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"What about vampires ere older than Brother Anthony is now, that you knew or heard spoken of?"
Ysidro thought, still immobile as an alabaster votive, his pale eyes half-shut "Rhys the Minstrel was nearly five hundred years old when he perished-if he did perish-in the Fire Like Anthony, his skills had increased; like Anthony he had becoht, too, though I&039;ularly and did not show signs of any abnor-nus was supposed to be"
Anthea spoke up, resting her hip on the curved head of the couch, "Tulloch the Scot told me once of vampires in China and in Asia, who have lived for thousands of years, going on as they always have, death-less"
"And lifeless," her husband whispered behind her, al on his haunches beside Chloe&039;s motionless for which concerns us, and I suspect that most of us do not wish to know of it"
"What would be the point?" Grippen demanded sullenly
"The point, y is so to which we all must look forward"
"That&039;s a lot of Popish cock!"
"What&039;s this?" Asher lifted Chloe&039;s aror He wondered if the vaor when they died It was another of the things Lydia would want to know He swiftly pushed the thought of Lydia from his mind The but-tons of Chloe&039;s sleeve had all been undone-there was a good handspan of the nearly to her elbow-and the whitepoint d&039;esprit fell back from the icy flesh to show a small mark on the inside of the elbow, like the puncture of a needle "Was her sleeve unfastened like this when you found her, Lionel?"
He shook his head heavily "God&039;s body, I know not! As if I hadn&039;t aught else to look for but"
"Yes, it was," Anthea replied "Why?"
"Because there&039;s a wound here-look"
They gathered close, Ysidro rising fro out of his shocked lethargy to look around his tall wife&039;s shoulder
"It has to have been done as she died, or after," Si the pinched flesh "So that small would heal almost instantly on one of us See?" With uncon-cerned deftness he drew the pearl-headed stick pin froed its point deep into his orist When he withdrew it, a bead of blood came up like a ruby, and he wiped it aith a fastidious handkerchief Asher had a ain, literally before his eyes
"She&039;d no such thing when she were hted with the nauseating reek of blood Asher realized thefor hi Cross; it had be-come, to him, a matter of almost academic note "I knew every inch of her body and &039;twas flawless as leaent malice "We are as hen ere made, sithee I&039;d this" He held out a square, hairy hand, to show a faint scar cutting over the back of it " froh, and the clothhead fighting the scalpel every inch of the way, dahtly, "we are eternally renewed from the cuts we receive in Hell" Ernchester covered his face and looked away
"Interesting" Asher turned his attention back to the white arm in its slender shroud of lace "It&039;s as if her blood were draith a needle, as well as drunk"
"A frugal villain"
"Not so frugal, if he&039;s in the habit of slaughtering nine ether in a frown
"His hu ed "An he were an alchemist I&039;d have sold much for it, in the days whenwith the stuff"
"An alche the rocky brink of a lake of boiling blood, a beaker in her hand Reaching down to dip it full I wanted to examine him medically, she had said The articles about blood viruses in her roorouped behind him- Ysidro, Grippen, and the vampire Countess of Ernchester "Takethere I need to see"
"A doctor would have the equip it once it was drawn" Seated at Lydia&039;s desk, Asher leafed unhandily through the chaos of notes and lists in his wife&039;s sprawling script, pick-ing up and discarding the under the heaped papers for more He was so tired his flesh ached, but he felt, as he often had in thetrack in sohtness that made such consideration acade," Ysidro re the Ordnance Survey s of colored pins "I had no idea you hunted so much to a pattern, Lionel"
" &039;Tisn&039;t I as leaves ," Grippen retorted, turning the newspaper clippings over roughly " &039;Bermondsey Slasher,&039; forsooth!"
"I think that was Lotta" Ysidro walked over to where Asher had turned his attention to the pile ofthe y; Psychic Pheno a Better Briton "What would a doctor ith a vampire?"
"Study," Asher replied promptly "You have to make allowance for the scientificyou for a sample of your blood within the first five minutes"
"Sounds like Hyacinthe," Ysidro remarked "It still does not explain how such a partnership coh he es of the journals "I can think of only one reason a vao into partnership with a doctor and would reveal to him who and what he was-the same reason you went into partnership with me Because he needed his services"
"Balderdash," Grippen snarled, stepping close to tower over him "We&039;re free of mortal ills"
"What about immortal ones?" Asher cut hian to ue or from some other cause"
"Virus forsooth! Ills have root in the humors of the body,"
"Then if the humors of the vampire flesh slipped out of true," Asher continued smoothly, "what could a vampire do? Say a vampire who had lived in secret, even from other vampires-or any vampire, for thatthe blood of other vaes for human blood, as you said was an occasional symptom that developed in a few of those who had been exposed to the Plague If he found hi I saw at your house, Grippen -if he knew such a course would inevitably lead to his destruction- wouldn&039;t it be logical for him to seek help wherever he could find it?"
Grippen looked uncooaded bull&039;s; beside hiht account for the renewed sensitivity to silver," the Spaniard remarked "Certainly for the wounds caused in his own flesh by the growth of his fangs And you think this vampire, whoever he was, chose his physician in the sah jour-nal articles?"
"Heon who it is, heainst the life of someone he cares for Maybe that isn&039;t even necessary Some doctors would welcome the chance to do research on an unknown virus and wouldn&039;t care that they orking for a killer Orwith Ysidro&039;s, "like Calvaire&039;s friends, he&039;s under the impression that he&039;ll win, and that his partner won&039;t kill him when it&039;s over"
Ysidro&039;s chilly eyes returned his gaze blandly "I a as there is a use for hih the papers scattered across the bed "And I take it Mistress Lydia discovered the h the journals?"
"I think so" Asher returned to his own exaood hand "Shethe her weapons-the silver knife, the revolver, or the silver nitrate"
"Silver nitrate?" Ysidro looked up from a list he&039;d fished frooing to have to go through the tiresoain Do you really own a place on Caswell Court under the name of Bowfinch, Lionel?"
"None o&039; your business an I do!"
"Filthy neighborhood, anyway Gin shops everywhere-you can&039;t feed without getting stinking drunk in the process This one doesn&039;t look familiar"
"Twas one of Danny&039;s"
"I&039;et fleas As for the one in Hoxton, I wouldn&039;t be buried there, et silver nitrate?"
Asher nodded toward the little velvet box Ysidro picked up the hypoder crystal ampoules "As a doctor, she&039;d have access to it-it&039;s used as an antiseptic, I think I do know most doctors carry it in small quantities"
"This is scarce a se back in its case "That much must have cost a pretty penny"
"I expect it did," Asher said "But Lydia&039;s an heiress and she&039;s al-ways had control of her own h I suspect her father wouldn&039;t have settled it that way if she&039;d married someone more re-spectable than a penniless junior don at her uncle&039;s college I expect she thought to inject the silver nitrate intravenously It would certainly kill a human, let alone a vampire It was naive of her," he added quietly "A vaetting that close, and she obviously had no idea of how quickly a vas" Grippen ca a pile of journals which had been stacked on the bureau
Asher flipped open the dog-eared pages Viral Mutation Interaction of Viruses in a Mediuenics for National Defense Physical Origins of So-Called Psychic Powers Iso-lating a Viral Coh the articles again They were all by Horace Blaydon
Softly, he said, "Dennis Blaydon was a friend of Bertie Westh him, Calvaire and anyone hom Calvaire had associated would have known of Blaydon"