Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

At Louis� request David gets back in touch with Merrick Mayfair, a powerful witch and member of the Talamasca. He has known her since she joined the order as a child and knows her long, powerful and often frightening history.

But that history may be why she can do what Louis needs and call on Claudia’s ghost to confirm for him whether the child vampire has reached a peaceful afterlife or suffers as a ghost. And David’s connection to Merrick may be why she’d want to do it.

Though Merrick may be playing her own game



So, Louis wants to get in touch with Claudia’s ghost because the angst monster needs fuel for his eternal mope. To do this he contacts David who in turn calls on a contact he has in the Talamasca, Merrick.

And then tells us her life story in excruciating detail

I think it’s a good thing vampires don’t eat, because every time they ordered a pizza they’d have to pause to have an epic monologue on the delivery boy’s history. I’d actually be wary of working with these vampires simply because if you do anything for them they demand a full biography � which they then apparently put into print and share with the world. It’s one of the unknown vampire afflictions � can’t go out in the sunlight, blood diet and compulsive biography writing. Honestly, I do not even remotely understand the need to tell extremely long, irrelevant back stories to characters that we know nothing about and have little, or no, reason to care about.

I need an aside on the Talamasca � since I’ve previously called them the Talastalkers. Their motto is “We watch and we’re always there.� I presume this is because “We Know Where you Live and Where Your Children Go to School� and “We’re In The House!� were both already taken.

When I first saw that David was the narrator of this I celebrated. For a brief, deeply frightening moment, I thought Louis was going to be the POV and we would have lots of whining. At least David doesn’t whine� oh how wrong I was. No, because now David has thrown his hat in the ring � he too will compete for the title of whiniest one of all!

Between the moping, excessive descriptions and unnecessary art references (honestly, I do not understand authors who try to shoe-horn in these references to show us how knowledgeable they are) there was a surprising lack of philosophising to a degree. But it does seem that everything Lestat learned and we endured during Memnoch the Devil has been forgotten. There was even one interesting philosophical point of Louis refusing to upgrade his power level, even if he would then not have to kill so often, because that way he is capable of suicide, capable of dying which inherently makes him more human than, say, Lestat or David who wouldn’t know how to kill themselves even if they tried.