The late twentieth century had given Garekyn new powerful instruments to fear, and also to help in his search for the others. Everywhere he traveled, he needed complex and carefully worded documents, and he lived in dread of an accident or illness that might put him in the hands of doctors who might discover in an emergency room that he was not human.

But the invention of the internet and the spread of social media had greatly emboldened Garekyn with regard to his search, providing opportunities for him that hadn’t existed before. And it was through the internet that Garekyn had discovered the delightful and spirited Benji Mahmoud and the complex realm of Benji’s blood drinkers, blood drinkers of all ages who called Benji’s phone line for help from everywhere in the world, often enlisting the broadcast itself as a means of finding their lost ones.

What a striking idea, thought Garekyn. Might he not somehow through this broadcast find his lost ones? But how should he go about it, and how might he prevent an onslaught of responses from playful blood drinkers eager to pretend that they were Garekyn’s companions and eager to play along with Garekyn’s realm as humans sometimes did with the realm of Benji Mahmoud?

Benji Mahmoud thought he had a foolproof way of separating all others from his blood drinkers. He and his vampire kindred spoke in voices on the radio that only other vampires with their powerful preternatural hearing could hear. But Garekyn Brovotkin could also hear those voices effortlessly and detect a subtle difference in timbre in those voices from the voices of the humans who so badly wanted to play the imaginary game of the Children of the Night and the kingdom of the great Prince Lestat.

Almost immediately after his discovery of these enchanting broadcasts, Garekyn had heard mention of “Amel,” and of the curious mythology of Amel, and Garekyn’s mind had been disturbed as if by a whirling sandstorm. Amel. That very name, Amel.

This “Amel” according to the mythology of Benji Mahmoud was a spirit who had entered the world of human beings through the seduction of two powerful red-haired witches in ancient times, witches who had learned to communicate with the spirit and manipulate him. That these witches were red haired had also startled Garekyn. Garekyn had seen in a flash for the first time the being that he himself had known as Amel—with his pale white skin and red hair! And it had been this being who had said the words: the splendor of humanity.