might on the stake.
There was a scream, which seemed to come from the walls around her, and then a fountain of blood spattered her chest, arms and head. She kept pounding, unwilling or unable to stop, until the stake must have been driven entirely through him, and then, triumphant, she threw the brick away and stood, panting, watching the still bubbling blood. It was very quiet. And then the thirst assailed her, sweeping away all pains and triumphs with its intensity. She sank to her knees, laid her face to his chest, and drank and drank until she was sated.
Glenda opened her eyes. The room was empty and sunlight lay warm on the red bricks and white walls of the room. Everything was hard and clear to her now; the fever must have passed. Things had a diamond edge on them, with textures and solidity she had never noticed before.
Debbie came in, from off the balcony, looking startled to see Glenda sitting up. 'Well! How do you feel? You really had us worried.'
' 'Us'?'
'Roger, the Canadian from down the hall. He's gone for a doctor.'
'I don't need a doctor. Didn't I tell you?'
'Yeah, right before you fainted. Lie down, will you? Take it easy. How do you feel?'
'Fine. Excellent. Never better.'
'Well, just stay in bed. Do you want something to drink?'
'No thanks.' She lay back.
The doctor found nothing wrong with Glenda although he was puzzled by the marks on her neck. When his inquisition began to annoy her she pretended not to understand his actually quite adequate English, and pulled the sheet over her head, complaining that the light hurt her eyes and that she was very tired.
Glenda was very determined and very persuasive and came at last to be seated on a 747 headed for New York. Debbie — poor, confused Debbie — remained in Spain, travelling now with her Canadian and his friends.
'You ought at least to cable your mom, then,' Debbie had said, but Glenda had shaken her head, smiling. 'I'll surprise her — take a cab in.' Steve would be with her mother, she knew. It would be early morning when she arrived and they would not be awake yet, but sweetly sleeping. They would be asleep in each other's arms, not expecting her.
Glenda smiled at the blackness beyond her window and touched her silver ring. She pulled it off and toyed with it, tracing the S with her finger. S for Steve, she thought, And S for Spain. She suddenly caught the ring between her fingers and pulled at it, distorting the S shape and forcing it finally into a design like twin curved horns. Then she held it and clenched it tightly until the blood came.
A Question of Patronage
A Saint-Germain Story
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Author and professional Tarot reader Chelsea Quinn Yarbro was born in Berkeley, California. Her first story was published in 1969 in If magazine. A full-time writer since the following year, she has sold more than sixty books and as many short stories .
Her novels include the werewolf volumes The Godforsaken and Beastnights, the quasi-fictional occult series Messages from Michael and More Messages from Michael, and the movie novelizations Dead & Buried and Nomads. Yarbro's 'Sisters of the Night' trilogy (The Angry Angel, The Soul of an Angel and Zhameni: The Angel of Death,) is about Dracula's three undead wives. Unfortunately, it was substantially rewritten by the editor .
However, the author is best known for her series of historical horror novels featuring the Byronic vampire Saint-Germain, loosely inspired by the real-life eighteenth-century French count of the same name. The first book in the cycle , Hotel Transylvania: A Novel of Forbidden Love appeared in 1978. To date it has been followed by thirteen sequels : The Palace, Blood Games, Path of the Eclipse, Tempting Fate, Out of the House of Life, Darker Jewels, Better in the Dark, Mansions of Darkness, Writ in Blood, Blood Roses, Communion Blood, Come Twilight and A Feast in Exile. A spin-off sequence featuring Saint-Germain's lover Atta Olivia Clemens comprises A Flame in Byzantium, Crusader's Torch and A Candle for D'Artagnan, while the author's short fiction has been collected in The Saint-Germain Chronicles and The Vampire Stories of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.
' When Robert Eighteen-Bisang of Transylvania Press approached me about doing a 500-copy limited edition collection of my vampire short stories, he asked if I would do a story for that specific volume,' recalls Yarbro; 'he said he would like it to be a Saint-Germain story and, if possible, have some reference to Dracula. At the time, I said yes to the Saint-Germain part, but told him I doubted I could manage Dracula as well, since the two vampire concepts were so very different as to have almost nothing but Transylvania in common .
'Toying with the possibilities, I finally hit upon Henry Irving, Bram Stoker's boss. I had a look at a few references about him, hoping to find a time I could slip Saint-Germain into his life. The beginning of his career seemed more attractive to me than when he was well-established, as well as giving an indirect link to Stoker, making Saint-Germain someone Stoker might hear about but never meet.
'This story was the result'
Outside it was dank and clammy; inside it was stuffy and over-warm. The clerks in the merchants' emporium office yawned as the afternoon ran quickly down to the early falling November night.
'Do you lock the door, John Henry,' said the oldest of the clerks to the youngest, exercising his privilege. 'No one will come at this hour.'
John Henry Brodribb got off his stool and bowed to the senior clerk with a flourish that amused and annoyed the other clerks; John Henry was known for his lavish, theatrical manner. He pitched his voice to carry. 'Whatever you desire, Mr Tubbs, it is my honour to perform for you.' His accent was a curious mix of London public school flavoured with a broadness that might be Devon or Cornwall. He was long-headed and lanky with the last remnants of youth; he was three months shy of his eighteenth birthday.
Before he could reach the door, it opened suddenly and a man in a black, hooded cloak stepped into the office, looking like a visitor from another age; a monk from the Middle Ages, perhaps, or an apparition of a Plantagenet in disfavour with his cousins. 'Good afternoon. Is Mr Lamkin available?' he asked in a pleasant, foreign voice, taking
