Page 64

"Lestat," said Fareed. "Look at the history of Amel. What do we know about Amel? Think of the centuries when the blood drinkers of the world thought he was a mindless spirit, when even the great Maharet and Mekare thought he was a mindless spirit. And look what happened when this mindless spirit gained a consciousness of its own, and a point of view."

"Yes, of course."

"But don't you see," said Teskhamen, "even when Amel gained a purpose and started to incite the Burnings, and even when he incited Rhoshamandes to kill Maharet, you still assumed he was a spirit who had never lived on the earth before in any bodily form, a spirit evolving towards some sort of purposeful activity."

"Do you really not understand what's involved here?" asked Gremt. "Lestat, Amel has lived before. He is not a spirit evolving, he is a spirit with an identity, a personality, nourished in flesh and blood that can be restored to him."

"Amel was the leader in that city," said Arion. "Rhoshamandes saw evidence of this, and that he controlled a technology which is beyond our present dreams."

"I see," I said. And I was beginning to see. "If Amel could do what he did when he did not know who he was, think what he might do if he remembered his entire history."

"That's it, exactly," said Fareed. "And Amel is in you and in all of us and we are inextricably dependent upon him."

"Gremt, what do you know of this ancient city?" I asked.

Gremt was quiet for a long moment, and then he spoke. "I have no knowledge of it," he answered. "But as I told you, there was a time in the airy Heavens in which I lived when Amel was not there. Then there was the coming of Amel and wars in Heaven, so to speak, with his tempestuous challenges to other spirits and his wild courtship of the red-haired human witches Mekare and Maharet."

"Red hair," said Armand, "and red hair is what I saw in the blood of Garekyn Brovotkin. A red-haired male, a male with pale skin, and red hair and green eyes."

"Was it that simple," I mused, "that he warmed to the witches for their red hair? And not their power?"

"It was both!" said Teskhamen. "The Talamasca has studied for centuries the link between red hair and psychic power. We have files and files on witches with red hair from our earliest days."

The room went silent. It seemed they were all watching me, but I couldn't help but believe they were searching for some outward sign of him, and there never was any outward sign. There was only the pressure on the back of my neck, the pressure that I could feel and something else like a chill passing through me.

"Lestat, listen to me," said Marius. "There is no stopping Amel from finding out anything he wants to know from these creatures. Let it be through us and not through Rhoshamandes."

A terrible foreboding gripped me. It had nothing to do with executing Rhosh. It was all-powerful, this foreboding. " 'Out, out, brief candle,' " I whispered.

I heard my mother laugh. But no one else laughed.

"So," she said, laughing still, "these otherworldly scientists have come for Amel, have they? And was it a body they were making in their laboratories at Collingsworth Pharmaceuticals? A body for Amel? Tell him, Fareed, about the crates. Was there a body in one of those crates, prepared for Amel, should he want to escape the vampires once and for all?"

No one answered.

I bowed my head. I stared at the glossy surface of the mahogany table. "Amel, why don't you speak?" I asked aloud. "You're listening. You are hearing everything. Why don't you speak? Are these your friends from a former time and do you know their language?"

I heard his answer loud and clear and I was certain the others heard it too. If Louis and my mother could not hear it from me, they heard it from all the others who had heard it in my mind.

I would never do harm to you. You love me. You loved me when no one else did.

"That's true," I said. "I gave you my body willingly. But who are these people? Are they your people?"

I don't know. I don't know who they are. And I don't know what I am, but they know what I am, don't they? Let them come.

Silence once more.

"Well, then," I said. "Go on the radio and give them a number by which they can reach us now."

Armand rose at once and went off, presumably to find Benji in his studio.

"There is one thing more that must be done immediately," said Marius.

"And what's that?" I asked.

Allesandra began to weep again. But Marius ignored her.

"Rhoshamandes cannot be allowed to live," said Marius. "We all know this and we knew it last year after he slew Maharet. You must proscribe him now! And let those who wish destroy him."