by Anne Rice
Fareed was trying to envision some theoretical construct of this being, this spirit Amel. But he had come up against questions and mysteries he could not conquer. No instrument on Earth could detect the actual cells of this being, but Fareed had no doubt that it was cellular. And as always he wondered if it were not a remnant of a lost world that had existed on Earth before oxygen entered the atmosphere. Could it have been part of some thriving race eventually shut out of the visible biological world by the rise of those creatures that were not only not poisoned by oxygen but thrived on it? What had life been like for that race? Would they have been visible in some way to the human eye during those millions of years before the rise of oxygen? Did they swim the oxygen-free atmosphere of the world as octopuses swim the ocean? Did they love? Did they breed? Had they an organized society of which we know nothing? And what precisely had oxygen done to them? Were they remnants of their former selves--giant etheric bodies of infinitesimal cells which had once possessed a grosser form, struggling with senses so different from ours that we couldn't imagine them?
There was little doubt that at death, the human body set free some sort of etheric "self" that ascended, poetically speaking, to some other realm, and that some of these etheric bodies remained here on Earth--earthbound ghosts. Fareed had seen such ghosts since he'd come into the Blood. They were rare, but he had seen them. Indeed he had glimpsed ghosts who had organized around the etheric body a physical appearance of being human that was made up entirely of particles which they drew to themselves through some sort of magnetism.
What relationship did such ghosts have to these spirits of which Amel was one? Did their "subtle" bodies have something in common?
Fareed would go mad if he didn't find the answers. He and Flannery Gilman, the most brilliant doctor he'd brought over into the Blood--the biological mother of Lestat's son, Viktor--had discussed all this innumerable times searching for the great breakthrough which would bring all the disparate information to order.
Perhaps the ultimate key to Amel would be one of those savvy, clever ghosts who passed for real every day in Los Angeles. Seth had said once when they'd spotted such a ghost walking boldly on the street with palpable footsteps that the ghosts of the world were evolving, that they were growing better and better at entering the physical, at making these biological bodies for themselves. Oh, if only Fareed could speak with one of these ghosts, but every time he'd tried to approach such a specter, the specter had fled. One time it had dissolved right before his eyes leaving behind its clothes. Another ghost had dissolved clothes and all because its garments, obviously, had also been illusory, part of its particle body.
Oh, if there were only time, time to study, to think, to learn. If only the Voice had not precipitated this awful crisis. If only the Voice were not Hell-bent on destruction of the Undead. If only the Voice were not an adversary of its own kind. But there was no evidence the Voice felt that the blood drinkers of the world were its own kind. In fact, there was evidence to the contrary, that it saw itself held hostage in some form which it could not make its own. Did that mean that it wanted to be free again, free to ascend to some atmospheric paradise whence it came? Not likely. No. It had to have a very different ambition, an ambition more compatible with the daring that had driven it down into the body of Akasha in the first place.
Fareed stared at the model he had made of the thing in burning color on the giant monitor.
That it was an invertebrate he was almost certain, that it possessed a discernible brain he was certain; that its nervous system involved numerous tentacles he was certain too. He suspected that in its spirit state it had absorbed some form of nutrients from the atmosphere of the planet. And blood, of course, the capacity to absorb tiny droplets of blood, had been its passage into the visible biological world. Obviously its tentacles involved a huge percentage of its neurons, but apparently did not involve full intelligence or awareness. That was localized in the brain, the Sacred Core, so to speak. And it was now evident, evident from the Voice, that this brain could encode both short-term memories and long-term memories. Its wants were now being expressed in terms of time and memory.
But had it always been so? Had the problem of long-term memory paralyzed this creature for centuries because it had had no way to store or respond to long-term memories in its "spirit" state? Had Amel and other spirits floated in a blessed "now" in their invisible form?
Had it always had personality and consciousness as we know them and only been unable in ages past to communicate? It had certainly communicated in spirit form to the great twin witches. It had loved them, wanted to please them, especially Mekare. It had wanted recognition, approval, even admiration.
But had that consciousness been submerged when the boastful Amel entered the Mother, only coming to the surface now because it found itself lodged in the host body of a woman who had no true thinking brain of her own?
Perhaps history had awakened Amel--the history he'd discovered when the burning rock videos of the Vampire Lestat had been piped into the Shrine of the Mother and the Father, videos that told the tale of how the vampires had come into existence. Had something vital and irreversible been sparked in Amel when he saw those little films on a television screen that Marius had so lovingly provided for the mute Mother and Father?
Fareed sighed. What he wanted more than anything in this world was to be in direct contact with the Voice itself. But the Voice had never spoken to him. The Voice had spoken to Seth. The Voice had undoubtedly spoken to innumerable blood drinkers on the planet, but the Voice shunned Fareed. Why? Why did it do this? And was the Voice from time to time anchoring itself inside Fareed to know his thoughts even if it did not speak to him?
That was conceivable. It was conceivable that Amel was learning from Fareed's analysis more than the Voice cared to admit.
Viktor and Seth came into the room.
They stood in the airy darkness, looking at the monitor, waiting politely for Fareed to disengage and give them his full attention.
It was a very large room, this, with glass walls open to the flat country and the mountains beyond, one of many rooms in this great sprawling three-story medical compound which Fareed and Seth had built in the California desert.
Fareed had found the architecture of this area cold and uninspiring, efficient for work, but sterile for the spirit. So he'd warmed this space and others like it with little touches--marble fireplaces arching over gas grates, his favorite European paintings in gilded frames, and faded antique carpets from his native India. Several immense computers dominated his desk here, monitors aglow and filled with graphs and pictures. But the desk itself was an old Renaissance Portuguese piece of carved walnut found in Goa.
Viktor and Seth had not sat down, though the room was filled with leather easy chairs. They were waiting, and Fareed had to let this go, realize once and for all that he had come to the end of what he could know without confronting the Voice directly.
Finally, Fareed turned in the modern black swivel chair and faced the two who were waiting.
"Everything's been arranged," said Seth. "The plane's ready; luggage loaded. Rose is on the plane, and Viktor will be with her. Rose thinks she is going to New York to see her uncle Lestan."
"Well, we hope that will turn out to be the truth, don't we?" asked Fareed. "And our rooms in New York?"
"Prepared, of course," said Seth.
It had been two years since Fareed or Seth had visited their apartment there or the adjacent small laboratory they maintained on the sixty-third floor of a Midtown building. But this place was always in readiness, and why Fareed was asking foolish questions about this now, he did not know, except that it was a form of stalling.
Seth went on talking as if he were thinking aloud, checking himself on what had to be done. "All the human employees are gone home for indefinite leave with pay; all blood drinkers are in the basement rooms and will remain there until we return. The blood supplies are adequate for a long sequester. The security s
ystems are in operation. This compound's as safe as it ever was. If the Voice launches an attack, well, it won't succeed."
"The basements," Viktor whispered. He shuddered. "How can they stand it, being shut up in a cellar for nights at a time?"
"They're blood drinkers," said Seth quietly. "You're a human being. You forget over and over again."
"Are there no blood drinkers with fears of cellars and crypts?" asked Viktor.
"None that I've ever known," said Seth. "How could there be?"
There was no doubt that the cellars were safe. Yet we are leaving here, leaving this superb and secure installation, to go to New York, thought Fareed, but he knew that they had to do it.
"I don't want to be locked in a cellar, not here or anywhere," said Viktor. "I've had a horror of close dark places ever since I can remember."
Fareed scarcely heard. Seth was assuring Viktor he'd be in an apartment of glass walls in New York high above the streets of Manhattan. No crypts.
Typical of a mortal to obsess about something that was of no importance. Fareed wished he could as easily divert himself from his deeper fears.
Fareed had sat quietly astonished this very morning, over fourteen hours ago, before sunrise, as Seth had connected privately with Benji Mahmoud by phone and told him they were coming. The phone had been on speaker. Seth and Benji had gone back and forth in Arabic for half an hour. And when Seth had revealed the existence of Rose and Viktor, Fareed had been horrified.
But he understood. They were going because they had to go, and they had to trust Benji and Armand and the others in New York with their deepest secrets. Leaving Viktor and Rose behind, leaving them here or anywhere, was simply impossible. Viktor had always been their responsibility, and now Rose was their responsibility as well by decision. And so they would take these two lovely young mortals with them to the command central of the crisis, and lodge nearby.
Fareed had slept the daytime sleep of the dead since that phone call, and awakened at sunset and come to his senses knowing Seth had done what he had to do. He was also certain of Benji Mahmoud's devotion to Lestat, certain of the devotion of all his little family--Armand, Louis, Sybelle, Antoine, and whoever else had joined them. But he knew that the secret of Viktor and Rose would soon leak telepathically. It had to leak.
When this many knew a secret, it was no longer a secret. He looked now at this sturdy and princely young man whom he, Fareed, had brought up from earliest childhood, wondering what really did lie in store for him. Fareed had loved him irresistibly, nourishing him with knowledge, luxury, and above all with a rich experience of the physical wonders and beauty of this Earth through travel and private instruction from his earliest years. The only thing ever denied to Viktor had been childhood, an experience of other children, an experience of being what the modern world calls "normal" with all its attendant risks. That Viktor had never known, and now fate had put him in the path of a young mortal woman whose experience had not been all that different from Viktor's own, and the two had come to love each other. It was no surprise, that. Fareed could not have found a more perfect mate for Viktor than Rose. And vice versa.
Fareed backed off from the full intensity of his own emotions, his deepest fears, his constant obsessive worries about all that had happened, might happen, could happen.
"The blood banks in the rooms belowground ...," Viktor said.
"Adequate," said Seth. "Seen to. All of it. Done. I just told you. Dr. Gilman is in charge, and no one will come up out of the cellars until she gives the word. Our beloved savants have their labs down there, their computers, their projects. They are as indifferent to fear as they are to anything pertaining to the world outside their own field. The electrical systems protecting them cannot fail. It would be flat-out ridiculous of the Voice to launch an attack on this location."
"And the Voice is such a paragon of the reasonable and the effective," said Viktor suddenly under his breath. It was as if he couldn't stop himself, and Fareed realized suddenly how very tense and miserable Viktor was, and how excited also.
Viktor wore his usual short-sleeved white polo shirt and jeans, though he was carrying over his arm a soft brown suede jacket for the journey. He was a blond-haired young male in splendid health with a well-developed and muscular frame that was almost that of a man rather than a boy. But in this day and age a man might develop height and musculature until he was thirty. Viktor was six foot one, already one inch taller than his father.
"I'm sorry. Forgive me for interrupting," Viktor said, with his usual courtesy. He'd been deferential to Seth and Fareed and his mother all his life.
"No one expects you to be indifferent to what's happening," Seth said gently. "But we've been through it. This is the way. This is our decision."
Viktor nodded, but his eyes and complexion flashed with a warmth that no preternatural body could ever give forth. Fareed could hear Viktor's accelerated pulse. He caught the faint scent of the sheen of sweat covering Viktor's upper lip and forehead.
In the dim lunar light of the monitors Viktor looked so much like Lestat it was uncanny. He wasn't angry as he looked at Fareed. In fact, it didn't seem that Viktor had ever been angry in his entire short life with anyone. But he did look hurt and young and anxious. His unruly blond hair made him look more boyish than he was. It was long now, almost to his shoulders. And that is how the Vampire Lestat looked most of the time in videos, photos, and even the iPhone snapshots taken of him by vampire paparazzi in Paris.
"I beg you one more time, both of you," Viktor said now in a trembling but rather deep voice, "to bring us over. Rose and me, bring us over! Do it before we make this journey to New York and you plant us, two helpless human beings, in a colony of the Undead."
He had always had a way of being painfully honest and cutting through superfluous language as if every language he had ever learned was a "second tongue." And that voice, that deep male voice, indicated a maturity he really didn't possess yet, as far as Fareed was concerned.
"You won't be in a colony of the Undead," said Fareed reprovingly. "You'll be in our own apartments, and you'll be safe with our guards."
Oh, he was beautifully behaved, never rash, Viktor, and never rebellious, and seldom if ever emotional in a confusing way, but he was a boy of nineteen, one year younger biologically than Rose, almost to the month, by sheer coincidence, and both of them were children.
"Bring us over," Viktor whispered, glancing from Fareed to Seth.
"The answer is no," said Seth. He placed a hand on Viktor's shoulder. The two were about the same height, though Viktor was gaining.
Fareed sighed. He said again what he had said before.
"The Voice slays young blood drinkers," said Fareed. "We will not bring you over and make you vulnerable to his attacks, simply to lose you. As mortals you are infinitely safer. And if this thing ends in ruin for us, you and Rose will survive. You and Rose will walk away. You may never know what happened, and all your life you'll carry the burden of experiences you can't share with others. But you'll walk away. And we want this for you, regardless of what you want."
"That's the love a parent has for its child," said Seth.
Viktor was plainly exasperated. "Oh, what I wouldn't give," he said, "for five minutes with my real father." It wasn't said with malice. It was a simple confession, and Viktor's eyes were wondering as he said it.
"And you will likely get more than that in New York," said Fareed. "That is only one of the reasons we must go there. Because you and Rose must meet with him and he must decide what happens with you."
"Rose is half out of her mind," said Viktor. "This can't end any other way for her but with the Blood. You know this! Do you realize how helpless I feel?"
"Of course," said Fareed. "We feel helpless ourselves. But now we must be going. We'll reach New York before you do. And we'll be there when the plane lands."
Viktor could never know the depth of Fareed's anxiety right now. Fareed had not brought this vital, splendid human being
into the world simply to consign him to death, death in any form, yet Fareed knew how desperately and totally this boy wanted the Blood and had to want it. Only Lestat could consign these two to the Blood. Fareed could never do it.
Seth went quiet and still for a moment. But Fareed had heard it too, the thin wirelike voice of Benji emanating from some equipment somewhere in the compound.
"Be assured, the old ones are coming together. Be assured, Children of the Night, you are no longer alone. They are gathering. Meanwhile you must protect yourselves, wherever you are. Now the Voice is seeking to turn you against your fellow blood drinkers. We have reliable reports that that is what it is doing now, entering the minds of the youngest and driving them to fight their makers and their fellow fledglings. You must be on guard against the Voice. The Voice is a liar. Tonight young ones have been slain in Guadalajara and in Dallas. The attacks have slowed, but they are still happening."
Slowed. What did this mean?
"Is there any estimate coming from anyone," Viktor asked, "as to how many have been slain?"
"Roughly? Based on the report," said Fareed bringing his fingers together. "I'd say thousands. But then we have no idea how many Children of the Night there were before these massacres started. You ask me, based on all I've read and pondered, well, I would say the population was at the most five thousand the world over before this started, and now it's down below a thousand. As for the elders, the true Children of the Millennia who are impervious to these raids of fire, I calculate there are less than thirty and most descended from Queens Blood and not from First Brood. But no one can know. As for all those in between, the powerful and clever ones like Armand and Louis and Lestat himself, and who knows who else, well, what, maybe one hundred? No one can ever know. I don't think the Voice knows."
It hit him suddenly with dark force that indeed the species could die out without anyone ever documenting fully what had actually happened to it. Its history, its physical characteristics, its spiritual dimensions, its tragedies, the portal it had established between the world of the seen and the unseen--all might very well be swallowed by the same implacable physical death that had swallowed millions of other species on this planet since before recorded time. And all Fareed had sought to know and achieve would be lost, just as his own individual consciousness would be lost, just as he would be lost. He found himself breathless. Not even as a dying man in a hospital bed in Mumbai had he confronted his mortality so totally.