Prince Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles 11)

Indeed, only one blood drinker in recent years had brought him out of anonymity and that had been Fareed Bhansali, the physician vampire in Los Angeles, who had sufficiently fascinated him to cause him to reveal himself, and this for very specific reasons. For this Fareed was as unique in his own way--if unique can be compared--as the romantic poet vampires Louis and Lestat, in that Fareed was the only modern blood drinker physician known to Gregory.

Oh, in the distant past there had been some, surely, but they were rudimentary healers and alchemists who when they came into the Blood lost all interest in their scientific explorations, and with reason, for there had been a limit for thousands of years to what could be known scientifically.

Magnus, the great Parisian alchemist, had been a perfect example. In his old age, stooped and deformed by the natural wasting of his bones, Magnus had been denied the Blood by the vain Rhoshamandes, who at that time quietly ruled the Undead of France, never allowing their numbers to become unmanageable. Bitter, angry, and not to be outdone, Magnus had managed to steal the Blood from a young acolyte of Rhoshamandes known as Benedict. Binding Benedict and draining his body of blood right at sunset, Magnus had become a full-fledged blood drinker lying stunned on the comatose body of his maker, who found himself upon waking too weak to break his bonds, too weak even to call for help. What shocks this clever theft of the Blood had sent through the entire Undead world. How many would dare to imitate the bold Magnus? Well, precious few ever did. Precious few blood drinkers were ever as careless or stupid as gentle Benedict had been, entrusting the location of his resting place to a mortal "friend."

And then Magnus, this truly revolutionary thinker, had turned his back entirely on the medical and alchemical knowledge of his human life, holed himself up in a tower near Paris, and devoted himself to the most bitter reflections until he went mad in the end, his only real achievement being the capture and making of the Vampire Lestat. To Lestat, he bequeathed his blood, his property, and his wealth.

Ah, such dreadful failures.

And where was Rhoshamandes now? Where were his fine progeny--the beautiful Merovingian Allesandra, daughter of Dagobert the First, or the disgraced and ever contrite Benedict? Had Allesandra really immolated herself on a pyre in the catacombs under Les Innocents, only because the Vampire Lestat had come marching through her world and destroyed the old Children of Satan who had long kept her mind and her soul and her body prisoner? A pyre might have been enough to destroy the body of Magnus, yes; but Allesandra had been old before Magnus came into existence, though her own age and experience had been lost to her in madness more than once.

Gregory had known little of Rhoshamandes during those centuries but he'd observed much from afar. And why not? Hadn't Rhoshamandes been his own fledgling? Well, no. The Mother had made Rhoshamandes for the Queens Blood, then given him to Gregory (her devoted Nebamun) to instruct and train.

There were many he hoped to find in the future, including his long-lost Blood Wife, Sevraine. She'd come as a slave into Egypt thousands of years ago, her hair and eyes as fair as those of the red-haired witches, and he, Gregory or Nebamun, Captain of the Queens Blood, had so loved her that he'd brought her over without the Queen's blessing and almost paid for this the ultimate price. Somewhere out there in the great bright world, Sevraine lived. Gregory was sure of it. And perhaps one dark side of all this misery of late was that the old ones would come together. Even Rhoshamandes would surface, and some of his strong progeny like Eleni and Eugenie, once captives of the Paris Children of Satan. And where was Hesketh? Gregory could not forget about her.

The tragic Hesketh had been the most malformed blood drinker that Gregory had ever encountered, made and loved by the old renegade blood god Teskhamen, who had escaped the Druids who'd worshipped him and sought to put an end to him on their pyre. Gregory had encountered Hesketh and Teskhamen in the wilds of France in the 700s of the Common Era when Rhoshamandes had still ruled in those parts, and later in the far north. Teskhamen had tales to tell, but didn't they all? Surely those as wise and hearty as Hesketh and Teskhamen still survived.

But the point was, this Fareed Bhansali, a physician vampire, had fascinated Gregory enough to cause him to reveal himself. This Fareed Bhansali appeared unique.

And as word had spread through the world that a blood drinker doctor had indeed appeared "on the scene" in Los Angeles and in fact set up an entire clinic in a medical office tower for the study of the Undead, and that this doctor was powerful and brilliant and had been an accomplished Mumbai surgeon and researcher before being Born to Darkness, Gregory set out to observe this man at close hand.

Indeed, he

hurried. He feared that the awful twins--Mekare and Maharet--who now had control of the spirit Amel and the primal fount of the Blood, might burn to ashes this upstart, and Gregory wanted to be there to stop it and whisk away the bold Fareed Bhansali to safety in his own house in Geneva.

Why this doctor did not do anything to hide himself, Gregory couldn't understand. But Fareed didn't. Indeed there were times when he seemed positively eager to advertise his presence, seeking mavericks and riffraff everywhere for his research.

But Gregory had another motive for finding Fareed.

For the first time in seventeen hundred years, Gregory was wondering: could Flavius's missing leg be somehow replaced by some clever device of plastic and steel such as the humans of this age had perfected? Now there was a vampire doctor to provide the answer.

It took some persuading to get Flavius to agree to this experiment, or even to the idea of making the crossing from Europe to America, but when that was finished, Gregory found Fareed at once.

As soon as Gregory came upon Fareed walking in the tree-darkened streets of West Hollywood on a radiant summer evening, Gregory realized his worries for Fareed's safety had been in vain. Beside him walked a vampire nearly as old as Gregory, and indeed this one was none other than Seth, the son of the ancient Mother.

How strange to see him here, removed by aeons from that long-ago time, this one, standing on the pavements of this modern city, lean and tall as he had always been with powerful shoulders and slender fingers, and a large well-shaped head and those dark almond-shaped eyes. His dark skin had faded over the aeons and he had a pale Oriental cast to him with short black hair and the courtly demeanor of olden times.

The old crown prince.

Seth had been a boy when his mother, Queen Akasha, had been infected with the demon blood, and sent away for his own safety to Nineveh, but as the wars between Queens Blood and First Brood had raged on, the Mother out of concern for him, lest he fall into the wrong hands, had sent for him and brought him over as a young man into the Blood.

Now this Seth had been a healer, true, though Gregory had forgotten it, or so the old stories of those times went. He had been a dreamer and a wanderer who traveled the cities of the two rivers searching for other healers from whom he sought to increase his knowledge, and he had not wanted to return to his mother's mystery-shrouded court in Egypt. Far from it. He'd been brought by force.

Akasha had given Seth the Blood in a great and pompous ceremony within the royal palace. He must become for her, she said, the greatest leader the Queens Blood had ever known. But Seth had disappointed his mother and his sovereign, and had disappeared into the sands of the desert and the sands of oblivion never to be heard of by anyone ever again.

Now it was Seth--Seth the healer--who walked with Fareed. It was Seth's powerful ancient blood that fired the veins of Fareed. Of course. The ancient healer had made the vampire doctor.

Fareed was almost as tall as his maker and guardian, with flawless honey-brown skin and ink-black wavy hair. His eyes were green. Something like an Indian Bollywood idol, thought Gregory to himself, with that luxuriant hair and those glittering green eyes. Green eyes had been so very rare in ancient times. One could live a human lifetime back then and never gaze on a being who had blue or green eyes. Their pale-red hair and blue eyes had rendered the witches Mekare and Maharet all the more suspicious and fearsome to the Egyptians, and the beautiful northern slave, Gregory's beloved Sevraine, had been feared.

As late as the Common Era, when Flavius, a Greek, had come to him, Gregory had been dazzled by the seeming miracle of that golden hair and those blue eyes.

How formally, how courteously, Gregory and Seth had greeted one another. Why, Seth, my friend, it has been six thousand years!

Even the Mother, Mekare, who now housed the demon, could not have burnt or destroyed this powerful doctor as long as Seth was at his side. And each night of their lives--Gregory came to know--Seth gave more of his ancient blood to Fareed.

"Give yours to him and we will gladly do anything to help Flavius," said Seth, "for yours is pure as well."

"Is it so very pure?" Gregory asked as he marveled.