Only Friday night, born across stormy black water on a rickety ferry whose lower decks leaked, with a trunk filled with all his worldly possessions, his clothes and his books, Elias Thurfell Reid-Granger had arrived in RhyDin. His last visit to the city had been perhaps nine years ago for a family reunion, and he'd had time only to meet his cousin Helena - a rare friend, a frequent playmate during those visits - before slipping back into the all-consuming abyss of his research.

Of course, his habits had not come without their fair share of protests...

"I'm going to kill you, you bastard! Soon as I can move, you're dead!" A man had been chained to a dirty and disused boiler, in the cellar beneath an abandoned apartment building in the Temple district. He was enormous, at least two meters tall, and he could have been one meter from shoulder to shoulder. The man's constitution was perfect for the job, he kept overcoming the sedatives faster than expected, and only after extensive measurement and observation was Elias convinced that this man was human.

His cell phone rang again, a very recent acquisition, on Helena's insistence, and he was sure that through it he would be catching up with the rest of his family very soon. He snatched it and a syringe from his table with one hand, jabbed the needle into the beefy man's neck, and flipped the little phone open. "Hel-lo?" he sang in the dark.

"Oh, hey, Midget. Augh, yes, I know! But I found a really good informant and I've been taking notes all night....yes, I know I promised, Midget. Why on earth should I stop calling you that' You never minded it before..." He laughed warmly and stepped away from his work. "Well, yes, I know that's a lie. Yes, we were all big bullies."

The man burbled and groan and sang nonsense at Elias, a jumbled version of a sailor's song. "Hmm' Oh, that' Yes, my informant....I swear, Midget, he just can't shut up! Oh no, it's fantastic! He's proven very useful for my work."

Indeed the man would make a very good ghoul, if what the woman who claimed to be called Livinia proved true. He had been forthright with his family, his few friends and his many colleagues about his research goals as a graduate student in a necroanthropology program: the behavior and practices of hominid beings classified as "undead." What he had been less direct about for several years was the exact nature of his research.

Old records, second-hand interviews and chance meetings with victims were not sufficient to truly master this field, and certainly not to realize it to its full potential. Roughly three years ago Elias realized the need for a more, well....hands-on approach, and had made many hard choices since then.

"Seven is fine. Tomorrow night, I can make it, of course. Midget, I promise." If this woman Livinia provided him with strong ghouls, then he would be able to capture progressively stronger specimens and finally conduct the kinds of experiments his university had disallowed over a century ago. "...What' No, of course I want to meet them..."

Something in the man's groggy senses realized he was in danger, roused him to a full panic and he moaned and rattled the chains. "Oh Jesus, it's that drunk again, hang on....Lena, I'm sorry, I have to go. Sorry." Elias clicked the phone shut, grimaced, fumbled in the dark over the table, then plunged a larger syringe into the man's neck. This was no minor sedative; it was a tranquilizer strong enough to knock out a horse.

The answers he'd managed to ask the man so far would have to do: he would have to assume his medical history was spotless enough for his needs. As the man's eyelids began to droop, Elias grabbed his chin, jerked his head upright and smiled: "See what you did there" See what you did? Yes-sir....you and me, we'll have a little chat with the Lady Livinia about your behavior." He dropped the man's head and muttered on his way around the cellar as he packed up his things.

"Christ, is it ever hard to find decent help around here."