“Whatever the case,” Teskhamen went on, “these invisible bodies have limits, and Amel has limits. He is not, as the ancient witches supposed, a thing of infinite size. Invisible does not mean infinite. And I think now he resents the drain upon his body. It—he—would limit the population, and how severely no one can know.”

“And no one can know that he has always been unconscious,” said Marius. He was remembering many things, so many things. “What if two thousand years ago,” he asked, “it was Amel who put the wicked elder of Alexandria up to abandoning the Mother and the Father in the sun? He knew, somehow, on some level, that the Mother and Father would survive, but that all the young ones out there would burn, and ones of your age would suffer as you did. What if Amel knew?”

“And when Akasha awakened,” asked Daniel, “when she went after Lestat. Was that Amel’s doing as well?”

“That we can’t know,” said Teskhamen. “But I wager he comes to consciousness more often and more strongly when there is no fierce mind in the host body to contest his own churning thoughts.”

Churning. That seemed a perfect word for it, Marius agreed. That was a perfect word for his own ruminations. He was seeking to remember so many things, moments over the centuries when he had drunk Akasha’s blood, been visited by visions he had thought to come from her. But what if they had not come from her? What if they had come from Amel?

“So that’s its goal?” said Daniel. “I mean his goal. Is it to confine us to a small population?”

“Oh, I think he dreams of much-greater accomplishments than that,” said Marius. “Can anyone know what his ultimate purpose might be?”

“He rages,” said Daniel. “When he’s gotten into my head, he’s raged.”

Marius shuddered. He had so hoped somehow this would all pass without his active acknowledgment, that somehow his time of holding the survival of the tribe in his hands was past. Had he not cared for the Mother and Father for two millennia? But he knew now he could not remain on the sidelines any longer.

“What do you want us to do?” asked Daniel.

“Join Louis and Armand and Benji as soon as you can. Whatever happens, you, the blood drinkers enlivened by this thing and dependent upon it, must come together and be prepared to act. Go to them now. If you go, others will go.”

“And you’re not one of us?” Marius asked. “You are not coming yourself?”

“I am and I am not. I chose the path of the Talamasca long ago, and that was a path to observe but never to intervene.”

“I don’t see that that old vow much matters now,” said Marius.