“He was my friend and more than that,” said Gregory, “but when I rose in the Common Era, I never knew him. What was between us was in those dark nights near the beginning, at the end of the first millennium in our time, and he did great things for me, out of nothing but personal devotion.” Obviously some painful recollection was restraining him. He let the matter drop.

Benji raised his hand but spoke out before anyone had a chance to respond.

“Who’s heard from the Voice? Who’s heard him tonight here?” He looked around expectantly.

No one responded.

Antoine, my beloved fledgling from New Orleans, said softly that he’d never heard the Voice. Sybelle said the same. So did Bianca.

Then Notker spoke up, this bald but handsome blood drinker with the saddest eyes, big puppy eyes, beautiful and swimmingly deep but pulled down at the ends to make him look tragic even if he was smiling.

“He last spoke to me three nights ago,” said Notker. “He told me he had found his instrument, that he’d be imprisoned no longer. He told me to remain in my home—my home is in the French Alps as many of you know—and to keep my people there, that what was to happen with him had no bearing on me. He said he would come into his own, and only the young and the weak would die, and my children were too old, and too strong to be affected.”

He paused, and then went on.

“There are many here in this room whom this Voice would call young and weak.” He looked directly at Armand who sat a few chairs away from me on the left and opposite him. He looked at Louis. He didn’t bother to look at Sybelle or Benji or Antoine, or even Fareed.

“And I will tell you something else,” said Notker. “This Voice can drive a person mad. There is no stopping it now. Months ago, yes, before the killing began, one could block it. But not now. It’s too strong.”

This amazed me. I hadn’t reflected on this. But it made perfect sense. The more the Voice killed off the vampires of the world, the stronger the Voice became.

“That’s true,” Benji declared. “That’s what the young ones are reporting from all over. There’s no shutting him out now. The killings have made him strong.”

Fareed rose to his feet. He’d been sitting quietly beside Seth. They both wore what I would call cassocks of black velvet, with high neatly fitted collars and long rows of jet buttons. He stood facing me.