“Why ever do you say this?” asked Benji. “Lestat, this is unbelievably vexing. How can you say this? This thing is murdering us.”

Sybelle gestured for him to be quiet.

“The Voice has been speaking to me for a long time,” I said. “I first heard the Voice only a few years after Akasha was destroyed. I think the damaged mind of Mekare let the Voice come to consciousness. And I know my video films, my songs, whatever I did there in broadcasting our history, all those images, might well have stirred the Voice inside Akasha just as they stirred Akasha’s conscious mind.”

They all knew the old story of how a giant video screen in the shrine of Akasha and Enkil had brought my rock music experiments right to the King and Queen. No need to dwell on that now.

“The Voice came to me early on. And maybe to me on account of those videos. I don’t know. But sadly, I didn’t know who or what the Voice was. And I didn’t respond as I should have.”

“You’re saying things would be different now,” asked David, “if you had known and had responded in some other way?”

I shook my head. “Don’t know. But I can tell you this. The Voice is an entity with his own distinct story. The Voice suffers. He’s a being that has imagination. One has to have imagination and empathy in order to know love and beauty.”

“Whatever makes you think that?” asked Marius in a gentle reproving voice. “Ruthless amoral beings can appreciate beauty. And they can love.”

“But I think it’s true, what Lestat is saying,” said young Daniel. He made no apology for contradicting Marius now. They had been together for a long time. “And I’m not surprised to hear this. Every single one of you that I’ve ever known has had this capacity, to appreciate beauty and to love.”

“Well, you’re proving my point exactly,” said Marius.

“Enough of this,” said Seth. “I want Viktor back. He is our son as much as yours.”

“I know that,” I answered.

“But if the Voice has empathy,” Benji cried, sitting forward, his fedora dipping down over his face. “If the Voice has imagination and knows how to love, well, then the Voice can be reasoned with. That’s what you’re driving at, right?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Of course. Which puts our friend Rhoshamandes in a very dangerous situation. The Voice switches loyalties easily. The Voice is desperate to learn as well as to achieve his ends.”

Everard laughed. “That’s the Voice all right. Fickle. That’s this demon that can slide into your mind or mine or yours or yours like a spider sliding down the slippery shining thread of its web and try to make you do things that you would never do.”