"If I can," Asher replied, as they slipped into the cobbled, horse-smelling canyon of the mews. "After I get Lydia out of this, and see how the land lies, if possible. Like Lydia-like a lot of people in the medical profession-Horace has a little streak of saintmanqut in him, in his case one of the stiffer-backed Scots variety. It could be the vam-pire is playing on that as well."
"I would give a good deal to know who it is." The vampire's touch was light on his elbow, guiding him around half-seen obstacles. What little lamplight filtered in from the street glistened on the puddles in the center of the lane, but left the sides in velvet shadow; the air was sweet with the clean smell of hay and the pungency of well-tended horses, prosaic odors and comforting. "I suspect Calvaire came to London to seek in him a partner in power, but I still find it strange that he would have heard of him at all when I had not, much less been able to locate him."
"Perhaps Brother Anthony told him whom to look for and where to look."
"Maybe." Ysidro's voice was absolutely neutral, but Asher, who was growing used to the tiniest nuances of his speech, had the impression he was not satisfied. "There are many things here which I do not under-stand, and among them is why Calvaire's appearance on the scene should have triggered these murders-if it did trigger them, and all these matters are not simply a chance juxtaposition in time. It may be that your Mistress Lydia can enlighten us, when we find her, or Blaydon. As I recall, Tulloch the Scot was big, though not so big as you describe. Your height, but bulkier..."
"No," Asher said. "I looked up at him-he came over the top of me like a wave."
They moved down the darkness of the mews, scanning the tall, regu-lar cliff of houses visible beyond the stables and cottages. All were dark; it was the ebb-tide hour of the soul. He went on softly, "But conceivably this virus, this mutation, could trigger abnormal growth. It could..."
The vampire beside him checked, and the slim hand tightened on his arm; turning his head swiftly, Asher caught the glint of the luminous eyes.
"What is it?"
The vampire moved a finger, cautioning. For a time, he listened like a hunted man for sounds which he thought he might have heard. Then he shook his head, though his eyes did not relax.
"Nothing." The word was more within Asher's head than without. In a stable, a horse wickered and stamped sleepily. "I-all of us-have grown used to the idea that as vampires we are, barring acts of violence, immortal, and to the idea that acts of violence are all we need fear. Like Lemuel Gulliver, we were stupidly willing to believe 'immortal' means 'safe from change.' It is disconcerting to learn that there may be terms to that bargain after all."
Asher felt awkwardly in the pockets of his ulster for the reassuring weight of Lydia's revolver, which, like the one the police had confis-cated from him, was loaded with silver bullets-it was astounding what one could purchase at hyperfashionable West End gunsmiths. He'd also brought both silver knives and even the little hypodermic kit with its ampoules of silver nitrate. He'd found bills from Lambert's, for silver chains and at least one silver letter opener, stuffed into the medical journals as bookmarks, so she hadn't gone out completely unarmed. His own silver chains lay slim and cold over the half-healed bites on his throat and left wrist-the right was muffled in sling and splints and puffed up to twice its normal size-but even so, he felt hopelessly out-gunned.
The briefest of investigations revealed a brougham and a trim bay hack with one white foot in Blaydon's stables. After a moment's silent listening, Ysidro murmured, "No one in the quarters upstairs, though someone has lived here recently-not more than a few months ago." "He'd have turned off the servants," Asher breathed in return. From the stable's rear door, they could see the tall back of the house, past the few bare trees and the naked shrubs of a narrow town garden. "You can't hear whether someone's in the cellar?"
Simon's eyes never moved from the house, but Asher could tell he was listening all around him and behind nun, just the same. The night seemed to breathe with unseen presence, Asher's hair prickled with the certainty that somewhere nearby they were being watched; that some-thing listened, as Ysidro was listening, for his single breath and the beat of his solitary heart. By mutual consent, they both backed out of the small stable and into the lane again, where a sound, a commotion, was likely to bring every coachman and dog on the mews.
"I'm going in." Asher shrugged his arm clear of his ulster; Ysidro caught it and lowered it to the baled hay piled just outside the stable door. With his left hand, Asher fumbled the revolver and a silver knife from the pocket, transferred the revolver to his corduroy jacket; the knife-since he was wearing shoes rather than boots-slid conveniently into his sling. "Can you watch my back?"
"Don't be a fool." Simon slipped his black Inverness from his shoul-ders, laid it in a soft whisper of velvet-handed wool on the hay, and reached into Asher's jacket pocket for the revolver. He patted the cylin-der gingerly a few times with his other hand, like a man testing for heat inside. Satisfied, he concealed it in his own jacket. "If you had four hours' sleep on the boat from Calais last night, I should be surprised. No, stay here-you should be fairly safe. A cry from you-a sound from you-will wake every groom and dog in the mews, and this vam-pire must remain unsuspected now for his very life."
And he was gone, in a momentary blink of distracted consciousness that made Asher curse his own lapse of guard.
He was aware that the vampire was right, however. The strain of the night was telling on him. It would have done so, even had his body not been struggling with the aftereffects of his attack by the Paris
vampires or with the shock of the struggle at Grippen's and the pain of his broken hand. The novocaine was beginning to wear off, and his arm in its sung throbbed damnably at every step he took. That alone would be enough to disrupt the concentration that was still his only possible defense against the ancient vampire's soundless approach.
He was conscious, too, of what Ysidro was doing for him. The vam-pire, though visibly edgy-or as visibly edgy as Ysidro ever got- throughout the walk down the silent streets from Bruton Place to Queen Anne Street, had never seemed to consider the option of not accompanying him. Perhaps it was simply because he knew that Asher would neither abandon his search for Lydia, nor have the strength to defeat the killer alone, should he meet it. But Asher suspected that, like the oddly gentle charm of his faded and cynical smile, the honor of an antique nobleman lingered in him still. He might be arrogant and high-handed and be, as Lydia had blithely calculated, a murderer thousands of times over, but he would not abandon his responsibilities to his liege man or his liege man's wife. This was more than could be said of Grippen or the Farrens, who had informed him, with varying degrees of tact, that the location of new boltholes for themselves took absolute precedence over any possible fate of Lydia's.
And all of this, in spite of the ironic fact that Simon could not even touch the problematical protection of a silver chain.
If Lydia could root out all-or almost all-of the vampires' hiding places, Asher thought, settling himself back on the hay bales and draw-ing his ulster clumsily up over his shoulders again, there was a good chance Blaydon and whatever vampire he was working with could do so, too, particularly if Calvaire had revealed any information to his prospective partner in power as to their whereabouts. He wondered whether he himself could remain awake to mount guard over whatever blown refuge Ysidro would be forced to take come dawn. Fatigue weighed down his mind, and he fought to keep it clear. He doubted his ability, even if Simon would admit him to the place...