Gregory explained about the mysterious woman, how she’d been working for him for ten years. Brilliant, imaginative, a scientist engaged in longevity and life enhancement research and possibly human cloning. It was Fareed who had insisted she wasn’t a human being.

“I suspect Fareed will come up with nothing,” Gregory offered now in his usual low-key polite manner. “Except perhaps a good candidate to come over into the Blood. I could see nothing in the photographs or tapes of the woman to indicate she wasn’t a simple flesh-and-blood mortal like all the rest.”

Only the scientists among us boldly brought creatures into the ranks of the Undead to do important work. Well, one couldn’t discount Notker of Prum, who had brought over many a fine singer or musician during the last millennium. But in general the rest of us had not caught up with the idea of “turning” a mortal simply because we had a job for him here or there. I found myself pondering all this again. The matter had huge implications, implications we’d have to deal with at some point. Who qualifies for the Blood? And how do we give it? Or does it simply go unregulated and ungoverned as it has for centuries, with every vampire determining for himself when it was time to select a companion or an heir?

“I don’t know what’s taking them so long,” said Gregory. “They must be in Geneva by now. In fact, they should be back here.”

“Now, let’s get to the matter of where other blood drinkers are just now,” said Marius, “and whether or not all know about this Garekyn, and how important it is not to harm him but to bring him back here alive, to speak to us, and tell us what he is and what he wants.”

“Well, Avicus and Zenobia are in the California desert at Fareed’s old compound,” said Marius. “Rose and Viktor of course are in San Francisco. Rose is revisiting the places that meant so much to her when she was alive. And they did receive the general alert and called in last night.”

“I want them back here now,” I said. “I told them. And I don’t like that this creature Garekyn has gone to Los Angeles. That’s too close to where they are.”

“I think we may be disturbing ourselves over nothing,” said Gregory. And then he repeated what he had said several times earlier that evening, that in all his life in this world, he’d never seen a creature that looked human but was not human. He had seen some strange beings all right, and certainly ghosts and spirits, but never anything biologically human that wasn’t human. “I think we’ll find some puerile and disappointing explanation for all this,” he said.