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"Do you plan to kill rille behind him, turned the heavy key, and followed Simon back into the de-serted vestibule, where Ysidro was fastidiously poking aard him with dispassionate eyes, and, as so often with Ysidro, Asher found it i thewhether he felt peckish In any case he did not answer

Instead he asked, "What do you think of our Franciscan brother?"

"Other than that he&039;s mad, you mean?" Asher removed a couple of wax tablets from his pocket, of the sort that he had habitually carried in his Foreign Office days, and"I don&039;t believe he&039;s our culprit"

"Because he&039;s here instead of in London? Never think it He is silent as the fall of dust, James; he could have followed us back to Paris, and I would never have been the wiser; could have overheard any of our conversations and preceded us"

"In Latin?"

"In English, if he was friend to Rhys and to Tulloch the Scot Most of us learn one another&039;s languages, even as we keep abreast of the changes in the tongues of the lands where ell-conspicuousness is our death The fact that he lives hidden in the catacombs does not mean he has not walked the streets of es that have taken place since the Fall of the Kings And he claims, incidentally, to have seen Tulloch the Scot&039;s flesh shriv-eled fro he was up and around by day?" Asher used his fingernail to pry the last key gingerly fro to himself that, if that were the case, the Minorite&039;s assuht be far frouess "But you say yourself that the Scot was seen years later"

"I say that there are those ear they saw hiious friend&039;s, if, like Anthony, Tulloch&039;s abilities to pass unseen greith time There has been no reliable report of his presence since the days of the Terror-indeed, none for half a century before, but that ments of wax frorilled door "And the others he named?"

"Two at least I know to be dead-three, if La Fla the wars over Picardy I&039;ve never heard of Croualt" He waited until Asher had opened the outer door, then turned down the lantern wick until its flarin that Ysidro&039;s candle snuffing trick didn&039;t seem to work too ith three-quarters of an inch of woven wick and a reservoir full of kerosene

"So we have three-perhaps four, if you want to count Grippen and figure out soht probleh the outer door into the dark Rue Dareau

"None of those he named has been seen or heard of for centuries" "That doesn&039;tso," Asher replied quietly "If one of them sur-vived, he-or she-would be a day stalker, like Brother Anthony, toughened, as you said, against garlic and silver and other countermeasures"

"It also does not mean that Brother Anthony is not himself the killer"

"Do you believe he is?"

Ysidro&039;s smile flickered briefly into existence "No But there are few other candidates for the role" Their footsteps echoed hollowly against the dingy walls of dark brick as they s of the empty back streets that led toward the wider boule-vards There was no way of telling how late it was, but leaden darkness now possessed even theof bistros, and the prosti-tutes seeood, " &039;I have killed over and over,&039; he said, and also, &039;I have tried to do good&039; The killing of other vampires could be interpreted as a major effort in that direction Is it not what you yourself plan to do, if you get the chance?"

Asher glanced sharply across at hie eyes Instead of replying, he said, "If he wanted to slay his own kind, there are plenty to begin on here, without going to London for the purpose And if the killer is his contemporary, with the same alterations of powers, Brother Anthonyhim"

"If he will" They crossed a street Asher had a momentary sense of ht and the hs wisely decided not to iven that you can coax hione, he consents to assist us and not ally hi how the little monk had seemed to ers on his hand, and their unbreakable strength He knehat his own reaction would be to a mortal man who allied himself with vas lie

They passed through a darkened square whose fountain sounded un-earthly loud in the stillness, turned into the Boulevard St Michel Even that great artery was virtually empty The chestnut trees that lined it rustled overhead like a di the walls of the great hospitals which clustered in that neighbor-hood The electric street laloo fiacre broke the eerie silence with the sharp tap of hooves, but that was all The night was still and cold; Asher pulled his scarf more closely around his throat and huddled deep into the folds of his ulster

Presently he asked, "If there is a strange va in Lon-don-be it Tulloch the Scot, even Rhys hih unexplained kills? Would a vampire that ancient have to kill as often?"

"Any city on earth," Don Siives forth such spate of unexplained kills of its own, through disease, cold, filth, and uncaring, that it were difficult to trace a single va blood less frequently-or needing, rather, the life, the death cry of the mind to feed the powers of the mind on which our very survival depends-that I do not know,"

He paused for awind moved in his dark cloak and lifted the pale hair from his collar, For a moment, it seeray leaf Then he walked on

"It is not merely that we are dependent on the nourish of the soul Many of us are addicted to theree, and soreat pleasure in the addiction Lotta used to prolong her fasts from the ultimate kill as much as possible, to sweeten theerous practice In so rises almost to s concerning us, carelessness is death"

They were nearing the miniature maze of streets near the river where the Hotel Cha in the air, and already, down the cobbled side streets, thethe delicate profile, the white, hooked nose and loose thickness of colorless hair

"You haven&039;t relaxed in three hundred and fifty years," he said softly, "have you?"

"No"

"Do you relax when you sleep?"

The vampire did not look at him "I do not know We all learn too late that sleep is not the saain Asher had the i lifted and whirled away by the faint stirring of the wind A faint flex line of a bitter smile touched the white silk of the skin, then smoothed away "Yes," Simon said expressionlessly "I dream But they are not like huht whatever lair he had made for hi bones in the dark

Then suddenly he was alone So once drea away toward the whitish mists of the Seine, but that was all

SAVAGE MURDERS IN LONDON THE RIPPER STALKS AGAIN?

A series of shocking criht when nine people-six women and three men-were brutally murdered in the Whitechapel and Liht and four in theThe first of the bodies, that of variety actress Sally Shore, was found by dustmen in the alley behind the Limehouse Road She had been ely that, when found, her body was alht other victihborhood, were in a similar condition Police remarked upon the fact that in no instance were screah the bodies were nearly drained of blood, very little was found at the scenes, leading them to believe that the murders took place elsewhere and the bodies were transported to the places where they were found

Asher set down the newspaper beside hiscold to his bones Nine!

What had Si fast, the ti sets in and will not be denied-Nine

He felt sick

It wasn&039;t the London vampires That much he knew They had to live in London-Grippen, the Farrens, Chloe But a strange vaht indeed be traceable through his kills, by those who knehat to look for He had lain hidden as long as he could, fasting and silently &039;s paper Last night, when he and Si Anthony in the darkness of the cata-coain This time it was not vampires ere his victi down the article, not particularly important humans-the women were all listed as "variety actresses," sea woiven the hour they were killed, there was no real doubt as to their true professions But it made their murders no less atrocious; and it made the lives of everyone else in London no more secure