There was silence for a minute after Belial finished his story. Then a human servant brought in a plate of succulent venison and fresh bread for Ruth, and the conversation turned to Cain and Abel, their life and travels. The vampires, most of whom had not gone far from their tribe since they had fled Amos, listened avidly, hungrily to Cain recounting their adventures. Even Abel began to feel comfortable enough to add in a word or a correction here and there. They were curious to learn more about the other vampires and about Amos, but when they tried to ask, Belial told them gently to digest what they had already heard, and that more would be said when they were rested.

After dinner, Ruth was taken off by a female servant to where she was to sleep, and Belial led Cain and Abel to his own home. It was one of the houses built around a tree, and Cain and Abel were awed at the furnishings of rich rugs and fine tapestries.

"I am one of the few of our kind who travels," Belial told them proudly. "Every few decades, I venture out of our village, not merely to nearby villages, but all the way to the ocean, nearly a week's travel away. There I acquire anything I like, and I sometimes bring home to servants to do my bidding. These last long or not, depending on their stamina. I do not have any at the moment, and so have to make do with the common herd. On the plus side, this means I have a comfortable room for the two of you to share. This way."

Belial led them into the room of which he had spoken. It contained two bunk beds, neatly although not lavishly furnished. "I hope you will be comfortable here," he told them. "It is nearly dawn, and you are, I think, tired. I will come again in the evening, and I will bring you fresh clothing."

With a cordial nod, he withdrew, leaving the brothers alone.

Cain and Abel looked at the beds. They had never seen such things before. Everything in here was foreign to them. How could they have wandered so far without ever coming across civilization?

"We've been wandering in all the wrong places," Cain said. "We've been sticking to the deep places, thinking there we would find Eden. We should have traveled near the coast."

"But we did," Abel said, "long ago. There wasn't civilization then. No, I think this must be quite recent. A century or two, no more. And we were never on this island before. Or perhaps we were, before it was an island."

"Maybe," Cain said, "maybe not. Or maybe, we were subconsciously avoiding civilization. The world is vast and the people few. It would not have been difficult. A thousand years, Abel! A thousand years we have wandered, when we might have settled down among humans, or among others of our kind!"

Abel was silent, staring at the beds. Cain had been half-right, he thought, and half-wrong. They had been avoiding civilization, but it had been Abel's fault, not Cain's. Every time, since they had met Ruth, that he had seen a sign of humanity, he had denied it, turned away from it, and led Cain in the opposite direction. He hadn't even realized what he had been doing, until now. Shame coursed through him, shame at his cowardice.

"Do you suppose we're supposed to sleep on these things?" Cain asked, prodding a mattress dubiously. "They're awfully soft. The floor might be more comfortable."

With effort, Abel produced a cheerful voice. "You try the floor, then, and I'll try one of these. We can compare notes in the morning."

Cain punched his arm. "Fat chance! I'm sleeping on this one." He climbed to a top bunk and was very soon asleep.

Abel lay down on the bottom bed of the opposite bed, but he could not sleep. Eventually, he moved to the floor, and lay lying on the floor until nearly midday, when his eyes finally shut and he slid into uncomfortable slumber.

***

As promised, Belial woke them that evening, carrying fresh clothes in the style preferred by the village of the fallen angels: heavy robes of velvet in deep, expensive colors. Abel put his on and immediately despised it for its heat and weight, and shed it without a thought. Cain, however, enjoyed swishing the folds of the fabric and twirling in a circle.

He's fitting in, Abel realized, watching his brother. He's going to want to stay here. He and Ruth together. And I . . .

He could not stay here. He could not bear it.

And I will go on alone. An eternity alone.

The thought made him sick with dread and the inevitability of staggering loneliness, and he could only bear it by making himself brighter than usual, by feigning the finest humor and laughing too often and speaking too loudly. Cain looked pleased to see his brother fitting in so well, and became genuinely happy himself. He would have liked to see Ruth also that morning, but Belial forestalled him.

"We do not mix with humans like that," he said mysteriously. "You'll understand soon. Stay apart for now, and you'll be all the happier when the time comes. Come, let me show you about the village."

Abel and Cain gladly followed Belial around, listening to his stories and asking questions. It was several nights later before the topic of Amos came around, but it was inevitable that it would, and time meant little to the brothers.

"We have talked long about what to do about the ice dragon," Belial told them. "We are not well-traveled people, but even we have talked about going to his lair and slaying him as he slept, lest he awake and destroy us. But never was there a one of us fit to go, and all going together would let our village fall to neglect, perhaps forever. So here we have stayed, waiting for the children of the fire dragon, hoping they were stronger than we."

"You want us to kill Amos?" Abel asked. He was not really surprised.

"That is what we did want," Belial corrected with a smile. "But some of us have had other thoughts. We are small in number, and some of us have grown tired of the endless years. But it would be dangerous to dwindle our numbers. Twenty-one vampires together may live very comfortably, but what if we died, one by one? What would it be like, being one of only two vampires in the world? Or the only one? How would eternity be bearable? The dragon race is coming to an end, but its lineage is carried on in its children. Shall our race end as well?"

"But our race doesn't have to end," Cain pointed out. "We can make more vampires. If we bite a human and drain them of blood."

"Ah, child," Belial said, shaking his head. "I know you are not actually a child, but to me you seem to speak as one, and your form is so very young. No, we cannot make others of our kind. Even if we drain a human, they do not become like us. And if we drain a human and feed them our blood, they change, but not into a vampire. They become strange hybrids of human and the last living creature they ate. Mermaids, some call them. Werewolves, shape-shifters. And they can survive much that humans cannot, but they are not immortal as we are. They die when their years are up, and we are left alone. No, we cannot continue our line that way. Only a dragon can create a vampire."

Abel fell deep into thought, into contemplation of what such creatures would be like. He shuddered to think about making one . . .

And then, as happened so often lately, his thoughts turned to Ruth. Part of him had kept telling himself that if she chose him, if she'd be hers instead of his brother's, as the prophecy counseled him, that he could make her into one of their kind, and they would live together forever. He suspected that Cain had had similar thoughts, that the way he looked at her was sometimes not only in love, but also in hunger.

Only a dragon can make a vampire.

Only Amos, the last dragon, could make Ruth into one of them. Only Amos, who was now waking.

"Then go to him," Cain was saying to Belial. "Explain. If he wants to destroy the world because he's so torn up about Lilith, perhaps this will help. Perhaps knowing that she wasn't what she seemed."

"You think so?" Belial replied. "But then, you do not know the way of hearts. If we told him, Belial would be worse than ever, and he would destroy everything. No, there is only one way: we must trap him. We must put him back into hibernation and keep him there forever, harvesting his blood as we need it until his body succumbs to old age and he falls into dust at last."

Cain was gaping at Belial. "But that's cruel! That's evil!"

"More cruel than killing him? After all, he won't know what's happening to him, and he will be saving an entire race."

"He doesn't want to save anything. He wants to destroy."

"Yes," Belial agreed. "You see it, don't you? He is the evil one. This is justice. It's kindness, even, not killing him. And there could be more vampires." He smiled indulgently at the brothers. "There is one, I think, to whom you would not balk from giving immortality."

Ruth.