The get-together at Castle Banat on the evening of Friday, October 16, 186–, had been over three centuries in the arranging, however, just a peripheral exertion had been coordinated toward the formal fundamentals of the issue, its pageantry, and magnificence. No, a large portion of that time and energy had been given to the sustaining and mixing of certain human bloodlines to deliver that most extraordinary of substances, a vintage of unsurpassed flavor and bouquet: the Golden. Individuals from the Family had come from each edge of Europe to take an interest in the Decanting, going around evening time via carriage or train and halting at country hotels during the day. Presently, clad in their best outfits and evening dress, some joined by mortal workers, who—however wonderful and sharp looking by their own doing—appeared by contrast like those dull horses picked to lead Thoroughbreds onto a racecourse, they blended in the assembly hall, an enormous vault of overgrown stones upheld by flying braces, lit by many silver candelabra, and overwhelmed by a chimney adequately huge to cook a bear. Among the social occasion were agents of the de Czege and Valea branches, who were as of now involved in a regional debate; yet around evening time this and other comparative conflicts had been saved and an uncomfortable détente introduced. There was giggling, there was shrewd discussion, there was moving, and it searched for all the world as though it were the lords and sovereigns of 100 countries who had amassed to commend some marvelous imperial capacity and not an assembly of vampires. However, notwithstanding the exhilaration of the gathering, few out of every odd discussion were liberated from harshness. Remaining by a side of the chimney, their appearances ruddied by the light, two men and a lady were examining a subject of some debate: the suggestion that the Family bow to the pressing factors as of now being applied by its adversaries and move to the Far East, where their exercises would be harder to distinguish because of the crude conditions and the disallowing, regularly neglected landscape. Advocating the proposition was the senior of the men, Roland Agenor, the originator of the Agenor branch, whose position as the recorder and history specialist of the Family offered added weight to his thoughts. Tall, aristocrat, with a lush development of white hair, he had the course of a resigned official or a refined competitor go to smooth development. Restricting him in the conversation was the Lady Dolores Cascarin y Ribera, a darker-looking magnificence with midriff length dark hair and a ruthless attractiveness of highlight. She had become the true representative for the more traditionalist components of the Family, the individuals who kept up that no quarter be asked or given in the battle, a disposition that exemplified the Family’s conventional contempt toward all humans. The third individual from the gathering, Michel Beheim, was a lean young fellow, taller even than Agenor, with wavy earthy colored hair and striking enormous dull eyes that loaned his face a practically female delicacy and enthusiasm and upheld the feeling that he was consistently nearly blasting forward with some warmed assessment… however right now he felt adrift. As Agenor’s protégé he was constrained to loan his help to the student of history, yet is among the most current—and in this way the most fragile—of the Family’s starts, having gotten his blood judgment under two years beforehand, he wanted to be influenced by Lady Dolores’ magnificence and energy, by the flashy and tempting power of the practice whose soul she communicated. He ended up gesturing by reflex at her telling focuses and gazing at the shadowy swell of her bosoms, at the coldblooded, ready bends of her mouth and envisioned both of them together in an assortment of sexual stances. So diverted was he by her actual presence that when Agenor urged him to react to one of the woman’s statements, he had to concede that he had forgotten about her contention. Agenor respected him with disapproval, and Lady Dolores chuckled derisively. “I question he would have anything of result to bring to the table, Roland,” she said. “Your absolution—” Beheim started, however, Agenor cut him off. “My young companion might be unfamiliar to us,” he said, “however let me guarantee you, he is generally clever. Did you realize that before his judgment he accomplished the situation of head of criminal investigators in the Paris police? The most youthful, I accept, at any point to arrive at such statures.” Lady Dolores made a respectful motion. “Nothing in a cop’s experience can have the most un-bearing upon the subject of our discussion.” This time it was Beheim who removed Agenor when he started to talk.