Chapter 16: Cristiãn
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“Welcome back,” David’s escort greeted Cassidy from her seat by the door.
Cassidy was startled by the welcome coming from behind. Her mind was in the middle of restoring clarity to her thoughts. She spun around to see the woman that David had escorted into the main room of the club seated on a sofa next to a door. She instantly realized that the room around her had changed, but she was still standing as she had been before the change. As she continued to clear her thoughts, she became aware that she was in David’s office.
“How did I get here?” Cassidy demanded with a startled expression.
“You walked,” the woman answered as though stating the obvious.
Cassidy thought about that answer for a moment and then began moving toward the door.
“Don’t,” the woman instructed sharply with a raised hand.
Cassidy stopped immediately after her first step. She froze, startled by the woman’s sharp command and hand movement. The woman continued to advise her.
“I am much stronger than you,” she said pleasantly. “You can’t overpower me.”
Because the woman was about two inches shorter and just as thin as she, Cassidy could think of only one possibility that validated that declaration, and it frightened her. The idea that there was a supernatural element to the Greenbelt Nine murders was now being given serious weight in her thinking. She tried to shake the thought off as nonsense but could think of nothing more reasonable to replace her conclusion. Shortly into her internal debate, she decided to question the woman on it.
“What are you?”
“I am what you would call a vampire,” the woman answered calmly and without hesitation.
Cassidy caught her breath and took a step back. The woman reacted to Cassidy’s surprise with a smile and then continued to explain.
“Personally, I dislike that name or any name that refers to us as some kind of creature. I prefer to be called an immortal. I think it humanizes us while being technically accurate.”
“You came out of that cave in Romania?” Cassidy questioned with a look of shock.
“Yes,” the woman responded with a word.
“And you killed those men?” Cassidy questioned from behind a look of terror.
“We couldn’t stop ourselves,” she explained with an air of indifference.
“What the hell does that mean?” Cassidy yelled with fear and amazement on her face.
David’s escort was completely unfazed by her outburst or expression. She waited to reply while Cassidy took a couple of deep breaths.
“Imagine being thirsty, so thirsty that you could drink water from a muddy puddle,” the woman explained in casual speech. “And then multiply that by a thousand.”
The woman took a long pause to give weight to her words, and then she continued.
“Our bodies do not die easily. We were trapped in that cave for twelve-hundred years. To say we were thirsty is an extreme understatement.”
Cassidy took in her explanation with a look of incredulity. Despite all the evidence, and this confession, she was still having trouble accepting that the woman in front of her was a vampire. She did not look the way she thought a vampire should look. In every way, she looked no different than anyone else. Her complexion even held a tan. At that moment, her greatest fear was that she was being played for a fool.
“How can you be a vampire?” Cassidy challenged. “Sunlight is supposed to kill vampires.”
The woman suppressed a laugh.
“You know your vampire movies,” the woman said with a large smile. “But you shouldn’t believe everything you see on television.”
“Up until now, I didn’t believe in vampires,” Cassidy argued back. “I’m still not sure of that. But you’re telling me that’s what you are. Which is it?”
“Your books and movies have a distorted image of us,” the woman began pleasantly. “Sunlight is bad for us, that’s true. And given enough time it can kill us, but we don’t burst into flames like they do in the movies.”
Cassidy could do nothing more than watch this woman with a look of astonishment as she continued to explain with an almost cheerful expression.
“It’s more of a gradual deterioration,” she continued as pleasantly as if she were relating a humorous story. “On a hot sunny day, we can survive in the sun for three to six, hours. The length of time is determined by the temperature—and how satiated we are at the start.”
She paused with a shrug and a smile before continuing with her talk.
“It’s a terrible way to die. I think I would prefer to burn up quickly. I once saw an immortal that came close to dying that way. He looked nothing like himself when he came out of the sun. They say it starts with a sudden appearance of age marks and discoloration. The skin dries up and begins to wrinkle. I’m told it can start to become visible after ten or fifteen minutes in direct sunlight. About an hour later, the blotching starts. Blistering begins about an hour and a half after that. That continues for about another hour or two and then the atrophy starts. At that point, we’re all but sapped of strength. Moving just hastens our demise. If there is no shelter or sustenance nearby, we just lay there and rot to death. It’s an ugly way to go, don’t you think?”
Her cheerfully told story about dying from direct sunlight had Cassidy disbelieving again. It all sounded too incredible to be true. By the end of her narration, Cassidy was convinced that she was being deceived.
“This is all just some elaborate hoax,” Cassidy disputed with a shake of her head. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re no vampire.”
“Nadja,” the woman said with a nod and a smile. “And I am a vampire, Detective Tremaine.”
Cassidy continued to display a look of disbelief as she shook her head for a couple of seconds.
“So, you’re trying to tell me that you drink human blood?” Cassidy questioned with an I don’t believe you look.
“Blood is blood,” Nadja replied with a shrug. “We’ll drink the blood of most mammals and eat the flesh as well if the blood doesn’t quench our appetite.”
“Then why eat humans?” Cassidy challenged with a stunned look.
Nadja took a moment to take in Cassidy’s expression with a hint of a smile. Then she responded to her inquiry as though speaking the obvious.
“Because you smell like food.”
“This is ridiculous,” Cassidy argued with herself. “Why eat a human when you can eat a cow or pig or anything else?”
“Because they’re dirty,” Nadja explained. “They’re covered with fur and fleas and mud. Why would I want to bite into something like that? Mortals are packaged meat. You smell good. You taste good, and you look good. For immortals, humans are a delicacy.”
“Is that what the nine bodies in the Greenbelt were, a delicacy?” Cassidy questioned with a scowl.
“Absolutely,” Nadja answered in a word.
The more Cassidy heard the more she found it too incredible to believe. She took a step back, turned her eyes to the floor and shook her head in disbelief. As she digested all she just heard, she contemplated an attempt to escape. She suddenly raced for the door. Nadja rose to stop her. A step before reaching the door, Cassidy turned her attention to Nadja and extended a stiff arm in an attempt to use her momentum to knock her off balance. Nadja brushed her arm aside, grabbed her by the neck and wrist, lifted her off the floor, walked her to the other side of the room and laid her down across the top of David’s desk. After a brief struggle, Cassidy conceded to Nadja’s superior strength and went limp. She looked at Nadja with surprise and fear on her face. Nadja released her and returned to her seat on the sofa. Cassidy got back onto her feet and instinctively brought a hand up to her neck checking for damage. But she felt only slightly the worse for wear because of the manhandling.
“I told you,” Nadja explained again. “We are very strong. Far more so than you mortals. Your strength is limited to your muscle density. Our strength is based on muscle density and blood. We’re like rocket ships. The more blood we burn at any given moment the more powerful we are. The only drawback is that we have a limited supply of blood. When we exhaust our supply, we are as helpless as a baby.”
Cassidy’s effort to disbelieve the claim that they were vampires took a serious hit when Nadja picked her up with one arm. She had no explanation for how this woman overpowered her so easily. She could not help but dismiss her thoughts of being played for a fool and then asked the question that she dared not ask before.
“How are you possible?” Cassidy asked as she moved to sit on the side of the desk.
“Your knowledge of immortals are perversions of lessons that vampire hunters taught to their apprentices and to villagers. Over the centuries, mortals have demonized us. You have labeled us as servants of the devil. But these claims are not true. We are much like you.”
“What perversions?” Cassidy asked in awe.
Nadja chuckled at her question before responding.
“Perversions like our image can’t be seen in a mirror,” Nadja reported while restraining a laugh.
“So, you can be seen in a mirror?” Cassidy questioned hopefully.
“Of course, we can,” Nadja answered with a look of incredulity. “We just don’t like mirrors or anything that reflects light. Vampire hunters taught their apprentices to take notice of anyone who avoided things that reflected light.”
“How about wooden stakes?” Cassidy asked with a look of dismay.
“Twelve-hundred years ago, metal utensils were very expensive,” Nadja explained with a toss of her hand. “Vampire hunters used wooden stakes to augment the weaponry they used to kill us.”
“I don’t understand,” Cassidy contested with a slight shake of her head.
Nadja displayed no reluctance in clarifying further.
“When we’re impaled through the heart while asleep, we cannot wake up. The vampire hunters knew that. When they came across a location where several vampires were known to take their rest, it was common for the hunters to drive wooden stakes through our hearts while we slept. That way they could keep their knives and swords with them while they searched for more of us. That was the quickest and quietest way to incapacitate us.”
Again, Cassidy shook her head with confusion.
“I would think pounding a stake through someone’s heart would make enough noise to wake someone up.”
“To say that we sleep like the dead is not an overstatement.” Nadja explained. “When sleeping, our senses are mostly disconnected. We are very vulnerable when we’re asleep. Even when we do hear something it takes us several minutes to rouse to it.”
Cassidy was still confused. She wondered why they did not die when something was driven through their hearts. A second later, she remembered that a vampire’s heart did not beat. That memory confused her even more.
“But what is a stake through the heart doing, if it’s not killing you?” Cassidy asked with a ruffled brow.
Nadja continued to smile at Cassidy’s confused expression.
“Contrary to your vampire movies, our hearts do beat. Blood does flow through our veins. But the pace of our heartbeat is dictated by how active we are at any given moment. When we are asleep our hearts beat about once every twenty minutes, and we do not breathe at all. Therefore, humans began to think of us as being dead, because we sleep like the dead. When a stake or any object is impaled through our hearts, we lose the ability to pump blood. When we’re awake, we can simply take the stake out and our body quickly heals the wound. But when we’re asleep we can’t take it—out, and the absence of blood flow prevents us from waking up.”
Cassidy was astonished by her explanation. Once again, she struggled with the implausibility of what she was hearing, but her thoughts continued to fall short of a reasonable alternative. She found it hard to assimilate it all.
“And the rule about vampires not being able to enter a house if they’re not invited?” Cassidy inquired, eager to hear the answer.
“Just another stupid mortal myth,” Nadja answered with a smile.
“So, you can enter a house without an invite?” Cassidy waited for confirmation.
“Of course, we can,” Nadja returned.
“Then why did they say that?” Cassidy asked with hunger in her voice.
“The rule is, never invite a vampire into your house,” Nadja answered with a dismissive wave of her hand.
Cassidy interpreted the wave off as an indicator that there was more to her answer.
“Why?”
“Our ability to mentally control mortal’s is at its greatest in enclosed spaces,” Nadja explained with a little reluctance.
“Why is that?” Cassidy asked. “What makes you so powerful in enclosed spaces?”
“Pheromones,” Nadja answered. “Our pheromones are intoxicating to mortals. In the ninth century we were not aware that pheromones even existed, we thought it was all just magic. We now know that our pheromones can affect a chemically induced trance that makes mortals highly susceptible to suggestion and that they can be tailored to create and amplify sensations, feelings, moods and emotions with a mere thought. And with a little concentrated effort, we can radiate out these pheromones in quantities ranging from a whiff to stifling.”
A thought began to germinate in Cassidy’s mind and grew stronger the longer she considered it. She turned the thought over and over until she was incensed with the idea and finally exploded with it.
“Is that what he did to me? David or Christian or whatever the hell his name is?”
“Cristiãn,” Nadja corrected.
“I don’t care,” Cassidy railed back at her. “Did he use his pheromones to seduce me?”
“I don’t know,” Nadja responded coolly. “Would he need to?”
Cassidy shortly concluded that David did seduce her with his pheromones, and a rage swelled up within her with the thinking.
“So, is this just kicks for the two of you? This is how you and your boyfriend have a good time?”
“Me and my mate enjoy classical, rock and country music, movies of all types and soccer,” Nadja countered with an edge in her tone.
“Your mate?” Cassidy questioned with fury.
Nadja made no reply. She returned Cassidy’s gaze with a scowl on her face. This went on for a few seconds, and then Cassidy broke the silence between them.
“So, is murdering people just an instinctive act? No thought, no emotion, we’re just food to be consumed,” Cassidy spat out with a look of disgust.
“When I kill, emotion is always involved,” Nadja defended with a flare of anger.
In the face of her reaction, Cassidy backed away from their exchange and began to speak with less venom in her tone.
“And what about your mate, Cristiãn? When he kills, is there anger involved, or is it just sport for him?”
“We are no different than you,” Nadja countered defensively.
“You’re nothing like us,” Cassidy seethed. “You manipulate us without any regard for the life that you’re destroying. And that bastard, Cristiãn, is the worst of all of you. He likes to play with people’s lives before he kills them. As far as I’m concerned, you’re all murdering psychopaths.”
“You don’t know anything about us, Detective Tremaine,” Nadja countered with a hint of ferocity. “You don’t know what we’re about. You don’t even know why you’re still breathing.”
Nadja took a heaving deep breath and paused to give weight to her words, then she lashed out again with a little more rancor in her voice.
“And you should speak better of my brother when you talk to me.”
Cassidy was taken aback and caught her breath with the revelation that David was her brother. Startled, she paused and took on a softer expression while considering Nadja’s statement.
“Your brother?”
“Yes, my brother—Cristiãn is not my mate, and you should know that he’s the only friend you’ve got here.”
“Friend!” Cassidy challenged with shock in her voice “He—he brainwashed me with those pheromones.”
“He kept you near him to keep you alive,” Nadja corrected loudly.
“How was attacking me inside that warehouse keeping me alive?” Cassidy retorted with fury.
“My brother didn’t attack you,” Nadja countered with a flash of temper.
“I was there,” Cassidy argued angrily. “I heard someone call out his name.”
“You-stupid-mortal. What you heard was a warning call that my brother was coming,” Nadja explained with irritation in her tone. “He saved your life. And that wasn’t the first time.”
Cassidy could not deny the possibility of the scenario that Nadja had just suggested. She took a long moment to replay the events that transpired in the warehouse. As she did, Nadja noticed her changing demeanor.
“What are you doing here?” Cassidy asked after a long moment of thought. “Why did you all come to The Cavern today?”
“We’re having an—inquisition,” Nadja hesitantly admitted.
“An inquisition?” Cassidy questioned.
“Yes, a vampire inquisition,” Nadja returned with confidence this time. “We’re looking for a killer.”
“The Greenbelt Nine,” Cassidy blurted out with a sudden awareness.
“Precisely,” Nadja confirmed with a nod.
“You don’t know who killed those people?” Cassidy questioned with a surprise.
Nadja noted that Cassidy had quickly grasped the situation.
“We want to know the answer to that question just as much as you do.”
“I don’t understand,” Cassidy stated with a puzzled expression. “Why wouldn’t you know? Why wouldn’t they tell you?”
“Because it’s against the rules,” Nadja sternly explained.
“You have rules against killing?” Cassidy questioned.
Nadja took a moment to restrain herself from laughing at Cassidy’s surprised expression.
“Mortals—yes.”
“Why would…,” Cassidy started to question the reason for this rule and then stopped herself. “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand any of it.”
“No, you wouldn’t, would you?” Nadja said shaking her head in dismay. “This doesn’t fit inside your comic book version of vampires.”
Cassidy was more than a little vexed by her response and tone.
“Explain it to me.”
Nadja paused for a moment to consider Cassidy’s request.
“By the year 817, the vampire hunters had hounded us to near extinction. As far as I knew at that time, there were only twenty-seven of us left. We lived in a town near the Carpathian Mountains. The mortals there gave us safe-haven provided we did not kill anyone they knew and for the occasional odd jobs that only we could do.”
“They knew what you were, and they let you live among them?”
“That was not an uncommon arrangement back then. Within a region of Dacia, vampires were known denizens of the area. Going back nearly a thousand years, there had to have been two, maybe three hundred vampires that existed there at one time or another. We all started out as someone’s daughter, son, sister, brother, friend or neighbor. Life was very different then. There was no anonymity. Once you were turned, it became common knowledge to everyone who knew you. And on top of that, we were handy to have around. Nearby warlords were reluctant to expand into an area that was a Strigoi sanctuary for fear of evoking our wrath.”
“So, you killed, you just didn’t kill your neighbors?”
“Uh—not for the most part. Why would we? Like I said, they were family and friends, at least in the beginning. We could eat meat, but we preferred blood—straight from the vein of a living mammal. Farm animals were sufficient, but we would rarely bite one—disgusting. We would just bleed them a little bit and drink it from a cup. And we weren’t above siphoning a little blood from a human on rare occasions.”
“Rare occasions…?” Cassidy questioned with a suspicious look.
“Every once in a great while, one of us would siphon a little too much blood from someone,” Nadja explained with a toss of her hands. “Needless to say, that did not go over well in the community. And then there was the occasional rogue vampire who found it difficult to live within the rules. I suspect killing humans gave them some kind of thrill.”
“So, when the humans decided they had enough they started killing you,” Cassidy concluded.
“Oh, the mortals were killing us from the beginning,” Nadja corrected. “Hate or jealousy was the usual motive, but it was fear of us that turned it into a widespread practice. By the ninth century killing vampires was a skill honed by hundreds of years of practice. Back then it was a well-known fact that it was best to kill a vampire while we slept. So, we feared to go to sleep.”
Nadja added that last part with a hint of anger in her voice.
“Eventually, all vampires overstayed their welcome,” she continued a moment later. “Mortal family and friends—died, and the occasional killing of your kind by a vampire continued after their passing. On the whole, villagers didn’t care for us turning a favorite son or daughter into another Strigoi. And there were the many—many failed attempts at that. When I say failed, I mean the mortal died. Mortals always grow intolerant of our existence.”
“Why did mortals die when you tried to turn them?” Cassidy asked with a confused frown.
“Much of what we did back then was trial and error,” Nadja explained with indifference.
Cassidy was made more curious by that answer.
“Is it hard to turn a human into a vampire?”
“No,” Nadja returned with a shrug. “We just didn’t know then what we know now. Back then, it was all magic—a gift from the gods or a curse from demons. Back then, we would fatally wound a mortal, feed them some of our blood and then recite incantations and prayers to different deities as we watched them die. If they revived within four to five hours, it worked. Now we know that it’s important to introduce our blood into the body very shortly before or after the moment of their deaths.”
“Death—you have to kill a human to turn one into what you are?” Cassidy asked with a stunned expression.
“Oh yes. Dying is part of the process,” Nadja replied quickly.
Once again, Cassidy was not satisfied.
“Why is that?”
Nadja took note of Cassidy’s need for a precise explanation and set about providing one.
“Vampirism is a virus, but it’s a very weak virus. The human immune systems can fight it off with ease. But when the body dies, the immune system shuts down. The vampire virus has free reign after that. When that happens, the human body comes under new management. The critical part in the turn is in the moment of the viral introduction. If you introduce the virus too soon, the immune system kills it. If you introduce it too late, the degradation to the brain and nervous system progresses too far for the virus to reactivate them.”
Nadja paused to allow that explanation to sink in before continuing with a barely contained grin.
“If we only knew then what we know now.”
“What would have been different?” Cassidy asked.
“There would have been thousands of us. Maybe even tens of thousands. We would have taken over. It’s not like we can have children.
“And why can’t you have children?” Cassidy quickly asked.
Once again Nadja noticed Cassidy’s elevated interest and coolly set off to indulge it.
“Our vampire bodies treat any alterations to our physiology as something to be corrected—no pregnancies. Because of this limitation, our numbers are determined by how many mortals we turn into vampires and by how many of us are killed by mortals. Over the 100 years prior to our mishap with the cave, the killing of vampires became a widely accepted practice. What made it even worse was that it was a practice incited by religious leaders. We were demonized and characterized as sub-human monsters. They killed us on sight. They needed no more justification than the fact that we were Strigoi—criminal offenses were optional.”
Cassidy stared into the space as she pondered all she had just heard, then she looked up with another question in mind.
“How did you end up in that cave?”
“Vampire hunters,” Nadja said. “A hundred or more, raided the farming town where we were living—hiding. Nineteen of us made it to the cave and hid beneath the shelter of its darkness. The hunters feared to follow us there, so they brought down the mountainside and buried us alive.”
Nadja paused to smile while she reminisced about something, then continued her story.
“A whole new world grew up around us while we slept in that hole in the ground. Imagine our delight when we learned that the humans of this time did not believe we ever existed. And it wasn’t just that. A thousand years ago, people were born into their station in life. You could never be any more than what fate decreed you to be. But in this time, you are who you become. It was like we were given a second chance. We no longer had to hide because everyone believed we were myths—works of fiction. We were free to live in a world where wealth and comfort were simply a matter of money, and we’re very good at making money. Why would we risk exposing ourselves? Why would we risk starting a new vampire purge?”
Nadja allowed Cassidy time to ruminate on her last two questions.
“We live by a strict set of rules. The survival of us all depend upon everyone adhering to the rules. We have no prisons. We don’t issue fines or corporeal punishment. The penalty for breaking one of our rules is death. Whoever killed those humans is hiding from us every bit as much as he, she or they are hiding from you.”
Cassidy processed all that she had heard into a clear understanding of who these immortals were. For the first time since she began to consider that these individuals were vampires, she was conflicted about what to do about them. They had suddenly become less monstrous. Within seconds, her disgust for David faded away and a new thought came to her.
“Who was Constance Ofella?”
Nadja was briefly surprised. That was not a name or a question she was expecting to hear coming from Cassidy.
“Constantia Ofella was a girl from our childhood—mine and Cristiãn’s. She and Cristiãn became very attached when we were young. Cristiãn grew to love her—very much—and she him, I believe. But we were poor farmers back then—tenants of a wealthy lord. The lord had a son, and he took a fancy to Constantia. By reputation, the son was known to be an… unpleasant person. Despite that, Constantia’s father betrothed her to the son of the landlord, and she had no choice but to respect his wishes. The marriage separated Cristiãn and Constantia from each other. Cristiãn was not even allowed to speak of her in affectionate terms or of the feelings they once had and continued to share. To do so could have cost him his life. She was Cristiãn’s one and only love.”
Cassidy noticed that Nadja had brought the story to a close, but she was not yet satisfied and pushed for more.
“What happened to her?”
Nadja hesitated to reply, but did so, somberly.
“Four years later, Constantia took her life to escape her marriage.”
Cassidy was dismayed by her answer and pondered over it for nearly a minute. Nadja looked on without speaking a word.
“When… how did he become a vampire,” Cassidy hesitantly asked, breaking the silence.
Nadja gave the question little thought as she brightened with anticipation of her response.
“About a year before Constantia’s death, I fell in love with a vampire. It was deemed improper for a mortal and a vampire to wed. Mortals forbade it because such a union produced no children. Immortals frowned upon it because they were doomed to outlive such a mate. But Petru and I were very much in love, and as it tended to happen in such cases, he turned me into a vampire. It took me many months of pleading to overcome his resistance. He feared he might kill me. But I threatened to kill myself if he did not try. I was by then in my twenty-seventh year of life. Back then, that made me a spinster. Six years had passed since Constantia’s death. Cristiãn was a wreck by that time. His grief transformed him into a wine-soaked beggar. He had nothing: no farm, no money, no future. But he was my brother, my twin, and I loved him then as I do now. So, to save him from himself, I had Petru turn him into a vampire.”
“Why didn’t you do it?” Cassidy asked with a confused expression.
“When a vampire turns a mortal, a bond is formed between them” Nadja explained earnestly. “Between two heterosexual members of the same sex this bond makes them siblings of a sort. In each other’s company, they have a kind of telepathic connection. We know now that it is because we are receptive to each other’s pheromones. It enables vampires with this connection to communicate basic feelings and ideas. That is the only time a vampire is affected by the pheromones of another vampire. But the bond is even more pronounced when it is made between heterosexuals of the opposite sex. The two vampires tend to become lovers.”
Nadja paused for a moment to allow that thought to sink in, then continued with enthusiasm.
“Our pheromones act as an aphrodisiac that fuels the passion between us. We feed off each other’s—arousal. It’s extremely—exhilarating. We never tire of each other’s affection. Quite the contrary, we become addicted to it. Generally, vampires mate for life, and we are careful to avoid making more than one mate. That usually leads to someone getting killed. So, you can see how inappropriate it would have been for me to turn my own brother.”
Cassidy immediately understood and backed away from any further inquiry on the subject. Her thoughts turned to something she remembered Nadja saying near the beginning of their conversation. The comment resonated in her mind. There were other remarks that Nadja made that took precedence, but they had since been answered. Her next inquiry grew in importance because it was the only question she had at the moment.
“What did you mean when you said it wasn’t the first time that David—Cristiãn saved my life?”
“Last Thursday,” Nadja began as though trying to spur her memory, “when you left The Cavern and went to Radu and Alexandra’s late-night party.”
Cassidy was instantly confused. She had no memory of going to a party after leaving The Cavern that night. Her immediate thought was that Nadja was mistaken or misinformed, but she was hesitant to contradict her.
“You don’t remember this?” Nadja smiled and advised with a questioning tone. “Your memories are incomplete, Detective Tremaine. Allow me to help you with that.”
Nadja went still in her seat as she held her stare at Cassidy and said nothing. Cassidy became confused by Nadja’s changed demeanor, but then shortly, her mind slipped off into a trance.
ns216.73.216.13da2
and then Add to home screen.