Ambition began to grow in him. He needed papers to live in this world; he needed wealth. Lestat had always had papers to live in the world. Lestat had always had great wealth. In the old nights so long ago, Lestat had been a respected and highly visible gentleman, for whom tailors and shopkeepers had kept late hours, a patron of the arts, a common figure nodding to those he passed in Jackson Square or on the steps of the Cathedral. Lestat had had a lawyer who handled his affairs of the world; Lestat came and went as he chose. “These matters are nothing,” said Lestat. “My fortune is divided in many banks. I will always have what I need.”

Antoine would do this. He would learn. Yet he had no real knack for it. Surely someone could forge papers for him, he must focus on this. He had to have some safety in this world, and he wanted a vehicle, yes, a powerful American car, so that he could travel miles and miles in one night.

The voices came again.

The Undead were returning, and appearing in great numbers in the cities of North America. And the voices were talking, the voices spoke of the population spreading throughout the world.

The old Queen had been destroyed. But Lestat and a council of immortals had survived her, and the new Mother was now a red-haired woman, ancient as the Queen had been, Mekare, a sorceress, who had no tongue.

Silent this new Queen of the Damned. Silent those immortals who’d survived with her. No one knew what had become of them, where they’d gone.

What was it to Antoine? He cared but he did not care.

The voices spoke of vampire scripture, a canon, so to speak. The Vampire Chronicles. There had been two, and now there were three, and this canon told of what had happened to Lestat and the others. They told of the “Queen of the Damned.”

Walking boldly into a brightly lighted bookstore, Antoine bought the volumes, and read them over a week of strange nights.

In the pages of the first book, published long ago, he found himself, nameless, “the musician,” with not so much as a physical description except that he’d been a “boy,” a mere footnote to the life and adventures of his maker as told by the vampire Louis, that one whom Lestat had so loved, and feared to anger. “Let him get used to the idea, Antoine, and then I’ll bring you over. I can’t … I can’t lose them, Louis and Claudia.” And they had turned on him, sought to kill him, dumped Lestat’s body in the swamp. And after that final battle in flames and smoke when he had fought with Lestat to punish them, Antoine had never been mentioned again.