“Lead for now, Lestat,” Gregory said with decorous courtesy, “and we shall see what happens. But for now, you must lead us. Viktor’s been taken. The Voice has turned its fury against those of us who’ve been deaf to it and is now seeking to shift itself out of the body of Mekare, wherever that body is, and into the body of another, one chosen to do the will of the Voice. Now surely all of us will collaborate in what we do here. But you be the leader. Please.” With a bow, he sat down and folded his hands on the gold table.

“All right, what are we to do then?” I said. Out of sheer impatience, I decided to be the chairman if that’s what they wanted. But I did not take the chair. I stood there beside it. “Who is this one who took my son?” I asked. “Does anyone have the slightest clue?”

“I do,” said Thorne. He sat directly under the central chandelier and it made a blaze of his long red hair. His clothes were simple, a working man’s clothes, but he had the casual look of a soldier of fortune. “I know him, this one—brown hair and blue eyes, yes—I know him, but not by name.” He went on. “He hunted the lands of the Franks in my time, and he goes back to the early times, and he made these women here—.” He pointed to Eleni and Allesandra.

“Rhoshamandes,” said Gregory. “How is it possible?”

“Rhoshamandes,” said Allesandra in wonder, glancing at Eleni and at Sevraine.

“Yes, that’s who he is,” said Thorne. “I didn’t have a chance against him.”

“He’s a blood drinker who has never battled with others,” said Sevraine. “How did he fall under the spell of the Voice? I can’t imagine it, or what drove him to murder Maharet and Khayman on his own. It’s madness. He used to avoid quarrels. His domain is an island in the North Sea. He’s always kept entirely to himself. I can’t fathom this.”

“But it was Rhoshamandes,” said Louis quietly. “I see his image in your minds and this is the blood drinker who broke the glass wall and took Viktor. And I’ll tell you something more. This being is not so very skilled at what he’s set out to do. He wanted to take Rose, but he simply couldn’t manage it, and he never harmed me or Thorne, when he might easily have destroyed me, and possibly Thorne too for all I know.”

“He has five thousand years in the Blood,” said Sevraine, “the same as I.” She looked at Gregory with the most tender expression and he nodded.