He would start announcing the message immediately. An important half hour of meditation is declared for tomorrow night at 6:00 p.m. All the Undead must be in a safe sheltered place at this time, and participate in this experiment by remaining entirely still for the full half hour, and keeping their eyes closed. He would mention “time of meditation” every hour until dawn sign-off, and then he’d set the tape to looping immediately before he retired for the day. We were thankful he didn’t ask for an explanation. But then Benji was powerfully intuitive. Benji had Marius’s blood in him and he knew and heard and understood things others could not. Probably many of the others knew what was happening. No doubt Gregory knew, and Marius as well.

Fareed began to laugh, a bit madly, like someone laughing from exhaustion or unbearable strain. “This is too funny,” he said. He gestured to the desk, the book-lined walls, the laboratory. “And this, this old talk of the silver cord brings us to this experiment. If this works, I swear I will give up science altogether, and I’ll begin reading all the poetry, literature, and psychic books I’ve always ignored. I’ll become a New Age monk, a contemplative, a priest!”

27

Lestat

WHEN WE RETURNED to the Château I went out for a walk in the snow. I was not having regrets, but I had lost my remarkably clear understanding of how or why this should work.

I walked way up the old mountain that was my mountain, and I would cheerfully have killed a pack of wolves had they attacked. But there were few wolves if any in these woods now. And any and all surviving European wolves were a cherished part of life in this time, and not to be thoughtlessly or carelessly killed, just because I didn’t know what might happen tomorrow night.

I’d been wandering for about an hour when the iPhone in my pocket rang. I was surprised as I was so far from the Château. But it was Kapetria coming through loud and clear.

“Fareed won’t tell me what you’re doing,” she said.

Ah, so she’d heard Benji’s call for all the blood drinkers of the world to be safe and still tomorrow evening at 6:00 p.m.

“Do you blame him?” I asked. “You left us. You went off on your own when you might have helped us. You told us what to do, didn’t you, find some way to prevent the whole tribe from dying when you made your move. But you didn’t stay to help us figure out how.”

“I’ll help you tomorrow night.”