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

How many hours passed?

When he awoke, it was from a happy dream but the dream was gone, like a gossamer scarf of bright colors ripped away from him. Like a flag blowing in the wind.

A woman was standing in

the room, a woman with golden hair. He couldn't see her face because the light of the hallway was behind her. Then Kapetria switched on the light and he saw that the woman looked just like her.

"It's almost morning," said Kapetria. "This is Katu," she said. She spelled it out for him. "And in the living room there is Welftu waiting to meet you. We are now seven in number. And by midmorning when we leave there will be two more. Garetu and Dertu's child, though we don't know what to call him. They are being born now."

Derek was in shock. "How did you have the courage to try it?" He'd been so afraid that it would not work for each and every one of them. He had been so afraid of so many unknowns about it.

"We had to try it," said Kapetria. "We had to try it before we met the Prince. We had to know. And what better time than before going to see the vampires with their astonishing powers. My left foot was sufficient to make this child," said Kapetria, "and Welftu was made from Welf's left hand. And had those appendages failed to develop into new beings, had our own appendages not regenerated, we could have taken the severed hand and foot to Fareed, the blood drinker's healer, and asked for his help in restoring them."

"And you think he would have done it?" asked Derek.

"Oh, yes. I think he's ruthless for knowledge," said Kapetria, "just as I am. I think he regards us as a treasure, a resource beyond imagining, just as I regard them as a treasure and a resource beyond imagining, a resource that has kept Amel living and breathing and now speaking."

The smiling Katu came towards Derek. She was clothed in a smooth, tight dress of printed silk and wore those same fashionable black stockings that Kapetria wore, and the same delicate high-heeled shoes. She was Kapetria's duplicate, of course, he thought, and only the hair, mingled gold and black, was different, the hair that had been brushed free.

But when she sat down beside him, Derek saw that her expression and demeanor were wholly unlike those of Kapetria. There was that same resolution and cleverness in her eyes that he'd seen in Dertu's eyes. What was it? Emotional innocence?

"Uncle," Katu said. "It's not a beautiful word in English or French, but I think in Italian it is pretty."

"Call him brother," said Kapetria. "That's how it should be. Call me Mother, yes, but we are all brothers and sisters really."

They led Derek into the living room. There was an electric fire there, as pretty as the fire on the Benedicta, and Welftu was standing by the fireplace peering down into it as if its myriad programmed flames were fascinating to him. He came to greet Derek, to kiss him on both cheeks and to clasp hands. Then he went back to his fire, as if he were counting patterns in the flames.

"But Kapetria," Derek said. He had settled into a comfortable chair near the couch. "Don't you see? The Prince will realize at once how we've multiplied. The vampires will know that we can increase our numbers almost as easily as they can."

"And why does that matter, darling?" asked Kapetria, as she stood on the other side of the fireplace. "We are not at war with the Prince."

"But what do we want of him? Why are we going there? What sort of alliance are we forming?" So many questions tortured him. You must all be inside the dome and together, with arms locked. You must all at the same time...

"You know I will speak for us," said Kapetria. "You know I will decide what is best to tell and what is best not to tell, and for now, it seems that it's best to tell all that we know and all that we don't know."

"Don't worry," said Welftu. He came and sat on the couch close to Derek. So sure of himself. So bright and clear eyed. He wore a smart jacket of gray worsted wool, and a white-collared shirt of yellow cotton. Welf's clothes. What had Welf been all these years on the planet? Oh, there was so much for them to share with one another. Had they had other "lives" as Derek had had?

Derek's heart was pounding.

Welftu was studying Derek. And Welftu did have Welf's pretty eyes, his thick black eyelashes. But there was something fierce and eager in him that hadn't been in Welf ever. Even when Welf had been asking Derek mean questions.

"They will protect us and we will protect them," Welftu said. "That is the only course that will make sense to them. After all, think what might happen if they did try to destroy us."

17

Rhoshamandes

THE SMALL HOURS, as they call them. He was on the bluff high above the Chateau, looking down on its four towers, and on the curve in the road that ran below it to the center of the village, with its carefully reconstructed inn, church, and townhouses with their shops.

In the great ballroom of the Prince's castle, the vampires danced. Antoine conducted the orchestra, now and then playing his violin, and Sybelle's delicate white fingers sped over the harpsichord's double keyboard. Blood drinkers conversed in pairs or small groups. Some roamed alone through the many salons. Others were making their way down to the crypts.

But the village slept. The chief architect whom Lestat loved so much slept. The team of designers who worked for him slept, their street-level offices shuttered for the night, their tables strewn with ambitious plans for better stables, better electrical systems, better underground utility lines, and new and fine manor houses to be built in the little valley. What a strange tribe they were, these quiet men and women gathered from all over the globe who had been laboring in well-paid obscurity here for over twenty years, creating masterpieces of reproductive genius and technological innovation that the world beyond the electrical fences never saw.

Was it really enough, all that gold paid out to them, all those benefits, all those vacations on charter planes and yachts which the Prince lavished on them, enough for all they'd done and all they would do? Were they happy?

The answer was obviously yes, though when the ale and wine had been flowing in the great room of the inn tonight, there had been the usual raucous complaints that no one would ever know the real extent of their unique achievements. But no one wanted to leave. No one was ready to give up.

Alain Abelard, the chief architect who had grown up on this mountain as his late father oversaw the very first restoration of the old castle, was convinced that someday justice would come to them. Someday their reclusive Count de Lioncourt, called the Prince by his ever-increasing "family" of associates, would open the property to the hungering eyes of those who loved nothing more than to see great palaces sprung from hopeless ruins. Someday the tourist buses would roll through the many sets of gates that stood between them and the highway to Clermont-Ferrand, bringing eager men and women to marvel at all those painted rooms, all those vintage marble fireplaces gathered from near and far, all that exquisite fruitwood furniture so carefully chosen for the smallest rooms as well as the largest. Someday students of agriculture and hydroponics, of solar power and recycled waste, of electrical or fiber-optic systems, would come to study this little self-sustained world.