Those Who Must Be Kept

Those Who Must Be Kept are fictional characters in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles. They are portrayed as the progenitors of all vampires, and are thus regarded as the "King and Queen of the Vampires".

Originally King Enkil and Queen Akasha of Kemet (now Egypt) circa 5,000 BC, 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 traveled 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 consumed Akasha's brain and heart thus taking Amel into herself, absorbing the core of the spirit and becoming the new Queen of the Damned.