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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?

I have discovered many things…but no discovery in all my years has ever been as important as my discovery of you, the blood drinkers, and your legends of Amel.

I have no doubt that Amel lives inside you. I have no doubt that this is our Amel. But he is also your Amel. I know this, and I see what you are and how precious life is to you, as it is to us. And please do understand that we see you as a priceless form of life just as we see ourselves as a priceless form of life.

And it is through you and your kindred that we have found one another again, and through Rhoshamandes’s bloody blundering assault on Derek that we have the knowledge that we can increase our numbers without even understanding how or why. We are disposed to love you, to revere the things that we have in common, and we ask for your love.

There are many things more I could say, many observations I could make. But I have told all the truth that matters here, all the truth that may matter to Amel. We’ve come to you at great risk to ourselves because of Amel. But also because you are our brothers and sisters in immortality; we see kindred in you. And we trust you’ll see kindred in us. In those centuries when we opened our eyes on a primitive and harsh world, we found our loneliness as immortals all but unendurable. Derek suffered the same fate. And Garekyn was suffering it when he approached Trinity Gate. We are ready to need you, if you are ready to need us.

I have told you everything, and now I see there are two hours perhaps left to the night before you have to leave us and we have to leave you. I’m yours for that time, and I hope forever, really. Ask me what you would; and I’ll try to tell you the truth.

20

Lestat

SHOCK. SILENCE. NO one moved or spoke. All eyes remained on Kapetria. Then I heard Armand’s telepathic message. Mark the danger.

Kapetria was right about there being two hours before sunrise. But I myself did not have the full two hours. I had at the most one hour and was very glad that the tale had been told in its entirety at one time.

Was I suspicious, incredulous, as to all we’d heard? No.

I sensed that Kapetria had presented everything truthfully. And I also knew that the tale had had a powerful impact on Amel. Throughout the telling, I had felt one subtle convulsion in Amel after another, and sometimes what amounted to a considerable disturbance, and I knew that the other vampires at the table, able to read my mind, had some dim sense of these responses as well.