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"What happened? Was this Ivan?"

Her eyes rolled back and her body arched in pain for aa tablet between her lips and offering her a sip of water "She goes in and out The doctor who ca to death, but even a feeding tube didn’t help her We tried"

Her blood held none of the sweetness of the other girls It sent and on the way to sour "Constantina, did Ivan give you a formula? An elixir of some kind?"

"The Elixir of Life…," she whispered "He didn’t drink froh I could tell he wanted to He stayed away Said it was too soon If it worked, he would be able to keepHe couldn’t have a wrinkled uests Ivan was too proud for that"

"Who gave hi "I don’t know I always thought I would die very quickly or all alone Even if I survived him, he’d shove hed "And I had peace about it I loved him Stupid, I know But I did And I enjoyed the power and attention I had, for a time" She reached for Father Andrade’s hand AndradehanI hBut the wages of sin are death, aren’t they, Father?"

"Please, Constantina" The old man had tears in his eyes "Let me take you to the hospital Letto waste away like this"

"It won’t help I could tell by the look on his face when I first started to lose weight" She looked straight into Baojia’s eyes "He knew Ivan kneas happening"

"Who else did he give it to?" he asked

"Soood ones, the stupid ones Told theirls were the most popular at the club All the men wanted to drink from them Ivan let many of them, but not all That’s when I knew that it was a poison for your kind, too Then the girls started disappearing, but no one noticed at first There were alwaysI had disappeared after only a few months More showed up in their place They would pick a few and give the ones," she said with a weak sure out a tiirl was taken by Ivan’s people, how long did she have? They had to kno much ti did it take the waitress’s blood to become affected?"

She frowned "Only two or three days, I think So…"

"So if a girl was taken--"