“As a rule, no.”
I looked at him. “Then what is it you wish me to be afraid of, Mr. Tregarrick?”
He took a deep breath, and his gaze drifted. “This is my laboratory. It’s where I formulated something I call my vital essence.”
“Is that like a quintessence?”
His eyes came back to my face. Mrs. Moyle had suggested he might be curious about me, and I had begun to believe it. I felt it almost every time he looked at me. Sometimes he seemed to be angry or confused, but often he looked like he was trying very hard to understand exactly what I was. LikeIwas the one the village told stories about.
“You have a good memory, Miss Penrose,” he said. “Itisa kind of quintessence. Distilled wine infused with herbs, distilled again to increase potency. A process I’ve refined over the course of ... many years.”
“And is it one of your medicines?”
“Yes.”
My eyes moved over his face, shoulders, and chest. The old-fashioned shirt draped softly over the lines of his body. Though his skin lacked luster, and the bones of his face were sharp and angled, his form didn’t appear wasted. I could make out the curve of muscle just below the tips of his shoulders, and above the crease of his elbow.
“It’s not something you can see,” he said, and my cheeks warmed.
“Then what?”
“A type of inherited disorder. My father had it, and his father.”
His voice had dipped low. He almost seemed not to be breathing. Again I noticed the fullness of his dark, berry lips, and my heart began to thump.
“Do you know what a vampire is?”
Vampire?The word was familiar, and I tried to think why.
When I didn’t answer right away, he continued, “Maybe you’ve heard stories of a creature that rises from the grave at night to drink the blood of the living.”
Now it came to me. Jack was still a boy when he’d started at the mine, and one time a German man he worked with told him a story like this. Jack told it tome, and it scared me so badly I had nightmares. The next Sunday I even refused to enter the churchyard because of the graves. Father Kelly, the parish priest, came to see what was the matter. Though I’d all but forgotten about vampires until now, I remembered him saying, “I don’t claim to know everything, Mina, and therearesome very strange things in this world, but I can assure you that the souls in this churchyard sleep peacefully.”
Mr. Tregarrick had watched me working through these thoughts, and now I gave him a hard stare. “What are you saying, sir?”
“It’s what I am,” he said simply. “A vampire.”
My blood froze, and my heart stilled. “Are you telling me that you’re dead?” How ashen he was. And how cold.No. It’s not possible.
“I have never died,” he said, and I thought it a strange way to answer the question. “But I do crave the blood of the living. My ancestors have always drunk it to survive. As I said, it is a family affliction.”
Can he be mad?Though I was shaking, I took a step toward him. I could see the vein in his neck pulsing.How slow it is.
“It’s only another old story,” I said, voice unsteady. “Like the Wolf of Roche Rock.”
“Most old stories have some basis in truth.”
I remembered my dream.Blood dribbles down his chin.
His arms had gone rigid at his sides, hands clenched. “Come closer.”
My heart bounced, and I swallowed dryly.This can’t be.I took two more steps, until my head had to tilt back to meet his gaze.
I smelled herbs and brandy. His lips parted slightly, and my breaths grew short and quick. Then I saw them. The very white, very sharp points of two teeth resting against his full bottom lip.
I staggered backward with a gasp. Head half turning toward the stairs, I tried to think how many seconds it would take me to reach the front door.
Too many.
