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"And I feared you," Gregory confessed, the old language coming back to him in a flood of sorrow. "My brother." Queens Blood and Blood Kindred. No, something greater, infinitely greater. And brother does not betray brother.

"You are too much alike, you two," said Fareed gently. "You even resemble each other--same high cheekbones, same slightly slanted eyes, same jet-black hair. Oh, some night in the far future I will complete a DNA study of every immortal on the planet, and what will that tell us about our human ancestors as well as our Blood ancestors?"

Seth had embraced Gregory all the more warmly after that, and Gregory had returned the affection with all his heart.

Back in Geneva, he kept the secret of Viktor even from Chrysanthe. He kept it as well from Davis, Zenobia, and Avicus. Flavius kept the secret as well. Flavius learned to trust his new and perfect limb over the coming months until it was truly part of him.

Years had passed since then.

The Undead world knew nothing of Viktor. And Fareed had told no one of Gregory Duff Collingsworth or his preternatural clan.

And two years ago--when Gregory came to spy on Lestat with David and Jesse in Paris--he'd realized that Lestat still had no inkling of Viktor's existence. He'd also learned, as he eavesdropped on the three in their hotel-room confab, that Fareed and Seth were still thriving, though now in a new compound in the California desert, and that Maharet herself had gone to Fareed for his skills.

That had reassured him greatly. He did not want to think of the twins as creatures of ambition. He dreaded the very possibility. And it had greatly comforted him to learn that Fareed's scans and imaging equipment had detected no mind in the mute Mekare. Yes, that was better than a host of Akasha's ambitions and ultimate dreams.

But it had tormented him that night in Paris--as he eavesdropped--to hear Jesse Reeves talk of the little massacre in the library archive of Maharet's household, and of Khayman's confusion and pain. Khayman had always been on the edge of madness as far as Gregory was concerned. Every time Khayman had eve

r come across Gregory's path, he had been more or less out of his mind. In the age of Rhoshamandes, he'd been Benjamin the Devil, and eventually the Talamasca had studied him under that name. But then Gregory considered the Talamasca to be harmless as Khayman was harmless. He was the perfect vampire for their treatises. Imbeciles like Benjamin the Devil and fast talkers like Lestat kept them believing the Undead were harmless and more interesting alive than dead.

And to think, before that horrid massacre in Maharet's compound, the great one had actually been spying on him, on Gregory, in Geneva, and she had been contemplating a meeting involving them all! That intelligence, too, had deepened Gregory's excitement and his dread. How he would love to talk to Maharet now, if only ... but his nerve had failed him two years ago when he had first heard of these things in his spying on Jesse Reeves, and his nerve failed him now.

Now, in the year 2013--as Gregory stood in Central Park in this warm September night, watching, listening, as inside the house called Trinity Gate, Armand and Louis and Sybelle and Benji gathered around their new companion, Antoine--all of this weighed on Gregory's heart.

Was Lestat still completely ignorant of Viktor's existence? And where were the twins at this very hour?

Gregory realized he'd not be joining Armand and Louis and the others tonight, even if the loveliest music on Earth was now coming from the townhouse, with Antoine playing his violin as Sybelle played the piano, both of them traveling the exhilarating crescendos of Tchaikovsky, effortlessly inflating the music with their own madness and charm.

But the time would certainly come when they must all meet.

And how many would die by fire before such a gathering took place?

He turned and headed deeper into the darkness of Central Park, walking faster and faster, his thoughts crowding in on him as he pondered whether to stay in this city or go home.

He had spent last night in his penthouse apartment on Central Park South and assured himself all was in order should he have to bring his family there. He was the owner of the building, and his basement crypts were as safe as those of Louis and Armand. No need to go back there now. He longed for Geneva, for his own lair.

Suddenly, without the conscious decision, he was ascending, and so rapidly that no mortal eye could have followed his progress, rising ever higher and turning eastward as the city of New York receded below him yet remained a wondrous and endless carpet of brilliant and pulsing lights.

Oh, what do the great electrified cities of this world look like to Heaven? What do they look like to me?

Perhaps these urban galaxies of electric splendor offered to the endless Heavens an homage, a mirror image of the stars.

Cutting higher and higher, he fought the wind that would stop him, until he had broken into the thinnest air beneath the vast canopy of silent stars.

Home, he wanted to go home.

A vague panic seized him.

Even as he moved eastward and out over the cold black Atlantic, he heard the voice of Benji Mahmoud broadcasting again. His brief visit with Antoine had apparently been interrupted by frightening intelligence.

"It has happened now in Amman. The vampires of Amman have been massacred. It is the Burning, Children of the Night. We are now certain of it. But we have reports of massacres in other places, random places. We are trying to confirm now whether shelters in Bolivia have been attacked."

Pushed to the limit of his strength, Gregory traveled faster towards the European continent, desperate suddenly to be at his own hearth. For the ancient ones, Chrysanthe, Flavius, Zenobia, and Avicus, he had little fear as Benji's frantic appeals faded into the roar of the wind, but what about his beloved Davis? Could it possibly be that his beloved Davis would once again suffer the hot breath of the Burning which had so nearly taken him from the Earth once before?

All was well when he arrived, but it was almost dawn. He'd lost half the night in traveling east, and he was weary to the core of his soul. There was time to embrace Flavius and Davis, but Zenobia and Avicus had already gone to the vaults beneath the ten-story hotel.

How fresh and beautiful Davis looked to him with his shining dark skin and liquid eyes. He had hunted that night in Zurich with Flavius and they'd only just returned. Gregory caught the scent of the human blood in him.

"And all's well with the people of Trinity Gate?" asked Davis. He was eager to return to New York, Gregory knew this, eager to revisit his old home in Harlem and the places where once as a young man he had sought to be a Broadway dancer. He was convinced the past could not hurt him now, but he wanted to put his hopes to the test.