“Don’t judge me by what you see here,” he said. “For a ghost can perfect a body himself which nature never gave him, and that’s what I’ve done. The ghosts of this world have learned much over the centuries, especially the last few hundred years. My body resembles yours now, fine and strong and well proportioned, the body for which you died, and I have given myself your eyes, your shining blue eyes. But I do beg your forgiveness, for bringing you into this realm we now share.”

A cool draft moved through the passage.

I felt a tingling on the surface of my skin. I was trembling. I heard my heart in my ears.

“Well, as you said, if only there were time,” I responded. “But there isn’t time now, is there? It’s almost dawn.” I struggled to form each word. “I can’t stay with you now.” I was so grateful for this, so grateful that I had to leave him, and move sluggishly, almost drunkenly, away. Shock and shock and greater shock.

I glanced back at him. How sad he looked standing there, how forlorn and burdened with grief and sorrow.

“You burn bright, Prince Lestat,” he said. And tears rose to his eyes.

I hurried away. I had to. I had to find some graceful and secret place to lie down in solitude. There was no traveling for me tonight. It was too late. There was only the hope of sleep now. And up ahead, Sevraine was waiting for me and gesturing for me to hurry.

Give me this little rock-cut tomb of sorts, this shelf on which to lie. Give me these satin pillows, so cool, and these soft woolen covers. Give me this and let me weep alone here. And let me forget all but darkness as you shut the door.

And to think—on rising we would go into the Kingdom of Greater Shocks.

And all I’d been before this night was gone, absolutely gone. The world I’d only inhabited a short time ago seemed bleak and empty and over now.

All my struggles, my triumphs, my losses, were being eclipsed by what was being revealed now. Had ever ennui and despair been banished by such revelations, such precious gifts of truth?

Chapter 19

Rhoshamandes

Murder Most Foul

FOR TWO NIGHTS, Rhosh had been holed up in a luxury hotel in Manaus, waking up to look out on the small Amazonian city and the jungles beyond stretching into infinity. He was furious. He had sent for Benedict, and Benedict had come, as always frayed and exhausted from the lonely journey through miles of uncharted sky, and was now equally agitated by sleeping in this multistoried mortal hostel with only a hiding place in a closet to keep him safe from the sun and from prying mortal eyes.