The ancient Akasha had seen such stars. The young and impulsive vampire Lestat had seen them the night he’d staggered into the Gobi Desert hoping in vain for the rising sun to destroy him.

It seemed horrible to him suddenly that he, Fareed, in any form was on this tiny bit of burnt rock in a system so vast and indifferent to all suffering.

All you can do, he thought, is fight to stay alive, to stay conscious, to remain a witness and hope somehow there is a meaning to it.

And Viktor, Viktor standing behind him had just begun his optimistic and promising journey. How would he and Rose escape whatever was to happen?

He rose to his feet.

“It’s time,” he said. “Viktor, take leave of your mother.”

“I have,” said Viktor. “I’m ready.”

Fareed took a last look around the room, a last look at his own bookshelves, computers, papers strewn here and there, the tip of the iceberg of twenty years of research, and he realized coldly that he might never see this great research compound again, that he might not survive this crisis precipitated by the Voice, that perhaps he’d come too late with too little into this great realm where he had seen such wonder and promise.

But what was to be done?

He embraced Viktor now, holding him tight and close and listening to that marvelous young heart pounding away with such splendid vigor. He looked into Viktor’s clear blue eyes.

“I love you,” he said.

“And I love you,” Viktor answered without hesitation, holding him tightly with both arms. In his ear he whispered, “Father. Maker.”

Chapter 17

Gregory

Trinity Gate
Shall We Dance?

“I KNOW,” said Armand. “But why would a creature of your age and power want Lestat to exert some kind of leadership?”

He was talking to Gregory Duff Collingsworth as they sat in the long rear salon of Trinity Gate on the Upper East Side—a glass porch that in fact united all three townhouses along the back like the service galleries of old in southern mansions—the glass wall beside them open to a magically illuminated garden of slender oaks and masses of night-blooming flowers. Paradise in New York if ever Gregory had beheld one.