Those Who Must Be Kept

In the novels of Anne Rice, Those Who Must Be Kept are the progenitors of all Vampires who are also regarded as the King and Queen of the Vampires.

Originally King Enkil and Queen Akasha of Kemet (now Egypt) circa 4000 BCE, they became the first vampires when an evil spirit named Amel was able to enter the body of Akasha through a wound and fuse with her flesh. Akasha then turned Enkil into a vampire by drawing out nearly all of his blood and then allowing him to drink nearly all of hers. (See: "The Queen of the Damned")

The term "Those Who Must Be Kept" was coined by the vampire Marius referring to the fact that what befalls Akasha and Enkil also befalls all Vampires; if they are injured, so are their children, if they die, so do all vampires. An example of this is explained in the story of Marius' life: The current caretaker of the two sought to be free of them, and placed them in the sun. The two lived, but weaker vampires were destroyed by spontaneous combustion.

Long before Marius came into conservatorship of Those Who Must Be Kept, they were nearly completely inanimate, seated seemingly unconscious for centuries without moving

This all came to an end in the 1980s, when the music of vampire rock star Lestat roused Queen Akasha. In so rising she killed her consort Enkil, draining him of blood and caused her guardian Marius to become imprisoned in the ice and remains of his house. (See: "The Vampire Lestat", "The Queen of the Damned")

Akasha thereafter travelled the world over striking down every vampire except Lestat, those whom Lestat loved and those she could not detect. It later becomes clear that Akasha intends for those vampires she has spared to become her "angels", or if they chose to fight her, they will become devils opposed to her.

This, in addition to Lestat's first concert, led to an unprecedented gathering of ancient and fledgling vampires at the Sonoma compound of Maharet, one of the first brood of vampires. They gathered to hear Maharet tell the story of how the Queen became a vampire and to plot their defense against her expected onslaught.

Meanwhile, Akasha absconded with Lestat to remote places around the world, spreading her dictum that she is the "Queen of Heaven" with Lestat as her mute consort, and commanding women to rise up and kill every man and boy, save a few.

It appeared that Akasha would carry out her maniacal plan with or without the help of the other vampires. Her appeals falling on deaf ears it seemed that a great battle between the Queen and her subjects was inevitable. But another ancient vampire appeared, the long-lost twin of Maharet, Mekare, who had sworn an oath to destroy Akasha. Mekare quickly decapitated the Queen and in so doing seemed to spell the end for all vampires. But, as The Vampire Lestat writhed on the floor watched by the others, Mekare took Akasha's brain and heart thus taking Amel into herself, absorbing the core of the spirit and becoming the new Queen of the Damned.

Akasha

Akasha is the very first vampire created.

As told in the novel, Akasha was originally from Uruk, or modern-day Iraq. She rose to become a Queen in Kemet, the land that would eventually become Egypt; she and her husband King Enkil wanted their people to turn away from their cannibalistic ways and encourage the eating of grains. Rice describes Akasha as a lovely young woman who was "almost too pretty to be truly beautiful, for her prettiness overcame any sense of majesty or deep mystery." Underneath her physical beauty, Akasha is a fundamentally dark, empty, nihilistic person with no sense of morality, ethics, or human compassion; her actions are almost always based on her insatiable need to fill her own inner emptiness.

Akasha eventually becomes fascinated by the spirits of the supernatural, forcibly bringing the red-haired witch sisters Maharet and Mekare to her court to commune with these spirits. Against their advice, Akasha forces the witch sisters to seek answers from the spirits to countless shallow questions she asks, but the ensuing answers, some in the form of obscene gestures, ultimately enrage the Queen by confirming her inner emptiness -- "She had asked questions of the supernatural, a very foolish thing to do, and she had received answers which she could neither accept nor refute." One spirit in particular, a bloodthirsty, aggressive entity called Amel, threatens Akasha and ultimately stages a weak but demonstrative attack against her. Akasha, in turn, has Mekare and Maharet publicly raped by her servant Khayman for their "witchcraft", and banishes them from Kemet.

One year later, the twin witches are recalled to the kingdom by Khayman, where they learn that Amel had kept his presence in the kingdom and that, when the King and Queen were coincidentally assassinated by supporters of cannibalism one night, the spirit of Amel joined with Akasha's soul as it rose from her body, re-entering her body through her wounds and fusing with her heart and brain to create an entirely new being: the vampire. Amel's deadly lust for human blood thus passed to Akasha. Akasha then took her king Enkil and passed the "Dark Gift" onto him, transforming Enkil into a vampire, and then made Khayman, who then passed it on to Mekare and Maharet. It was Mekare who tells the Queen what kind of being she has become, as well as explaining her newfound sensitivity to sunlight and thirst for blood.

As her progeny proliferate, Akasha's need for blood diminishes. Eventually she (along with Enkil) becomes a living statue, kept safe for centuries by guardians who know that she is the source of their existence and immortality. After one of these guardians tires of the task, he places Akasha and Enkil in the sun; vampires worldwide are burned or destroyed as a result of all being linked by the spirit of Amel that still resides in Akasha.

Akasha draws the vampire Marius to her and urges him to take her and Enkil out of Egypt. Marius does so and protects them for nearly two thousand years. At one point, Maharet stabs the statue of Akasha in the heart; as Maharet feels the energy leave her own body, it confirms the legend that to kill Akasha is to annihilate all vampires.

In 1985, the vampire Lestat wakes Akasha from her trance with his music. She rises and becomes a relentless destroyer, killing most of her vampire progeny worldwide while simultaneously kidnapping Lestat, who becomes her lover and cohort. She spares at least 16 (Maharet, Mekare, Khayman, Louis, Jesse, Gabrielle, Armand, Daniel, Marius, Mael, Santino, Pandora, Eric, Vittorio and the coven that made Quinn Blackwood; Manfred Blackwood, Petronia, and one from ancient Greece) vampires from her slaughter -- either ancient vampires she can't easily destroy, or Lestat's loved ones -- and demands that they join with her in her plan for a new world order: to kill 99% of the world's men and to set up a new Eden in which women, with Akasha as Goddess, reign. A heated philosophical discussion ensues; while Akasha insists that her plan is for the benefit of humanity in the long run and will usher in a new era of peace, Maharet boldly defies her and points out the underlying truth: that Akasha simply wants to dominate and be worshipped, to once again subject everyone to her will, and to once again create a new system of religious dogma to fill her inner emptiness, with absolutely no regard for the lives at stake.

The surviving vampires all refuse to join with Akasha, but before she can destroy them, the vampire Mekare arrives at the scene and shoves her into a glass wall. The broken shards decapitate Akasha. Maharet and Mekare then immediately grab Akasha's heart and brain. Mekare eats the brain and then the heart, and thereby the soul of Akasha; as Mekare does so, she takes into herself the source of the spiritual fusion with Amel and becomes the new life force of the vampires, while Akasha's ancient body finally disintegrates into colorless dust.

Enkil

Enkil was the King, who ruled with Akasha. He was the first person she made into a vampire. Together they are later referred to as "Those Who Must Be Kept" and are motionless as statues. Marius eventually has the task of keeping them, and it is while in his keeping that Akasha destroys Enkil and consumes his blood as she no longer needs him and feels imprisoned and dead around him. With Enkil's powers added to her own she becomes the single ancestor of the vampiric race.

In the book "The Vampire Lestat" it is specifically spelled out that Enkil and Akasha were made into vampires at the same time by a demonic infusion but it is later explained in "Queen of the Damned" that Akasha made Enkil into a vampire, after she was first made by demonic infusion, in order to save him from the wounds inflicted upon him by citizens of Kemet. At numerous points in the canonical history of Rice's books, Enkil rises from his throne to defend Akasha from being drained of her powerful blood. Marius rescues Lestat from being destroyed by Enkil after Enkil rises and hits him away while he is drinking from Akasha, despite the fact that Akasha appears to have summoned Lestat to her. We see, then, that Enkil is not merely Akasha's guardian and consort, but that he maintains his own will and emotions, including jealousy. It is never explicitly stated, but his jealousy over Lestat being so close to Akasha when receiving her blood may be a contributing factor to his murder at Akasha's hands, or at least to Akasha's desire to replace Enkil as her consort.