It was near the end of his first year of school that the Vampyres came.  He'd been exhausted by his exams and all the studying.  Pony had had him for lunch and he had had Charlie for dinner.  But dessert....

Amadeo had been reading about Vampyres in a ratty, yellowed paperback novel, third in a series of them.  He fell asleep reading in his bed, wearing only a pair of faded, torn denim shorts.  Somewhere in the darkness, he saw Charlie being killed, but it didn't wake him.

He first realized a sharp burning pain on his neck.  He realized there were hands on him holding him down.  He tried to scream, but he kept falling deeper into the blackness.  He reached for a name, knowing it must be a Vampyre.  He might have called one of the names his father had given to him; all he knew was that the name came to him and he called out with all the strength remaining in him, "Julien."

The burning stopped.  He couldn't quite open his eyes. Then a voice penetrated the blackness.  It was too easy to hear.  "Am, wake up, you must wake up, Am."  No one had ever called him that before, but he opened his eyes.

He saw them, two very pale and beautiful creatures.  At the foot of his bed was a tall blonde man with very bright blue eyes.  It was the angel in the painting on his wall except, this figure had no wings and was dressed as a modern businessman, maybe like someone you would meet in a gallery who would try to sell you a painting.  He was reaching for Amadeo, wanting him.

It obsessed Amadeo that he should have tried to kill him, obsessed him because he wanted to have that feeling again.  That feeling of being wanted so badly they would take you eternally.

And then there was the other one.  She had her arm around him.  It was his Vampyre, his girl; though she was probably a 30-year-old woman in the flesh, she seemed a girl. "You won't make me forget will you?" Amadeo asked.  He sounded so stupid to himself, but it was all he could think of to say.

"No, and don't you deny it to yourself, even if you have to deny it to someone else.  Don't be afraid to do that."  She put his book in his hand.  "I hear it's even better than the movie," she said.

They left him there.  He wanted them to come back.  He was too very weak to do much of anything.  He let himself fall asleep.  In the night, a vision came in a dream.  Voices calling out for help, he saw the creatures in the cages.  And in another flash he saw them being freed, blood everywhere, and beings running into the night.  He tossed around, feeling very hot but, he didn't fully wake.

He managed to show up for his exam, but collapsed. And when they came to him and saw he really wasn't well, they took him first to see a nurse and she told him he better go home and see his doctor.

He didn't go to his doctor.  He drove his Miata home.  It was miraculous that he had not run off the road, into another car, grayed out and drove through a stream of crossing traffic.  In the lobby, he staggered past the guards.  His father was home that day and ran to help him as soon as he saw his son in the open front door.  He'd just been at the intercom listening to the guard describing how ill his son had looked.  Amadeo clung to his father's shoulders, trying to stand up.  "Did it leave a mark?" he asked.  He turned his head so his father could see his neck.  There were no puncture wounds, just a bruise but he didn't have to tell his father in any words what had happened to him.

Steven called to their housekeeper.  He told her to fix Amadeo some soup and to bring a pitcher of water.  He took Amadeo up in their elevator.  He got him into his bed, sat beside him, holding Amadeo's face in both hands.  The housekeeper whom was also their only full time servant was sometimes butler, nurse, cook, and maid.  She brought the pitcher of water in with a glass and poured out the water for Amadeo.

Amadeo took the glass when his father offered it to him, and drank it all down quickly.  He was so hot and thirsty.  His father had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.  He put a damp cloth on Amadeo's forehead.  "I want you to take these to bring down your fever," he said.  All the family knew Amadeo's reasons for taking no drugs.  He held two little pills in his hand.  Amadeo took the pills with some more water.  He asked if, when the housekeeper returned, if she could bring him a piece of fruit or two to eat, cut up.  She said that she would.

"I want to tell you what happened," Amadeo told his father.

"If you want to."  Steven looked so full of concern.

"It was him, Julien," said Amadeo lifting his hand to tap his knuckle on one of the two framed paintings above his bed.  "She was with him."  Amadeo closed his eyes for a second before going on.  He looked up at his father.  "They were looking for victims, the Vampyres, they came upon a college dorm, nice young sleeping bodies.  She killed the boy in the room next to mine, Charlie, there was a struggle.  And then they opened my door.  Julien, the Vampyre, came to my bed.  I was asleep and he opened my throat with his fanged teeth.  I almost didn't live.  You see, he didn't know I was a Jewel.  I called his name, it came to me in time.  And she pulled him off me.  She guarded me against him.  I asked them not to make me forget.  And she told me not to deny the truth to myself, even if I must to others.  Then they left." Amadeo was aware of how much like a horror story he sounded. He planned it that way.  His father was looking downward. "They were there last night. . . they are in New York."

"Yes.  I wonder how many," said his father.

"How many are there?"

"In the whole world?  Many.  The way I remember the stories there was a group of six in this city.  My grandfather, Steven - The Third, came to know them by chance, earlier before there were so many.  And he got all mixed up in their schemes.  Some of them visited him, the head Vampyre and his son, who has since become this family's protector.  They never fed on him.  They just frightened him and taunted him, and when he would not deny the truth, humans, our kind, locked him up because they thought him mad.  What she told you he would not agree with, he never regretted telling the truth, but that is your choice to make.  There was a woman who helped him, believed his story.  She was a celebrity, a fashion model.  She helped Steven become free, they became friends and when the head Vampyre met her he fell in love with her and made her a Vampyre, so that Steven knew her before she was a Vampyre.  Many of them are not all much older than a hundred years, though the few old ones are very old.  And I believe Julien was her mortal brother, the fashion model's brother that is.  They must have met him through her.  I used to know the whole story.  They made him one too, later."

"Who is the girl?"

"Her name is Joy.  Joy Fortnight. The reason we have pictures of her and not the others is that at some point the six Vampyres left this city.  You know of your great grandmother's work for the government?  They know about Vampyres, but they don't want to alarm the public.  Well they were pursuing the Vampyres. Under the city is where they live, a whole city down there.  But they owned houses above too.  Joy was just a human they kept, she lived in one of their houses, and she was Steven's neighbor.  They left her behind.  Steven knew what she was going through.  He stayed her friend.  He even made her feel part of his family, which was small then, just he and Helen and later Nancy and Julien and Cecil."

"How did she get to be a Vampyre then, Dad?"

"It was less than a hundred years ago.  When your grandmother Nancy was young.  I believe the story was that there was a bottle of Vampyre blood left to her, but on principal she refused to drink from it until she was dying.  She was the only Vampyre around then.  And as you know she stayed close to our family for years before she also left.  There are so many stories and I don't know them all in detail."

"I don't know what to tell you about losing Steven.  One day we were all of us here, then Joy went away, then Helen and Steven went away and all we heard from the government was that Helen had died while on the job, they gave us her body.  And Steven they claimed to have never seen.  He appeared in his bed.  My mother says an angel carried him home.  But he left us again.  I know he is not dead, but I do not know where he stays."

"What did the government do to them?"

"I really don't know.   I'm convinced that what happened was that Joy had not left the city completely. When she left our house Steven must have still been talking to her.  Many nights I would find Helen up worrying about him because he had left the house after some mysterious call.  I suppose that the government had captured Joy and that Steven had found out and told Helen.  You see when she was old she wasn't working for them as much, but she still had the connections that let her get into places we couldn't.  I think she died trying to fight the people who had employed her and not died as they say, working on some secret assignment she had volunteered for.  That's the only reason I see for Steven leaving.  He feared his presence would endanger us. It wasn't the whole government really, just a few individuals who conned someone in to funding a program that sounded beneficial once.  It's hard to sort it out at all because you see the Vampyres, and Steven also each had several names for each other.  They kept changing their identity in order to hide their age.  Julien and Joy are their mortal names, their real names.  And your saying his true name might have gotten them to see in your mind who you were.  Joy would never hurt a Jewel."

"Do you think we will see them again?"

"Well you say they are in the city, at least two of them.  That group of Vampyres were never less than two together, liking a couple or more just for the safety of numbers.  And if it were Julien and Joy, from everything I know of them I would say the old ones are not far behind.  Try not to let your mother know this, or your sister when she gets back.  I don't want to worry them.  If they ask, if they suspect, don't you deny it to them.  I will check the usual sources to see if they are using any familiar names."

"Maybe I can see them."

Amadeo's food was brought in.  His father dismissed the housekeeper and set the tray on the bed.  "I don't want you to float away," Steven said.

Then Amadeo remembered.  "I had a dream afterward."

"What was it?"

 "I was too ill to wake up but now..." He felt the electric feeling again, the cages, the blood, the running.  "Just the same thing again...cages, blood, all the creatures running out into the night."

"Cages," sighed his father, "I think our government may have started a war again.  How Helen hated them when she found out the truth.  They drill wrong ideas about the creatures into their soldiers and technician's minds.  Fortunately, Helen was able to see, through Grandpa Steven, that they were not all evil.  All the creatures would be sleeping now, though.  Eat something and rest here.  I'll do the checking.  I'll go to the office."