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PROFONDO ROSSO

For a while, it was a night the pack didn&039;t s she&039;d seen people do when barracked by reporters She flung her hands over her face, looked down at her shoes, and tried to walk on an invisible straight line through the crowd She didn&039;t so ly blunt and irapples She ot back to the pensione just in tiot a lot of interview material fron slut she was She hadn&039;t slept in Trasteverein Rome She&039;d spent most of her time at Marcello&039;s apartment, with Charles and Genevieve, out on the street, or in prison Nevertheless, she was required to settle an inflated bill to get her suitcase back

She tried to telephone Marcello at his aparted up and down Via Veneto, but couldn&039;t find him in any of his usual haunts

Of course, she realised Marcello had told the other reporters about her It was how they had been able to lay in wait outside the police station It was also presu that ht to have been there to get it At least he had enough gu her on the spot

She still planned on taking it out on him

While she had been in prison, the ed The Via Veneto wasn&039;t as abandoned as before, except in the sense that a great a was alone, and quite a fe-borns werethemselves scarce If the Crimson Executioner wanted the undead out of the city, he&039;d scored a triu blood To her relief, no one bothered her The feeding frenzy over her story had passed, and so around with the press at their heels The police had announced that she was not a suspect in the death of Prince Dracula That left the press free to speculate on increasingly bizarre conspiracies She liked the one about the Carpathian guardsman brainwashed by the Red Chinese and transforh she was a lot more likely to believe it was all down to the Jesuits

Charles was gone, and now Dracula too Her past was being dismantled One man she had loved, the other hated, but they had defined a world she understood A world in which she had a place, a cause, duties, ties The cords that fixed her in the universe were being snipped one at a ti they remembered from life passed They alone remained, locked into their skulls, lost in a world of pop-up toasters and television advertisements

She felt very small and not a little afraid

&039;The answers to such mysteries are very often found under the soles of our shoes&039;

Father Merrin&039;s comment stuck in her mind He had placed a subtle e he&039;d intended she should remember, should think about

What was under the soles of her shoes?

Tiles None too clean

And beneath that?

Eventually, earth and rock and ma

There were catacohtclubs She kept being taken underground Ro Only a fraction was on the surface

What lived under Rome?

Or who?

&039;There are tears everywhere,&039; Santona had said &039;The stones of the city pour forth tears&039;

She remembered Santona too, her talk of Mater Lachrymarum, the Mother of Tears The fortune-teller iirl who&039;d led Kate into Dracula&039;s tomb The child&039;s pretty, evil face appeared to her still Everything else irl would live on Kate had a sense she was an ancient creature: not a va eternal and dreadful

Aback to that Santona had said Mater Lachryirl&039;s mother, but the city&039;s

How could Ro to Kate&039;s old classics teacher, the city had two fathers, Romulus and Remus No mother was mentioned, unless it was the wolf bitch who suckled the twins

So stirred in her heart Not just terror, but curiosity, a need to know, to understand It was a song she&039;d heard since her war melody of her life

Charles&039;s death had knocked her out of herself But perhaps Dracula&039;s passing had slapped her back on course There was so new mixed in, a tune she&039;d never heard before In a sense she didn&039;t want to contemplate yet, she was free Without Dracula, the world was free to make of itself what it wished And without Charles, so was she

She wept hot tears