Fred Saberhagen Vlad Tepes 05 Dominion

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so bad."
"Tell me what, Saul? What isn't so bad?"
"I've grown up with this. But when people marry into it, as you have--well,
it's just not something that you're able to grasp fully all at once."
Hildy couldn't speak. She was afraid that if she tried, nothing but screams
would come from her throat, ever again.
Saul went on: "I do love you, Hil, as I've said so often. But the truth is
that our marriage was in part arranged."
"Arranged? How? What does that mean?"
"Vivian always has an interest in bringing new people into the family.
Selected people, with something to contribute, like special abilities. It
generally works to the person's advantage, of course, very much to their
advantage in fact. But it's not something that can be explained to them ahead
of time."
Hildy was shaking her head, unable to find words. A horrible truth was right
in front of her but she
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ominion.htm (120 of 186) [2/5/2004 12:21:16 AM]
Saberhagen, Fred - [Dracula 05] Dominion couldn't see its whole shape yet.
Dimly she was aware that on the other side of the great hall the elevator was
returning from upstairs, its door was opening. She looked that way as Simon
the Great emerged from the elevator. He appeared to be in a daze, a trance.
Vivian had him by the arm, she was guiding him, manipulating him. Another
slave, another toy for Vivian.
Hildy said: "Saul, at least tell me one thing right now."
"If I can. What is it?"
"Just now, right after everything seemed to blow up, I saw this young man. I
don't mean the magician, someone else. That wall blew open and there was a
doorway, an opening, with light streaming out& and he was there, and he was
very handsome, and at the same time his face was the--the most hideous thing
I've ever seen in my life, I don't know why--"
"Shh!" Saul hissed it fiercely, at the same time darting a glance toward
Vivian. But Vivian was fully occupied with whatever she was doing with Simon,
leading him toward the door of the once-secret passage, and whispering in his
ear meanwhile.
Hildy would not be put off. "I want an answer, Saul. Who was he? He was trying
to come through that doorway, and then something stopped him. It was an object
like a cross, I couldn't see how it was being held. Except that it wasn't a
regular cross, it was more like the hilt of a sword. Who was he, Saul?"
"Hildy, I said there was a purpose uniting the family, remember? I'm afraid
he's what this is all about."
Her lips soundlessly formed questioning words.
With gentle seriousness her husband said: "He's Vivian's lover. He has been,
for more than a thousand years."
NINETEEN
Being out on the street wearing jail issue was better than walking around town
in that damned flowered gown; but it really wasn't, when you came right down
to it, a whole hell of a lot better. In the shadowed mouth of an alley, Hawk
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leaned against a dingy brick wall, considering things.
He'd had to wait around in his tiny VIP cell until nearly midnight, when
things at headquarters started to get really busy, as he'd surmised they
would. As soon as that happened, surveillance necessarily slackened. He had
remembered to .turn the lock in the cell door open before he left, which he
thought would perhaps make his disappearance at least a little less memorable.
There was still going to be trouble for the guards in charge of seeing to it
that cell doors stayed locked, but Hawk wasn't running any charitable
organization. He hadn't asked anyone to arrest him in the first place.
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Saberhagen, Fred - [Dracula 05] Dominion
He considered that he'd managed his departure very smoothly, for a magician
long out of practice. He'd appeared on the street not many blocks from
headquarters, got his bearings at once --Chicago was an easy city to do that
in, with its logical grid of street numbers--and then he'd started walking,
heading without any conscious plan back toward his old stamping grounds on
Skid Row.
If any of the passersby he encountered on the first leg of his hike had [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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