The Vampire Lestat

1

The week before our record album went on sale, they reached out for the first time to threaten us over the telephone wires. Secrecy regarding the rock band called The Vampire Lestat had been expensive but almost impenetrable. Even the book publishers of my autobiography had cooperated in full. And during the long months of recording and filmmaking, I hadn't seen a single one of them in New Orleans, nor heard them roaming about. Yet somehow they had obtained the unlisted number and into the electronic answering machine they issued their admonitions and epithets.

"Outcast. We know what you are doing. We are ordering you to stop. " "Come out where we can see you. We dare you to come out. "

I had the band holed up in a lovely old plantation house north of New Orleans, pouring the Dom Perignon for them as they smoked their hashish cigarettes, all of us weary of anticipation and preparation, eager for the first live audience in San Francisco, the first certain taste of success. Then my lawyer, Christine, sent on the first phone messages-uncanny how the equipment captured the timbre of the unearthly voices-and in the middle of the night, I drove my musicians to the airport and we flew west. After that, even Christine didn't know where we were hiding. The musicians themselves were not entirely sure. In a luxurious ranch house in Carmel Valley we heard our music for the first time over the radio. We danced as our first video films appeared nationwide on the television cable. And each evening I went alone to the coastal city of Monterey to pick up Christine's communications. Then I went north to hunt. I drove my sleek powerful black Porsche all the way to San Francisco, taking the hairpin curves of the coast road at intoxicating speed. And in the immaculate yellow gloom of the big city skid row I stalked my killers a little more cruelly and slowly than before. The tension was becoming unbearable.

Still I didn't see the others. I didn't hear them. All I had were those phone messages from immortals I'd never known:

"We warn you. Do not continue this madness. You are playing a more dangerous game than you realize. " And then the recorded whisper that mortal ears could not hear:

"Traitor! " "Outcast! " "Show yourself, Lestat! " If they were hunting San Francisco, I didn't see them. But then San Francisco is a dense and crowded city. And I was sly and silent as I had always been.

Finally the telegrams came pouring in to the Monterey postbox. We had done it. Sales of our album were breaking records here and in Europe. We could perform in any city we wanted after San Francisco. My autobiography was in all the bookstores from coast to coast. The Vampire Lestat was at the top of the charts. And after the nightly hunt in San Francisco, I started riding the long length of Divisadero Street.

I let the black carapace of the Porsche crawl past the ruined Victorian houses, wondering in which one of these-if any-Louis had told the tale of Interview with the Vampire to the mortal boy. I was thinking constantly about Louis and Gabrielle. I was thinking about Armand. I was thinking about Marius, Marius whom I had betrayed by telling the whole tale. Was The Vampire Lestat stretching its electronic tentacles far enough to touch them? Had they seen the video films: The Legacy of Magnus, The Children of Darkness, Those Who Must Be Kept? I thought of the other ancient ones whose names I'd revealed: Mael, Pandora, Ramses the Damned. The fact was, Marius could have found me no matter what the secrecy or the precautions. His powers could have bridged even the vast distances of America. If he was looking, if he had heard . . . The old dream came back to me of Marius cranking the motion picture camera, of the flickering patterns on the wall of the sanctum of Those Who Must Be Kept. Even in recollection it seemed impossibly lucid, made my heart trip. And gradually I realized that I possessed a new concept of loneliness, a new method of measuring a silence that stretched to the end of the world. And all I had to interrupt it were those menacing recorded preternatural voices which carried no images as their virulency increased:

"Don't dare to appear on stage in San Francisco. We warn you.

Your challenge is too vulgar, too contemptuous. We will risk anything, even a public scandal, to punish you. " I laughed at the incongruous combination of archaic language and the unmistakable American sound. What were they like, those modern vampires? Did they affect breeding and education once they walked with the undead? Did they assume a certain style? Did they live in covens or ride about on big black motorcycles, as I liked to do? The excitement was building in me uncontrollably. And as I drove alone through the night with the radio blaring our music, I sensed a purely human enthusiasm mounting in me. I wanted to perform the way my mortals, Tough Cookie and Alex and Larry, wanted to perform. After the grueling work of building the records and films, I wanted us to raise our voices together before the screaming throng. And at odd moments I remembered those long- ago nights at Renaud's little theater too clearly. The strangest details came back, the feel of the white paint as I had smoothed it over my face, the smell of the powder, the instant of stepping before the footlights. Yes, it was all coming together, and if the wrath of Marius came with it, well, I deserved it, did I not? San Francisco charmed me, subdued me somewhat. Not hard to imagine my Louis in this place. Almost Venetian, it seemed, the somber multicolored mansions and tenements rising wall to wall over the narrow black streets. Irresistible the lights sprinkled over hilltop and vale; and the hard brilliant wilderness of downtown skyscrapers shooting up like a fairytale forest out of an ocean of mist. Each night on my return to Carmel Valley, I took out the sacks of fan mail forwarded to Monterey from New Orleans, and I looked through them for the vampire writing: characters inscribed a little too heavily, style slightly old-fashioned maybe a more outrageous display of supernatural talent in a handwritten letter made to look as if it had been printed in Gothic style. But there was nothing but the fervent devotion of mortals.

Dear Lestat, My friend Sheryl and I love you, and we can't get tickets for the San Francisco concert even though we stood in line for six hours. Please send us two tickets. We will be your victims. You can drink our blood.

Three o'clock in the morning on the night before the San Francisco concert: The cool green paradise of Carmel Valley was asleep. I was dozing in the giant "den " before the glass wall that faced the mountains. I was dreaming off and on of Marius. Marius said in my dream:

"Why did you risk my vengeance? " And I said: "You turned your back on me. "

"That is not the reason, " he said. "You act on impulse, you want to throw all the pieces in the air. "

"I want to affect things, to make something happen! " I said. In the dream I shouted, and I felt suddenly the presence of the Carmel Valley house around me. Just a dream, a thin mortal dream. Yet something, something else . . . a sudden "transmission " like a vagrant radio wave intruding upon the wrong frequency, a voice saying Danger. Danger to us all. For one split second the vision of snow, ice. Wind howling. Something shattered on a stone floor, broken glass. Lestat! Danger! I awoke. I was not lying on the couch any longer. I was standing and looking towards the glass doors. I could hear nothing, see nothing but the dim outline of the hills, the black shape of the helicopter hovering over its square of concrete like a giant fly. With my soul I listened. I listened so hard I was sweating. Yet no more of the "transmission. " No images. And then the gradual awareness that there was a creature outside in the darkness, that I was hearing tiny physical sounds. Someone out there walking in the stillness. No human scent. One of them was out there. One of them had penetrated the secrecy and was approaching beyond the distant skeletal silhouette of the helicopter, through the open field of high grass. Again I listened. No, not a shimmer to reinforce the message of Danger. In fact the mind of the being was locked to me. I was getting only the inevitable signals of a creature passing through space. The rambling low-roofed house slumbered around me-a giant aquarium, it seemed, with its barren white walls and the blue flickering light of the silent television set. Tough Cookie and Alex in each other's arms on the rug before the empty fireplace. Larry asleep in the cell-like bedroom with the carnally indefatigable groupie called Salamander whom they had "picked up " in New Orleans before we came west. Sleeping bodyguards in the other low-ceilinged modern chambers, and in the bunkhouse beyond the great blue oyster-shell swimming pool. And out there under the clear black sky this creature coming, moving towards us from the highway, on foot. This thing that I sensed now was completely alone. Beat of a supernatural heart in the thin darkness. Yes, I can hear it very distinctly. The hills were like ghosts in the distance, the yellow blossoms of the acacias gleaming white under the stars. Not afraid of anything, it seemed. Just coming. And the thoughts absolutely impenetrable. That could mean one of the old ones, the very skilled ones, except the skilled ones would never crush the grass underfoot. This thing moved almost like a human. This vampire had been "made " by me. My heart was skipping. I glanced at the tiny lights of the alarm box half concealed by the gathered drapery in the corner. Promise of sirens if anything, mortal or immortal, tried to penetrate this house. On the edge of the white concrete he appeared. Tall, slender figure. Short dark hair. And then he paused as if he could see me in the electric blue haze behind the glass veil. Yes, he saw me. And he moved towards me, towards the light. Agile, traveling just a little too lightly for a mortal. Black hair, green eyes, and the limbs shifting silkily under the neglected garments: a frayed black sweater that hung shapelessly from his shoulders, legs like long black spokes. I felt the lump come up in my throat. I was trembling. I tried to remember what was important, even in this moment, that I must scan the night for others, must be careful. Danger. But none of that mattered now. I knew. I shut my eyes for a second. It did not help anything, make anything easier. Then my hand went out to the alarm buttons and I turned them off. I opened the giant glass doors and the cold fresh air moved past me into the room. He ran past the helicopter, turning and stepping away like a dancer to look up at it, his head back, his thumbs hooked very casually in the pockets of his black jeans. When he looked at me again, I saw his face distinctly. And he smiled. Even our memories can fail us. He was proof of that, delicate and blinding as a laser as he came closer, all the old images blown away like dust. I flicked on the alarm system again, closed the doors on my mortals, and turned the key in the lock. For a second I thought, I cannot stand this. And this is only the beginning. And if he is here, only a few steps away from me now, then surely the others, too, will come. They will all come. I turned and went towards him, and for a silent moment I just studied him in the blue light falling through the glass. My voice was tight when I spoke:

"Where's the black cape and 'finely tailored' black coat and the silk tie and all that foolishness? " I asked. Eyes locked on each other.

Then he broke the stillness and laughed without making a sound. But he went on studying me with a rapt expression that gave me a secret joy. And with the boldness of a child, he reached out and ran his fingers down the lapel of my gray velvet coat.

"Can't always be the living legend, " he said. The voice was like a whisper that wasn't a whisper. And I could hear his French accent so clearly, though I had never been able to hear my own. I could scarcely bear the sound of the syllables, the complete familiarity of it. And I forgot all the stiff surly things I had planned to say and I just took him in my arms. We embraced the way we never had in the past. We held each other the way Gabrielle and I used to do. And then I ran my hands over his hair and his face, just letting myself really see him, as if he belonged to me. And he did the same. Seems we were talking and not talking. True silent voices that didn't have any words. Nodding a little. And I could feel him brimming with affection and a feverish satisfaction that seemed almost as strong as my own. But he was quiet suddenly, and his face became a little drawn.

"I thought you were dead and gone, you know, " he said. It was barely audible.

"How did you find me here? " I asked.

"You wanted me to, " he answered. Flash of innocent confusion. He gave a slow shrug of the shoulders. Everything he did was magnetizing me just the way it had over a century ago. Fingers so long and delicate, yet hands so strong.

"You let me see you and you let me follow you, " he said. "You drove up and down Divisadero Street looking for me. "

"And you were still there? "

"The safest place in the world for me, " he said. "I never left it. They came looking for me and they didn't find me and then they went away. And now I move among them whenever I want and they don't know me. They never knew what I looked like, really. "

"And they'd try to destroy you if they knew, " I said.

"Yes, " he answered. "But they've been trying to do that since the Theater of the Vampires and the things that happened there. Of course Interview with the Vampire gave them some new reasons. And they do need reasons to play their little games. They need the impetus, the excitement. They feed upon it like blood. " His voice sounded labored for a second. He took a deep breath. Hard to talk about all this. I wanted to put my arms around him again but I didn't.

"But at the moment, " he said, "I think you are the one that they want to destroy. And they do know what you look like. " Little smile. "Everybody knows now what you look like. Monsieur Le Rock Star. " He let his smile broaden. But the voice was polite and low as it had always been. And the face suffused with feeling. There had been not the slightest change there yet. Maybe there never would be. I slipped my arm around his shoulder and we walked together away from the lights of the house. We walked past the great gray hulk of the copter and into the dry sunbaked field and towards the hills. I think to be this happy is to be miserable, to feel this much satisfaction is to burn.

"Are you going to go through with it? " he asked. "The concert tomorrow night? " Danger to us all. Had it been a warning or a threat?

"Yes, of course, " I said. "What in hell could stop me from it? "

"I would like to stop you, " he answered. "I would have come sooner if I could. I spotted you a week ago, then lost you. "

"And why do you want to stop me? "

"You know why, " he said. "I want to talk to you. " So simple, the words, and yet they had such meaning.

"There'll be time after, " I answered. "'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.' Nothing is going to happen. You'll see. " I kept glancing at him and away from him, as if his green eyes were hurting me. In modern parlance he was a laser beam. Deadly and delicate he seemed. His victims had always loved him. And I had always loved him, hadn't I, no matter what happened, and how strong could love grow if you had eternity to nourish it, and it took only these few moments in time to renew its momentum, its heat?

"How can you be sure of that, Lestat? " he asked. Intimate his speaking my name. And I had not brought myself to say Louis in that same natural way. We were walking slowly now, without direction, and his arm was around me loosely as mine was around him.

"I have a battalion of mortals guarding us, " I said. "There'll be bodyguards on the copter and in the limousine with my mortals. I'll travel alone from the airport in the Porsche so I can more easily defend myself, but we'll have a veritable motorcade. And just what can a handful of hateful twentieth century fledglings do anyway? These idiot creatures use the telephone for their threats. "

"There are more than a handful, " he said. "But what about Marius? Your enemies out there are debating it, whether the story of Marius was true, whether Those Who Must Be Kept exist or not- "

"Naturally, and you, did you believe it? "

"Yes, as soon as I read it, " he said. And there passed between us a moment of silence, in which perhaps we were both remembering the questing immortal of long ago who had asked me over and over, where did it begin? Too much pain to be reinvoked. It was like taking pictures from the attic, cleaning away the dust and finding the colors still vibrant. And the pictures should have been portraits of dead ancestors and they were pictures of us. I made some little nervous mortal gesture, raked my hair back off my forehead, tried to feel the cool of the breeze.

"What makes you so confident, " he asked, "that Marius won't end this experiment as soon as you step on the stage tomorrow night? "

"Do you think any of the old ones would do that? " I answered. He reflected for a long moment, slipping deep into his thoughts the way he used to do, so deep it was as if he forgot I was there. And it seemed that old rooms took shape around him, gaslight gave off its unsteady illumination, there came the sounds and scents of a former time from outside streets. We two in that New Orleans parlor, coal fire in the grate beneath the marble mantel, everything growing older except us. And he stood now a modern child in sagging sweater and worn denim gazing off towards the deserted hills. Disheveled, eyes sparked with an inner fire, hair mussed. He roused himself slowly as if coming back to life.

"No. I think if the old ones trouble themselves with it at all, they will be too interested to do that. "

"Are you interested? "

"Yes, you know I am, " he said. And his face colored slightly. It became even more human. In fact, he looked more like a mortal man than any of our kind I've ever known. "I'm here, aren't I? " he said. And I sensed a pain in him, running like a vein of ore through his whole being, a vein that could carry feeling to the coldest depths. I nodded'. I took a deep breath and looked away from him, wishing I could say what I really wanted to say. That I loved him. But I couldn't do that. The feeling was too strong.

"Whatever happens, it will be worth it, " I said. "That is, if you and I, and Gabrielle, and Armand . . . and Marius are together even for a short while, it will be worth it. Suppose Pandora chooses to show herself. And Mael. And God only knows how many others. What if all the old ones come. It will be worth it, Louis. As for the rest, I don't care. "

"No, you care, " he said, smiling. He was deeply fascinated. "You're just confident that it's going to be exciting, and that whatever the battle, you'll win. " I bowed my head. I laughed. I slipped my hands into the pockets of my pants the way mortal men did in this day and age, and I walked on through the grass. The field still smelled of sun even in the cool California night. I didn't tell him about the mortal part, the vanity of wanting to perform, the eerie madness that had come over me when I saw myself on the television screen, saw my face on the album covers plastered to the windows of the North Beach record store. He followed at my side.

"If the old ones really wanted to destroy me, " I said, "don't you think it would already be done? "

"No, " he said. "I saw you and I followed you. But before that, I couldn't find you. As soon as I heard that you'd come out, I tried. "

"How did you hear? " I asked.

"There are places in all the big cities where the vampires meet, " he said. "Surely you know this by now. "

"No, I don't. Tell me, " I said.

"They are the bars we call the Vampire Connection, " he said, smiling a little ironically as he said it. "They are frequented by mortals, of course, and known to us by their names. There is Dr. Polidori in London, and Larnia in Paris. There is Bela Lugosi in the city of Los Angeles,, and Carmilla and Lord Ruthven in New York. Here in San Francisco we have the most beautiful of them all, possibly, the cabaret called Dracula's Daughter, on Castro Street. " I started laughing. I couldn't help it and I could see that he was about to laugh, too.

"And where are the names from Interview with the Vampire? " I asked with mock indignation.

"Verboten, " he said with a little lift of the eyebrows. "They are not fictional. They are real. But I will tell you they are playing your video clips on Castro Street now. The mortal customers demand it, They toast you with their vodka Bloody Marys. The Dance of les Innocents is pounding through the walls. " A real laughing fit was definitely coming. I tried to stop it. I shook my head.

"But you've effected something of a revolution in speech in the back room as well, " he continued in the same mock sober fashion, unable to keep his face entirely straight.

"What do you mean? "

"Dark Trick, Dark Gift, Devil's Road-they're all bantering those words about, the crudest fledglings who never even styled themselves vampires. They're imitating the book even though they condemn it utterly. They are loading themselves down with Egyptian jewelry. Black velvet is once again de rigueur. "

"Too perfect, " I said. "But these places, what are they like? "

"They're saturated with the vampire trappings, " he said. "Posters from the vampire films adorn the walls, and the films themselves are projected continuously on high screens. The mortals who come are a regular freak show of theatrical types-punk youngsters, artists, those done up in black capes and white plastic fangs. They scarcely notice us. We are often drab by comparison. And in the dim lights we might as well be invisible, velvet and Egyptian jewelry and all. Of course, no one preys upon these mortal customers. We come to the vampire bars for information. The vampire bar is the safest place for a mortal in all Christendom. You cannot kill in the vampire bar. "

"Wonder somebody didn't think of it before, " I said.

"They did think of it, " he said. "In Paris, it was the Theatre des Vampyres. "

"Of course, " I admitted. He went on:

"The word went out a month ago on the Vampire Connection that you were back. And the news was old then. They said you were hunting New Orleans, and then they learned what you meant to do. They had early copies of your autobiography. There was endless talk about the video films. "

"And why didn't I see them in New Orleans? " I asked.

"Because New Orleans has been for half a century Armand's territory. No one dares to hunt New Orleans. They learned through mortal sources of information, out of Los Angeles and New York. "

"I didn't see Armand in New Orleans, " I said.

"I know, " he answered. He looked troubled, confused for a moment. I felt a little tightening in the region of the heart.

"No one knows where Armand is, " he said a little dully. "But when he was there, he killed the young ones. They left New Orleans to him. They say that many of the old ones do that, kill the young ones. They say it of me, but it isn't so. I haunt San Francisco like a ghost. I do not trouble anyone save my unfortunate mortal victims. " All this didn't surprise me much.

"There are too many of us, " he said, "as there always have been. And there is much warring. And a coven in any given city is only a means by which three or more powerful ones agree not to destroy each other, and to share the territory according to the rules. "

"The rules, always the rules, " I said.

"They are different now, and more stringent. Absolutely no evidence of the kill must ever be left about. Not a single corpse must be left for mortals to investigate. "

"Of course. "

"And there must be no exposure whatsoever in the world of close-up photography and zoom lenses, of freeze-frame video examination-no risk that could lead to capture, incarceration, and scientific verification by the mortal world. " I nodded. But my pulse was racing. I loved being the outlaw, the one who had already broken every single law. And so they were imitating my book, were they? Oh, it was started already. Wheels set into motion.

"Lestat, you think you understand, " he said patiently, "but do you? Let the world have but one tiny fragment of our tissue for their microscopes, and there will be no arguments anymore about legend or superstition. The proof will be there. "

"I don't agree with you, Louis, " I said. "It isn't that simple. "

"They have the means to identify and classify us, to galvanize the human race against us. "

"No, Louis. Scientists in this day and age are witch doctors perpetually at war. They quarrel over the most rudimentary questions. You would have to spread that supernatural tissue to every microscope in the world and even then the public might not believe a word of it. " He reflected for a moment.

"One capture then, " he said. "One living specimen in their hands. "

"Even that wouldn't do it, " I said. "And how could they ever hold me? " But it was too lovely to contemplate-the chase, the intrigue, the possible capture and escape. I loved it. He was smiling now in a strange way. Full of disapproval and delight.

"You are madder than you ever were, " he said under his breath. "Madder than when you used to go about New Orleans deliberately scaring people in the old days. " I laughed and laughed. But then I got quiet. We didn't have that much time before morning. And I could laugh all the way into San Francisco tomorrow night.

"Louis, I've thought this over from every angle, " I said. "It will be harder to start a real war with mortals than you think- "

"-And you're bound and determined to start it, aren't you? You want everyone, mortal or immortal, to come after you. "

"Why not? " I asked. "Let it begin. And let them try to destroy us the way they have destroyed their other devils. Let them try to wipe us out. " He was watching me with that old. expression of awe and incredulity that I had seen a thousand times on his face. I was a fool for it, as the expression goes. But the sky was paling overhead, the stars drifting steadily away. Only precious moments we had together before the early spring morning.

"And so you really mean for it to happen, " he said earnestly, his tone gentler than before.

"Louis, I mean for something and everything to happen, " I said. "I mean for all that we have been to change! What are we but leeches now-loathsome, secretive, without justification. The old romance is gone. So let us take on a new meaning. I crave the bright lights as I crave blood. I crave the divine visibility. I crave war. "

"The new evil, to use your old words, " he said. "And this time it is the twentieth-century evil. "

"Precisely, " I said. But again, I thought of the purely mortal impulse, the vain impulse, for worldly fame, acknowledgment. Faint blush of shame. It was all going to be such a pleasure.

"But why, Lestat? " he asked a little suspiciously. "Why the danger, the risk? After all, you have done it. You have come back. You're stronger than ever. You have the old fire as if it had never been lost, and you know how precious this is, this will simply to go on. Why risk it immediately? Have you forgotten what it was like when we had the world all around us, and no one could hurt us except ourselves? "

"Is this an offer, Louis? Have you come back to me, as lovers say? " His eyes darkened and he looked away from me.

"I'm not mocking you, Louis, " I said.

"You've come back to me, Lestat, " he said evenly, looking at me again. "When I heard the first whispers of you at Dracula's Daughter, I felt something that I thought was gone forever- " He paused. But I knew what he was talking about. He had already said it. And I had understood it centuries ago when I felt Armand's despair after the death of the old coven. Excitement, the desire to continue, these things were priceless to us. All the more reason for the rock concert, the continuation, the war itself.

"Lestat, don't go on the stage tomorrow night, " he said. "Let the films and the book do what you want. But protect yourself. Let us come together and let us talk together. Let us have each other in this century the way we never did in the past. And I do mean all of us. "

"Very tempting, beautiful one, " I said. "There were times in the last century when I would have given almost anything to hear those words. And we will come together, and we will talk, all of us, and we will have each other. It will be splendid, better than it ever was before. But I am going on the stage. I am going to be Lelio again the way I never was in Paris. I will be the Vampire Lestat for all to see. A symbol, an outcast, a freak of nature-something loved, something despised, all of those things. I tell you I can't give it up. I can't miss it. And quite frankly I am not the least afraid. " I braced myself for a coldness or a sadness to come over him. And I hated the approaching sun as much as I ever had in the past. He turned his back to it. The illumination was hurting him a little. But his face was as full of warm expression as before.

"Very well, then, " he said. "I would like to go into San Francisco with you. I would like that very much. Will you take me with you? " I couldn't immediately answer. Again, the sheer excitement was excruciating, and the love I felt for him was positively humiliating.

"Of course I'll take you with me, " I said. We looked at each other for a tense moment. He had to leave now. The morning had come for him.

"One thing, Louis, " I said.

"Yes? "

"Those clothes. Impossible. I mean, tomorrow night, as they say in the twentieth century, you will lose that sweater and those pants. "

The morning was too empty after he had gone. I stood still for a while thinking of that message, Danger. I scanned the distant mountains, the never ending fields. Threat, warning- what did it matter? The young ones dial the telephones. The old ones raise their supernatural voices. Was it so strange? I could only think of Louis now, that he was with me. And of what it would be like when the others came.

The vast sprawling parking lots of the San Francisco Cow Palace were overflowing with frenzied mortals as our motorcade pushed through the gates, my musicians in the limousine ahead, Louis in the leatherlined Porsche beside me. Crisp and shining in the black-caped costume of the band, he looked as if he'd stepped out of the pages of his own story, his green eyes passing a little fearfully over the screaming youngsters and motorcycle guards who kept them back and away from us. The hall had been sold out for a month; the disappointed fans wanted the music broadcast outside so they could hear it. Beer cans littered the ground. Teenagers sat atop car roofs and on trunks and hoods, radios blaring The Vampire Lestat at appalling volume. Alongside my window, our manager ran on foot explaining that we would have the outside video screens and speakers. The San Francisco police had given the go-ahead to prevent a riot. I could feel Louis's mounting anxiety. A pack of youngsters broke through the police lines and pressed themselves against his window as the motorcade made its sharp turn and plowed on towards the long ugly tube-shaped hall. I was positively enthralled with what was happening. And the recklessness in me was cresting. Again and again the fans surrounded the car before they were swept back, and I was beginning to understand how woefully I had underestimated this entire experience. The filmed rock shows I'd watched hadn't prepared me for the crude electricity that was already coursing through me, the way the music was already surging in my head, the way the shame for my mortal vanity was evaporating. It was mayhem getting into the hall. Through a crush of guards, we ran into the heavily secured backstage area, Tough Cookie holding tight to me, Alex pushing Larry ahead of him. The fans tore at our hair, our capes. I reached back and gathered Louis under my wing and brought him through the doors with us. And then in the curtained dressing rooms I heard it for the first time, the bestial sound of the crowd-fifteen thousand souls chanting and screaming under one roof. No, I did not have this under control, this fierce glee that made my entire body shudder. When had this ever happened to me before, this near hilarity? I pushed up to the front and looked through the peephole into the auditorium. Mortals on both sides of the long oval, up to the very rafters. And in the vast open center, a mob of thousands dancing, caressing, pumping fists into the smoky haze, vying to get close to the stage platform. Hashish, beer, human blood smell swirled on the ventilation currents. The engineers were shouting that we were set. Face paint had been retouched, black velvet capes brushed, black ties straightened. No good to keep this crowd waiting a moment longer. The word was given to kill the houselights. And a great inhuman cry swelled in the darkness, rolling up the walls. I could feel it in the floor beneath me.

It grew stronger as a grinding electronic buzz announced the connection of "the equipment. " The vibration went through my temples. A layer of skin was being peeled off. I clasped Louis's arm, gave him a lingering kiss, and then felt him release me. Everywhere beyond the curtain people snapped on their little chemical cigarette lighters, until thousands and thousands of tiny flames trembled in the gloom. Rhythmic clapping erupted, died out, the general roar rolling up and down, pierced by random shrieks. My head was teeming. And yet I thought of Renaud's so long ago. I positively saw it. But this place was like the Roman Colosseum! And making the tapes, the films-it had been so controlled, so cold. It had given no taste of this. The engineer gave the signal, and we shot through the curtain, the mortals fumbling because they couldn't see, as I maneuvered effortlessly over the cables and wires. I was at the lip of the stage right over the heads of the swaying, shouting crowd. Alex was at the drums. Tough Cookie had her flat shimmering electric guitar in hand, Larry was at the huge circular keyboard of the synthesizer. I turned around and glanced up at the giant video screens which would magnify our images for the scrutiny of every pair of eyes in the house. Then back at the sea of screaming youngsters. Waves and waves of noise inundated us from the darkness. I could smell the heat and the blood. Then the immense bank of overhead lights went on. Violent beams of silver, blue, red crisscrossed as they caught us, and the screaming reached an unbelievable pitch. The entire hall was on its feet. I could feel the light crawling on my white skin, exploding in my yellow hair. I glanced around to see my mortals glorified and frenzied already as they perched amid the endless wires and silver scaffolding. The sweat broke out on my forehead as I saw the fists raised everywhere in salute. And scattered all through the hall were youngsters in their Halloween vampire clothes, faces gleaming with artificial blood, some wearing floppy yellow wigs, some with black rings about their eyes to make them all the more innocent and ghastly. Catcalls and hoots and raucous cries rose above the general din. No, this was not like making the little films. This was nothing like singing in the air-cooled cork- lined chambers of the studio. This was a human experience made vampiric, as the music itself was vampiric, as the images of the video film were the images of the blood swoon. I was shuddering with pure exhilaration and the red-tinged sweat was pouring down my face. The spotlights swept the audience, leaving us bathed in a mercuric twilight, and everywhere the light hit, the crowd went into convulsions, redoubling their cries. What was it about this sound? It signaled man turned into mob-the crowds surrounding the guillotine, the ancient Romans screaming for Christian blood. And the Keltoi gathered in the grove awaiting Marius, the god. I could see the grove as I had when Marius told the tale; had the torches been any more lurid than these colored beams? Had the horrific wicker giants been larger than these steel ladders that held the banks of speakers and incandescent spotlights on either side of us? But there was no violence here; there was no death-only this childish exuberance pouring forth from young mouths and young bodies, an energy focused and contained as naturally as it was cut loose. Another wave of hashish from the front ranks. Long-haired leather-clad bikers with spoked leather bracelets clapping their hands above their heads-ghosts of the Keltoi, they seemed, barbarian locks streaming. And from all corners of this long hollow smoky place an uninhibited wash of something that felt like love. The lights were flashing on and off so that the movement of the crowd seemed fragmented, to be happening in fits and jerks. They were chanting in unison, now the volume swelling, what was it, LESTAT, LESTAT, LESTAT. Oh, this is too divine. What mortal could withstand this indulgence, this worship? I clasped the ends of my black cloak, which was the signal. I shook out my hair to its fullest. And these gestures sent a current of renewed screaming to the very back of the hall. The lights converged on the stage. I raised my cloak on either side like bat wings. The screams fused into a great monolithic roar.

"I AM THE VAMPIRE LESTAT! " I shouted at the top of my lungs as I stepped way back from the microphone, and the sound was almost visible as it arched over the length of the oval theater, and the voice of the crowd rose even higher, louder, as if to devour the ringing sound.

"COME ON, LET ME HEAR YOU! YOU LOVE ME! " I shouted suddenly, without deciding to do it. Everywhere people were stomping. They were stomping not only on the concrete floors but on the wooden seats.

"HOW MANY OF YOU WOULD BE VAMPIRES? " The roar became a thunder. Several people were trying to scramble up onto the front of the stage, the bodyguards pulling them off. One of the big dark shaggy-haired bikers was jumping straight up and down, a beer can in each hand. The lights went brighter like the glare of an explosion. And there rose from the speakers and equipment behind me the fullthroated engine of a locomotive at stultifying volume as if the train were racing onto the stage. Every other sound in the auditorium was swallowed by it. In blaring silence the crowd danced and bobbed before me. Then came the piercing, twanging fury of the electrical guitar. The drums boomed into a marching cadence, and the grinding locomotive sound of the synthesizer crested, then broke into a bubbling caldron of noise in time with the march. It was time to begin the chant in the minor key, its puerile lyrics leaping over the accompaniment:

I AM THE VAMPIRE LESTAT YOU ARE HERE FOR THE GRAND SABBAT BUT I PITY YOU YOUR LOT

I grabbed the microphone from the stand and ran to one side of the stage and then to the other, the cape flaring out behind me:

YOU CAN'T RESIST THE LORDS OF NIGHT THEY HAVE NO MERCY ON YOUR PLIGHT IN YOUR FEAR THEY TAKE DELIGHT

They were reaching out for my ankles, throwing kisses, girls lifted by their male companions to touch my cape as it swirled over their heads.

YET IN LOVE, WE WILL TAKE YOU, AND IN RAPTURE, WE'LL BREAK YOU AND IN DEATH WE'LL RELEASE YOU NO ONE CAN SAY YOU WERE NOT WARNED.

Tough Cookie, strumming furiously, danced up beside me, gyrating wildly, the music peaking in a shrill glissando, drums and cymbals crashing, the bubbling caldron of the synthesizer rising again. I felt the music come up into my bones. Not even at the old Roman Sabbat had it taken hold of me like this. I pitched myself into the dance, swinging my hips elastically, then pumping them as the two of us moved towards the edge of the stage. We were performing the free and erotic contortions of Punchinello and Harlequin and all the old commedia players improvising now as they had done, the instruments cutting loose from the thin melody, then finding it again, as we urged each other on with our dancing, nothing rehearsed, everything within character, everything utterly new. The guards shoved people back roughly as they tried to join us. Yet we danced over the edge of the platform as if taunting them, whipping our hair around our faces, turning round to see ourselves above in an impossible hallucination on the giant screens. The sound traveled up through my body as I turned back to the crowd. It traveled like a steel ball finding one pocket after another in my hips, my shoulders, until I knew I was rising off the floor in a great slow leap, and then descending silently again, the black cape flaring, my mouth open to reveal the fang teeth. Euphoria. Deafening applause. And everywhere I saw pale mortal throats bared, boys and girls shoving their collars down and stretching their necks. And they were gesturing to me to come and take them, inviting me and begging me, and some of the girls were crying. The blood scent was thick as the smoke in the air. Flesh and flesh and flesh. And yet everywhere the canny innocence, the unfathomable trust that it was art, nothing but art! No one would be hurt. It was safe, this splendid hysteria. When I screamed, they thought it was the sound system. When I leapt, they thought it was a trick. And why not, when magic was blaring at them from all sides and they could forsake our flesh and blood for the great glowing giants on the screens above us? Marius, I wish you could behold this! Gabrielle, where are you? The lyrics poured out, sung by the whole band again in unison, Tough Cookie's lovely soprano soaring over the others, before she wrung her head round and round in a circle, her hair flopping down to touch the boards in front of her feet, her guitar jerking lasciviously like a giant phallus, thousands and thousands stamping and clapping in unison.

"I AM TELLING YOU I AM A VAMPIRE! " I screamed suddenly. Ecstasy, delirium.

"I AM EVIL! EVIL! "

"Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, YES, YES, YES. " I threw out my arms, my hands curved upwards:

"I WANT TO DRINK UP YOUR SOULS! " The big woolly-haired biker in the black leather jacket backed up, knocking over those behind him, and leapt on the stage next to me, fists over his head. The bodyguards went to tackle him but I had him, locking him to my chest, lifting him off his feet in one arm and closing my mouth on his neck, teeth just touching him, just touching that geyser of blood ready to spew straight upwards! But they had torn him loose, thrown him back like a fish into the sea. Tough Cookie was beside me, the light skittering on her black satin pants, her whirling cape, her arm out to steady me, even as I tried to slip free. Now I knew all that had been left out of the pages I had read about the rock singers-this mad marriage of the primitive and the scientific, this religious frenzy. We were in the ancient grove all right. We were all with the gods. And we were blowing out the fuses on the first song. And rolling into the next, as the crowd picked up the rhythm, shouting the lyrics they knew from the albums and the clips. Tough Cookie and I sang, stomping in time with it:

CHILDREN OF DARKNESS MEET THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT CHILDREN OF MAN, FIGHT THE CHILDREN OF NIGHT

And again they cheered and bellowed and wailed, unmindful of the words. Could the old Keltoi have cut loose with lustier ululations on the verge of massacre? But again there was no massacre, there was no burnt offering. Passion rolled towards the images of evil, not evil. Passion embraced the image of death, not death. I could feel it like the scalding illumination on the pores of my skin, in the roots of my hair, Tough Cookie's amplified scream carrying the next stanza, my eyes sweeping the farthest nooks and crannies, the amphitheater become a great wailing soul. Deliver me from this, deliver me from loving it. Deliver me from forgetting everything else, and sacrificing all purpose, all resolve to it. I want you, my babies. I want your blood, innocent blood. I want your adoration at the moment when I sink my teeth.

Yes, this is beyond all temptation. But in this moment of precious stillness and shame, I saw them for the first time, the real ones out there. Tiny white faces tossed like masks on the waves of shapeless mortal faces, distinct as Magnus's face had been in that long-ago little boulevard hall. And I knew that back beyond the curtains, Louis also saw them. But all I saw in them, all I felt emanating from them, was wonder and fear.

"ALL YOU REAL VAMPIRES OUT THERE, " I shouted. "REVEAL YOURSELVES! " And they remained changeless, as the painted and costumed mortals about them went wild. For three solid hours we danced, we sang, we beat the hell out of the metallic instruments, the whiskey splashing back and forth among Alex and Larry and Tough Cookie, the crowd surging towards us over and over until the phalanx of police had doubled, and the lights had been raised. Wooden seats were breaking in the high corners of the auditorium, cans rolled on the concrete floors. The real ones never ventured a step closer. Some vanished. That's how it was. Unbroken screaming, like fifteen thousand drunks on the town, right up to the final moments, when it was the ballad from the last clip, Age of Innocence. And then the music softening. The drums rolling out, and the guitar dying, and the synthesizer throwing up the lovely translucent notes of an electric harpsichord, notes so light yet profuse that it was as if the air were showered with gold. One mellow spot hit the place where I stood, my clothes streaked with blood sweat, my hair wet with it and tangled, the cape dangling from one shoulder. Into a great yawning mouth of rapt and drunken attention I raised my voice slowly, letting each phrase become clear:

This is the Age of Innocence True Innocence All your Demons are visible All your Demons are material Call them Pain Call them Hunger Call them War Mythic evil you don't need anymore. Drive out the vampires and the devils With the gods you no longer adore Remember: The Man with the fangs wears a cloak. What passes for charm Is a charm Understand what you see When you see me! Kill us, my brothers and sisters The war is on Understand what you see When you see me.

I closed my eyes on the rising walls of applause. What were they really clapping for? What were they celebrating? Electric daylight in this giant auditorium. The real ones were vanishing in the shifting throng. The uniformed police had jumped up onto the platform to make a solid row in front of us. Alex was tugging at me as we went through the curtain:

"Man, we have to run for it. They've got the damned limo surrounded. And you'll never make it to your own car. " I said no, they had to go on, to take the limo, to get going now. And to my left I saw the hard white face of one of the real ones as he shoved his way through the press. He wore the black leather skins of the motorcycle riders, his silken preternatural hair a gleaming black mop. The curtains were ripping from their overhead rods, letting the house flow into the backstage area. Louis was beside me. I saw another immortal on my right, a thin grinning male with tiny dark eyes. Blast of cold air as we pushed into the parking lot, and pandemonium of squirming, struggling mortals, the police yelling for order, the limo rocking like a boat as Tough Cookie and Alex and Larry were shoved into it. One of the bodyguards had the engine of the Porsche running for me, but the youngsters were beating on the hood and the roof as if it were a drum. Behind the black haired vampire male there appeared another demon, a woman, and the pair were pushing inexorably closer. What the hell did they think they were going to do? The giant motor of the limousine was growling like a lion at the children who wouldn't make way for it, and the motorcycle guards gunned their little engines, spewing fumes and noise into the throng. The vampire trio was suddenly surrounding the Porsche, the tall male's face ugly with fury, and one thrust of his powerful arm lifted the low-slung car in spite of the youngsters who held to it. It was going to capsize. I felt an arm around my throat suddenly. And I felt Louis's body pivot, and I heard the sound of his fist strike the preternatural skin and bone behind me, heard the whispered curse. Mortals everywhere were suddenly screaming. A policeman exhorted the crowd over a loudspeaker to clear out. I rushed forward, knocking down several of the youngsters, and steadied the Porsche just before it went over like a scarab on its back. As I struggled to open the door, I felt the crowd crushing against me. Any moment this would become a riot. There would be a stampede. Whistles, screams, sirens. Bodies shoving Louis and me together, and then the leather-clad vampire male rising on the other side of the Porsche, a great silver scythe flashing in the floodlights as he swung it over his head. I heard Louis's shout of warning. I saw another scythe gleaming in the comer of my eye. But a preternatural screech cut through the cacophony as in a blinding flash the vampire male burst into flames. Another blaze exploded beside me. The scythe clattered to the concrete. And yards away yet another vampiric figure suddenly went up in a crackling gust. The crowd was in utter panic, rushing back into the auditorium, streaming out into the parking lot, running anyplace it could to escape the whirling figures as they were burnt black in their own private infernos, their limbs melting in the heat to mere bones. And I saw other immortals streaking away at invisible speed through the sluggish human press. Louis was stunned as he turned to me, and surely the look of amazement on my face only stunned him more. Neither of us had done this! Neither of us had the power! I knew but one immortal who did. But I was suddenly slammed back by the car door opening and a small delicate white hand reached out to pull me inside.

"Hurry, both of you! " said a female voice in French suddenly.

"What are you waiting for, the Church to pronounce it a miracle? " And I was jerked into the leather bucket seat before I realized what was happening, dragging Louis in on top of me so that he had to scramble over me into the compartment in back. The Porsche lurched forward, scattering the fleeing mortals in front of its headlights. I stared at the slender figure of the driver beside me, her yellow hair streaming over her shoulders, her soiled felt hat smashed down over her eyes. I wanted to throw my arms around her, to crush her with kisses, to press my heart against her heart and forget absolutely everything else. The hell with these idiot fledglings. But the Porsche almost went over again as she made the sharp right out of the gate and into the busy street.

"Gabrielle, stop! " I shouted, my hand closing on her arm. "You didn't do that, burn them like that-! "

"Of course not, " she said, in sharp French still, barely glancing at me. She looked irresistible as with two fingers she twisted the wheel again, swinging us into yet another ninety-degree turn. We were headed for the freeway.

"Then you're driving us away from Marius! " I said. "Stop. "

"So let him blow up the van that's following us! " she cried. "Then I'll stop. " She had the gas pedal floored, her eyes fixed on the road in front of her, her hands locked to the leatherclad wheel. I turned to see it over Louis's shoulder, a monster of a vehicle bearing down with surprising speed-an overgrown hearse it seemed, hulking and black, with a mouthful of chromium teeth across the snub-nosed front and four of the undead leering at us from behind the tinted windshield glass.

"We can't get clear of this traffic to outrun them! " I said.

"Turn around. Go back to the auditorium. Gabrielle, turn around!

" But she bore on, weaving in and out of the motor coaches wildly, driving some of them in sheer panic to the side. The van was gaining.

"It's a war machine, that's what it is! " Louis said. "They've rigged it with an iron bumper. They're going to try to ram us, the little monsters! " Oh, I had played this one wrong. I had underestimated. I had envisioned my own resources in this modem age, but not theirs. And we were moving farther and farther away from the one immortal who could blow them to Kingdom Come. Well, I would handle them with pleasure. I'd smash their windshield to pieces for starters, then tear off their heads one by one. I opened the window, climbing halfway up and out of it, the wind whipping my hair, as I glared at them, their ugly white faces behind the glass. As we shot up the freeway ramp, they were almost on top of us. Good. Just a little closer and I would spring. But our car was skidding to a halt. Gabrielle couldn't clear the path ahead.

"Hold on, it's coming! " she screamed.

"Like hell it is! " I shouted, and in an instant I would have jumped off the roof and gone into them like a battering ram. But I didn't have that instant. They had struck us full force, and my body flew up in the air, diving over the side of the freeway as the Porsche shot out in front of me, sailing into space. I saw Gabrielle break through the side door before the car hit the ground. And she and I were both rolling over on the grassy slope as the car capsized and exploded with a deafening roar.

"Louis! " I shouted. I scrambled towards the blaze. I would have gone right into it after him: But the glass of the back portal splintered as he came through it. He hit the embankment just as I reached him. And with my cape I beat at his smoking garments, Gabrielle ripping off her jacket to do the same. The van had stopped at the freeway railing high above. The creatures were dropping over the edge, like big white insects, and landing on their feet on the slope. And I was ready for them. But again, as the first one skidded down towards us, scythe raised, there came that ghastly preternatural scream again and the blinding combustion, the creature's face a black mask in a riot of orange flame. The body convulsed in a horrid dance. The others turned and ran under the freeway. I started after them, but Gabrielle had her arms around me and wouldn't let me go. Her strength maddened me and amazed me.

"Stop, damn it! " she said. "Louis, help me! "

"Let me loose! " I said furiously. "I want one of them, just one of them. I can get the hindmost in the pack! " But she wouldn't release me, and I certainly wasn't going to fight her, and Louis had joined with her in her angry and desperate entreaties.

"Lestat, don't go after them! " he said, his polite manner strained to the fullest. "We've had quite enough. We must leave here now. "

"All right! " I said, giving it up resentfully. Besides, it was too late. The burnt one had expired in smoke and sputtering flames, and the others were gone into silence and darkness without a trace. The night around us was suddenly empty, except for the thunder of the freeway traffic high above. And there we were, the three of us, standing together in the lurid glaze of the blazing car. Louis wiped the soot from his face wearily, his stiff white shirtfront smudged, his long velvet opera cape burnt and torn. And there was Gabrielle, the waif just as she'd been so long ago, the dusty, ragged boy in frayed khaki jungle jacket and pants, the squashed brown felt hat askew on her lovely head. Out of the cacophony of city noises, we heard the thin whine of sirens approaching. Yet we stood motionless, the three of us, waiting, glancing to one another. And I knew we were all scanning for Marius. Surely it was Marius. It had to be. And he was with us, not against us. And he would answer us now. I said his name aloud softly. I peered into the dark under the freeway, and out over the endless army of little houses that crowded the surrounding slopes. But all I could hear were the sirens growing louder and the murmur of human voices as mortals began the long climb from the boulevard below. I saw fear in Gabrielle's face. I reached out for her, went towards her, in spite of all the hideous confusion, the mortals coming nearer and nearer, the vehicles stopped on the freeway above. Her embrace was sudden, warm. But she gestured for me to hurry.

"We're in danger! All of us, " she whispered. "Terrible danger.

Come! "

3

It was five o'clock in the morning and I stood alone at the glass doors of the Carmel Valley ranch house. Gabrielle and Louis had gone into the hills together to find their rest. A phone call north had told me that my mortal musicians were safe in the new Sonoma hideaway, partying madly behind electric fences and gates. As for the police and the press and all their inevitable questions, well, that would have to wait. And now I waited alone for the morning light as I'd always done, wondering why Marius hadn't shown himself, why he had saved us only to vanish without a word.

"And suppose it wasn't Marius, " Gabrielle had said anxiously as she paced the floor afterwards. "I tell you I felt an overwhelming sense of menace. I felt danger to us as well as to them. I felt it outside the auditorium when I drove away. I felt it when we stood by the burning car. Something about it. It wasn't Marius, I'm convinced- "

"Something almost barbaric about it, " Louis had said. "Almost but not quite. "

"Yes, almost savage, " she had answered, glancing to him in acknowledgment. "And even if it was Marius, what makes you think he didn't save you so that he could take his private vengeance in his own way? "

"No, " I had said, laughing softly. "Marius doesn't want revenge, or he would already have it, that much I know. " But I had been too excited just watching her, the old walk, the old gestures. And ah, the frayed safari clothing. After two hundred years, she was still the intrepid explorer. She straddled the chair like a cowboy when she sat down, resting her chin on her hands on the high back. We had so much to talk about, to tell each other, and I was simply too happy to be afraid. And besides, being afraid was too awful, because I knew now I had made another serious miscalculation. I'd realized it for the first time when the Porsche exploded with Louis still inside it. This little war of mine would put all those I loved in danger. What a fool I'd been to think I could draw the venom to myself. We had to talk all right. We had to be cunning. We had to take great care. But for now we were safe. I'd told her that soothingly. She and Louis didn't feel the menace here; it had not followed us to the valley. And I had never felt it. And our young and foolish immortal enemies had scattered, believing that we possessed the power to incinerate them at will.

"You know a thousand times, a thousand times, I pictured our reunion, " Gabrielle said. "And never once was it anything like this. "

"I rather think it went splendidly! " I said. "And don't suppose for a moment that I couldn't have gotten us out of it! I was about to throttle that one with the scythe, toss him over the auditorium. And I saw the other one coming. I could have broken him in half. I tell you one of the frustrating things about all this is I didn't get the chance- " "You, Monsieur, are an absolute imp! " she said. "You are impossible! You are-what did Marius himself call you-the damnedest creature! I am in full accord. " I laughed delightedly. Such sweet flattery. And how lovely the old-fashioned French. And Louis had been so taken with her, sitting back in the shadows as he watched her, reticent, musing as he'd always been. Immaculate he was again, as if his garments were entirely at his command, and we'd just come from the last act of La Traviata to watch the mortals drink their champagne at the marble-top cafe tables as the fashionable carriages clattered past. Feeling of the new coven formed, magnificent energy, the denial of the human reality, the three of us together against all tribes, all worlds.

And a profound feeling of safety, of unstoppable momentum-how to explain that to them.

"Mother, stop worrying, " I had said finally, hoping to settle it all, to create a moment of pure equanimity. "It's pointless. A creature powerful enough to bum his enemies can find us anytime that he chooses, do exactly what he likes. "

"And this should stop me from worrying? " she said. I saw Louis shake his head.

"I don't have your powers, " he said unobtrusively, "nevertheless I felt this thing. And I tell you it was alien, utterly uncivilized, for want of a better word. "

"Ah, you've hit it again, " Gabrielle interjected. "It was completely foreign as if coming from a being so removed... "

"And your Marius is too civilized, " Louis insisted, "too burdened with philosophy. That's why you know he doesn't want revenge. " "Alien? Uncivilized? " I glanced at both of them. "Why didn't I feel this menace! " I asked.

"Mon Dieu, it could have been anything, " Gabrielle had said finally. "That music of yours could wake the dead. " I had thought of last night's enigmatic message, "Lestat! Danger! " but it had been too close to dawn for me to worry them with it. And besides, it explained nothing. It was merely another fragment of the puzzle, and one perhaps that did not belong at all. And now they were gone together, and I was standing alone before the glass doors watching the gleam of light grow brighter and brighter over the Santa Lucia Mountains, thinking:

"Where are you, Marius? Why the hell don't you reveal yourself? " It could damn well be true, everything that Gabrielle said. "Is it a game to you? " And was it a game to me that I didn't really call out to him?

I mean raise my secret voice with its full power, as he had told me two centuries ago that I might do? Through all my struggles, it had become such a matter of pride not to call to him, but what did that pride matter now? Maybe it was the call he required of me. Maybe he was demanding that call. All the old bitterness and stubbornness were gone from me now. Why not make that effort, at least? And closing my eyes, I did what I had not done since those old eighteenth-century nights when I'd talked to him aloud in the streets of Cairo or Rome. Silently, I called. And I felt the voiceless cry rising out of me and traveling into oblivion. I could almost feel it traverse the world of visible proportions, feel it grow fainter and fainter, feel it burn out. And there it was again for a split second, the distant unrecognizable place I had glimpsed last night. Snow, endless snow, and some sort of stone dwelling, windows encrusted with ice. And on a high promontory a curious modern apparatus, a great gray metal dish turning on an axis to draw to itself the invisible waves that crisscross the earth skies. Television antenna! Reaching from this snowy waste to the satellite-that is what it was! And the broken glass on the floor was the glass of a television screen. I saw it. Stone bench . . . a broken television screen. Noise. Fading. MARIUS! Danger, Lestat. All of us in danger. She has . . . I cannot . . . Ice. Buried in ice.

Flash of shattered glass on a stone floor, the bench empty, the clang and vibration of The Vampire Lestat throbbing from the speakers- "She has . . . Lestat, help me! All of us . . . danger. She has... " Silence. The connection broken. MARIUS! Something, but too faint. For all its intensity simply too faint! MARIUS! I was leaning against the window, staring right into the morning light as it grew brighter, my eyes watering, the tips of my fingers almost burning on the hot glass. Answer me, is it Akasha? Are you telling me that it is Akasha, that she is the one, that it was she? But the sun was rising over the mountains. The lethal rays were spilling down into the valley, ranging across the valley floor. I ran out of the house, across the field and towards the hills, my arm up to shield my eyes. And within moments I had reached my hidden underground crypt, pulled back the stone, and I went down the crudely dug little stairs. One more turn and then another and I was in cold and safe blackness, earth smell, and I lay on the mud floor of the tiny chamber, my heart thudding, my limbs trembling. Akasha! That music of yours could wake the dead. Television set in the chamber, of course, Marius had given them that, and the broadcasts right off the satellite. They had seen the video films! I knew it, I knew it as certainly as if he had spelled it out to the last detail. He had brought the television down into their sanctum, just as he had brought the movies to them years and years ago. And she had been awakened, she had risen. That music of yours could wake the dead. I'd done it again. Oh, if only I could keep my eyes open, could only think, if the sun wasn't rising. She had been there in San Francisco, she had been that close to us, burning our enemies. Alien, utterly foreign, yes. But not uncivilized, no, not savage. She was not that. She was only just reawakened, my goddess, risen like a magnificent butterfly from its cocoon. And what was the world to her? How had she come to us? What was the state of her mind? Danger to all of us. No. I don't believe it! She had slain our enemies. She had come to us. But I couldn't fight the drowsiness and heaviness any longer. Pure sensation was driving out all wonder and excitement.

My body grew limp and helplessly still against the earth. And then I felt a hand suddenly close on mine. Cold as marble it was, and just about that strong. My eyes snapped open in the darkness. The hand tightened its grip. A great mass of silken hair brushed my face. A cold arm moved across my chest. Oh, please, my darling, my beautiful one, please! I wanted to say. But my eyes were closing! My lips wouldn't move. I was losing consciousness. The sun had risen above.