Smoke and Mirrors

“Chivalry” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Nicholas Was . . . ” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Vistations.

“The Price” © 1997 by Neil Gaiman. First published as a chapbook by DreamHaven Press.

“Troll Bridge” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Don’t Ask Jack” © 1995 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Overstreet’s FAN magazine.

“The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories” © 1996 by Neil Gaiman. First published in David Copperfield’s Beyond Imagination.

“The White Road” © 1995 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears.

“Queen of Knives” © 1995 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Tombs.

“Changes” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Crossing the Border.

“The Daughter of Owls” © 1996 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Overstreet’s FAN magazine.

“Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman. First published in The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy.

“Virus” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Looking for the Girl” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Only the End of the World Again” © 1994 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Shadows Over Innsmouth.

“Bay Wolf” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Dark Detectives.

“We Can Get Them for You Wholesale” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock” © 1994 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Tales of the White Wolf.

“Cold Colors” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“The Sweeper of Dreams” © 1996 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Overstreet’s FAN magazine.

“Foreign Parts” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Vampire Sestina” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Mouse” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“The Sea Change” © 1995 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Overstreet’s FAN magazine.

“When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawnie Morningside, age 11 ¼” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman.

“Desert Wind” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman.

“Tastings” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Sirens.

“Babycakes” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Murder Mysteries” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Snow, Glass, Apples” © 1994 by Neil Gaiman. First published as a chapbook by DreamHaven Press.

Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot

0.

THE FOOL

“What do you want?”

The young man had come to the graveyard every night for a month now. He had watched the moon paint the cold granite and the fresh marble and the old moss-covered stones and statues in its cold light. He had started at shadows and at owls. He had watched courting couples, and drunks, and teenagers taking nervous shortcuts: all the people who come through the graveyard at night.

He slept in the day. Nobody cared. He stood alone in the night and shivered, in the cold. It came to him then that he was standing on the edge of a precipice.

The voice came from the night all around him, in his head and out of it.

“What do you want?” it repeated.

He wondered if he dared to turn and look, realised he did not.

“Well? You come here every night, in a place where the living are not welcome. I have seen you. Why?”

“I wanted to meet you,” he said, without looking around. “I want to live for ever.” His voice cracked as he said it.

He had stepped over the precipice. There was no going back. In his imagination, he could already feel the prick of needle-sharp fangs in his neck, a sharp prelude to eternal life.

The sound began. It was low and sad, like the rushing of an underground river. It took him several long seconds to recognise it as laughter.

“This is not life,” said the voice.

It said nothing more, and after a while the young man knew he was alone in the graveyard.

1.

THE MAGICIAN

They asked St. Germain’s manservant if his master was truly a thousand years old, as it was rumoured he had claimed.

“How would I know?” the man replied. “I have only been in the master’s employ for three hundred years.”

2.

THE PRIESTESS

Her skin was pale, and her eyes were dark, and her hair was dyed black. She went on a daytime talk show and proclaimed herself a vampire queen. She showed the cameras her dentally crafted fangs, and brought on ex-lovers who, in various stages of embarrassment, admitted that she had drawn their blood, and that she drank it.