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Chapters (48)
  1. Cover
  2. ALSO BY ANNE RICE
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. A Brief History of the Vampires
  8. Blood Argot
  9. Proem
  10. Part I
  11. 1
  12. 2
  13. 3
  14. 4
  15. 5
  16. 6
  17. 7
  18. 8
  19. 9
  20. 10
  21. 11
  22. 12
  23. 13
  24. 14
  25. 15
  26. 16
  27. 17
  28. 18
  29. Part II
  30. 19
  31. 20
  32. 21
  33. 22
  34. 23
  35. 24
  36. Part III
  37. 25
  38. 26
  39. 27
  40. 28
  41. 29
  42. 30
  43. 31
  44. 32
  45. 33
  46. Appendix 1
  47. Appendix 2
  48. What’s next onyour reading list?

How curious and human to be thinking of all of this at the same time.

“What is it you see right now, Amel?” I asked.

“That city,” he answered. “Would you think me a boastful fool if I told you I—?” Silence again.

“If you only knew,” I said, “how much I cherish every single word that comes from you, you wouldn’t ask. Boast to me. You’re allowed for all eternity to do that.”

“I know that city,” he said in a small wounded voice. “That city was—.”

“Your home?”

Silence. Then:

“It’s time,” he said. “The Egyptian idiot and the Viking thug are making their way up the mountain.”

“I know,” I said. An idea was forming in my mind, of how I might draw him out further on the city, but the sun waits for no vampire. I wondered if Louis had gone into his crypt, the special crypt I’d prepared for him, a monkly chamber of essential things with an antique black coffin that I’d chosen specially, with its lining of thick white silk padding. Pretty much like mine.

“He sleeps,” said Amel.

I smiled. “And did you look at me through his eyes when I was with him?”

“No, I can’t go into him,” he said. “I told you that. But I love looking at him through your eyes and I know what I see. He loves you so much more than he lets on. And others know that Louis loves you, and they see his love, and they’re glad he’s finally here.”

That was more reassuring than I cared to admit.

And true, it was time, and there were my guardians off in the falling snow, sturdy as trees, waiting for me.

I rose slowly as if my bones ached when they did not, and walked towards them. And for some reason, unbeknownst to me in my present frame of mind, I put my arms out to receive Cyril and Thorne, embracing them, and we walked down the mountain together.

As I entered my crypt, I saw, in a flash, the city tumbling into the sea. I saw the smoke billowing up and up into the clouds and then making black clouds spreading out to block the sun.

“Doesn’t seem possible,” Amel whispered, “a city like that, to have died within an hour.”

“And you died there,” I said.

But he didn’t answer me. A hideous wailing filled my ears, but so faint I had to hold my breath to hear it. A wailing in dreams, not from him or me. A wailing that speaks of grief without the need of language.

11

Fareed