Cassandra's cold, blue eyes stared across the room at her friends talking at the bar. They were shrouded in a cloud of blue tobacco smoke from the pipes they were all enjoying immensely. At a time when such vices were frowned upon, to say the least, smoking reviled substances of any sort was almost a capital offence socially. Cassandra loved it.

She languidly lifted herself from the booth where she had been chatting to one of her oldest colleagues and joined her clique. She found a plain, ceramic pipe proffered by Ivan Kalinsky. The dark haired and brooding Kalinsky had been a failing writer in the 1950's when Cassie had turned him. Two and a half centuries later, nothing had changed for the man.