Page:Weird Tales Volume 02 Number 2 (1937-02).djvu/43

 eyes dull and expressionless. Futaine moved to her side, put an arm about her waist. My mouth felt as though it were filled with mud, but somehow I managed to croak out articulate words.

"Damn you, Futaine! Leave her alone!"

He released her, and came toward me, his face dark with anger.

"You fool, I could kill you now, very easily. I could make you go down to the busiest corner of Hollywood and slit your throat with that knife. I have the power. You have found out much, apparently. Then you know—my power."

"Yes," I muttered thickly. "I know that. You devil—Jean is mine!"

The face of a beast looked into mine. He snarled, "She is not yours. Nor is she—Jean. She is Sonya!"

I remembered what Futaine had murmured when he had first seen Jean. He read the question in my eyes.

"I knew a girl like that once, very long ago. That was Sonya. They killed her— put a stake through her heart, long ago in Thurn. Now that I've found this girl, who might be a reincarnation of Sonya— they are so alike—I shall not give her up. Nor can anyone force me."

"You've made her a devil like yourself," I said through half-paralyzed lips. "I'd rather kill her"

Futaine turned to watch Jean. "Not yet," he said softly. "She is mine—yes. She bears the stigmata. But she is still—alive. She will not become—wampyr—until she has died, or until she has tasted the red milk. She shall do that tonight."

I cursed him bitterly, foully. He touched my lips, and I could utter no sound. Then they left me—Jean and her master. I heard a door close quietly.

night dragged on. Futile struggles had convinced me that it was useless to attempt escape—I could not even force a whisper through my lips. More than once I felt myself on the verge of madness—thinking of Jean, and remembering Futaine's ominous words. Eventually agony brought its own surcease, and I fell into a kind of coma, lasting for how long I could not guess. Many hours had passed, I knew, before I heard footsteps coming toward my prison.

Jean moved into my range of vision. I searched her face with my eyes, seeking for some mark of a dreadful metamorphosis. I could find none. Her beauty was unmarred, save for the terrible little wounds on her throat. She went to a couch and quietly lay down. Her eyes closed.

The Chevalier came past me and went to Jean's side. He stood looking down at her. I have mentioned before the incongruous youthfulness of his face. That was gone now. He looked old—old beyond imagination.

At last he shrugged and turned to me. His fingers brushed my lips again, and I found that I could speak. Life flooded back into my veins, bringing lancing twinges of pain. I moved an arm experimentally. The paralysis was leaving me. The Chevalier said, "She is still—clean. I could not do it."

Amazement flooded me. My eyes widened in disbelief.

Futaine smiled wryly. "It is quite true. I could have made her as myself—undead. But at the last moment I forbade her." He looked toward the windows. "It will be dawn soon."

I glanced at the knife on the table beside me. The Chevalier put out a hand and drew it away.

"Wait," he said. "There is something I must tell you, Mart Prescott. You say that you know who and what I am."

I nodded.

"Yet you cannot know," he went on. "Something you have learned, and