My ideas about vampires may by romantic, but your attitudes toward women need a major overhaul.

These days vampires gravitated toward particle accelerators, projects to decode the genome, and molecular biology. Once they had flocked to alchemy, anatomy, and electricity. If it went bang, involved blood, or promised to unlock the secrets of the universe, there was sure to be a vampire around.

Scholars do one of two things when they discover information that doesn't fit what they already know. Either they sweep it aside so it doesn't bring their cherished theories into question or they focus on it with laserlike intensity and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

The plain truth is that the period I study is the 16th century, and they were absolutely obsessed with witches and spiritual beings.

I saw the logic that they used, and the death of a thousand cuts as experimental scientists slowly chipped away at the belief that the world was an inexplicably powerful, magical place. Ultimately they failed, though. The magic never really went away. It waited, quietly, for people to return to it when they found the science wanting.

It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear. It begins with a discovery of witches.

Occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile."..' Opportunity is fleeting, experiment dangerous, and judgement difficult.