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He gazed back at me, his expression insulted but unalarmed "Tell the world No one will believe you And in any case, our operations are set up so that we can disappear and relocate theainst the sofa cushion "No, I don’t think you’ll do anything like that I rather think you’re likely to join us"

Ithe sofa

"Perhaps you’re not ready yet" He sounded sad "But I respect your intelligence The stuffy ways of the Sanguinists can’t suit someone like you My only concern is that you seem to have fallen in love--it shows in your eyes, you know Is it with that young hts and didn’t answer

"Well, even if it is, you have choices," he said "Haven’t you heard about Revité?"

I nodded He gestured toward his satchel "If that’s the way you want to go, I have soive it to you You can revert to a mortal state and live a conventionally e--it would be a loss in terms of our research, and I think you’d be bored to death--but no one can force you to remain one of us Vampires, unlike humans, do have free will And believe it or not, I’d like to see you happy"

I pressed ain He’d told me too much, too fast

"How’s your father?" he asked abruptly

I saw no point in lying to hiht of uilty "He needed time to recover fro that had quinine in it You weren’t responsible for that?"

His shock see to hurt Raphael He’s ht of Dennis," I said, "and look what he tried to do" I still couldn’t quite believe that Dennis had set the fire

Malcolree Dennis isn’t the ent"

"What?"

His face was solemn "Have you considered the possibility that your father’s real nemesis isn’t ht the name just before he said it: Root

"But she’s taken care of hihoutwith my father to make the tonics and sera that sustained not only us, but a network of vahed "Why indeed Well, I suppose that I could be wrong"

"Yes" But un to embellish it I’d always hated Root It was almost too easy to cast her as the new villain

Chapter Sixteen

With mock courtesy, Malcolm offered to walk me back to the hotel I declined his invitation We both knew that I could take care of ht of one last question I turned around "What were you doing tonight at the hotel?"

He stood in the doorway, looking down atat the caucus," he said "I thought I’d check in and see them in action We take an active interest in politics, you know It’s one ht again and closed the door

As I passed the cast-iron fence that surrounded the house, I had a view of the courtyard behind it Parked in a roere three beige Chevrolet vans The sight of them ht air outside s tourists through the streets After the stuffy air of the house, the s ht me a story that Mãe had told me on one of our road trips

When she and h a box of his old letters and photographs without his permission She was curious, she said

In the box she found a photograph of a beautiful young woel," Mãe said Instantly, she was jealous

For the next feeeks she never mentioned the photo to my father But the woman’s face was often in her ry She despised this woman, whose nas weren’t rational, but she indulged thean to poison her love for my father Every time she looked at hiht she broke down and told him what she’d done He seemed displeased, but not surprised, and she wanted hiot the photo and tore it up in front of hiraph I had of my cousin Anna"

Mãe felt stupid and ashamed, but more than that she was disappointed She’d invested soa rival And for weeks after that, the iin to seethe again before she realized her feelings were completely unjustified

"Hatred easily becomes a habit," she’d said