“There have been cases,” he said. “It involves severe starvation or controlled feeding. I’ve been able to reproduce it before in a laboratory environment. There are”—he yawned—“many variables. A vampire who feeds on other undead undergoes morphological changes. It must be done very carefully, or the vampire may die. Some undead . . .” He yawned again. “A consistent diet of other vampires over time . . . What was I saying?”

I had trouble concentrating, too. “Something about vampires feeding on other vampires.”

“It makes them feel older, more powerful to us,” Ghastek said. “The navigators can feel an undead’s age, and a diet of other undead makes a vampire feel older.”

I had met vampires that felt old enough to be pre-Shift before and I never could get over it. It should’ve been an impossibility. Before the Shift, the magic was so weak, it was barely there. The Immortuus pathogen didn’t manifest until after the first catastrophic magic wave. Now I knew. They weren’t really old. They were cannibals.

“Older how? By decades?”

“Yes.” Ghastek yawned. “Unless you just want an overpowered specimen, it’s not cost-effective to continue to feed a vampire other undead over time. The procurement of vampires is expensive. It’s really a waste.” He yawned again. “You have to tell your lion to avoid killing them. Cannibalistic vampires target the weaker of their species and they react to undead blood. Kill one, and a swarm will converge on the corpse.”

He closed his eyes.

“How many vampires are in Mishmar?” Robert asked.

Ghastek opened his eyes. “I’ve been here only once, five years ago. I had to take a test to be admitted to the Golden Legion. You must walk into Mishmar and bring out a vampire. Back then, I felt hundreds.”

Hundreds. We had to go. The faster we got out of here, the better our chances of survival. Ghastek and I were keeping us anchored here. I needed to get mobile fast.

I reached over for the container and began to eat more of Doolittle’s paste.

“Thank you,” Ghastek said.

“For what?”

“For keeping me alive.” He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Curran pushed through the door. His blond hair looked longer than it had before he left for North Carolina. Heavy stubble sheathed his jaw. He also hadn’t shaved in a couple of weeks. Blood splattered his clothes, some of it old, some new.

He landed next to me. I put my arms around him and kissed him. The taste of him against my tongue was magic. He kissed me back and held me against him. “Did you eat?”

“I did. It tastes much better than the feast Hugh was offering.”