Yes. Yes, that’s it. To alter me and to make me immortal as a Replimoid they used a string of synthesized elements which I extracted and studied and reworked and finally saw and knew and broke down and made into luracastria, all these elements originally of Earth, made by me into luracastria, behold the chemicals, behold luracastria, beautiful luracastria, injected back into myself, luracastria, into me, behold luracastria, sing the song of luracastria in me, a new synthesis, and when the chemical stores in the Creative Tower went up in flames and smoke, behold the flames and smoke, when the rolling explosions went off one after another and the walls poured down like syrup into the flaming water, I went up in flames, broken apart…hands, arms, and legs and head all blasted apart, I could still see it, behold all the parts of me swallowed by flames, the tiniest parts of me sizzling and turning black and my torso blown into fragments, engulfed in flames, but the “I” of me went up and up and up and when my skull exploded “I” was free.

21

Lestat

I WAS REMEMBERING THE way that Marius had described to me the emptied body of King Enkil after Queen Akasha had awakened and drained him of all blood, that the body had lain there like something made of glass, empty and translucent. And that is what Mekare’s body had become, something translucent like plastic.

And so is this what is happening to us, that this subatomic luracastria is slowly invading and transforming every cell in our bodies while those cells retain their self-replicating nature and we are slowly becoming luracastria?

The sun had set two hours ago. I sat in my private bedchamber with Rose in my arms, Rose with her drowsy head against my chest. And Viktor my son beside me. Rose was so new she looked human in all respects, even to her ruddy skin, and she felt soft all over, soft and sweet, as she lay against me, her raven hair veiling her face, and her long soft gown of burgundy silk cleaving to her beautifully shaped limbs. My son was worn and weary from last night’s pain. He sat erect, his arms clasped between his knees, his blue eyes fixed on some faraway point, his short clipped yellow hair shimmering in the light of the wall sconces, regal even in his dark olive cargo shirt and pants, his face so like mine yet wholly different, more finely proportioned, his mouth smooth though his eyes were narrow and his expression was one of anger.

They had both suffered the unspeakable assault. And Louis, too, must have experienced it, though he said not a word about it. Indeed, all the Undead throughout the Château had known some version of it. Or so it seemed. David had lost consciousness at one point. So had Rose. Viktor had stubbornly clung to consciousness determined to observe it.