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dried gore from around his mouth, his chin, and his bare chest. His eyes
blinked once. Despite everything, she found much that was attractive about his
face.
Then, shuddering just perceptibly, she threw the towel into a laundry basket.
Speaking about the video arrangement, she said "I've never seen anything like
it.
But I can see there are advantages. You see yourself the way you are, I mean
not reversed."
The men looked at each other. John drew a deep breath. "Honey? The real point
is that Uncle Matthew doesn't care for mirrors."
"He doesn't ?"
"No. And they don't do him any good anyway. I'm only surprised that some of
the other rooms, like the one we slept in, do have them. No, I guess I'm not
surprised. He likes to be courteous to his guests."
Angle was thinking aloud "It's almost like he's disfigured somehow. Though of
course he isn't, he's very handsome. I mean, about the mirrors, and being a
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recluse " But no, she wasn't thinking straight at all. If you wanted to avoid
seeing your own disfigurement, how would a video camera be any better than a
mirror? Of course you could leave it turned off
Joe cut in. "Angie, you haven't got it yet."
"I haven't?"
Joe looked around the room. "Have you got a small mirror? In your puree,
maybe?" He sounded calm and deadly serious.
Without asking any questions Angie went out of the room and came back in a
moment with her purse, from which she extracted a small mirror, holding it out
to Joe.
"Don't give it to me, hold it yourself. And take a good look at him. In your
mirror." Joe gestured toward the man on the bed.
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She tried, and blinked, and rubbed the compact glass. She tried again, from
several angles, and in several intensities of light. There were the upper
bedclothes, cleanly visible, but they were mounded up over nothing but hollow
invisibility. And there was the lower sheet, with its crackling plastic
envelope of earth beneath it, pressed down as if under the weight of a solid
body. But if there was a body there, the mirror was letting her look right
through it. She needed a minute to convince herself that the image of the
being she had been calling
Uncle Matthew was not going to appear as a reflection.
Once having achieved this understanding, she turned a helpless face to Joe.
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"Don't ask me why or how," he said. "I've heard of the laws of optics and all
that.
Maybe there's really an image there in your mirror, but the human brain just
won't see it."
And that of course was no help at all.
Angie still had had no sleep to speak of, and in her present state of
exhaustion she was turning abnormally suggestible, likely to accept almost
anything without an argument. Now she began to fear hallucinations. But reason
and fear were both losing the struggle against sleep. At last, on a sofa, in
the security of as much daylight as the apartment afforded, she succumbed. Her
slumbers were beset by dreams, dreams of pale anonymous faces that came
drifting in the night outside the windows of the apartment, mouthing pleas and
threats. In her dreams she thought she could hear the creatures through the
thick and otherwise inviolable glass, but their voices had no power to awaken
her.
When Angle did wake up she felt rested, and more herself than she had for a
long time. It was almost as if she had slept for many hours, though the time
was only a little after noon. The day was cloudy as before, but the light was
still comfortingly full. Angie, now starting to feel hungry, stretched,
wondered if she should take a shower, and instead went first into the kitchen
where the men were seated at the table with coffee mugs in front of them.
Abstractedly she gathered materials and made herself a cheese sandwich. There
was mustard in the refrigerator. She poured herself coffee, and prepared to
make a second pot.
Then, chewing her first bite of sandwich, she turned to the men. Her voice was
deadly serious. "I've had some sleep and I think I'm in my right mind. And
now, you are going to tell me what it's all about. Starting from the
beginning. The
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truth and the whole truth. Or else, I swear to both of you, I am going to run
out into the hall and scream and scream until the cops come."
Joe was not impressed. He shook his head. "I wouldn't bet it'll be the cops
who reach you first if you do that," he said. "Anyway, John told you right. We
don't want the cops in here. Not now. They'll come in and see the old man and
call an ambulance "
Angie interrupted. "I know! I know. And we can't afford to let him be taken
out of his dwelling place. I just hate to believe I don't have running out and
screaming to fall back on as a last resort."
"I think among the three of us we can come up with some better ideas than
that."
She pulled up a chair to the table and said to Joe: "Let's hear yours."
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"All right. First of all, the people who are trying to force their way in here
are vampires, or at least their leader is." He looked at her searchingly.
"It's important that you believe that."
"If you and John both yes. I can believe it."
"Good. Next, there's something they want from" Joe jerked his head in the
direction of the bedroom "him. From what you tell me they did last night, and
what they said, all too probably it's his life. Most likely it's a matter of
revenge.
But John and I both owe him our lives, or the equivalent. So, we're standing
by him."
Angie tossed her hair back. "I wouldn't want you to do anything else. So if
I'm
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