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The se He had a suite to hihts of the School of Vampirism

The outer office was the doed secretary One lens of her Lennon specs was black She gave Croft a sheaf of es he handed back dise chairs Bored with blowing bubblegus, they lit Gitanes Pony shoved a tiny button in her ear and tuned a transistor radio to whatever the Light Prograed its name to last year (Kate kneas BBC Radio 1 but wouldn&039;t admit it) She nodded mindlessly to The Move, The Flower People or The Sh Cue and found pictures of Toby Dammit in open-necked shirts Kate had written for &039;Britain&039;s first teenage newspaper&039; until her intervieith Jimi Hendrix - ot to it - cauitar with his teeth and says each frizzy strand of his hair is a vindication&039;

Kate followed Croft into an inner sanctu her father&039;s cluttered study, she was surprised Croft could teach without a single book in sight No pictures hung on the black walls, though a neon-faced twenty-four-hour clock ht count as art Executive toys were stranded on his concrete slab desk: a Newton&039;s Cradle and a Drinking Bird Students sat in chros The Professor had a diabolical mastermind swivel chair with a control panel in one arm He pressed a button Tinted -blinds rolled down, ht Conceivably, other buttons opened a trapdoor to a piranha tank or fired laser beams at the School of Humanities

She considered the Black Monks

Eric DeBoys, star pupil and leading light, stuck close to her all the way into the building and up to this roo off his teeth and - she could swear - trying to exercise a power of fascination on her She&039;d developed immunity to vampire mesmerism before detachable shirt collars went out Was DeBoys smitten? More likely, he tried it on with any woman who crossed his path She slapped herself mentally for her instinctive prickle of interest The last thing she needed in her life (or her knickers) was another vampire knob

If he wanted trouble, he could always apply to the twins Cathy and Pony would leave Eric DeBoys lying in a pool of blood and laugh about it all the way honificant traits of the rest of the seible knock-offs of DeBoys Scrawdyke, a scruffy git with a strident, Northernish voice, projected lethargic aggression Hair sprouted from every part of his face except his chin Withnail, a slender glutton, possessed thirsty eyes and an actorish gait Mo?se King, a brutal toff, had scars around his little boy mouth and, she suspected, exercise books full of poetry he&039;d never let anyone read Sier swot; the others picked on him because he let his infatuation with Croft show

Two of the armed, sceptical American, was hollow-eyed and black-stubbled, and spoke in a whispery, dry rasp In this group, the syer by abstaining from human blood A spiritual trip? Self-punishment? Plain masochism? He didn&039;t wear the black robes, and looked like an outlaw biker in stained denim jacket and scuffed leather britches Keith Kenneth, a vulpine predator, was Eastman&039;s mirror: a decadent rather than an ascetic, pallor pinked with recent indulgence He wore a loose purple silk shirt andvelvet trews under his robe A choker of love beads didn&039;t quite cover a et that? If anyone here was Bellaver&039;s killer, Keith was thenoisy disco darks for biteable pick-ups Had he sighted Carol or Laura and just pounced?

There were two girls Anna Franklyn approxireen-black sari and headscarf A dark, exotic woht olive-tan ht be about Kate&039;s age, a Victorian holdover She was of an odd bloodline, Indian rakasha or Malay naga Her sinuous, serpentine manner betokened a reptile toteoi or nosferatu She was notionally Siirlfriend, if only because DeBoys didn&039;t choose to take her away yet Fran, a full-bodied vamp, was no one&039;s but her own She wore a black velvet dress with a plunging front that showed off ginormous bazooms; the only enerous hips On a whiht pass an afternoon in bed with one or more of the unattached (or attached) lads, but she was a free agent Fran had newly healed bites which matched Keith&039;s Had they torn into each other? In Kate&039;s day, newborns were advised not to atte each other out This new generation were up for any kink She wondered if Fran had laid Caleb Croft, then realised that of course she had Ice grinding on ice Ugh

Most of the Black Monks followed DeBoys&039; lead, as if he were the apostle who passed on the Professor&039;s dictates None of them loved or liked him, or each other, much That was a probleroups: so ot anything done Who&039;d split the order and strike out on his own? Who&039;d stick around and wither away? Eastman was a prime candidate to hit the road, with Sartre, Cas andwould be here until he was a used-up shell In two hundred years, he&039;d be parroting Croft&039;s lectures to new generations of soul-dead students

The Professor sat behind his desk He set the Newton&039;s Cradle clacking The perpetual motion bird dipped to drink The eye and ear were drawn to the desk and the hts Hah, Croft needed tools! His eyes weren&039;t enough His powers of fascination eak It was unlikely he&039;d mindwiped Thomas Nolan Unless this was a feint He wouldn&039;t be the first va steel, sinew and fang at the last ood detective: she could talk herself out of any insight, consider a knot froers into it

&039;Would you care to sit here, by me?&039; Croft asked her

Of course, she would not care to But she did, in a plain wooden guest chair

&039;Point of order,&039; said Scrawdyke &039;Does the group recognise the visiting speaker&039;s status as a va everyone except Scrawdyke

&039;I don&039;t shapeshift,&039; she said &039;And it&039;s still rude to ask a lady&039;s age&039;

Scrawdyke was going to say so up an unwashed bird&039;s nest of hair Reluctantly, Scrawdyke didn&039;t press his point Technically, she wasn&039;t an elder, but she let it ride

Croft leaned back like a guest on Dee Ti for a question to prompt an anecdote She&039;d asked for an interview after all Croft set it up as a perfore", you said,&039; she began &039;I believe you ed us all&039;

Croft nodded &039;Obviously,&039; he said

&039;I&039;ed from, Professor Croft The vampire you hen the world didn&039;t believe in vampires&039;

He ary As I said, I was an itinerant a ghost of myself&039;

&039;Why didn&039;t you take back your name? Most did&039;

&039;Charles Croydon was dead His life gone Part of the past&039;

&039;Forgive me if this seems indelicate, but how did he feed? Charles Croydon?&039;

As a predator feeds,&039; he said &039;By fascination or force Youthis We are all vampires here&039;

Anna Franklyn&039;s head oscillated like a cobra&039;s Jas

&039;The practicalities were different,&039; she said &039;When you couldn&039;t admit what you were, when there were no socially acceptable ways of drinking blood&039;

&039;Social acceptability is an artificial construct We are far beyond those By our nature&039;

&039;Our nature as vampires?&039;

&039;Our nature as predators&039;

The living - she couldn&039;t even think of the expression &039;the warm&039; - Lord Charles Croydon had been exactly like the vampire Caleb Croft OnlyWoods &039;By fascination or force&039; She knehat he ht shoe-buckles didn&039;tenabled hier scale Centuries on, he was an oldcautious and adapting to the ti an unrestrained et aith it, he&039;d use and dispose of Carol Thatcher and Laura Bellows in a trice But could he think he&039;d get aith it?

&039;You were born with a title Do you still feel entitled?&039;

Croft wasn&039;t rising to that &039;That&039;sjust wordplay,&039; he said &039;Sophistry, man We&039;re beyond that here I expected better of you Reed, as I get your vibe, you&039;ve alanted to be equal equal hom?&039;

&039;I remember omen didn&039;t have the vote&039;

Scrawdyke put his hand up, was ignored, and put it down again, yawning to pretend he just wanted a stretch

&039;So, you want to be equal with lish, right? Under the law&039;

&039;In Ulster, right now, the rights of the Catholic minority are&039;

&039;But you&039;re not Catholic You&039;re the daughter of Dr Pierce Plunkett Reed, of Trinity College and King&039;s, London A Dublin Protestant an Ascendancy Prod, right?&039;