“Cloning?” asked Gregory as he dealt out a new table of cards. “I know nothing about it, but it doesn’t surprise me that people in my company are working on human cloning. It’s illegal, isn’t it? But I have never believed for a minute that the mortal doctors of the world could resist something so exciting as human cloning. There are times when I’ve encountered mortals in Geneva whom I suspected of having been genetically engineered. But then I know so little about it.”

Fareed sat quietly absorbing all this.

“Collingsworth Pharmaceuticals has nothing official to do with cloning,” said Gregory. “We have a policy against it. We have a policy against fetal tissue research.”

“That’s amusing,” said Fareed. “Because your laboratories are engaged in a great deal of research involving fetal tissue.”

“Hmmm…” Gregory was studying the cards closely. “I would love to design cards specifically for the Court. I think Lestat would have to be the king, though he eschews that title, and I think Gabrielle might be a magnificent queen. The jack could be Benjamin Mahmoud.”

Fareed smiled.

“But then perhaps each suit could be different. Marius might be the king of clubs, and I might be the king of diamonds, and Seth might be the king of spades.”

Fareed laughed. He said, “Collingsworth Pharmaceuticals has been working on the cloning of human beings covertly for twenty years.”

Gregory sat back again and looked at Fareed. “Very well. This offends you in some way? You think it’s dangerous? You think I should stop it?”

“You could stop it in your own company but could never stop it worldwide.”

“So what do you want of me here?”

“Just to listen to me for a little while,” Fareed said.

Gregory smiled. “Of course.” He went back to lining up the cards in suits.

What a charming, genial individual Gregory was, Fareed thought, and it was extremely difficult to realize that he was likely the oldest blood drinker now in existence. With Khayman and the twins gone, he was almost surely the oldest. He had been made before Akasha’s son, Seth, Fareed’s master, mentor, and lover, but not by much.

Everything about the tall, lean, and often silent person of Seth suggested great antiquity—including his eccentric mode of dress—a taste for sandals and custom-made floor-length robes of linen—and his slow and often unusual speech. That he now understood almost every current Indo-European language was plain enough, but he chose his words with extreme care and favored a stripped-down vocabulary which suggested a preference for concepts formed in his mind long before a plethora of adjectives and adverbs had been developed in any tongue to nuance them or sharpen them. And even the look in Seth’s deep-set eyes was chilling and remote. Often his expression seemed to say: “Do not seek to understand me or the time from which I came. You cannot.”