Blood and Gold

Blood and Gold (2001) is the eighth book in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series.

Plot summary

The book begins with an ancient vampire of Nordic descent awaking after being frozen in a block of ice for hundreds of years. The vampire, Thorne, meets Marius de Romanus and inquires about Marius' past. Marius then provides his life story.

As a young Roman patrician, Marius was abducted by druids who were trying to find a replacement for their "god of the grove" - a vampire, kept locked inside a chamber underneath a tree, who took on the role of a god in a druidic religion. Marius does not want to receive the powers of the dying god, but is given them nonetheless.

Unable to face a life imprisoned in a tree, Marius escapes from the druids (one of whom is Mael). He embarks on a trip to Egypt, where he learns of Akasha and Enkil, the Mother and Father or Those Who Must Be Kept - the progenitors of all vampire-kind. He takes them back to Rome with him after learning that if they die then every other vampire in the world will suffer the same fate.