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One evening, as my eyes actually opened, as the lids truly drew back over the orbs of h the white cake of ice above

I tried to flexice shattered; what an extraordinary electric sound

The sun siainst the preternatural fury of the powerful blood my body contained Ah, God, to think of it, five hundred years of growing ever stronger and stronger, and born from the blood of Marius in the first place, a th

It seereater It seemed the fiery pain in all my body could be no worse

Then Sybelle started to play She began to play the Appassionata, and nothing else mattered

It wouldn't ht arhtly There seemed no immortals anywhere near I knew that the Veil had been spirited away to the Vatican in Rome No cause noas there, for immortals to come here?

Poor Dora The nightly news said that her prize had been taken froe blond-haired angels were the stuff of tabloids, and she herself was no longer here

In a , I fastenedhead, sent out my telepathic vision as if it were a fleshly part of h Benjaed

In a lovely golden haze, I saw it, saw the walls covered with the heavy fras, saw oorn slippers, her fingers hard at work How grand the sweep of theon a black cigarette, with hands folded behind his back, pacing in his bare feet and shaking his head as he mumbled to himself

"Angel, I have told you to come back!"

I smiled The creases in my cheeks hurt as if someone had made them with the point of a sharp knife I shutcrescendos of the piano Besides, Benja; his lih

Then another vision ca that would not be ignored I turned ain and made the ice crackle I held h above

So of me, someone far away, many blocks from the closed-up Cathedral In fact, I sensed in an instant the distant presence of terful vampires, vampires I knew, and vampires who knew of my death and lamented it bitterly as they went about some important task

Now there was a risk to this Try to see thelimmer of me which Benjamin had been so quick to catch But the city was eure, and I had to knohat it was that caused them to move with such deliberation and such stealth

An hour passed perhaps Sybelle was silent They, the powerful vampires, were still at their work I decided to chance it