51

From the easy chair by the front window in Ellen’s studio Livia heard the conversation on the street, heard the door shut, heard Ellen lead Thomas Kelly up the two flights in silence. He was a brave man, she decided. Brave, because he was obviously so frightened, so repulsed, but still he continued because he wanted to save his friend. That’s what courage was about, she’d always believed: not the absence of terror, but the ability to go on in the face of it.

Ellen ushered Thomas Kelly into the room. She said, “I’ll leave you two alone for a while,” and went out. Kelly stopped and stared around, taking in the bright midday sun streaming through the skylight, the turmoil of pinned-up drawings and sketches, the two easels, each with a painting half-finished; then he turned his gaze to Livia. “Why are we here?”

“Lovely to see you, too, Father.” He frowned. She felt a pang of guilt; she shouldn’t tease him. “Please, sit down. Ellen’s a friend of mine.”

He didn’t move from the doorway. “I didn’t like what happened the last time we went to see one of your friends.”

“I don’t blame you. But don’t worry. Ellen’s not much like Spencer. There won’t be any drama.”

“Do you have friends everywhere? I suppose you do, a lot of friends. That must be what happens when you have centuries to get acquainted.”

“I’m sorry. I know this is hard for you. Please,” she said again. “Sit down.”

He didn’t, but his tone was a shade less belligerent when he said, “I saw you slip money into the collection box.”

“Call it penance. That was a nice distraction in the aisle, by the way.”

“Thank you,” he said automatically, but he remained standing, clearly warring with himself. The scholar, she wondered, against the cleric? If so, the scholar won. Still without moving into the room, he said, “Tell me this. How many of you are there?”

“Of—?”

“Noantri.” He made a face, as though tasting a lemon.

“We borrowed the word ‘Noantri’ centuries ago, from the native-born Trasteverians,” she said calmly. “When we use it, we do mean our kind, but it’s not a dirty word.”

“Answer my question. How many Noantri are there?”

“Altogether, in the world? Probably ten thousand, give or take. A third of us here in Italy, half of that number in Rome, half of those in Trastevere.”

“A third? Three thousand . . . three thousand . . .”

“Three thousand vampires, yes, Father. In Italy. We were once more scattered, and we can still be found everywhere, but we concentrate, for obvious reasons, in countries and cities with Catholic populations.” Incomprehension clouded his face, so Livia added, “For the hospitals. For the blood.”

Perplexity looked like it was about to give way to something worse, so she went on matter-of-factly, “And also, because once we started to gather, we found we very much liked living in Community. The comfort we feel in the presence of one another is something we never knew until the Concordat. In all the years Before, no Noantri was safe who wasn’t furtive and hidden.”

“Comfort?”

“We’re kin, in a way. We feel it more physically than the Unchanged do, but everyone feels heartened in the presence of family.”

This was too much for the scholar; the cleric reasserted himself. “Family? Blood relatives, you mean? That’s a perverse angle on that concept.” Thomas Kelly, his disgust reaffirmed, crossed the room and sat. “Let’s get to work. You found another poem.”