One night his house, his beautiful old graceful white frame house with its rambling porches and gingerbread eaves, was burnt to the ground while he was hunting.
They finally got him in St. Louis.
They called themselves a “coven.” They surrounded him and doused him with gasoline and set him on fire. Down into the earth he went to smother the flames and then up again. They came after him. He ran, burnt, in agony, over the miles, outdistancing them easily and burying himself again.
Many things had happened in the world since then.
But not very much of it to him.
In the earth he slept, healing, his mind in a feverish realm of semi-consciousness in which he dreamed he was in New Orleans again and Lestat was listening to his music, Lestat was whispering to him that he had a great talent, and then there were flames.
And then he heard distinctly through his dreams a young vampire speaking to him, and not to him alone but to all the Children of the Night everywhere. It was a vampire who called himself Benji Mahmoud broadcasting from New York, and how many nights Antoine listened before he rose, he could not say. A lovely rippling piano flooded his ears as Benji spoke, and Antoine knew, absolutely knew, that this was the music of a vampire like himself, that no mortal could have created such intricate, bizarre, and perfect melodies. The vampire Sybelle was her name, said Benji Mahmoud. And sometimes his voice dropped away for her music to take over the airwaves.
Benji Mahmoud and Sybelle prompted Antoine to come to the surface once more and face the bright dangerous electric nights of the new century.
It was the year 2013. This fact alone astonished him. Over twenty years had passed and his burnt flesh was healed. His strength was greater than before. His skin was whiter, his eyes sharper, his ears ever more sensitive.
It was all true what the vampire scripture had said. One healed in the earth, and one grew strong from pain.
The world was filled with sound, waves and waves of sound.
How many other blood drinkers heard Benji Mahmoud and Sybelle’s piano? How many other minds transmitted it? He did not know. He only knew that he could hear it, thinly but certainly, and he could hear and feel them everywhere, the Children of the Night, too many, surely, listening to the voice of Benji Mahmoud. And they were frightened, these others.
Massacres had started again. Massacres like the Burnings done by Akasha—massacres of vampires in the cities on the other side of the world.
“It is coming for us,” said the voices of the frightened ones. “But who is it? Is it the mute Mother, Mekare? Has she turned on us the way Akasha turned? Or is it the Vampire Lestat? Is he the one trying to wipe us out for all our crimes against our own kind, our bickering, our quarreling?”
“Brothers and Sisters of the Night,” declared Benji Mahmoud. “We have no parents. We are a tribe without a leader, a tribe without a credo, a tribe without a name.” The piano music of Sybelle was masterly, rippling with preternatural genius. Ah, how he loved this. “Children of the Night, Children of Darkness, the Undead, the Immortals, Blood Drinkers, Revenants, why don’t we have an honorable and graceful name?” demanded Benji. “I implore you. Do not fight. Do not seek to hurt one another. Band together now against the forces that would wipe us out. Find strength in one another.”
Antoine moved with renewed purpose. I am alive again, he thought. I can die a thousand deaths like any coward and come back to life again. He hunted on the margins as before, struggling for clothes, money, lodgings, a new age flaming into color around him. In a small hotel room, he studied his new Apple computer, determined to master it, soon connecting with the website and radio program of Benji Mahmoud.
“Vampires have been slaughtered in Mumbai,” declared Benji. “The reports have been confirmed. It is the same as in Tokyo and Beijing. Havens and sanctuaries burnt to the ground and all who fled immolated in their tracks, only the swiftest and the most fortunate surviving to give us the word, the pictures.”
A frantic vampire calling from Hong Kong poured out her fears to Benji.
“I appeal to the old ones,” said Benji. “To Mekare, Maharet, Khayman, speak to us. Tell us why these immolations have happened. Is a new Time of Burning begun?”
Caller after caller begged for permission to come to Benji and Louis and Armand for protection.
“No. This is not possible,” Benji confessed. “Believe me, the safest place for you is where you are. But avoid known coven houses, or vampire bars and taverns. And if you witness this horrific violence, take shelter. Remember those who strike with the Fire Gift must see you in order to destroy you! Don’t flee in the open. If you possibly can, go underground.”
Finally after many nights, Antoine broke through. In an anxious whisper he told Benji he’d been made by the great Vampire Lestat himself. “I am a musician!” he pleaded. “Allow me to come to you, I beg you. Confirm for me where you are.”
“I wish I could, brother,” said Benji, “but alas, I cannot. Don’t seek to find me. And be careful. These are dreadful times for our kind.”
That night late, Antoine went down in the darkened hotel dining room and he played the piano for the small, weary night staff who stopped only now and then to listen to him as he poured his soul out on the keys.
He would call again, from some other number. He would beg Benji to understand. Antoine wanted to play music like Sybelle played music. Antoine had this gift to offer. Antoine was telling the truth when he spoke of his maker. Benji had to understand.
For two months, Antoine worked on his music nightly, and during that time he read the later books of vampire scripture, the memoirs of Pandora, Marius, and Armand.
Now he knew all about the Bedouin, Benji Mahmoud, and his beloved Sybelle—Benji, a boy of twelve when the great vampire Marius had brought him over, and Sybelle, the eternal gamin who had once played only Beethoven’s Appassionata over and over again, but who now went through the repertoire of all the greats Antoine knew and recent composers of whom he had not dreamed.
Deviled and driven by her playing, Antoine strove for perfection, assailing pianos in bars, restaurants, deserted classrooms and auditoriums, piano stores, and even private homes.
He was now composing music of his own again, breaking piano keys in his fervor, breaking strings.
Another terrible Burning took place in Taiwan.
Benji was plainly angry now as he appealed to the elders to shed light on what was happening to the tribe. “Lestat, where are you? Can you not be our champion against these forces of destruction? Or have you become Cain the slayer of your brothers and sisters yourself!”