His heart was breaking for the young man who lay there dead, eyes closed in the final sleep. The remains were already slowly perishing in the warm rain. His heart broke for all the victims everywhere of blood lust, and war, and accident, and old age, and illness, and unendurable pain.
But his heart broke a little for once for himself too.
And that perhaps was the real change in him, the change that he welcomed—that he could see himself as part now of all this great and glistening world. He was not part of some mindless force that sought to destroy it. No, he was part of it. He was part of this, this night with its sweet mild rain, and this whispering garden with its fragrant flowers and its trees, and the breezes that moved their branches. And he was part of the roar of the city rising around him, and part of the sharp shining music that came from within the house. He was part of the grass beneath his feet, and the tiny relentless hordes of winged things that sought to devour the human waiting there helplessly for a proper grave.
He thought of Lestat again, confident, smiling, wearing the mantle of power as easily as he had always worn his finery, old and new.
He said under his breath:
“Beloved maker, beloved Prince, I will be with you soon.”
Tuesday
November 26, 2013
Palm Desert
Appendix 1
Characters and Their Chronology
Amel—A spirit manifesting to humans six thousand years ago or in 4000 B.C.
Akasha—The first vampire, made by a fusion with the spirit Amel six thousand years ago, or in 4000 B.C. Thereafter known as the Mother, or the Sacred Fount, or the Queen.
Enkil—The husband of Akasha and the first vampire made almost immediately by her.
Khayman—The second vampire made by Akasha within the first years after the fusion.
Maharet and Mekare—Twin witches born six thousand years ago. Mekare was made a vampire by Khayman. Maharet was made by Mekare. Khayman, Maharet, and Mekare became the First Brood rebelling against Akasha and making other blood drinkers when and where they chose.
Nebamun, later Gregory Duff Collingsworth—Made by Akasha in the first few years to lead her Queens Blood troops against the First Brood.
Seth—The human son of Akasha, brought into the Blood perhaps fifteen to twenty years after the fusion.
Sevraine—A Nordic woman brought into the Blood illegally by Nebamun (Gregory) about five thousand years ago, or one thousand years after the Blood Genesis. The maker of several vampires yet unnamed.
Rhoshamandes—A male from Crete, brought into the Blood at the same time as Sevraine, to serve in the Queens Blood. Made directly by Akasha.
Avicus, Cyril, Teskhamen—Egyptian blood drinkers made by the priests of Akasha’s cult well before the Common Era, drinking the Mother’s blood but not made by her.
Marius—A Roman patrician, kidnapped by the Druids, and brought into the Blood shortly after the birth of Christ, or at the dawn of the Common Era. Made by Teskhamen, who was shortly thereafter presumed dead.
Pandora—A Roman patrician woman named Lydia, brought into the Blood by Marius in the first century.
Flavius—A Greek slave brought into the Blood by Pandora during the first century.
Mael—A Druid priest, the kidnapper of Marius, brought into the Blood by Avicus, and presumed dead.
Hesketh—A Germanic cunning woman, brought into the Blood by Teskhamen in the first century. Murdered in the eighth century.
Chrysanthe—A merchant’s wife from the Christian city of Hira. Brought into the Blood by Nebamun, newly risen and named Gregory, in the fourth century.
Zenobia—A Byzantine woman, brought into the Blood by Eudoxia (now dead), who was made by Cyril around the sixth or seventh century.
Allesandra—A Merovingian princess, daughter of King Dagobert I, brought into the Blood in the seventh century by Rhoshamandes.
Gremt Stryker Knollys—A spirit who enters the narrative in the eighth century (748).
Benedict—A Christian monk of the eighth century, brought into the Blood by Rhoshamandes around the year A.D. 800.
Thorne—A Viking, brought into the Blood by Maharet around the ninth century of the Common Era.
Notker the Wise—A monk and a musician and a composer brought into the Blood by Benedict around A.D. 880, maker of many musician vampires as yet unnamed.
Eleni and Eugénie de Landen—Fledglings of Rhoshamandes made in the early Middle Ages.
Everard de Landen—A fledgling of Rhoshamandes made in the Middle Ages.
Arjun—A prince of the Chola dynasty in India, brought into the Blood by Pandora around 1300.
Santino—Italian vampire made during the time of the Black Death. Longtime Roman coven master of the Children of Satan. Presumed dead.
Magnus—An elderly alchemist who stole the Blood from Benedict during the 1400s. The maker of Lestat in 1780.
Armand—A Russian icon painter kidnapped in the vicinity of Kiev and brought to Venice as a slave, and made into a vampire by Marius around 1498.
Bianca Solderini—A Venetian courtesan made in the Blood by Marius around 1498.
Raymond Gallant—A faithful mortal scholar of the Talamasca, presumed dead in the sixteenth century.
Lestat de Lioncourt—Seventh son of a French marquis, made a vampire in the year 1780 by Magnus. Author of the second book in the Vampire Chronicles, The Vampire Lestat.
Gabrielle de Lioncourt—Lestat’s mother, made by him in the Blood in 1780.
Nicolas de Lenfent—Close friend of Lestat, made into a vampire by Lestat in 1780 and long dead.
Louis de Pointe du Lac—A Louisiana French colonial plantation owner, brought into the Blood by Lestat in 1791. Louis began the books known as the Vampire Chronicles with Interview with the Vampire in 1976.
Claudia—An orphan, brought into the Blood around 1794. Long dead.
Antoine—A French musician, exiled to Louisiana and brought into the Blood by Lestat around 1860.
Daniel Malloy—An American male of about twenty who enters the narrative when he “interviews” Louis de Pointe du Lac about his life as a vampire, resulting in the publication of Interview with the Vampire in 1976. He is brought into the Blood by Armand in 1985, some nine years later.
Jesse Reeves—Mortal descendant of Maharet, brought into the Blood by Maharet in 1985.
David Talbot—Superior General of the Talamasca, brought into the Blood in 1992 by Lestat. David, the victim of a body switch, lost his original biological body, that of an elderly man, before being made into a vampire in the body of a much younger man.
Killer—An American male vampire of unknown origin, founder of the Fang Gang, who entered the narrative about 1985.
Davis—A black dancer from New York, a member of the Fang Gang, brought into the Blood by Killer sometime before 1985.
Fareed Bhansali—A brilliant Anglo-Indian doctor and surgeon, brought into the Blood by Seth around 1986 in Mumbai.
Benjamin (Benji) Mahmoud—A twelve-year-old Palestinian Bedouin boy, brought into the Blood by Marius in 1997.
Sybelle—A young American pianist, about twenty, brought into the Blood by Marius in 1997.
Rose—An American girl of around twenty rescued as a small child by Lestat from an earthquake in the Mediterranean around 1995. His ward.
Dr. Flannery Gilman—An American doctor and discredited vampire researcher, brought into the Blood by Fareed in the early twenty-first century.
Viktor—A human experiment conducted under the auspices of Fareed Bhansali and his maker, Seth, along with Dr. Flannery Gilman before her induction into the Blood.
Assorted unnamed fledglings, ghosts, and spirits.