“Doesn’t everyone say that these days, since the publication of the Vampire Chronicles?” asked Everard angrily before he could stop himself. “Do any of you ever cop to having been a renegade or some clever menace who wheedled the Blood from a Gypsy blood drinker in a ragged caravan?”

The ancient one laughed out loud. But it was a good-natured laugh. “Well, I see I have indeed put you at your ease,” he said. “And that didn’t prove to be hard after all.” His face grew serious. “Do you have any idea who the Voice might be?”

“You’re asking me?” Everard scoffed. “You must have two thousand years in the Blood. Look at you.” He glared at the two ghosts. “Don’t you know who he is?” He flashed back on Teskhamen. “That little monster’s driving me crazy. I can’t shut him out.”

Teskhamen nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that, but it is possible to ignore him. It takes patience and skill, but it can be done.”

“Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH!” said Everard. “He sticks his invisible needle through my temple. He must be in the vicinity.”

He glared again at the two ghosts. They didn’t even shiver. Sometimes ghosts did that when you glared directly at them. The apparitions shivered or quivered, but not these two.

The one who appeared to be an older man extended his ghostly hand.

Everard took it, discovering it felt entirely human and that it was warm and soft.

“Raymond Gallant,” said the ghost in English. “If you’ll allow it, I’m your friend.”

“Magnus,” said the younger male ghost. His was a marvelous face for anyone, ghost or blood drinker, or mortal, for that matter. His eyes crinkled again agreeably as he smiled and he did indeed have a particularly beautiful mouth, what people call a generous mouth, as well formed as the Apollo Belvedere. His forehead was beautiful, and his hair moving back from it in waves of ashen blond was handsome.

Those names rang a bell, but Everard couldn’t place them. Raymond Gallant. Magnus.

“I don’t think the Voice is in the vicinity,” said Teskhamen. “I think he can be anyplace that he wants to be, anywhere in the world, but it does seem he can only be in one place at a time and of course that ‘place’ is inside a blood drinker’s mind.”

“Which means what, exactly?” demanded Everard. “How’s he doing it? Who is he?”

“That is what we would like to know,” said Raymond Gallant. Again he spoke in British English.

Everard switched into English immediately. He liked the brashness of English, and he had become entirely used to it as the language of the world today. But Everard’s English was American.