18

I WAS BESIDE MYSELF with anxiety. As soon as we reached the pavement, I grabbed Louis by the shoulders and spun him round to face me.

"We're not going on with this," I said. "I'm going back there to tell her it will not happen."

"No, David, it will happen," he said without raising his voice. "You will not stop it!"

I realized that for the first time since I'd ever set eyes on him, he was passionate and angry, though the anger was not purely for me.

"It will happen," he repeated, clenching his teeth, his face hardening in his quiet fury. "And we will leave her unharmed as we promised! But this will go on."

"Louis, don't you understand what she's feeling?" I asked. "She's falling in love with you! She'll never be the same after this. I can't let this deepen. I can't let it become any worse than it already is."

"She's not in love with me, that's wrong," he declared in an emphatic whisper. "She thinks what mortals always think. We're beautiful to them. We're exotic. We have such exquisite sensitivity! I've seen it before. All I need do is to take a victim in her presence to cure her romantic dreams. And it won't come to that, I promise you. Now, David, listen, this hour of waiting will be the longest of the night. I'm thirsting. I mean to hunt. Let go of me, David. Get out of my way."

Of course I didn't leave him.

"And what about your emotions, Louis?" I walked beside him, determined he wouldn't leave me behind. "Can you tell me you're not completely taken by her?"

"And what if I am, David?" he responded, never slacking in his pace. "David, you didn't describe her truly. You told me how strong she was, how wily, and how clever. But you didn't do justice to her." He gave me a shy passing glance. "You never talked about her simplicity or her sweetness. You didn't tell me she was so inherently kind."

"That's how you see her?"

"That's how she is, my friend." Now he wouldn't look at me. "Some school, the Talamasca, that it produced both of you. She has a patient soul and a knowing heart."

"I want this broken off now," I insisted. "I don't trust either of you. Louis, listen to me."

"David, do you really believe I would hurt her?" he asked sharply. He continued walking. "Do I seek out for my victims those whom I believe to be gentle by nature, humans I believe to be both good and uncommonly strong? She'll be safe with me forever, David, don't you understand that? Only once in my wretched life did I make a fledging and that was over a century ago. Merrick couldn't be safer from any of us than she is from me. Bind me to protect her till the day she dies and I'll probably do it! I'll slip away from her after this is done, I promise you." On he walked. He continued to speak: "I'll find a way to thank her, to satisfy her, to leave her at peace. We'll do that together, David, you and I. Don't harry me now in this matter. I can't be stopped. It's gone too far."

I believed him. I believed him completely. "What am I to do?" I asked dejectedly. "I don't even know my own heart in the matter. I'm afraid for hers."

"You're to do nothing," he said, his voice a little more calm than before. "Let it happen as planned."

We walked on through the ruined neighborhood together.

At last the bent red neon sign of a barroom appeared, blinkering under the rangy branches of an ancient and dying tree. There were handpainted words of advertisement all over the boardedup facade, and the light inside was so feeble that scarcely anything could be seen through the dirty glass of the door.

Louis went inside and I followed him, quite amazed at the large crowd of AngloSaxon males that chattered and drank at the long mahogany bar, and the myriad dirty little tables. Here and there were denimclad women, young and old, as were their gentlemen companions. A garish red light shone from covered bulbs near the ceiling.

Everywhere I saw naked arms and dirty sleeveless shirts, secretive faces, and cynicism beneath a veil of smiles and flashing teeth.

Louis made his way to the corner of the room, and took the wooden chair beside a large unshaven and bushyhaired man who sat at a table alone and morosely over his stagnant bottle of beer.

I followed, my nostrils assailed by the stench of sweat and the thick cigarette smoke. The volume of the voices was harsh, and the beat of music beneath it ugly, ugly in words and rhythm, ugly in its hostile chant.

I sat down opposite the same poor degenerate mortal who cast his pale failing eyes on Louis and then on me, as though he were about to have some sport.

"So what do you want, gentlemen," he said in a deep voice. His huge chest heaved under the worn shirt that covered it. He lifted his brown bottle and let the golden beer slide down his throat.

"Come on, gentlemen, tell me," he said thickly, drunkenly. "When men dressed like you come downtown, you want something. Now what is it? Am I saying that you came to the wrong place? Hell no, gentlemen. Somebody else might say so. Somebody else might say you've made a bad mistake. But I'm not saying it, gentlemen. I understand everything. I'm all ears for the both of you. Is it broads you want, or is it a little ticket to fly?" He smiled at both of us. "I've got all kinds of goodies, gentlemen. Let's pretend it's Christmas. Just tell me what's your hearts' desire."

He laughed at himself proudly, then drank from his greasy brown bottle. His lips were pink, and his chin covered in a grizzled beard.

Louis stared at him without answering. I watched in fascination. Louis's face gradually lost all expression, all semblance of feeling. It might have belonged to a dead man as he sat there, as he stared at the victim, as he marked the victim, as he let the victim lose his poor desperate humanity, as the kill passed from possible to probable and finally, to a foregone conclusion.

"I want to kill you," Louis said softly. He leant forward and peered very close into the man's pale and redrimmed gray eyes.

"To kill me?" said the man, raising one eyebrow. "You think you can do that?" he asked.

"I can do it," said Louis gently. "Just like this." He bent and sank his teeth into the man's thick unshaven neck. I saw the man's eyes brighten for one instant as he stared over Louis's shoulder, then the eyes became fixed, and very gradually they went dull.

The man's cumbersome and bulky body rested against Louis, his thickfingered right hand quivering before it went limp beside the bottle of beer.

After a long moment, Louis drew back and helped the man to lay his head and shoulders down on the table. Lovingly, he touched the man's thick grayish hair.

On the street, Louis breathed deep of the fresh night air. His face was full of the blood of his victim, and richly colored with the tints of a human. He smiled a sad, bitter smile as he looked up, his eyes seeking the faintest stars.

"Agatha," he said softly, as if it were a prayer.

"Agatha?" I repeated. How I feared for him.

"Claudia's mother," he replied, looking at me. "She said the name once in those first few nights, exactly as Merrick put it. She recited both their names, father and mother, in the manner in which she'd been taught to tell strangers. Agatha was her mother's name."

"I see," I replied. "Merrick will be very pleased with that. It's the style of the old charms, you understand, when calling a spirit, to include its mother's name."

"Pity about that man drinking only beer," he said as we commenced our walk back to Merrick. "I could have used just a little heat in the blood, you know, but then perhaps it's better. Better to have a strong clear mind for what happens. I believe Merrick can do what I want."