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bracing counseling were wearing off, and the last of the draught reasserting
itself, thought she could feel herself developing an alarming tendency to
faint. Against this she struggled bravely.
"God, I need a bath. But I'll fall asleep in the tub." She giggled lightly, a
faint echo of hysteria.
"Try a shower, then. I'll fix you some soup."
"That sounds good. It sounds great. Oh, John? Uncle Matthew recommended iron
tablets. He said there're some in our room's medicine cabinet."
On emerging from her shower Angie explored, on a hunch, the farther recesses
of the guest bedroom's closet, which was deeper than she had thought at first.
The effort turned up a modest collection of women's clothing, all new and
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discreetly packaged in protective garment bags. Angie found jeans and a
pullover that fit.
Then she went to the kitchen, sat down, and ate some soup. John, sitting
across from her, related how he had spent some of her shower time fortifying
the apartment against a repeat invasion, wrestling and wedging some heavy
furniture in place against the broken door. The enemy had left their
door-breaking gadget in the living room, so John felt reasonably confident
that they were not going to come smashing in quite so suddenly a second time.
Moving in a form invisible to almost everyone he passed. Maule ventured forth
to meet the deepening night, night as always in the city slashed with a
million wounds of electricity.
Five hundred years of experience as hunter and as hunted assured him that
Kaiser's plan was working, up to now, even though Kaiser had decided not to
take part in the actual break-in of Maule's apartment. Something else had been
important enough to claim his attention instead. But what?
Before saying good-bye to Mr. Stewart, the breather with the mangled elbows,
Maule had extracted from him words that tended to confirm his own suspicions
Joseph Keogh had suddenly become a most important target for the enemy.
Certainly Joseph, with his knowledge of vampires, and his wooden bullets,
would be a dangerous opponent. But there had to be more to it than that, the
old man thought. A matter of revenge, perhaps? A turning aside from the main
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goal, whose attainment had been and very likely would continue to be
frustrated, to catch and crush an impertinent mere breather& or was there more
to his opponent's plan than that?
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Given the nature of the drug with which he, Maule, had been paralyzed and his
young friends' description of the man calling himself Valentine Kaiser, Maule
had little doubt what his chief opponent's true name must be. Valentine
Kaiser
the name in itself was a kind of pun on the truth, which tended to confirm his
insight.
So far, he had communicated his theory of the foe's identity to no one. It
could not make any difference to the young couple heroically defending
themselves in his apartment. But he intended to tell Joseph when he found him.
If he should not be too late to find him&
Descending from the remoter heights of the skyscraper with the nocturnal rush
of an owl or a bat, moving swiftly and all but invisibly, Maule made good
time, traveling airborne over a mile or so of city, to the Southerland
condominium.
The building was a modern high-rise not unlike his own except for being much
smaller. He arrived at the condominium in less than a minute and tapped at the
door. A moment later Joseph Keogh, exhibiting great relief, undid the bolts
and locks and let him in.
"Man, am I glad to see you!"
"And I to see you alive and well, Joseph, I assure you. Have you been
besieged?"
"Since I holed up here? No. Nothing."
"Welcome news, on the face of it. Yet somehow I find it ominous."
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"What's going on?"
Maule brought him up-to-date as completely as possible in a few sentences.
"And now I think we had better return, swiftly, to my apartment."
Joe was ready in a minute. "What about John and Angie? Are they still coping
with all this?"
"As well as can be expected."
"And where the hell is this Valentine Kaiser now?"
"That is what I am trying to find out."
In another minute they had descended to an underground level of the building,
a buried garage where a car, belonging to the Southerland company, was
available to Joe. Maule, to be on the safe side, conducted a swift search for
bombs and other unpleasant surprises before allowing Joe to touch the vehicle.
Then they were on their way. As Joe drove, the two men continued to compare
notes.
Joe explained the course of evasive action he'd employed, using taxis and the
subway briefly, to get from the Art Institute to the Southerland condominium
before nightfall. Since he'd been holed up he'd called the overseas phone
numbers that could have put him in contact with Mina Harker, but so far he'd
only been able to leave messages.
Maule nodded in approval. In turn he explained to Joe some of the essential
facts
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about the drug with which he and now two other vampires had recently been
poisoned: What happened to breathing people when they swallowed the stuff,
what happened to vampires when they bit those breathing people, and how he
himself had been able to recognize the taste, although it was disguised by
garlic, before he had taken enough to disable him for a long time. Luckily he
had been able to regurgitate some of the blood he had already swallowed.
Then Maule related how he had induced Angie to take a dose of the same drug
when it looked like she was going to be captured.
"Clever move," Joe admitted. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]