England, 19th Century AD.

Seeing the revolution coming, Louis, who was in charge of the family in all worldly ways, moved them to England. Dee stayed with them, taking the name Nicolette for public use and speaking English with a French accent as Louis did. Shade however used the name Alexander, and did his best to speak the Queen's English.

They stole a large estate house in the country, some distance north of London, appearing in the bedroom of the Lord every night until he took his family to their town house. Every so often a caretaker would come by, some brave young male relative, but the house remained abandoned.

There was no problem getting money for things they might want, clothes, carriages, books, hotel rooms. Banks they'd originally put money into in Italy still existed and newer and safer banks were cropping up every year. The family could easily live of gained interest, especially when most things they required, they stole.

Living out in the country meant they could let Troy loose and not have to worry about him getting shot and carted off to some pseudo-scientific laboratory when it was discovered his wound healed. They did not have to worry about him killing young girls that would be discovered by people who knew wolves were strangers to the area.

The terrible Romanticism that was still alive in England gave power to Angels. Unknowingly, poets singing the names of gods of Greek legends were speaking the names of Angels as one does a charm. It became a usual thing for Angels to visit the estate.

It became known to Shade that Faerie were real. "The creatures that the Britons and the other islanders call the Faerie are the abandoned Benelohim, Halfangels, they flocked north to escape the Roman Empire as Christianity was arising," Dee said. "A lot of them still live here, strange creatures, some tall and beautiful as Angels, others dwarfed mutant creatures, or frail small creatures who live only because of the immortal blood in their veins. Elves, and Dwarves, and Pix.

"When civilisation moved in earnest to England they formed a union against the mortals, called Sidhe after the earth mounds they built up to hide their sacred places. But time has disbanded the Sidhe, and many Faerie have been killed by Humans. Perhaps if the Night Regions are ever completed the Angels will allow the Benelohim that were left behind to live there with them, and save them being slaughtered by Humans."

And so it also wasn't unusual for anyone in the house to be woken during the day by strange laughter. If Shade had been Human he might think the house haunted. Strange voices could be heard, you might pass by a mirror and see a face that wasn't your own. Sitting out on the rear lawn in the evening you might actually see the strange creatures looking back from the trees.

Min and Faye played a game of croquet dressed in boys' clothing and looking like urchins. Min was winning. Faye was accusing her of making the balls move with her mind. "Telekinesis," Louis said as he strolled by leading one of his horses. He was coming from the woods, had a couple of foxes, live and tied, lying across the saddle. A few rabbits shoved in saddlebags. "The forest is crawling with Faerie," he said.

Shade realised that Troy was still out there. He gave a glance to Louis and strode out toward the trees. Troy had come home recently with his fur tied in pink ribbons.

The wolf answered with a howl when Shade called. Shade understood him to mean he was on his way back. And then he heard the laughter. Three figures above on a tree limb that seemed in a glance a young woman and two young men, but they were scantily clad and strangely coloured. The girl had amber skin and hair and very bright green eyes. A yellow-green tendril hung from her back and down behind the branch. It reached toward Shade. The boys were both pale skinned, the auburn haired boy wearing a white chiton and sandals laced up to his knees. The other had blue hair and black eyes, and he was nude but for a black garment wrapped about his waist. Shade recognised it as a Nightcloak though it was folded.

They giggled knowing he saw them.

Shade was staring at the yellow girl as he felt Troy press against his leg. She looked familiar, the canary waves of hair, the green eyes. "Sin?"

She smiled. It was she, Absinthe, the child Shade's friend, Metro, had given birth to back in Antioch. He looked at the boy in the chiton. "Laudanum."

"Athen didn't recognise us," said Absinthe, "I'm glad you did. We wanted to see how your family was doing."

"I thought you children might be dead. You just disappeared..."

"Our fathers came and got us," Laudanum said.

"But then we came back," Absinthe said.

"This is my brother, Murph," Laudanum said, hiking a thumb toward the blue-haired creature sitting beside his sister and him.

Shade smiled, "Nice to meet you, Morpheus."

Morpheus stood up on the branch. He did look god-like, tall and tightly muscled, where Shade had expected one from the shallow world to be rake thin. The ends of the cloak lifted as he stood to reveal a pair of heavy, black leather boots, his body stretched out to reveal a pierced navel. Shade had never at the time seen anyone with a pierced navel and it seemed exotic. "You watch out for those visitors from the Amber Palace, hear?" He said in effortless English that carried a strange accent. The words had a certain twang to them, the vowels all lengthened. An American accent, though Shade did not recognise this at the time.

The Amber Palace? Shade knew this phrase, when he repeated the words to himself it was Ariella's voice he heard speaking. It was a reference to an old myth.

The others were standing with Morpheus, Absinthe's arm about his waist and his about Laudanum's. "We have to go now," Absinthe said.

"On a little trip," Laudanum laughed.

Morpheus winked the rightmost of his pearl-black eyes. "Be seeing ya," he said.

And then they were just gone.

b b b

Absidus sat on a wrought iron lawn chair at a matching table, a blue and white striped awning pitched over herself, the table and her guests of which there were three. When Shade came from the woods with Troy it hit him that these must be the visitors Morpheus warned him to watch. It came back to Shade: the story. The Amber Palace had been the place the mortal girl Psyche was carried to after being released from the chains that held her to the tree as sacrifice to the beast that lived in the palace on the mountain. It was the place where Eros came to meet his wife, where she burnt him with lamp oil as she attempted to discover his identity in the dark room.

Absidus was untimely dressed as had become habit, in a sequinned cocktail dress of indigo and back-seamed stockings of the same colour, the colour of her order. Two beautiful blonde creatures and another with dark hair and strange dark beige colouring. Shade could guess who they were, Psyche he'd seen across rooms several times in Eden, and even those ancient memories were still with him. The others he knew from reputation and description, Eros and his mother, Tristopher.

Dee gestured for Shade to sit at the table with them. Psyche appeared to be eating the petals of a white rose she held in her left hand; she did not look at Shade. The others looked right at Shade. Dee introduced them, making it clear Tristopher liked to go by the name Love, which was rightfully hers as she was presently Regent of Love. But unlike Angels such as Jibril who had been created just for such positions Tristopher was a very old and mysterious creature who had lost her original title and only recently found new purpose among Night's children. She looked Asian to Shade, but he understood this was because she was, in flesh, a Venusian, but despite her alienness Love was beautiful, looking in command, serene. A heart-shaped face with two wide slanted eyes showing very dark irises, a small thin nose, neat even-lipped mouth set in a pout, narrow chin, thin neck, gold earrings dangling from stretched earlobes, silky black hair pulled up and twisted into a long cord of hair that fell forward over her left shoulder and into a small end curl that sat between her breasts. She wore a white cotton sheath dress like those the Egyptian women had worn. Her son looked like a youthful Lucifer minus the tacky red clothing, the same pale blonde hair and Barbie Doll eyes.

Psyche was simply the most nearly perfect white woman Shade had ever seen. In beauty alone she surpassed both Ariella and Gabriel.

Eros sat complaining that the Romans had spread that terrible rumour that he was both a Cherub and an infant. Niki, which her guests kept calling her, said, "I was just telling Eros that Louis is an archer."

Eros gazed across the table at Shade, elbows sitting in front of him, chin resting in a hand, head tilted cutely. "How expert an archer is he really?"

"Well," said Shade, "I was told he beat Robin Hood in a contest."

And of course Eros, proving to be as proud as his father Lucifer, had to challenge Louis. So he stood on the lawn fixing his quiver to his back and called Louis out.

Louis took his time, he'd been changing it appeared, for when he came out into the yard he was wearing loose black silk pants and a loosely sleeved shirt that looked Chinese, or at least it was cut in the style of other shirts Louis had told Shade were Chinese. His hair looked freshly washed. His lips looked glossed.

He walked across the lawn barefoot, wooden crossbow stained black in his right hand, then stopped a short distance from Eros and bowed slightly. Love stood then, went to Louis and ran her fingers through his hair. "I always think green eyes like yours sexy," she said. She gave Niki a bemused glance.

"Very wanton," said Absidus.

Psyche dropped the petalless stem on the table and twisted in her chair. Her jaw went slack when she saw Louis. She stood, looked at her chair, it spun 180 degrees, and she sat back down and stared at Louis' mouth.

Eros seethed with jealousy. One would think he would be the one with green eyes.

Louis set up a bull's eye, offered Eros the first shot, which Eros declined. Louis took his shot and hit the mark. Eros split the shaft. Louis laughed, "E fancies 'imself Robin 'ood," he said, the accent made particularly annoying... Psyche applauded. Louis said to Eros, "Hit the bull's eye and I'll match your stunt."

Eros hit the bull's eye. Louis split the shaft. He said they were evenly matched. But Eros insisted he was the better archer. He was the best archer.

"Can you shoot under any condition?" Louis asked, quite slyly.

"Any."

"Blindfolded? I always heard Love was blind," Louis laughed.

"Challenging me? Fine, then. Choose any contest, I'll shoot, only you had better match the stunt."

"Psyche at a hundred paces," Louis said.

Eros didn't even give an argument.

Niki applauded, giggled. "Excellent idea. Lou, tie her to a tree."

"It won't be the first time," Psyche sighed. She went willingly toward the tree with Louis.

There was a rope on this large tree already left from some other game. Louis tied Psyche securely, looking expert at it, lifting her hands up over her head. "Tie me up tight as you like," Psyche said, almost as if bored, "I won't feel any pain."

"Would you like to?" Louis asked.

Psyche avoided the question. She sighed again before speaking, looked up at her bound hands then at Louis. His mouth was open. "Do they feel a lot of pain, when you do it to them?"

Louis yanked at the end of the rope, lifting her arms up by the wrists and, as there was a rope at her hips already, stretching her torso up against the trunk of the tree. Psyche gasped out of shock. Louis just smiled and reached around her to tie off the rope.

"I'll shoot you if you like," Eros was calling.

Louis stepped a few feet away. Across the yard Eros dropped his bow to his thigh. Louis asked what was wrong. Shade had guessed already what it would be.

Eros said he had only his special arrows with him, if he shot Psyche she would fall in love with whomever she next saw.

"So, who are you afraid she'll see?" Louis called.

It was decided Psyche should be blindfolded. Psyche called to her husband and said, "Let him cover my eyes, I do not need to see you to know I love you, not anymore. And you yourself can come remove my blindfold."

And so Louis took off his shirt, ripped off a sleeve, then made a bow to Love and Dee before blinding Psyche.

"I won't be able to see what you do to me," Psyche said to Louis. "Do you think it will hurt as much if I do not see it coming?"

"Just imagine the worst," Louis told her.

Eros took his shot. The arrow pierced Psyche through the heart. She moaned.

Louis stood at the mark, aimed. "This is going to hurt an awful lot," he called. He took his shot.

Louis missed Psyche and the tree completely.

"Oh, well, I guess you win," he said.

"You missed that on purpose! I wanted to win by a fair-"

Psyche was screaming. "It hurts! What have you let him do to me? Take it out!"

Louis ran forward, but then fell to the ground with his laughter.

Eros ran past him and took the arrow from Psyche's heart. And yet she screamed. Eros looked about to burst into flame. How could he remove an arrow that didn't exist?

He reached for the blindfold.

"Don't look at me," Louis laughed.

The blindfold was taken down; Psyche's eyes were closed. She opened them on the laughter.

Eros stepped back, in shock, the rosiness gone from his cheeks. "You did that on purpose," he said to Psyche.

Psyche glared at him. "Of course, you impotent cherub, Do you know what it's been like for me all these years? Being chained to a tree expecting finally to be free of my family, of the petty mortal people who called me beautiful and lay their filthy hands on me, expecting pain and the beast, only to be carried to your house and to suffer your tender caresses? I want a divorce!"

Love laughed loudly, walked to her son's side and slapped his back hard. "I told you to make her fall in love with a vile thing, but you had to have the bitch for yourself. Well now she falls in love with a monster after all. Be rid of her, let her go."

But Eros shook Love off and aimed his bow at Louis who still sat on the ground laughing. "No thing is more cruel than love, I am the beast, and she belongs to me."

He might actually have found a way to kill Louis. Might have tortured him, tied him to the tree and stuffed him with arrows. If Eros had really been as cruel as Louis he would have thought to stick Louis with just one arrow, and force Louis to look at him. Louis would love him then.

But Absidus interrupted. She told Eros there were much better games they could play. And when he didn't respond she whispered to him. Maybe all she succeeded in doing was changing the target. No one could dissuade Eros from taking vengeance. Like father like son.

Love took Dee and Eros away. Psyche remained, not totally by choice, she was tied to a tree.

b b b

Psyche stayed on in the house as if she were family. Shade didn't truly like her; she was simple, ignorant about many things especially for a Devi Angel. The girls didn't like her. Troy ignored her. It was only Louis that liked her. Even Dee who was her sister did not honestly hold affection for Psyche; in fact Dee told Shade that of all Night's Children Psyche was especially irksome.

But as long as Psyche lived with the family her child spent half it's time with the family. This androgynous child, sometimes boyish and responding well to the name Splendor, a pallid youth taking after Lucifer and Eros at these times, and others quite female, seeming slightly more aggressive and answering to Pleasure, to which Louis would always, even then, add "Little Treasure." But the child could always be called Bliss, especially when it was most androgynous and exhibiting its two small rosy wings. However all the family grew used to the name Splendor.

Splendor was considerably better liked than either of its parents, very much so by Absidus. But this was no doubt due to the fact Splendor was quiet and agreeable with everyone. And Splendor was beautiful without being proud. And like many of the Benelohim Splendor was gracious, knowing that it would always be an outsider wherever it was, yet seeking acceptance.

Louis took Psyche everywhere. He let her watch him kill, let her roll paper funnels and catch blood from his victims into used wine bottles which the family would drink from later. If they were a room apart all Psyche had to do was call and Louis was there at her side, kissing her more often than not.

Shade knew he should be happy his son was in love. But being forced into seeing them touching all the time only made him sick. The girls took his side, sitting either side of Shade at all occasions then, while Louis and Psyche sat in some opposing position.

Even that fragile peace did not last. Lucifer came to the manor house.

It was Shade who answered the door, only half suspecting something was not quite right. Shade tried to close the door on him. Lucifer's eyes flashed red as he held the door fast with his toe. He stood against the frame so casually. "Where is that gorgeous son of yours, Shade?" He asked.

"What do you mean, coming here and saying such a thing?"

"Oh, I did tell you that you could be replaced, did I not?" He let himself inside. All Shade could do was tag along after him demanding, in a voice that just wouldn't sound forceful, that he leave.

Lucifer turned on him, smiled wickedly for an instant. "Oh, shut up, Shade, you're an absolute bore!"

Lucifer walked into the house looking for Louis. In the library they found only Faye and Min, who were so startled to see the Prince that they fell to the floor, Faye touching her forehead to the carpet, Min crawling backward and under a chair. Lucifer said they were well made.

Shade ordered them to get up.

Lucifer brushed past him as he left, looking for Louis again. He began to call for him.

As Lucifer got to the stairs Troy sprinted from the parlour across the hall and bit at his heels. Lucifer gave the wolf a sharp kick in the ribs and sent him tumbling down the stairs and sliding across the hall floor. Troy hit the far wall with a yelp.

Shade leapt to the stairs and tackled Lucifer himself. The same flames weren't there as they had been before. In fact Lucifer didn't really seem in control of himself. They wrestled on the stairs, both landing punches, both healing as the other watched. Faye crawled up on the wall to get past them, hung there like an insect and screamed to warn Louis.

Lucifer sent flames at Shade, not that same intense radiant heat, but a ball of flame that caught Shade's clothes.

Shade let himself slip down the stairs. Min pulled off her shirt to beat out the flames with.

Shade called for Louis himself.

Troy was up again, bounding up the stairs and landing on Lucifer's back. The Satan and wolf both fell to the landing above.

Everyone looked to the landing. Louis stood not far from the Satan, shirtless, barefoot, hair loose. His face quizzed when he saw Lucifer climb to his feet and stand before him.

Psyche was behind them old-fashioned dress falling from her shoulders and gold hair falling to her knees. Dee was behind Psyche in the usual punk rock, valley girl type clothing.

"I am here for you, Louis," Lucifer said.

"Whatever for?" Louis laughed.

"You are such an evil bitch, aren't you, such a gorgeous thing," Lucifer said, his arms crossed over his chest, lust obvious in his expression.

"I never meant to lead you on, Luci," Louis said. "I have no interest in you, really. No interest in being in your service."

Lucifer's eyes flashed. "You would scorn me?"

"Well, I wouldn't be the first, now would I?" Louis said, too smugly. Shade expected the Satan to rip off his head. Louis made a mock kiss as he looked coldly at Lucifer.

"I love you, Louis. You need me; I can be evil, as Shade cannot. I can be wicked. All those wonderful presents, all those pretty faces that say, 'Hello, a very pretty boy just killed me, he says hello, I guess I belong here, punish me, I'm evil.'"

"This one has been pierced by Eros' arrow," Psyche said. It seemed sudden. She had looked as if she did not know what was going on a moment before.

Dee stepped up behind Louis, spoke at his ear. "Eros wasn't happy that you won Psyche. I didn't think he would slip the stuff to Lucifer. The Talent! His own father. It has the taint of unrighteous vengeance. Eros will be meeting up with Zerachiel for this. Better think of something, Lou. Just hope Eros doesn't try again and make you fall in love with someone really strange."

Louis nodded. He pulled a large gold crucifix from his kilt and dangled it before Lucifer. "Let me remind you of something, brat prince," he said and smiled.

Lucifer seemed cured, or at least in remission, of his love for Louis. He turned and walked slowly down the stairs. He did speak to Shade as he passed. "You'll fall in love, and I'll take it from you," he said at a whisper. Of course everyone there had hearing better than that of a Human, and they all heard this threat for themselves. Maybe some hadn't really believed in it before.

b b b

Fifty years passed and they were on a ship heading for America, only slightly better off that the thousands of other emigrants packed in the decks below, all wanting that promised freedom. Shade felt sorry for them. He didn't buy into their dream. As he saw it America, the United States rather, was on its way to becoming the next Roman-like empire.

The Americans weren't American at all; they'd trampled most of the real Americans down into the ground on their mad rush west. Americans now had come from the persecuted of Europe, the low and downtrodden. And in the New World they had become just as arrogant as the Europeans that had kept them down, turned about and downtrod anyone they could. They were as arrogant as Angels who had kept the Europeans down. Somewhere the cycle had to stop.

Shade knew how it would be, the rich prisoners of their own social status, the poor divided into neighbourhoods by ethnic background. In the South the rich imagined themselves French and English nobles, and the poor didn't seem to have the luxury of imagination, especially those who had once been African.

Coming through immigration they gave false names that, perhaps ironically, would become the names they often called themselves. Robert Shade, his younger brother Louis Shade, their sisters Faye and Miranda, and their paternal cousin from France Nicolette D'ombre. The wolf, Robert told them, was a German Shepherd, and when they insisted animals had to be quarantined he thought at them, but this dog obviously doesn't need to be quarantined. And they said as much back at him.

When they had ferried over and taken cabs to their hotel Psyche and Splendor appeared. They had not wanted to become Americans; it seemed a Human thing to do.

Then all together they sat with recently purchased maps of the United States and several newspapers discussing which city they should make their home. And they didn't agree. Faye wanted to go to New Orleans and had since they had been living in Paris. Robert refused to go anywhere in "The South" the civil war had only just ended. No one was going to persuade him to go. Louis didn't try. He'd begun thinking he'd move into some small Midwestern town just to see what America was like, he'd debated staying in New York, but then he'd read stories with quite vague references to San Francisco. Gold, Railroads, Chinese Immigrants, Louis only had to hear these three phrases and his mind was made up. Robert wasn't convinced the West wasn't a wilderness. What if the Indians should attack them, on their way, out of revenge? What if the train was hijacked, what if it jumped the rails and Louis was decapitated in some horrible wreck? Robert would never see him again.

After a while it didn't seem to matter that they agree. Louis was the first to say, "I don't care where anyone else goes but..." And then he said Psyche and Splendor would take the railroad out west with him. Everyone knew Min always let Faye handle worldly things as Faye often let Louis when they were all together. Min would go to New Orleans with Faye, Louis would give them money enough so that they would be able to afford a small house right away and not have to look for work if they did not want to. Robert said he may as well stay in New York. Niki promised to stay with him.

And this story, it might be longer, might speak of the turn of the century, the increasing industrialism, World Wars, Prohibition, Women's rights...but it's isn't, won't. Robert went to sleep.

He purchased a coffin, having read Dracula, recently released at the time. He'd read all the other English language vampire tales that Louis was long familiar with. He said to himself over and over that he was not a vampire, and yet he stared at the coffin. And one night he climbed in and went to sleep.