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"You understand that it was never usual for a coe enough for deaths to be invisible," she added after a moment "Only the landed hadthe days e sleep Simon tells me that even in his time, London was like a sainst a lip full but pale as wax "And I suppose you&039;d think the London I grew up in paltry-we used to pick catkins in the marshes where Liverpool Station now stands

"It was the nobles who could sustain their security, who could hunt far enough afield-who could live on the blood of cattle and deer, if need be, to prevent suspicion fro on the blood of anirows-dull Stupid Weary All things begin to seem very pointless And out of that dullness, it is very easy to be trapped and killed"

She raised her eyes to his, folding her hands-soft and large and strong enough, he knew, to break his neck-over one another, her rings glea coldly "That sounds vile, doesn&039;t it? But that blunting ofof the concentration-is death to a va sun will reduce to ashes Do you think us vile?"

"I think that what you are is vile," Asher said evenly "Does that ain, to consider the pearls and reatly I suppose I would have died years ago" Another woht aside with some attenuated shift of musculature he did not quite see, before her eyes returned to his "Of course Rhys was gone by the time Charles and I became e are He lived in the crypts below the old Church of St Giles, haunting the waterfronts for sailors at night Hein taverns, in Eastcheap and the Steelyard-the German Hansa merchants loved hi tears to your eyes That&039;s where Simon met hiile to look at, like a little spider in strange garb two centuries out of date There was a great frenzy of witch-killing in the days of old King James, and those in London who survived it perished in the Fire, all save Grippen and Simon God knohere they found to sleep, in the days the fire burned"

"But you weren&039;t made until after the fire?" It was ancient history to hiration that had devoured London in 1666

"Years after," she said "I re on Harrow Hill in the dark, looking down on the city like a carpet of fla off it onto my face on the wind It had been windy all that week, hot and dry I re afraid the fire would cover all the earth" She shook her head, as if wondering at that child&039;s naivete "They said there were buildings whose stones exploded like bombs in the heat, and little strea like water down the gutters Even after I became-what I am-it was years before I saw Ysidro; after the turn of the new century His face was still covered with scars from the Fire, his hands like the scabby-barked branches of a tree"

"And Grippen?"

Her s in the years after the Fire," she said "Charles was far from the first He needed money, needed protection"

"Protection?"

Her voice was deliberately colorless "There are always feuds All his fledglings had perished in the Fire For years I thought Charles was dead" She gave a little shake of her head, as if putting aside soain, the oil light glowing amber in her eyes "But that isn&039;t what you came here to hear"

"I came here to hear about vampires," Asher said quietly "About who you are and what you are; what you do and what you want You&039;re a hunter, Lady Farren You know that you must see the pattern first, before you can see where it breaks"

"It&039;s dangerous," she began, and a thread of anger seeped into Asher&039;s voice

"Ysidro didn&039;t givein front of her, in the sht that surrounded the vast h now that he could have reached out and touched her face Her face did not change its expression, but he saw her eyes alter their focus, flick past his shoulder to the dark cavern of the roo at his ar only feet behind hilint of red eyes

Anthea cried, "Grippen, no!" at the sae hand that clutched at his throat It was like striking a tree, but he ed to twist aside Hairy and powerful, the vampire Grippen&039;s hand shut around the shoulder of his coat instead of his neck

Asher twisted, slithering out of the garment Grippen was reasy black hair falling in his eyes, his face pocked with old scars and ruddy with ingested blood For all his size, he was blindingly fast Hishiled still in his half-discarded coat; he felt the va as steel, and fought it as he had fought Ysidro&039;s in the train The arhter, and he twisted with both his hands at the fingers buried in his coat-he ers of a statue

Anthea, too, was tearing at Grippen&039;s wrists, trying to force them loose He heard her cry, "Don&039;t!" as he felt the e, square hand tear his shirt collar free, and thought, with bizarre abstrac-tion, And now for a little experiment in applied folklore

"God&039;s death!" Grippen&039;s hand jerked back fro Asher dropped his weight against the slackened hold, slipping free for an instant before the en-raged vampire struck hi into the opposite wall He hit it like a rag doll-the strike had been blindingly fast, co ist in him picked out the sixteenth-century rounded vowels- far more pronounced than Ysidro&039;s-as the vaive you silver!"

His vision graying out, he sao shapes ht Anthea had hold of both of Grippen&039;s wrists, trying to drag hi loose fro, Asher staggered to his feet and stulorious enough exit, he thought dizzily Prop-erly speaking, a gentleman should remain and not let a lady take the brunt of a fracas, but the fact was that she was far more qualified than he for the task It was also very unlikely Grippen could or would kill her, and virtually certain that, if Asher remained, he was a dead man

Savoy Walk was silent, e If he could make it to the end of the street, up Salisbury Court to the lights of Fleet Street, he&039;d be safe

He stu the raw cold of the river h his shirt sleeves and froze his throat through his torn co lla rDangerous ground for a ht, as his feet splashed in the shallow puddles of the uneven cobbles Heedless of appearances, he began to run

He made it no farther than the black slot where the court narrowed into the crevice of the lane

In that shadowy opening a for to take shape, as they were said to, out of the irl, a pocket Venus, pri feral in the diffuse glow fro so the pale face of a world-weary ghost that belonged to the third Earl of Ernchester

Their hands were like ice as they closed around his arms

"I&039;m sorry," Ernchester said softly, "but you have to come with us"