“Looks, smells, and feels just like a human being,” he said. “But it isn’t a human being. It’s tremendously strong, I’d say perhaps eight to ten times as strong as a human. And it should be dead right now considering the blood I drew from it, but it is not dead. In fact, the blood is regenerating rapidly. It’s in some sort of deep sleep, what Fareed might call a coma. It has a name, papers, and an address in England.” He went through it with me. Garekyn Zweck Brovotkin. Fancy address on Redington Road, Hampstead. Keys to a Rolls. Passport, British driver’s license, British and American money, and some sort of paper ticket for a flight to London at midday.

“And you’re holding this thing as a prisoner?”

“Yes! Wouldn’t you hold it prisoner?”

“I wasn’t challenging you, just asking.”

“I’m bringing it to Paris tomorrow for Fareed. What else can I do with it? I’ve sent out warnings. If there are others like this, we should all be on alert.”

“I’ll be there, tomorrow, in Paris, myself,” I said. “I’ll see you then and I’ll see it.”

“Louis is going with you?”

There was a great deal more to the question than any casual listener might have supposed. Louis and Armand were the pillars of the New York household at Trinity Gate. Louis and Armand had been together for almost a century long before that.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m taking him back with me as soon as we wake.” I waited.

I stood on the flagstone sidewalk looking at the distant white wall of the old cemetery. It was quiet and beautiful on this Garden District street with its giant black-barked oaks, and the dark silent multistory houses on either side. “I need Louis,” I said.

Oh, the old entanglements, the old jealousies and defeats. But what creature in the world doesn’t want to be loved for itself? Even a non-human thing that looked human might want to be loved.

“I’m happy for you,” Armand said. Then, “This is serious. This being, whatever it is, it smashed the skull of a blood drinker and devoured the brain.”

“But did you actually see this happen yourself?”

“Yes, I saw it all from the point of view of the victim. I couldn’t get there fast enough. Remains have been confirmed. The brain’s gone.”

“And who is the dead blood drinker?”

“Killer, the old friend of Davis and Antoine. Killer, the one who traveled with the Fang Gang.”

“I remember,” I said. I sighed. I hadn’t despised Killer. In fact, I’d liked him. But there had been something blundering and petty and “small time” about Killer. I hadn’t liked the idea of his hanging about Trinity Gate. “What is this non-human thing made of?”