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it. If the Marleys had paid a high price, he realized, she must have paid a higher one.
Surely, he thought, this woman must have another side to her.
"Blanche," he said softly, as she moved slowly toward him, "please, end this. End it for me, for yourself.
How can you live in this half world, not dead, not alive, never knowing the hope of heaven? This can't be
what you wanted. You can still find peace."
She looked at him curiously. "My time for that has passed."
He shook his head. "Not if you truly want it. Blanche, it must be over tonight. Haven't we all paid enough,
you as well as my family? I know what Stephen did to you. I know he murdered you, and that you sold
your soul to come back. But I promise you it isn't too late: you may have forgotten God but he will never
forget you. All you have to do is let go of all this."
"You believe that? About Stephen?" She said with a strange detachment. "You think that I suffered all
this time just for my own death?"
"He did a horrible thing. I can't excuse it. But it was one life, Blanche, one life! He's paid for it, I assure
you, in this world and the next. But how many other lives have you sacrificed? How many innocent
people have died because of what you've done? You just can't continue with this! Think of your own
soul, Blanche!"
Her face changed with such rapidity that he cringed away from it as if from a physical blow. Here was the
Blanche he knew, her eyes overfilled with murderous intent, her face malevolent, the perfect bloom of
evil.
"One life?" she said savagely. "Stephen Marley is responsible for more than one life, priest. You talk
about the death of innocents& What's the position of your loving God on killing children? Does he love
and forgive murderers of the helpless?"
She leaned closer to Andrew, the fury in her face almost scorching him.
"Stephen Marley didn't just kill me, he murdered my child!"
Georgiana moaned softly as she realized what Blanche meant.
"With all your mind probing, you never found that out, did you?" Blanche said to Georgiana. "Stephen
knew what he was doing. He knew I was pregnant: I had just told him. And he knew it was his child."
Georgiana sagged against the marble tomb, unable to look at Blanche. Andrew stood completely
motionless.
"It made no difference to him, but it would have made all the difference to me. It would have changed my
life& " Blanche's voice was pathetically wistful. "I know it would have. Children change everything. But
for Stephen our child was only a nightmare, an unwanted chain that would bind him to me. And he
couldn't stand the thought of it." Her voice was rising again to a painful edge. "And so he killed me, and
he killed our child. Stephen took away the only thing I had that was pure and good, my only chance to
understand what love was. I could live again, in this 'half world' as you call it. But not my baby. That was
my real sacrifice, though I didn't realize it at the time. It was the price I paid, and it was much too high."
There was only the soft sound of Georgiana sobbing against the tomb, her tears staining the old stone.
Angela wanted to comfort her, but found that she couldn't move: she wasn't sure whether it was Geo
who touched her more, or Blanche.
"Any children Stephen Marley had, he should have had with me! My child died, my soul died with it; any
thread I could have grasped to pull myself out of that life was broken when I saw the look of horror in his
eyes when I told him I was pregnant.
"But he went on with his life! He married, he had babies, he had everything he ever wanted. Why should
his children lead glorious, successful, satisfying lives when my child lies still inside me, never to be born, to
have no life at all? Wasn't it a Marley, the first of a new generation, the same as all of you? I couldn't give
my child its life back, but I could take yours. I could make all of you feel my torture, my grief, my loss.
There will never be enough Marleys to suffer enough lifetimes for what you've done to me. It will never
end. Never. Not until the last of you dies in agony and guilt."
She brought her face closer to Andrew, the stench of her death-filled breath stinging him. "And I tell you,
priest, you are the last of your line. In your heart, you know it. The only hope for you is for me to take
pity on you, and you realize that will never happen. Stephen Marley took no pity on me. Or on our child."
Georgiana raised her head, her face ravaged. "I have pity for you, Blanche. You cannot imagine what I
feel for you."
Blanche turned on her in rage. "I don't want your sympathy! I don't want your tears. I want your
suffering, and your anguish. I want your life! What you'll never understand is how much I hate all of you,
the constant resentment I bear you, that grows every minute, every year, every decade. And it will go on
and on, until all of you are dead."
Her eyes turned to Andrew. "But if you want to end your family's torture, priest, I'll tell you what you can
do. Kill me. Really, finally kill me. Do what Stephen couldn't finish. Do it right now and end your curse."
She touched his face lightly, her changing, persuasive voice like a light feather over his mind. "You know
you can do it, priest. Haven't you been thinking of it, dreaming of it? You wake in the night longing to do
it and you tell yourself in the morning that you never had such thoughts, that a priest of God could never
entertain the slightest notion of murder. And yet& it's in your heart, constantly, the furious anger that
knows no reason."
She knew by the look on his face that she was right, she had divined his secret, guilty thoughts and
presented them to him as trophies. All he had to do was reach out his hand&
She also knew that he could never do it.
He was paralyzed by his principles, by his unwavering vows as a priest, and by the compassion in his
own character.
She knew that this was his greatest strength, and she had turned it into his greatest weakness.
"You never know who'll be next, do you?" Blanche said. With a flash of movement, she grabbed Angela
by the hair, and pulled her face toward her own. "For instance, this one would make a pretty loup-garou,
don't you think? And what lovely children you'll have, the two of you, provided you can keep from killing
them."
The suddenness and shock of the move immobilized Angela. The pain blanked out her mind for a few
seconds, but when she saw the stricken look on Andrew's face, her rage overwhelmed her fear and any
remnant of sympathy she might have held for Blanche. She reached up, intending to break all of Blanche's
fingers, but found the hand tangled in her hair to be like tempered steel.
Blanche simply laughed.
Georgiana, who had been edging closer to Angela, Andrew, and Blanche all this time, reached quietly
into Angela's pocket and withdrew the pistol.
She pointed it steadily at Blanche's brains. "Remember, Blanche," Geo said with iron calm, "the ties
between a werewolf and its creator. What can kill us can kill you. Maybe nothing else can touch you, but
you're exactly as vulnerable as we are to silver.
"You say you don't want my sympathy? Fine. I don't grieve for you then, Blanche, but I grieve for your
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