The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life by Michael Talbot Read Free Book Online Page B

obsessed with deciphering all the intricacies of the killer and had published several papers on the subject. The success of the experiments that followed these papers was so promising I was certain I had made an important scientific breakthrough. I was keeping all of my newest work secret because the project had become a very personal vendetta with me. I didn’t want anyone to beat me to the discovery of a cure and this was becoming a growing fear. Since the epidemic many of the senior faculty at Redgewood were concentrating their efforts on influenzae and several of them had hinted they were making dazzling discoveries.
    It was shortly after Camille’s fifth birthday that a most disconcerting thing happened. One of the older faculty members at Redgewood, a Dr. William Chiswick, announced at a trustees’ meeting that he had made a great discovery and was going to publish his findings within a very short time. For several weeks the university buzzed with anticipation, but when Chiswick was approached concerning his coming revelation he became irritable and strangely apprehensive. He had the locks changed on the door of his office and even had wire grates placed over the windows. When more time passed and he showed less and less inclination to release even the tiniest bit of information, the trustees became nervous. They approached Chiswick, but this only caused his peculiar paranoia to rage completely out of control. The next night he took a hammer to all of his equipment and tore his office to shreds, burning every file, book, and paper he possessed. And then, strangest of all, he vanished, completely, and after following every lead Scotland Yard could offer no explanation for his mysterious disappearance.
    A rumor spread about the hospital that Chiswick hadn’t actually made any discovery, and rather than admit his lie to the trustees, had destroyed everything. Those of us who knew him found this hard to believe. William Chiswick was a very respected physician. The notion that he would end his illustrious career in that way was out of the question. Something very strange had happened, but certainly something that was no stranger than the incident that befell me scarcely a week later. It was a very rainy and cold spring night in April. I was riding in the brougham along Coventry Street on my way to the hospital when suddenly I heard the horses rear up, and the carriage careened to a stop.
    “ What’s wrong?” I shouted, pounding on the glass.
    “I’ve ’it ’im,” the driver stated breathlessly as he jumped down from his seat. I wiped the steam off the side window and peered out. There, lying facedown on the wet cobblestone, was a man in a blue evening coat with gilt buttons sparkling faintly on the sleeves. I quickly stepped down from the brougham and raced to his side.
    “What happened?” I asked the driver as I examined the man. His dark trousers were sticky with blood. I could see that both of his legs were badly broken.
    “He just stepped out of the shadows,” the driver returned. “I tried to swerve to miss ’im, but he must have fallen under the wheel.”
    I shook my head as I carefully turned the man over on his back, and it was then that I saw. It was he, the young man, the angel from the Madonna of the Rocks. There was no mistaking the pale, angular face and the reddish-golden curls. What was most startling of all was that although forty years had passed since I had first seen him in the garden, he still possessed the face of a young man only seventeen or eighteen years old. I hesitantly touched his cheek to see if he were real. My shock must have been written all over my face.
    “What’s wrong?” the driver asked. “Do you know ’im?” For a few moments I remained silent, filled with disbelief, and then I nodded. “Yes, I know him.”
    The driver helped me place him gingerly in the backseat of the brougham and we sped on to Redgewood. After we arrived at the hospital I searched the young