You are asking us to lie, Colonel?""I am asking you to omit. Surely, amidst the...the infinite gradations of human venality, that particular sin ranks low." The old man kneaded the folds of his throat. "What happened out there belongs out there. The jungle has it; let the jungle keep it...

Maybe I had been making a greater monster of him than he really was, or maybe I was still under his influence, for I was certain that he wanted me to believe he was no more than a harmless man who happened to use vampirism to get what he desired. Some remnant of his mesmerism was still upon me. I had never been able to shake the feeling that he was tucked away in a corner of my mind, that he could read my thoughts, know what I was thinking. He had done something to me, but what that was, I had never been able to discover. All I knew was that the feeling had been with me since the morning I woke up and found myself in Venice.