Free The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life by Michael Talbot Page A

“It’s no coincidence,” said once again, gazing intently into his dark and deceptively innocent eyes. “Every line, every delicate contour is exactly the same.” I leaned closer and placed my hand upon his shoulder. “I helped you escape, Niccolo. The least I deserve is to know who and what you are.”
    At this he hissed the same outraged hiss of a cat before it strikes, and pounced upon me. It was then, as the terrifyingly angelic face was only inches from my own, that I saw he had filed the canine teeth on either side of his mouth into points. “You’re such a fool,” he shrilled, and although he had not touched his drink his breath was warm and moist with brandy. He continued his exhalations slowly, even passionately, as his lips drew close to my flesh.
    I screamed and struggled to escape, but the slender and frail hands held me with unusual strength. Then, as suddenly as he had leaped up from the chair, he threw me down and walked over to one of the windows. “Aren’t you going to run now?” he asked bitterly.
    I gasped and tried to compose myself. “Why should I?” This remark startled him greatly. “My teeth! Look at my teeth!” He stepped forward and opened his mouth, revealing the teeth he had filed down.
    “Why on earth would you do that to yourself?” I asked as I stepped forward and scrutinized them. They had been filed into tremendously sharp points. Moreover, they must have been abnormally long to begin with, for they protruded a good eighth of an inch below his other teeth.
    I might have been mistaken but he seemed amused. I reached up and gingerly touched one of the canines, making sure not to puncture myself. As I slowly withdrew my hand I recalled the peculiarities of his metabolism, his refusal to eat, and his miraculous ability to heal. A shudder passed through me. “You’re awfully strange,” I said.
    “Stranger than you suspect.”
    I chuckled. “What are you, a vampire?”
    He smiled.
    I felt as if all of the wind had been knocked out of me by a heavy blow. Every fiber of my being doubted even the remotest possibility of such a preposterous notion and yet at one and the same time I realized it was absolutely true. “Am I in danger?” I asked.
    “You are in the presence of the vampire!” he hissed and began to pace furiously.
    I wanted to run but I summoned all of my courage and remained. “But am I in danger?” I repeated.
    At this his expression softened, and he regarded me imploringly. “Couldn’t I have taken you in the garden? Or couldn’t I just as easily have killed you now?” shook his head sadly. “Signore Gladstone, I have never had any intentions of ever hurting you. Indeed, I have given you a trust that I seldom give any human being. It is very rare for a vampire ever to reveal himself. It is too dangerous.”
    “Then why are you confiding in me?”
    “Because you are different from all others,” he answered. “In you I sense a curiosity, even an admiration. You knew I wasn’t human. You knew it in the hospital, and yet you had compassion instead of ignorance and fear. But tell me, Signore Gladstone, now that you know exactly what I am, what are you going to do about it?”
    “I don’t rightly know,” I returned. “You’re not well enough to be put out on the street, but—” I stopped abruptly.
    “—but you have your family to think about.”
    “My two daughters are away visiting, but they’ll be home in a couple of days.”
    “ Mio caro, Dottore Gladstone, you are so naïve. Do you think vampires are so crass as to go around biting children?”
    I blushed. “Isn’t that what people say?”
    Niccolo folded his arms indignantly and sat back down in his chair. “That’s what the rabble says. But what does the rabble say about medicine, about disease? What superstitious prattle circulates about anything that people don’t understand and are afraid of?” He paused and reached for his cognac. “That isn’t to say that there isn’t a basis