Page 24

"I don't know. I want you to go to him. You waste your time and my time! I want to go up! I want to be in the clouds."

I didn't move.

"Amel," I said. "The things Gremt said about you, were they true?"

Silence. Confusion in him. Agitation.

Again came that flash: a city of glistening buildings falling into the sea. Was it a real city, or was it some dream of a city?

A spasm in my throat, and in my temples. I looked up into the blinding swirl of snow. And then I closed my eyes. I saw the burning city etched on the darkness.

A beat. A moment. The soundlessness of snow is remarkably beautiful. I had a hand filled with snow. And my fingers suddenly curled around the snow though I hadn't told them to.

"Stop that," I said.

No answer from him. There was a faint pain in my fingers as I relaxed them against his will. This really alarmed me. What if he could take over my entire body like this, make me stand, make me sit, make me go up--?

"Gentlemen," I said beckoning to Cyril and Thorne. "I'm going up and over the sea. The sun's just setting on the city of New Orleans."

Thorne nodded. Cyril said nothing.

"I want to be in the only city I love more than I love Paris," I said as if I were speaking to people who cared.

"Where you go, we go," said Cyril with a shrug. "Long as I feed sometime or other in the next fortnight, what's it to me if you want to go to China?"

"Don't say that," Thorne muttered, rolling his eyes. "We're ready when you are, Prince."

I laughed. I think I liked Cyril a little better than Thorne, but then Thorne had his moments too. And Thorne had suffered agony when Maharet was killed. Maharet had been the maker and the goddess of Thorne. Thorne had begged for permission to lead a band of vengeful vampires to burn Rhoshamandes for the slaying of Maharet. So the real and true Thorne was only just emerging from that grief.

"All right, gentlemen, and now we make for the stars."

I shot upwards with all my strength, traveling above the clouds within seconds. I knew they were right behind me. Did they see the constellations as I saw them? Did they see the great white moon as I saw it? Or were they simply fixed on me as they struggled to keep up with me?

With all my strength I sent out my call.

Armand, Benji--tell my beloved Louis I'm on my way.

Over and over I sent out the call, as if my telepathic voice could strike the moon and be deflected with its light, shining down on the busy world of New York, on the many rooms and crypts of Trinity Gate, as I rose higher and higher and soared across the great dark void of the Atlantic.

3

Garekyn

AS THE SUN set in New York on this mild winter evening, Garekyn Zweck Brovotkin was walking briskly up Fifth Avenue, headed for a trio of Upper East Side townhouses called Trinity Gate. The air was fresh and clean, or clean as it could ever be in New York, and he had hope in his heart.

This might prove a colossal waste of his time, he realized, but then what did he have in this world but time, so why not check out the mysterious resident of Trinity Gate--a youngling radio star Garekyn had been listening to of late, an audacious character by the name of Benji Mahmoud, who claimed to be a "blood drinker"--a species of mutational immortal--and spoke in a heated whisper over the internet nightly to other mutated beings who referenced again and again the name of a controlling force in their lives called "Amel"?

Amel.

It was a name Garekyn had not heard spoken in twelve thousand years, and he could not afford really to ignore it.

The broadcasts of the blood drinker had been going on for years. They lasted from one to two hours nightly; and thereafter the internet stream was made up of recordings of older broadcasts, and Garekyn had sifted carefully through all that material for the last six months until he had exhausted all broadcasts currently available in media of any form. He had learned all he could in this way about Benji Mahmoud and the beings who made up Benji's universe: blood drinkers all throughout the world, thought to be fictional by the New York journalists who wrote now and then on the "phenomenon" of Benji's "program," though human ears could not know the full extent of it.

Ah yes, Garekyn thought as he walked faster now, it might all be a waste of time. But he loved New York at twilight, with the traffic thickening, and lights coming on brilliantly all around him in towers and townhouses, and people taking to the streets as they left their places of employment to join in the vigorous nightlife that would go on unabated until the small hours of the following morning.

And so if I do not find literal immortals on this night, Garekyn thought, what have I lost?

Garekyn was a tall male, just over six feet in height, of a powerful and lean build with long black curling hair to his shoulders. There was a heavy gold streak in his hair, on the right side of the center part, and he had fierce engaging brownish-black eyes. His nose was long and narrow, and he had very dark brown skin. He was walking fast, wanting to reach his destination before darkness. The exalted tribe of Benji Mahmoud came alive only at darkness, according to their "mythology," and he was out to discover if the mythology had a bit of truth.