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soiled dress. She was cold and frightened. Her hair was tangled beneath her. I lifted her head and brought her hair up and
over the linen. I saw her sink into the down pillows, and I kissed her eyelids to bid them to close.
"Rest now, precious darling," I said. "You only did what he asked."
"Don't leave me just now," she said in a raw voice, "except if you think you can find him. If you know where he is, then
find him. Otherwise stay here with me, just for this little while."
I went down the hall in search of a bathroom and found it to the very rear of the house, a spacious and somewhat lavish
arrangement with a little coal fireplace as well as a great claw-foot tub. There was the usual pile of clean white terry cloth
towels one expects amid such luxury. I moistened the end of one of these and brought it back to the front room.
Merrick was on her side, knees curled up, her hands clasped together. I could hear a low whispering coming from her
lips.
"Here, let me wipe your face," I said. I did it without any further concessions, and then I wiped the caked blood from
her inner arm. The scratches went clear from her palm to the inside of her elbow. But they were very shallow. One began
to bleed a little as I cleaned it, but I pressed on it for a moment and the blood ceased to flow.
I found the dry clean end of the towel, and patted Merrick's face with it, and then the wounds, which were now
completely clean and healed.
"I can't remain here like this," Merrick said. Her head went from side to side. "I have to get the bones from the rear yard.
It was a terrible thing to overturn the altars."
"Be quiet now," I said. "I'll bring them in."
It filled me with revulsion to do this. But I was as good as my word.
I went back to the scene of the crime. The dark rear yard seemed uncommonly still. The dead candles before the saints
seemed negligent and evidence of grave sins.
Out of the detritus fallen from the iron tables, I picked up the skull of Honey in the Sunshine. I felt a sudden chill run
through my hands, but I put it off to my imagination. I gathered up the rib bone, and I saw again that both of these bore all
kinds of deeply incised writing. I refused to read the writing. I brought them back with me into the house and into the
front room.
"Put them on the altar," she said. She sat up, pushing the heavy covers off her.
I saw that she had taken off her bloodsoaked dress of white silk, and that it lay in a heap on the floor.
She wore only her silk petticoat, and I could see her large pink nipples through it. There was blood on the petticoat too.
Her shoulders were very straight and her breasts high set, and her arms were just rounded enough to be delicious to my
sight.
I went to pick up the dress. I wanted to clean her up completely. I wanted her to be all right.
"It's monstrously unfair that you're so frightened," I said.
"No, leave the dress," she answered, reaching out for my wrist. "Let it go, and sit here, beside me. Take my hand and
talk to me. The spirit's a liar, I swear it. You must believe what I say."
Once again, I sat down on the bed. I wanted to be close to her. I leant over and kissed her bowed head. I wished I
couldn't see so much of her breasts, and I wondered if the younger vampires knew those brought over early in their
manhood how such carnal details still distracted me. Of course the blood lust rose with this distraction. It was not an
easy thing to love her so terribly and not taste of her soul through her blood.
"Why do I have to believe you?" I asked gently.
She dug her fingers into her hair and swept it back behind her shoulders.
"Because you must," she said urgently yet quietly. "You must see that I knew what I was doing, you must believe that I
can tell a truthtelling spirit from one who lies. That was something, yes, that being which pretended to be Claudia
something very powerful that it could lift the pick and sink it into Louis's flesh. I'll wager anything that it was a spirit who
hated him due to his very nature, that he can be dead and still walk the earth. It was something deeply offended by his
very existence. But it was taking its verses from his own thoughts."
"How can you be so sure?" I asked. I shrugged my shoulders. "God knows, 1 wish you were right. But you yourself
called on Honey; is not Honey lost in the same realm that this spirit of Claudia described? Doesn't Honey's presence prove
there's nothing better for either one of them? You saw the shape of Honey out there before the altar ."
She nodded.
" and you went on to call Claudia from the same realm."
"Honey wants to be called," she declared, looking up at me, her fingers driven into her hair, tugging it cruelly back,
away from her tormented face. "Honey's always there. Honey's waiting for me. That's how I knew for certain that I could
call on Honey. But what about Cold Sandra? What about Great Nananne? What about Aaron Lightner? When I opened
the door none of those spirits came through. They've long since gone on into the Light, David. If they hadn't they would
have long ago let me know. I would have felt them the way I feel Honey. I would have hints of them, as Jesse Reeves had
of Claudia when she heard the music in the Rue Royale."
I was puzzled by this last statement. Very puzzled. I shook my head in an emphatic no.
"Merrick, you're holding back from me," I said, deciding I must address it directly. "You have called Great Nananne.
You think I don't remember what happened only a few nights ago, the night we met in the café in the Rue St. Anne?"
"Yes? What about that night?" she asked. "What are you trying to say?
"Maybe you don't know what happened," I said. "Is that possible? You called down a spell and didn't know how strong
it was yourself?"
"David, talk straight to me," she responded. Her eyes were clearing and she had stopped trembling. Of this I was glad.
"That night," I said, "after we met and spoke together, you put a spell on me, Merrick. On my way back to the Rue
Royale, I kept seeing you everywhere; to the right of me, and to the left of me, Merrick. And then I saw Great Nananne."
"Great Nananne?" she asked in a subdued voice, but one which couldn't conceal her disbelief. "What do you mean, you
saw Great Nananne?"
"When I reached the carriageway of my town house," I said, "I saw two spirits behind the iron bars one in the image
of you, a girl of ten, the way you were when I first met you, and the other, Great Nananne in her nightgown, as she was on
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