from a ravenous hunger to his perfectly poised self-control. Now he is all but immune to the scent of blood, and he is able to pursue his calling without agony. He finds a great deal of peace there, at the hospital..." Fredward stared off into space for a long moment. Suddenly he seemed to recall his own purpose. He tapped his finger against the huge painting in front of us.
"He was studying in Italia when he discovered the others there. They were much more civilized and educated than the wraiths of the London sewers."
He touched a comparatively sedate quartet of figures painted on the highest balcony, looking down calmly on the mayhem of cloth and pillars below them. I examined the grouping carefully and realized, with a startled laugh, that I had seen that golden-haired man before— in this very room, in fact.
"Solimena was greatly inspired by Carbomb's friends. He often painted them as gods. If only he'd known..." Fredward chuckled over his shoulder. "Aro, Marcus, Caius," he said, indicating the other three, two black-haired, one snowy-white. "Nighttime patrons of the arts."
"Waht happen them?" I wondered aloud, fingertip tracing the curves in the painted fabric.
"Don't touch that!" He lightly swatted my hand away, and then recoiled. I pouted and he said, "Bella, I'm sorry for hitting you. It is just really bad for paintings if you rub them."
"I know."
A look of mystery overtook his face. "Then why did you touch it?"
"I don't know."
He looked at me and I looked at him, both of us regarding the other with some ineffable feeling. Fredward sighed and turned back to the painting.
"Anyways, they're still there, as they have been for who knows how many millenia. Carbomb stayed with them only for a short time, just a few decades. He greatly admired their civility, their refinement, but they persisted in trying to cure his aversion to 'his natural food source,' as they called it. They tried to persuade him, as he tried

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Chapter 16

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