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.Along with the phials there had also been this note:Mike—Behind the curtain in the corner you’ll find a caged animal.Just three days ago I used it to test the efficacy of my new synthetic bacilli—you’ll know the ones I mean.Of course, as a man you are much bulkier than the poor dog by perhaps six or seven times; also, your vampire blood will try to fight off the infections…and fail.But this is an example of what you can expect should you fail.I calculate you have somewhere in the region of eleven, possibly twelve days, before you need to take the antidote, by which time you should certainly have begun to resemble the canine in its cage…In the specified corner of the spacious subterranean room, while the smell had been offensive Mike had nevertheless opened the curtains and revealed The Chemist’s “experiment.” He’d felt little or no pity as he at once noted that the dog in the small cage was close to death and quite beyond help; indeed his emotions had been entirely self-centred as he also noted the bursting pustules all over the animal’s scrawny body, the madness of hydrophobia, rabies, in its glaring eyes and foaming jowls, and the way its extremities appeared to be disintegrating.Leprosy, surely? Having found his gun with The Chemist’s phials and note, Mike might easily have put the creature out of its misery there and then; but no, that would have been the waste of a bullet.Then, as he had left that poisonous dwelling in the misted shade of the mountains, the thought had occurred to him to burn it down, raze it to the ground; at least until he recalled what The Chemist had warned of the dangers of his being made “unwell or unhappy, disinclined or indisposed”—and then he’d at once reconsidered all such incendiary notions.Following which, biting the inside of his cheek until blood spurted, he’d driven furiously from the house up into the mountains, and begun retracing his route to the airport in Sofia…Mike had been fortunate to board a plane to Munich that night.The flight had taken off late; it had lasted for two hours; he had spent the rest of the night and following day in a transit hotel room not far from the German airport.Later, his evening flight to Edinburgh had seen him into the city around midnight, which had suited Mike perfectly.Plenty of time to get himself a room in this seedy so-called hotel, not too distant from his target’s wine bar, and then to step out in the night in search of food.Blood, of course.Prostitutes had been Mike’s main prey ever since the Francezcis turned him, and like every big city Edinburgh had always had its fair share of ladies of the night.Now, with Mike Milazzo, the city was also possessed of a creature of the night, if not the first of his kind.For indeed the Francezcis had their agent or watcher there, and there was also B.J.Mirlu and her pack.But while Mike wasn’t the first, he was nevertheless an especially brutal member of his species.Within an hour of leaving his room he had found a girl in a maze of steep alleys not far from the great Castle-on-the-Rock.She had taken him back to her place—a pair of grubby rooms in a once-proud building, now a block of flatlets—where they had sex.Following which she’d demanded payment, which Mike had delivered in the form of a bite; indeed far more than a bite, for yet again his hunger and appetite had driven him to the edge.It was only at the last possible moment, when she was about to fall unconscious or worse, that Mike had recognized her symptoms and remembered the Francezci brothers’ precept with regard to making more of their kind.And so, remaining by her side, he had let her sleep, watching over her until he was satisfied she would survive his feeding.Then, in searching her squalid flat, he had come across evidence of the girl’s drug addiction, which as an ex-dealer he had at once recognized.He had then reasoned that this was why she’d seemed so weak, which meant that if she died later it wouldn’t be down to him entirely.He knew that if he’d drained her to the dregs she would be dead already! And so he had seen no need to cover his tracks: a serious error, as he would discover soon enough.For Mike wasn’t “merely” a vampire, he was also a plague-bearer!The incident had taught him a lesson, however: that he must be more careful in how he conducted himself.If the Francezcis’ agent knew he was here and was already watching him, he did not want any sort of adverse report finding its way back to Sicily! For he desired that his life, or his undeath—his very existence—should continue long after this unfortunate episode was over and done with.And so for eight of the last nine nights he had managed to control his hunger—barely—and aware that time was narrowing down had concentrated on studying the comings and goings of the Mirlu woman and the girls who worked at her wine bar [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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