was laid out with his arms at his sides. She thought it odd that his hands were tightly clenched. A thick silver chain was wrapped around his body from his chest to his ankles. His skin, which was almost as white as the satin beneath him, was drawn paper-thin over his skull-like head. Pale brown lashes lay against his sunken cheeks. His hair was long and limp, the color a dull reddish brown.
"This - " Silvano gestured at the vampire. "How can I explain it? He is very much alive. Without human blood to sustain him, he is in constant torment." A smile that was not really a smile twisted Silvano's thin lips. "He cannot escape the chains. The crosses render him powerless. His soul is trapped within this body. This dead body."
Marisa shivered as she looked at the vampire again. Almost, Silvano had her believing the vampire was real. But, of course, it was just some extremely skinny man and some impressive stage makeup.
She stared at the vampire's chest, silently counting the seconds. One minute passed. Two. The man never took a breath. Three minutes. Four.
A cold chill ran up her spine. Maybe it really was a corpse.
Silvano turned away as a pretty girl wearing a short red skirt, a white off-the-shoulder blouse, black net stockings, and ballerina slippers called his name.
Marisa watched Silvano leave the tent with the girl. Glancing around, she saw that everyone else had left, too.
Heart pounding with trepidation, she realized she was alone with the vampire. She stared at the body. Maybe it wasn't human at all. Maybe it was made of wax, like the figures at the Movieland Wax Museum.
She laughed with relief. That was it, of course. Why hadn't she thought of that before? It was just an elaborate hoax.
She glanced over her shoulder. There was no one in sight. Feeling foolish, she ran her fingertips over the links of the chains. They felt real, solid. A small fortune in silver.
And then, unable to resist the temptation, she touched the vampire's hand.
It wasn't made of wax. The skin was cold. Smooth and dry, it reminded her of ancient parchment. She gasped as the papery skin grew warm beneath her fingertips. And then, very slowly, the skeletal fingers of the vampire's left hand uncurled and spread out to lie flat against the smooth satin lining.
With a shriek, Marisa jumped away from the coffin. She tripped as she stumbled backward, cried out as she tumbled down the steps. She scraped her leg on the rough wood, landed in the sawdust on her hands and knees.
Shaken, she glanced over her shoulder, at worst expecting to see the vampire climbing out of the coffin, its fangs bared in a hideous grin, at best expecting to see an ordinary man sitting up, laughing uproariously because he had scared her out of ten years of her life.
But all was quiet within the tent.
Deathly quiet.
Marisa scrambled to her feet, wincing as she did so. Looking down, she saw blood dripping from a shallow laceration just above her right ankle.
Pulling a handkerchief from her purse, she mopped up the blood; then, with a grimace, she tossed the hanky in a trash can and hurried out of the tent.
Blood. Warm and sweet and fresh. The scent of it filled the air, teasing his nostrils, tantalizing his senses, awakening a thirst that had lain dormant for a hundred years.
Blood.
The woman's blood.
His hand tingled as he remembered the touch of her hand, her fingers warm and soft, the throb of her pulse beckoning him.
He fought through layers of blackness, a century of darkness, all his senses honed on the irresistible scent of the woman's blood.
He flexed his hands, his shoulders, licked his lips as the Hunger roared to life.
With an effort, he opened his eyes. A cry of outrage rumbled deep in his throat when he saw the crosses. Three of them, all silver.
With the return of awareness came pain - the pain of the silver chains that bound him, the raging Hunger that had not been fed for a hundred years.
Ignoring the pain and the Hunger, he reached deep inside himself, calling on the strength of a thousand years...
Marisa came awake with the sound of her own screams ringing in her ears. Breathing heavily, she switched on the bedside lamp and glanced around, relieved