Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (The Vampire Chronicles 12)

"Father, stop worrying," said Dertu. "I can get this ship to Northern Ireland. That's where our problems begin, because without picture identification we can't travel in this world."

"I thought you said Oban," said Derek.

"To throw the old man off, of course."

Derek thought again of how time consuming and difficult it had been for him to create his earlier identities, the identities that had taken him through three-quarters of the twentieth century. He thought of friends he'd made in the modern world, friends who'd never known a particle of truth about him, if they had missed him or ever searched for him. There had been a woman....He hadn't thought of these things in years. He was weeping again. Oh, this was so awful, this crying. Other memories came back to him of those earlier times when he'd opened his eyes on a more primitive world. He took another deep drink of the brandy. Kapetria would be angry if she knew he'd been drinking this brandy.

"Well, maybe we can reach the others from Derry," said Dertu. He appeared to be calculating. "We'll manage. It's getting to the mainland from here that is our first problem."

They heard the call of the old man.

He and his white-haired wife had come on board and were loading bags full of fresh food into the refrigerator. The wife set a brand-new packaged laptop computer on the built-in table. And several new cell phones still in their wrapping.

Dertu hit the man with questions.

"Oh, no, no tracking system on this boat," said the old man. "No Wi-Fi. The master would never stand for that. He is leery of all GPS trackers. Very old-fashioned ideas on all that. Not even the big boat has any sort of tracking device built into it. As you said, the master is an eccentric man."

Derek helped the woman with the groceries. The sight of the roast fowl in the plastic wrap was so delicious to his starved belly that it put him in pain. And the bananas and the fresh fruit, how did they manage all of this out here? He couldn't wait for them to be gone so that he could devour something, anything, and feel his old companion starvation go away.

How sweet and considerate they were, both of them, Derek thought, and how angry the great Rhoshamandes would be with them this evening when he discovered how they'd been duped. Derek felt fear for both of them. But then the monster had his reputation to keep, did he not?

Dertu embraced them both and proffered his thanks.

Impulsively Derek put his arms around the old man. "You tell our gracious host we had to leave," he said mimicking Dertu's manner, "and we thank him for all your kindnesses, and that you never complained of a thing, that you and your wife were so good to us." He realized this might not have the effect he wanted. But what other message could he send to that ruthless monster? Pray the fiend had no time to abuse his caretakers.

The old couple hurried ashore and started to untie the ropes to free the boat.

The great engines of the boat were thrumming; Dertu was on the bridge speaking through some sort of microphone, perhaps to a coastal agent. Derek couldn't hear him.

It was happening. They were escaping. They would move away from the island of the prison.

Derek found blankets under the leather couches of the salon, and carried them up to the bridge.

"The weather isn't as bad as it looks," said Dertu. "We've plotted a course to Harris, though that's not where we're going. But there is something I want to do first. I want to follow my instinct." He looked searchingly at Derek.

"You're asking me?" Derek shrugged. "Do it, whatever it is, your instincts are far better than mine."

Dertu quickly disembarked. He said a few words to the old couple, and then as they waited, he ran towards the boathouse, the wind blasting his long golden and black hair.

Derek stood there shivering, hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat, wondering, was it possible the boy knew everything, everything of his long life, of the times he'd awakened on a primitive world and gone back up in the ice caves of the mountains to freeze again, of those sad times amongst the primitive humans of the continent the world knew now as South America?

Was it all on the surface for the boy or did he have to reach to retrieve this information? Whatever was the case, they were together, he and Dertu, and Dertu seemed a brand-new and improved version of Derek himself, unhampered by fear or sorrow, and able to do things Derek had simply never learned to do. Was that the intention of the method of propagation? Would all of his progeny, assuming he could develop more, would all of them be better than him?

Hurry, Dertu. Hurry. These monsters have humans working for them in this world, solicitors, lawyers, whatever. Hurry.

At last he saw his son running down the pier towards him. He cut a splendid figure in the finest of garments. "And were I to sever a leg, would such a being spring from that limb," Derek wondered. "And what if I

were to sever the very same left arm?"

There was so much to discover together.

Dertu shook hands with the old man, hopped aboard, and the last rope was loosed. He rushed up into the cockpit and flopped down in his leather chair at the wheel. At once the boat moved forward, pulling away from the pier. The old couple was waving them off.

"But what did you do back there?" asked Derek.

Dertu's eyes were on the wheel and great front window now bespattered with spray from the sea.

"I called Benji Mahmoud's program from the phone in the boathouse. I went right on the air. I spoke as softly as they speak. I said, 'Derek is alive, and wants Kapetria and Welf and Garekyn to know that he is alive. And Derek is not alone. Blood drinkers have cruelly held Derek prisoner. A blood drinker of Budapest named Roland has done this for ten years and deserves our vengeance. And Rhoshamandes, his confederate, has visited unspeakable cruelty on Derek. They have concealed all this from the great Prince and the great Court. Derek and I would never harm any blood drinker intentionally; do not hunt us down. Let us come together, we beg you. We have never meant any harm to human beings or to you.' "