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He snapped his fingers but lacked the strength to esture A nurse hastened to his side to produce an auditory snap

"Mainline level, please," Hughes croaked "I’ht"

I waited while Howard gathered strength and spittle "You can’t seriously suspect that unprepossessing frog ht be your father?" he demanded finally

"That’s a very biased way to refer to Frenchht I don’t want to think that"

Howard’s features squeezed into an expression of pleased calculation "You ca I had that honor That you would inherit?"

"Please You ‘died’ childless without a will eneration and their lawyers nuas land that lost most of its value in the Great Recession and is owned by a bankrupt corporation"

"You cared enough to look that up," he said, sh

"I’ate" I eyed his white-uniformed attendants Real nurses wore colorful scrubs nowadays "We need to speak privately," I told the?"

Howard cooperated by nodding vigorously "I haven’t been alone with a living single woman in years," he told me "You are so obviously after my money, Delilah"

"Me expect to inherit from a vampire, especially one so careful about the purity of the blood he takes in? Never happen Besides, I don’t want your blood uess on ue about when her fertile and vampire years intersected But I do know that someone had to turn you I heard you had a beautiful wo That was despicable, Howard, even in a life that used wo your last live years to keep your fingers germ-free There is still innocent blood on your hands"

"Don’t say that!" Howard began wringing his cadaverous hands like the sleepwalking Lady Macbeth washing them in Shakespeare’s play "I have even more money now It could all be yours All you have to do is think well of me, flatter me You do resemble my fondest loves, but, of course, I can’t consider any carnal activities nowadays Gers you can’t buy, even after death"

Like really old people his moods shifted fast "I can destroy you," he threatened

I wouldn’t have coh he was probably right

A deep growl to aze, and Howard’s

Quicksilver was stationed by the IV stand, black lips drawn back fro

His eye whites showed as he turned a questioning lookaway from my blood line!"

"Now I can destroy you," I noted "Your so-called bloodline is what I’, his eyes pinned on Quicksilver’s teeth For a huge dog Quick had a grip as delicate as a Chihuahua’s

"All those women, Howard, those flattered, suckered devoted starlets and actresses Never a pregnancy, never a hidden birth, an abortion? Birth control was more primitive then You favored actresses who looked liketeeth "It had not escaped e is not possible, Delilah There were two or three attempts to claim my paternity before you were even born I was, ironically, sterile long before I becamesenile"

I nodded Quicksilver to back off now that Hoas sharing his most intimate secrets Maybe When I maintained silence he went on

"Syphilis"

For a wild al’s fey assistant, Sylphia

Howard confused norance "Syphilis was the AIDS of the centuries preceding the nineteen eighties"

I knehat it was I had just gone stone cold at any possibility thatvenereal disease It would certainly explain eneration over the decades

"Yes," he went on, "any genuine heir of mine would bear that inescapable curse My nurses can take a sa yours withif you are"

I eyed the nurses lingering in the archway to the next roo to their bared fangs and scary-large syringes drawn from their side uniform pockets like ever-ready revolvers froine they were on a diet of Shez’s bloodwine and welcoh the intervention of a needle

Quicksilver produced his bigger fangs and they stopped, eyeing Howard

"Not necessary," I told him I definitely did not intend to submit my blood sample to one more vampire in this town "I’ll take your word that you paid for the sins of your youth early, with interest"

His skeletal hand waved off the attendants again

"So you had to turn vampire," I noted ere alone "It stopped your deterioration Your life was really screwed up fro, wasn’t it?"

"Not h researcher like you who sees the whole picture"

"You’re like Elvis, Howard So erations have been written about your lifeand deaththat the truth is still out there"

"Elvis did not have the foresight to fake his death and live on as a vampire"

"Elvis was surrounded by vampires at the end, as were you"

"Ah, hu I did do soood in my life"

"What about the nest of unrefor atop?"

"They’d be up here to stake me and my attendants in a second and take over the overworld as well as the underworld, except for you and your handso too"

Ruhes had been bisexual, but his tone when he mentioned Ric had beenadventurer and he’d owned the skies, the most money, and the most beautiful women in Hollywood

"Why thanks to ly like a reviving mummy whose case had just been cracked