“ ‘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 café. 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?’