The Greatest Horror Books - Henry Kuttner Edition. Henry Kuttner

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.

      “Through the ages I have come, since first I fell victim to another vampire—for thus is the evil spread. Deathless and not alive, bringing fear and sorrow always, knowing the bitter agony of Tantalus, I have gone down through the weary centuries. I have known Richard and Henry and Elizabeth of England, and ever have I brought terror and destruction in the night, for I am an alien thing, I am the undead.”

      The quiet voice went on, holding me motionless in its weird spell.

      “I, the vampire. I, the accursed, the shining evil, negotium perambulans in tenebris . . . but I was not always thus. Long ago in Thurn, before the shadow leapt upon me, I loved a girl—Sonya. But the vampire visited me, and I sickened and died—and awoke. Then I arose.

      “It is the curse of the undead to prey upon those they love. I visited Sonya.

      “I made her my own. She, too, died, and for a brief while we walked the earth together, neither alive nor dead. But that was not Sonya. It was her body, yes, but I had not loved her body alone. I realized too late that I had destroyed her utterly.”

      “One day they opened her grave, and the priest drove a stake through her heart, and gave her rest. Me they could not find, for my coffin was hidden too well. I put love behind me then, knowing that there was none for such as I.

      “Hope came to me when I found—Jean. Hundreds of years have passed since Sonya crumbled to dust, but I thought I had found her again. And—I took her. Nothing human could prevent me.”

      The chevalier’s eyelids sagged. He looked infinitely old.

      “Nothing human. Yet in the end I found that I could not condemn her to the It.'ll that is mine. I thought I had forgotten love. But, long and long ago, I loved Sonya. And, because of her, and because I know that I would only destroy, as I did once before, I shall not work my will on this girl.”

      I turned to watch the still figure on the couch. The chevalier followed my gaze and nodded slowly.

      “Yes, she bears the stigmata. She will die, unless”—he met my gaze unblinkingly—“unless I die. If you had broken into the vault yesterday, if you had sunk that knife into my heart, she would be free now.” He glanced at the windows again. “The sun will rise soon.”

      Then he went quickly to Jean’s side. He looked down at her for a moment. “She is very beautiful,” he murmured. “Too beautiful for hell.”

      The chevalier swung about, went toward the door. As he passed me he threw something carelessly on the table, something that tinkled as it fell. In the portal he paused, and a little smile twisted the scarlet lips. I remembered him thus, framed against the black background of the doorway, his sleek blond head erect and unafraid. He lifted his arm in a gesture that should have been theatrical, but, somehow, wasn't.

      “And so farewell. I who am about to die—”

      He did not finish. In the faint grayness of dawn I saw him striding away, heard his footsteps on the stairs, receding and faint—heard a muffled clang as of a great door closing. The paralysis had left me. I was trembling a little, for I realized what I must do soon. But I knew I would not fail.

      I glanced down at the table. Even before I saw what lay beside the knife, I knew what would be there. A silver key. . . .