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me you’ve already demonstrated telepathic capacities, you
see, and...” He trailed off.
    Telepathic
capacities? “Yeah. That’s—“
    “Impossible?”
    I forced myself
not to roll my eyes.
    “I imagine
this will all take some getting used to,” Julian said.
    “Why am I
here?” The words came out in a petulant tone I didn’t
like. “What the hell did you do to me?”
    “Let me
begin with your second question, Dr. Fletcher—or, may I call
you Adam?”
    “I don’t
care.”
    “Well, Adam,
you were declared dead a little over forty-two hours ago, back in
Baltimore. With the help of a friend, I had you flown here to
Georgia. When you arrived, shortly after nightfall, I revived you.”
    “How?”
    “Using the
blood,” he said. “Three drops is sufficient—“
    “You can’t
bring someone back to life by feeding them blood. That’s
absurd.”
    “Of course
not. Not normal blood, anyhow. But the blood of an immortal, of a
revenant—“
    “You mean a
vampire?”
    He laughed. “We
don’t usually refer to ourselves as such, but, if you like...
yes. Three drops of vampire blood is sufficient to revive a corpse.”
    I shook my head. I
didn’t believe what he was saying, but there was no sense in
arguing with him. “Right, but, aren’t corpses easy to
find? Local ones, I mean?”
    “You want to
know why I chose you.”
    “You don’t
even know me.”
    “I know of
you. I’ve been following your work for years now, reading the
journals and such.”
    “You have an
interest in brain injuries?”
    “I have an
interest in retrograde amnesia.”
    “Wait. So
you stole my corpse and brought me back from the dead so you could
ask me questions about amnesia?”
    “Among other
reasons. Yes.”
    My mouth opened
and closed several times as I tried to form a response.
    “You could
have at least picked someone with tenure,” I eventually
stammered.
    “You’re
being modest. In any case, that’s not how it works. We have a
code of ethics, you see—“
    “The undead
have a code of ethics?”
    “We do, and
it’s rather strictly enforced,” he said. “As an
upstanding proponent of the Sanguine Consensus, I can’t just go
select a living heir and off them myself. That’s murder. We
select our initiates from the ranks of the newly dead, you see, in
order to avoid tampering with human life.”
    He stood up,
brushed some dust off the front of his pants. He brought the thin
book he carried over to the mantle above the fireplace, the lone
bastion of organization in the entire library. It held maybe fifty
other black leather books, each the exact shape and size, in a neat
row unblemished by dust. He placed the book on the left side of the
mantle next to a bookend.
    “Revival
doesn’t heal the body,” he continued, “so it’s
less ideal to attempt the process on anyone who’s died of,
say... old age. Cancer. Massive physical trauma.”
    “I thought I
was in a car accident.”
    “You died of
asphyxiation. It won’t prove to be a problem. Honestly, you are
an ideal modern candidate. We rarely see better.”
    I didn’t
know how to reply.
    “Did Aya get
a chance to talk to you about anything else?” he asked.
    Human blood.
    “Sort of,”
I said.
    “I see.”
His tone was suddenly sober. “Perhaps she didn’t need to
say much of anything.”
    I shrank against
the back of the couch.
    “I’m
terribly sorry about your fiancée, Adam.”
    “Yeah. So am
I.”
    “I can
imagine this is all rather surreal for you right now.”
    I nodded, troubled
by what Aya had said, unable to focus on much else.
    He’ll
have something ready for you.
    Something—someone—to
eat?
    The crushing
sensation in my chest still hadn’t gone away. In fact, ever
since I’d seen the people in the hallway, it’d gotten
markedly worse. I ran a finger across my front teeth. Did they still
feel sharper than normal?
    “I... well,
I understand what it’s like to lose someone important.”
    I ignored his
attempt at sympathy. The