Blood provided these cells. It was the easiest form of all to maintain alive within the vampire organism. By the way, novice vampires prefer to drink blood of their own group; it’s easier for them to work with. And the thirst for this blood, the organism’s desperate striving not to die completely, developed into the vampire Hunger that is the source of so many problems. Experienced vampires can cope with it, but not all new converts can—that’s why vampires’ victims die so often from being drunk dry, although in reality the vampire has no need to do this, and he will vomit up the excess blood a few minutes later in any case . . . Blood from blood banks offers a solution, but not a complete one—the vampire’s subconscious still demands fresh, hot blood, flowing into his mouth straight from the arteries . . .

There were plenty of other interesting things concerning vampires. Some of them, strangely enough, have filtered through into the human sphere and been incorporated into folklore. For instance, the Master of Vampires. If a human being is turning into a vampire gradually—and that, after all, is the route followed in most cases—the level of toxin in his organism dwindles and it has to be constantly topped up by further bites. And the bites have to be from the same vampire who initiated him. The alternative is death. A fully formed vampire no longer requires this, but for reasons that are obvious to any politician, old and experienced vampires try not to spawn fully formed vampires. It is far better to keep your brood on a short leash and maintain genuinely absolute power over at least a small handful of the undead . . .

By the way, the biology of werewolves and shape-shifters is extremely complicated. However, they don’t drink blood, they eat raw flesh. The Light shape-shifters, who prefer to call themselves simply shifters, eat animal flesh. Dark shape-shifters eat human flesh. As far as I can see, here again the problem is mental rather than physiological—Bear told me that he couldn’t sense any difference in the influx of Power . . .

At the time I didn’t happen to ask about the circumstances in which he had tried human flesh. There were rumors that he used to be a Dark One. And there were rumors that he had fought in a human army and had been a Russian partisan during World War II, although it could have been another war. There were even rumours that our scientific section had spent a long time studying him, and you could expect them to carry out any kind of experiment . . .

I’m not convinced that knowledge makes people happier: as a general rule, those who are unaware of the truth are far more carefree.

So had Zabulon been right when he quoted that biblical truth to me: “With great knowledge comes great sorrow”?