A Strange Coincidence - or Could It Be Fate?

"Then please forget that I asked, dear lady," Yorga - who has perfect manners - says. Since he knows Alicia's history he can make a pretty good guess concerning Mina's as a result of Chi's remark.

But Mina prefers to be direct. "It's quite all right," she says. "With Alicia's permission...?" This last because she doesn't know for sure whether Yorga knows about Alicia's background or not, though it's long odds on that he does. (Her new friends had briefed her and Allan about the history of both Alicia and Yorga when they learnt that they would be the ones making the delivery. Otherwise, given her history, Mina could have had a nasty shock if she discovered Yorga's history when talking to him.)

Alicia nods her consent, so Mina goes on: "I understand that you were once a vampire, Count, albeit one who never preyed on humans. Both Alicia and I narrowly escaped being turned into vampires ourselves. Until very recently, I had a mass of scar tissue on my neck as a legacy of that."

"My dear lady, I am so sorry," Yorga replies. "If the people at our end had known about you, I'm sure they would have chosen someone else to make the delivery. It must seem very insensitive."

"They weren't to know. And when my new friends learnt that you would be coming, they told me about you so that it wouldn't be a shock. Fortunately now that my physical scars have been healed, my mental scars are almost gone too."

"It's a remarkable coincidence that the three of us should have come together like this," Alicia remarks.

1. "It is indeed," Yorga agrees. "But we had better be getting on. We have a vital delivery to make, and having come here with all speed it wouldn't do to dally now."

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