Prince Lestat by Anne Rice

share with them any of my vague and troubling suspicions as to what was happening. Not at all prepared. I was not sharing my suspicions with myself.
    “But still,” said David, “it might have been Khayman who burnt the archives and destroyed the young ones.”
    “It might have been, yes,” Jesse said.
    “If she really thought it was Khayman, she’d do something,” I said. “She’d destroy him if she felt she had to. No, it’s Mekare.”
    “But how can she destroy Khayman? Khayman’s as strong as she is,” David said.
    “Nonsense. She could get the jump on him,” I said. “Any immortal can be decapitated. We saw that with Akasha. She was decapitated by a heavy jagged piece of glass.”
    “That’s true,” Jesse said. “Maharet herself told me this when she first brought me into the Blood. She said I’d grow so strong in thefuture that fire couldn’t destroy me and the sun couldn’t destroy me. But the sure way to murder any immortal was to separate the head from the heart and let the head and the body bleed out. She told me that even before Akasha came to the Sonoma compound with you. And then that’s just what happened with Akasha, only Mekare took Akasha’s brain and devoured it before the head or the heart bled out.”
    We all reflected for a long time in silence.
    “Again, there’s never been the slightest sign,” said David gently, “that Mekare knows her own powers.”
    “Correct,” said Jesse.
    “But if she did this, she must know her own powers,” David continued. “And Maharet is there to be a check upon her every waking moment.”
    “Perhaps.”
    “So where is all this going?” I asked. I tried not to sound exasperated. I loved Maharet.
    “I don’t think she will ever destroy herself and Mekare,” said Jesse. “But I don’t know. I do know she listens all the time to Benji’s broadcasts out of New York. She listens to them on her computer. She sits back and listens for hours. She listens to all those young blood drinkers who call Benji. She listens to everything that they have to say. If she were going to bring the tribe to an end, I think she would warn me. I simply don’t think she means to do it. But I think she agrees entirely with Benjamin. Things are in a very bad way. Things have changed. It wasn’t only your music, Lestat, or Akasha rising. It’s the age itself, it’s the accelerated rate of technological advancement. She said once, as I believe I told you, that all institutions which depended upon secrecy are now threatened. She said that no system based on arcana or esoteric knowledge would survive this age. No new revealed religion could take hold in it. And no group that depended upon occult purpose could endure. She predicted that there would be changes in the Talamasca. ‘Human beings won’t fundamentally change,’ she said. ‘They’ll adapt. And as they adapt they’ll explore all mysteries relentlessly until they have found the fundamentals behind each and every one.’ ”
    “My thoughts on the matter exactly,” I offered.
    “Well, she’s right,” said David. “There have been changes in the Talamasca, and that’s what I wanted to tell you. That’s why I sent out the call for you. I wouldn’t have dared to disturb Maharet when sheobviously did not want to be disturbed, but I have to confess I was hoping for news of her when you surfaced, and now I’m a bit stunned. What’s been happening with the Talamasca of late doesn’t mean so very much.”
    “Well, what has been happening?” I asked. I wondered if I was becoming a nuisance. But without my goading them, these two would have lapsed into long periods of silence and meaningful stares, and frankly, I wanted information.
    Information age. I guess I’m part of it, even if I can’t remember how to use my iPhone from week to week, and have to learn how to send e-mails all over again every couple of years, and can’t retain any profound technological knowledge about the computers I