light of the bedside lamp, while Penny, who no longer liked to look at her husband too often, hovered by the window.
At length Carmine said quietly, 'He's very handsome.'
'Yes.' Or was, before he couldn't eat properly any more and started to waste away .
'How old is he?'
'Forty-six.' Penny moved restlessly. 'Look, I don't want to wake him. You've seen him now; if we're going to talk, I'd prefer to do it downstairs.'
'Of course.' Carmine led the way out with a confidence that she hadn't exhibited before, as if in the space of a few seconds she had observed, considered and come to a decision. Back in the sitting-room she sat in what had always been David's favourite chair, sipped her coffee, then set the cup down and looked directly at Penny.
'I can bring him back to you,' she said.
A crawling, electrical sensation went through Penny's entire body and she stared, disbelieving. 'How?'
Carmine studied her own hands where they lay in her lap. 'This is the hard part, Mrs Blythe. The part you're going to find difficult to accept.'
'You mentioned side effects'
'Yes, yes; but I'm not talking about those, not yet.' She inhaled deeply. 'Perhaps it's best if I put it bluntly, rather than beating about the bush. I can restore your husband to you, whole and healthy, stronger than he has ever been before. Because I can make him immortal.'
There was a brief, lacerating silence: then Penny stood up.
'Get out of my house,' she said. 'Now.'
'Mrs Blythe'
' Now ,' Penny repeated ferociously. 'People like you you're sick . I suppose you find it funny , do you, playing your jokes, having your laughs at someone else's expense? Some kind of turn-on, is it?' She strode to the door, wrenched it open. 'Get out !'
Carmine was also on her feet now, but she didn't leave. 'Mrs Blythe, I'm serious!' She sounded almost angry, and Penny turned, thumping a clenched fist against the edge of the door.
'Oh, she's serious ! So it's not a sick joke; she really believes it! God give me strength !' She swung round again. 'What kind of moron do you take me for? And what kind of moron are you? Immortality , she says! You're in some cult, right? Well, I'll tell you right now, Ms Smith, or whatever your real name is, you have been brainwashed, and I'm not listening to another moment of this crap!'
' Mrs Blythe ,' said Carmine, and something in her voice made Penny stop.
'Mrs Blythe, I do not belong to any cult or other organization. But I am immortal, and I am offering your husband the chance to be the same, because it's the only alternative he has to dying. You see, I'm a vampire.'
Penny pressed her forehead against the door frame and started to laugh. The laughter became hysterical, then turned into gulping, hiccuping sobs; then she threw anything movable within her reach at Carmine, screaming abuse. Carmine avoided the missiles and waited calmly for the worst of the storm to pass.
When it did, and Penny was slumped on her haunches against the wall with both hands covering her face, she asked, 'Have you got a mirror?'
Penny raised her head and stared, but she didn't speak. Looking past her through the open door, Carmine saw an oval mirror hanging in the hall. She fetched it, and crouched down at Penny's side.
'Look in the glass,' she said.
Too drained to argue, Penny looked. She saw her own red-eyed, dishevelled reflection, decided that she resembled an unhealthy pig and even in extremity felt shamed. Then her brain caught up as she took in Carmine's image beside hers. In the mirror, Carmine had no face. She was nothing more than a vague, grey blur, as if an isolated patch of fog had floated in and settled at Penny's shoulder. The fog dimly suggested a humanlike shape, and there might have been a fading hint of features shrouded somewhere in it, but that was all.
'The superstition that we're invisible in mirrors isn't quite accurate,' said Carmine mildly, 'but it's close enough.' She stood up, saving the glass as Penny's numb fingers lost their grip on it, and stepped back a pace or two, to show that she meant no threat. 'What else can I do to convince you?'
Very slowly, Penny's head came up. She looked shocked, confused, and there was a witless, corpse-like grin on her face. 'Garlic,' she said. 'Vampires can't stand garlic. And they turn to dust if sunlight touches them.' She flung a swift glance towards the window, but the curtains were closed. It was dark outside. She had forgotten that.
'Not true,' Carmine told her. 'Personally I adore garlic. And sunlight well, we find it debilitating, and our skin tends to burn more easily than most people's, but it doesn't do any lasting damage.'
Penny persisted. 'Coffins, then. They sleep in coffins .'
'Again, not true. I did try it once, when I was a child, but one night was enough to make me see sense. Beds are far more comfortable.' Carmine smiled wryly. 'It's Chinese Whispers, isn't it? Stories become exaggerated and distorted as they're passed from one person to another, until you end up with a mixture of fact and fiction. That's how the folklore about us grew up over the centuries.'
'Centuries' Penny repeated dully, then uttered a peculiar little bark of a laugh. 'How old are you?'
'Far older than any woman wants to admit to. In my case the condition's hereditary. It's another myth, by the way, that vampires can only be made, not born — either is possible. Which brings us back to David'
' No ,' said Penny.
'Mrs Blythe'
' No . Anyway, I don't believe any of this.'
