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He'd wake gasping with the passengers and the steward asking after him, if he needed anything, if there was anything they could do.

It was early afternoon when he checked into the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, using cash and requesting an alias be observed by the staff. They thought him an actor and a performer. No problem, once they'd verified his passport.

After leaving a lengthy message for his solicitor in London, he at last lay down to sleep in a clean fresh bed. He had a few hours until sunset, and then he might have to start running again.

8

Lestat

CHATEAU DE LIONCOURT

"VERY WELL," I said. "We're all here, or at least most of us are here. Let's go over it again. What do we know?"

We were gathered in the Council Chamber of the northern tower, a reconstructed part of the Chateau that had not existed in my day. It was a vast room at the very top, with a solitary coil of iron stairs leading to the battlements, and richly decorated, plastered, and painted, as was every single room of my ancestral home. Marius had only recently painted the murals depicting the battle of Troy on the surrounding walls and on the ceiling, a spirited depiction of the tragic journey of Phaeton, vainly struggling with his father's steeds as they drew him across

the sky. The murals had the eerie perfection of a vampire painter, which made them look both magnificent and contrived at the same time, as if someone had blasted the walls with photographic images and then a team had painted them in.

I liked this room, and I liked that it was remote from the public rooms below. There were many young ones in the house and older ones not all that well known to us.

Now, there was no fixed membership in the Council. Attendance varied. But seated about the round table here were those I knew best and trusted best and mostly truly loved. Gregory, Marius, Sevraine who had only just arrived with my mother, Gabrielle, and Pandora, Armand, and Louis, and Gremt along with Magnus and another incarnate ghost, Raymond Gallant. This Raymond--a very impressive figure with dark gray hair and a narrow somewhat angular face--had once been a confidant and helper of Marius, and I had glimpsed this being a number of times with Marius in Paris, but we had not spoken, and he had not been with Gremt and Magnus when I'd visited them last night. Cyril and Thorne clung to the walls, of their own will, not choosing to sit amongst us as equals. Seth and Fareed were in Geneva and would report in as soon as they could.

Benji, who had crossed with Armand, had absented himself to be broadcasting from a chamber below, warning the Undead worldwide against Garekyn Zweck Brovotkin, who could destroy vampires who had been over five hundred years in the Blood.

Armand spoke first. He appeared drawn and hungry, and his voice did not have its usual silken strength.

"Well, Eleni will recover," he said. "She's in Fareed's laboratories in Paris now, in the hands of several of the medical apprentices." He addressed Sevraine and Gabrielle as he spoke, his eyes moving on to Pandora. "They say she will be whole again soon."

This compound of laboratories was the only hospital in the world ever created strictly for the Undead. It was skillfully and securely hidden in one of Gregory's many high-rise office buildings in the small industrial compound known as Collingsworth Pharmaceuticals on the outskirts of the city.

"We're all relieved that Eleni is well," I said, "but explain to me what you saw when you drank from this creature. We know the facts of how it happened. But what did you actually see?"

Armand sighed. "Something about an ancient city," he said, "falling into the sea. A metropolis of distinctly modern-looking buildings, futuristic buildings, suggestive of some long-forgotten utopia, I don't know how to describe it, and this being having been there with others like him, and these beings having been sent to the city for a special purpose. I couldn't see his companions clearly. And somehow it was all about Amel."

"Is Amel with us?" asked Gregory looking at me.

"No," I said. "That doesn't mean he isn't in any one of us at this table," I added. "But he's not inside me now. He left me last night before I crossed the Atlantic. I don't think he's been back since."

"That's highly unusual, isn't it?" asked Marius.

"I would say so," I replied. "But there's nothing to be done about it, so why bother to talk about it?"

"Armand, explain what you mean," said Sevraine. "That this was all about Amel."

Sevraine was certainly one of the most impressive of the ancients. She and Gregory and Seth were clearly the eldest amongst us. And her soft golden skin, though often darkened by sun, had an unmistakable gleam to it that marked her age and power. I knew very little of her really, though she'd opened her house to me and her heart.

"The thing was looking for Amel," said Armand. "The name Amel means something to the creature. The non-human thing had been listening to Benji's broadcasts. I don't think the thing meant to harm anyone. It came to find out if we and our Amel were real."

"And you say that the blood you took from him was completely replenished in a matter of hours?" asked Marius.

"Absolutely," said Armand. "And when the blood was replenished the thing came back to life. He overpowered Eleni and that took some doing. Eleni was made by Everard de Landen. She has the blood of Rhoshamandes in her. I don't know how this creature managed to spellbind her or overpower her but he did. We had no real way of containing such a powerful creature at Trinity Gate."

"Well, no one can blame you for what took place," said Gregory. "This ancient city you saw, did it have a name?"

"I heard it but the syllables didn't make sense to me."

"The lost city of Atlantis," said Marius. He was making notes on a pad in front of him. "Did you hear a name that sounded like Atlantis?"

"Perhaps," said Armand. "I thought that was a legend."