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of careful engineering.
    “Elizabeth,” she said.
    “I am using Jack,” he answered.
    “You have many names, I take it.”
    It was a moment when a mortal might have saluted her with a glass. The wampyr stuck a finger in his book, instead. “And you have only one. But you do not stand on ceremony, so neither shall I.”
    She smiled. “I’d heard about you. You’re the old one, from the continent. They say you’re staying.”
    “My dear,” the wampyr countered, “when one is as old as I am, one comes to realize that one never really stays anywhere. At most, one can be said, for a time, to alight.”
    She laughed. It wasn’t as good as Estelle Blacksnake’s laugh, or even Ruthanna Wehrmeister’s. But it was an honest effort, and the wampyr appreciated how hard it was to learn to laugh spontaneously again when one was dead. “We must seem a terribly callow lot to you.”
    He shrugged. “Are you all brothers and sisters?” The direction of his gaze took in two lovely young men who stood by the rail. They could have been twins, and possibly were, and they had gleaming black hair and a certain strength of nose and jaw line that gave them a resemblance to the young Elizabeth.
    “Jamie and Jeffrey are. That is to say, we were made by the same master. At about the same time.”
    “He—he?—he is young.”
    “By your standards, aren’t we all?” She hooked the waves of her hair behind her ear with a pinkie. “But yes; my creator’s name is Zachariah, and he was created in Boston around the turn of the century. How did you know?”
    He knew of one wampyr who had been in Boston in that era—one other than himself, in any case. Are you all Epaphras Bull’s get, then? the wampyr wondered. Was all America peopled with his great-grandchildren?
    He said, “Only the young make flocks of followers. At my age, most have learned the folly of it.”
    “Folly?”
    “Yes,” he said. “One brings another across the veil in order to keep them—well, ‘alive’ is as similar to what I mean as any word—and close. At my age, one also learns how few will remain either of these things for long.”
    Her fingers rested on his sleeve, her expression stricken. Her flesh was still heavy—the weight of youth. Someday, if she outlived everything she had ever known, she would be as light and dry as he, blown wherever the wind willed it. 
    He patted her motionless hand to reassure her that he was not offended, and stood. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I just overheard the concierge say my name into the telephone. Say, do you know anything about this fellow in the city who is pretending to be the Comte de St. Germain?”
    She looked up at him, but did not rise. “He styles himself Prince Ragoczy?”
    The wampyr nodded.
    “He comes in all the time,” Elizabeth said. “He says its nice to talk to somebody closer to his own age.”
     

     
    The concierge did have a message. He was just setting down his pen when the wampyr approached.
    “I beg your pardon. I am Jack Prior. Has anyone called for me?”
    Wise in the ways of wampyrs, the concierge showed no surprise. “A Dr. Thomas.” He offered the message across his desk.
    It was brief and impersonal, amounting to I hope you will consider our offer seriously, and I look forward to visiting with you again. The wampyr hid a smile. New Haven was not so far away. The beginnings of a court, already. And in somebody he did not mind talking to.
    “Thank you,” he said, and tipped the concierge. As he was turning away, however, he became aware that someone by the front doors, where a little light spilled in despite the awnings, was watching him.
    Prince Ragoczy, a light overcoat flapping unbelted atop his suit, had paused there in the fall of light with his arms crossed, and was considering the wampyr.
    The wampyr raised a hand and waved sardonically.
    Ragoczy dropped his arms to his sides and crossed the lobby, hasty strides billowing the skirt of his coat. As he came