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Not a human soul within forty miles except for the old caretaker's family watching an American television program and laughing in their little cottage down there, their warm parlor with all the blue and white china hanging in the cupboard and their little white dog sleeping on the mat before the stove.

He was prepared to fight for it all, wasn't he? And he was prepared to consider fighting with others for it. But for now, he uttered a prayer to the maker of the universe asking only for his own safety, the safety of Benedict, and his own imminent return.

No sooner had the prayer left his lips, however, than he felt a great doubt. What was it that he meant to do and why? Why challenge the wise Maharet in her own house? And certainly his arriving there unannounced would be seen as a challenge, would it not?

It might be a damn sight better for him to go to New York, and seek out there other immortals who were concerned with the crisis and tell them exactly what he knew of the fickle and treacherous Voice.

There was a sudden sound inside his head as real as a whisper against his ear. Sealed off from the roaring wind, it was loud and distinct.

"Listen to me, Rhoshamandes, I need you." It was the Voice. "And I need you to come to me now."

Ah, was this what he'd been waiting for? Am I the anointed one?

"Why me?" he asked, his words lost in the wind, but not to the Voice. "And why should I believe you?" he demanded. "You betrayed me. You almost struck down my beloved Benedict."

"How was I to know Benedict was in danger?" said the Voice. "If you had gone into London and done my bidding, there would have been no danger for your Benedict! I need you, Rhoshamandes. Come to me now."

"Come to you?"

"Yes, the Amazon jungles, my beloved, precisely as you have surmised. I am in prison. I am in darkness. I wander the pathways of my tentacles and tendrils and my endless withering and coiling and threadlike extremities, searching, searching for those to love, but always--always--I am unanchored and rolled back into this mute and half-blind prison, this miserable sluggish and ruined body that I cannot quicken!--this thing that does not move, does not hear, does not care!"

"You are the spirit Amel, then, aren't you?" said Rhoshamandes. "Or that's what you would have me believe."

"Ah, in this living tomb I came to full self-possession, yes, in this vacuum, in this grim emptiness, and I can't escape it!"

"Amel."

"I cannot possess it!"

"Amel."

"Come to me before someone else does. Rhoshamandes, take me into yourself--into your splendid male body with a tongue and eyes and all its limbs and members--before someone else does this, someone rash and foolish and apt to use me and my ever-increasing power against you!"

Silence.

In shock and wonder he stood there, incapable of a conscious decision. The wind lashed at him, searing his eyes until they teared. Amel. The Sacred Core.

Long centuries ago, she'd looked down on him with such lofty contempt. "I am the fount. I possess the Core!"

A storm was gathering to the north. He could see it out there, feel its turbulence, feel the torrent nearing him, but what did that matter?

He went upwards, gathering speed as he ascended into the blasting icy cold, and then he turned southwest feeling wondrously weightless and powerful, heading for the open Atlantic.

15

Lestat

Be It Ever So Humble

"WHY EVER did you restore this castle, you who could live anywhere in this wide world? Why ever did you come back here, to this place, and the village? Why did you let that architect of yours rebuild the village? Why have you done all this? Are you mad?"

Beloved Mother, Gabrielle.

She was striding up and down with her hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, her safari jacket rumpled, her hair loose now in pale-blond ripples down her back from the long braid. Even vampiric hair can retain the rippling waves imposed upon it by a braid.

I didn't bother to answer. I had decided that instead of arguing with her or talking to her, I would enjoy her. I so hopelessly loved her, her defiant demeanor, her unbroken courage, her pale oval face with its immutable stamp of feminine allure that no coldness of heart could alter. Besides, I had too much on my mind already. Yes, it was lovely to be with her again, and yes, it was intense. Woe to the blood drinker who makes a fellow blood drinker of his mortal kin. But I was thinking about the Voice, and I couldn't think of much else.

So I was sitting at my antique gold-and-fruitwood writing desk, my precious bit of genuine Louis XV furniture in this place, with my feet up on it just watching her, my hands folded on my lap. And I was thinking, What can I do with what I know, what I sense?