He entered the town with a nod to the few people he actually knew who gave him a wave as he passed—“the gaunt one with the big bones”—and followed the narrow street in the direction of the Cathedral.

Soon he came to the café he liked the most. It sold newspapers and magazines, and had a few tables set out on the street. Most of the patrons were inside tonight, as it was just a little chilly for them, but for a vampire the weather was perfect. Everard sat down, switching the music feed from Wagner to Vivaldi, whom he liked much better, and waited for the waiter to bring him his usual, a cup of hot American coffee which of course he could not and would not drink.

Years ago, he used to go to great lengths to make it appear that he ate and drank. Now he knew it was a waste of time. In a world such as this where people consumed food and drink for amusement as well as nourishment, nobody cared if he left a mug full of coffee on a café table so long as he left a generous tip. He left huge tips.

He settled back in the little iron chair which was likely made of aluminum and began to hum with the Vivaldi violin music as his eyes passed over the darkly stained old façades that surrounded him, the eternal architecture of Italy that had survived so many changes, just as he had.

Quite suddenly his heart stopped.

In the café across from him, seated at an outdoor table with their backs to the tall building behind them, sat an ancient vampire and what appeared to be two ghosts.

Everard was too terrified to even take a breath. At once, he thought of the threat of the Voice.

And here sat this ancient one not fifty feet from him, the color of waxen gardenias with bright deep-set black eyes and short well-groomed snow-white hair, looking directly at Everard as if he knew him, and beside him these two ghosts, clothed in bodies of particles, though how he knew not, both staring at him too. These creatures appeared friendly. What was the chance of that?

These ghosts were magnificent. No doubt about that. Their bodies appeared wondrously solid, and appeared to be breathing. He could even hear their hearts. And they wore real clothes, these ghosts. So very clever.

But ghosts had been getting better and better at passing for human for centuries. Everard had been seeing them in one form or another ever since he was born. Few had been able to form particle bodies for themselves in those long-ago days, but now it was fairly common. He frequently glimpsed them in Rome in particular.

But of all the modern apparitions he’d seen on city streets throughout Europe, these two were absolutely the best.