But they all had highly expressive faces, mobile and flexible faces. And again that finely polished sculpted look that so enhanced their allure.

I took my usual chair at the head of the table, with Marius opposite me at the far end. My mother sat to my left with Sevraine beside her, and Pandora beside Sevraine, with Derek, Kapetria, Welf, and Garekyn filling out the remaining places. On Marius’s left and coming towards me up the length of the table were Teskhamen, Gremt, Arion, Gregory, Seth, Fareed, and Armand.

Seth was about in the middle, directly opposite Kapetria. Then came David, the youngest blood drinker in the room. And Armand was close to my right hand.

Cyril and Thorne shut the doors and came round to where I could see them, and then took their positions as Marius directed, flanking the row of seated guests along the far-left wall. But they remained standing.

I sat forward and folded my hands, my eyes finding the tiny camera lenses in the walls, and my ears picking up the very low throb of the audio and video devices.

“Amel is with us,” I said, addressing Kapetria. “He’s inside me, but then you know all about that. You know the whole story. Well, he’s present, so to speak, but whether he’ll say anything remains to be seen. He may speak up. He may not. But he is here. And he can see and listen through any one of us, but not through more than one at a time.”

“Thank you for explaining this,” said Kapetria. She smiled. Her white teeth were perfect. They all had perfect teeth. But her face, expressive as it was, was transformed when she smiled. “And if I want to address a question directly to Amel?” I wondered if she was a true female in any sense.

“Address the question to me.” I sat back and folded my arms, remembering vaguely some inane nonsense about what this gesture means in such a group, but ignoring it, and I continued to speak. “That’s the best that I can offer. He is here, as I said. He is listening. I can feel it.”

“How?” she asked, with an innocent curiosity. Her huge eyes suggested Middle Eastern women to me. Her eyebrows were high placed and long, rising at the outer ends.

“A pressure,” I said, “at the back of my neck, the pressure of something living inside me, something that can flex when it wants to. When he’s not here, well, the pressure’s just gone.”

She appeared to be thinking this over.

“Before we go on,” I said, “let me say that we’re prepared to restore the house of Garekyn Brovotkin in London. But there is no way our brother, Killer, can be restored to us or the blood drinker killed on the West Coast.”