The Mammoth Book Of Vampire Stories Written By Women

Outside, in the near distance, one can still hear the constant growl and retch of the Widow, the National Razor, the legendary Machine split the air from the Place de la revolution — that excellent device patented by dapper Doctor Guillotin, to cure for ever the pains and ills of headaches, hangovers, insomnia. The repetitive thud of body on board, head in basket. The jeers and jibes of the tricoteuses knitting under the gallows steps, their Phrygian caps nodding in time with the tread of the executioner's ritual path; self-elected keepers of the public conscience, these grim hags who have outlived their former oppressors again and again. These howling crowds of sansculottes , the trouserless ones, all crying in unison for yet more injurious freedom, still more", ever more: a great, sanguinary river with neither source nor tide, let loose to flood the city streets with visible vengeance

"Do you know what complex bodily mechanisms lie behind the workings of a simple blush, Citizen Sansterre?"

That slow voice, emerging — vaporous and languid as an audible curl of smoke — from the red half-darkness of the coach. Continuing, gently:

"I have made a sometime study of such matters; strictly amateur in nature, of course, yet as thorough an enquiry as my poor resources may afford me."

In the chevalier's coach, Jean-Guy feels himself bend and blur like melting waxwork beneath the weight of his own hypnotized exhaustion; fall open on every level, like his own strong but useless arms, his nerveless, cord-cut legs

"The blush spreads as the blood rises, showing itself most markedly at the skin's sheerest points — a map of veins, eminently traceable. Almost readable."

So imperative, this urge to fly, to fight. And so, utterly

impossible.

"See, here and there, where landmarks evince themselves: those knots of veins and arteries, delicately entwined, which wreathe the undersides of your wrists. Two more great vessels, hidden at the tongue's root. A long, humped one, outlining the shaft of that other boneless organ whose proper name we may not quote in mixed company."

Sitting. Sprawling, limp. And thinking:

I must

"And that, stirring now? In that same — unmentionable — area?"

must wake

"Blood as well, my friend. Blood, which as the old adage goes — will always tell."

But: This is all a dream, Jean-Guy reminds himself, momentarily surprised by his own coherence. I have somehow fallen asleep on duty, which is bad, though hardly unforgivable — and because I did so while thinking on the ci-devant Chevalier du Prendegrace, that traitor Dumouriez's master, I have spun out this strange fantasy.

For Prendegrace cannot be here, after all; he will have fled before Jean-Guy's agentSj like any other hunted lordling. And, knowing this

Knowing this. I will wake soon, and fulfil the mission set me by the Committee for Public Safety: catch Dumouriez, air out this nest of silken vipers. And all will be as I remember.

At the same time, meanwhile, the chevalier (or his phantom — for can he really actually be there, dream or no?) smiles down at Jean-Guy through the gathering crimson shade, all sharp — and tender — amusement. A slight, lithe figure, dressed likewise all in red, his hereditary elegance undercut by a distressingly plebian thread of more than usually poor hygiene: lurid velvet coat topped by an immaculately tied but obviously dingy cravat; silken stockings, offhandedly worn and faded, above the buckled shoes with their neat cork heels. Dark rims to his longish fingernails: dirt, or something else, so long dried it's turned black.

His too-white skin has a stink, faintly charnel. Acrid in Jean-Guy's acquiescent, narrowed nostrils.

"You carry a surplus of blood, Citizen, by the skin-map's evidence," the chevalier seems to say, gently. "And thus might, if only in the name of politeness, consider willing some small portion of that overflowing store to me."

"Can't you ever speak clearly, you damnable aristo?" Jean-Guy demands, hoarsely.

And: "Perhaps not," comes the murmuring reply. "Though, now I think on it I cannot say I've ever tried."

Bending down, dipping his sleek, powdered head, this living ghost of an exterminated generation; licking his thin white lips while Jean-Guy lies still beneath him, boneless, helpless. So soft, all over — in every place

— but one.

So: Now, 1815. Paris again, late September — an old calendar for a brand-new empire — in the Row of the Armed Man, near dusk

where the Giradoux family's lawyer meets Jean-Guy, key in hand, by the door of what was once Edouard Dumouriez's house.