Blood And Gold (The Vampire Chronicles 8)

I didn't know, but in truth what Raymond Gallant had done could be explained fairly well.

I was in a room full of mortals and he was but one of them, and perhaps he had a way of disciplining his mind so that his thoughts did not go out before him. And there was no menace to him in gesture or face.

Yes, it was all simple, and when I was home in my bedchamber I felt much more at ease about it, even enough to write several pages about it in my diary as Amadeo slept like a Fallen Angel on my red taffeta bed.

Should I fear this young man who knew where I dwelt? I thought not. I sensed no danger whatsoever. I believed the things that he said.

Quite suddenly, a couple of hours before dawn a tragic thought crossed my mind.

I must see Raymond Gallant once more! I must speak to him! What a fool I had been.

I went out into the night, leaving the sleeping Amadeo behind.

And throughout Venice I searched for this English scholar sweeping this and that palazzo with the power of my mind.

At last I came upon him in modest lodgings very far from the huge palaces of the Grand Canal. I came down the stairway from the roof, and tapped on his door.

"Open to me, Raymond Gallant," I said, "It's Marius, and I don't mean you any harm. "

No answer. But I knew that I had given him a terrible start.

"Raymond Gallant, I can break the door but I have no right to do such a thing. I beg you to answer. Open your door to me. "

Finally he did unfasten the door, and I came inside, finding it to be a little chamber with remarkably damp walls in which he had a mean writing table, and a packing case and a heap of clothes. There stood against the wall a small painting which I had done many months ago and which I had, admittedly, cast aside.

The place was overcrowded with candles, however, which meant that he had a rather good look at me.

He drew back from me like a frightened boy.

"Raymond Gallant, you must tell me something," I said at once, both to satisfy myself and to put him at his ease.

"I will do my best to do this, Marius," he answered, his voice tremulous. "What can you possibly want to know of me?"

"Oh, surely it's not so hard to imagine," I responded. I looked about- There was no place to sit. So be it. "You told me you have always known of our kind. "

&nbs

p; "Yes," he answered. He was shaking violently. "I was . . . I was preparing to leave Venice," he volunteered quickly. "As you advised. "

"I see that, and I thank you. But this is my question," I spoke very slowly to him as I went on.

"In all of your study, did you ever hear tell of a woman blood drinker, a woman vampire as you call it¡ªa woman with long rippling brown hair . . . rather tall and beautifully formed, a woman made in the full bloom of life rather than in the budding flower of youth . . . a woman with quick eyes, a woman who walks the night streets alone,"

All this quite impressed him and for a moment he looked away from me, registering the words, and then he looked back.

"Pandora," he said.

I winced. I couldn't prevent it. I couldn't play the dignified man with him. I felt it like a blow to the chest.

I was so overcome that I walked a few paces away from him, and turned my back on him so that he could not see the expression on my face.

He knew her very name!

Finally I turned around. "What do you know of her?" I said. I searched his mind as he spoke for the truth of every word.

"In ancient Antioch, carved in stone," he said, "the words, 'Pandora and Marius, drinkers of the blood, once dwelt together in happiness in this house. ' "

I could not answer him. But this was only the past, the bitter sad past in which I'd deserted her. And she, full of hurt, must have inscribed the words in the stone.