With a great wave of his right hand, Lestat backed through the open door and then he closed it.

He stood there as if catching his breath, his back to the dark-paneled wood, and then he looked up, his large blue-violet eyes flashing over the surrounding faces like lights.

“Where has Louis taken Rose?” he asked.

“Downstairs, the cellar,” said Gregory. “We will see you in the attic.”

The whole congregation moved upwards, to the giant ballroom where the meeting would take place.

By the time Gregory reached the top floor and walked into the vast dimly lighted space, a conference table had been arranged by bringing lots of smaller square tables, each covered in gold leaf, to form one great glittering rectangle with chairs up one side and down the other.

This was directly beneath the central chandelier and illuminated by the chandeliers before and after it.

All the residents and guests of the house were streaming into the room.

“Is there to be an order as to where we take our places,” asked Arjun in a polite voice as he approached Gregory.

Gregory smiled. “I don’t think it matters as long as there’s a vacant chair at that far end, at the head of the table.”

Suddenly he realized that Sevraine was standing beside him, his ancient and precious Blood Wife, Sevraine. But there was no time for taking her in his arms, for telling her what a joy it had been earlier to see her come through the back garden and into this house with all her company.

She couldn’t possibly read his thoughts, but she knew what they were nevertheless.

“We have the future now,” she whispered. “Does it matter that we’ve wasted so many opportunities to meet in the past?”

And he said with a soft sigh, “I honestly do believe that is true. We have the future.” But he was reassuring himself now as well as he was reassuring her.

Chapter 23

Lestat

In the Multitude of Counselors

THERE MUST HAVE BEEN forty or forty-five members of the Undead in the ballroom when I entered it with Louis. I was carrying Rose. We had had the briefest of reunions in the quiet of a cellar room, but I had been unable to quiet her fears, or my own for that matter as to leaving her, and so I’d vowed not to let her out of my sight.

“Be still, my darling,” I whispered to her. “You’re with us now, and everything is made new.”

She snuggled against me, helpless and trusting, her heart beating dangerously fast against my chest.