2

SHAKESPEARE said to Carnivore, “The time is nearly come. Life fades rapidly; I can feel it go. You must be ready. Your fangs must pierce the flesh in that small moment before death. You must not kill me, but eat me even as I die. And you remember, surely, all the rest of it. You do not forget all that 1 have told you. You must be the surrogate of my own people since none of them is here. As best friend, as only friend, you must not shame me as I depart from life.” Carnivore crouched and shivered. “It is not something that I asked,” he said. “It is not something that I would elect to do. It is not my way to kill the old or dying. My prey must be always full of life and strength. But as one life to another, as one intelligence to another, I cannot refuse you. You say it is a holy thing, that I perform a priestly office and this is something from which one must never shrink, although every instinct in me cries out against the eating of a friend.”

“I hope,” said Shakespeare, “that my flesh be not too tough nor the flavor strong. I hope the ingestion of it does not make you gag.”

“I shall not gag,” promised Carnivore. “I shall be strong against it. I shall perform most truly. I shall do everything you ask. I shall follow all instructions. You may die in peace and dignity, knowing that your last and truest friend will carry out the offices of death. Although you will permit me the observation that this is the strangest and the most obnoxious ceremony I have ever heard of in a long and misspent life.”

Shakespeare chuckled weakly. “I will allow you that,” he said.