The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

“That really hurt.”

But it wasn’t Spike talking. It was Frampton. He had picked himself up from the floor and was tying what looked like a lobster bib around his neck.

“Time for dinner, Miss Next. I won’t trouble you with the menu because . . . well, you’re it!”

The door of the biology lab slammed shut and I looked at my gun; it was now about as much use as a water pistol.

I got up and backed away from Frampton, who once more seemed to glide toward me. I fired again but Frampton was ready for it; he simply winced and continued.

“But the crucifix!—” I shouted, backing toward the wall. “And this college—it’s a church!”

“Little fool!” replied Frampton. “Do you really suppose that Christianity has a monopoly on people like me?”

I looked around desperately for some kind of weapon, but apart from a chair—which drew out of my grasp as I reached for it—there was nothing.

“Thoon be over.” Frampton grinned. He had sprouted an inordinately long single front tooth which grew over his bottom lip and gave him a lisp.

“Thoon you will be joining Thpike for a little thnack. After I have finithed!”

He smiled and opened his mouth wider; impossibly so—it seemed almost to fill the room. Quite suddenly Frampton stopped, looked confused and rolled his eyes up into his sockets. He grew gray, then black, the

n seemed to slough away like burned pages in a book. There was a musty smell of decay that almost blotted out the reek of formaldehyde, and soon there was nothing at all except Spike, who was still holding the sharpened stake that had so quickly destroyed the abomination that had been Frampton.

“You okay?” he asked with a triumphant look on his face.

“I’m good,” I replied shakily. “Yuh, I feel okay. Well, now I do, anyway.”

He lowered the stake and drew me up a chair as the lights flickered back on.

“Thanks for that,” I murmured. “My blood is my own and I aim to keep it that way. I guess I owe you.”

“No way, Thursday. I owe you. No one’s ever answered a call of mine before. The symptoms came on as I was sniffing out Fang here. Couldn’t get to my injector in time . . .”

His voice trailed off as he looked forlornly at the broken glass and spilled formaldehyde.

“They’ll not believe this report,” I murmured.

“They don’t even read my reports, Thursday. Last person who did is now in therapy. So they just file ’em and forget ’em. Like me, I guess. It’s a lonely life.”

I hugged him on an impulse. It seemed the right thing to do. He returned it gratefully; I didn’t expect that he had touched another human for a while. He had a musty smell about him— but it wasn’t unpleasant; it was like damp earth after a spring rain shower. He was muscular and at least a foot taller than me, and as we stood in each other’s arms I suddenly felt as though I really wouldn’t mind if he made a move on me. Perhaps it was the closeness of the experience that we had just shared; I don’t know—I don’t usually act in this manner. I moved my hand up his back and onto his neck, but I had misjudged the man and the occasion. He slowly let me go and smiled, shaking his head softly. The moment had passed.

I paused for a second and then holstered my automatic carefully.

“What about Frampton?”

“He was good,” admitted Spike, “real good. Didn’t feed on his own turf and was never greedy; just enough to sate his thirst.”

We walked out of the lab and back down the corridor.

“So how did you get onto him?” I asked.

“Luck. He was behind me in his motor at the lights. Looked in the rearview mirror—empty car. Followed him and pow; I knew he was a sucker soon as he spoke. I would have staked him earlier ’cept for my trouble.”

We stopped at his squad car.

“And what about you? Any chance of a cure?”

“Top virologists are doing their stuff but for the moment I just keep my injector handy and stay out of the sunlight.”