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chopped off by gutter rats then who is to say what is impossible?"
"You are saying that I would become like you and Legrand and like the one who
wants to kill me. Able to pass in and out of closed doors, and and if I
understand what you are saying even able to withstand the great knife of
Sanson's engine?"
"It would pass through your neck without killing you. Precisely, my friend.
You would be in two pieces, no doubt, but you could be put back together."
"Two pieces."
That is what I said. Head here, body there. Then, zut
! back together, good as
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new again."
He sat for a while on his bed in silence, trying to put it all together.
Trying to make sense. "Why do you do this?"
"What?"
"Visit me, and give me back the chance to live."
"That is easy. I am Vlad's friend, and I want to help him save your life."
"Vlad?
I'm sorry. I mean the man you call Legrand, my dear."
"I am not surprised to hear that he has other names. But& there is so much
about all this I still don't understand. Two pieces, and back together?"
"Poof, why do you worry? What have you to lose, in your situation? You don't
have to understand everything, just this: The man you call Legrand considers
that his honor binds him to you in loyalty, simply because you saved his life
when he was in most dire need. Believe me, he is not one to forget either good
deeds done to him or bad." Constantia paused for a sigh. "The only problem is
"Yes?
The lady looked wistful. "In earning the loyalty of Legrand, you have earned
the hatred of his brother, who is almost as powerful."
"Yes, I have heard. The man who is supposed to want to drink my blood." He
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paused, rocking back and forth on his narrow prison cot, trying to get a grip
on the short hair of his scalp, which was still bandaged, so he could pull it.
"Which is what you do to me. And now you have me craving to taste your blood
also. I
think perhaps that I am going mad!"
His companion tilted her curly head on one side and considered him carefully;
"No," she decided. "No, you are still a long way from madness. I know many
people who are truly insane, and they are nothing like you." She paused,
considering. "Well, not very much."
Spinning round, Radcliffe confronted her fiercely. "I tell you that I love
Melanie!" And in that moment, when his passion for Connie had been momentarily
satisfied, he experienced a burst of repentance, even of revulsion, for what
he had just done.
Constantia smiled benevolently. "But I am not jealous of what you feel for
your
Melanie. Is that what worries you? I am simply enjoying a good time with you."
"What worries me is that if what you tell me about you nosferatu is true then,
when I am changed what will happen to her?" Philip in his desperation took
another drink from the brandy bottle that was not yet emptied. "She is so
fine, so pure " Now tears were running down his cheeks. "Ah, I am not worthy
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of her!"
Connie tried to explain. But he was drinking brandy, not blood and not
listening. And she has never been very good at explanations.
Philip's violent affair with Connie, indeed hip whole acquaintance with her,
lasted no more than a few days, but those few days were sufficient for our
purpose. In them he lost track of time. More than enough happened, between
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him and Constantia, to teach Philip many things about the nature of vampires,
and to afford him a real chance of becoming one.
Meanwhile Melanie was lying low, doing what she thought she could do to
protect her son. She had no idea that Philip was being seduced in prison, or
even that there were such creatures as vampires except that she was ready to
concede that Citizen Legrand, who had pledged his help, was no ordinary man,
and in fact could do some quite extraordinary things.
Shortly after Marie had visited Radcliffe in his cell, Melanie at the museum
received from the older woman a matter-of-fact report about the event. Melanie
was able to take some comfort from it.
But the great question still tormented her. "Can we really succeed in saving
him?" she demanded of her cousin. "
Can there be a rescue, from that prison?"
"Why not? It is only a place, like other places. And Legrand has a scheme."
Marie, whose eyes had seen a great many things in the last few years, nodded
slowly. "I think I trust Legrand& whoever he really is."
"Yes, I know. He is an impressive man. But the situation still terrifies me."
Marie patted her sympathetically. "Let us each do our part. Then, it is in the
hands of the good God."
The fate of the man she loved was not Melanie's only worry. She wondered also
whether her young child, little Auguste, was ever going to bear a name other
than that of a bastard. More urgently than that, she wondered whether she
herself might be arrested on some charge and never see her son again.
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Radu, knowing that patience and caution were essential in a conflict with his
brother, made no real attempt to get at Radcliffe in his cell. He approached
no closer than was necessary to sense the habitation effect which guarded the
occupant.
Something of the same caution kept him from trying to approach Melanie, whom
he might otherwise have attacked just to get at Vlad even more indirectly.
And then, as almost unexpected as such days often are, came the morning when
the stolid workmen came for Philip Radcliffe, without fuss or fanfare, just
before dawn, and Connie had to fade into the stone walls and darkness to get
out of the way.
Radcliffe was once more well-fortified with strong drink, a condition that had
become chronic over the last few days; and he had been affected also by
Connie's careless brush with converting him to vampirism. He could only stare
around him stupidly. Where was she? But it was sheer fantasy to believe that
they had done the things together that he remembered. It seemed to him that he
remembered drinking blood from her veins; that she had tasted his was
indelibly imprinted.
In the harsh glare of outdoor daylight, dazzling after days in his dim cell,
it seemed to him that he had only dreamed the presence of the gypsy girl.
By the time Philip Radcliffe was hustled out of the prison into the light of
day, he had more or less reconciled himself to his fate, whatever it was going
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to be
to everything, in fact, but the idea that he would never see Melanie again.
Philip had no convincing reason to doubt that he was going to be guillotined.
His knees
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felt weak as he was pushed, stumbling, this way and that.
The people who had come to load the tumbrils for the day were cursing and
fretting over their lists. "Where is the Englishman, Percy Blakeney? Name of a
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