And this creature, this powerful vampire, was holding me upright and looking into my eyes, and I believe that I said some mad thing, voiced some frantic thought, that I knew now the secret of eternity.
"Then tell it to me," he whispered, and he smiled. The purest image of human love.
"O God, help me. Damn me to the pit of hell." This was my voice speaking. I
can't look on this beauty.
I saw my arms like bones, hands like birds' talons. Nothing can live and be what I am now, this wraith. I looked down at my legs. They were sticks. The clothing was falling off me. I couldn't stand or move, and the remembered sensation of blood flowing in my mouth suddenly overcame me.
Like a dull blaze before me I saw his red velvet clothes, the cloak that covered him to the ground, the dark red gloved
