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suite, against all the laws of individual "
"And you," Jessie said, "were in the process of biting a victim to whom you had not recited the entire
pertinent information which the Kolchak-Bliss Decision obligates you to state in easily understood
language."
Mrs. Cuyler began to cry.
Blake, undaunted, continued: "A mindscan, which you would have to undergo if I lodged this charge with
the authorities, would prove my allegations and make you vulnerable to a number of unpleasant
punishments."
"Damn you!" Slavek growled.
"No histrionics, please," Blake said.
The Count took a threatening step in the detective's direction. "If I were to make two converts here, then
there would be no one to report me, would there? I'm sure Renee would help me to convert you." He
grinned, his black eyes adance with light.
Blake removed a crucifix from his jacket and held it in one fist, where, with a human antagonist, he might
have carried a fully loaded narcotic pin gun. "I'm not unprepared," he said.
Slavek appeared to shrivel a bit and looked guiltily away from the crucifix. He said, "I was Jewish before I
was a vampire. There's no reason for that device to thwart me."
"Yet it does," Blake said, smiling down at the plastic Christ-on-a-Cross which was in four different shades
of glow-brite orange. His pin gun was the best model, an expensive piece of equipment. But he did not
believe in toting around a hand-crafted crucifix when any old hunk of junk would do. He said, "Studies
have been done which show that you people fear this on only a psychological level. Physically, it has no
effect. Yet, because you get your power from the mythos of vampirism, and because the cross plays such a
strong part in that mythos, you really would die if you came into contact with this if a spirit can be said to
die."
As the detective spoke, Slavek began a strange transformation. His cape appeared to mold closer to his
body and to alter, by slow degrees, into a taut brown membrane. The Count's features changed, too,
growing darker and less human. Already, he had begun to shrink, his clothes miraculously shrinking with
him and dissolving into him as he strove to attain the form of a bat.
"That'll do you no good," Jessie said. "Even if you escape out the window, or somesuch, we know who you
are. We can have you subpoenaed in twenty-four hours. Besides, Brutus can trail you wherever you go."
The Count hesitated in his metamorphosis. "Brutus?"
Blake motioned towards the closet where a powerful hound, four and a half feet high at the shoulders,
strode out of the closet. Its head was massive, its snout long and crammed with sharp teeth. Its eyes were an
unsettling shade of red with tiny, black pupils.
"A hell hound?" Slavek asked.
"Of course," Brutus said.
Mrs. Cuyler seemed shocked to hear a deep, masculine voice coming from the beast, but neither Count
Slavek nor Jessie found it odd.
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"Brutus can follow you into any little netherworld cul-de-sac you may intend to flee to," Blake said.
The Count nodded reluctantly and reversed his transformation, became more human again. "You work
together, man and spirit?"
"Quite effectively," Brutus said.
He held his burly head low between his shoulders, as if he were prepared to leap after the Count if he
should make the slightest move towards escape.
"An unbeatable combination," Slavek said, admiringly. He sighed and walked to the sofa, sat down, crossed
his legs, folded his pale hands in his lap, and said, "What do you want of me?"
"You've got to hear my client's ultimatum, and then you can leave."
"I'm listening," Slavek said.
He had begun to buff his nails on the hem of his cape.
Mrs. Cuyler, bewildered, still stood in the center of the room, crying, her small hands fisted at her sides as if
the tears would soon turn to screams of rage.
Jessie said, "You've been caught in an illegally executed bite, and you will remain susceptible to
prosecution for seven years. Unless you want Mr. Roger Cuyler my client and this lady's husband to
initiate that prosecution, you will henceforth have nothing whatsoever to do with Mrs. Cuyler. You will
neither contact her in person, by telephone, by vidphone, or by messenger. Neither will you employ
supernatural methods of communication where this lady is concerned."
Slavek looked longingly at the leggy young woman and finally nodded. "I accept these conditions,
naturally."
"Be off, then," Jessie said.
At the door of the suite, Slavek turned back to them and said, "I think it was much better when we kept to
ourselves, when you people didn't even know, for sure, that we existed."
"Progress," Blake said, with a shrug.
"I mean," Slavek said, "there's much less risk of a stake through the heart nowadays now that we
understand each other but the romanticism is gone. Blake, they've taken away the thrill!"
"Take it up with city hall," Brutus said. He wasn't in the best of moods today.
"It's seven years now since my kind of people entered real commerce with your kind and things get worse
every day. I don't think we'll ever like it the way it is now." Slavek had taken on the brooding tone that so
many middle-European bloodsuckers adopted when in a musing mood.
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