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Drac-u-la, Drac-u-la, Dra cha cha cha

She whirled around, hips punctuating the dance with precise cha cha cha thrusts, and stuck her tongue out at Penelope - as bad-tearette on a waiter&039;s hand - then exploded with the giggles Marcello kept her upright, and she let the music take over

She couldn&039;t reh He was light-footed and iinative He would have been a fine dancer Perhaps it was just that he&039;d never danced with her

She hosts It was absurd A va so many hypnotic elder stares, she spotted kindly blue eyes of isdoht She was a monster She needed no sympathy

With a thumb-talon, she slit open Marcello&039;s neck She craned to catch the spurt in herbehind her eyes Electric taste wiped ahat she had been thinking of, worrying about

Marcello wasn&039;t dancing He was spas from his depleted veins

Discreet footmen stepped onto the floor and took Marcello fro-plaster over the wound and said so in Italian about Vi a broken toy from an unruly child, careful not to express disapproval but nevertheless clearly miffed by her heedlessness

One of the servants indicated his chin It took her a moment to realise what he meant She took her hankie and wiped away an obstinate trickle of blood

Marcello alked toward an alcove As the curtain whisked aside, she glimpsed a row of beds and a stand of drip-feeds Nurses were in attendance She was not the only vampire to lose self-control under the influence of the cha cha cha

As a lone woa, a tubby elder who&039;d been head of the Carpathian Guard when they were sworn to cut off her head, tried to whirl her in a gavotte The General lost her to a beatnik bleeder with a beret and a goatee who jerked her back into cha cha cha- against his black pullover and her decolletage

She was torn froe of aof the ue probed her mouth for licks of Marcello&039;s blood, Kate realised this was the strangest of all elders, Casanova Upon turning, he&039;d shape-shifted permanently into a woman, a miracle which had no effect whatsoever on his character

Then she was detached fro of nised, under many layers of dissolution, as Errol Flynn The forot in his neck Kate could not resist the blood of Robin Hood It was unpowder

She left Flynn, and stue chest blocked her way She raised her head to look at the face, but it was a crihts that showed thick coluhs and calves

A cold cloth dropped on her brain

Where were Silvestri and Ginko? Where were the Carpathian Guard?

Fright seized her

Her eyes focused She had been mistaken This was not the Crimson Executioner A bespectacled, handsome, kindly face, built of solid blocks, looked down at her It was an actor, Kent She&039;d seen pictures of hihts were blue

&039;Are you all right, Miss?&039; he asked

She waved hiement of her features He wasn&039;t sure about her, but took her reassurance as authentic

Beyond the ure A tiny wo of blonde hair over one eye She&039;d been wrong about the Criirl from Piazza di Trevi

&039;Excuse irl was gone

Now, Kate wanted to cry She knew she was in a dulled, insensate state She wanted to be sharp, wanted to be herself She needed herself now

A red ball bounced on the floor and rolled to her feet She bent to pick up the plaything, but clumsily tapped it The ball leaped like a balloon, and hopped away like a Chinese vaainst Edgar Poe&039;s chest,between Gina Lollobrigida and an elder Kate didn&039;t know It was as if it were trying to escape Kate kept her eye on the ball, and followed