Avicus was Egyptian, tall, dark skinned, and half mad still after a thousand years of serving the old blood cult. He had been a slave to the old religion right into the Common Era, whereas Nebamun had fled it thousands of years before. His Blood Wife, Zenobia, was a delicately built female with voluminous black hair and exquisite features; she brought into the house a universe of new learning, having been brought up in the palace of the Emperor of the East before being brought into the Blood by a wicked female named Eudoxia who had made war on Marius and ultimately lost.

Zenobia had been left to the mercy of Marius, but he’d loved her, making her Blood Kin, and he had taught her how to survive on her own. He had approved her love for Avicus.

Zenobia cut her long hair nightly, and went forth in the garb of a man. Only in the quiet sanctuary of the home did she revert to female garments and let her black hair flow over her shoulders.

Both would never lift a finger against Marius, or so they told their new mentor. Marius was the sworn protector of the Mother and the Father. He maintained them in a magnificent shrine, filled with flowers, and lamps, its walls painted with verdant gardens.

“Yes, he’s the clever and educated Roman all right,” said Flavius. “And a philosopher of sorts, and every ounce the patrician. But he has done all in his power to make existence bearable for the Divine Parents.”

“Yes, I have come to understand all this,” Gregory had told them. “The story of this Marius becomes ever more clear. Nothing evil must ever befall him. Not while he protects the Divine Parents. But one thing I vow, my friends, and do listen. I will never ask that you bring harm to any blood drinker, unless that blood drinker seeks to bring direct harm to us. We hunt the evildoer, and we seek to feed as well upon the beauty we see all around us, the marvels we are privileged to witness, don’t you understand?”

It took years for them to fully comprehend Gregory’s approach to life and how little it mattered to him, the wars of blood drinkers against one another.

But he loved his only family, his own Blood Kin.

Century after century, they had remained together, sustaining one another on wondrous tales and shared learning and unquestioned loyalty and love, Gregory’s ancient blood giving strength to those under his wing. From time to time other blood drinkers did join them but only for a while and never to be Blood Kindred. Yet they generally came and went in peace.

After Venice, they had moved by the year 800 into northern Europe, and finally into the area now known as Switzerland. They continued to greet others with kindness, making war on them only in defense of themselves.