainin&039; now?" Bully Joe whispered "You know, and because of it I got to do what you say Yeah, Calvaire played that game, too I&039;ll tell you this and I&039;ll tell you that, if you do as you&039;re bid faugh!" His arrip of a child They faced each other in silence, but Asher felt nothing of the terrible dreamy coercion of the va in his head, as if Bully Joe were groping to do that which he had no notion of how to accom-plish Then this, too, faded, and Bully Joe passed his hand across his esture of frustration and defeat

"You hadn&039;t any choice with Calvaire," Asher said quietly, "and you haven&039;t any now, if I&039;m to find this killer before he-or she-finds you Be here to I&039;ve found"

"Right," Davies ainst the paler darkness of the alley ht now, Professor: You tell Ysidro or any of theoin&039;, and I&039;ll break your back"

It wascoolly, "You&039;re a vampire, Bully Joe Do you think I, as ame if he wants to? Don&039;t be ridiculous"

The va, Asher guessed, to collect a fitting rejoinder

He wasn&039;t up to it, however After a long pause, he turned and strode off up the alley toward the gaslights of Bruton Place Asher felt, as clearly as if the vae to turn his head, to check for danger in the dark pit of the areaway closest to him He forced his eyes to reainst the street laone

Asher threw a quick glance down the areaway to reassure hier had been, in fact, only a clulamour which Ysidro wielded so adeptly Then he pulled his brown ulster more closely about him and walked up the alley and around the corner, to the dihts and freer air of Prince of Wales Colonnade

Froe into Bruton Place She&039;d seen Asher crossing that street fifteen minutes earlier when she&039;d come to the front parlor to buy a sta her specs, as she did orking-but had meticulously taken no notice When she&039;d seen the tall, brown, rather ure turn into the alley which she knew led through to his own lodgings, she&039;dhe soliht, swiftly cli down the hall to her little bedroom at the back of the house, but there you have it After living with him for six years, she was surprised at the depth of her need to see him, if only for a second

And then she had seen the vaht in the alley hat leaked down froht on in her own roo she&039;d learned fro when she ca the lace curtain only barely; Jaloom she could see the cold, inhuman white of the other man&039;s face, and realized with a shiver that hedown there,

A vampire The Undead

They were real

She had not doubted James&039; story-not consciously, she reflected, at any rate But the quickening of her heart, the coldness of her hands, told her now that there had been a part of her that had not really believed Not really

Until now

Even at this distance, her trained eye picked out the coloring of a corpse, the different way he held himself and moved This man did not fit the description of Don Simon Ysidro-another vampire, then After the first shock her whole soul swelled into one vast itch to get a closer look at the tongue and mucous row after death, and at the teeth She&039;d spent the last thirty-six hours, , and between the drier tomes of leasehold and quitclaim at the Public Records Office, she&039;d come hoht along-articles on porphyria, pernicious anemia, and the various ner-vous disorders which constituted the "logical explanations" so dear to the heart of modern man She realized that she, too, had wanted the an eye on the , she pulled herto her from its place near the bed By touch in the dark, she found her two largest aths into her coat pocket as she put the garment on They were polished steel, not the supernaturally recommended silver; she cast herin the bag again for her little bottle of silver nitrate and slipped that in her pocket as well If worse caends were right

There was no ti , the va back; Lydia fancied she saw the glint of eyes in the shadows For a moment, despite the fact that she knew the vampires had hired him and would not harm him under the circumstances, she felt afraid for him, for there wasdark foresture, the vampire hts of stairs, coiling up her hair and pinning on a hat on the run; people who knew her to take three hours asse herself for a party would not have credited her speed in an e in the dark of the entryhen the shaed fro anywhere near hih to let herself be seen; even from half a block&039;s distance, it would be possible to observe how he moved, how those closer to him would be affected by the aura-if there was one-that James had described It was the best she could do for now

They were close to Shaftesbury Avenue Lydia followed the va like a deer&039;s tiny hooves on the pave- the sidewalks under the glare of the gaslights in throngs that had not the purposeful hurry of the day Wohing and leaning their shining curls close to dark shoul-ders; jehus, bundled in coats and scarves against the bite of the October night, read newspapers on the high boxes of their cabs in the street-side ranks, their horses breathing stea swells, of i shop clerks jostled along the paveht

And yet, she saw, the va his own problems Part of this was because people simply did not look at him, or apparently did not see him when they did, with the result that they did not move aside, as people did for her The irony of that entertained her a good deal as she loves and had no tune to hunt for the hi crowds permitted, but, then, she knehat to look for He was tall The cheap black bowler floated over the general crowd like a roach in a cesspool

He turned one corner and another The crowds thinned out, and Lydia had to fall back again, glad that her coat was of a nondescript color-unusual for her, and in this case deliberate-and wishing her hair were, too, where it showed beneath the bri slower now, and Lydia observed that people now moved aside from hi that ca else

They were near Covent Garden, a tangle of little streets and alleys, the craers hawking at half price froet rid of earlier in the day, and the sutters A couple of loungers outside a pub whistled adnored theh she vastly preferred the quieter life of Oxford for her work, at her father&039;s insistence she&039;d spent a certain araceful houses of Mayfair, the green spaciousness of Hyde Park and St James, and the quiet opulence of the Savoy and Sile of wet cobble-stones, loud voices, and harsh lights was alien to her experience; though she wasn&039;t particularly frightened-after all, she knew she had only to summon a cab and return to Bruton Place -she knew she would have to go carefully