Laughter all around.

Allesandra, Sevraine, Chrysanthe, and Eleni and Eugénie looked like queens of ages past in their simple jeweled gowns, with hair as spectacular as the gold trimming on their sleeves, and the rings on their fingers.

Even Bianca, the fragile grieving Bianca, had a majestic poise that commanded respect. And the petite Zenobia, her dark hair trimmed like that of a boy, in her exquisite blue velvet suit, appeared a cherubic page boy from a medieval court.

We each bring to this realm of ours a certain charm, I thought to myself, and obviously I can’t see myself as they see me. I, the bumbler, the blunderer, the impulsive one. And where the Hell was my son!

Deep in my mind a thought did flash for a moment that one who commands must of necessity be wildly imperfect, boldly pragmatic, capable of compromises impossible for the truly wise and the truly good.

“Yes!” said Benji in a whisper, having caught this from my mind.

I looked at him, at his small radiant face, and then back at the assembly.

“Yes, you have it there exactly,” said Marius. “Wildly imperfect, boldly pragmatic. My thoughts as well.”

David had taken his seat again but this time the smooth one rose, the one named Gregory. This was surely one of the most impressive blood drinkers I’d ever beheld. He had a self-possession to rival that of our lost Maharet.

“Lead for now, Lestat,” Gregory said with decorous courtesy, “and we shall see what happens. But for now, you must lead us. Viktor’s been taken. The Voice has turned its fury against those of us who’ve been deaf to it and is now seeking to shift itself out of the body of Mekare, wherever that body is, and into the body of another, one chosen to do the will of the Voice. Now surely all of us will collaborate in what we do here. But you be the leader. Please.” With a bow, he sat down and folded his hands on the gold table.

“All right, what are we to do then?” I said. Out of sheer impatience, I decided to be the chairman if that’s what they wanted. But I did not take the chair. I stood there beside it. “Who is this one who took my son?” I asked. “Does anyone have the slightest clue?”

“I do,” said Thorne. He sat directly under the central chandelier and it made a blaze of his long red hair. His clothes were simple, a working man’s clothes, but he had the casual look of a soldier of fortune. “I know him, this one—brown hair and blue eyes, yes—I know him, but not by name.” He went on. “He hunted the lands of the Franks in my time, and he goes back to the early times, and he made these women here—.” He pointed to Eleni and Allesandra.

“Rhoshamandes,” said Gregory. “How is it possible?”

“Rhoshamandes,” said Allesandra in wonder, glancing at Eleni and at Sevraine.

“Yes, that’s who he is,” said Thorne. “I didn’t have a chance against him.”

“He’s a blood drinker who has never battled with others,” said Sevraine. “How did he fall under the spell of the Voice? I can’t imagine it, or what drove him to murder Maharet and Khayman on his own. It’s madness. He used to avoid quarrels. His domain is an island in the North Sea. He’s always kept entirely to himself. I can’t fathom this.”

“But it was Rhoshamandes,” said Louis quietly. “I see his image in your minds and this is the blood drinker who broke the glass wall and took Viktor. And I’ll tell you something more. This being is not so very skilled at what he’s set out to do. He wanted to take Rose, but he simply couldn’t manage it, and he never harmed me or Thorne, when he might easily have destroyed me, and possibly Thorne too for all I know.”

“He has five thousand years in the Blood,” said Sevraine, “the same as I.” She looked at Gregory with the most tender expression and he nodded.

“He was my friend and more than that,” said Gregory, “but when I rose in the Common Era, I never knew him. What was between us was in those dark nights near the beginning, at the end of the first millennium in our time, and he did great things for me, out of nothing but personal devotion.” Obviously some painful recollection was restraining him. He let the matter drop.

Benji raised his hand but spoke out before anyone had a chance to respond.

“Who’s heard from the Voice? Who’s heard him tonight here?” He looked around expectantly.

No one responded.

Antoine, my beloved fledgling from New Orleans, said softly that he’d never heard the Voice. Sybelle said the same. So did Bianca.

Then Notker spoke up, this bald but handsome blood drinker with the saddest eyes, big puppy eyes, beautiful and swimmingly deep but pulled down at the ends to make him look tragic even if he was smiling.

“He last spoke to me three nights ago,” said Notker. “He told me he had found his instrument, that he’d be imprisoned no longer. He told me to remain in my home—my home is in the French Alps as many of you know—and to keep my people there, that what was to happen with him had no bearing on me. He said he would come into his own, and only the young and the weak would die, and my children were too old, and too strong to be affected.”

He paused, and then went on.

“There are many here in this room whom this Voice would call young and weak.” He looked directly at Armand who sat a few chairs away from me on the left and opposite him. He looked at Louis. He didn’t bother to look at Sybelle or Benji or Antoine, or even Fareed.

“And I will tell you something else,” said Notker. “This Voice can drive a person mad. There is no stopping it now. Months ago, yes, before the killing began, one could block it. But not now. It’s too strong.”

This amazed me. I hadn’t reflected on this. But it made perfect sense. The more the Voice killed off the vampires of the world, the stronger the Voice became.

“That’s true,” Benji declared. “That’s what the young ones are reporting from all over. There’s no shutting him out now. The killings have made him strong.”

Fareed rose to his feet. He’d been sitting quietly beside Seth. They both wore what I would call cassocks of black velvet, with high neatly fitted collars and long rows of jet buttons. He stood facing me.

“The Voice wants to be transferred from the body of Mekare into the body of this chosen one, this anointed,” he said. “And he wants me to affect this. He has told me. He told me the night we arrived here. He wants the cooperation of me and of Seth. I’ve never answered the Voice. And true the Voice is becoming remarkably strong. I can still shut out the Voice but it’s difficult. The Voice must be seen as a force which can harry and drive to madness any mind it possesses. This is now part of the picture. I will not do what the Voice wants. I will not bring an end to the innocent Mekare. At least not, not as things now stand.”