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" 'What sustains you? What supports you? Surely not Petronia and the Old Man. ¡¯

" 'Don't be so quick to judge,' he said gently. 'Some night far distant from now -- if you survive -- you'll laugh when you remember asking me such a question. Besides, I love Petronia, and I can control her. You wonder perhaps why I didn't stop her from making you, as we call it, why I didn't call upon my authority to stop her from defiling you? Because you must understand I saw her as giving you immortality. ¡¯

"He paused, smiling at me faintly and touching my hand again with his hand, which was warm.

" 'Were there other reasons? I don't honestly know,' he went on. 'Perhaps I harbored a heated desire to see you transformed. You are so very admirable. So young. So splendid in all your parts. And with the sole exception of Manfred, it's been centuries since she worked the Dark Trick, as some of us call it. Centuries. And she has an idea that the desire builds in us and then must be discharged, and so she brings someone into our midst and makes of that one a Blood Hunter. ¡¯

" 'But the girls who prepared me, and the boy -- they spoke as if there had been others. ¡¯

" 'She plays with others, and then she destroys them. The servants? What do they know? They're told that the postulant is being prepared for great gifts, and then fails. That's all. Now the girl, I don't know about her. She's ignorant and greedy. But there is some spark in the boy. Perhaps Petronia will bring him to us. ¡¯

" 'And has it been well done?' I asked.

" 'Oh, yes, of course it's been well done,' he said, almost as if I'd insulted him with my question, 'not without much more cursing and kicking I think than was ever necessary, but in the main well done; I saw to it that it was well done, though I have more to tell you. ¡¯

"He made a little gesture with the coffee, playing with it, as though he liked to see it move in the cup and savor the aroma of it, which was dark and thick and alien to me. Then he spoke.

" 'I'm watching you, of course,' he said. 'When you drink from the evil ones you have to revel in it, not cringe from the evil. It's your chance to be evil as the one you kill. Follow your victim's evil as you empty his soul. Make it your adventure into crimes you yourself would never wantonly commit. When you've finished, you take your soul back with what you've learned and you're clean again. ¡¯

" 'I feel anything but clean,' I said.

" 'Then feel powerful,' he said. 'Disease can't touch you. Neither can age. Any wound you receive will heal. Cut your hair and it will grow back within the space of a night. Forever you will look just as you are now, my Caravaggio Christ. Remember, only fire and the sun can harm you. ¡¯

"I listened intently as he continued.

" 'Fire you must avoid at all costs,' he said, 'for your blood will burn, and terrible suffering may result, which you may survive, healing slowly over centuries. As for the sun -- one day of it cannot kill me. But in these early years, either can destroy you. Don't yield to the desire for death. It claims too many of the young in their impetuosity and grand emotions. ¡¯

"I smiled. I knew what he meant -- grand emotions.

" 'You needn't find a crypt every day of your life,' he said. 'You're strong from me and Petronia combined, and even the Old Man's blood has been good for you. A room that is shut up and sealed away from the sun, a hiding place, that will suffice, but eventually you should choose a refuge to which you can retire, a place that is yours where no one can find you. Remember when you do this that you are some ten times stronger than mortals now. ¡¯

" 'Ten times,' I marveled.

" 'Oh, yes,' he said. 'When you took the pretty bride you broke her neck in the final moments. You weren't even conscious of it. It was the same with the killer in the alley. You snapped his spine. You have to learn to be careful. ¡¯

" 'I'm drenched with murder,' I said. I looked at my hands. I knew I would never see Mona again, because I knew that a witch like Mona would see blood all over them.

" 'You feed from mortals now,' said Arion in his usual graceful manner. 'It's your nature. Blood Hunters have existed since the beginning of time, and probably before that. Old myths are told and written that we once had among us parents from whom the primal fount poured forth to us all, and that whatever happened to them happened to us and so they must be kept forever inviolate. But I'll give you the books to read which tell these tales. . . ¡¯

"He paused, looking around the caf¨¦. I wondered what he saw. I saw blood in every face. I heard blood in every voice. At will I could receive the thoughts of any mind like so much static. He went on.

" 'Suffice it to say that the Mother rose from her slumber of thousands of years and on a rampage destroyed many of her children. It was at random that she moved. And I thank the gods that she passed over us. I could have done nothing against her power, because she had the Mind Gift -- that is, to destroy by will -- and the Fire Gift -- that is, to burn by will -- and she burnt those Blood Hunters whom she found, and they numbered in the hundreds.

" 'At last she herself was destroyed, and the sacred nucleus -- the primal blood from which we all come -- was passed into another, otherwise we would all have withered as so many flowers upon a dead vine. But that root has been preserved without interruption. ¡¯

" 'This one, this one who has the nucleus or the root, is he very old?¡¯

" 'It's a woman,' he replied, 'and she is ancient, as old as the Mother was, and she has no desire to rule, only to keep the root safe and to live as a witness to time, in a place apart from the world and its worries. With that kind of age comes a peace from the blood. She no longer needs to drink it. ¡¯

" 'When will that peace come for me?' I asked.

"He laughed softly, gently. 'Not for thousands of years,' he said. 'Though with the blood I gave you, you can go many nights with just the Little Drink or even nothing. You'll suffer but you won't become weak unto dying. That's the trick, remember. Don't become so weak that you can't hunt. That you must never do. Promise me. ¡¯

" 'It matters to you what happens to me?¡¯

" 'Of course,' he said. 'I wouldn't be with you here if it didn't. I gave you my blood, did I not?' He laughed but it was kindly. 'You don't know what a gift it was, my blood. I've lived for so long. In the parlance of our kind, I'm a Child of the Millennia, and my blood is considered too strong for the young and unwise, but I hold you to be wise and so I gave it. Live up to it. ¡¯

" 'What do you expect of me now? I know that I'm to kill those who are evil and no others, yes, and the Little Drink must be done with stealth and grace, but what else do you expect?¡¯