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wampyr admired it any less.
    “I do not,” the wampyr said, “retire to a coffin lined with grave-earth at dawn.”
    “Really?” Damian’s forehead wrinkled with amusement. “What do you do?”
    “Knit,” said the wampyr. “Mostly.” When Damian’s delighted laughter had subsided, he continued, “You are welcome to stay, but I rather imagine you need your rest.”
    “I should sleep,” Damian said. “But I won’t. I have an early train to New Haven, and a class at noon.”
    “How early?”
    “Three hours,” Damian said, with a glance at his watch. “I have to return the car; I rented it at the airport.” He let the sheets slip from his shoulders. “I suppose I should put my shirt on first.”
    “Has the bleeding stopped?”
    Damian brushed his fingertips across the wound. “Entirely.”
    His head stayed ducked, his eyes on whatever he could see of the smooth inside of his own elbow through the gloom. One of them had to say it.
    “Will I see you again?” the wampyr asked—not meaning in the company of your charming, ridiculous friends .
    Damian slid the back of his hand against the wampyr’s cheek. The wampyr turned to let it brush his mouth. So much warmth, so much life under the dense softness of that skin.
    “You have my card,” the sorcerer said. “Can I call you?”
    The wampyr tipped his head. “Once I have installed a telephone.”
     

     
    A housekeeper recommended by the staff at the Hotel Aphatos arrived an hour after sunrise. The first task the wampyr set her was to find out if the household’s gas and water could be reconnected. The second was to seek out a reputable electrician for purposes of wiring the house—and for the duration of that project, the wampyr would be staying at the hotel.
    There were limits to the strength of any man.
    Once ensconced in his temporary quarters, the wampyr began the task of integrating himself into New Amsterdam’s undead society. It was surprisingly easy: there were still only about two dozen of the blood in New Netherlands, and not all of them came into the city with any regularity. The new openness and ease of travel meant that European wampyrs came and went with relative frequency, and the Hotel Aphatos catered to them—as well as providing a place to meet their local peers.
    All he needed to do was sit in the lobby of the Aphatos with a book from the hotel’s extensive library on his knee, reading up on the Comte de St. Germain and his alleged six hundred years of history. That was a respectable age even for one of the blood, if you chose to believe he had attained it.
    The wampyr was long inured to similar clubs in Europe, but this one had a kind of openness he had not anticipated. How…American , he thought, as he watched the young men and women wander in and out, all of them quite obviously knowing exactly what sort of place this was. Outside, in a cold rain, a different set of protestors had gathered.
    In the Old World, the wampyr clubs were known by word of mouth among a certain select sort of people. They were not…he hesitated, seeking a phrase… tourist attractions .
    To think, less than a hundred years before, this young country had been a bastion of Puritanism that had hunted him from its shores for the mere crime of existing, and destroyed one of his offspring in the bargain.
    “America,” he muttered to himself.
    “First time here?” someone said from the next chair over.
    He’d known she sat there, of course. No fledgling of twenty or thirty years’ development was going to sneak up on someone of his age. But he’d been politely ignoring her, and had expected the same treatment in return.
    Then again, he supposed he had provided the opening.
    “First time since it was the Colonies,” he answered, turning on the edge of the chair.
    She was a tall, rawboned brunette, the pallor of her cheeks contrasting strikingly with dark, sparkling eyes. Her cheekbones and jaw stretched the taut skin just so, giving the impression