A Sharpness on the Neck

first believe the vampire story, she conducted another convincing demonstration: vanishing before his eyes, then reappearing in the corridor outside the cell, beyond its locked and bolted door. Then in another instant she was back inside with him.

'What is the secret?'

She laughed, a small musical tinkle. 'Love is the great secret of life. It solves all problems—and laughs at locksmiths, hadn't you heard?'

'Love?' They were very close together now, sitting side by side on the narrow bunk, and he had become enthralled.

'It is at the beginning of everything, is it not, my tall American? Do you know what it is to love—?'

'I have loved. I do love.'

'But you did not let me finish. Do you know what it is to love, in the way of the nosferatu? What you will call in English, vampire.'

The prison around them was very dark, and howled its fear and madness in a hundred different voices, mostly very faint. Radcliffe whispered: 'I have heard… only stories. Stories told by old women, to frighten their grandchildren.'

'Stories, pah, they are nothing. Real life is everything.' And Constantia, beginning by stroking his cheek with the seductive skill gained in three centuries of experience, conducted another demonstration, this one even more overwhelmingly convincing than the other.

'Philip, give me a kiss.'[]

'Bah, how can I show you, how can I do anything for you, if you will not do even that much when I ask it? Am I so ugly, then? You gave me a peck on the cheek before. But now I want a real kiss…'

Later, what seemed to Radcliffe hours later though it was only a matter of minutes, he asked: 'How long have you known Legrand?'

'Ah, forever and a day! He calls me his 'little gypsy.' But there is no need for you to be jealous. For a long, long time now, for centuries in fact, we have been like brother and sister, because that is all that two of the nosferatu can ever be to each other.'

'Oh?'

'Besides, he is very old…'

'Oh?'

'Yes. Let me tell you some of the facts of life…'

* * *

Ah, my dear little gypsy! Constantia though not very large was physically strong, and had been so even in her breathing days. In fact she was very nearly as old as my brother and I. Brave, ready to deal with the undead, those she called the moroi, for the sake of the magical power the body of such a one could confer—but she had never been known for her logic. The combination tended to make her an interesting ally; but I had no time to try to recruit anyone steadier.

The next time Connie came to visit our poor client, she brought with her another gift of brandy, this time a whole bottle instead of merely a little flask.

Philip grabbed it eagerly. Having momentary trouble with the cork, he was about to break off the bottle's neck in his impatience, but Connie intervened, using her long nails and remarkable strength of wrist to pull the cork out neatly.

When he put the bottle down to gasp for breath, she said: 'Ah, Philip! Why should not the two of us seize a little happiness, in these last days of our lives?'

Connie's technique of lovemaking, which was certainly unique in Radcliffe's experience, confirmed her nature as something much different from an ordinary human.

Philip talked nervously to the new object of his passion. Sometimes he babbled. 'Did I tell you I did much of my growing up on an island in the Caribbean? My mother is still there. On Martinique, it is much easier to believe in such things than it is in Boston or Philadelphia.'

'I have heard the same thing from others. Someday, I think, I would like to see that part of the world.'

There were moments when he knew strong guilt feelings for his behavior with the gypsy, when he saw it as a betrayal of Melanie. But as yet he and Melanie had made each other no formal pledge. There were times when she seemed very far away, a relic of his childhood—and other moments when all thoughts of her were wiped from his mind by a passion whose strength seemed born of the imminence of death.

Connie on her successive visits provided Philip with a steady supply of strong drink. I believe that wine, brandy, and rum all appeared at different times. I had suggested a drop or two, to ease our client's anxiety, but in view of the result it seems plain that she overdid it.

Later, she admitted to me that she had added a few drops of some little-known aphrodisiacal drug. The Borgia pharmacy had not yet exhausted all its treasures, Constantia, among her other achievements in our cause, succeeded brilliantly in her inspired plan of converting Radcliffe's cell into a genuine habitation, thereby granting immunity from vampire penetration except by the will of the occupant.

She knew she had succeeded when she discovered one day that she herself was unable to enter without asking permission of the inmate. Then, laughing and clapping her hands, she explained to Radcliffe what a good sign this was.

After Philip and Connie in the course of their lovemaking had exchanged a modest volume of blood, she told her handsome American explicitly that he was now liable to conversion. 'If that should happen, you will have nothing to fear from Citizen Sanson.'

'What do you mean?'

Choosing a time when there was no one in the corridor who might look in, Connie demonstrated on her own nude body how impossible it was for a metal-edged weapon to do one of the nosferatu lasting harm. She forced the sharp knife through her finger, through her hand, then in places that might have been expected to be more tender. She giggled and enjoyed her pupil's mixed reaction to the sight. Then she showed Radcliffe her skin undamaged.

Or almost. There remained on that smooth brown surface a single drop of blood, which she persuaded him to lick away. A tingle of joy again, of pleasure that at the moment seemed worth dying for…

'I say that if you become as I am, no prison will be able to keep you in… and no metal blade will ever kill you. That would not be so bad, no?'

'Is it possible?' The words came out in a hoarse gasp.

She made an eloquent gesture. 'If a king and queen can have their heads 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 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?'