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Spar miserably ht Keeper? The sad thing was that he no longer wanted her, except as a friend He loved Crown&039;s new girl Which was sad too
He was very tired Even the thought of new eyes tomorrow didn&039;t interest hi over his eyes He gently clasped Kim, who had not spoken He was asleep at once
He dreao, even to the white dress She held Ki toward hi closer
Much later - he thought - he woke in the grip of withdrawal He sweated and shook, but those wereAny moment, he was sure, they would twitch all his ony His thoughts were in to understand one in ten It was like speeding through a curving, ill-lit passageway ten ti If he touched a wall, he would forget even what little Spar knew, forget he was Spar All around him black shrouds whipped in perpetual sine curves
Ki froht But his body stopped speeding and his thoughts slowed His nerves still crackled, and he still saw the black snakes whipping, but he knew thelows of three running lights
Then he sao figures floating toward hireen in the sly haloed by silvery glints She was pale and whiteness floated around her And instead of a smile, he could see the white horizontal blur of bared teeth Kiolden-haired girl who he&039;d thought was playing bartender in Crown&039;s Hole She was Suzy&039;s one-time friend Sweetheart, snatched last Sleepday by va bellow, and scrabbled at his clipped ankle
The figures vanished Below, he thought
Lights came on Soraht what to tell Drake He loved Alhtmare Vamps attacked "
The other officer dove in "The black hatch is open"
Drake said, "Keeper told us that was always locked Follow through, Fenner" As the other dove below, "You&039;re sure this was a night? And an old woman?"
Spar said, "Yes," and Drake dove after his coh the black hatch
Workday dawned Spar felt sick and confused, but he set about his usual routine He tried to talk to Kim, but the cat was as silent as yesterday afternoon Keeper bullied and found ot away quickly She didn&039;t want to talk about Sweetheart or anything else Drake and Fenner didn&039;t come back
Spar swept and Kim patrolled, out of touch In the afternoon Crown came in and talked with Keeper while Spar and Kihtn&039;t have been there for all notice Crown took of theht really have been a dreaer impressed by his meht that Almodie and Kim, dream or reality, were vamps Doc had said vamps were superstitions But he didn&039;t think much He still had withdrawal syave Spar per questions Spar looked around for Kim, but couldn&039;t see his black blob Besides, he didn&039;t really want to take the cat
He went straight to Doc&039;s office The passageeren&039;t as lonely as last Loafday For a third tiull, Kestrel, Cathedral"
Doc&039;s hatch was unzipped, but Doc wasn&039;t there Kiht It wasn&039;t like Doc to leave his office unzipped and unattended And he hadn&039;t turned up at the Bat Rack last night, as he&039;d half proan to look around One of the first things he noticed was that the big black bag, which Doc had said contained his treasure, wasin which Doc had put thedifferent He unclipped it froer on the first, which was half circle, half pink and half glea the tiny red blobs welling froular depressions in its pink top and bottoums mated with the depressions He opened his ue back There was a snick and a dull click He had teeth!
His hands were shaking, not just from withdrawal, as he felt the second item
It o thick rounds joined by a short bar and with a thicker long bar ending in a seer into one of the rounds It tickled, just as the tube had tickled his eyes, onlyworse than ever, he fitted the contraption to his face The semicircles went around his ears, the rounds circled his eyes, not closely enough to tickle
He could see sharply! Everything had edges, even his spread-fingered hands and the clot of blood on one finger He cried out - a loondering wail - and scanned the office At first the scores and dozens of sharp-edged objects, each as distinct as the pictures of Capricorn and Virgo had been, were toowas a little evener and his shaking less, he opened thean to inspect the objects clipped to the shrouds Each one was a wonder He didn&039;t know the purpose of half of them Soht startled hireatly in their appearance - a coes (that infinitude of ranked black marks ), a wrist watch ( the tiny pictures around the circular o, and of the Bull and the Fishes, and so on, and the narrow bars radiating fro swiftly or slowly or not at all - and pointing to the signs of the zodiac)