had its twin on a chain about her neck. Hers had once belonged to the missing Jean-Pierre. She had not wanted to wear it. The thirst was on her, but she wanted to finish old Garoux quickly, without talk. But Damon Julian stilled her protests with soft words and cold eyes, so she wore the ring and stood meekly and listened.
When Julian had finished his story, Garoux had been shaking, his rheumy eyes full of tears and pain and hate. And then, astoundingly, Damon Julian had told Sour Billy to hand the old man his knife. "He ain't dead yet, Mister Julian," Billy had protested. "He'll cut your guts out."
But Julian only glanced at him and smiled, so Sour Billy reached back and produced the knife and put it into Garoux's wrinkled, liver-spotted grasp. The old man's hands shook so bad that Billy had been afraid he was going to drop the damn thing, but somehow he hung on to it. Damon Julian sat on the edge of the bed. "Rene," he said, "my friends are thirsty." His voice was so quiet, so liquid.
That was all he had to say. Alain produced a glass, a fine crystal etched with the family crest, and old Rene Garoux carefully cut open the vein in his wrist and filled the glass with his own steaming red blood, crying and trembling all the while. Valerie and Alain and Adrienne passed the glass from hand to hand, but it was left to Damon Julian to finish it off, while Garoux bled to death in his bed.
"Garoux gave us some good years," Kurt was saying. His words drew Sour Billy out of his memories. "Rich and safe, off by ourselves, the city here whenever we wanted it. Food and drink and niggers to wait on us, a fancy girl every month."
"Yet it ended," Julian said, a trifle wistfully. "All things must end, Kurt. Do you mourn it?"
"Things aren't the same," Kurt admitted. "Dust everywhere, the house rotting, rats. I'm not anxious to move again, Damon. Out in the world, we are never secure. After a hunt, there is always the fear, the hiding, the running. I do not want that again."
Julian smiled sardonically. "Inconvenient, true, but not without spice. You are young, Kurt. Remember, however they may hound you, you are the master. You will see them dead, and their children, and their children's children. The Garoux home falls into ruin. It is nothing. All these things the cattle make fall into ruin. I have seen Rome itself turn to dust. Only we go on." He shrugged. "And we may yet find another like Rene Garoux."
"So long as we are with you," Cynthia said anxiously. She was a slight, pretty woman with brown eyes, and she had become Julian's favorite since he had dismissed Valerie, but even Sour Billy could tell that she was insecure about her position. "It is worse when we are alone."
"So you do not wish to leave me?" Damon Julian asked her, smiling.
"No," she said. "Please." Kurt and Armand were looking at him as well. Julian had begun sending away his companions a month ago, very suddenly. Valerie was exiled first, as she had begged, though he sent her upriver not with the troublesome Jean, but with dark handsome Raymond, who was cruel and strong and-some said-Julian's own son. Raymond would be sure to keep her safe, Julian said mockingly as Valerie knelt before him that night. Jean was given his leave the next night, and went off alone, and Sour Billy thought that would be the end of it. He was wrong. Damon Julian had some new thought in his head, and so Jorge was sent away a week later, and then Cara and Vincent, and then the others, alone or in pairs. Now those who remained knew that none of them were safe.
"Ah," Julian said to Cynthia, amused. "Well, there are only five of us now. If we are careful, and we make each fancy girl last for, oh, a month or two, sipping slowly as it were-why then, I believe we can last until winter. By then one of the others will have sent word, perhaps. We shall see. Until then, you may stay, darling, And Michelle as well, and you, Kurt."
Armand looked stricken. "And me?" he blurted. "Damon, please."
"Is it the thirst, Armand? Is that why you tremble? Control yourself. Will you rip and tear when we reach these friends of Billy's? You know how I frown on