pire disdain. "I'm sorry, Father," Sampson said in a voice still choked with laughter, "but you must admit it is funny. 'Impressed' does not begin to cover Mother's reaction to what Anita and Jean-Claude did tonight."

His father gave him a stony face, until the laughter faded round the edges. Then Samuel said in a voice that held an edge of injured dignity, "My son has been indiscreet, but he is accurate. You ask why Thea and my other sons are not here; simply put, I did not trust her near the two of you."

"She liked the show," I said.

Samuel shook his head, gave his son another disapproving look. "More than liked, Anita. She is all ablaze with speculative plans. Would it be possible for her and I to do what the two of you did? I find that unlikely, for though Thea carries something similar to the ardeur, I do not. I believe what you did to Augustine required similar gifts between the two of you."

Jean-Claude gave a small nod, face still empty. "I believe so."

"She is now convinced that Anita could bring our sons into the full strength of their siren's powers." Something crossed his face, too faint to read, but with such an empty face, it was strangely noticeable. "I do not share her certainty. What I felt from you tonight, Anita, is a different element of passion. It is like the difference between fire and water. They will both consume you, but in very different manners."

I looked at Sampson's face, still softly amused. "What did your mother actually say?" I asked.

He glanced at his father before he answered. Samuel sighed, then nodded. Sampson grinned at me, and said, "I don't think you really want to know what she said, but what she meant was that if she had her way, Tom and Cris would both be here. She'd be here, too. She'd be offering us all to you any way you wanted us." His face sobered around the edges. "She can get carried away sometimes, our mother. She means well, but she doesn't think entirely like a human being, do you understand?"

"I hang around with vampires, so yeah."

He shook his head, his hands clasped on his knees. "No, Anita, vampires start out human, as do shapeshifters, and necromancers"—he said that with a smile—"but Mother was never human. She thinks like ..." He seemed unsure what to say.

Samuel finished for him. "Thea is other, and she reasons in ways that do not always make much sense to those of us who began life as human beings." He didn't sound entirely happy about it, but he stated it as truth.

"That must make life interesting," Richard said.

Samuel gave him cool eyes, but Sampson nodded, smiling. "You have no idea."