Michael Talbot — The Delicate Dependency They are cool to the touch and alluringly beautiful in their ageless youth, and their fathomless eyes are the eyes which transfix..The secrets they guard are rendered in the iron doors and gothic traceries of Notre Dame. Their arts and science are the light of civilization. Their consciousness, so old, so vastly superior, stands vigil over human progress. They were the Illuminali, They are the vampire. The players in this story are: Dr. John Gladstone, a fashionable London virologist on the verge of altering history; his elder daughter Ursula, enticed by the lure of immortality; his younger daughter Camille, bereft of reason, bestowed with genius; and the Lady Hespeth, whose obession is a mask of the unimaginable.