Benji and his beloved Sybelle are Armand’s dearest companions in the late twentieth century. Like Lestat before him, Benji uses modern media to summon all vampires together into a cohesive race. He appears in The Vampire Armand (1998), Prince Lestat (2014), Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016), and Blood Communion (2018).
Son of Abdulla Mahmoud and born to a Bedouin family living in Israel, Benjamin Mahmoud is young when he is bought and imported to the United States. By the age of twelve, Benji, as he is called, becomes the live-in servant of twenty-five-year-old Sybelle and her violently abusive older brother, who is forcing her to perform concerts as their only source of income. When they come to New York City to perform a concert, Benji prays for spiritual assistance as he witnesses the escalating abuse that Sybelle’s older brother inflicts upon her while she works tirelessly to perfect her piano playing. Although Benji’s prayers are in fluent Arabic, they are understood perfectly by the vampire Armand, who recently tried to commit suicide by flying into New York’s winter sun. Having failed, he falls under an overhang on an abandoned building and is now covered by mountains of snowfall.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, Armand telepathically summons Benji and Sybelle from the nearby hotel, who free him from the hardened ice with household tools. They secretly bring him back to their room, where Armand foresees that Sybelle’s brother will eventually kill both Sybelle and Benji. With the strength of his Mind Gift, he projects an image of how he looked when Marius turned him into a vampire—an unburned, seventeen-year-old young man with a head of beautiful auburn curls. Benji prays to Armand again, referring to him as a dybbuk (the malicious spirit of a disembodied soul), begging him to protect Sybelle. Armand kills Sybelle’s brother effortlessly, but he is still too weak either to heal his severe burns or leave the hotel room. To help his dybbuk, Benji goes to the hotel bar, finds a DEA officer, lies to him about a stash of cocaine under a corpse in their hotel room, and lures the officer back to the room, where Armand drinks all his blood. Benji waits with Sybelle in the hotel room while Armand disposes of the officer’s body and drinks the blood of several more victims for the next few hours until he is fully healed.
Benji and Sybelle welcome Armand to stay with them for several months. Benji accompanies Armand and Sybelle to visit Lestat, who has fallen into a peculiar comatose state. Armand introduces Benji and Sybelle to his maker, Marius, and asks Marius to care for Benji and Sybelle temporarily while he attempts to drink Lestat’s blood, to gain some insight into Lestat’s recent journey with Memnoch the Devil. Marius agrees, but after Armand leaves, Marius turns Benji and Sybelle into vampires, as a gift to his fledgling. At first, Armand is furious with Marius. But Marius and Daniel Malloy (Armand’s fledgling) both help Armand realize that if Armand had turned Benji and Sybelle into vampires, their relationship would have deteriorated, just as Armand’s relationship with Daniel deteriorated because of Daniel’s inferior power, as well as because of the severed telepathic link between maker and fledgling. Furthermore, Marius’s ancient blood not only makes Benji and Sybelle equal with Armand, but it also allows Armand to communicate with them on an intimate telepathic level.
Despite being limited to his twelve-year-old’s body, Benji matures into a man interiorly and begins an internet radio station/website dedicated exclusively to vampires. Broadcast every night out of the coven’s Trinity Gate townhouse on New York’s Upper East Side, Benji’s program reaches the Undead all over the world. In the beginning, he speaks exclusively to vampires, trying to mask his voice by speaking low under Sybelle’s beautiful piano playing. As the popularity of vampire fiction grows, he stops hiding his voice, broadcasting openly, not caring if mortals hear him. If anyone calls the show, he can tell by the sound of their voice if they are living or Undead. Similar to the music and lyrics of Lestat’s rock band, Benji’s message is a supplication to all vampires, especially the ancient ones, beseeching them for modern leadership in a modern world.
Around that same time, the spirit of Amel, the Sacred Core of all vampire existence, desiring to leave Mekare’s wounded mind and enter the mind of a saner vampire, begins possessing older vampires with the Fire Gift and immolating scores of younger vampires. Inadvertently complying with Benji’s wish, Armand uses Benji’s radio program to summon the vampire coven to a ball at Trinity Gate. Benji endorses Lestat when he takes the spirit of Amel from Mekare. After the Replimoids move Amel from Lestat’s mind to a Replimoid body, Benji becomes a loyal member of the Court of the Prince at Château de Lioncourt, supporting Lestat’s regime, even though he is no longer the host carrier.
For more perspectives on Benji’s character, read the Alphabettery entries Amel, Armand, Daniel Malloy, Dybbuk, Fledgling, Maker, Marius, Mekare, Memnoch, Mind Gift, Sacred Core, Sybelle, and Trinity Gate.