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It had been vain and foolish for me to offer clothing and lodging to Avicus and Mael. I was doomed to be alone.

I felt sickened and cold in my misery. I looked up to the Queen and I could form no prayers with words.

Then quite helplessly I begged: "Bring Pandora back to me. If ever you brought her to me in the first place, bring her back, I beg you, I'll never quarrel with her again. I'll never abuse her again. This is unendurable, this loneliness. I need to hear the sound of her voice. I need to see her. "

On and on I went in this manner, until suddenly I became alarmed that Avicus and Mael might be near to me, and I rose to my feet, straightened out my garments and made to take my leave.

"I'll return," I told the Mother and Father. "I'll make this shrine beautiful like the one in Antioch. Only let us wait until they've gone. " I was about to go out when abruptly the thought occurred to me¡ªI needed more of Akasha's powerful blood. I needed it to be stronger than my foes. I needed it to endure what I had to endure.

Now understand, never since the first night that I had drunk from Akasha, had I taken more of her blood. That first night had been in Egypt when she told me with the Mind Gift to take her out of the land. Then and only then had I experienced the blood.

Even when Pandora was made a blood drinker, and she drank from Akasha, I had not dared to appr

oach the Mother. In fact, I knew well how the Mother might strike down those who came by force to steal the Sacred Blood from her, for I'd witnessed such an aborted crime.

Now as I stood before the small dais with its seated royalty, the idea obsessed me. I must again take the Mother's blood.

In silence I begged permission. I waited for a sign. When Pandora had been made, Akasha had lifted her arm to beckon. I had seen it and marveled at it. I wanted such a thing to happen now.

No such sign came to me, however, and yet the obsession raged within me, until I moved forward, quite determined to drink the Divine Blood or die. I found myself suddenly embracing my cold and lovely Akasha with one arm behind her and the other lifted so that my hand held her head.

Closer and closer I came to her neck.

At last my lips were pressed against her cool unresponsive flesh and she had made no move to destroy me. I felt no fatal clasp on the back of my head. Silent as ever she remained in my arms.

Finally my teeth broke the surface of her skin and the thick blood, blood like that of no other among us, came into my mouth. At once I found myself dreamy and cast adrift in an impossible paradise of sunshine and green grass and flowering trees. What a comfort it was, what a balm. It seemed a garden of old Roman myth, one somehow familiar to me, protected forever from winter, and full of the most blessed blooms.

Yes, familiar and forever safe, this verdant place.

The blood ravaged me, and I could feel it hardening me, as it had the very first time it had come into my veins. The sun of the familiar garden grew brighter and brighter until the flowering trees began to disappear in the light. Part of me, some very small and weak part of me was afraid of it, this sun, but the larger part relished it, relished the warmth that was passing into me, and the comfort of what I beheld, and then all at once, as quickly as it had begun, this dream was ended.

I lay on the cold hard floor of the shrine, several yards away from the foot of the dais. I was on my back.

For a moment I was uncertain of what had happened. Was I injured? Was there to be some terrible justice in store? But within seconds, I realized I was as sound of limb as ever, and that the blood had greatly invigorated me just as I'd supposed.

I rose to my knees, and made certain with quick eyes that the Royal Pair remained as before. Why had I been thrown away from Akasha with such violence? Nothing was changed.

Then for a long time I gave my silent thanks for what had taken Place. Only when I was certain that nothing further was to happen, I rose to my feet, and declaring that I would be back soon to begin my decorations of the shrine, I left.

I was enormously excited as I returned to my house. My increased agility, and keenness of mind were more than welcome. I determined to test myself, and taking my dagger, I plunged it all the way through my left hand, and then withdrew it, watching the wound as it immediately healed.

At once I spread out a scroll of the finest parchment and I began to write in my personal code which no other could read, of what had taken place. I didn't know why, after taking the Sacred Blood, I had found myself on the floor of the chapel.

"The Queen has allowed me to drink again from her, and if this is to happen often, if I can take nourishment from our mysterious majesty, I can attain enormous strength. Even the blood drinker Avicus will be no match for me, though this might have been the case before this night. "

Indeed, as it turned out I was precisely right about the implications of this incident, and during all the centuries to come, I approached Akasha again and again.

I did this not only when severely injured¡ªa tale I mean to tell you¡ªbut I did it at times when the fancy caught hold of me as if she had put it in my mind. But never, never, as I have confessed with bitterness, did she ever press her teeth to my throat and take from me my own blood.

No, that distinction was left for the blood drinker Lestat, as I have said.

In the following months, this new blood served me well. I found that the Mind Gift was stronger in me. I could well detect the presence of Mael and Avicus when they were quite far away, and though such spying opens a mental passage as it were by which they could see me as their observer, I was able, after seeing them, to quickly close myself off.

I was also able to tell quite easily when they were searching for my presence, and of course I heard, positively heard, their footsteps when they were in the precincts of my house.

I also opened my house to humans!

The decision came to me one evening as I lay on the grass in my own garden dreaming. I would have regular banquets. I would invite the notorious and the slandered. I would have music and dim lamps.