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"But you could never make another blood drinker," said Benedict, "because if you did you wouldn't be able to make the threat ..."

"Stop talking," said Rhosh. "I have no choice now, do I, but to follow this through! I must get Fareed to put the Sacred Core into me. Never mind all the rest. Just remember the instructions I've given you. Be ready at any moment for my phone call."

"I am," said Benedict.

"And don't, whatever you do, don't call me. Keep the phone ready. And when I call and instruct you to begin torturing the boy--that is, if I have to do that--then you must do it and they must be able to hear his screams through the phone."

"Very well!" said Benedict disgustedly. "But you do realize I've never tortured a human being before."

"Oh, come on, it won't be that difficult! Look at what you've done already. You've taken to this, you know you have. You'll figure a way to make him scream. Look, it's simple. Break his fingers, one by one. There are ten of them."

Benedict sighed.

"They will not harm me as long as the boy is in our hands, don't you see? And when I return here with Fareed, we'll deal with the goddess in the cellar, you understand?"

"All right," said Benedict with the same tone of bitter resignation.

"And then I will be the One! And you will be my beloved, as you have always been."

"Very well."

Truly, with his whole soul, he wished he had not killed Maharet and Khayman. With his whole heart he wished there were some escape now from this. Blood guilt. That had been the name for what he was feeling now. Thousands of years ago as a boy on Crete he'd known what blood guilt was when you killed those who were your own, and Maharet and Khayman had not been enemies.

"Oh, junk poetry, junk philosophy," sang the Voice. "She was going to plunge with her sister into the volcano. I told you. You did what you had to do, as moderns so simply put it. Forget the ways of ancient cultures. You are a blood drinker of immense physical and spiritual power. I will tell you what is sin and what is guilt. Now go to them and make your demand and leave your acolyte here to slice off the head of that boy upstairs if they do not give in to you."

"When they find out--."

"They know," said the Voice. "Turn up your computer volume, Benjamin Mahmoud is telling them everything."

And it was true.

He sat down on the couch beside the laptop with its glowing screen. The website of Benji Mahmoud now showed of all things Benji's very own likeness, not in a still photograph but in a video. There he was with his black fedora and his sharp penetrating black eyes, his round face fiercely animated with the tale he told:

"Lestat is with us. Lestat has been to the jungles of the Amazon seeking the Divine Twins, the keepers of the Sacred Core, and Lestat has come back to tell the tale: the great Maharet has been murdered. Her companion Khayman has been murdered. Their remains were left in a shameful shallow grave, their house desecrated. And the silent one, the passive one, the brave and enduring one, Mekare, is missing. Who has done these things we know not, but we do know this. We stand united against this wicked one."

Rhosh sighed and sat back on the white couch.

"What are you waiting for?" asked Benedict.

Their house desecrated!

"Let them come together," said the Voice. "Let them weigh their losses. Let them weigh what they stand to lose. Let them learn obedience. The hour of midnight has not yet struck. And by that time they will have come to realize their helplessness."

Rhosh didn't bother to answer.

Benedict started to question him again.

"Go see to the prisoners," he said to Benedict and went back out to look over the sea and seriously consider drowning himself, though he knew it wasn't possible and he had no choice now but to play this game to the finish.

22

Gregory

Trinity Gate

Inheriting the Wind

GREGORY HAD to admire this enigmatic Lestat. Never mind that Gregory was in love with him. Who could not admire a creature with such perfect poise, such perfect pitch for what to say to each and every blood drinker who approached him, a creature who could lapse into the greatest tenderness with his mortal ward, Rose, in his arms, and then turn with such fury on Seth, the powerful Seth, demanding to know how and why he'd exposed "these mortal children" to such disasters?