“You go join the others,” I said. “I’ll go back to the Amazon now and I’ll take my stand with her. I can reach there before sunrise in that hemisphere.”

“No, you mustn’t do this.” It was the voice of the spirit, Gremt. He was still sitting quite calmly to Sevraine’s left as before. “You’re needed at the conclave, and that’s where you must go. If you return to Maharet’s sanctuary now, she’ll only drive you away again. And she may do worse.”

“Forgive me,” I said, straining to be courteous, “but what has this to do with you?”

“I knew this spirit, Amel,” he answered, “for thousands of years before he came into the physical. If he had not come, not fused with Akasha, I might never have come, never have sought to take on a body and walk on the Earth in the guise of a human. I’ve been prompted in all I’ve done by him, by his descent into flesh and blood and my own love of flesh and blood. I followed him here.”

“Well, that’s a staggering revelation,” I said. “And how many others like you are roaming around this Earth, may I ask, watching this pageant for pleasure?”

“I’m not watching the pageant for pleasure,” he replied. “And if there are others from our realm who’ve concerned themselves with these events, they haven’t made their presence known to me.”

“Stop, please,” Sevraine implored me. “It will all make more sense to you if you realize this being founded the Talamasca. Now, you know the Talamasca. You know their principles. You know their high-minded goals. You know their dedication. You loved and trusted David Talbot when he was still the Superior General of the Talamasca, a mortal scholar who did all in his power to be your friend. Well, Gremt Stryker Knollys founded the Talamasca, and that should answer all your questions as to his character. I don’t know what other word to use but ‘character.’ You need not doubt Gremt.”

I was speechless.

Of course I’d always known that some supernatural secret burned at the heart of the Talamasca, but what it was I’d never been able to fathom. And to the best of my knowledge, David did not know. And neither did Jesse who had also been a child of the Order long before her aunt Maharet had brought her into the Blood.

“Trust in me,” said Gremt. “I am on your side now. I fear Amel. I have always feared him. I have always dreaded the day he would come into his own.”

I listened patiently but said nothing.

“Tomorrow at sunset, we should all leave here together,” said Sevraine. “And there I’ll find those as old as I am, as powerful. I’m convinced of it. This conclave will draw them there and under moral constraints which I welcome and respect. Perhaps some have already arrived. And then we’ll be in a position to determine what to do.”

“And meanwhile,” I said softly, “Maharet grapples with this on her own.” I sought to banish all images of that volcano, Pacaya, in Guatemala, where our collective destiny might just end.

Sevraine’s eyes locked on mine. Had she seen it?

Of course I know your fears, but why frighten the others? We do what we must do.

“Maharet will accept no one’s help,” said Gremt. “I too went to her. It was no use. I knew her when she was a mortal woman. I spoke to her when she was a mortal woman. I was among the spirits who listened to her voice.” His voice remained even but he was becoming emotional, emotional as any genuine human being. “And now after all this time, she does not trust me, or listen to me. She cannot. In her mind she lost the voices of the spirits when she entered the Blood. And any spirit who seeks to incarnate as I’ve done she can’t trust. She can only regard me with abhorrence and fear.” He stopped, as if he couldn’t continue. “I’ve always somehow known that she would turn her back on me when I stood before her, when I confessed to her that it was I, I who’d …” And now he could not say anything more.

His eyes were glazed with tears. He sat back and appeared to take a deep breath, seeking to silently collect himself, and he pressed the fingers of his right hand hard against his own lips.

Why was this so seductive to me, so fascinating? Our emotions came from our minds, did they not, yet softened or hardened our physical bodies. And so his powerful spirit agitated this artfully made physical form in which he resided, with which he had become one. I felt drawn to him. I felt that he was no alien thing at all, but something very like us, a mystery whole unto himself, of course, but very like us.

“I have to go to Maharet,” I said. I started to rise. “I have to stand with her now. You go to the conclave of course, but I’m going to her.”

“Sit down,” said Gabrielle.

I hesitated and then very reluctantly obeyed. I did want to reach the Amazon with hours to spare.

“There are other reasons why you should come with us,” said Gabrielle, in the same firm voice.

“Oh, I know, don’t tell me!” I said angrily. “They want me there. The young ones are clamoring for me to go. They attach some special importance to me. Armand and Louis want me to come. Benji wants me to come. I’ve heard it over and over.”

“Well, all that is true,” said Gabrielle. “And we are a quarrelsome and independent species and we do need any charismatic leader who is willing to take the helm. But there are other reasons.”

She looked at Sevraine.

Sevraine nodded. And Gabrielle went on.

“You have a mortal son there, Lestat, a young man of less than twenty years. His name is Viktor. He knows you are his father. He was born of a mortal woman in Fareed’s laboratory, a woman named Flannery Gilman who is now in the Blood. But your son is not in the Blood.”

Silence.

Not only did I not speak, I couldn’t think. I couldn’t reason. I must have looked like someone who has lost his senses. I stared at Gabrielle and then at Sevraine.

I had no words for what I was feeling. I had no way to comprehend the scope of what was going on not in my mind but in my heart. I could feel the eyes of all present on me, but it didn’t much matter. I looked at them but I didn’t really see them or care about them—Allesandra sitting there staring at me quietly with Bianca beside her, a picture of sympathy and sadness. And Eleni watching me fearfully, with Eugénie all but hiding behind her. And the spirit and the ghost with such emotional expressions. A son. A mortal son. A living breathing son of my flesh. Oh, Fareed, he must have planned it from the start with that enticing bedroom and the warm, sweet-faced Dr. Flannery Gilman so ready with her tender mortal mouth and her hot naked limbs. I’d impregnated her! The possibility had never occurred to me. Not for one second had I thought such a thing possible.