He withdrew a small white visiting card from his pocket, on which was written his full name in golden script: GREMT STRYKER KNOLLYS. Beneath it was his e-mail address and the numbers of his mobile phone.

But this blood drinker didn’t even acknowledge this human gesture. He could not. And Gremt moved the card discreetly to the center of the teak table and put it halfway under the brass base of the small shaded candle that was flickering there, giving a little bit of light to their faces. A soft golden light also came from the open doors along this deep porch.

This was a beautiful place.

It touched Gremt that this battered soul, this creature in such distress, had taken such time to wash the dirt from his shining hair, and that he was clothed now in a long well-fitted and richly jeweled sherwani, and black silk pants, and that his hands were clean and scented with true sandalwood.

“But how could you have known me then?” asked the blood drinker in a plaintive voice. “What are you? You’re not human, I know this. You are not human. And you are not what I am. What are you?”

“I am your friend now,” said Gremt. “I’ve always been your friend. I’ve been watching you for centuries, not just you, but all of you.”

Arjun was suspicious, of course, but more than anything he was horrified by what he’d done and he was warming piteously to Gremt’s persuasive tone, to the warmth of Gremt’s hand on his.

“All I wanted was to sleep,” Arjun said. He spoke with the same accent that was familiar in Goa and India to this day, though his command of English was perfect. “I knew I would return. My beloved, Pandora, she knows that I am here. She’s always known. I was safe here when the queen Akasha went on her rampage. She didn’t find me beneath this house.”

“I understand,” said Gremt. “Pandora is coming to you.”

“How can you know this?” Arjun asked. “Oh, truly I want to believe it. I need her so very much. But how do you know?”

Gremt hesitated. He gestured for Arjun to speak. “Tell me everything.”

“Ten years ago, I sat on this veranda with Pandora, and we spoke,” said Arjun. “I was still tired. I was not ready to join with her and her beloved friends. I told her I needed the sanctuary of the Earth and what we learn in the Earth, for we do learn when we sleep as if an umbilical cord connects us to the living world above.”

“That’s true,” said Gremt.

“It was never my intention to wake now.”

“Yes.”

“But this Voice. It spoke to me. I mean it was in my mind at first and it seemed these were my own thoughts, but in my sleep I did not embrace these thoughts.”

“Yes.”