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We heard them in the early morning. They came, apparently to hear of us what they could with the Mind Gift and then they rushed away.

"Why have they taken so long?" I demanded. "They've watched us and they've studied us. "

"And perhaps they are the reason," said Avicus, "that we've found no Devil worshipers here. "

This was perhaps true, for those who spied on us now were not Devil worshipers. We could tell by the bits and pieces of mental imagery which we were able to glean from their minds.

At last they came at early evening and there was no mistaking their polite invitation to us to come with them to visit their mistress.

I went out of our house to greet them and discovered that there were two of them and that they were pale and beautiful boys.

They couldn't have

been more than thirteen when they were made, and they had very clear dark eyes, and had short curly black hair. They were dressed in long Eastern robes of the finest decorated cloth, trimmed in a fringe of red and gold. Their under tunics were of silk, and they wore ornate slippers and many jeweled rings.

Two mortals carried the torches for them, and they appeared to be simple and expensive Persian slaves.

One of the radiant young blood drinker boys placed a small scroll in my hands, which I at once opened to read the beautifully written Greek.

"It is the custom before hunting my city to ask permission of me," it said. "Please come to my palace. " It was signed, "Eudoxia. "

I did not care for the style of this any more than I had cared for the style of anything else in Constantinople. And I cannot say that it surprised me, but then here was an opportunity to speak with other blood drinkers who were not the fanatical worshipers of the Snake and that opportunity had never come before.

Also allow me to note that in all my years as a blood drinker, I had not seen any two others who were as fine and elegant and beautiful as these boys.

No doubt the groups of Satan worshipers contained such blood drinkers, with fine faces and innocent eyes, but for the large part, as I have described, it was Avicus and Mael who slew them or came to terms with them, not me. Besides they had always been corrupted by their zeal.

There was something else here.

These boys seemed infinitely more interesting by virtue of their dignity and their adornments, and the courage with which they looked at me. As for the name Eudoxia, I was ultimately more curious than afraid.

"Let me go with you," I said immediately. But the boys gestured that Avicus and Mael should come as well.

"Why is this?" I asked protectively. But at once my companions let me know that they wanted to go too. "How many are you?" I asked the boys.

"Eudoxia will answer your questions," said the boy who had given me the scroll. "Please do come with us without further conversation. Eudoxia has been hearing of you for some time. "

We were escorted a long way through the streets, until finally we came to a quarter of the city even richer than that in which we lived, and to a house much larger even than our own. It had the usual harsh stone facade, enclosing no doubt an inner garden and rich rooms.

During this time, the boy blood drinkers cloaked their thoughts very well, but I was able to divine, perhaps because they wanted me to do, that their names were Asphar and Rashid.

We were admitted to the house by another pair of mortal slaves who guided us into a large chamber completely decorated with gold.

Torches burned all about us, and in the center of the room, on a gilded couch with purple silk pillows there reclined a gorgeous blood drinker woman, with thick black curls not unlike those of the boys who had come to us, though she wore them long and fretted with pearls, her damask robe and under dress of silk as fine as anything I'd seen in Constantinople so far.

Her face was small, oval, and as close to perfection as anything I've ever beheld, even though she bore no resemblance to Pandora who was for me perfection itself.

Her eyes were round and extremely large. Her lips were perfectly rouged, and there came a perfume from her that was no doubt made by a Persian magician to drive us out of our wits.

There were numerous chairs and couches scattered about on the mosaic floor where rampant Grecian goddesses and gods were as tastefully represented as they might have been some five hundred years before. I saw similar images on the walls surrounding us, though the slightly crude but ornate columns seemed of later design.

As for the vampire woman's skin it was perfectly white, and so totally without a touch of humanity that it sent a chill through me. But her expression, which manifested itself almost entirely by a smile, was cordial and curious in the extreme.

Still leaning on her elbow, her arm covered in bracelets, she looked up at me.

"Marius," she said in cultured and perfect Latin, her voice as lovely as her face, "you read my walls and floor as though they were a book. "

"Forgive me," I said. "But when a room is so exquisitely decorated, it seems the polite thing to do. "