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Gregory smiled. "That's not at all surprising."

He had never thought to bring such creatures into the Blood.

On that long-ago night in San Francisco, when Lestat's concert had ended in a flaming massacre, his one thought had been to rescue his precious Davis from the holocaust. Let the doctors of the human world do what they would with the bones and slime that dead blood drinkers had left behind.

He'd taken Davis in his arms, and gone up high into the Heavens before the Queen could fix him with her lethal eyes.

And only later had he returned, the boy safe now as the Queen had moved on, to watch from a distance those forensic workers gathering their "evidence."

He had thought of Davis then as he sat with Fareed in Los Angeles, thought of Davis's dark caramel skin and those thick black eyelashes, so common in males of African descent. Nearly twenty years had passed since the night of that concert, yet Davis was just now coming into himself, recovering from the deep wounds of his early exile in the Blood. He was again dancing as he had long ago in New York as a mortal boy--before intense anxiety had crushed his chances for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and sent him into the awful mental decline in which he'd been made a vampire.

Ah, well, that was another story. Davis had taught Gregory things about this age which Gregory could have never divined on his own. Davis had a soft silky voice that always made his simplest statements sound like the most hallowed confidences, and a touch that was eternally gentle. And the gentlest gaze. Davis had become a Blood Spouse to Gregory as surely as Chrysanthe, and she too loved Davis.

In the severe and modern drawing room in Los Angeles, with its Impressionist paintings and French fireplace, Fareed had sat quiet for a long time, thinking to himself, shielding his ruminations perfectly.

At last he'd said gently, "You must tell no one about Viktor."

This was Lestat's biological son.

"Of course not, but they will know. They will all eventually know. Surely the twins know now."

"Perhaps they do," said Seth. "Perhaps they don't. Perhaps they are beyond caring what happens to us in this world." His voice was not cold or hostile. He spoke evenly and politely. "Perhaps they have not come to us because they are indifferent to what we do here."

"Whatever the case, you must keep the secret," Fareed thought. "We will be moving soon from this building to a safer, more remote compound. It will be safer there for Viktor."

"Has the boy no normal human life?" Gregory asked. "I don't mean to challenge your judgment. I am only asking."

"Actually much more than you might think. After all, by day he's quite safe with the bodyguards we provide for him, is he not? And again, what would anyone gain from making him a hostage? Someone has to want something before he takes a hostage. What has Lestat to give but himself, and whatever that is, it cannot be extorted." Gregory nodded, somewhat relieved when he considered it in that light. It would have been rude to push for more information. But of course there was a reason to take him hostage--to demand Lestat's or Seth's powerful Blood. Better not to point this out.

He had to leave this mystery in their hands.

But he secretly wondered if Lestat de Lioncourt wouldn't be furious when he discovered the existence of Viktor. Lestat was known for having a temper almost as extreme as his sense of humor.

Before that night was finished, Fareed had made a few more statements about vampiric nature.

"Oh, if only I knew," he said, "whether that thing is truly unconscious, or whether it retains an autonomous life and whether or not it wants something. All life wants something. All life moves towards something...."

"And what are we then?" Gregory had asked.

"We are mutants," Fareed answered. "We are a fusion of unrelated species, and the force in us which turns our human blood into vampire blood is making of us something perfect, but what that is, what that will be, what that must be, I do not know."

"He wanted to be physical," said Seth. "That was well known in olden times. Amel wanted to be flesh and blood. And he got what he wanted, and he lost himself in the process."

"Perhaps," said Fareed. "But does anyone really want to be mortal flesh and blood? What all beings want is to be immortal flesh and blood. And this monster has come closer to that perhaps than any spirit who temporarily possesses a child or a nun or a psychic."

"Not if he's lost himself in the process," said Seth.

"You speak as if Akasha possessed him," said Fareed. "But it was his goal to possess her, remember."

This had frightened Gregory and it had taught him something.

For all his protests of wanting to learn about all things, for loving and embracing the ever-evolving world, well, he was frightened of this new knowledge that Fareed was acquiring. Truly frightened of it. For the first time, he knew well why religious humans so feared scientific advances. And he discovered the heart of superstition in himself.

Well, he would suppress this fear; he would annihilate this superstition in himself and work diligently on his old faith.

The next night, they had embraced for the final time right after sunset.

Gregory had been surprised when Seth came forward and took Gregory in his arms. "I am your brother," he whispered, but this he said in the ancient tongue, the ancient tongue no longer spoken anywhere under the moon or the sun. "Forgive me that I've been cold to you. I feared you."