Prince Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles 11)

"Oh, that architect, what a nuisance! While you're at it, drain him of every drop of blood in his system. A madman who spends his life restoring a remote chateau simply because he's paid to do it is a dreary prospect indeed."

"Stay away from him, Mother. He's my trusted servant. And I like him. Now where exactly will we be going, if I may ask?"

"Fifteen hundred miles. To Cappadocia."

16

Fareed

Moment of Decision

FAREED SAT in the darkened study staring at the large glowing monitor before him, and at the great sprawling model he'd made of pixels and light of the supposed body of this entity, the Sacred Core, this Amel, this Voice, which was rousing old ones to destroy vampires everywhere.

On Fareed's desk was a hardcover book, a novel. The Queen of the Damned. It was open to pages 366 and 367. Over and over again, Fareed read these pages in which Akasha, the original vampire parent, described the coming of the spirit Amel into her body.

Fareed was trying to envision some theoretical construct of this being, this spirit Amel. But he had come up against questions and mysteries he could not conquer. No instrument on Earth could detect the actual cells of this being, but Fareed had no doubt that it was cellular. And as always he wondered if it were not a remnant of a lost world that had existed on Earth before oxygen entered the atmosphere. Could it have been part of some thriving race eventually shut out of the visible biological world by the rise of those creatures that were not only not poisoned by oxygen but thrived on it? What had life been like for that race? Would they have been visible in some way to the human eye during those millions of years before the rise of oxygen? Did they swim the oxygen-free atmosphere of the world as octopuses swim the ocean? Did they love? Did they breed? Had they an organized society of which we know nothing? And what precisely had oxygen done to them? Were they remnants of their former selves--giant etheric bodies of infinitesimal cells which had once possessed a grosser form, struggling with senses so different from ours that we couldn't imagine them?

There was little doubt that at death, the human body set free some sort of etheric "self" that ascended, poetically speaking, to some other realm, and that some of these etheric bodies remained here on Earth--earthbound ghosts. Fareed had seen such ghosts since he'd come into the Blood. They were rare, but he had seen them. Indeed he had glimpsed ghosts who had organized around the etheric body a physical appearance of being human that was made up entirely of particles which they drew to themselves through some sort of magnetism.

What relationship did such ghosts have to these spirits of which Amel was one? Did their "subtle" bodies have something in common?

Fareed would go mad if he didn't find the answers. He and Flannery Gilman, the most brilliant doctor he'd brought over into the Blood--the biological mother of Lestat's son, Viktor--had discussed all this innumerable times searching for the great breakthrough which would bring all the disparate information to order.

Perhaps the ultimate key to Amel would be one of those savvy, clever ghosts who passed for real every day in Los Angeles. Seth had said once when they'd spotted such a ghost walking boldly on the street with palpable footsteps that the ghosts of the world were evolving, that they were growing better and better at entering the physical, at making these biological bodies for themselves. Oh, if only Fareed could speak with one of these ghosts, but every time he'd tried to approach such a specter, the specter had fled. One time it had dissolved right before his eyes leaving behind its clothes. Another ghost had dissolved clothes and all because its garments, obviously, had also been illusory, part of its particle body.

Oh, if there were only time, time to study, to think, to learn. If only the Voice had not precipitated this awful crisis. If only the Voice were not Hell-bent on destruction of the Undead. If only the Voice were not an adversary of its own kind. But there was no evidence the Voice felt that the blood drinkers of the world were its own kind. In fact, there was evidence to the contrary, that it saw itself held hostage in some form which it could not make its own. Did that mean that it wanted to be free again, free to ascend to some atmospheric paradise whence it came? Not likely. No. It had to have a very different ambition, an ambition more compatible with the daring that had driven it down into the body of Akasha in the first place.

Fareed stared at the model he had made of the thing in burning color on the giant monitor.

That it was an invertebrate he was almost certain, that it possessed a discernible brain he was certain; that its nervous system involved numerous tentacles he was certain too. He suspected that in its spirit state it had absorbed some form of nutrients from the atmosphere of the planet. And blood, of course, the capacity to absorb tiny droplets of blood, had been its passage into the visible biological world. Obviously its tentacles involved a huge percentage of its neurons, but apparently did not involve full intelligence or awareness. That was localized in the brain, the Sacred Core, so to speak. And it was now evident, evident from the Voice, that this brain could encode both short-term memories and long-term memories. Its wants were now being expressed in terms of time and memory.

But had it always been so? Had the problem of long-term memory paralyzed this creature for centuries because it had had no way to store or respond to long-term memories in its "spirit" state? Had Amel and other spirits floated in a blessed "now" in their invisible form?

Had it always had personality and consciousness as we know them and only been unable in ages past to communicate? It had certainly communicated in spirit form to the great twin witches. It had loved them, wanted to please them, especially Mekare. It had wanted recognition, approval, even admiration.

But had that consciousness been submerged when the boastful Amel entered the Mother, only coming to the surface now because it found itself lodged in the host body of a woman who had no true thinking brain of her own?

Perhaps history had awakened Amel--the history he'd discovered when the burning rock videos of the Vampire Lestat had been piped into the Shrine of the Mother and the Father, videos that told the tale of how the vampires had come into existence. Had something vital and irreversible been sparked in Amel when he saw those little films on a television screen that Marius had so lovingly provided for the mute Mother and Father?

Fareed sighed. What he wanted more than anything in this world was to be in direct contact with the Voice itself. But the Voice had never spoken to him. The Voice had spoken to Seth. The Voice had undoubtedly spoken to innumerable blood drinkers on the planet, but the Voice shunned Fareed. Why? Why did it do this? And was the Voice from time to time anchoring itself inside Fareed to know his thoughts even if it did not speak to him?

That was conceivable. It was conceivable that Amel was learning from Fareed's analysis more than the Voice cared to admit.

Viktor and Seth came into the room.

They stood in the airy darkness, looking at the monitor, waiting politely for Fareed to disengage and give them his full attention.

It was a very large room, this, with glass walls open to the flat country and the mountains beyond, one of many rooms in this great sprawling three-story medical compound which Fareed and Seth had built in the California desert.

Fareed had found the architecture of this area cold and uninspiring, efficient for work, but sterile for the spirit. So he'd warmed this space and others like it with little touches--marble fireplaces arching over gas grates, his favorite European paintings in gilded frames, and faded antique carpets from his native India. Several immense computers dominated his desk here, monitors aglow and filled with graphs and pictures. But the desk itself was an old Renaissance Portuguese piece of carved walnut found in Goa.

Viktor and Seth had not sat down, though the room was filled with leather easy chairs. They were waiting, and Fareed had to let this go, realize once and for all that he had come to the end of what he could know without confronting the Voice directly.

Finally, Fareed turned in the modern black swivel chair and faced the two who were waiting.

"Everything's been arranged," said Seth. "The plane's ready; luggage loaded. Rose is on the plane, and Viktor will be with her. Rose thinks she is going to New York to see her uncle Lestan."

"Well, we hope that will turn out to be the truth, don't we?" asked Fareed. "And our rooms in New York?"