“I waited till she was gone. I waited till she was all the way down the stairs and moving out the door. Then I went in search of a phone. I was going to call Fareed or Seth. Rhoshamandes had taken my phone. I figured it was somewhere. But I couldn’t find it. And the house had no landline. I could have used Benedict’s computer, probably, to reach Benji, but I didn’t think things through. I wanted to get away. I was afraid Benedict would be back at any moment, or she would come back. I didn’t know what to do.

“I took off on the road. I was still walking towards the front gates of the property when Seth appeared.”

I nodded. It was as I’d imagined. Benedict had been the worst choice of an accomplice for all this, as the others had said. But neither of those two, Rhoshamandes or Benedict, was inherently vicious. And it is a great fact of history that the most mediocre and well-meaning imbeciles can strike down the mighty with surprising effectiveness when there is such a huge disparity of souls.

Did this make me more forgiving towards them? No. Maharet had died a shameful death, and I was in a rage over it, and had been since I saw the burnt-out rooms in the Amazon and the burnt remains. The great Maharet. I had to suppress this rage for the time being.

There was an interval of silence and the Voice railed at me that I’d better enjoy this little cozy tête-à-tête with my son because it might well be my last. But he was dispirited. This was all halfhearted.

Viktor had questions for me then about what happened, and when he started to talk again, the Voice went quiet.

I was rather reluctant to tell him what I’d done, but Rose had witnessed it so I did. “We’re all human and preternatural,” I said. “No matter how long we live. And few humans can bear seeing a hand or an arm chopped off. It was the best way to paralyze him, to shift the power in the room with one or two strokes. And frankly I suspect most blood drinkers aren’t able to do that sort of chopping unless it’s in the heat of battle when we’re all butchers and fighting for our lives. I knew it would be a stalemate. It was a gamble, of course, but one I had to take. If Rhosh had fled …”

“I understand,” said Viktor.

He was in complete agreement. He had not wanted to play any role in the Voice’s game.

The Voice was listening quite attentively. I knew this. How I knew, I wasn’t certain, but I could feel the intensity of his engagement.

Viktor and I talked on a long time after that. He told me about his studies at Oxford and later in Italy and how he had fallen in love with Rose.

They were well matched when it came to gifts, Viktor and Rose. Rose had bloomed into a graceful and striking young woman. Her black hair and her blue eyes were not the sum of it. She had a delicacy of form and feature that I found irresistible, and her face was stamped with a mysterious expression that elevated her from the merely beautiful to a different and very seductive realm. But Rose had a vulnerability to her that shocked Viktor. Rose had been wounded and defeated in ways Viktor scarcely understood. This had apparently sharpened his attraction to Rose, his desperate need to be with her and protect her and make her part of himself.

It struck me how very strange it all was that she should come to be the mortal in this world that Viktor, given his origins, should love. I’d sought to protect her from myself, and my secrets. But this never really works. And I should have known that it would not. In the last two years, I’d kept away from her with the best of intentions, certain she must meet her challenges without me, and disaster had nearly destroyed her, yet she’d found herself in the arms of my son. I knew how it had happened, beat by beat, yet it still amazed me.

I knew what he wanted. I knew what she wanted. This Romeo and Juliet, so bright and filled with human promise, were dreaming of Death, certain that in Death they would be reborn.

Rose was cuddled up beside Viktor in the big leather wing chair by that time, and he was holding her with obvious affection and her face was white with exhaustion. She seemed about to faint. I knew she had to rest.

But I had more to say. And why should it be delayed?

I stood up, stretched, feeling something like a silent nudge from the Voice, but no annoying nonsense, and I went to the mantel and placed my hands on it, and looked down in the dancing gas fire.

It was almost dawn.

I tried to think, for decency’s sake, of what life might be for these two if we denied them the Dark Gift. But this was pointless. Really pointless. I didn’t know that I could live with such a decision, and I was certain that they could not mentally or spiritually survive such a denial.

Yet I felt compelled to ponder. And ponder I did. I knew what Rose was suffering now, blaming herself for all her many misfortunes, none of which had ever been her doing. And I knew how much she loved Viktor and how much he loved her. Such a bond would strengthen both of them through the centuries, and I had to think now in terms of our tribe, our species, being something not accursed, no, never accursed—a tribe that must no longer be left to sink or swim in a sea of self-loathing and haphazard depravity and aimless struggle. I had to think of us as these two young ones saw us—as living an exalted existence that they wanted to share.

In sum, my change of heart towards my own nature, and the nature I shared with all the Undead, had to begin in earnest right now.

I turned to face them.

Rose was quite awake now, and they looked at me not with desperation but with a quiet trusting resignation.

“Very well then,” I said. “If you would accept the Dark Blood, so be it. I don’t oppose it. No. I do ask that the one who gives it to you be skilled at the giving. And Marius would be my choice for this, if he is willing, as he knows how to do it, passing the blood back and forth over and over, creating the most nearly perfect effects.”

An immense change came over them silently, as they appeared to realize the import of my words. I could see that Viktor had a multitude of questions to ask me, but Rose had a quiet dignified expression on her face that I hadn’t seen in her since I’d arrived. This was the old Rose, the Rose who knew how to be happy, not the quivering battered one making her way through the events of the last months with fragile and desperate faith.

“I say Marius as well for other reasons,” I explained. “He has two thousand years and he is very strong. True there are others here who are infinitely stronger, but with their blood will come almost a monstrous power that is better understood when it is accrued over time. Believe me, I know, because I’ve drunk the Mother’s Blood and I have far too much power for my own good.” I paused. “Let it be Marius,” I said. “And those who are older can share their blood with you and you will share some of their strength and that will be a great gift as well.”