Viktor and Rose were already settled on the couch. And so was David. I took the recliner to the right. It pained me dreadfully to think Louis was about to be dismissed out of hand by the two scientific geniuses of the Blood, and that Viktor and Rose were here to witness his humiliation, but Louis seemed utterly undeterred.

Louis went right to it, standing off to Fareed’s left so that his small audience had a clear view of Fareed.

“You know what the silver cord is,” he said. He was rather deferential. “The old British psychics spoke of it, the cord that connects the astral body or etheric body to the biological body when a person astral projects.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with it,” said Fareed. “But I think of it as metaphorical.”

“Yes,” said David cheerfully and he began quoting from scriptures:

“Because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets; or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher broken at the fountain…”

“That’s it,” said Louis. “I’d forgotten it in scriptures. I remembered it from the Theosophical literature, and when it’s snapped the etheric body or brain or soul is free.”

“And the biological body dies,” said Rose. “I’ve read those wonderful books. I used to try so hard to astral project when I was in high school, but it never happened. I’d lie on my bed and try for hours to go up and out the window and over New York, and all that ever happened was that I went to sleep.”

Louis smiled. “But let’s for the moment think of it in reverse. Let’s not say if the silver cord is snapped the body dies, but rather if the body dies, the silver cord is snapped.”

“What has this to do with us, Louis?” Fareed asked. He was really playing the gentleman. I knew how tired he was, how discouraged.

“Well, I’ll tell you. I believe that these cords that connect us to Amel are a version of the silver cord; it’s the silver cord connecting Amel’s etheric body to the new etheric body formed in a new vampire—and the reason that we all remain connected is that we never actually die physically, when we are made. There is an etheric brain planted in us at the time we are brought over and it quickly generates an etheric body in us; but our biological body doesn’t really die. It’s merely transformed. So we remained tethered—Amel’s etheric body and our etheric body. If we did actually die, the cord would snap, and the new etheric body which has taken over the physical body would be free of Amel.”