Free The Stranger by Max Frei, Polly Gannon

laugh. Who does he think he is, Doctor Dolittle? But paying attention to my sensations, I realized that I really didn’t feel quite right. For example, I understood perfectly what had happened here. I didn’t need to question Juffin. I already knew that twice he had tried, unsuccessfully, to conquer the strange power that resided in the mirror. The third time he simply made the world in the room stand stock-still. I even knew how he had done this, although I couldn’t have repeated it even to myself. I also understood that now it was impossible to destroy the creature in the mirror without harming Melifaro—the spiderweb had bound them together like Siamese twins.
    At the same time . . . at the same time I was tormented by other, unrelated, questions. For example, how would Sir Juffin look if I took a splinter of glass from the broken window and dragged it across his cheek? And what would his blood taste like? And . . .
    I licked my parched lips.
    “Max,” Juffin ordered sternly. “Get a grip on yourself, or else you’ll crack up. I can help you when we leave this room, but it would be better if you managed on your own. Compared to what you’ve already done, it’s a piece of cake!”
    I fumbled around in the basement of my soul in search of the small, sensible fellow who often comes to the rescue during emergencies. It looked like he wasn’t home.
    Suddenly, I thought of some old B-movie about vampires. The main characters had faces white with greasepaint and mouths unappetizingly smeared with blood—like babies left with a good-for-nothing nanny and jam for breakfast. I imagined myself in that guise: Max, the regular guy, beloved of girls and house pets. At first I felt ashamed; then I burst out laughing. Juffin joined in.
    “What an imagination you have, lad! Oh, you kill me!”
    “It’s not my imagination, I just have a good memory. If only you could see that movie!” I cut myself off abruptly, and asked, “Wait, you read my thoughts, too?”
    Juffin, unperturbed, confirmed my suspicions. “Sometimes. If it’s necessary for the task at hand.”
    But by then I wasn’t even listening to him. I was consumed again by the desire to take a sip of his blood. One small sip. My stomach knotted up in a spasm of hunger. I couldn’t think of anything but the taste of Juffin’s blood. Ugh, how vile! I’m getting obsessed!
    “Am I losing my mind?”
    “Something like that, Max. But it’s doing you good, it seems. You know, I think that if you were able to withstand my curse, you can certainly deal with your own madness! I can cure you, so if you’re in trouble, let me know. But . . . you know . . .”
    I did know. Along with madness came the secret knowledge, which I had so suddenly come to possess. And the circumstances were such that the qualified help of a psychologically unbalanced vampire were far more useful to Sir Juffin than the confused bleating of the normal, ignorant Max. On the other hand, if he accidentally cut his hand, I could . . . again, I started to drool. I feverishly swallowed my bitter saliva, grabbed a shard of glass, and slashed my own palm. Sharp pain, the salty taste of blood—it brought me an unprecedented sense of relief.
    “Could you help me up, Juffin. My head’s spinning . . .”
    He smiled, nodded, and held out his hand. I stood up, wondering how I could have spent my whole life at such dizzying heights. The floor was on the other side of the universe, if anywhere. Leaning on Juffin for support and carefully shuffling my benumbed feet, I moved out into the corridor.
    I knew what was in store for us. The powers summoned to life by the curse of my protector had upset the balance of the World. Nothing to write home about, even by the standards of the Left Bank—but on the scale of the house! Any closed space is immediately saturated through and through with this harmony-destroying radiation. We had to “stop life” in the place right away, already gradually losing its contours,