The Queen Of The Damned (Anne Rice book)
The Queen Of The Damned is the third book in Anne Rice's series called The Vampire Chronicles, and a sequel of sorts to the story which began in the second book, The Vampire Lestat. The Queen Of The Damned was published in 1988 and later adapted into a movie version starring Stuart Townsend and Aaliyah in 2002.
Plot
Following on from the ending of The Vampire Lestat, in which Lestat decides that vampires should no longer hide from the human race and plans to reveal himself in the guise of a rock star known as The Vampire Lestat.
As Lestat gains notoriety as a rock star, he draws the attention of other vampires, who view him as a threat and a traitor for trying to expose them to the human race. Unbeknown to him, his music also manages to wake Akasha, the 'mother' of the vampires who has slept for thousands of years.
Akasha travels the world cleansing it of weaker vampires, but conspicuously leaving vampires with an attachment to Lestat unharmed. On the night of Lestat's concert in San Francisco, the hostile vampires plan to attack him onstage but are burned to death by Akasha who later takes Lestat away to be her companion and lover.
The remaining vampires are a mixed group of ancient blood-drinkers such as Maharet, Maruis and Pandora and younger vampires including Gabrielle (Lestat's mother), Louis and Daniel. They perceive a threat from Akasha and meet to discuss what her purpose in reawakening is.
With Lestat at her side, Akasha reveals her plan to bring peace to mankind by establishing herself as a god and by massacring the majority of the male population. She begins to enact this plan in remote and primitive villages. Initially drawn in, Lestat is complicit in murdering the males, but as the full extent of Akasha's plan becomes clear he tries to back out. However, she threatens that although she loves him she will not hesitate to kill him and his loved ones.
Writing Style
Unusually for Anne Rice, The Queen Of The Damned is not written from an exclusive viewpoint. The book collects the stories from the different characters who are involved in the story, as Lestat himself is not present in the meeting of the coven of vampires at Maharet's home, or in many of the stories leading up to Akasha's abduction of him.
The Origin Of Vampires
The Queen Of The Damned spends a significant portion of the narrative explaining the history of the vampires and how they firstcame into being. Akasha and her husband Enkil were rulers of the Egyptian kingdom of Kemet. They waged war upon the primitive tribes in the lands surrounding their kingdom who held a tradition of feasting on the bodies of their dead.
Their army interrupts such a ceremony being conducted by a pair of red-headed tribal witches, Mekare and Maharet, who are about to consume the body of their mother. They take the pair prisoner and desecrate the body, then massacre the village. After being questioned at length by Akasha about their ability to see spirits, the sisters are ceremonially raped by Enkil's manservant, Khayman in order to prove that they have no power over the spirit world.
However, a malevolent spirit calling itself Amel has demonstrated the ability to make small cuts on a human body and claims to be able to drink the blood. After an uprising by the flesh-eating tribes, Akasha is left for dead after being stabbed repeatedly. Amel enters her body through the spilt blood and somehow becomes fused to her, creating the first vampire.
Because Akasha is the first of the vampires, she has great strength and is said to possess the 'core' of the spirit Amel. The mythology of the vampires states that if she dies, then every vampire will die too. An incident where the statuesque bodies of Akasha and Enkil were placed in the desert sun confirms that other vampires are harmed when 'Those Who Must Be Kept' are harmed.
The book goes on to explain how Akasha then turned Enkil into a vampire and his servant Khayman. Khayman, turning against his former master, finds Mekare and Maharet and makes them into vampires with the intention of overthrowing the King and Queen.