“Rhoshamandes has his own human lawyers,” said Allesandra. The tears stood in her eyes, but she went on, in a carefully controlled voice. “He has teams of them who work for him, and he has sent them to search for Garekyn Brovotkin, using the same sort of intelligence your lawyers and solicitors use.” She turned to me. “Rhoshamandes despises you, Prince,” she said. “And his hatred and bitterness have grown. If he knows you want these beings, he will most assuredly try to capture them before they can come here.”

“We’re wasting time,” said Marius. “Please send for Benji and go on the broadcast and talk to the non-humans.”

“I understand all that,” I said. “But I’m trying to think this thing through. I don’t see that we have to be hasty. These creatures are a total unknown. Are you assuming that Amel was somehow once one of them?”

“Amel has brought them out,” said Teskhamen. “Amel, the mention of Amel in Benji’s broadcasts. Amel. They are seeking Amel. And the doctor and her companion, it was no coincidence that that Dr. Rhinehart was working in Gregory’s company, spying on Gregory, studying Gregory. They’d been around for years, these beings, perhaps since the time you first wrote of Amel in your books, Lestat.”

I nodded. “There’s something here I’m not understanding. So they want to know about Amel. But we don’t know for sure that our Amel is their Amel. We don’t…” But I stopped. What was I thinking? “Our Amel doesn’t have true coherent memories of this city. He gives no indication he knows who these individuals are, only that he might have seen them once.”

“Lestat,” said Fareed. “Look at the history of Amel. What do we know about Amel? Think of the centuries when the blood drinkers of the world thought he was a mindless spirit, when even the great Maharet and Mekare thought he was a mindless spirit. And look what happened when this mindless spirit gained a consciousness of its own, and a point of view.”

“Yes, of course.”

“But don’t you see,” said Teskhamen, “even when Amel gained a purpose and started to incite the Burnings, and even when he incited Rhoshamandes to kill Maharet, you still assumed he was a spirit who had never lived on the earth before in any bodily form, a spirit evolving towards some sort of purposeful activity.”

“Do you really not understand what’s involved here?” asked Gremt. “Lestat, Amel has lived before. He is not a spirit evolving, he is a spirit with an identity, a personality, nourished in flesh and blood that can be restored to him.”

“Amel was the leader in that city,” said Arion. “Rhoshamandes saw evidence of this, and that he controlled a technology which is beyond our present dreams.”