Used book – The Crook Factory, Volume 1, Dan Simmons, Jean-Daniel Brèque

They have the Talent. They have the ability to penetrate our minds and turn us into puppets serving their perversions and hunger for power. They pull the strings of history. Without them, Nazism might never have existed, and many outbreaks of violence, killings, and unexplained accidents might not have bloodied our era. For they also wage a merciless war among themselves, according to rules borrowed from chess. They are psychic vampires.