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"Yes," said David cheerfully and he began quoting from scriptures:

"Because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets; or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher broken at the fountain..."

"That's it," said Louis. "I'd forgotten it in scriptures. I remembered it from the Theosophical literature, and when it's snapped the etheric body or brain or soul is free."

"And the biological body dies," said Rose. "I've read those wonderful books. I used to try so hard to astral project when I was in high school, but it never happened. I'd lie on my bed and try for hours to go up and out the window and over New York, and all that ever happened was that I went to sleep."

Louis smiled. "But let's for the moment think of it in reverse. Let's not say if the silver cord is snapped the body dies, but rather if the body dies, the silver cord is snapped."

"What has this to do with us, Louis?" Fareed asked. He was really playing the gentleman. I knew how tired he was, how discouraged.

"Well, I'll tell you. I believe that these cords that connect us to Amel are a version of the silver cord; it's the silver cord connecting Amel's etheric body to the new etheric body formed in a new vampire--and the reason that we all remain connected is that we never actually die physically, when we are made. There is an etheric brain planted in us at the time we are brought over and it quickly generates an etheric body in us; but our biological body doesn't really die. It's merely transformed. So we remained tethered--Amel's etheric body and our etheric body. If we did actually die, the cord would snap, and the new etheric body which has taken over the physical body would be free of Amel."

"I thought we died as soon as the vampiric element took hold," said Viktor. "We went out to die after we were brought over. Our bodies had to get rid of fluids, waste--that was physical death."

"But you didn't really die, did you?" asked Louis. "Yes, that transformation happened. But you didn't really die."

"Well, if we had we wouldn't be here now," said Seth. "If the fledgling dies before the process is complete--."

"But what if the fledgling dies after the process is complete?" asked Louis.

"Well, you have everybody's interest, I'll say that for you," I murmured.

"Lestat, do be quiet," said David in a gentle voice.

"Let me explain," said Louis. "I was present decades ago when Akasha was killed. I was in the very room. And when it happened I was as connected to Amel then as everyone else was. I lost consciousness when the Mother's head was struck off, and I only know what happened later because people told me. I was revived only after the brain was taken out of Akasha and consumed by Mekare, or when the vampiric brain within Akasha's brain found another host and locked in to that new host."

"Locked in," David repeated. "That's a good description."

"Well," said Louis. "I'm not connected now."

"What are you talking about, of course you're connected," I said. "You were connected ten nights ago when I felt the pain, when Amel forced that unspeakable pain."

"I certainly was," said Viktor in a low voice.

"But I wasn't," said Louis. "I didn't feel the pain."

"Are you certain?" asked David.

"Even I felt it," said Seth.

"That's because you are connected," said Louis. "But I'm not."

"But I thought you did," I insisted. "Louis, everyone said that you did, that everyone felt it."

"They assumed that I'd felt it," said Louis. "But I didn't. And at Trinity Gate, the night you took the Amel brain out of Mekare's brain, I didn't feel anything then either. Everyone else did. Everyone else experienced something. But I experienced nothing. Oh, I was frantic when I gathered from all of them what was happening, but I didn't lose consciousness, I felt no pain, and my vision wasn't impaired, not even for a second. I saw the others around me standing stock-still as if frozen, or going down on their knees at some point. But I felt nothing and I think I know why."

We were all looking at him.

"Well?" I said. "Tell us why."

"Because I died years ago," he said. "I actually physically died. I died completely. I died when I deliberately exposed myself to the sun behind our flat in the French Quarter. It was after my misadventure with Merrick. Merrick had bewitched me. And I didn't want to go on. I exposed myself to the sun, and I had none of the blood of the elders to strengthen me, and all day I lay in the sun and I burned and I died."

Louis looked at me.

"You remember, Lestat, and you remember, too, David. You were both there. David, it was you who found me. I was as dead as anyone can be--until you both poured your powerful blood right into the coffin, right into my burnt remains and brought me back."

"But the etheric body, the Amel body, was still in you," said Fareed. "It had to be or you couldn't have been revived."