Even in the last two centuries, this place had been perfect. It had been simple to ferry coal and firewood from the mainland, and to keep a pleasure boat of his own in the little harbor for those times when he wanted to be out on the stormy seas.
But the world was wholly different now.
Coast helicopters regularly patrolled the area, satellite images of the castle could be accessed on any computer, and well-meaning mortals frequently made a nuisance of themselves attempting to confirm the safety and well-being of the inhabitants.
Wasn’t it the same now for other immortals, those legendary vampire musicians who lived in the Alps, for instance, Notker the Wise with his fiddlers and composers and immortal boy soprano singers? Those boys were such a treat. (You didn’t have to castrate a boy to fix him as a soprano forever. Just give him the Blood.) And wasn’t it the same for Maharet and Mekare in their remote jungles, and any other exile from the world who’d counted on the survival of impenetrable wildernesses which were no more?
Only the clever ones like Gregory Duff Collingsworth and Armand Le Russe—who could thrive right in the midst of mortals—were undisturbed by the shrinking of the planet. But what a price they paid.
Where would immortals have to go next to build their citadels? Into the mountain ranges beneath the sea? He’d thought of it of late, he had to admit, a great sprawling palace made of space-age steel and glass in a deep dark ocean ravine, accessible only to those powerful enough to swim to the lower depths. And yes, he had the wealth perhaps to create such a retreat for himself of sorts, but he was angry, angry that he had even to think of giving up this lovely island where he’d been at home for hundreds of years. Besides, he wanted to see trees and grass and stars and the moon from his windows. He liked to chop wood himself for his own hearths. He wanted to feel the wind on his face. He wanted to be part of this Earth.
Now and then he reflected: What if we did come together and use our considerable powers to destroy half the human race? It wouldn’t be that hard, would it? Especially when people don’t believe you exist. Wholesale destruction and anarchy would make for new wildernesses all over the planet, and blood drinkers could hunt with impunity and have the upper hand once more. But then Rhosh also loved the technological accomplishments of the shrinking planet—great flat-screen televisions, recorded poetry and music, DVDs and the streaming of documentaries and dramatic programs and films to viewers everywhere, magnificent electronic sound systems, satellite broadcasting, telephones, cell phones, electric heat and modern construction techniques, synthetic fabrics, high-rise buildings, fiberglass yachts, airplanes, nylon carpet, and modern glass. Saying goodbye to the modern world would be anguishing, no matter how good the hunting became.
Oh, well … He had no stomach for destroying half the human race anyway. He had no inveterate aversion to mortals. None at all.
But Benji Mahmoud was right. We ought to have a place here! Why are we, of all the creations, supposed to be damned? What do we do that other creatures do not do, he would like to know. And the fact is, we hide more from each other than from mortals. When had mortals ever troubled Rhosh? When had they ever troubled Notker the Wise if he was still in his alpine musical school for the Undead? Or the clever Sevraine?
He took a deep breath of the fresh sea air.
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?
It was a beautiful sunset, or it had been. And the mountains of my homeland were visible out there with the stars sweeping down to touch them, a clear and perfect night so far from the noise and pollution of the world, with only a few voices coming from that little string of shops and dwellings that made up the village on the mountain road beneath us, and we two here in this room which had once been a bedchamber but which was now a spacious paneled and decorated salon.
My mirrors, my traceries of gold on rosewood, my Flemish tapestries, Kirman carpets, Empire chandeliers.
The chateau had indeed undergone a magnificent restoration. Its four towers were now complete and a multitude of rooms completely reconstructed and supplied with electric light and heat. As for the village, it was very small, and existed only to sustain the little workforce of carpenters and craftsmen engaged with the restoration. We were too far off the beaten path in this part of the Auvergne even for the tourists, let alone the rest of the world.
What we had here was solitude and quiet—blessed quiet. Quiet such as only the rural world can provide—far from the voices of Clermont-Ferrand or Riom. And blessed beauty all around us in green fields and undisturbed forests in this old part of France where once so many poor and struggling families had suffered so much for every loaf of bread or morsel of meat. Not so now. New highways had opened the mountainous and isolated peaks and valleys of the Auvergne to the rest of the country several decades ago and with them had come the inevitable technological embrace of modern Europe. But it remained the least populated part of France, perhaps of Europe—and this chateau, surrounded and accessible only through private gated roads, was not even on the current maps.
“It disgusts me to see you going backwards,” she declared. She turned her back to me, making a small slender figure against the incandescent light of the window. “Ah, but you have always done what you want to do.”
“As opposed to what?” I asked. “Mother, there is no forwards or backwards in this world. My coming here was moving forwards. I was homeless and asked myself, with all the time in the world to ponder it, where I should like to be at home. And voilà! I am here in the castle in which I was born of which a considerable amount remains, though it’s buried now beneath plaster and ornament, and I am looking out on those mountains where I used to hunt when I was a boy, and I like this. This is the Auvergne, the Massif Central in which I was born. It is my choice. Now stop the harangue.”
Of course she had not been born here. She’d lived perhaps the most miserable decades of her existence here, giving birth to seven sons of which I was the last, and dying slowly in these rooms before she’d come to me in Paris, and been launched onto the Devil’s Road as we embraced beside her deathbed.
Of course she didn’t love all this. Perhaps there was some special place in this world she loved, loved with the feelings I had for all this, but she was likely never going to tell me.
She laughed. She turned and came towards me in the same marching stride she’d been using all along and took a turn before my desk and walked about staring at the twin marble mantels, the antique clocks, all the things she hated with specific contempt.
I sat back, hands clasped behind my neck, and looked at the murals on the ceiling. My architect had sent to Italy for a painter to do these in the old French style—Dionysus with his band of garlanded worshippers frolicking against a blue sky full of rolling gold-tinged clouds.
Armand and Louis had been right to paint the ceilings of their digs in New York. I hated to admit it, but glimpsing that baroque splendor through their windows had inspired me to give the order for these ceilings here. I resolved never to tell them that. Ah, pang of missing Louis, of wanting so to talk to Louis, pang of gratitude that Louis was with Armand.
“You’re yourself again at long last,” she said. “I am glad. I am truly glad.”
“Why? Our world may shortly end. What does it matter?” But this was dishonest. I didn’t think our world was going to end. I wouldn’t let it end. I’d fight it ending with every breath in my unwholesome immortal frame.
“Oh, it won’t end,” she said with a shrug. “Not if we all act together again as we did last time, if we put away our differences as the world is always saying and unite. We can defeat this thing, this raging spirit who thinks his every emotion is unique and momentous as if consciousness itself had just been discovered for his benefit and for his personal use!”
Ah, so she knew all about it. She hadn’t been holed up in some North American forest watching the snow fall. She’d been with us all along. And what she’d just said had meaning.
“He does behave that way, doesn’t he?” I said. “You put that exactly right.”
She leaned against the mantel nearest me, her elbow just able to manage it, and succeeded in looking like a thin graceful boy in that posture, her eyes positively glowing as she smiled at me.
“I love you, you know.”
“You could have fooled me on that one,” I said. “Hmmm. Well.” I shrugged. “Seems lots of people love me, mortal and immortal. Can’t help it. I’m just the most dazzling vampire on the planet, though why I’ll never know. Weren’t you lucky to have me for a son, the wolf killer who stumbled onto the stage in Paris and caught the fancy of a monster.” This was dishonest too. Why did I feel I had to keep her at a remove?
“Seriously, you look splendid,” she said. “Your hair’s whiter. Why is that?”
“Apparently it comes from having been burned. Repeatedly burned. But it’s yellow enough still to keep me happy. You look rather splendid yourself. What do you know about all this, what’s happening?”
She was silent for a moment. Then she spoke. “Never think they really love you, or love you for yourself,” she said.
“Thanks, Mother.”
“Seriously. I mean it. Don’t ever think … Love doesn’t really ever function like that. You’re the only name and face they all know.”
I regarded this thoughtfully, then replied, “I know.”
“Let’s talk of the Voice,” she said, leaping right into the subject without preamble. “It can’t manipulate the physical. Apparently it can only incite the minds of those it visits. He can’t possess the bodies at all. And I suspect it cannot do anything with the host body, but then I have seen the host body less often than you have, and for much less time.”
The host body was Mekare. I did not think of Mekare in those terms, but that is what she was.
I was impressed. All this should have been obvious to me before now. I’d regarded every visit from the Voice as some sort of attempt at possession, but the visits had never been that. It could make hallucinations, yes, but it had been working on my brain when it did that. But it had never been able to manipulate me physically into anything. I was mulling over the many things the Voice had said.
“I don’t think it can control the host body at all,” I said. “The host body has atrophied. Too many centuries with no fresh human blood, no human or vampiric contact, too much darkness for too long.”
She nodded. She turned and rested her back against the mantel and folded her arms.
“Its first goal will be to get out of that body,” she said. “But then what will it do? It will depend on the new host body and its powers. If we could trick it into a young fledgling body, that might be a very good call.”
“Why do you say that?”
“If it’s an older body again, a truly old body, it can expose itself to the sun and kill off half the vampires of the world by doing this, just as it happened in ancient times. If it’s in a young body, it will destroy itself if it attempts this.”
“Mon Dieu, I never even thought of that!” I said.
“That’s why we have to come together, all of us,” she said. “And New York’s the place of course. But first we must enlist Sevraine.”
“You do realize that the Voice can hear us right now,” I said.
“Not unless it’s here, in one of us,” she said. “The Voice has visited me more than once, and I think it can only be in one place at a time. It hasn’t spoken to groups of blood drinkers simultaneously. No. It certainly can’t speak to everyone at the same moment. That is not remotely possible for it. No. If it’s temporarily anchored in you or in me, yes, it can hear what’s being said in this room. But not otherwise. And I don’t feel its presence. Do you?”
I was pondering. There was considerable evidence she was right. But I still couldn’t figure why. Why didn’t the Voice’s intelligence permeate all of its immense body, assuming it did have a body as we know the word? But then whose intelligence does permeate its entire body? That of an octopus perhaps? I thought of Mekare and Maharet long ago comparing these spirits to immense sea creatures.
“This Voice moves along its own etheric anatomy,” Gabrielle said, “and I use that word simply because I don’t know any other to describe it, but I bet your learned friends Fareed and Seth would verify what I’m saying. It moves through its various extremities and cannot be in any two places at once. We must meet with them, Lestat. We must get to New York, and before that we must go to Sevraine. Sevraine should come with us. Sevraine’s powerful, perhaps as powerful as the host body.”
“How do you know about Seth and Fareed?” I asked.
“From the blood drinkers calling Benji Mahmoud in New York. Don’t you listen to them? You with your rock videos and sometime e-mail, I thought you’d be on top of all this technology. I listen to the tramps calling in and talking all about the benign vampire scientist of the West Coast who offers them cash for samples of their blood and tissue. They refer to Seth, his maker, as if he were a god.”
“And they’re headed to New York?”
She shrugged. “They ought to be.”
I had to confess I listened to Benji, but seldom to the others, except in snatches.
“Surely this entire body feels,” I said, “as I can feel pain in my hand and in my foot.”
“Yes, but you don’t have independent consciousness in your head or your foot. Look, what do I know? This Voice comes to me, rattles off some nonsense or other, and then it’s gone. It flatters me, exhorts me to destroy others, tells me I am the one and only one that it wants. Others have disappointed it. On and on. I suspect it’s saying the very same thing to any number of us, but I’m speculating. It’s crude, childlike, then wondrously clever and intimate. But look, I’m speculating, as I said.” She shrugged. “It’s time to go to Sevraine,” she said. “You have to take us there.”
“I have to take us?”
“Come on, don’t be coy, Brat Prince—.”
“You know, I could kill Marius for coining that term.”
“No, you couldn’t. You love it. And yes, you have to take us there. I don’t have the Cloud Gift, Son. I never drank the Mother’s blood or Marius’s blood.”
“But you’ve drunk from Sevraine, haven’t you?” I knew she had. I could see subtle differences in her that were not simply the work of time. But I wasn’t certain. “Mother, you have the Cloud Gift and you don’t know it.”
She didn’t answer.
“All of us must come together,” she said, “and we don’t have time for all this. I want you to take us to Sevraine.”
I put my feet on the floor, stood up, and stretched. “Very well,” I said, “I rather like the prospect of holding you helpless in my arms as if I might drop you at any point into the sea.”
She snickered. Ugly word, but she was still irresistible and pretty when she did it.
“And if I did drop you, you’d realize quick enough you have the Cloud Gift as I said.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Why don’t we put off that experiment? Agreed?”
“All right. Give me five minutes to tell my architect that I won’t be here for a few nights. And where are we going?”
“Oh, that architect, what a nuisance! While you’re at it, drain him of every drop of blood in his system. A madman who spends his life restoring a remote chateau simply because he’s paid to do it is a dreary prospect indeed.”
“Stay away from him, Mother. He’s my trusted servant. And I like him. Now where exactly will we be going, if I may ask?”
“Fifteen hundred miles. To Cappadocia.”