travellers, to waylay them and drink their blood? She began to be frightened of her mother, while still loving her, and watched through half-closed eyes as she crept out every night. And finally one night had ended without bringing her mother home and the girl had been alone ever since.
She wandered, not knowing where to go, hungry and thirsty but too frightened to knock on a door and ask for wine and shelter. It grew later, and as it grew dark doors began to close and people went hurriedly in twos and threes. Once the streets had been as filled with lanterns as a summer meadow is filled with fireflies, but now there was a monster abroad.
The moon came up and gave her light and finally she came to a small plaza with a fountain in the centre. But the fountain was dead and dry and she leaned against it, crying with frustration until she was too tired to cry any more.
Something made her look up, some feeling of danger. The moon was high. A man stood in one of the four entrances to the plaza, a man draped in the folds of an all-encompassing cloak. The toes of his boots gleamed as did his eyes, two points of light beneath his slouch hat.
She kept still, hoping he had not noticed her in the shadows.
'Daughter,' he said, in a voice like dry leaves in the wind.
An involuntary twitch.
'My darling daughter.' He took a step forward.
She was running, never looking back, sobbing deep in her throat and running down one street and then another, perilously afraid that she would run a circle and re-enter the plaza to find him there She ran. Then down a street she should not have taken, a cul-de-sac. She turned to escape and found him there, in her way.
She was rigid. The dry leaves rustled in his throat as he came towards her. He raised his arms and his cloak as if they were joined, as if he were draped in huge wings which he would fold around the two of them. His lips parted; she could hear his breathing, could see the gleam of his teeth. She fell.
Glenda woke, trembling violently.
'Did I wake you up? Honey, are you all right? You look pale as a ghost. We're going for lunch, do you want'
Glenda shook her head. 'Uh, I'm not feeling too great.' The words felt torn from her raw throat. She was thirsty. 'Did you get me something to drink?'
'Oh, I'm sorry! I forgot. What would you like? I'll run and get it for you. And something to eat?'
Glenda shook her head again. 'No. Just a drink.' It was hard to concentrate, harder still to focus.
Debbie came to the bed and reached towards Glenda who pulled away violently.
'Glen, I just want to see if you have a fever. Hmm you are pretty hot. My God, what'd you do to your neck?'
Glenda caressed the twin shallow wounds with her fingertips and shook her head.
'I think we should get you to a hospital.'
'No. I'll be I'll take some aspirin I'll stay I'll be all right'
Debbie's face was blurring and clearing like something seen from underwater. She fell.
The moon was down and the sky beginning to lighten when she opened her eyes. She was sprawled on the cobblestones of a short narrow street, and got painfully to her feet. She was ragingly thirsty. Her mouth felt gummy, her tongue too large. She pushed her hair back, away from her face, with both hands and felt the trace of something sticky. She returned her hand for a lingering exploration and remembered the marks on the necks of certain townspeople, and remembered their eventual deaths.
She travelled twisting streets until she came within sight of la Giralda. The rising sun illumined it and she saw a single bat hanging like a curled leaf in the tower.
The people of Sevilla, in the form of two drunken men, had at one time attempted to keep the devil (who was reputed to inhabit the Moorish tower in the form of a bat) in his resting place and out of the streets of Sevilla by boarding up the door. But it was pointed out to them that, even assuming wooden slats could keep the devil prisoner, bats did not need to fly through doorways when the tower had so many windows, and they abandoned their project half-finished.
She climbed over the uncompleted barricade, scratching her leg as she did so. She watched the tiny beads of blood appear in a curving line and then looked away. And now, up? To the bell-tower where hung bells which never rang? And then she saw a door to one side, a wooden door free of spider webs, as if it were often used. She went to it and pushed it open, revealing steps which led down into darkness. She left the door open behind her, for the little light its being open provided, and descended the steps. They were shallow steps, but there were a great many of them. Her legs began to ache from the seemingly endless descent.
At the bottom was a huge chamber, she could not tell how large, poorly lit by torches burning smokily in wall niches. She saw the coffin at once, and went to it. It was open and inside, his slouch hat discarded but still clothed in cape and boots, was the man she had run from in the night; the man her mother had loved, or served.
A bat flew at her head, silent and deadly. She ducked, but felt the edge of its leathery wings across her cheek. She turned and ran for the stairs; the bat did not pursue her. Upstairs, in the daylight, she rested and thought of what she had seen. She thought of his cruel face, and of his blood-red lips. Slowly she licked her own dry lips and, unconsciously, her hand went towards her throat. Was he the devil, or something else? The devil could not be killed, but something else
Her hands were covered with tiny cuts and full of splinters when she was done, but she had her weapon: a large, sharply pointed piece of wood. Outside there was a pile of rubble and she found a brick. An old woman in black, an early riser, glared at her suspiciously as she passed, but said nothing.
When she entered the chamber again the bat swooped at her and flew around her head. She ducked to keep it from her eyes, but did not let it deter her. She put the brick down to grasp the wooden stake with both dirty, bloody hands and plunge it into the man's heart. She was blinded by her hair, and then by her own blood as the bat bit and tore at her head, but finally the stake was anchored and she was rewarded with a low moan from her victim. The bat cluttered once, a screech of defeat, and flapped away. She raised the brick and brought it down with all her
