There came a flash of the twins again. It was just as if I was there with them in that grassy place in the warm sunshine. I could hear the insects swarming in the fields nearby, swarming in the green shade beneath the nearby trees. And the twins were smiling and talking to me, and it felt we'd been talking forever, and then came the sound of the Voice weeping, and I said, "But what do you want me to call you! What is your true name?"
And in a tearful tone, he said, "It's what she always called me. She knew. My name is Amel."
27
Lestat
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
AFTER SUNSET, I went on the air immediately with Benji. The Voice had whispered hateful words in my ear when I awakened, but it was completely quiet now.
We were in the fourth-floor studio with its microphones, phone banks, and computers, and Antoine and Sybelle were with us, Antoine to man the phones.
I was very proud of my handsome Antoine, proud of his composing, his piano playing, his violin playing, proud of his expertise with all this modern equipment, but there was not time now for any real reunion with him. That would have to wait. That I'd keep him close after this was a foregone conclusion. He was my fledgling and I would assume full responsibility for him.
But the broadcast was on my mind now. Benji reminded me that vampires all over the world were listening, that even the fledglings crowding the street below could hear the broadcast through their cell phones, and that my remarks would be recorded, and replayed all through the next day. When Benji gave me the signal, I started to speak in a low voice well below the frequency that mortal ears could hear.
I explained that Viktor, the unfortunate victim of a blood drinker kidnapping, had been returned safely and order in our world was being restored. I told the young vampires of the world who the Voice was and explained various ways of defending oneself against the Voice. I explained this was Amel, the spirit that animated all of us and had only just come to consciousness. I explained I was in direct communication with the Voice and would do my best to quiet him and discourage him from attempting any more mischief. I assured them finally that I felt the Burnings were over for the most part--we had had no word of the Burnings in two nights, according to Benji--and that the Voice was now occupied in other ways. Then I made them a promise. Within a few nights, I would come to speak to them at some place where we might gather unseen. I did not know yet where that was to be. But I would give them the location when I did know and I would give them time to assemble.
When I said those words, I heard them roaring with approval in the street below, a ghost of a sound rolling up the walls and penetrating this studio. Benji smiled triumphantly, gazing at me as if I were a god.
"For now, you must do as I say," I said into the microphone. "You know what I am going to explain to you. But you must hear it again. No quarreling whatsoever amongst yourselves. No one, but no one, must strike out at another blood drinker. This is forbidden! And you must hunt the evildoer, never the innocent. There are to be no exceptions. And you are to have honor! You must have honor. If you do not know what honor is, then look it up in your online dictionaries and memorize the definition. Because if we do not have honor, we are lost."
I sat there in silence for a moment. Again, they were roaring and cheering in the street below. I was gazing off and into my thoughts. I knew the lights were flashing as calls were coming in from all over the world. Through Antoine's earphones I could hear him greeting each caller, and stabbing the lighted button to put each caller on hold.
The Voice had not said a word. And I wanted to say more as to the Voice, and so I did.
I was brief on this. But I said it.
"Understand, Children of the Night, that the Voice may have knowledge to share with us. The Voice may have gifts to give to us! The Voice may well become a precious gift to us in himself. The Voice is after all the fount of all we are; and the Voice has only just begun to express himself, to tell us what he wants us to know. No, we must not allow ourselves to be duped by the Voice into destroying one another. Never. But we must have patience with the Voice. We must have respect, and I mean this, we must have respect for who and what the Voice is."
I hesitated. I wanted to say more.
"The Voice is a mystery," I said, "and this mystery must not be treated by us with hasty and foolish contempt."
Inside me there was a silent convulsing as if Amel were responding and wanted me to know he was responding, but he didn't speak.
I went on talking again. I spoke of many things. I spoke softly into the microphone and spoke into a great silence--I spoke of the Little Drink and the art of it, to feed without taking life, I spoke of the elegance of compassion, to feed without cruelty. "Even mortals follow such rules when they hunt game," I said. "Are we not better than they are?" I spoke of territories where the evildoers still congregated, places of violence and want where humans were driven to cruelty and murder. I spoke of great communities devoid of such desperate villains, which could not become the hunting grounds of the Undead.
"This is the beginning," I said. "We will survive; we will define ourselves."
A deep conviction of all this had rooted itself in me. Or rather I was finding it within me, because perhaps it had always been there. "We will not behave as things to be despised simply because we are despised!" I said. "We must emerge from this crisis with a new will to prosper." I paused. Then I repeated the word "prosper." And I said again, because I couldn't stop myself. "Hell shall have no dominion over us. Hell shall have no dominion."
There came again that low rumbling explosion of applause and cheering from the streets around us, like a great sigh as it expanded and then began to die away.
I pushed the microphone back and in a silent passion left the studio as Benji began to answer the calls.
When I came down into the drawing room on the first floor, I saw that Rhoshamandes and Benedict were there surrounded by Sevraine, Gregory, Seth, and Fareed and others, and they were all in fast conversation with one another. Nobody, not even Rhoshamandes or Benedict themselves, asked if they might now be released.
There was so much more to be done, to be decided, so much more that the blood drinkers around the world could not fully understand. But for now, all was well under this roof. I sensed this. I felt it.
Rhoshamandes, dressed in fresh clothes, his arm and hand restored to him, was actually telling Eleni and Eugenie and Allesandra about his life after he'd left France centuries ago, and Gregory was asking him small rather interesting questions, and this proceeded, all of this, as if we'd never been at war the night before, and I'd never acted like the monster I was. And it was certainly proceeding as if he'd never murdered the great Maharet.
When he saw me in the door, Rhoshamandes only nodded at me and, after a respectful second or two, went back to what he'd been saying, about this place he'd built for himself, this castle in the northern seas. He appeared indifferent
to me. But I secretly loathed the sight of him. And I could not stop myself from imagining what it had been like when he slaughtered Maharet. I could not forgive him for having done this. I was offended by this entire civilized gathering. I was deeply offended. But what did that matter? I had to think now not merely for myself but on behalf of everyone else.
There would come a time perhaps to reckon with him, I figured. And very likely he harbored a hatred for me on account of what I'd done that would bring about a time of reckoning for both of us much sooner than I desired.