Paris, circa 1780 AD.

Paris. City of Enlightenment, if not light. Crowds pressed against the large black carriage as it came into the city. The first real prejudices against the aristocracy having taken seed bred distrust of anyone with money. And, where this made Shade want to strip down to modest black clothes and teach the wretches to read, it made Louis scoff and sneer. "It's a miracle, an almighty miracle the wretches have gotten this far beyond living in caves and fearing the sun and moon."

"You used to be Human," Shade would say.

And then Louis would send him a beautiful smile from his arsenal of disarming and seductive smiles. "I know."

They didn't bother with buying a house, too much trouble in this city. They simply picked an apartment they liked the look of and moved in, never minding that it was already occupied. And Shade's own cruel streak begun with the turning of Troy he didn't even complain the game was unfair. In fact Shade became a brilliant player of Let's Drive Phillip Mad.

Shade and Louis took Phillip's bed for themselves, the "demonic women" the second bedroom. They slept only in the brightest part of the day, the hours Phillip was out of the house. Even though they had no real use for the beds at night they kept Phillip from sleeping, thinking, he'd be too worn in the day to be trouble to them. If he got the courage to invite someone in they'd conveniently disappear, convincing the guest only that Phillip was seeing things that weren't there. When Shade or Louis felt daring they stood or sat right in the room while visitors came to listen to Phillip rave. All the time that Phillip pointed at them and shouted in their direction they suggested to the visitor they were seeing nothing.

When Phillip was alone with them they spoke of killing. Even if they had not committed any very horrible murders recently they improvised stories, the gorier the better. If Phillip should come close enough to touch them, they touched first, making Phillip all the more convinced there were real demons in his house.

Phillip might try to explain to his friends that demons were real and four of them and their pet hellhound lived in his flat, but his friends would only laugh. Science had killed God.

This philosophy amused Shade. He had once been atheist. He had not believed in gods, only in what logic proved to exist. But then he had seen the gods, touched them, spoke to them, and seen the "miracles" they performed could all be explained by their science. How ridiculous to think science could kill God, when God used science to manipulate Humans daily.

Daily Shade visited the University and listened to their arguments. Every day he was more in love with the child-like arrogance of all Humans, the self-centredness and greed that kept the race going. But how else could a slave race survive without its masters, but to become arrogant and self centred? The whole concept of freedom relied on acknowledgement of the self, the ego as modern men would say.

How else but by vying amongst themselves for those few positions of leadership, to fight wars in urgent need to find out who was the master and who were the slaves, to separate the sheep from their shepherds, the doms from the subs.

No other way to live, not for Humans, not for the blind. And the few who realise the absurdity of Human reality are always denounced as mad. And it's so rare that a really enlightened madman becomes a leader, rarer still that the position of leadership does not blur his original vision, that lackeys, disciples, do not move in to distort his message for the followers.

So heart-breakingly sad, these creatures groping in the dark for the lightswitch. Another ten thousand years might pass before they have another true revelation toward being superhuman. Another ten millennia before they unite the power of their wills and move toward the light as one.

And Louis was still so caught up with their ideas. Flirting with Death as he made friends of those who gain power only to flaunt it over the poor. Playing games as he stood on that razor's edge above the mob. He'd lived in Rome, he ought to have known the danger of the mob, known that Humans are extremely dangerous united in numbers, as powerful as they are meant to be in those fleeting times of unity.

Perhaps the boy-Spawn knew. Maybe he relished the danger, fed off it.

Louis always sought experience as much as Shade sought knowledge from books.

It amused Shade most to hear news of the Americas. To hear that the people of the colonies controlled by Europe had been united by the idea that they deserved freedom, that a land so large should not be ruled by a land so far away and so small. And they had won their freedom, won the right to write the histories as all winners do.

Shade did not guess that the common people of France would be far behind in revolting.

But, on the other hand, the exploration that had led to the birth of America seemed an unfortunate thing to Shade. All those captains on their ships, believing they had the right to colonise new lands. They considered themselves missionaries, and that a good thing. They were really as bad as the Angels that had influenced them with their own missions. They had destroyed nations much older than those they had sailed from, even re-named a chain of continents America after a cartographer.

In the time bomb that was Paris Shade only shook his head and sighed. It was pointless worrying about damage already done. If he cared he would bring the Humans around with the truth. But Shade wasn't sure he did care about them that much.

Phillip, for one, made him care less. One evening Phillip surprised the Nephillim Spawn living in his house by running to the front door in his night-shirt and bringing in the first two men that he could persuade to follow. Shade was unprepared, sitting back in a chair sipping blood from a crystal glass. It was Faye who warned them, being gifted with greater powers of hearing, she came into the parlour in her undergarments just as Troy jumped up from his place in front of the fire. "He brings two men in off the street," she said.

Shade reached. "Hide," he said quickly. "They don't feel as blind as most." He took up his glass and ran back to the master bedroom.

Louis was staring at him strangely. Shade just shook his head, not knowing. "Troy," Louis said.

The wolf wasn't with them. Shade went back to the parlour. Troy stood defensively, eyes on the far door, growling. He didn't come when Shade called. He'd always obeyed before. Shade didn't have time to wonder. He lifted Troy up into his arms and moved back into the shadows just as the three men entered the room.

They were very pretty young men Phillip had invited in, boys who would have made splendid fops if they had any money. Shade backed out of the parlour silently. He had to hold Troy's jaw shut to keep him from making noise.

Louis was in the window, hand outstretched. Shade could hear Phillip, close to the door, babbling about demons as he often did.

The girls were already lying low on the roof when Shade got up there. Louis stayed closed above the window, listening with ears. But Faye could hear every word said without ears, and if Shade tried he could do the same.

"You should write plays for the stage, Monsieur," one of the men said, "it's an interesting story, but I see no demons." Troy writhed as the man spoke.

"I swear to you with God as my witness, there are evil things going on in this house."

Min looked sternly at Shade then lowered her eyes to the wolf. "He'll give us away, can't you control him?"

"I don't know what's wrong with him," Shade said quietly.

"There is no God," the other man was saying.

The first made a low laugh. "Ah, Monsieur, no God, and no demons either, I'm afraid, only mortal life and death."

Troy broke free and made a bark.

"Did you hear something?" The voice came from the window.

Louis glanced up at Shade. Don't be an imbecile, it's only a dog barking.

"Don't be an imbecile it's only a dog barking," said the other man.

Phillip was going on about the ghostly hellhound that the demons kept. "It looks like a great silvery wolf," he said.

"A wolf?" Asked one of them slowly.

"A ghost wolf," Phillip said.

Louis leaned down over the window. You're frightened, you know you are. But there's nothing here. Just go.

"Ah, there's nothing here. The old man has you spooked. Let's go."

"They're leaving," Faye whispered.

Louis looked over his shoulder at Shade, smiled.

Troy became calm as soon as the two men had gone.

b b b

There was an occasion, when as favour to Louis, Shade let himself be dressed and made up, to go to a ball with the others. The sight of himself in white face and wig disturbed him terribly, but the sight of his son in the same paint and coiffure stunned him with the opposite emotion. When someone looks that strange and beautiful you forgive them for changing the colour of their skin.

And they went out to the royal palace, Louis looking quite foppish, and yet so much more angelicate than any other man with rouged cheeks and lips. Gilt slippers, breeches and waistcoat of the emperor's yellow silk, emerald satin coat trimmed with gold embroidery, and everything else new and bright white as was his face and hair, even his hands. The make-up, all artful.

They had come a considerable distance from the cosmetic arts of the Romans. And yet they looked amazingly like them. And they still painted their faces with lead. And that couldn't be good for them; the Romans had gone half-mad from it.

When Shade stood among the aristocrats, the king and his lackey's, the Humans' frailty impressed itself upon him. Their faces after years of being made up, wrinkled even in relative youth, teeth and eyes shot. Those who began the day with smooth skin and bright eyes and who also were expert painters of flesh looked divine, and all others looked unclean, mortal.

Min would hide her fangs behind her fan, laughing as she devoured ladies with her dark brown eyes. "Ah, I think she finds her corset a burden," she would say secretly to Shade and then disappear.

Louis would flirt with anyone and everyone, literally chased about by men and women. And then, seeing a lovely young woman, elegantly and simply dressed, her own auburn hair tied up and decorated with violet beads, he was moved to pursue. "Her name is Isabelle," Faye said.

And Shade said to her, "She looks so familiar, have we seen her somewhere before?"

"I thought I had met her before also, when I met her, Isabelle says people often tell her she looks familiar."

"It must be that she's so lovely and yet so simple."

"She's quite poor, an artists' model, but there's always someone who'll buy her a dress and brings her to the ball," said Faye. "In China, I was so spoiled..."

As dawn neared Shade found Louis moping by a fountain, alone. Louis didn't talk about what had happened. When they got back to their apartment Phillip was sitting in a corner rocking back and forth.

Louis crawled into bed with his father.

"You still love me," he said.

Shade didn't move or speak.

"They all want me, except the ones I actually like. I can't love Humans the way you do. I can mimic every move they make perfectly, speak all their languages, but I can't be one. The only person in the world who loves me is you. No one else knows that I exist."

Shade sat up and kissed his son deeply.

Shade had thought it would be a terrible sacrifice. He thought it would cause him pain and he was willing to make this sacrifice for his son. Shade knew the language of bodies too well to not know that Louis' needed to be held tightly, needed badly to be kissed. But Shade realised after a moment that it wasn't going to cause pain. He felt better than he had in years kissing Louis, and it didn't matter for an instant that it was his son.

No words. Love isn't like that. Only when things go bad do lovers speak, when things are going well, you just keep on loving. (Robert thinks Hesse may have made this point more eloquently.) And so they kissed a while, Louis making violent movements with his arms and hands, always wanting to hold something, and then wrenching and clawing as if the pain would make Shade help him somehow, lift him up and hold him even tighter. His mouth tasted of blood, though his lips were still waxy, and the rest of him was a strange mix of blood and talc.

And then Shade felt the fangs stab into his chest and lay back against the headboard. Still as stone as he let Louis take the blood, fangs biting at his own lip at the exquisite pain. He thought, perhaps having had lovers of his own kind had taught Louis to appreciate pain.

Being in close proximity to other Nephillim Spawn felt better than being as close to Humans night after night. And Shade did this infrequently. He brought Louis' mouth to his and tasted blood, told himself: "No, not another one, don't be like Mad Sarah."

The next evening Louis was getting dressed up again, as if he was really looking to have his heart broken. Faye and Min were going out to a theatre. Shade was left sitting at home, with Troy at his feet and their pet Human, Phillip, in a stained nightshirt crawling along the walls. Louis bared his teeth to the man as he was leaving. The smell about Phillip worsened.

Shade went into the bedroom, got The Book, and returned to the parlour to read by lamplight. The gas lamps gave off light even more yellow than the crude electric lights Louis had wired their Palazzo with and Shade was wondering when white light would become common place in Human households. Something moved between Shade and the light.

He knew who it was before he looked, his superhuman senses giving him the name. "Lucifer," he said slowly.

Shade looked up to his side but the Satan was already moving around to the front of the chair. Shade followed, their eyes met. Shade took in the entire image then, dressed nearly as a modern man, stockings, breeches, frock coat, Brussels lace, and almost entirely in red.

Phillip screamed.

"Who's the madman?" Lucifer asked. He produced a long cigarette filter from thin air, it seemed, a cigarette from a pocket.

"If there were a madman about I might acknowledge his presence," Shade said keeping his eyes set on Lucifer. "What do you want?"

"My Dear Shadow, why must I want something?" He asked. He could sound so very sweet when he wanted to, like Louis.

"You usually do-"

"Beginning to sound like your sister, what do you want?"

"Well..."

Lucifer feigned surprise, arms outstretched as he shrugged, looking suspiciously like he was crucifying himself. "I just came to see you, Shade." The cigarette lit and Lucifer looked back at the madman. "Mind if I smoke?" He asked.

Phillip looked about to vomit.

"You know Humans are more afraid of being insane than of devils. If there were one about, I'd think it wise to keep him wondering."

Smoke came from Lucifer's nose as he huffed. "Don't know if I should be pleased about this doubting God stuff. You're philosophical, what do you think? Do they doubt the existence of God more than they doubt the existence of evil lurking in the dark?"

"Yes, probably. They don't need a god to represent goodness, order, law, knowledge, these are good, but the unknown, that is still evil."

Lucifer smiled. Beamed at Shade, began playacting, holding a hand over his heart as if he'd been stabbed, "We don't believe in your mysteries anymore. We don't believe in you." He fell forward with laughter, sucking in smoke before standing. "It's His own fault. They burnt Gabri's little friend, Joan, at the stake, these French."

"Yes. I thought myself, Gabriel is not having such good luck these past years."

"He failed to move quickly enough, leaving them 1800 years without any news. They've outgrown their dependence on Him."

"Perhaps He means them to grow independent."

"Oh, you have been speaking to That Badly Made Cherub, haven't you?"

"Yes, Gabriel and I speak...sometimes."

Lucifer shook his head slowly. "Of all the things He could have done...put signs in the sky before the German Tribes, give the Muslims victory over those damned Christians, send Angels to bring New World Natives over to Europe to discover it, bring the Floating City out of the Abyss..."

"The Germans would not have faired any better than the present Catholics. And if I recall, you had something to do with the Crusades."

"Nothing that changed the outcome of battles. I just wanted them to know what it's like to have all youth despise you. Old Humans, they become too much like those old Angels, staying on the winning side, whoever's it is."

"Nothing that changed the outcome? You sent Nicolas on that crusade. And I will not defend you or Gabriel in this. You can not blame a slave race for following those on the winning side. They still take a sick sort of pride in serving those who are strongest."

"That Cherub and her cronies will send their Humans to die for all sorts of causes they don't actually believe in, so two-faced, Angels."

"You're an Angel, Lucifer."

"Yes, and so they call me liar."

Shade made a shrug with his left shoulder.

"This talk reminds me...I have reasons to see you, Shade. Released a Human from Torment..."

"She was my wife."

"And she killed herself rather than be with you! It was a bad decision. Not only was a Human released from torment but the time you spent in her stead was wasted. All wasted!"

"You do not own me."

"I own your allegiance, Nephill Spawn. Oh, but I see it was reluctantly That Arch Aish even let you take the torture unto yourself, for you had been romancing Death from the very beginning. And Death the very sort of Angel I despise, at least the Badly Made One had the balls to help her mother when it came to it, at least the bad one isn't sycophantic as Death. Every night you gift her with souls and for me, whom without you would be dead, nothing."

"Are you angry? Angry, or jealous that I am loved by Angel whom you despise? It was not your idea to save the Nephillim."

"It was my action. In fact if all be told truthfully I saved not only the Nephillim but Humans as well, Wotzisname, Gilgamesh, before they were all wrested from me by certain other Angels. Michael and his damn Jews!"

"Don't make me listen to this, you-ignorant nagging gyne! What is it you want of me? What reason do the Old Queens give you? You know it was they who designed everything, not you. You were too concerned with making yourself beautiful. They used to say men like you were hunting Aphrodite with your beauty, but it's Tristopher you would know her as."

Lucifer exhaled in inverted stars and made a point of not looking at Shade. He spoke quietly. "Yes, and until He scorned me Tristopher and I were as friends, as That Cherub and That Ophan Teacher are. He will make himself flesh for them, beloved Humans, which were my idea to make, but for me, He will not make himself my equal, He never would. I was in Sadness and Tristopher of all creatures understands that feeling, especially as it results from loss. Ah! But look at me now, no more radiant that a man, I must look in the mirror and see the object of His affection which has replaced me." And then he looked at Shade, "And you say that I am a man, hunting out a mad woman with my beauty? Stupid. I am still one of the Seraphim, if you say I am anything less than perfectly beautiful in form the others' tears would cause another flood."

"Yes, yes, quite tragic-"

"Let he who is flawed in beauty accuse others of hunting out Aphrodite."

"Your bitching isn't going to patch up the universe. Or don't you care if that ever happens? You are proud and self-centred as a Human!"

"Care? Who has cared more? It got me no where. Don't you dare insult me! I am your Lord! I own your allegiance. If healing the universe is in my power then I shall refuse to submit all the longer just to spite Him. It was all my idea, Humans, mine, and you, Shade, my idea. All stolen!"

"This is all the allegiance you're going to get, My Prince. I am no one's lackey."

"I am through with you!" Lucifer screamed. Something red flickered in the blackness of his eyes. "You think to betray me? You really don't know what you are doing. All right, you just go on, Nephill Spawn. If we were not on Earth I would destroy you utterly in a blink of my eye. These mortals think this the devil's playground, but they don't know how good they have it..."

Shade placed The Book under the chair and stood to face Lucifer. They appeared to be the same height. "Kill me then, isn't it in your power to kill your servants? Go on, try. Don't you want to see what my death looks like?"

Lucifer laughed, and he even seemed amused. "I don't have to kill you to destroy you, Shade. Ah, I see your fear. You know, Louis gives me presents, serves me better than you. I might just replace you with him. Louis would appreciate the power that comes from being Lord of the Nephillim. And he would not object to using the myth of the Vampir to gain power over Humans." For a moment Lucifer stared at Shade, the red in his eyes matching an aura around him, the gray wings sprouted from his back as he raised his left hand to point at Shade. He seemed on fire.

Phillip let out a shrill scream.

"Your son does look gorgeous with rouged lips," Lucifer said.

Shade lunged at him then. His hands made contact with flesh and at that same moment he felt on fire, dying. He was blinded. He heard Lucifer laughing, smelt spicy smoke as it was exhaled into his face. Shade fell to the floor.

"No," Shade said. No, to everything.

Lucifer spoke, his voice seeming larger than ever, "You will fall in love with something and I will steal it from you, this is how it will be. I will destroy you utterly."

Shade was sure Lucifer had gone, Phillip was screaming, running around the room, it sounded. Shade still couldn't see and it hurt to touch things. How bad, he wondered. How bad a burn could he survive?

He followed the screaming to Phillip, grabbed hold of him. "You're vampires!" Philip was shouting.

"We're not vampires!" Shade shouted back into his face, "We're Spawn of the immortal Nephillim, Lords of Hell! Now, you go to Hell, Phillip, and you tell the Morning Star when you see him, 'Shade would like to see you try it.'" And then he tore blindly at Phillip's throat, wasting skin and blood looking for the artery. Shade was still drinking when he sensed another presence in the room. Something not Human, not Louis.

He turned toward the open space of the parlour. Something cool seemed to blow past as if on a wind. A breath on his eyes.

Healed he blinked them open.

Death was in the parlour. But it wasn't Shade she looked to, it was Phillip. She spread her wide white wings, outstretched her arms and two long pale tendrils. Eyelids raised and eyes flashed, "Come Phillip."

Shade saw the Human's spirit lift from the body, he had not seen Human spirits before, the blood of Azyur Ka had lifted the blinders letting him see the real world, and now Zerachiel's breath had given him sight beyond that.

The hazy figure of the madman walked closer and closer to the Angel. The room's perspective seemed distorted as the man was drawn up into the Angel's arms. The eyes! They sucked him in, threatened to take the room with him. Shade averted his gaze.

When he dared to look he saw the room's dimensions restored, and Zerachiel looking like a young woman who stood two feet off the floor. The large wings had gone, but the two small tendrils still hung, pendulous from her back, sweeping the rug lightly. "That was a rash act, Beautiful One," she said. "He was so...mad."

"Which means Psyche may bid for his soul, am I right?"

The Angel made a nod. "There are infinite realms and regions beyond this world, more directions than two for a soul to move toward. I am afraid for you right now."

Shade shook his head. "Zerachiel, forgive me, you must go away from me. I'm cursed."

She looked wounded, sort of gray. "You love me. You cannot hurt me as long as you do, have no fear on that account. And do not let yourself worry that I might have anything to fear from the Satan Lucifer. I know how it is he sees me. He cannot influence me."

Shade shivered. Zerachiel had given him his sight but his skin was still burnt, Phillip's blood was taking its time to heal it. "It would ease my conscience, if I knew you would not be close enough for me to taint you. If you want to please me, you will stay away, or else get the taste of flesh and fall into the same trap I have."

Death was crying. "I know what flesh is. Do you imagine I do not know the weight and consequence of my own action? Do you think I don't know what is lost to them? That I do not know what they feel? My Beautiful One, can't you see my love for you is pure?"

"Mine isn't. Do you know, Zerachiel, how fast Angel's blood would heal my wounds, if I were to drink some?"

She stooped down, her feet still some distance above the floor, she looked down at Shade, the Angel flesh of her eyelids puckering slightly so that he knew her strange all-black eyes were moving up and down, studying him. Half her mouth smiled. "I know," she said. For a moment she looked up to the door, she turned back. "I'll stay away, for a while. I'll stay till you know that you can trust my word over Lucifer's. He does not love you. I advise you, Shade, question any pity you feel for him. It was in his power to make things right and he refused out of pride. It's his own fault he's been outcast. He can't righteously blame me for being the Angel Who Must Carry Out the One's Punishments. Not even for allying myself with Michael and the others so long ago."

"I wish that I knew, that I could just trust you, I want to. But I'm no Angel. Carry out all the One's vengeance, Zerachiel, but none of your own. Don't confront Lucifer over me."

"If I even considered that I'd be of no use. It's nice you considered I'd fight for you. When it's in my power, Beautiful One, I do." Zerachiel looked less female as she said this. The protectiveness that came over her was unlike that of a mother. A tendril licked Shade's cheek and he envisioned Zerachiel standing dressed in silver with other Angels about him, holding a shining silvery sword upright overhead. "I'll be ready to come to you if you need me, Beautiful One," Zerachiel said, definitely looking male in shape.

Shade said goodbye as Zerachiel glided out the door and into the bedroom. He wondered about it until he realised someone else had come in from the stairs. Dee had come back.

Much more in the habit of wearing Human flesh Absidus put her arms about her brother looked down between them at the gold ankh hanging amid black tatters of satin and lace and oozing burnt flesh. Dee gasped. "Shade, Shade, how could he do this to you?"

"It was I who went after him."

But Dee didn't seem to hear. "The Old Queens are after him already for what he has threatened. Michael himself has said he will intervene if he attacks you again."

"I don't really fear Lucifer, Dee, not for myself anyway," Shade said. "Lucifer really doesn't like Michael does he?"

Absidus laughed. "Michael is above reproach, the favourite. I'm what everyone wants, but Michael, he never wants for anything."

Shade tried to smile. "You tried didn't you?"

"Well...yes." She lifted Shade to his feet and helped him into his chair. "Are you in much pain?"

Shade just rolled his eyes. He truly didn't feel well.

"You want me to just keep talking to you," Absidus said, "you want distraction from the pain."

Shade tried to make one of those "well there you have it" gestures, the eyebrows moving just so and the right shoulder, but he was in too much pain, and his brows had been singed off.

"The New Kingdom, you'd like to know what that's like. It's marvellous, timeless, real, and yet, it seems unreal, unbound by perception, all dimensions intersecting. Geography moves as people do, and yet some things never change. There's this city in the sky, and somewhere below that, the sign, and lower, the crossroads called Limbo and directly beneath the sign and city another small city called Los Angeles, and below that the shallow world, and below that the Pit. But, Heaven and Hell of course, are states of the intellect even there. Saying one is a Lord of Hell is like saying you are the Duke of Algebra. But we're thinking of expanding, creating new lands."

"Tell me about the Angels," Shade said. His eyes were closed. Phillip's corpse was smelling worse by the second. "Could you get rid of it?"

Somehow he felt that she had nodded, but he hadn't been looking. Dee's voice got far away. "You know, they all slip up from time to time, except Michael, the move disturbed a great many Angels, they panicked like little children when mother and teacher are both away. Some Angels had to be punished to bring them back to their senses. If anything Lucifer became more crazed than ever. He's always making breaks to Earth. He's here all the time, much as he claims he hates it."

"Venus would be too hot," Shade said.

Dee asked if he was becoming delirious. Shade didn't answer so she went on talking. "Remiel almost split, he's nearly fallen, not quite though. He's liked the way Gabriel is, too innocent and boyish to really do wrong. But he did sort of forget to assign a guardian to Hell, being it's not a place as Humans know but it is a real thing, the thing that binds all the Malakim. You see it went like this. The nine Satans argued amongst themselves as soon as we moved over who was in charge of Hell. Usually the Elohim ignore their wars with each other, but things were chaotic enough after the move, the collective Archangels didn't want more trouble. So Uriel went to investigate. All the Satans pointed to Tartaruch, who oversees the pit, Tartaruch pointed to Dommier who guards the way to the Pit, the actual gate, and Dommier pointed right up at Uriel, who holds the key to the gate. Stupid Dommier, Uriel only holds the key because he's too strict to let any Satans get it. So Uriel asks: which of the Elohim was assigned to watch over those in Hell. And Remiel had to answer that he should have assigned one, but he had forgotten. So, Uriel said like, well now it's you, Remi. So anyway, I sauntered by, like, hey Remi, it's not your fault, you look like you could use some company."

"It sounds," Shade said slowly, "like it is dangerous operating on two extremes."

"Well, like I said, we're building on. Raziel and Leliel have drawn up plans for a place called the Night Regions, a really immense middle ground with some really interesting features that will encompass Limbo and Los Angeles. It's been approved, only, some weird incidents have been happening since they started actually creating it. We don't know who's behind it yet..."

Shade felt someone coming close. A moment later he was able to recognise the presence as Louis. The boy Spawn came up the stairs into the parlour, looking worried even as he turned the corner. He rushed to the chair and fed blood from his wrist to Shade's mouth.

"For a moment I did not recognise you," Dee said to him.

"What, did you think there was some other Spawn in a sixteen year old body roaming about Paris?" Louis scoffed.

Dee folded her arms across her chest, "Well, you never know do you. Only, it seems they'd be calling themselves vampires by now."

Shade pushed his son's wrist away. "The dirt-sucking spawn of Salamiel may call themselves vampires, but we are not dead things reanimated to crawl from the grave back into bed with our surviving relatives. There is nothing glamorous about vampires."

Louis bowed in front of Shade, smiling, "Do you read about everything but vampires, dear father? Lord Ruthven, Sir Francis Varney, Countess Mircalla Karnstein...all quite aristocratic."

"Which I take only to mean all aristocrats are blood suckers."

"OK, so Ruthven and Varney are a little hideous, but Carmilla, why she could be dear Min. Or Erzsebet Báthory."

Shade laughed. "Is it a fashion to be a vampire now?"

Louis stood straight and beamed a smile, "Most certainly."

"Well, I'd take Vampyre if anything, just so not to be confused with those Slavic creatures that crawl rotting from the grave."