I found myself looking at this ghost, and then the name hit me. Raymond Gallant. Talamasca. A friend to Marius in the Renaissance years, before and after Marius had been attacked by the Children of Satan and his Venetian palazzo destroyed. A friend who had actually helped him, through the Talamasca, find his beloved Pandora, who’d been traveling Europe in those nights with an Indian blood drinker named Arjun. Raymond Gallant had died in very old age in an English castle belonging to the Talamasca, or so Marius had always believed.

The ghost was looking at me now with the most genial eyes, smiling eyes, friendly eyes. His clothes were the only decidedly Western garb in the room besides mine—a simple dark suit and tie, and yes, absolutely, they were real, these garments, not part of his complex and marvelously realized artificial body.

“Are you ready to join the others in New York?” asked Sevraine. She had a simplicity and directness that reminded me of my mother. And I could hear that powerful heart of hers beating, that ancient heart.

“And what good would that do?” I asked. “How can I affect what’s happening?”

“Plenty,” she said. “We must all go there. We must all come together. The Voice has contacted them. The Voice wants to join them.”

I was shocked and skeptical. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “And they don’t know either. But the Voice has endorsed Trinity Gate in New York as the place for us to meet. We must go there.”

“What about Maharet?” I asked. “And what about Khayman? How can the Voice …?”

“I know what you’re saying,” said Sevraine, “and again I am saying that we must gather under Armand’s roof. No one of us can stand against Maharet and Khayman. I’ve been to their encampment. I’ve tried to talk with Maharet. She would not admit me. She would not listen to me. And with Khayman beside her, I can’t prevail against her. Not alone. Only with others. And the others are meeting in New York.”

I bowed my head. I was shaken by what she was saying. Surely it wasn’t coming to that, a battle of the ancients, a battle involving force, but then what other kind of battle would it be?

“Well, then let the great Children of the Millennia gather,” I said. “But I’m no Child of the Millennia!”

“Oh, come now, Lestat,” she answered. “You’ve drunk the Mother’s blood in staggering amounts and you know it. You have an indomitable will that counts for a supernatural gift in itself.”

“I was Akasha’s dupe,” I said. I sighed. “So much for will. I have indomitable emotions. That’s not the same as having indomitable will.”

“Now I know why they call you the Brat Prince,” said Sevraine patiently. “You’re going to New York and you know you are.”